Communication arts seminar for sti by michael m. magbanua

The Teaching of

COMMUNICATION

ARTS

MICHAEL M. MAGBANUA, MA Head, General Education

Presenter

The Goal:

The seminar will focus on how second

language teaching is perceived and taught by

teachers of English. There will be sharing of

effective strategies in order to teach the

English language based on the

Communication Arts 1-4 courseware.

Moreover, workshop will be incorporated

to equip teachers with necessary rules to

teach the four basic skills: reading, writing,

speaking and listening.

CONTENTS

I. Language: The Bedrock of Communication Arts

II. Teaching Communication as Art and Skill

III. The Teaching of Listening

IV. The Teaching of Speaking

V. The Teaching of Reading

VI. The Teaching of Speaking

I. Language: The Bedrock of Communication

Arts

Human beings need to communicate thoughts and

feelings to others of their kind. The message s may be

expressed, or transmitted, and received through any of

the perception channels: visual (sight), auditory

(hearing), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and

tactile (touch). It is this need to share ideas which

gave rise to language. Thus, language is defined as the

expression or communication of thoughts and feelings

by means of vocal sounds and written symbols, and

communication of vocal sounds and written symbols,

and the communication of such sounds to which

meanings attributed.

I.1. How language is developed?

Anthropology

History

Psychology

Sociology

Science

Technology

Q: What then are the relevant implications of these to

language learning and teaching (communication arts?)

I.2. Language Learning Theories

Naturalists/Innatists

Nativists

Behaviorists

Structuralists

Constructivists

Q: In what manner these various language theories over

times transpired into LESL and TESL?

II.1. Teaching Communication as Art and Skill

The term communication arts of language arts

encompasses a wide range of school activities

designed to help students become

knowledgeable about language so that they

can use it effectively. Communication arts

suggest that language learning involves artistic

as well as functional skills.

Q: What makes the teaching and learning of

communication considered as an art and skill?

II.2. Classifications of ComArts

Communication arts can be classified according

to—

1. The task involved – listening, speaking,

reading, and writing

2. The role of the individual – receiving

(reception) or expressing (production) a

message

3. The manner of communication – oral, non-

verbal, or written

Q: How come the teaching of grammar was not classified

in ComArts?

II.3. Measures of Communication Competence

(Beebe and Beebe, 2004)

1. The message should be

understood by the communicator.

2. The message should achieve the

intended effect the communicator

intended it to be understood.

3. The message should be ethical.

Q: …Hence, what essentially measures now one‘s

communication competence?

II.3. The Importance of Communication

(Source: Winsor; Curtis; Stephens, “National Preferences in Business Communication

Education: A Survey Update, “Journal of the Association of Communication Administration 3

(1997).

Rank/Order Factors Most Important in Helping Graduating College

Students Obtain Employment (Factors/Skills Evaluated)

1 Oral (Speaking Communication)

2 Written communication skills

3 Listening ability

4 Enthusiasm

5 Technical competence

Q: What does this finding had to tell our classroom

teachers and students as well?

II.4. Five Basic Characteristics of

Communication

1. Inescapable – it is everywhere

2. Irreversible -- never loops back on itself

3. Complicated – there are really at least six ―people‖

involved:

1. Who you think you are;

2. Who you think the other person is;

3. Who you think the other person thinks you are;

4. Who the other person thinks /she is;

5. Who the other person thinks you are; and

6. Who the other person thinks you think he or she is.

Q: How these six ―people‖ affect a learner‘s

communication competence?

II.4. Five Basic Characteristics of

Communication

4. Emphasizes content and relationships – for it offers

cues about the emotions, attitudes, and amount of

power and control the speaker directs towards others;

how something is said

5. Governed by rules – learned as to either obligated,

preferred, or prohibited in certain contexts based on

experience, by observing, and interacting with others

Q: Considering these characteristics, what relevant

language learning theory a ComArt teacher must

employ?

