assignment reading.docx

Authentic materials

Old Mother HubbardWent to the cupboard,To give the poor dog a bone;When she came thereThe cupboard was bare,And so the poor dog had none.

She went to the baker'sTo buy him some bread;

When she came backThe dog was dead.

She went to the undertaker'sTo buy him a coffin;

When she came backThe dog was laughing.

She took a clean dishTo get him some tripe;When she came back

He was smoking a pipe.

She went to the fruiterer'sTo buy him some fruit;When she came back

He was playing the flute.

She went to the tailor'sTo buy him a coat;

When she came backHe was riding a goat.

She went to the hatter'sTo buy him a hat;

When she came backHe was feeding the cat.

She went to the barber'sTo buy him a wig;

When she came backHe was dancing a jig.

She went to the cobbler'sTo buy him some shoes;

When she came backHe was reading the news.

She went to the seamstressTo buy him some linen;When she came backThe dog was spinning.

She went to the hosier'sTo buy him some hose;When she came back

He was dressed in his clothes.

The dame made a curtsy,The dog made made a bow;

The dame said, "Your servant,"The dog said, "Bow-wow."

(The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and Her Dog by Sarah Catherine Merine)

Type of reading lesson: Poem

Target group : Year 5

Stage of the reading lesson: While Reading

Theme : World of Knowledge

Topic: People

Activities involving the material :

Any other relevant information :

In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An

Ant passed by, bearing along with great effort an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling away?" "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same." "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; "we have got plenty of food at present."

But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing, every day, corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer.Then the Grasshopper knew..

MORAL: WORK TODAY AND YOU CAN REAP THE BENEFITS TOMORROW!

Type of reading lesson: Story

Target group :

Stage of the reading lesson: Pre-reading,

Theme :

Topic:



Type of reading lesson:

Target group :

Stage of the reading lesson:

Theme :

Topic:



From : Ubin

Date : 2 April 2011

To : Kavita

Subject : trekking in the jungle.

Dear Kavita,

Hope you are well. Aiman and I went to jungle trekking last week. Let

me tell you about our trip in the jungle.

During our trip, I thought I heard a witch laughing! It was only a hornbill.

A hornbill has a long tail and a big beak. It uses its beak to collect fruits and crack

nuts.

Later, we walked quietly by a river. We saw a big crocodile. The crocodile was

gliding through the river, using its long tail.

Crocodiles have flaps over their ears to stop water from entering their ears. We

quickly walked away from the river.

During lunch, Aiman started laughing when he saw a proboscis Monkey. It had

reddish fur, a huge nose and a large port of belly. When it angry, its nose gets bigger

and redder! I started laughing too

At night, we saw pangolin. It has a long thin snout but it does not have teeth. It used

its long claws to break open an ants’ nest. After that, it licked the ants with its long

tongue. Yuck! Unfortunately, the pangolin rolled up into a ball to protect itself when it

heard us.

I will tell you more when we meet. See you then!

Ubin

Type of reading lesson: E-mail

Target group : Year 5

Stage of the reading lesson: While reading


Topic: Animals and Us

Activities involving the material : Reading aloud , silent reading, puzzle and rearranging the sentences

Any other relevant information : Discussion on endangered animals

Lesson Plan ( READING )

Date :

Time : 30 minutes

Class : Year 5

Nos. Of students : 39

Level : Intermediate


Topic : Animals and us

Learning Outcomes : 3.3 Read and understand phrases,

sentences,paragraphs and whole texts.

Curriculum Specification : 3.3.3 Read and understand simple paragraphs

Objectives : By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

i) Read the e-mail expressively and fluentlyii) Read silently and rearrange the sentences

according to their sequence.

Prior Knowledge : Students have learnt the names of wild animals

Teaching-learning resources : pictures of animals, an-example of e-mail, Ppt of

“Trekking in the jungle”

Moral Value : Protect and care for the endangered animals.

Stage /Time

Content Teacher activity Student Activity Resources

Set Induction(2min)

Name the animals

1. Teacher calls a few students and asks them to name the animals in the jungle.

1. Students name the animals that they saw in the jungle.

Picture of a jungle.

