Chapter Blog for Chapter 6 Oracy Instruction That Builds on the First Language

The title, “ Oracy Instruction that Builds on the First Language” attracted my attention as I am going to take two kids to California this summer (am I too brave? ). This chapter discusses about the oracy processes-how people learn to listen and speak in a second language. It is interesting to know that children learn to engage in higher level thinking by learning first how to communicate (Diaz-Rico, 2008, p. 146). Oracy skills are developed by oracy training.
Listening activities are categorized listening to repeat, listening to understand, and listening for communication. Listening to repeat is learned by audio-lingual teaching, students repeat exactly what they hear. Listening can be taught by the task approach such as assigning students to create listening journal entries, audio taping selections culled from a variety of sources, and listening to the real world. Listening can be combined with other language modes as part of an integrated approach to English-language acquisition. Prelistening tasks are including preview of vocabulary and previewing the rhetorical structure of casual explanation. While listening, students can follow an outline as they listen, take notes cued by a set of questions. Or it will be a helpful strategy for English learners to videotape a lesson while students simply listen to the lecture (Adamson, 1993).
After listening, students can join many kinds of activities such as writing, discussing, reading, drawing or acting out their interpretation of the content(Diaz-Rico, 2008, p. 151).