( 1 ) Speak Out A Step-by-step Fluency Activity for English Learners

Leng HuiBy:

It is generally agreed that fluency is an essential requirement for communicative competence. It is also agreed that an excessive concern with accuracy will raise the affective filter and block fluency. One way of overcoming this obstacle is to provide students with so much oral input and output in communicative activities that they are forced to focus on meaning rather than on monitoring grammar rules. This article describes one activity called Speak Out , which my students used successfully to achieve fluency in the classroom. Speak Out is a 30-minute speaking activity which works well in an integrative skill program.

The objective of the activity is to improve students' fluency through communicative interactions. The topic of the activity is personal experience, discussing rites of passage. There are three main procedures in the activity, which progress from a controlled interaction to a guided activity, and finally to a free, social interaction.

Three proceduresI. Controlled interaction - group work :

It is a pre-communicative interaction. It is controlled in the sense that the students depend to a great extent on the text. In other words, both the topic that the students are going to discuss and the language used for the discussion are based on the Speak Out starts after students have read an article "Rites of Passage" individually

and returned the handout to the teacher. In this procedure, there are two tasks. The first one asks the group members to discuss the meaning of the title, "Rites of Passage." The second one asks each member to take his/her turn to retell one of the milestones experienced by the author. (There are 13 mentioned in the text.) To scaffold the interaction, the teacher draws the students' attention to Table 1 (See Table 1 on the black board. Students will speak using both the text and the table while one student describes the milestones, others in the group interact with him/her cooperatively.

They can help the speakers when they have difficulty expressing themselves, so that the communication does not break down and the whole class develops a positive and participatory atmosphere. The class is told to form groups of four, each with a volunteer student group leader to ensure the progress of the activity. Each group has 10 minutes; first, to discuss the meaning of the title and to reach a group agreement; second, to retell one milestone event mentioned in the text. The listeners should be supportive and cooperative, not interrupting but rather asking clarification questions for aspects which are not clear.

II. Guided interaction-pair workProcedure II is a guided by interaction. The

students now form into pairs. Each student is provided with a picture. There are seven pictures in a set, covering some of the most important events in an average American's life. The students discuss the pictures they receive from the teacher.

But it is left to the students to decide how to describe the pictures or what words are used for the description. The pictures depict stages in life such as starting school, obtaining a driving license, graduating from high school, becoming financially independent, getting married, having children, and retiring. Procedure II calls for careful organization on the part of the teacher because it is necessary to ensure that each student in the pair will be given different pictures, which will not be shown to partners. These pictures guide the students to talk further about the topic, activating their prior knowledge for Procedure III, free interaction.

After each person has obtained a picture, the whole class examines the picture closely for a while, and then each student takes a turn using his/her own words to describe the picture to his/her partner. After the description, the partner will sum up the significance of the event according to the description and give a title for the picture.

The speaker bridges the information gap by conveying meaning naturally without overly worrying about the accuracy of language form. Meanwhile, the partner will ask for clarification in order to give a summary of the message of the picture and to figure out the title of the picture. The interaction, therefore, entails some verbal communication strategies such as explaining and paraphrasing, appealing for help, and asking for clarification. In this way Procedure II goes a step further to achieve fluency. To guide the interaction, the teacher provides a reference list on the blackboard with the following questions:

1. Who are the characters involved? 2. What are they doing there? 3. What is the setting? 4. At about what date does the event take place?

5. How do the characters feel about themselves? When the students have finished describing

and summarizing the pictures, the whole class sorts out the seven pictures and puts them into a logical order so that the students can have a complete idea about the topic. The instructions for Procedure II are: Select a partner to form a pair. Take turns and use 5 minutes each to describe your "secret picture" to your partner. The partner should summarize the significance of the picture and then give it a title. Use the list on the blackboard as a reference for the description.

III. Free interaction-pair workProcedure III is a free communicative

interaction. Students are free to use their own words to talk about their own personal events in their own way. Though the setting is still the classroom, the interaction takes place between students in an authentic communicative context. Fluency is the foremost requirement in this context and is the aim of the activity.

After the first two procedures, students should be quite clear about the content of the lesson. At the same time, their related experience has been activated. For the free interaction, they are familiar with both the content and language to use in the activity. They can keep their real identity, sharing their personal events with a friend, or they can play the role of a journalist, conducting an informal interview with their partner. Alternatively, they can do a brief survey, guiding the partner to fill in a questionnaire they have designed.

The instructions for Procedure III are the following: Each pair should take 10 minutes for a

free conversation about some significant events in your school days. You and your partner can be:

A. two old friends recalling your school days; B.a journalist and a well-known writer talking

about a memorable event; C.a social surveyor and his/her informant filling

in a questionnaire. Justification of the activity

Speak Out is designed according to a functional view of language and a skill- learning model of learning (Littlewood, l981:44). This view of language sees language as a vehicle to express functional meanings in a social context. Such a view of language implies that English classroom teaching should bridge the gap between language forms and language functions. It proposes that language teaching should develop communicative competence, which prepares the learners with a potential ability to deal with unpredictable, authentic communicative situations.

The skill learning model of learning presumes that "the acquisition of communicative competence in language is an example of skill development. Performance occurs mainly through practice" (Littlewood 1981:74). Because of the foreign language learning environment in China, students learn English under a tutored condition in classrooms. The lack of a natural language environment is a big handicap.

Speak Out provides ample student- centered speaking opportunities for the students to interact with one another in English. Though the classroom is not a totally authentic communicative situation, it can be "a real social context in its own right"

(Littlewood 1981:44). So through talking about a text, some important events in American life and their own personal experience, students practice the use of English for meaningful communication in the classroom.

Conclusion:Speak Out is a fluency-based activity, which

can upgrade students' oral performance. It provides sufficient opportunities for each student to use oral English in both pre- communicative and communicative contexts. The three procedures are structured to assist and stimulate active participation from all the students. Such active meaningful participation fosters a positive classroom spirit, which lowers the affective filter. The underlying principle is to improve students' oral fluency through communicative and step-by-step practice.

*********************Leng Hui teaches English at the Liaoning Normal University, Peoples. Republic. of China.

References: Domyei, Z. and S. Thurrell. 1991. Strategic

competence and how to teach it. ELT Journal, 45, l, pp. 16-23.

Krashen, S. 1982. Principle and practices in second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lennon, P. 1990. Investigating fluency in EFL: A quantitative approach? Language Learning, 40, 3, pp. 187-417.

Littlewood, W. 1981. Communicative language teaching: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Long, M. H. and P. A. Porter. 1985. Group work, interlanguage talk, and second language acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19, 2, pp. 207-28.

Savova, L. and R. Donato. 1991. Group activity in the language classroom. English Teaching Forum, 29, 3, pp. 12-26.

( 2 ) Classroom Speaking Activities

By : Yang Shuying

As is often the case in second language teaching, speaking activities are offered to compensate for the lack of communicative opportunities in the students’ environments. In recent years, more and more non-English majors have been enjoying such an advantage in China. Consequently, the need for English teachers has increased, especially at colleges and universities.

