The Three-Stage Approach to Teaching Receptive Language Skills

Skills that are taught in an English classroom are commonly referred as receptive and productive skills. Receptive skills which are reading and listening enable learners to develop their vocabulary. The more they listen and read, the more words they come across. As they absorb these new words, they learn to interpret them based on the context. Teaching receptive language skills improves learners’ language comprehension and slowly they use this in developing productive skills which are speaking and writing.

Receptive Skills Mechanism:  

When we read or listen to something, we generally have a reason for doing so. So, we need to put that in our consideration when we teach reading and listening in the classroom.  

We should teach reading and listening for usefulness and interest or pleasure and intellectual stimulation. We should bring one of these two categories and our approach to teaching receptive language skills should reflect our students’ expectations about what they are going to encounter in real-life situations, so the context should be sufficient, authentic and motivating. 

So we use the following three-stage approach to teaching receptive language skills 

1- Pre: 

To generate interest before starting the task. We should prepare learners for what they are going to hear or read. When they predict the related vocabulary, their brains will be activated to help them better understand what they’re going to listen or read.

2- While: 

To develop sub skills; skimming for gist and scanning for details. 

First focus on general understanding, second on deeper, third, ask them for further reading or listening for more specific details.

3-Post: 

To extend and exploit the topic with a follow up activity. You can hold a discussion or they can write a short piece of writing responding to a text.

Generally, you should consider these questions before teaching receptive language skills:

• What will you do in the pre-stage? How will you set the context and create interest?
• What strategies will you use in while-stage? What sub-skills you focus on?
• What techniques will you use to wrap up your lesson and assess your students?

The Three-Stage Approach to Teaching Listening 

1- Warm-up (lead in) stage: 

TTT (test, teach, test) through using visual clues (a video and some drawing inferences. To identify a purpose,

2- While listening: 

Specify a reason of listening. Ask students to listen more than once, repeat the listening track. Start with easy tasks first to gain confidence.

3- Post listening:

We use the information and knowledge gained to produce speaking skill. It helps to consolidate what has been learnt. The best strategy to be utilized is 

“Think, pair, share” to enhance the skills in analyzing information and find out solutions to the problems. 

The Three-Stage Approach to Teaching Reading:

1- Warm-up (lead in) stage:  

Teaching vocabulary is crucial before starting the reading text to explain the vocabulary that may hinder the understanding of the passage through a matching exercise to find definitions 

2- While Reading:  

We focus on the reading sub-skills, skimming to get the general idea through multiple questions, then scanning to look for details.

3- Post Reading: 

We can use “3, 2, 1 strategy” to write down three things they learnt, two interesting things they read, one question they have.

Asking critical thinking questions or starting a debate on what they think of is important to improve learners’ comprehension. Start applying personalization to make it more realistic and authentic. 

We can use “word cloud tools” to assess vocabulary. Divide learners into groups and assign each group a paragraph and ask them to create a word map mind then use the words to answer the questions. 

We can also use “Jigsaw activity” by dividing students into groups and asking them to read, practice and discuss. Cut up the paragraphs and ask them to re-arrange them.

Further Activities for Teaching Reading and Listening:

1- Do an interview:

Students can record on an interview with a community helper, one student is the interviewer, and the other is the community helper. Decide who you’d like to interview. Then the interviewer should ask at least five questions about this person’s work and future plans. Some questions might be asked about the person’s family, life, interest and opinion.

2- Read to write: 

Ask students to write a reflection about their favorite community helper. Or write a poem or even a song.

3- Create a poster:

They can make a poster about the community service activities they would like to take part in and the benefits and drawbacks of these activities. Then share them in the class through “gallery walk” activity as they can hang these charts and gave feedback through peer assessment.

Thanks for reading

Author Bio:

Mohamed Ramadan – ELT Supervisor, EFL Teacher Trainer, Having a Master's Degree in Educational Psychology - Specializing in Brain-Based Learning, Owner of elttguide.com For EFL Teacher Professional Development.