Pre-Reading(3min)

ASample of E-mail

1. Teacher shows an example of e-mail.

2. She asks about writing an e-mail.

1. Students answer the teacher’s questions.

An example of e-mail.

While-Reading(12min)

E-mail “Trekking in the jungle”

1. Teacher asks the students to read the e-mail aloud.

2. Teacher corrects their pronunciation and explains the meaning of the words such as witch, hornbill, flaps and snout.

3. Then, she asks the pupils to read silently and label the part of the body.

1. Students read the story together.

2. They repeat certain words after teacher.

3. Students read silently and label the parts of the animals.

E-mail “Trekking in the jungle” on powerpoint.

Pictures of hornbill,crocodile,Proboscis monkey and pangolin.

Post-Reading(10min)

Game 1. Teacher asks the students to sit in groups.

2. She asks the students to select a group leader.

3. She distributes an envelope to each of the groups.

4. Teacher explains the rules of the game. The envelope

consists of picture puzzles and sentence strips.

The students have to arrange the puzzle into pictures of animals.

Then, they arrange the sentence strips according to the pictures.

The group which complete the game quickly and correctly is the winner.

1. The students sit in groups.

2. They take out pictures and sentence strips and play the game.

3. The first group to complete the game correctly is the winner.

envelopes, picture puzzles and sentence strips.

Closure(3min)

Discussion on the animals that are facingextinction.

1. Teacher asks the students to name the animals that are endangered.

2. She also asks why these animals should be protected.

1. Students answer teacher’s questions.

Teaching & learning strategy Notes

Assessment :

1. Silent reading

Teacher tests students’ comprehension by asking what they have learnt through Ubin’s experience trekking the jungle

Remedial: Teacher drills on pronunciations of words and phrases in the e-mail for example: a witch laughing, gliding through a river, a proboscis monkey and a large pot of belly.

Enrichment: Students role play the experience of Ubin and Aiman trekking the jungle.

1. Abbott, G. & P. Wingard. (1985). The Teaching of English as an International Language: A Practical Guide. Great Britain.

2. Austin S. . (1970). Speaking & Listening:A Contemporary Approach. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. USA

3. Carroll E. R. (1969). The Learning of Language. National Council of Teachers of English Publication. New York.

4. Celce Å\Murcia, M. & L. mcIntosh. (1979). Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. Newbury House Publishers, Inc. Massachusetts.

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Saricoban-Listening.html

The Teaching of Listening

Arif Saricoban

Hacettepe University (Beytepe-Ankara, Turkey)

arifs [at] hun. edu. tr

Listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying. This

involves understanding a speaker's accent or pronunciation, his grammar and his

vocabulary, and grasping his meaning (Howatt and Dakin). An able listener is

capable of doing these four things simultaneously. Willis (1981:134) lists a series of

micro-skills of listening, which she calls enabling skills. They are:

predicting what people are going to talk about

guessing at unknown words or phrases without panic

using one's own knowledge of the subject to help one understand

identifying relevant points; rejecting irrelevant information

retaining relevant points (note-taking, summarizing)

recognizing discourse markers, e. g. , Well; Oh, another thing is; Now, finally; etc.

recognizing cohesive devices, e. g. , such as and which, including linking words,

pronouns, references, etc.

understanding different intonation patterns and uses of stress, etc. , which give clues to

meaning and social setting

understanding inferred information, e. g. , speakers' attitude or intentions.

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Saricoban-Listening.html

According to Bulletin (1952), listening is one of the fundamental language skills. It's a

medium through which children, young people and adults gain a large portion of their

education--their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their

ideals, sense of values, and their appreciation. In this day of mass communication (much of

it oral), it is of vital importance that our pupils be taught to listen effectively and critically, he

says.

Listening to and understanding speech involves a number of basic processes, some

depending upon linguistic competence, some depending upon previous knowledge

that is not necessarily of a purely linguistic nature, and some depending upon

psychological variables that affect the mobilization of these competence and

knowledge in the particular task situation. The listener must have a continuous set to

listen and understand, and as he hears the utterance, he may be helped by some

kind of set to process and remember the information transmitted. His linguistic

competence enables him, presumably, to recognize the formatives of the heard

utterance, i. e. , to dissect out of the wave form of the morphemes, words, and other

meaning-bearing elements of the utterance.