Teaching oral English classes gave me an excellent opportunity to organize a communicative English class. I began by analyzing the learning background of my students and trying to find a way to eliminate the students’ psychological barriers so they would speak voluntarily in class. This article discusses some activities I used to encourage speaking in my classes.Language learning background:

Chinese students are very self-conscious when asked to express their views in public. This is true

even if their language abilities are comparatively good.

Due to the large class size in high schools and the emphasis on examinations, students learn language skills so they can pass tests. Therefore, developing students’ communicative abilities is not emphasized. As a result, college students are not as competent in speaking, and almost all have difficulties in pronunciation. This makes them unwilling to communicate in the target language for fear of being ridiculed.

I also focused on motivating my students. According to psychologist Hebb (1992:260), “It is motivation that initiates behavior, directs it, and is also responsible for its cessation,” and “motivation can be triggered by outside factors.” To do this, I told students at the beginning of the course that 50% of their final score would be based on their in-class participation. Those who spoke in every class would get the higher scores, regardless of what their utterances might be. Hoping to increase their grades, the students eagerly began speaking in class, making the class lively.

Classroom activities:However, scores are rarely enough to motivate

the students. According to cognitive theory, it is intrinsic motivation that generally directs people’s behavior. So I designed interesting and meaningful activities to motivate students so that they would participate voluntarily in the activities.

Using the materials from English books edited by the foreign language department at Dalian Maritime University, I created challenging tasks for the students. For example, the main idea of one

text was smoking, so students had to summarize and explain the text. Then, I assigned group activities. Group one practiced an interview between a journalist and several customers buying cigarettes in a drug store. Their task was to discuss how cigarettes harmed people’s health. In group two, the task was to discuss the reasons why many people smoke and what benefits smokers think they get from smoking. Group three had a role play situation in which a boy tries to persuade his girlfriend to start smoking. The last group debated the pros and cons of banning smoking in public places.

In a second activity, I introduced the topic of expensive weddings to my students, asking each to imagine his/her own wedding and give his/her personal view on luxurious weddings.

Often, romantic relationships can be a discussion topic. In one lesson, related to a text on marriage, I had the class form three groups to debate the problem. Everyone discussed the topic enthusiastically, but they did not have to reveal their personal experiences.

Teachers can also use any unexpected occurrence that happens during class. No matter how interesting the class may be, some students become distracted by outside noises, sights, even changes in the weather. Whenever I notice this happening, I try to attract the students’ attention. Once while preparing for a discussion, I noticed a student gazing outside. In following his line of sight, I saw a colorful setting sun. It was so beautiful that I asked the whole class to enjoy the

beautiful sight and the distracted student to describe it.

Conclusion:Although classroom activities are usually

based on texts, I have tried to create activities that provide students with speaking opportunities and at the same time, motivate them. To accomplish this, I have used themes of interest to my students that stimulate discussions and debates, and that overcome students’ fears of speaking.

References:Hebb, D. 1992. Classroom connections. In Windows on the classroom. Ed. P. Egge and D. Kauchak.

Educational Psychology. 

) Testing Spoken English 3 )

As a Second Language By: Shreesh Chaudhary

Teaching and testing Spoken English (SE) has an old history. In the early 1800s Carey (1906; cited in Sinha 1978:22) advertised that at his school near Calcutta, “particular attention will be paid to the pronunciation” of English.

Teaching elocution, rhetoric, or SE, has until recently been an integral a part of the school curriculum. But as demand for English has grown and properly trained people have become scarce, clear goals and models have also disappeared as have the teaching and testing of SE except as an extra-curricular activity, even in countries like India.

“Speaking,” as Harris (1977:81) observes, “is a complex skill requiring the simultaneous use of different abilities which often develop at different rates….Five components are generally recognized in analyses of the speech process.” Harris lists them as follows:

a. Pronunciation including segmental features, vowels and consonants, and the stress and intonation patterns.b. Grammarc. Vocabularyd. Fluencye. Comprehension.

Of these, pronunciation is the most difficult to assess

“The central reason is the lack of general agreement on what good pronunciation of a second language means: Is comprehensibility to be the sole basis of judgment, or must we demand a high degree of phonetic and allophonic accuracy? And can we be certain that two or more native speakers will find the utterance of a foreign speaker equally comprehensible…?” (Harris 1977:81).

Tonkyn (1992) presents a good overview of this confusion about what may be called dimensions of oral proficiency. He examines rating scales like the ones used by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), Australian Second Language Proficiency Ratings (ASLPR), the British Council/University of After examining these scales, Tonkyn (1992:154–55) observes, “…a workable three-part profile might be produced concentrating on three separately rated overall factors, which I shall call accuracy, range, and strategic competence.…” Cambridge English Language Testing Service (ELTS), the British Council’s Mini- Platform Interview (MPI) scale, etc.

After examining these scales, Tonkyn (1992:154–55) observes, “…a workable three-part profile might be produced concentrating on three separately rated overall factors, which I shall call accuracy, range, and strategic competence.…”

There has been little work on testing SE. Brown (1992:15) says, “Since the inception of the journal Language Testing in 1984 only one article has appeared specifically on the topic of pronunciation testing.” The writer of that article, R. Major (1987:155), feels, “The measurement of pronunciation accuracy is in the dark ages when compared to measurement of other areas of competence.” The present paper seeks to fill this gap.

Concept of “good” SE for ESL:In SE, the distinction between ESL and

English as a foreign language (EFL) seems significant. As Brown (1992:3) notes, “In ESL situations English has official status, is used widely in government, is the medium of education, and is in widespread use in everyday life of the people. In contrast, (in EFL) English in official situations has low recognition and is used mainly for communication with foreigners….” These differences have implications for teaching and testing.

Many features in (1) or in Tonkyn’s scales may be redundant for English in India, where it is a second rather than a foreign language. In ESL, pronunciation requires attention. An ESL speaker has relatively little difficulty with grammar, vocabulary and fluency. Regarding Indian English, Bansal (1973:1) says, “…in pronunciation it is very different from either British or American English and even within India there are a large number of regional varieties, each different from the others in certain ways and retaining to some

extent the phonetic patterns of the Indian languages spoken in that particular region.”

As a listener, Wells (1982:624) feels, there are Indians educated at British public schools whose accent is unquestionably RP. There are Indians with a fair knowledge of English whose accent is nevertheless so impenetrable that English people can understand them, if at all, only with the greatest difficulty.

So there is a need for teaching and testing SE, but there is no agreement as to what “good” pronunciation is. In this it is unlike Written English (WE). All teachers agree that in teaching writing they must teach spelling, punctuation, and format such as leaving space before and after every word.

In the absence of a similar agreement on pronunciation, teaching and testing SE isn’t so objective. It is sometimes argued that there is no need to teach SE (e.g., Kachru 1988, Nadkarni 1992), or that standard English e.g., Received Pronunciation (RP) is the ideal model (Quirk 1990). But RP itself, as Shibles (1995) shows, is no monolith nor is General American (GA) (see Wells 1982). Natural languages do not work in this way.

Fortunately, there have been efforts on varieties labeled variously as “minimum essential,” “minimum adequate” (West 1968), “Rudimentary International Pronunciation (RIP) (Gimson 1978),

“essential ingredients,” (Bradford 1996), etc. These features constitute the relatively unchanging core of its phonology, which spans centuries and countries.