II.5. 5 Basic Communication Principles

Principle One: Be aware of your

communication with yourself and others

Principle Two: Effectively use and interpret

verbal messages

Principle Three: Effectively use and interpret

nonverbal messages

Principle Four: Listen and respond thoughtfully

to others

Principle Five: Appropriately adapt messages

Q: What do behaviorism and constructivism had to

say with these communication principles?

II.6. Barriers to Effective Communication

Physical Barriers - environment, background noise, etc.

Language - When a person uses inappropriate words while

conversing or writing, it could lead to misunderstanding between

the sender and a receiver.

Emotions - few of the emotional interferences include hostility,

anger, resentfulness and fear.

Lack of Subject Knowledge – the receiver could misunderstand

your message.

Stress –for at the time of stress, our psychological frame of mind

depends on our beliefs, experiences, goals and values.

Q: Rank as to which of these largely agitate you, and

your student‘s communication performance?

II.7. Essential Characteristics of a

Communication Arts Teacher

1. Is competent user of the language?

2. Has the ability to interact with students?

3. Has the healthy interest in literature?

4. Has a positive attitude toward the

communication arts curriculum?

5. Applies various methods approaches and

strategies of teaching?

Reflective Teaching: Refer to these characteristics as

you honestly rate yourself as to : ―No – Sometimes –

Yes‖.

II.8. Pedagogical Implications of Language Learning Studies to

the Teaching of Communication Arts

4. Other recommendations come from Bassano (1986), who recognizes

that students have different needs, preferences, beliefs, learning styles,

and educational backgrounds, but argues that the imposition of change

upon these factors can lead to negative reactions.

5. Bernat and Inna Gvozdenko (2010) offers teachers six steps towards

dealing with student beliefs:

1. become aware of students' past classroom experiences and their assumptions

about language learning;

2. build students' confidence;

3. begin where the students are and move slowly;

4. show them achievement;

5. allow for free choice as much as possible; and

6. become aware of the students' interests and concerns, their goals and

objectives.

Q: What best supports Bassano‘s recommendations? How do

you see these six steps being doable (or not doable) in your own class?

Why?

II.8. Pedagogical Implications of Language Learning Studies to

the Teaching of Communication Arts

1. Horwitz (1999) points out that while teachers cannot tailor instruction to

each belief of each student, and must out of necessity deal with groups of

students, the investigation of beliefs which inform different behaviors in

the language classroom is useful in making teachers aware of different

learner types that need to be accommodated.

2. Wenden (1986) proposes that if we are to discover what characterizes

successful language learning, we need to discover what students believe or

know about their learning and provide activities that would allow

students to examine these beliefs and their possible impact on how they

approach learning.

3. Discovering students' attitudes and beliefs is possible, as it is generally

accepted that language learners are capable of bringing this knowledge to

consciousness and articulating it (Willing, 1988; Kalaja, 2003; Hosenfeld, 2003)

Q: What must be the role of a ComArt teacher in facilitating

these implications to ELT? In what way he could he perform it?

II.9. Approaches and Methods of English

Language Teaching and Learning

Approach – is a set of correlative assumptions dealing with the nature of language

teaching and learning. It describes the nature of the subject matter to be taught. It

is the level at which assumptions and beliefs about something to be learned are

specified. (Ex: Communicative approach; Audio-lingual approach; Whole

Language Approach; CALP; CALLA)

Method – is an overall plan for the orderly presentation of language material.

No part of which contradicts, and all of which is based upon, the selected

approach. It is the level at which theory is built into practice and choices are made

about the particular skills and content to be taught, and the order by which the

content will be presented. (Ex: Direct method; Grammar Translation Method;

Total Physical Response Method…)

Technique – is the level at which classroom procedures are described. It is the

medium of implementation. (Ex: song parody; song analysis; round-table

discussion; buzz session…)

Q: How does my understanding of these ELT principles help

me in achieving my goal in Communication Arts?

II.10. Common Methods and Approaches in TESL

1. Grammar Translation Method

Goals: To read literature in the target language.

To memorize grammar rules and vocabulary of the target

language

Characteristics:

Grammar is taught deductively.

The students‘ native language is used to explain new items

in the target language and to enable comparisons between

the FL and the student‘s native language.

