Teaching Language Skills for Prospective English Teachers

Teaching Language Skills Course is one of the core courses offered in English Language Teaching (ELT) programs. As we all know, nothing is the same as it was a decade ago, thus, we need to update our theoretical and practical knowledge in the teaching of these skills. Therefore, in this book, we aim to highlight the current trends in teaching language skills from some distinguished faculties’ view points. In each chapter, we review the skills within the framework of their historical development and pedagogical implications followed by a sample plan.In Chapter 1, Dr. Enisa Mede and Dr. Yesim Kesli Dollar draw attention to teaching reading skill and they help students have an insight into the history of reading, providing them with the skills and strategies needed to be able to integrate reading in language classrooms. At the end of the chapter, they introduce some sample lesson plans for reading in order to help students understand the steps of reading instruction in foreign language education.In Chapter 2, Dr. Ekrem Solak and Gamze Erdem focus on teaching listening skill which is called as a Cinderalla Skill overlooked by its elder sister speaking. They maintain that listening is not a passive skill but an active process of constructing meaning from a stream of sounds. At the end of the chapter, current issues in the teaching of listening skill are highlighted to indicate the future direction of this skill. In addition, a sample lesson plan is added to link the theory and practice in the teaching of this interactive skill.In Chapter 3, Dr. Yasar Kürüm places an emphasis on teaching speaking skill and he states that speaking is more than to form grammatically correct sentences; it rather covers broad areas of mechanics, functions, pragmatics and social interaction. He also highlights that in contemporary methodologies, the emphasis in speaking is fluency rather than accuracy. Awareness raising activities, controlled activities and autonomous activities are elaborated by the author. In addition, some speaking strategies are introduced to encourage the unmotivated students to produce speaking in language classroom.In Chapter 4, Dr. Betül Bal Gezegin addresses teaching writing as a skill for future second language (L2) writing teachers. She asserts that teachers who teach English as a second/foreign language need to understand the components of writing, what it means as a skill, and what it requires to teach it in language classrooms. She provides readers with historical and theoretical background to teaching writing in English. Then she touches upon main approaches to teaching writing (product, process and genre based approaches) with their key ideas and foundational practices. She ends the chapter with a genre-based sample lesson plan as a suggestion and practical instructional model for teaching writing.In Chapter 5, Dr. Ismail Firat Altay elaborates on teaching pronunciation as an integral part of language learning and teaching process. He draws attention to the fact that Turkish learners of English may have difficulties in pronunciation as a result of the main differences between the two languages. To overcome the difficulties, teachers of English language need to make use of some specific ways of pronunciation teaching. He proposes the audio articulation model and dwells the basic ways of pronunciation teaching on the mentioned model. Finally, he presents two pronunciation teaching lesson plans to learners to see pronunciation teaching in a concrete way.In Chapter 6, Dr. Mehmet Altay and Dr. Kenan Dikilitas discuss the teaching vocabulary skill for student teachers. They stress that vocabulary teaching has always been among the most popular issues of linguistic pedagogy though the needs, strategies, and purposes of language learners may have shown variation in time. In this chapter, our readers are introduced to some prominent incidents which shape the conception of vocabulary learning and teaching. A couple of questions rel