Tài liệu bồi dưỡng Let''''s learn English-Book 1

Overview book
Training workshop On teaching
“Let’s Learn English” – Book 1
Written by:
Phan Ha
Do Thi Ngoc Hien
Dao Ngoc Loc
Nguyen Quoc Tuan
Wong Mei Lin
JULY - 2006
Date: 3-7 July 2006 in Hanoi
12-17 July 2006 in Ho Chi Minh City
Objectives:
To train teachers to understand the differences between Teaching English for
Young Children and Teaching English for High School Students
1
To train teachers on new methodology (communicative approach with good
grammar foundation) and the use of teaching aids
To train teachers to teach effectively using Let’s Learn English – Book 1
(student’s book, teacher guide and workbook)
Materials:
Overview Book
Student’s book
Teacher’s guide
Workbook
Poster Set (Sample): adapt pictures from the SB
Tape (Sample): Theme 1
2
PART 1
Teaching Young Learners
1 Basic Principles behind Learning

1.1 Active Involvement
a) Learning at school requires students
to pay attention,
to observe,
to memorise,
to understand,
to set goals,
to assume responsibility for their own learning.
b) Teachers must help students to become active and goal-oriented
by encouraging them:
to explore,
to understand new things,
to master them.
Avoid passive listening for long periods of time.
Provide hands-on activities.
Encourage participation in class discussion and group work.
1.2 Social participation
Children learn the activities, habits, vocabulary and ideas from
others they grow up with.
Teacher can assign students to working groups and guide the groups.
Teacher can model and coach students how to co-operate with each
other.
1.3 Meaningful Activities
Many school activities are not meaningful since students do not
understand why they are doing them.
Teachers can make classroom activities more meaningful by relating
them to life experience.
3
1.4 Relating new information to prior knowledge
Teachers can

discuss the content of the lesson before finding out what students
already know,
find out students’ prior knowledge to identify misconceptions,
ask questions to help students relate what they are reading and
what they already know.
Being Strategic
Strategies help students understand and solve problems.
Strategies can improve learning and make it faster.
Teachers can give students a task and ask key questions.
Engaging in self-regulation and being reflective
‘Self-regulation’ refers to students’ ability:
to monitor their own learning,
to understand when they are making errors, and
to know how to correct them
Restructuring prior knowledge
Students have prior beliefs and incomplete understanding that can
conflict with what is being taught at school.
Teachers need to build on the existing ideas of students and slowly
lead them to more mature understanding.
Aiming towards understanding rather than memorization
a) To understand what they are being taught, students must be
given the opportunity:
to think about what they are doing,
to talk about it with other students and with teachers,
to clarify it, and
to understand how it applies in many situations.
Teachers can promote understanding of the material that has been
taught by:
Asking students to explain a concept in their own words,
Showing students how to provide examples to show how

something works,
Showing students how to use information from general
situations to specific situations and vice versa.
4
1.9 Helping students learn to use what they have learned
Teachers can help students to apply what they have learned at school
by
Insisting on them learning the subject matter,
Helping them see how they have applied what they have learned,
Helping students learn how to seek and use feedback about their
progress
1.10 Taking time to practise
Teachers can help students spend more time on learning tasks by
Giving students learning tasks that are consistent with what they
already know,
Giving students time to understand the new information,
Helping students engage in active thinking and monitoring their own
learning.
1.11 Developmental & individual differences
Teachers can create the best environments for developing children
while recognising their individual differences
Assess children’s knowledge, strategies and modes of learning
adequately
Introduce children to a wide range of materials, activities and
learning tasks
Identify students’ areas of strength in different kinds of activities
1.12 Creating motivated learners
Teachers must use encouraging words that reflect learners’
performance:
Recognise what students have done,

