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Unit 3 discusses some of the most common learning and teaching language methods and techniques. Some of these involve language translation and rules, repetitive drills, contextual scenarios and semantics as well as task and function based approaches. The reading indicates that each method has its pluses and minuses. Careful considerations should be given to the choosing of methods and techniques such as: the amount of student exposure to the language, reasonable feedback from the teacher, attending to and beyond student centered communicative tasks, keeping student anxiety and stress to a minimum, encouraging students to discover language on their own and the giving of equal importance to grammar and vocabulary. Although the reading considers many methods, techniques and factors in teaching ESL, it offers three stages that can include most or if not all the elements discussed. These stages are identified as engage, study and activate. In the engage stage, the teacher through thought provoking questions or techniques evokes the student?s interest in thinking about the language. In the study stage the teacher introduces new language concepts and provides exercises and feedback to the students. In the activate stage, students are encouraged to creatively integrate the new language concepts with what they already know. The reading then provides the different forms which the stages can be employed, (e.g. straight arrow, boomerang and patchworks, followed by many activities and factors that teachers can considered within each stage.