Listening is a receptive skill, and receptive skills give way to productive skills. If we

have our students produce something, the teaching will be more communicative.

This brings us to the must of integrating language skills. There are two reasons for

using integrating activities in language classrooms:

1. To practice and extend the learners' use of a certain language structure or function

2. To develop the learners' ability in the use of two or more of the skills within real

contexts and communicative frame work.

Integrated activities, on the other hand, provide a variety in the classroom and thus

maintain motivation and allow the recycling and revision of language which has

already been taught separately in each skill.

How can we be certain that listening experiences will become more productive?

Wittich tells us to distinguish the four levels existing in listening to radio or

recordings:

Level 1. This mood is listening. Here, the sound remains in the background - there is

usually limited comprehension, and, indeed, limited attention. One becomes directly

aware of sounds only when they stop. Nevertheless, a certain amount of learning may

take place.

Level 2. Here the purpose is relaxation, escape, getting your mind off something rather

than on it. The material is comprehended but usually not analyzed for its value. This

listening may result in useful ideas, but they are usually peripheral and/or accidental.

Level 3. On this level, answers are sought as a key to action. One listens to weather

reports, traffic information from a plane-temporarily useful but what we might call

forgettable transient information. This form of listening does not require long, sustained

concentration.

Level 4. This is the stage of analytical and critical listening. The listener not only seeks a

serious answer to a serious question but evaluates the quality of the answer. Round-

table discussions, serious listening to talks, spirited conversation, symphonic music are

at the fourth level. At this stage, listening to music is in the foreground of attention not in

the background as on previous levels (Wittich and Schuller, 1962).

It is listening on the fourth level that primarily concerns us in our teaching. Such listening

may add an emotional and dramatic quality. Radio and recordings highlight the importance

of listening. Listening is as active as speaking (the other receptive skill), and in some ways

even more difficult. It well requires attention, thought, interpretation, and imagination. To

improve our learners' listening skills we should let them (Austin Shrope, 1970):

1. Adopt a positive attitude.

2. Be responsive.

3. Shut out distractions.

4. Listen for the speaker's purpose.

5. Look for the signals of what is to come.

6. Look for summaries of what has gone before.

7. Evaluate the supporting materials.

8. Look for non-verbal clues.

We can call listening a decoding -making sense of the message process. Each short stretch

of meaningful material which is read or heard has to be;

(I) recognised as meaningful and understood on perception

(II) held in the short term memory long enough to be decoded

(III) related to what has gone before and /or what follows.

Out of this process come pieces of information which can be stored in the long term memory

for recall later. We can show the whole process in the form of a model (Abbott and Wingard,

1985).

1. Perception of sounds, letter shapes, etc.

2. Initial recognition of meaning of short stretches

3. Material held in short term memory

4. Related to material already held in short term memory

5. Related to material arriving in short-term memory

6. Meaning extracted from message and retained in long-term memory

7. Gist recalled later

We can divide the listening process into 3 stages;

1. Pre-listening (purpose must be given at this stage),

2. During (in-while) listening,

3. Post -listening (speaking).

There is an association between expectation, purpose, and comprehension, therefore a

purpose should be given to our learners. We should train students to understand what is

being said in conversations to get them to disregard redundancy, hesitation, and

ungrammaticality. The major problem is the actual way listening material is presented to the

students. We should give a clear lead in what they are going to hear; use some kind of visual

back up for them to understand; give questions and tasks in order to clarify the things in their

minds; and be sure that these tasks help in learning, not confusing. Students should learn

how use the environmental clues; the speaker's facial expression, posture, eye direction,

proximity, gesture, tone of voice, and that general surroundings contribute information.

In listening activities, we listen for a purpose. We make an immediate response to

what we hear. There are some visual or environmental clues as to the meaning of

what is heard. Stretches of heard discourse come in short chunks, and most heard

discourse is spontaneous, therefore differs from formal spoken prose in the amount

of redundancy 'noise' and colloquialisms, and its auditory character.