Attribute students achievement to their own ability e.g. you have
good ideas,
Help students believe in themselves,
Provide feedback to children about the strategies they use and
instructions as to how to improve them,
Help learners set realistic goals.
2. Teaching within Constraints
5
2.1 What constraints do you face in teaching?
a) Large classes (over 40 students and sometimes as many as a
100),
b) limited resources (only a course book that may be culturally
inappropriate or too difficult),
cramped classrooms and mixed ability students
lack of resources in schools to carry out creative methods
2.2 Classroom Constraints:
There is very little room for children to get up or for the teacher to
move around the class and students must work on their own.
The class is dominated by the teacher (who works very hard).
Students are very passive and probably restless too.
Teachers are concerned that students will be noisy or silly when
desks are moved.
2.3 Dealing with Classroom constraints
a) By using pair-work
Students can easily work together, sharing ideas and peer
teaching.
This is very useful when your students are mixed ability as
stronger ones can help those with problems.
They can help explain what they think the correct answers are
and share ideas about the language.

They will have more chance of success and the teacher can
spend time monitoring and helping students rather than
trying to help all those with problems or keeping them
quiet.
By using group work
students can interact with each other but can still easily turn
their heads to face the board and teacher
6
3. Activities to overcome classroom constraints using pair work
3.1 Dialogue reading:
a) Many course books introduce language items with dialogues
that children either read or listen to on a tape.
Get students to read the dialogues together, taking a part each.
3.2 Writing: is a difficult skill.
Get children to work together to produce a piece of writing
they have the chance to try out structures and vocabulary
they tend to draft (rewrite and improve) much more than
when they write on their own.
It is also more fun working with another student and easier to sustain
energy and interest in the task.
For example, your students have been learning vocabulary to
describe people.
Choose a character appropriate for the age of your students.
First ask the students to shut their eyes and imagine this
character.
Then they tell each other what this character looked like in
their mind’s eye.
3.3 Pair dictations:
Students of all ages all like doing picture dictations, which are very
easy and get lots of language practice.

First the teacher describes a picture and students must draw what
they hear.
Get students to draw their own pictures without showing them to
their partners.
Then take turns describing their picture to their partner who must
draw the picture.
They check each others’ dictations by comparing the pictures.
7
4. Activities to overcome classroom constraints using group work
4.1 Brainstorming:
a) Before reading or writing about a particular topic e.g. my
friends, get the students in their groups to think up all the
words and/or ideas they know and
Write them onto one piece of paper
4.2 Discussion:
a) This is also good before students read or write about a topic.
b) It can also be used to recycle language they have learned.
Students have an opportunity to exchange ideas and practise their
English in a relatively unstructured but meaningful way.
4.3 Role play:
a) Children of all ages like role plays.
b) They can be used words that have learnt and to practise real
life communications in English.
c) Children all love to get up and move around. It gives them a
chance to use up spare energy, and to get actively involved in
their learning.
4.4 A – Z: can be used with large classes without getting up
Choose a lexical set like sports.
The student at the front of each line must run to the board and write
a sport beginning with A, hand the chalk to the student behind

her and then go to the back of the line.
The next student goes to the board and writes a sport beginning with
B, hands the chalk to the next student and goes to the back of
the line and this continues until students reach Z.
Other students in a team can help the person writing if they cannot
think of a sport.
If nobody can think of one they go on to the next letter in the
alphabet.
The winner is the team with the most sports written on the board by
the end of the game.
8
5. Other Ideas
5.1 Label the room:
Use the classroom and everything in it as a learning resource.
On strips of paper write: door, window, teacher’s desk, board rubber
etc.
Hand out the strips of paper to different students and ask them to fix
the paper on the objects
5.2 Create your own poster:
Students can create useful and decorative English posters for their
own classroom.
All you need are some large sheets of paper – the back of wallpaper
or wrapping paper can be used
Younger classes can create alphabet posters:
Give a letter of the alphabet to all the children (you can just
tell them what letter they have). It’s not a problem if there
are more than 26 children, you can double up on letters.
Each child must think of words that begin with the letter they
have and on a piece of paper write their letter big and
draw the things beginning with that letter.

