Jeremy Harmer Chapter 16,17,18,20

Jeremy Harmer, chapter 16: Teaching Language Skills:

1) Figure 2 (p. 271): A basic methodological model for teaching receptive

skills.
Task 1
Lead-in: an introduction to the topic. Read the book and let the students
guess what kind of book it is. What do the students know about the topic
already, activate their preknowledge/schemata. Get familiar with the genre.
Show the students examples other texts in the same genre.
T directs comprehension task: pick out difficult words the students need to
know before they read the story.The wordsshould make the students
understand the entire story without looking every word up they do not
understand.
SS read/listen for task: Read the text and understand the text.
T directs feedback:What is the text about?
T directs text-related task: follow up activity
task 2
T directs comprehension task: Are there any rhymes in the text
SS read/listen for task: they read the text and finds the rhymes
T directs feedback: the teacher asks them to write down the rhymes they
found.
2) Explain bottom-up and top-down (p. 270)
Top down processing is starting with a owerall understanding of the text
and its theme
The reader (listener) gets a general view of the reading. Absorbing the
overall picture
The forest
Bottomup processing
The reader (listener) focuses on the individual words, phrases or cohesive
devices
The trees (page 270)

3) Go to one of the website

5th grade
Our exercise: We are going to split up a text in four pieces. They have to
read 2 parts(the students) and the other 2 is listening(the teacher read out
loud) afterwards they talk about the text with a classmate and fit the
listening and reading parts together. In the end they have a class discussion
about the text.
Language Focus. Which tense is the text whritten in? find 10 verbs i the text,
showing this.
as a follow up activity they could make a sketch in groups about the story.
1. David joins the army
David Hall was nineteen years old. He lived in Liverpool. David was nearly
six feet tall, with brown hair and brown eyes.
David did not have a job. There were very few jobs in Liverpool.
David had a girl friend. Her name was Carol and she was also nineteen.
David and Carol went out together a lot.
Dont join the army, Carol told him. But David did not listen to Carol.
David learned to be a soldier. He stayed in Liverpool for four months. He saw
Carol every weekend. Then the army sent him to Belfast.
David went to Belfast by boat. It was November. The boat arrived late in the
afternoon. It was raining.
There were hundreds of soldiers on the boat. They slowly left the boat and
then waited in the rain. David was cold and wet. He spoke to the soldier next
to him.
Why are we waiting? David asked. Look over there, the soldier replied.
David looked. The soldiers were taking something from a table.
What are they taking from the table?
Bullets of course
Bullets? What for?
Dont be stupid. Were in Belfast. Well need bullets. David took his bullets
and got into a lorry. The lorry drove through Belfast. David looked out at the
streets. Many of the shops were closed. Many of the houses were empty. The
town was full of soldiers.
Soon the lorry stopped outside an old house in a poor street. The house did
not have any windows. There was wood in front of the windows.

There was writing on the wall of the house. The writing said: Soldiers go
home. The soldiers got out of the lorry and went into the house. They were
going to live in the old house for four months.
David went upstairs to his room. There were six beds in Davids room. One
of the soldiers in the room was called Pete. He also came from Liverpool.
Pete was twenty years old. He was always happy. He was quite short and
had dark hair.
David and Pete talked about Liverpool. David told Pete about Carol. He felt
happy.
David learnt about Northern Ireland for the next week. He learnt about the
Catholics and the Protestants. He learnt about the history of Ireland.
And every day people died. Catholic gunmen were shooting. Protestant
gunmen were shooting. And the army was in the middle.
4) Key concepts that are introduced in the chapter
A) Automaticity:
Extensive reading is the best way for students to develop automaticity.The
automatic recognition of words when they see them.It is by far the best way
to improve their English reading and writing overall. (p. 273)
B) Authentic material:
Is language where no concessions are made to foreign speakers.
Its normal language, used by native speakers
C) Prediction:
Could be a picture in the text that gives the students an idea about what the
text is about. If the text is very formal and there are alot of unfamiliar words
the teacher can help the students buy givin them a picture or something
they can connect with the text.
Students can also predict the meaning of words.
5) How do you think predicting the content of a text or movie can help
students develop confidence and motivation?
Predicting the meaning of words or text gives them a door into the text/ gets
them working on the text without the pressure of having to understand the
whole thing. They are excited to see if their prediction is right.
6) What could you do to facilitate the reading and help the students
overcome some of these comprehension obstacles (see fx. Harmer p. 272275)