In listening to English as a foreign language, the most important features can be

defined as:

1. Coping with the sounds,

2. Understanding intonation and stress,

3. Coping with redundancy and noise,

4. Predicting,

5. Understanding colloquial vocabulary,

6. Fatigue,

7. Understanding different accents,

8. Using visual and environmental clues.

This brings us to the thought that, while planning exercises, listening materials, task and

visual materials should be taken into consideration. The teacher should produce a suitable

discourse while using recordings. A preset purpose, ongoing learner response, motivation,

success, simplicity, and feedback should be the things considered while preparing the task.

Visual materials are useful for contextualization. We can also categorize the goals of

listening as listening for enjoyment, for information, for persuasion, for perception and lastly

for comprehension and lastly to solve problems.

We can divide listening for comprehension into three stages;

1. Listening and making no response (following a written text, informal teacher talk)

2. Listening and making short responses (obeying instructions - physical movement,

building models, picture dictation. etc.), true- false exercises, noting specific

information, etc.

3. Listening and making longer response (repetition and dictation, paraphrasing,

answering questions, answering comprehension questions on texts, predictions,

filling gaps, summarizing, etc)

The purposes that should be in a listening activity are giving/providing:

1. General information (understanding of the main points)

2. Specific information (understanding of the particular items)

3. Cultural interest (generally informing about the target language culture)

4. Information about people's attitudes and opinions

5. The organization of ideas

6. Sequence of events

7. Lexical items (words expressing noise / movement)

8. Structural items (their use and meaning)

9. Functional items (their form and use)

Lack of sociocultural, factual, and contextual knowledge of the target language can present

an obstacle to listening comprehension. In his Language and Language Learning (1960),

Brooks discusses vital points for the student to be aware of, such as contradictions and

omissions -aspects of sandhi-variation (the changes occur in natural speech as a result of

environment, stress, intonation, rate of speed and so forth). Though Brook does not specially

refer to the term " sandhi-variation ", he does refer to the phenomenon of sadhi in his

examples: Jeet jet? (Did you eat yet?) (p. 50) . According to Brooks, native speakers in an

informal situation "habitually reduce the clarity of speech signals to the minimum required for

comprehension. "Brooks believes that it is necessary to give consideration also to the

interdependence of language and culture; for example, register, expletives, verbal taboos,

culture-bound vocabulary. He also mentions that there is a need to clarify and point out the

differences between written and spoken English.

In order to teach listening skills, a teacher should firstly state the difficulties. For a

student of a foreign language, accurate and intelligent listening is a necessity, and

the teacher is responsible to help his / her learners to acquire this skill which

provides the very foundation for learning and functioning in a language. That the

teacher can observe and isolate the errors in speaking, but could not in listening is a

difficulty. In listening, the learner can exercise no controls over the structural and

lexical range of the speaker to whom he is listening. Nevertheless, any listener can

learn to focus on significant content items, to explain in another way he can learn to

listen selectively.

Helping the learners to distinguish sounds, teaching to isolate significant content and

informational items for concentration may be provided by controlled listening

exercises. One exercise is to give him certain performance objectives -to give him

general informational questions that he should be able to answer after he listens the

material for the first time. These questions should require only the isolation of facts

clearly revealed in the material. Questions that require application or inference from

the information contained in the listening exercise are best used at later stages or

more advanced students.

More controls are necessary at less advanced levels. Sheets containing sequentially

organized and significant questions on context and content -questions that call for

one-word answers -serve as useful guides for the student. Such questions help him

filter out and listen for significant information. The questions themselves suggest the

content and provide the student with an organizational frame for selective listening.

For listening comprehension exercises, we tend to read passages, record news or

broadcasts, or prepare lectures. All of them have value, but they are extremely

difficult sources for early practice in selective listening. This type of listening

exercises does not present the redundancies, the colloquialisms, the hesitations, the

gestures and the facial expressions that are an inseparable part of the spoken

language. They emphasize informational content and fail to provide the signals used

to communicate information and meaning.

Since most of the actual listening the student will be exposed to outside of the class

is likely to be real-life conversation, it seems wisest to use materials cast in real-life

situations for listening comprehension exercises -at least at the beginning level. If the

oral instruction of the course is contextualized -set into a " situation " - it should be

easy enough to contextualize the aural practice as well. The teacher can easily

adapt to listening exercises those situations through which the text presents oral

drills and communicative activities, just by giving them a slightly different twist.