The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language

practice.

Q: On whose set of students do you think GTM is relevant (or

irrelevant)? Why? What specific learning task would you likely

give them?


2. Direct Method

Goals: To communicate in the target language.

Characteristics:

There are extensive drills in listening, imitating, and speaking so that the

students‘ use of the different forms of the language becomes second nature to

them.

The emphasis is on correct pronunciation and grammar.

There is no memorization of grammar rules.

Grammar is taught inductively by generalizing from examples.

(Ex: The teacher corrects grammar errors made by the students and briefly

explains why such corrections are necessary; or, The teacher asks questions in the

target language on the passages read, to which the students reply in complete

sentences.)

Q: What do you think is the strenght and weakness of this

method?


3. Oral-Situational Approach

Goals: To utilize the target language in real situation.

Characteristics:

One of its main characteristics is that new language points are

introduced and practiced situationally.

Situational language teaching adopts an inductive approach to

the teaching of grammar.

Explanation is therefore discouraged, and the learner is

expected to deduce the meaning of a particular structure or

vocabulary item from the situation in which it is presented

Q: How oral-situational approach can be carried through in

business writing and answering job interviews?

Q: How does my understanding of these ELT principles help

me in achieving my goal in Communication Arts?


4. Audio-lingual Approach

Goals: To use the target language communicatively.

To master the target language enabling the students to use it

automatically as new habits are formed and native language

habits are overcome.

Characteristics:

The native language is not used in the classroom.

Grammar is induced from models.

The students interact through chain drills of role playing, in dialogs,

and at the teacher‘s direction.

Pronunciation is taught from the beginning, often with minimal pair

drills.

Q: Is this approach ‗traditional‘ or ‗improved‘? What language

theory supports this LT approach? Considering this approach,

how would you facilitate extemporaneous speech in your class?


5. Communicative Approach

Goals: To become communicatively competent

To use the language appropriate for a given social context

Characteristics:

Activities are highly communicative; speakers have a choice of what to say and how

to say it; feedback from listeners will determine if the purpose is achieved.

Authentic materials are used as text.

Grammar and vocabulary that the students learn follow from the function, the

situational context, and the roles of the interlocutors.

The teacher is the facilitator of the students‘ learning.

Errors of form are tolerated and are seen as a natural outcome of the development of

communication skills.

Activities are often carried out by the students in small groups.

The use of the native language is accepted when feasible.

Translation may be used when needed.

Informal evaluation is done by the teacher in his role as adviser/communicator.


A. Why Teach Listening?

According to study conducted by Learning Ally (2011), listening is the

foundation of language; it is the brick and mortar of learning. Listening is

an interactive, interpretive process that requires us to:

Tap into prior knowledge

Organize the content

Regulate our listening speed and processing

Interpret meaning

Recognize the whole and the parts of the information

Respond accordingly.

Speaking proficiency is dependent to a well-developed listening skill.

Writing skill is enhanced through effective listening.

Developing listening skill is essential to higher academic and

professional success.

Q: Why do you think listening is the most neglected and

underdeveloped skill in teaching communication arts?


B. Classifications/Levels of Listening

1. Informational Listening – occurs as people understand, remember, and

respond to the content of an oral communication.

2. Analytical Listening – when listeners methodically examine words, ideas,

and nonverbal components. The listen to identify the main idea and

subordinate ideas; establish the relationships between ideas; generalize

from the ideas; distinguish between fact and fantasy or fact and opinion;

identify speaker‘s feelings or points of view; and interpret various speech

elements such as varying intonations, pitch, tones, tempo, or volume of

the voice.

3. Critical Judgmental Listening – this occurs when people make decisions

about the rightness or wrongness, harmfulness or harmlessness of facts and

ideas, and the way both facts and ideas have been presented.

4. Appreciative Listening – occurs when people listen to enjoy, and

understand the moods expressed in stories, poems, plays, and music, and

conjure mental pictures through picturesque language.

Your Task: Plan a classroom activity that develops each level of

listening.


B. Four Stages of Listening

Identification – perception of sounds and phrases, identifying these

directly and holistically with their meanings.