Lead-in on the topic: what is the text about? Brainstorm: what do you know
about vampires?
Pre-teach vocabulary: choose difficult words and make the students look the
words up in a dictionary. It is important that they understand the words
perfectly to make sure they get a better understanding of the text.
characterize the persons
Read a chapter
Answer questions about to text in pairs.
See the chapter on film, without subtiles
7) Explain figure 3 (p. 276): A basic methodological model for teaching
productive skills.
Lead-in stage: Engage students with the topic
Set the task: explain what the students are going to do.
Monitor the task: The teacher listens to the students working and helps
them where they are having difficulties.
Task feedback: We help the students to see how they have done.
Task-related follow-up: choosing something we have picked up in the
monitoring that the students need to work on.
Repetition is very important!
1) Figure 2 (p. 271): A basic methodological model for teaching receptive
skills.
Task 1
Lead-in: an introduction to the topic. Read the book and let the students
guess what kind of book it is. What do the students know about the topic
already, activate their preknowledge/schemata. Get familiar with the genre.
Show the students examples other texts in the same genre.
T directs comprehension task: pick out difficult words the students need to
know before they read the story.The wordsshould make the students
understand the entire story without looking every word up they do not
understand.
SS read/listen for task: Read the text and understand the text.
T directs feedback:What is the text about?
T directs text-related task: follow up activity
task 2

T directs comprehension task: Are there any rhymes in the text

SS read/listen for task: they read the text and finds the rhymes
T directs feedback: the teacher asks them to write down the rhymes they
found.
2) Explain bottom-up and top-down (p. 270)
Top down processing is starting with a owerall understanding of the text
and its theme
The reader (listener) gets a general view of the reading. Absorbing the
overall picture
The forest
Bottomup processing
The reader (listener) focuses on the individual words, phrases or cohesive
devices
The trees (page 270)
3) Go to one of the website
5th grade
Our exercise: We are going to split up a text in four pieces. They have to
read 2 parts(the students) and the other 2 is listening(the teacher read out
loud) afterwards they talk about the text with a classmate and fit the
listening and reading parts together. In the end they have a class discussion
about the text.
Language Focus. Which tense is the text whritten in? find 10 verbs i the text,
showing this.
as a follow up activity they could make a sketch in groups about the story.
1. David joins the army
David Hall was nineteen years old. He lived in Liverpool. David was nearly
six feet tall, with brown hair and brown eyes.
David did not have a job. There were very few jobs in Liverpool.
David had a girl friend. Her name was Carol and she was also nineteen.
David and Carol went out together a lot.
Dont join the army, Carol told him. But David did not listen to Carol.
David learned to be a soldier. He stayed in Liverpool for four months. He saw
Carol every weekend. Then the army sent him to Belfast.

David went to Belfast by boat. It was November. The boat arrived late in the
afternoon. It was raining.
There were hundreds of soldiers on the boat. They slowly left the boat and
then waited in the rain. David was cold and wet. He spoke to the soldier next
to him.
Why are we waiting? David asked. Look over there, the soldier replied.
David looked. The soldiers were taking something from a table.
What are they taking from the table?
Bullets of course
Bullets? What for?
Dont be stupid. Were in Belfast. Well need bullets. David took his bullets
and got into a lorry. The lorry drove through Belfast. David looked out at the
streets. Many of the shops were closed. Many of the houses were empty. The
town was full of soldiers.
Soon the lorry stopped outside an old house in a poor street. The house did
not have any windows. There was wood in front of the windows.
There was writing on the wall of the house. The writing said: Soldiers go
home. The soldiers got out of the lorry and went into the house. They were
going to live in the old house for four months.
David went upstairs to his room. There were six beds in Davids room. One
of the soldiers in the room was called Pete. He also came from Liverpool.
Pete was twenty years old. He was always happy. He was quite short and
had dark hair.
David and Pete talked about Liverpool. David told Pete about Carol. He felt
happy.
David learnt about Northern Ireland for the next week. He learnt about the
Catholics and the Protestants. He learnt about the history of Ireland.
And every day people died. Catholic gunmen were shooting. Protestant
gunmen were shooting. And the army was in the middle.
4) Key concepts that are introduced in the chapter
A) Automaticity:
Extensive reading is the best way for students to develop automaticity.The
automatic recognition of words when they see them.It is by far the best way
to improve their English reading and writing overall. (p. 273)
B) Authentic material:

Is language where no concessions are made to foreign speakers.