Listening exercises should be as natural as the situations from which they grow. In

other words, an exercise in listening comprehension must be as close as possible to

a "slice of life" -neither a contrived situation nor an artificially delivered discourse. By

means of this, a teacher has a great work to do, and has to be a very creative person

in order to teach listening communicatively.

Lesson PlanTopic: Beauty Contest

Duration: 20 minutes

Level: Upper Intermediate

Materials: Pictures, blackboard, tape, tape-recorder

Goals: Students are asked to understand when they listen to a speech. This lesson will at least make the students take one step to get accustomed to hearing and understanding what they hear. Objectives: By the end of the lesson the students will understand the significance of listening.

ACTIVITIES

Pre-listening Activities: The teacher asks the students what they are going to listen to. A discussion atmosphere is tried to be created. At this stage pictures are used effectively.

During Listening Activities: While students are listening to the tape the teacher asks them to take some notes.

Post-listening Activities: The teacher writes some questions on the board and asks them to answer the questions. They are also stimulated to talk and participate in the activity dominantly.

I. PRE-LISTENIG ACTIVITIES

The teacher hangs the pictures on the board and tries to make the students talk about the subjects.

T: Do you think that they are beautiful?

S:. . .

T: Can you guess the name of the first competitor?

S:. . .

T: Can you guess the height of the second competitor?

S:. . .

T: What nationality does the third girl belong to? What is your opinion?

S:. . .

II. DURING LISTENING ACTIVITIES

The teacher asks the students to listen to the tape very carefully. And he gives information lists to the students. While they are listening to the tape they try to fill the blanks with appropriate information. If no information appears for any blank on the list, students are asked to put a cross on the blank provided for the required information.

III. POST-LISTENING ACTIVITY

The teacher writes on the board some questions. Students answer these questions to test whether they understood what they have listened or not.

1. Whose name is the best? Why do you think so?2. Who is the tallest one of all?3. Who is the oldest one of all?4. Who is the heaviest one of all?5. What nationality does the first one belong to?6. What nationality does the second one belong to?7. What nationality does the third one belong to?8. Who can speak two languages?9. What are those languages?10. Whose favorite film star is Leonardo Di Caprio?11. What does Suzanne Kerrigan mean by saying" I hope the political situation of my

country will not effect this kind of a contest?"IV. ASSIGNMENT

At home listen to the information about the people whose names are in the chart below and copmlete the missing information.

Elizabeth Mccornick

Alexandra Bellomonti

Suzanne Kerrigan

Nationality: Canadian

Nationality: Italian Nationality:

Weight: 53 Weight: 51 Weight: 56

Age: 21 Age: 20 years old Age: 22

Languages: Languages: Languages:

Hobbies: Hobbies: Hobbies:

Profession: Profession: Profession:

Height:: Height: Height:1. 73

Her mother's name:

TRANSCRIPT

I'm Elizabeth Mccornick. I'm participating from Canada. I'm 21 years old and I weigh 53 kilos. I am a girl of 90-60-90. I am a bilingual person; that means I can speak two languages fluently and accurately: English and French. I prefer going to movies than enjoying theatrical acts. My favorite film star is Leonardo Di Caprio. My friends say that I am a good cook as well. I admit I like cooking traditional dishes in my spare time. I wish my best wishes to the other contestants. Thanks.

Good evening! I would like to greet all the people watchin watching and participating this contest. My name is Alexandra Bellomonti and I'm from Italy. I am 20 years old and 51 kilos I weigh. I like going out with my friends at the weekends. I can also say that I'm studying really hard and I am expecting to be accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I really have a great desire for being a genetic engineer in the future. Thank you!

Hello everybody! I am Suzanne Kerrigan from the USA. I was born in 1976, in LA, California. I confess I weigh 56 kilos but I'm 1. 73 cm tall and that subdues my weight I think. I like skating on ice and I'm an amateur figure skater. I also like foreign and strange meals if they prove to be delicious, of course. Finally, I hope the political situation of my country will not effect this kind of a contest

Recording Speaking Tests for Oral AssessmentIain Lambert

iain [at] cck.dendai.ac.jpTokyo Denki University (Tokyo, Japan)

Oral Communication courses are a common feature of English Programmes at Japanese Universities; however it can be difficult to provide a record of how they were assessed. In my workplace this has become an issue as the Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (JABEE) now require records to be kept of all academic results throughout a student's university career. In this article I describe how I prepared my students for oral examinations that were recorded on mini disc and discuss some of the positive and negative aspects of the process.