Collect them all together and fix onto a big piece of paper (in
alphabetical order) and put up on a wall.
9
PART 2
Curriculum AND seT of let’s learn English – book 1
1. Curriculum
1. 1 Background
English is taught at primary level from grade 3 to grade 5 as an optional
subject
New National Curriculum and sets of textbooks (Let’s learn English – Book 1
– Student book, Let’s learn English – Book 1 – Workbook. Let’s learn
English – Book 1 – Teacher Guide) will officially be started from the
school year 2006-2007
The setting of time for teaching: 2 periods (of 35-40 minutes) per week x 35
weeks per year = 70 periods/year
1. 2 Aims
Develop the student’s four fundamental and simple communication skills:
listening, speaking, reading and writing, among them listening and
speaking are focused
Provide for students a number of basic and simple knowledge of English as a
means of developing communication skills, including phonics, vocabulary
and grammar
Help students to deal with the people, countries and cultures of nations in
which English is used as a native or second language
1. 3 Content
The optional curriculum of English is developed following communicative
approach: listening, speaking, reading and writing
Themes are basic factors to write the teaching content. The four themes are:
You and Me, My School, My Family and The World Around Us
Under themes are topics which may be considered as units.

Through the 12 units, students will be able to practice communicative
competences or tasks within approximately 120 words
The language focus such as phonics, vocabulary and grammar are tools to
build up communication skills
10
1.4 Content of grade three curriculum
Themes/Topics Competences* Language focus**
1. You and Me
First meetings
Names of friends
Introduce oneself and others
Ask and spell someone’s names
Greet/ say goodbye
Present Simple: be,
have
This is/That is/Let's,
Wh-question: what,
how
Yes/No question: Is it
? Is there ? Are
there ?
Imperatives
Modal: may
Personal/impersonal
pronouns
Possessive adj/pron
Nouns, numbers (1-
10)
Adjectives: big,
small.

Conjunction: and
Articles: a, an, the
Prepositions of place:
in, on,
2. My school
Friends and teachers
School objects
Classroom activities
Identify school objects
Describe school objects
Express classroom commands
and permissions
3. My family
Family members
Age of family
members
My house
Talk about family members
Count
Ask for and tell the age
Name and describe rooms
Talk about location of house
things
4. The world
around us
Weather
Pets
Toys
Talk about weather
Name and identify pets and toys

Talk about possession
Talk about quantity of pets and
toys
11
1. 5 Teaching and Learning Conditions
Ensuring the setting of time (70 periods, each period lasts between 35-40
minutes) for grade 3
Having enough teachers meeting the requirements of enthusiasm, job loyalty,
good qualification and be trained and educated regularly the new
curriculum and teaching methodology
Making sure that there are enough textbooks, workbooks for students, guiding
books, reference materials for teachers and audio-visual teaching/learning
aids for teachers and students
Testing and evaluating must follow closely the targets and contents of the
curriculum and the standard level of knowledge of the subject
Direction and administration of teaching and learning must follow correctly the
curriculum with careful and serious considering and checking
12
2. Let’s Learn English - Book 1 – Student’s Book
2. 1 Principles
Follow closely to the curriculum (objectives, themes, topics, competences and
language focus)
The four communicative skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) should be
practiced combiningly. Language factors (phonics, grammar, vocabulary)
are tools to build up those four skills
The content of language should ensure the reality, accuracy, contextualization
Types of lesson, tasks, activities should have a harmonious combination
between texts, pictures, sounds, between communicative skills and
language components, between presentation, practice and application
Learners should be considered as center of the teaching-learning process