Identification and selection without retention – listening for the pleasure

of comprehension, extracting, sequential meanings without being

expected to demonstrate comprehension through active use of language.

Identification and guided selection with short-term retention – students

are given some prior indication of what they are to listen for; they

demonstrate their comprehension immediately in some active fashion.

Identification and selection with long term retention – students

demonstrate their comprehension, or use the material they have

comprehended, after the listening experience has been completed.

Q: How can the fourth stage be achieved as your class listens to

a panel discussion-- ―The most sought-after jobs today‖


C. Two Basic Levels of Listening

The Level of Recognition – which refers to recognizing

automatically the phonological, syntactic, and semantic codes of

the language. Here, student has to learn phonological codes

(phonemes; rhythm; stress; intonation patterns; and emotional

overtones and variations); syntactic code (word classes; word

order; and interrelationship of words); and semantic code (word

meaning; connotation; culture; idioms; expletives; clichés;

colloquialisms; pauses; and fillers)

The Level of Selection – which refers to the listener‘s ability to

select what is important for retention.

Your task: Propose a language-learning activity that develops

these two levels of listening.


D. Suggested Listening Activities

Task 1: Discriminating Critical English Sounds. Listen to these words. On your

answer sheet, write the number of distinct sounds you heard on each word series.

(Input: mate—myth—meat--mate) = 3

(Input: lip—leaf—lipped--left—lift—lipped) = 4

Task 2: Identifying news details. Listen to the newscaster as he reports the news

for the day. On your answer sheet, answer the given questions.

Task 3. Discriminating Ungrammatically-Constructed Expressions. Listen to each

expression. On your answer sheet, tell whether each statement is CORRECT or

INCORRECT as far as correct grammar is concern.

Task 4. Music appreciation. Listen to the music being played. Interpret the mood

or message of the song using crayons or water color.

Q: What variations can you make out of these suggested

listening activities considering the need and level of learners?


D. Assessing Listening Skill

You can use post-listening activities to check comprehension, evaluate

listening skills and use of listening strategies, and extend the knowledge

gained to other contexts. A post-listening activity may relate to a pre-

listening activity, such as predicting; may expand on the topic or the

language of the listening text; or may transfer what has been learned to

reading, speaking, or writing activities.

In order to provide authentic assessment of students' listening

proficiency, a post-listening activity must reflect the real-life uses to which

students might put information they have gained through listening.

It must have a purpose other than assessment

It must require students to demonstrate their level of listening

comprehension by completing some task.

Q: What assessment device and tool would you plan to assess

your student‘s listening skill?

IV. The Teaching of Speaking

A. Elements in the Teaching of Speaking

1. Speech

a. Elements of Human Voice –types of voice; pitch; rhythm;

tempo; volume; tone; pitch; texture…

b. Process of Sounds Production -- accent; pronunciation;

articulation; enunciation; phrasing; blending/linking

2. Oral/Nonverbal Communication

a. Individual – reporting; monologs; story-telling;

impromptu; extemporaneous speeches; oration

b. Dyads – dialogs, interviews, etc.

c. Grouping – speech choir; chamber theater; role

playing; dramatization; short skit; panel and round

table discussions; buzz session; brainstorming;

charade, etc.

B. Proficiency Levels in Speaking

1. Native speaker -- (mother tongue) someone who

has spoken the language from at least the age of 5;

understands essentially everything in the language:

all vocabulary, complicated grammatical structures,

cultural differences, and dialects.

2. Debater -- (fluent) can participate in extended

conversations; understand the language when

spoken normally, figure out meaning of words

within context, debate; has good accent…

3. Conversationalist-- (advanced) has the ability to

converse about fairly abstract ideas, state opinions,

read newspapers; can reorganize sentences in order

to communicate and figure out the majority of

vocabulary within the context.

B. Proficiency Levels in Speaking

3. Survivor -- (intermediate) converses using

basic vocabulary; uses the present, past, and

future tenses more or less correctly; can

survive in an immersion situations– ordering

foods; giving and receiving

directions/instructions, etc.