Introduction

Class Profile

The tests were given at the end of term to nine classes of between 26-31 First year Japanese university students majoring in electrical and mechanical engineering, predominantly male, upper elementary to pre-intermediate level. Students were streamed at the start of the academic year into seven bands according to the results of a combined reading/listening placement test. The students described here were in the first (intermediate level) and fifth (beginner/elementary) bands.

Aims

To gauge students' ability to initiate and develop a conversation and check uptake of lexis presented during the course.

To provide evidence of standards of pronunciation and communicative ability. To provide practice in a test format that students may encounter in the future e.g.

Cambridge Main Suite exams.

Approach to Assessment

Students received a final course grade out of 100, of which the speaking test counted for 35 marks. Given the disparate levels of the students I decided to adopt a criterion-referenced as opposed to a norm-referenced approach. Criterion-referenced testing is defined as, "a test which measures a test-taker's performance according to a particular standard or criterion that has been agreed on. The test-taker must reach this level of performance to pass the test, and a test-taker's score is interpreted with reference to the criterion score, rather than to the scores of other test-takers, which is the case with a norm-referenced test." (Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics 3 rd Ed, Richards & Schmidt, Longman 2002). Thus, it was necessary to have a clear set of statements describing what the learners can and cannot do at each level. These, together with recordings of the student-student interviews, would provide a clear justification for the marks awarded. I chose to use the descriptors for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) examination. These give a mark in bands from 0 to a maximum of 9 for the following four categories: Fluency & Coherence, Pronunciation, Lexical resource and Grammar. I decided to add a fifth category based on the Scoring Rubric given for Conversation tests (see appendix below) on p50 of the Teacher's Book for the set text, J-Talk by Linda Lee, Kensaku Yoshida & Steve

Ziolkowski (OUP 2000). My reasoning was that a mark in this category would specifically reflect their uptake and use of language and conversational strategies presented in the text. I was not interested in comparing individual students or classes (as in a norm-referenced test) as I specifically wanted to concentrate on measuring what they had absorbed from the term's lessons. Thus, students were assessed on five well-defined criteria, each of which was marked out of 7 (based on an assumption that 7 would be the maximum likely score for my students in each category, were they to actually do the Speaking section of the IELTS exam).

ProcedureThe lack of available space and constraints on time meant that interviews had to be carried out in class in the penultimate lesson of term while students were doing a written test. As this was the first time both the students and I had attempted anything like this on such a scale, I decided to give the students as much support as possible without compromising the validity of the test. Thus, in the lesson before the test each class was given a series of revision tasks covering each unit they were to be tested on (see Lesson plan 1) and then went around the classroom in pairs, using (unknown to them) the actual cue cards from the test, which I had stuck on the wall around the room, to have conversations. Finally, following a general feedback session, I announced that the final test role cards would be similar to those they had just looked at and that I would be putting them on the Departmental intranet a week before the test. Students would thus have a chance of getting a good mark if they prepared for each of the roles, knowing that they had a one in five chance.

On the day of the test, after taking the register I explained the procedure to students before handing out the written test papers and an end-of-term questionnaire to be completed if they finished the test early. I went through the written paper section by section and pointed out the area set aside at the back of the class for the speaking tests, telling the class that once they had started the written test I would be calling them out in random pairs and giving them a role card. They would have a minute to read through the card together and then two or three minutes to have a conversation, which would be recorded. Students were not permitted to leave the room until all the speaking tests were finished and the time allotted for the written test (one hour) had elapsed. I used the back of the ID cards I'd had the students make at the start of term (with a photo and short biographical notes) to note down their performance based on the IELTS and J-Talk assessment criteria.

The main problems arising from the rather cramped conditions were twofold. Firstly, despite having had time to prepare and rehearse, the students naturally felt some pressure being forced to speak in front of their peers and, as a result, some chose to speak in a low voice, which made it difficult for their partners to respond and also meant that they were not recorded properly. Secondly, I was worried that students who were called later in the session might have had an advantage in that they could hear what other students had said and use some of that language in their own interview. This didn't actually end up being much of a problem due to having five different role cards and drawing them at random. Also, as noted above, some students tended to speak in quite a low voice owing to the pressure of the situation which meant they couldn't be heard by others.