In pronunciation, according to West (1968: 205), “What is of vital importance is Absence of a “strong regular beat of English stress” marks non-standard non-native accents of English, though these varieties also differ among themselves. Most “standard” varieties (Wells 1982:34) differ from other varieties in the following:rhythm, the strong regular beat of English stresses which makes Welshmen, Scotsmen, and all native English speakers intelligible to each other, in spite of their

a. Phrasal pauseb. Word stress

In “standard” varieties syllables are gathered in groups of stressed and some stressless syllables, groups usually co-terminous with a phrase. Standard varieties stress over 808 words alike (Sack 1968). This gives them a unique rhythm.c. Vowel lengthd. Some consonantal contrasts.

Vowel quality differs with dialect; its quantity rarely does. For instance, dame is pronounced like dime in Australia; bomb like balm, court like caught by many RP speakers; and cheer like chair by some in New Zealand. But they all have a diphthong or long vowel.

Historically, vowel quality has changed more than vowel quantity. Sea was spoken

like say by Londoners in the days of Shakespeare. Preferred pronunciation of great in the days of Dr. Johnson rhymed with greet rather than with grate. Standard varieties have eight diphthongs and seven long vowels, the largest number of long vowel sounds in the world.

Likewise, contrasts between voiced and voiceless, or between /l/ and /r/, etc., or fricative consonants, of which English has nine, have remained relatively unchanged.

A rapid rate of speech obstructs ESL speakers’ comprehensibility. Powers (1985) reports that a tempo of over 275 words per minute can make one unintelligible. Usha (1995) has shown that a tempo of four syllables per second may be ideal for comprehensibility. So in my course (See Chaudhary 1993) I include the following:

a. Slow tempo of speechb. Phrasal pausec. Word stressd. Long vowelse. Fricative consonants

I also include pronunciation of the following: My overall goal is comprehensibility, for which accuracy in word stress, length of vowels and some consonants seems essential.

a. Numbers b. Names of days, date, month, etc .

c. Letters of English alphabet d. Weights and measures, etc.

Design of test:To include items in (3) and (4) so that the

test can be administered and scored objectively and easily is difficult. The test must also combine comprehensibility with phonetic accuracy, and, as Gimson (1980:327) adds, “performance in a situation of free discourse.” A good test for SE, it seems, must include the following:

a. Free discourse to check intelligibility and acceptability b. Atomistic test to check

l. word stress through word lists read aloud2. phonetic accuracy in some vowels and

consonants.

For my course for senior undergraduate students, many of whom go to America as teaching assistants, or work for big Indian and foreign companies, I design the test (See Figure 1 ) on the basis of the principles in (5). The first two questions check tempo of speech, extemporaneous expression, pronunciation of numbers, letters of the English alphabet and other items which occur frequently in SE. The third question checks phrasal pauses. It has two reading passages. These passages (See Figure 1), from Gimson (1978), have most vowel and consonant sounds of standard varieties. Examinees read the passages silently before reading a

passage aloud for evaluation. It also involves atomistic tests of vowels and consonants.

A list of bi-, tri-, and poly-syllabic words is used for testing word stress. Words are arranged at random. A word with main stress on the initial syllable may be printed next to one with main stress on the final syllable, which may be followed by another with main stress elsewhere. The list has 20 bisyllabic, 20 trisyllabic, 20 of four syllables and some polysyllabic words. They represent major stress patterns of English (See Chomsky and Halle 1968).

The last question has minimal or sub-minimal pairs of words to test the production of diphthongs, long vowels and some consonants known to be difficult for many Indian speakers.

This test is easily administered. As the student reads a text aloud, the examiner can mark time, pauses, stresses, and make note of vowel and consonantal quality, and award grades later. Students’ speech is recorded along with the time taken by them.

This test is easily administered. As the student reads a text aloud, the examiner can mark time, pauses, stresses, and make note of vowel and consonantal quality, and award grades later. Students’ speech is recorded along with the time taken by them.

Credit is given for slow tempo. A test of such a test would be to see if the student

with the highest score is also the best understood.

Intelligibility study and evaluation of TSE:This test has been used for relative

grading and comprehensibility of English spoken by ESL learners from the Indian sub-continent.

On a relative scale scores ranged from 66% to 99%. The examinee with a score of only 66% did not pause systematically, had at least three pairs of unclear sound contrasts, and misstressed at least 25 of the 66 words given for the test. The examinee with a score of 99% had regular pauses, “correct” stress on all words, and got most sound contrasts right. The examinee scoring only 66% erred in word stress, and had erratic and unclear segmental contrasts and pauses. There were 29 examinees, and their average score was approximately 90%.

From an earlier test, recordings of some students’ SE were played to a randomly selected group of listeners. Relative grades of these students were borne out almost without change (See Figure 2 ). The student with the highest score, call him G(A), was heard by 129 listeners, who were asked to fill in the 15 blanks in the given text after hearing G(A). One hundred and fifteen listeners filled in 14 blanks correctly, which is about 90% listeners filling nearly 90% blanks correctly.

The student with the lowest score, call her L(A), was heard by 62 listeners who were asked to fill in the 15 blanks in the text after hearing her. Of these only 35 listeners filled in a maximum of 10 blanks correctly. Only 60% listeners heard more than 60% of the text correctly.

To further test this model of the course and the test, we played two recordings of the highest achiever to an international group of listeners. The text, given in Figure 2, was taken from O’Connor (1980). The first recording was made on the first day of the course, (we will call it G[B]), and the second recording (we will call it G[A]) was made on the last day of the course.

For this test there were 18 listeners from Indian Ocean countries including seven from India itself. Listening to G(B) none of the students could fill in more than 14 of the 28 blanks. Only five listeners could fill in over 10 blanks. Most could fill in only between five and nine blanks correctly. G(B) was understood no better by the Indians—one of whom could fill in 14 blanks; others filled in between one and six blanks only.

The second recording, G(A), however, was understood much better. Of the 27 blanks on the sheet, no one filled in less than two. Six listeners filled in over 21 blanks, and 16 filled in over 15 blanks correctly.

This improvement in intelligibility can be attributed mainly to the change in the tempo

of speech. G(B) speaks at an average tempo of over five syllables per second, whereas G(A) has a tempo of less than three syllables per second.

Conclusion:This course and accompanying test ap-

pear to be appropriate for teaching SE in India. The design of the test for objective and valid evaluation of tempo of speech and standard word stress seems adequate. But teaching and testing of pauses and segments require further refining.

References: Bansal, R. K. 1973. The intelligibility of

Indian English. Monograph N. 4, Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad.

Bradford, B. 1990. The essential ingredients of a pronunciation programme. In Speak Out, No. 6, July, 1990.

Brown, A. 1992. Twenty questions. In Approaches to pronunciation teaching. ed. A. Brown, London: Macmillan, pp. 1–17.

Chaudhary, S. 1993. A new course in better spoken English. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.

Chomsky, N. and M. Halle. 1968. The sound patterns of English. New York: Harper and Row.

Gimson, A. C. 1978. Towards an international pronunciation of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 45–53.

1980. An introduction to the pronunciation of English. London: ELBS and Edward Arnold. Harris, D. P. 1977. Testing English as a second language. Bombay: Tata-McGraw Hill and Co. Ltd.

