Prepare the learners before they listen to anything.
Show them pictures of characters from the song.
If it’s a song about teddy bears than bring in some teddy bears to show them.
Use actions as much as possible to accompany songs so that the children can participate. This will help build their confidence, increase their enjoyment and give them extra clues as to the meaning of the words they are listening to.
Young learners should predict, ‘imagine’, what they are going to hear. Again, sticking with the teddy bears, ask them if they think the teddy bear is happy or sad.
When they are listening they should always have something to do. They need a reason for listening. You could allocate part of the song to a small cluster of children so they have to listen out for their part and sing along to that part only.
Use the same song again and again. Listening is a difficult skill so building their confidence is vital at all stages of language learning.
2.Teaching speaking The tasks for speaking should meet the level of the students. Teachers keep them interested by introducing new approaches to speaking in class. This could mean talking to different people, talking to different numbers of people, speaking as a whole class, half a class or in small groups.
For different levels in the same class tasks for speaking can be different. For example, the weaker students tell how many teddy bears there are in the song and the stronger ones tell what the teddy bears are doing in the song.
Textbooks are usually filled with situation dialogues, helping the students learn language in real-life situations. But learning these dialogues by heart is a definite no-no. It is much better and far more useful to substitute the words so that they are true to students and their world. Thus each student uses his/her own variation, there is an obvious transition from pure imitation to conscious changing, which speeds up remembering and offers varied communicative opportunities.
Students should be exposed to English as much as possible. The teacher should use simple classroom instructions, like:
-How are you today?
-Could you repeat?
-Here you are
-Show me your homework
-Let’s write
-Could you repeat? Etc.
Some examples of speaking techniques are:
1) Ask and answer – Learners ask and answer questions.
2) Describe and draw – In pairs. Learner A has a picture, which learner B cannot see. Learner A describes the picture to the partner and learner B draws it.
3) Discussion – Learners work in pairs or groups to find out each other’s ideas or opinions on a topic.
4) Guessing – The teacher, or some of the learners, have information which the others have to guess by asking questions.
5) Remembering – Learners close their eyes and try to remember, for example, items from a picture or the location of objects in the classroom.
6) Miming- A learner mimes, for example, a feeling or action which the others have to identify.
7) Ordering – Learners arrange themselves in a particular order (for example alphabetical) by asking questions until they find their correct position.
8) Completing a form/questionnaire – Learners ask and answer questions, or provide information, in order to complete a form or questionnaire.
9) Pole play – Learners act out an imaginary situation. They either use a dialogue, or the teacher gives them instructions about what to say.