Be suitable to student’s age, demand, experience and knowledge
2. 2 Content
Book map: introducing the whole picture of the SB (including themes, units,
tasks, language focus)
The SB consists of 4 themes, each theme has 3 units, each unit has two
sections (section A and section B) and lasts 4 periods
After each theme, there is a self-check that help students check themselves
what they have learned within the theme
Vocabulary is by the end of SB
2. 3 Unit structure
Section A
Look, listen and repeat
Look and say
Let’s talk
Listen and check
Say it right
Listen and write
Read aloud
Section B
Listen and repeat
Let’s talk
Listen and number
Read and match
Let’s write
Let’s play
Summary
3. Let’s Learn English – Book 1 - Workbook
13
Each units has 9-10 exercises covering the following:
Circle the odd one out

Complete and read
Let’s match
Read and match
Complete and read
Reorder the letters to make words
Reorder the words to make sentences
Reorder the sentences to make a dialogue
Complete the dialogue
Complete the sentences
Writing
Look and write
Let’s play
14
4. Let’s Learn English – Book 1 – Teacher’s Guide
4.1 Teaching points
2. Competencies
3. Language focus
Phonics
Grammar
Vocabulary
4. Time allocation
5. Teaching aids
4. 2 Teaching guide
G-I-P-O is used in guiding the teaching. They are: Goal – Input – Procedure –
Output
Goal: the goal of the task that student should be able to achieve
Input: the activities/task (in the textbook) and/or exercise (in the workbook)
that students should use to practice
Procedure: the steps that teacher may follow to help students achieve the goal
Output (Key answer): The outcome the students should achieve

There are other components that are related to G-I-P-O. They are:
Notes: to explain the uses of phonics, vocabulary or grammar
Tapescript
Follow-up activities
15
PART 3
How Children Learn
How Children Learn
1. Learning Styles & Teaching
Students learn better and more quickly if the teaching methods used match their
learning styles.
As learning improves, so too does self-esteem.
Students who have become bored with learning may become interested once
again.
The student-teacher relationship can improve because the student is more
successful and is more interested in learning
2. What is your learning style?
What comes to your mind when you hear the word “dog”?
Do you see a picture of an animal, hear a bark, or visualise the animal?
3. Learning Styles

3.1 Auditory learners
love to play with words and their sounds;
do well with talking things through;
listen to what others have to say;
enjoy storytelling and listening games.
Logical learners
are problem-solvers and rational,
numbers-oriented learners
Try turning English alphabet into a numerical code e.g. 1=A,

2=B, 3=C, 4=D, 5=E
What does 4-1-4 stand for?
enjoy puzzles, patterns, card games, memory games.
16
Visual learners
love to sit up in the front of the class,
need to “see” what the teacher is talking about,
make meaning through pictures,
Dictate words or phrases.
Get students to draw pictures to illustrate the meaning.
Kinesthetic learners
are explorers,
like to get up, move around and touch things,
enjoy activities such as charades, or pantomiming games.
Musical learners
love to explore sounds and how they go together in songs and
chants,
motivated by songs and chants.
3.6 Interpersonal learners
love to get up and interact with others,
love to do cooperative activities that give opportunities to work and
learn from fellow students such as pair work, interviews, group
projects, survey.
Intrapersonal learners
are self-motivated and prefer to work on their own,
are shy but have a good sense of self and are quite secure,
enjoy personalization activities:
drawing, writing and talking about one’s own family, house or
school
Left-brain dominated

are intellectual,
process information in a linear way,
tend to be objective (unbiased, fair),
prefer established, certain information,
rely on language in thinking and remembering.
Helping the Left-brain dominated by:
Giving verbal instructions and explanations
Setting some closed tasks to which students can discover the “right”
answer
17
Right-brain dominated
are intuitive,
process information in a holistic way,
tend to be subjective (give personal opinions)
prefer elusive, uncertain information,
rely on drawing and manipulating to help them to think and learn.
Helping Right-brain dominated
Write instructions as well as giving them verbally.
Show students what you would like them to do.
Give students clear guidelines.
Set some open-ended tasks for which there is no “right” answer.
Use real objects that students can manipulate while learning.
Sometimes allow students to respond by drawing.
4. Planning for preferred learning styles
4.1 Stage 1: Activities that help students connect with the lesson
Example
Students discuss what they know about the topic of the lesson as a
whole class or in small group;
Students predict what a reading passage/story will be about from the
title.