Kachru, B. B. 1988. The sacred cows of English. In English Today, October 19Major, R. C. 1987. Measuring pronunciation accuracy using computerized techniques. In Language Testing, 4, pp. 155–169.

Nadkarni, M. V. 1992. On liberating English to be a world language. In World Englishes 11, 2/3, 1992, pp. 331–39.

O’Connor, J. D. 1980. Better English pronunciation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Powers, D. E. 1985. A survey of academic demands related to listening skills. Research Reports, No. 58–48, Educational Testing Service, Princeton.

Quirk, R. 1990. Language varieties and standard language. In English Today, No. 21.

Sack, F. L. 1968. English word stress. In English Language Teaching, 23, 4, pp. 141–144.

Shibles, W. 1995. Received pronunciation and real phonetics. World Englishes, 14, 3. pp. 357–76.

Sinha, S. P. 1978. English in India. Patna: Janki Prakashan.

Tonkyn, A. P. 1992. Testing oral language as behaviour: Problems and principles in the use of proficiency rating scales. In The ELT Curriculum: Emerging Issues. ed. Devi S-Rama, et. al., Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, pp. 139–160

Usha, R. 1995. Linguistic aspects of listening comprehension in English as a second language. Ph. D. Dissertation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Wells, J. C. 1982. Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

West, M. 1968. The minimum adequate: A quest. English Language Teaching, 22, 3, pp. 205–210.

88.

) 4 ( Three Ways That Work

Oral Fluency Practice in the EFL Classroom By:

Brian Bresnihan And Barbara Stoops

One of the most difficult challenges in teaching a foreign language abroad is finding ways to help students improve their oral fluency. This is especially true in countries where students generally share a common mother tongue and have little or no exposure to English outside the classroom. In our experience, pair and group work communication tasks, as they are structured in ESL classrooms, are often ineffective in an EFL setting. When students are asked to perform these activities, they often just read aloud mechanically from their textbooks or chat in their native language. Although they may truly want to practice and express their ideas in English, it is hard for them to actually do it, and it is hard for teachers to convince them to try.

This paper discusses three procedures that we have found effective to encourage Japanese students to speak in English, even in large classes. We describe their implementation at length because we have found that seemingly minor details often

make all the difference in whether an activity succeeds or fails. Each procedure (Talking Zone, Speaking Line, and Conversation Game) (see Footnote 1 ) has oral fluency as its goal. Each is designed to help teachers assist their students in bridging the gap between their written materials and speaking fluently in a foreign language.

The talking zone:Most language students want to have

chances to practice speaking. Other than having your students all speak aloud to themselves at the same time, the way to give them the most opportunities to speak in the classroom is to have them talk in pairs. However, if you give them time to practice speaking with the materials you have covered in class that day, many of them will simply read them aloud to their partners. They will not actually be practicing speaking and they will certainly not be having what could be called a conversation. They will just be saying words aloud, which is not the same thing as practicing speaking. Students need to be physically separated from their materials for them to practice speaking. By creating a Talking Zone (see Footnote 2 ) and a non-Talking Zone in the classroom, you can allow them to get the kind of speaking practice they want and need, and yet give them access to the materials they may require to feel secure and to speak successfully.

The set up:

Draw a sketch on the board of how you want the classroom arranged and tell your students to move the tables and chairs into that formation. (See Figure 1 .) If your classroom, like some of ours, has furniture that cannot be moved, use the two bottom arrangements as a guide. Notice that whatever the arrangement, the Talking Zone has no chairs in it. Therefore, your students will be standing while they are talking, not sitting.

After your classroom is set up the way you want it, tell your students to sit or stand at the tables which are labeled "P" around the outside of the room. Have them open their textbooks to the page they will be working on or pass out the materials they will be working with. These materials must stay where they are. They cannot be carried to any other place in the room. The same goes for a pencil if it is needed.

Give your students whatever time you think they need to look over these materials before they begin the speaking activity. Tell them they cannot look at anyone else's materials. When they are done, tell them to turn their materials over and leave them where they are and to move into the empty space that was created for their talking.

When all of your students are standing in the Talking Zone, tell them that there are three things they must remember while doing this speaking activity. 1) They can talk

with whomever they want for as long as they want, but they can talk only inside the Talking Zone, to only one person at a time, and only in English. 2) They must leave their materials on the tables where they are now. They cannot bring their materials inside the Talking Zone, nor can they look at any of their classmates' materials. 3) They can leave and enter the Talking Zone as many times as they like. So, they do not need to complete the whole activity before looking at their materials again. They can review their materials as often as they wish.

Then answer any questions they have, and tell them to find a partner and to begin. You may need to run around a bit, especially in the beginning, to enforce the rules of the activity. If students forget something a classmate tells them or forget what they want to say, they have to go back to the appropriate Zone to get the information. The activity is finished whenever you want it to be. This can take a long time if you let it go.

Variations:If you feel your classroom would be too

crowded or would become uncontrollable with all of your students walking around and talking in it at the same time, have your students get into pairs after looking over their materials and before going to the Talking Zone for the first time. Then tell one student in each pair to sit down with both students' papers around the outside of the room, where the "Ps" are. These students can be called the secretaries. Tell the other

member of each pair to enter the Talking Zone. These students will be the speakers. Now explain the same rules as before except that number 3 needs to be changed a little. Instead of being able to look at their materials again, they can ask their secretaries to tell them whatever they need to know. So the secretaries look at the papers and tell their speakers what to do or say next (in English, of course). Halfway through the activity, tell the secretaries and speakers to switch roles.

If the speakers do not need to return to their secretaries very often, the secretaries may get bored or have nothing to do. Therefore they may begin talking with other secretaries, something they should not be doing. They should only talk to their speakers. So, you may want to have another task for them besides just helping their speakers. This additional activity should be one that they can accomplish alone and silently, for example through reading or writing. It could be related to the speaking activity, or it could be something entirely different.

Choices:A variety of materials can be used with

the Talking Zone. For example, if you give your beginning level students a list of Yes/No questions to ask their classmates, they can ask each question to other students until they find someone who answers "Yes" to the question. Then they record that student's

name and move on to the next question. (A worksheet for a variation of this activity appears in Appendix 1 . It requires all students to answer the questions they will be asking later in writing before entering the Talking Zone. This should ensure that everyone has read and understood all the questions.) Depending on the students' abilities, you may want to try using two sets of similar questions in one class with half of the students having each set.

In intermediate or advanced level classes, if each of your students has read one of a group of articles, there are a number of things they can do in the Talking Zone. For example, they can each summarize and discuss their articles with a partner who has read a different article. Then they return to their tables to answer some questions about their partners' articles that they have not seen before. (See Appendix 2 for a sample.) After writing answers to as many questions as they can, they may review their own articles for a few minutes. Then they return to the Talking Zone to collect the information they need to complete their answers, and tell their partners whatever they need to know to complete theirs. The process is then repeated with new partners who have read different articles.

The speaking line:As they become more comfortable and

better at speaking in English, many language students want to practice "free conversation" in their classes. Of course, the difficulty with

this is that if you just tell your students in a large class to talk in pairs about some topic, it is hard to tell what they are saying or even what language they are speaking. It is not very easy for them to maintain their discipline and speak only in English. They may also be tempted to spend much of their time reading from their textbooks or looking up words in their dictionaries. Organizing the seating arrangement of the pairs into a Speaking Line and requiring your students to put all of their materials away and to look at and speak directly to each other begins to clear up these difficulties. This lets your students experience the pleasure of speaking at length with each other in English.