4. Novice -- (beginner) has extremely limited

vocabulary and grammar, understands very

little of the language when spoken

normally; may find difficulty in oral

conversations.

Think about: What is mine and most of my students proficiency level

in speaking? What factors possibly influence this level type? What

effort/s do I make to improve/sustain such level?

C. Speaking Test Assessment Focus

Considering various entry levels, speaking skills can be

assessed as to whether the speaker is able to, but

not limited to:

describing, giving opinions, giving personal

information, stating (dis) likes and preferences,

commenting, asking for information or

descriptions, (dis) agreeing, exchanging opinions,

deciding, suggesting, selecting, comparing,

contrasting, planning, persuading, interrupting

politely, expressing future uncertainty or possibility,

asking or giving advice, speculating and deducing

hypothetical processes, etc.

Your Task: Plan a particular communicative activity that assess

speaker‘s various speaking abilities. What tool you think is effective?

V. The Teaching of Reading

A. The Reading Theories

A.1. Linguistic theories

a. Top-down theory/model

b. Bottom-up theory/model

A.2. The sociolinguistic theory

a. The role of schema

A.3. The cognitivist theory

a. The interactive model

Q: What could be the pedagogical implications of these

assumptions in the teaching of reading in an ESL class?

B. Components of Teaching Reading

1. Developing Word Power or Vocabulary

2. Developing Reading Comprehension

3. Reading-Study Skills Connection

Strategies in Developing Word Power or

Vocabulary

Word games; charades; structural analysis

(processes of word formation; roots;

context clues, etc.)

2. Strategies in Developing Reading

Comprehension

Story grammar

Sentence completion

Semantic webbing

Sun mapping

Concept mapping

Fishbone technique

Diagrams

Flowcharts

Models

Sketching

Cloze procedure technique

Think-aloud technique

Skills in Reading

1. Critical reading – a technique

for discovering information and

ideas within a text

2.Critical thinking – a technique

for evaluating information and

ideas for deciding what to

accept and believe

3.Appreciative reading – for

pleasure reading

Strategies for Reading Comprehension 1. Identify the purpose in reading

2. Use graphemic rules and patterns to aid in botom-up

decoding (for beginning level learners)

• “short” vowel sound in VC patterns (bat, him, leg,

wish, etc.)

• “long” vowel sound in VCe (final silent e) patterns (late,

time, bite, etc.)

• “long” vowel sound in VV patterns (seat, coat, etc.)

• distinguishing “hard” c and g from “soft” c and g (cat vs.

city, game vs. gem, etc.)

3. Use efficient silent reading techniques for relatively rapid

comprehension (for intermediate to advanced levels)

4. Skimming – consists of quickly running one’s eyes

across a whole text (an essay, article, or chapter for

example) to get the gist

5. Scanning – quickly searching for some particular piece

of information (looking for names or dates, to find a

definition of a key concept)

VI. The Teaching of Writing

A. Components of Teaching Writing

A.1. Linguistic structures

a. Morphological (word forms)

b. Syntactics (word order)

c. Semantics (word meaning)

d. Pragmatics (word function)

A.2. Mechanics

a. Orthography (standard spelling)

b. Punctuations

A.4. Styles and Formats

a. Indentions, spacing, paragraphs, keyboarding,

margins, etc.

VI. The Teaching of Writing

A. Strategies in Teaching Writing

1. The Conceptual Approach

2. The Process Approach

B. Writing Activities/Tasks

1. Diary

2. Precis

3. Introductions

4. Speeches

5. Journalism-based writing (news stories, editorial…)

6. Journals

7. Accomplishing forms/sheets

8. Captions

9. Essays

10. Product labels

11. Creative arts-based writing (scripts; dialogs)

12. Reviews (book or movie reviews)

13. Annotated bibliography

14. Term papers/research papers

C. Assessing Writing Output

1. Portfolio assessment

2. Peer critiquing

3. Self assessment

4. Use of specialized rubric

The Teaching of

COMMUNICATION

ARTS

MICHAEL M. MAGBANUA, MA Head, General Education

Presenter