4.2 Stage 2: Activities that give students new information
Example
Students listen to a presentation of the new information;
Students read a text;
Students watch a video which presents the new information.
4.3 Stage 3: Activities that give students a chance to practise the new information
Example
Students discuss questions based on the new information;
Students use the new information to create a poster;
Students use the new information to develop a role play or drama.
18
4.4 Stage 4: Activities that give students a chance to extend their ideas
Example:
•Students try the new language which they have learnt outside the
classroom;
•Students try the reading strategy which they were taught in other
subjects.
5 Learner-centered Teaching
5.1 Starting class
Get students interested in what they are going to learn:
show students photos, real objects, music or fun activity related to the
new material;
present a simple question that they will be able to answer by the end of
class with what they have learned;
tell students what they are going to learn and what kinds of activities
they will do during class.
5.2 Organising classroom equipment and materials:
•Make sure you have all the materials you need;
•Make sure that everything actually works and everyone can
see/hear it;

•Get the visual aids ready in the order that you plan to use them;
•Sort out worksheets for quick and easy distribution.
5.3 Using presentation techniques:
•Speak clearly and use facial expressions and body language to
make your meaning clear;
•Make eye contact with all the students frequently;
•Try teaching from different parts of the room;
•Control teacher talking time.
19
5.4 Grouping students for activities
Vary the methods you use to organize students into pairs or groups:
- by seating arrangement,
- by randomly distributing number cards,
- by birth months.
Consider the activity to see if is effective to groups of different ability
levels;
Make sure that each student in the group has a role to play;
Monitor groups to ensure participation.
5.5 Checking for understanding
•Watch your students. Are they doing what you’re expecting or do
they look confused?
•After you have given instructions, ask one or two students to
demonstrate the activity.
•When you ask questions:
- pose the question first so that everyone pays attention and
prepares to answer,
- name an individual student to answer.
5.6 Closing class
•Always wrap up the lesson. Do not simply stop in the middle of an
activity.

•Take a few minutes to review what students have learnt. Ask them
to tell you what they’ve learnt.
Always have an extra activity ready in case there’s extra time
20
PART 4
Teaching Listening and Speaking Skills
1 Listening
1.1 Listening is the language skill which learners usually find the most difficult.
This often is because they feel under unnecessary pressure to understand every
word.
1.2 To achieve the aims related to this skill, the teacher plays an important role:
a) It is important to help pupils prepare for the listening task
well before they hear the text itself.
First of all, the teacher must ensure that:
the pupils understand the language they need to
complete the task;
they are fully aware of exactly what is expected of
them;
they are reassured that they do not need to understand
every word they hear.
b) The next important step is to encourage pupils to anticipate
what they are going to hear:
Present the listening activity within the context of the topic of
a teaching unit.
This will help pupils to predict what the answers might be.
The teacher can help them further:
by asking questions; and
using the pictures to encourage pupils to guess the
answers even before they hear the text.
c) During the listening the pupils should be able to

concentrate on understanding the message so make sure they
are not trying to read, draw, and write at the same time.
Always give a second chance to listen to the text to provide a
new opportunity to those who were not able to do the task.
21
d) Finally, when pupils have completed the activity, invite
answers from the whole class.
Try not to put individual pupils under undue pressure.
Confirm whether an answer is correct or not by playing the
cassette again and allow pupils to listen again.
List all the answers on the board and play the text again so
that the class can listen and choose the correct one.
Even if the pupils all appear to have completed the task
successfully, always encourage them to listen to the text
once more and check their answers for themselves.
2. Speaking
Two main types of speaking activities are used:
Songs, chants, and poems
encourage pupils to mimic the model they hear on the
cassette;
help pupils to master the sounds, rhythms, and intonation of
the English language.
b) Games and pair work activities
encourage pupils to begin to manipulate the language by
presenting them with a certain amount of choice, within a
fairly controlled situation.
In order for any speaking activity to be successful, children need to know
the reason for speaking, whether this is to play a game or to find out
real information about friends in the class.
Once the activity begins:

Make sure that the children are speaking as much English as possible
without interfering to correct the mistakes that they will probably
make;
Try to treat errors casually by praising what they say and simply
repeating it correctly without pointing out the errors;
Always praise them even if they do not use English accurately.
22
3 Ways to help your pupils learn to listen
3.1 Teach rules for listening.
Children who haven’t learned to listen naturally need help in
understanding what listening actually involves.
Many are unable to concentrate on what a speaker is saying because
they’re too easily distracted by other things that are going on
around them.
They simply aren’t aware that listening means cutting oneself off
from those distractions.
Make a poster listing the main rules and teach them explicitly as part
of English.
A good listener
looks at the speaker
tries to keep still
concentrates on what the speaker is saying
thinks about what the speaker is saying
asks questions if they don’t understand
values what the speaker has to say
tries to remember what the speaker has said
Focus on one rule at a time. Discuss what it means and why it’s
important.
Put it into practice immediately by giving a paired task (for example:
“Take turns to ask your partner what she or he did last weekend”)

and asking some children to report back to the class.
3.2 Model how to be a good listener.
3.3 Play listening games.
3.4 Read to children.
• Avoid reading just from picture books. Children need
opportunities to “make the picture in their heads”, while listening
to a poem or verbal narrative.
• Start with a vivid poem, and talk afterwards about the sort of
“pictures” it made them see.
23
3.5 Use music and song.
• Music trains the brain to patterns and the ear to qualities of
sound.
• Songs are particularly useful, because the melody helps children
memorise words.
• Action songs help develop memory and are especially
memorable.
Train auditory memory.
All learning relies on auditory memory, so the more we practise this
particular mental muscle, the better the results.
Encourage children to learn the words of songs, rhymes and poems.
Organise a recitation competition.
3.7 Use tapes and CDs.
Using tapes and CDs brings other voices into the classroom,
Try sometimes telling the class beforehand that you are not going to
rewind the tape.
In a “rewind culture”, many children don’t bother attending carefully
the first time.
3.8 Use dictation.
Dictation helps in teaching and assessing phonics, spelling and

handwriting.
It allows children to focus purely on hearing the words and
transforming them into symbols on the page.
Dictations should be short, occasional and delivered with an
established routine:
The teacher reads the whole piece.
The teacher re-reads in short clear chunks.
Get pupils to write, then read the whole piece again at the end for
checking.
3.9 Make lessons worth listening to.
With so much exposure to the same voice, pupils sometimes switch
off.
Using audio resources encourage children’s contributions to lessons
and using the voices of other adults who may be around.
Look also for ways of substituting other modes of communication
wherever possible:
Instead of using your voice to call the class to order, devise a
physical signal such as holding one arm in the air, and
24
train pupils to respond by sitting quietly and signalling
back to you.
4. Developing and expanding children’s listening and speaking skills
4.1 Engage children in conversation throughout the day.
When reading aloud to the children, encourage them:
to predict what will happen in the story,
to comment on the story, and
to make connections between the story and their personal
experiences.
Play games that will focus children’s attention on the importance of
listening carefully, e.g.:

Put your heads down and close your eyes.
Listen very carefully.
Can you hear the lawn mower outside?
Can you hear water dripping in the sink?
What else do you hear?
Gently reinforce the rules of good listening and speaking throughout the
day.
4.5 Capitalize on routine opportunities to have the children follow or
give directions.
25