The basics:First, have your students put all their

materials away. Then, have them rearrange the furniture. If you are lucky enough to have movable chairs and tables in your room, ask your students to move the tables out of the way and line up the chairs in two rows facing each other. You can draw a sketch on the board if you like. (See Figure 2 .) If your classrooms do not have movable furniture, use the sketches below as hints to what arrangements might be good for your classrooms. The most important point is to create clear aisles (shaded below) so you can easily move around the room. (See Figure 3 .) Then, 1 and A are partners, 2 and B, 3 and C, etc. With an odd number of students there will be one triple.

Explain to your students that they are not allowed to talk to anyone else except their partners. They can only speak with the person directly in front of them. And, of course, they must speak in English. Then give them the topic (or whatever you want them to talk about), and have them begin.

Explain to your students that they are not allowed to talk to anyone else except their partners. They can only speak with the person directly in front of them. And, of course, they must speak in English. Then give them the topic (or whatever you want them to talk about), and have them begin.

You may need to encourage your students to start and to remind them to remain in English the first few times you do this. However, it does not take long for most students to catch on and to enjoy it.

When you think it is time for them to stop, a few claps, a short whistle, a loud "OK, that's enough.", or a flickering of the lights will get their attention. Then it is time to change partners. The students at the beginning of one row stand up and move to the back of the row while the rest of the students in the row move forward. Then everyone has a new partner. (See Figure 4 .)

Then tell them to repeat what they were doing or whatever the next assignment is. This shifting of the partners can be done many times.

Extras:When Brian was initially introduced to

the Speaking Line, Robert "Bob" Oprandy recommended that partners be given two minutes to converse on one topic per pairing and that each topic be repeated for a few pairings. Sometimes we have students talk for much longer periods of time before switching partners, even for over ten minutes. If you are not really interested in keeping track of the time, you will find that it is not very difficult to tell when the students need to change partners. We usually have them repeat a topic with two or three partners.

A more structured activity which works well using the Speaking Line is the Fluency Workshop, or the 4/3/2 technique, developed by Keith Maurice (1983, 1994). In this activity the students have four minutes to speak about a topic to their partners. Then they listen to their partners talk for four minutes. Next they change partners and repeat the above for three minutes each. Finally, they repeat it again with new partners for two minutes each. Barbara was first introduced to an adapted form of the Fluency Workshop in which one student does all three speaking turns without doing any listening in between. When this activity was studied by Arevart and Nation (1991) [and prior to that by Nation (1989) in a smaller study], they found that students spoke faster and with fewer hesitations in their two-minute (last) turn than in their four-minute (first) turn. The Fluency Workshop in both of these forms has students making short speeches or telling

stories to their partners rather than having students participate in a conversation, as Bob suggested.

If you would like to encourage the listeners to listen carefully when speakers and listeners have been assigned roles, have partners stand up one at a time after every few pairings and have the listeners give a short summary of what the last speakers told them. Speakers stand, too, to emphasize that both people are responsible for the summary, to make the listeners a little more comfortable while summarizing, and to be readily available if the listeners need help. Keep the number of pairings before summarizing variable to encourage your students to do their best with each partner. This could also be done after students have participated in conversations.

Your students will be better able to talk about something in English if they write about their ideas in English first. They might do a quick writing in class for 10 or 15 minutes before speaking, or they could write more extensively as a homework assignment. While writing, they can decide what to say, organize their thoughts, and look up any words they need in their dictionaries. Remember, though, that when they move into the Speaking Line, they cannot bring their writing with them.

The conversation game:Although working in pairs allows the

maximum amount of speaking time per

person in a class, there are times you might want your students to speak in groups. Also, many students say they prefer to speak in small groups rather than in pairs. The problem is that since students in an EFL class can speak to each other more easily in their own language, they will find it very difficult to remain in English. Even in a Talking Zone or a Speaking Line, some students may quickly translate to explain a word or phrase that a partner does not immediately understand. The Conversation Game is an excellent way to get around this difficulty.

The rules:In the Conversation Game the teacher

should provide a large quantity of game markers. These could be poker chips, buttons, beads, individually wrapped candies, or sea shells collected on a beach after a big storm. Seat students around small tables in groups of 4 or 5 each and give a pile of about 40 or 50 markers to each group.

After the students have the topic to speak about, the game rules are simple. 1) Whenever students say something in English, they take one of the game markers. It doesn't matter whether they talk for a short time or a long time; in either case they get one marker. 2) But, whenever they say even one word in another language, they must return one marker to the pile. 3) In the end, the number of markers they have collected will be their total score.

When the conversations slow down or when the allotted time is up, you can reshuffle the groups and perhaps switch to a new topic as well. Before students move to a new group, they should return all of their markers to the pile so each new group can begin. Therefore, they need to record their scores on a piece of paper, something they also might need to do earlier if they use up all of the markers before time runs out and they need to restart themselves.

Other considerations: Some students may be tempted to "cheat" a bit by saying "Oh" or "Yes" a lot in order to collect markers and boost their scores. If this happens, you can modify the rules to require that students say at least three consecutive words or a sentence to gain a marker. In our situation, true "cheating" is, in fact, quite rare as the students generally make a real effort to be sure everyone has a chance to speak and to gain points.

We have also found that once our students get used to the habit of monitoring their use of English and Japanese and the amount they are talking and not talking, they tend to stop picking up markers after their turns. This is certainly a good thing that they can continue to converse in English without using the markers to closely monitor themselves. However, it still seems to be helpful to have the markers there in piles just as a reminder.

Although assigning conversation topics yourself saves time, another choice is to have your students come up with the topics. Here is one way to have the students do this. Have pairs of students very quickly brainstorm topics and write one per pair on the board. No doubles are allowed. After each pair has written a choice on the board, read each aloud to the students so they have a chance to consider all of them. Then have all the students come up to the board again and mark the one they wish to speak about. The majority wins and is the first topic to be discussed.

Teacher roles:While the students are busy in their

Talking Zone, Speaking Line, or Conversation Game, the activities the teacher can engage in are numerous and varied. The simplest, but not necessarily the least useful, thing to do is to stroll around the different areas of the room, up and down the aisles, or around the groups and listen to what your students are saying. This also leaves you free to enforce the rules, if necessary, and to answer any questions. In addition, you can break into conversations to ask questions, add information, or help with explanations if you like.

The teacher can also collect information, such as unusual vocabulary items, errors or mistakes of any kind, well-formed sentences or replies, communication breakdowns, students' opinions, or diversions from the assigned task or topic. Problems could be

dealt with at the moment they occur orally with the students involved, or a short note could be written on a slip of paper and handed to the students. If you think the whole class might benefit from something, you could take notes while you are listening and go over them with the class as a whole afterward.

Another alternative is to join the Talking Zone, the Speaking Line, or the Conversation Game groups and participate with your students. Of course, at times you may need to stop to do other things, such as monitor the activity, but you will also have the opportunity to speak with some of your students one-on-one or in small groups even if you need to cut it a little short.

