Teaching listening and speaking

Listening

Because children typically cannot read or write, the two most important abilities to teach first are listening and speaking. Young learners should begin with a lot of listening practice, and opportunities to listen to a lot of different kinds of information will naturally lead to a speaking assignment.

Listening means paying attention to the words that are being spoken with the intention of understanding. Learners have to be able to understand the main idea of what is said.

Total Physical Response (TPR) activity

While demonstrating, the teacher offers an oral order. Simple orders can be followed by children or young learners.

Teachers should consider the following when using TPR activity:

• The complexity of the language being used (vocabulary and word diction)
• Making sure the grammar is clear and easily to be understood by young learners

Speaking

Speaking is one way for them to play, in this case is playing with sounds and words.

What young learners can do in speaking?

•  They can talk about what they are doing 
•  They can tell you about what have they done or heard 
•  They can argue for something and tell you why they think what they think

Classroom techniques and activities: using puppets, role play, talking and writing box, fishbowl technique, teaching pronunciation, tongue twister.