Its normal language, used by native speakers
C) Prediction:
Could be a picture in the text that gives the students an idea about what the
text is about. If the text is very formal and there are alot of unfamiliar words
the teacher can help the students buy givin them a picture or something
they can connect with the text.
Students can also predict the meaning of words.
5) How do you think predicting the content of a text or movie can help
students develop confidence and motivation?
Predicting the meaning of words or text gives them a door into the text/ gets
them working on the text without the pressure of having to understand the
whole thing. They are excited to see if their prediction is right.
6) What could you do to facilitate the reading and help the students
overcome some of these comprehension obstacles (see fx. Harmer p. 272275)
Lead-in on the topic: what is the text about? Brainstorm: what do you know
about vampires?
Pre-teach vocabulary: choose difficult words and make the students look the
words up in a dictionary. It is important that they understand the words
perfectly to make sure they get a better understanding of the text.
characterize the persons
Read a chapter
Answer questions about to text in pairs.
See the chapter on film, without subtiles
7) Explain figure 3 (p. 276): A basic methodological model for teaching
productive skills.
Lead-in stage: Engage students with the topic
Set the task: explain what the students are going to do.
Monitor the task: The teacher listens to the students working and helps
them where they are having difficulties.
Task feedback: We help the students to see how they have done.
Task-related follow-up: choosing something we have picked up in the
monitoring that the students need to work on.

Repetition is very important!

Harmer, chapter 17-18:

Reading activity, Example 4: The right film

The students are told to use computers and the Internet. They are going to
the cinema to find a movie for them selves and a 13 year old. The students
have to check reviews and choose an appropriate movie.

Before starting the assignment the teacher explains the British rating
system and guide the students to use the Guardian Unlimited which is one
of Britains most read newspapers.

They have to check every movie suitable for the target group and read the
reviews. Afterwards they have to choose one of the movies and present it
for their classmates.

I recommend this assignment to other teachers because it is much suitable

for kids. They will have to use the Internet which most kids like. Furthermore
they are able to discover new movies and at the same time they read a lot
and practice their spoken English while giving a presentation of the movie
review.

Listening activity, Example 1: Interviewing a stranger

The teacher invites a stranger into the class. The stranger could easily be a
competent English speaker. The stranger is shortly briefed about the
students level in the language the use and informed not to go into long
explanations and speak clearly.

The student is working in groups. They are guessing as much as possible

about the stranger. Based on their discussion and guesses they produce

questions for the stranger to answer. The teacher makes sure that the
students makes follow-up questions Where are you from? Scotland
Where in Scotland?

While interviewing the stranger the students make notes to use in a later
written assignment. It could be a short biographical piece about the
stranger.

I recommend this assignment because I think it is funny for the students

because stranger. They hear a lot of well-spoken English. They could be
motivated to talk more because of the stranger.

As a teacher you will have a lot of possibilities to work with the students and
their notes.

Chapter 20 Speaking in Jeremy Harmer, Language teaching:

Reading this chapter I began to think of the many ways to handle the
speaking activities in the classroom as a teacher. Before reading this
chapter I havent paid to much attention to the fact repair strategies, but
when I think about it makes good sense. A lot of my own conversations are
built on these various discourse makers.

Trough this first year we have tried lot of these ideas, which is described in
the chapter. The set-up with smaller discussion-groups instead of speaking
in front of the whole class is very helpful for the shy students. We tried it a
few times during the teaching at Skovbyskolen and it worked very well. I
noticed that the shy students were more willing to cooperate and take part
in the discussions.

Role-play simulation gives the students the possibility of rehearsing and

cross some mental limitations in terms of speaking in front of the class. We
tried in with Alice and had a lot of fun with it at that time.

All in all this chapter is very helpful and makes me think of the different
strategies I have as a teacher in terms of teaching and speaking English in
the classroom.