“COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE ORAL PRODUCTION”

Why do students desire to increase their speaking abilities?

It is rare for people who study another language not to have a desire to speak it.

Conversation practice it is probably the most reliable route to true communication.

(Dobson J., 1985:01)

FLUENCY:

Regarding to fluency in oral production, Bygate M. (1987) says that students tend to use certain features that enable them to sound normal when speaking in the target language.

“we can see how helpful it is for learners to be able to facilitate oral production by using these features, and how important it is for them to get used to compensating for the problems (Bygate M., 1987)”.

Facilitation strategies consist of several features that students use to increase their oral production like:

A) Simplification: Students tend to use this devise when they

connect new sentences with conjunctions like “and”, “or” “but”, or no conjunction at all.

Besides, they often avoid the use of complex sentences in order to facilitate what they want to say.

B) Ellipsis: This feature consists of the omission of parts of a

sentence. Students make use of abbreviation. Example: “Who?”,

“On Saturday?”, “the big one”.

In order to understand both, the speaker and the listener must have a clear idea of what they are talking about. These omissions occur because people do not always speak in complete sentences.

C) Formulaic expressions: They consist of all kinds of expressions and

phrases that have normal meanings and tend to go together.

Example: “Who does he think he is?”, “It’s very nice to meet you”, “I don’t believe a word of it”.

D) Time-creating devices: These set of strategies tend to give more time to

students to formulate what they want to say.

Example:

- Fillers: They are phrases like: “erm”, “you see”, “kind of”, “sort of”, and so on.

- Repetition: When students repeat or rephrase what they or the person has said.

- Hesitation: This is, repeating words while trying to find the needed word.

E) Short cuts:

Short cuts help students to get to the point in a conversation. This can cause confusion to a person who is not following the conversation. Example:

A: I don’t know where they come from.

B) Water them. A) I can’t here.

COMPENSATION STRATEGIES

Compensation strategies are used because the time to plan what to say and say it is very short.

Students often change what they said. This is normal, permitted, and necessary in speech.

Compensation strategies consist on self-correction, false starts, repetition, and rephrasing.

The following extract shows how students give themselves time to plan what to say and use self- correction:

. . . this picture and this picture I think I have erm (. . . .) in an airport or a place like that –erm-oh six people-seven maybe-one is running out. The one of the rooms with a handbag-another one is –erm-drinking-coffee I think. Probably (. . .) and there is a lady there is a lady passing by I suppose or observing . . . . (Bygate, 1987, p. 19).

ACTIVITIES:

1. Describe what you see in the pictures.

2. Practice saying and extending the next dialogues.

Dialogue A.

J: Hello? P:Hello, Peter. This is John. J: Hi, there. Peter, could you do me a favor?

I’m playing squash tonight, but my racquet’s broken. Could I borrow yours?

P: Sure, no problem. J: Thanks a lot. I’ll come and get it in half an

hour, if that’s OK. P: Yeah, I’ll be here. J:O.K. Bye.

Dialogue B. R: Good morning. International School of

English. B: Hello, could I speak to Anne Baker, please? R: One moment, please. C: Hello? B: Hello. Can I speak to Anne Baker, please? C: Speaking. B: Oh, hello. I saw your advertisement about

English classes in a magazine. Could you send me some information, please?

C: Of course. Can I have your name and address, please?