Adaptations:The Talking Zone, the Speaking Line, and

the Conversation Game can be used for a variety of communication tasks, but it is important to make a firm rule that the work must be entirely oral and in English. In each of these procedures, students can summarize and discuss articles they have read, essays they have written (without holding them so there will be no temptation to read from their papers), or audio or video tapes that they have listened to or seen. They can also carry out brainstorming tasks to prepare for a writing assignment or a classroom debate. Of course, these sorts of activities can be done in normal pair or group work structures as well, but in a Talking Zone, a Speaking Line, or a Conversation Game group, students

must use their own words and give their own ideas (or their memory of material they have read or heard) rather than just repeat words or ideas from a book.

Conclusion:By separating students from their

materials, the Talking Zone allows students to experience speaking English on their own. It shows them that they can speak and understand English without written materials. Yet it does not force them to do something which they might not be capable of doing or which might make them lose their confidence or become embarrassed. Also, although you have structured the activity, the students are in control of what they are doing and must take the initiative to complete the tasks you have set for them. The students can speak to whomever they wish whenever they wish, to students they know well or to those they may not often get a chance to speak with. They are working at their own pace and at their own level of ability. They can take time to relax, rest, rehearse privately, think about what they are doing, and decide what to do next whenever they feel the need by remaining at their papers outside of the Talking Zone. In addition, although we have given them the materials to work with, our students soon begin to add to them or to change them somewhat by creating their own oral language. Instead of saying "Which is your favorite season?", they often say "Do you like summer?" or "Do you know someone who

likes winter?", and they say other things not included in their materials, such as "I'm next.", "I'm sorry, what's your name again?", "Hurry up." "Just a moment.", "Really?", "Me, too." In other words, the activity becomes something like a real conversation.

The Speaking Line allows students to begin to have real, totally unscripted conversations on their own. Each conversation is private, personal, and anonymous. This is also the case with the Talking Zone, but the Speaking Line is somewhat calmer, simpler to set up, and easier to monitor. It requires students to speak with a random assortment of classmates, and there is no hesitation or difficulty in choosing with whom to speak as might be the case with very shy students. Also, although we have organized the pairings, and some topic for discussion has been decided on, our students begin to add to this as they do with the Talking Zone. Partners say things like "Good morning. How are you?" and even shake hands. And when it's time to change partners, some will say "Good-bye. It was nice talking with you."

We have found with the Conversation Game that our students will monitor each other as well as themselves. They point out when others slip in a word of Japanese or a Japanese exclamation, and they make great efforts to speak only in English. A special feature of the Conversation Game that sets it apart from most fluency work in foreign language classes is that students are

discouraged from using their mother tongue to clarify confusion or lack of comprehension. In Conversation Game groups, speakers must try to negotiate meaning entirely in English because they are penalized if they use their native language. This makes the activity more difficult for them than the Talking Zone or the Speaking Line, but it pushes them to develop more strategies needed to communicate successfully with native or non-native speakers of English.

Brian Bresnihan has an M.A. and M.Ed. in TESOL from Teachers College, Columbia University. After teaching English in Hiroshima, New York, and Tokyo, he began teaching in his present position at Kobe University of Commerce. Barbara Stoops has an M.A. in TEFL from San Francisco State University and an M.Phil. in English literature from Yale. Before becoming a Lecturer at Kobe University of Commerce, she taught in rural Japan, Kuala Lumpur, New York, and California.

)5( Four Strategies for Increasing Oral Production in the EFL

ClassroomBy: Sada A. Daoud

Two factors present themselves in a discussion of oral production in Syrian university EFL classrooms. The first is that students are incompetent in the oral skill. The second is a positive factor: Students have a real desire to speak English more effectively, not only in the language classroom but also in out-of-class situations.

Many Syrian university students suffer from mother-tongue interference. This interference seems deeply rooted, making them translate in their minds what they want to say. The result is a speech variety that does not sound English and leads to frustration even on the part of the speakers. Some students choose to give up and remain silent.

Silence, however, does not always mean lack of interest. I have seen students listen, read, and write when asked. They show their comprehension of whatever oral production they hear by their facial expressions. They smile or frown, nod their heads in agreement, or shake them in disagreement. And they laugh heartily when they hear a joke. Yet they are reluctant to make a single spontaneous utterance in English.

To deal with this situation, I have used the following strategies:

1. The Message:After greeting the students, I announce

that I am going to whisper a message into the ear of the student sitting nearest to me. Students should pass on the message orally from mouth to ear till it gets to the last student, who then writes what he has heard on the board. Sometimes the message gets wholly or partially distorted. When I write the original version next to the received one, students burst out in laughter. Once the original message was: "Marry in haste and repent at leisure." The message that emerged at the end was: "Marry in haste and repeatwith pleasure ." When I put the two messages side by side, my students were hysterical. The activity made them ready to plunge into hard work. In addition, they had some practice in vocabulary and spelling.

2. Reflections:Writing a word on the board, I ask

students to reflect on it and say whatever comes to their minds, with one condition: Everyone must say something different in a complete sentence. There is a prize for the student who says the best sentence (as determined by vote). Once I gave a group of medical students the word "patient" to respond to. One response was: "A doctor should be patient when dealing with a difficult patient." Another was: "Patients are often victims of their own environment." A third was: "One patient's doctor might

become another doctor's patient." To come up with quick, original responses, students have to listen carefully. They do not have the time to translate and are forced to think in English.

3. The Dilemma:I present a dilemma to the class to

respond to. It may be a real-life situation, or imaginary. For instance, a successful surgeon asks his wife, also a well-known pediatrician, to close her clinic and stay at home to bring up her young children. What should she do? In responding to such dilemmas, students get so involved that they forget they are using a foreign language.

4. The Mystery Package:I place an attractive, present-like parcel

on the table, declare that something "valuable" is inside, and tell students to ask questions to discover what it is. Their questions should have only "yes" or "no" answers, with no repetition of questions allowed. The student who guesses correctly gets the parcel. To get students to ask many questions, it is better to choose an object that is hard to guess. Once I put a baby's pacifier in the parcel. The allotted time was over before any student had the right answer. When I opened the parcel, the class roared with laughter.

The overall aim of these strategies is to encourage students to talk and use the language spontaneously. I have found them very useful in creating a relaxed non-

threatening atmosphere conducive to learning. They provide the sort of involvement necessary for genuine interaction in an EFL classroom situation.

Sada A. Daoud has been teaching at the E.S.P. Centre, University of Damascus, since 1988. She previously taught in secondary schools in Tartous and at Tishreen University, Latakia.

( 6 ) You are an Expert A Communicative Activity for Large Classes

Annaliese Hausler-Akpovi By:

Motivating all your students to speak English in class can be a challenging task for any EFL teacher. In large classes this challenge often becomes overwhelming. Eager to encourage interaction in a class of

over 80 freshman English students at the National University in Benin, I organized a communicative activity which achieved maximum participation and generated great student enthusiasm as well.

The goal of the interaction is reflected in its name, "You are an Expert." Selected students share information in small groups about how to do an activity that they know very well. Then, the students who have just been taught by a student "expert" get into new groups to share their newly acquired knowledge or skill with students in a new group. This interaction can be adapted to accommodate a variety of class sizes, age groups, language levels, and cultural settings.