Giving students the actual role cards in advance raised the possibility that they might simply memorise large "parts" of the text and end up using them inappropriately. From my point of view this was not necessarily a bad thing, given that the idea of the test was to see if they could use and respond appropriately to such language.

ConclusionsWhile I felt that the format of the speaking tests was fundamentally good, the actual test conditions proved more detrimental to the process than anticipated, and there was some negative feedback to this effect in end of term questionnaires. Students were put under pressure by the lack of space and the recording process, which wasn't entirely successful anyway due to problems with equipment, including the microphone being too sensitive to outside noises. There were some unanticipated problems with another class having a listening test in a neighbouring classroom. This certainly distracted my class and sound leaking into our room turned up on the student recordings. On the positive side, however, the use of role cards provided a good way to initiate interaction (in fact the Cambridge main suite exams use this method) and it was a good idea to give the students a chance to not only simulate test conditions (to a certain extent) in the previous lesson, but also to think about what they would say by putting the actual test roles on the Intranet. I think that the problems mentioned above concerning the test conditions could be significantly reduced by having a mock test simulating actual conditions as a follow up to the activities given below in lesson plan 1.

Appendix

Materials/Aids:

Mini disc player with main cord and extension cable External microphone. Important to check settings for the recording level. Spare batteries for microphone Descriptors (IELTS & J-Talk) Student role cards (set of 5) Student ID cards

Lesson Plan 1 (for review/preview session) 90 minute lesson

Stage 1

Passive

Review

After taking the roll and going through a board plan of the day's lesson, the teacher assigns students to five groups and explains that they will work together to review the course in preparation for the speaking test.

The teacher assigns each group one Unit from the material covered from the course book.

Students work together and write down questions based on the language/topics of their respective units.

The teacher monitors and helps where necessary.

5 minutes

15 minutes

(20)

Stage 2

Active

Review

The teacher now assigns students to new groups, each containing at least one student from those in stage 1.

Students ask and answer each others' questions using Answer Plus strategies.

The teacher monitors and notes difficulties.

During this stage, the teacher puts two sets of the role cards (below) on the wall around the classroom.

25 minutes

(45)

Stage 3

Practice for Speaking Test

The teacher gives feedback on the activity, especially referring to groups which used the Answer Plus strategy effectively.

The teacher points out the role cards on the wall and explains the new activity. The students will work in pairs in a non-threatening environment (i.e. "protected&quo; by the surrounding conversations of other students) in simulation of the speaking test.

(The teacher and a student can demonstrate the activity if necessary.)

The teacher assigns the students to pairs.

The students go around the room having

5 minutes

5 minutes

20 minutes

(75)

short conversations. There is no writing.

The teacher monitors, providing assistance and noting problem areas for students or difficulties with the wording of the role cards.

(The teacher nominates some pairs if appropriate.)

Stage 4 Give general feedback and administrative information for next week's test.

10 minutes

(85)

Final Test Role Cards

NamesAsk each other about your own names, and your relatives' names.

Try to give as much information as you can.

DrinksAsk each other about a drink that you like.


FoodAsk each other about your favourite foods.

Describe the ingredients and the recipe if you can.


FashionAsk each other about the clothes you are wearing now.


First DatesAsk each other about your idea of a perfect date.


Scoring Rubric for Conversation Tests

Excellent

(For the purposes of the speaking test I graded Students in this category 7-6)

Presents ideas clearly. Is able to fluently express ideas and ask and answer questions from classmates with ease. Is willing to take risks and test out new language presented in a unit.

Good

Graded 5

Presents ideas well enough to be understood. Is able to give brief answers to questions from classmates. Takes some risks.

Satisfactory

Graded 4

Speaks with some hesitation, but can communicate basic ideas. Shows hesitation in understanding and responding to classmates' questions and comments. Occasionally uses new vocabulary, but generally does not take risks.

Needs Improvement

Graded 3-1

Attempts to speak, but has difficulty communicating basic ideas to classmates. Has difficulty understanding classmates' questions and comments.

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