Preparation:1.To prepare the activity, the teacher only

needs small slips of paper or index cards so there is one for each student.

2.The teacher selects several culturally relevant topics with which his or her students will be familiar. For example, in my class of Beninese students I selected the following subjects: how to plant and grow cassava, how to make palm wine, how to plan a traditional dowry/wedding feast, how to wash and massage a baby, how to do a traditional dance, and how to make peanut-pepper sauce.

3.For each topic the teacher prepares six index cards with the name of the topic on one side and a number (1-6) on the other. For a class of 36 students, the

teacher should have 36 cards organized into groups of six to correspond to each topic with a number 1-6 written on the reverse side.

Implementation:1.To organize the activity in the classroom,

the teacher first explains that the students are all experts in different areas. The teacher suggests that according to the students' cultural heritage and milieu, each student has acquired significant knowledge of different skills, subjects, and processes which they can share with others.

2.Using the slips of paper prepared prior to class, the teacher asks students to volunteer if they feel they are experts in one of the various topic areas. The teacher then gives each volunteer expert a slip of paper on which his/her area of expertise is written.

3.The teacher asks these experts to stand and be recognized as group leaders, who will explain to the rest of the group how to do a specific activity.

4.The teacher explains that everyone will receive a piece of paper and learn about the activity that is written on that paper. The teacher indicates that the students must pay close attention to their leader's explanation, taking notes if they desire, so as to be able to clearly explain to others how to do what they have just learned. When the leader finishes her/his explanation, the members of the group should practice explaining the topic and

process to each other before they share this information with a new group.

5.The teacher distributes all the papers and asks the students to find their respective groups according to the topic indicated. The teacher writes a time limit on the board for this part of the lesson (25 to 30 minutes).

6.As the experts are explaining their activity to the group, the teacher circulates around the room to assist and monitor their progress.

7.After the initial explanation phase is finished and each group has learned from an "expert," new groups are organized according to the number written on the back of each slip of paper. (All 1s get in one group; all 2s in another; etc.)

8.In the new groups each student will explain the steps involved in performing the activity that s/he has just learned. A time limit of 15 minutes is appropriate. Students may take notes if they wish. Again, the teacher should circulate around the room, listening, encouraging and observing the interaction.

Follow-up:Teachers can assign several follow-up

activities to reinforce what the students have learned.

1.Have a student from each group describe the activity they have just been taught to the whole class.

2.Ask students to share their impressions of what they have learned, selecting and

describing the newly acquired skill that is their favorite.

3.Give a quick comprehension quiz, asking specific questions about how to do certain activities.

4.Assign students a writing exercise in the form of a short essay about one of the activities they have just learned.

Annaliese Hausler-Akpovi is a USIA English Teaching Fellow at the National University of Benin. Her areas of interest are material development and teacher-training.

) Eliciting Student-Talk 7 ) By: Michael E. Rudder

Traditionally, the teacher was viewed as an organizer of classroom activities; a controller over the implementation of these activities; and an evaluator of students’ performances of the activities. This dominant role was based on the premise that the teacher was the "expert" who would impart his or her knowledge or "expertise" to the unknowing student, who in turn would be assessed by evaluation instruments intended to measure the amount of transferred "expertise."

Nowadays, students play a much more active role in the learning process. No longer passive recipients, they are contributing to the planning and implementation of what

transpires in the classroom; continually adopting and adapting strategies to accomplish immediate as well as long-term goals; and acquiring and developing critical thinking and cooperative learning skills. This emphasis in language teaching and learning is on the communicative nature of language. It is the content of the message that takes preeminence over accuracy of form. In short, the essence is language for communication and self-expression.

The communicative approach emphasizes ways to increase student-talk and decrease teacher-talk. This approach to language teaching has necessitated including in our lesson plans the production or performance stage, in which students have the opportunity to use the new language in simulated real-life situations. We create activities that engage students in meaningful interaction, in which their attention is focused more on what they are saying than on how they are saying it. It is this free practice that enables learners to use the language outside the "artificial" context of the classroom.

Message vs. errors:The communicative approach has forced

us to reexamine not only how we elicit student-talk, but also how we respond to it. Now that we are interested in the content of the message, at least as much as the form, we need to respond genuinely to student-talk with the same natural emotions that we inject into everyday conversation. Only by

doing this can we really convince students that we are interested in what they are saying.

The communicative approach has consequently altered the way we deal with and react to errors. According to David Cross (1992), in real life we rarely react to "local" errors—those which do not interfere with comprehension of the message; but we do react to "global" errors—those which impede comprehension of the message, simply because of communication gaps. If we are engaged in activities aimed at developing fluency, we may choose not to respond to specific errors at all, at least immediately.

If, on the other hand, we are engaged in activities aimed at improving accuracy, we may consider it important to respond to incorrect forms. A simple nod, facial expression, gesture, or repeat of a mistake with rising intonation is often sufficient indication of an incorrect form, which the student is capable of correcting him/herself. Furthermore, if exercised properly and politely, students are generally not intimidated by input or help from their peers. Both self-correction and peer-correction encourage the active role of the student and promote cooperative learning in the classroom.

Free and controlled activities:

With the renewed emphasis on student involvement, the teacher is obliged to create

and implement both controlled and free activities that encourage students to speak. The venue for speaking can and should be integrated with the teaching of listening, reading, and writing skills.

When the focus is on listening or reading skills, the students are drawn into the schema-building, vocabulary discussion, or other preparatory activities of the prelistening or prereading stage. Furthermore, student-talk is elicited through guide questions, comprehension questions, and directives to retell, describe, and summarize the events, characters, or places in the listening or reading text. In the postlistening or postreading stage, the text is exploited in more interesting and challenging activities such as debates, discussions, and role plays which center around student-talk.

Student-talk is further maximized by having activities that involve pair work and group work, as these will engage all the students in speaking. Also, both individual and group writing exercises involve some speaking centered on schema-building and brainstorming. Further interaction occurs in group writing and peer editing, since students exchange ideas and make corrections or improvements in a collective composition. In short, speaking is the skill that seems to be most easily integrated into the teaching of each of the other basic skills.

Lesson stages:

Speaking can also be a part of every stage of the lesson including—presentation, practice, and performance. Although the presentation stage is dominated by the teacher, students can also contribute personal ideas and talk about what they already know about the new language or topic. Also, at this stage, learners should be encouraged to use their imagination and make guesses or predictions about stories or dialogues.

Adrian Doff (1988) discusses the value of this type of elicitation by making the following points. First, it helps to focus the students’ attention and make them think. Second, it helps students make the connection between what they already know and what they are about to learn. Third, it helps the teacher assess what the students already know, thereby making it easier to adapt the presentation to an appropriate level. I would add that the inclusion of eliciting in the presentation stage adds variety to an otherwise teacher-dominated activity and enhances student motivation.

In the practice stage of the lesson, students have the opportunity to reproduce and practice the new words or structures. The use of pictures in this stage greatly reduces the monotony of mechanical drills. By using pictures, the teacher is able to elicit predictable responses in a more interesting way and with less teacher-talk.

Jeremy Harmer (1983) refers to the stages of practice as personalization and

localization. The former allows students to convey meaningful information while talking about themselves; the latter allows them to use the places they live as a reference point. So, instead of talking about the characters in the textbook, they can talk about themselves, their friends, and their own families. Likewise, the places in the textbook can be replaced by the names of local places. By personalizing and localizing the information or situations in the textbook, students can adapt and expand written texts or dialogues in useful, meaningful, interesting, and beneficial speaking practice.

The performance or production stage of the lesson should provide the students with the opportunity to use the language previously presented and practiced during the lesson in a communicative context. Students should be encouraged to express their ideas, opinions, and feelings in discussions and debates. The important element of fun can be injected into this stage with games and simulated role play. Genuine questions that encourage student-talk are used in information gap tasks.

Conclusion:

Developing students’ communicative oral skills is one of our most important goals in language teaching. Now more than ever before, oral skills are essential for interactive survival in a global setting. To accomplish this goal of developing students’ communicative oral skills, we need to encourage interactive discourse and self-

expression. Classroom activities that increase student-talk and promote interaction among students for communicative purposes will help us reach this goal. Such activities can be implemented at all stages of the lesson and in conjunction with the teaching of the other basic skills. Communicative language teaching offers us an unlimited realm of options and ideas for encouraging and enhancing student-talk.

References:

Cross, D. 1992. A practical handbook of language teaching. London: Prentice Hall.

Doff, A. 1988. Teach English: A training course for teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harmer, J. 1983. The practice of English language teaching. Essex: Longman Group Limited.

( 8 ) Making Use of Redundancy in Listening and Speaking

By: Desmond R. Burton

One of the major problems for students practising listening comprehension in English is knowing where to focus attention. They often attempt to hear and understand every word of a sentence, believing that each one is equally important. Inevitably they cry out, "Please, Teacher, more slowly!"

This appeal for help may be interpreted as meaning "All the words seem to be joined together and I haven't a clue as to what you are talking about." But it may equally well mean "I got the gist of what you said but missed a few words in the middle, and that worries me."

All languages employ redundancy in varying degrees, although many language students may never have had it pointed out to them in their native language. Yet it is crucial for students learning a second language to be aware of this feature. As Ur (1984) has pointed out:

The ability to make do with only a part of what is heard and understand the main

message is a vitally important one for effective language in a communicative situation.

However, Ur suggests that an awareness of redundancy should be fostered through conscious practice "once the learner has moved over from intensive to extensive listening." My own contention is that it can be acquired at the most basic stages of learning a second language.

It is easy to demonstrate redundancy in simple question/answer situations. In the question "Where did you go yesterday?" the first and last words convey the essential message. Even a failure to hear "you" would not normally affect comprehension, since in a one-to-one situation it would be rather strange to ask "Where did I go yesterday?" With the use of nonverbal communication strategies (gestures, facial expressions, etc.) there is little chance of ambiguity. Yet for many students, especially if they have been trained in the past to focus on structure, there will be an urge to try to grasp every word, and in their attempt to decipher the middle of the question-especially if spoken at normal speed-they will quite probably lose the message altogether.

Setting:Thai students are noted for their

classroom shyness, partly caused by fear of making mistakes in front of others. This is particularly so in classes with participants of mixed ages, abilities, and status. With

educational standards improving rapidly, it is not unusual now to find organisations where junior staff members are stronger in English than their seniors in age and rank. When they are sitting together in a language class, the tension can be considerable.

As part of my teaching assignment at the Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkla University, I was recently asked to teach "mainly conversation" to a class of 12 administrators. The initial assessment and meeting had revealed a wide range in ability, from "competent user" to students unable to speak or read a sentence (a range of 76% to 6% using the first half of a Nelson Quick Check structure test). Although the formation of two groups would have been preferable, this was not practical, so there was no alternative but to persevere with all of them studying together.

Procedure : Clearly it was necessary from the outset

to build on the students' current level of comprehension. Almost all could understand a few basic questions, such as "How are you?" "What's your name?" "Where do you work?" "Who is Somsri?" even though they could probably not give grammatically accurate responses.

We agreed (in Thai) that if they were ever required to use English in their work environment, it would normally be in question-answer situations where they would not actually have to say very much (e.g.,

visitors asking the way; telephone callers asking to speak to someone; etc.). I explained that quite often in these basic situations just one word (or simply an appropriate action) is sufficient as a response.

I illustrated this by writing the main question words on the board for reference, and then asking students to give any coherent response. For example, if the question "Where?" elicited the response "Five o'clock," the student was not understanding. But if s/he answered "Home" or "Bangkok," coherency and comprehension is demonstrated. Since I only expected one or two words in response to my questions, the potential for grammatical error was almost eliminated. Students very quickly understood that they were expected to give more than random answers, and that a (usually true) situation could be built up with ease.

For example:Where? Bangkok. When? Next week. Why? Seminar.

After several questions, I then asked the stronger students to explain what was going to happen:

SomsrI am going to Bangkok next week for a seminar.

By this means, even the weakest members of the class were able to

participate in genuine communication; and the strong students were able to display their ability. Occasionally situations could be interpreted in more than one possible way, which caused a good deal of amusement, and led to the need for further explanation. What was important, however, was that both groups became more confident, and tension was noticeably reduced.

Students soon began to take the initiative and ask their own questions.

For example:What (one student points)? A watch What kind? Seiko How much? I don't know Why? A present Who? Boyfriend

The second stage was to introduce the idea that when listeners hear no question-word but realise from intonation and other contextual clues that a question is being spoken, a Yes/No answer is normally required. Again, one word can carry a simple message, such as "Finished?" "Hungry?" and again there is very little likeli- hood of ambiguity or misunderstanding.

The third stage was to introduce more specific questioning by the use of more than one word, such as "Where/Saturday?" "When/shopping?" and to use this format to practice giving appropriate, coherent responses

Finally, and without warning, I began to ask complete, simple questions (at first with slightly exaggerated emphasis on content words). By now students were unperturbed by tense and structure, and were able to give plenty of good responses, albeit short ones. The stronger students were able to give fuller responses, of course, and were encouraged to do so.

Conclusions : Purists may take me to task for allowing

students to use "broken" English. However, verb conjugations and tense distinctions always cause great difficulty for Thais, and any strategy to alleviate this problem is welcome so that they can concentrate their efforts on message comprehension.

I would suggest that whatever theoretical criticisms may be made of this technique, the end more than justified the means, at least for these students, who needed some degree of immediate success. This justification may be summarised as follows:

1.Communication was varied and interesting, and involved the bridging of a genuine information gap.

2.The awareness that they were successfully communicating, without making lots of grammatical mistakes, provided students with a stimulus to speak when they felt able.

3.Students of very different standards were able to study together and gain useful practice in the language.

4.They began to distinguish content and structure words, and learned how to focus on the message.

5.They became aware of the importance of nonverbal communication strategies.

6.All members of the class greatly enjoyed this kind of activity.

Obviously this very simple conversation technique did not occupy the entire class time, but it was pleasing to find that after six hours of the course, students had developed a much more positive attitude towards the language. In short, I believe that this was largely because they were taught at a very basic stage to focus on what they understood, and could respond to, rather than on what, in most cases, was not essential to the message being conveyed.

Desmond R. Burton is an English Language Teacher consultant in the Faculties of Medicine and Nursing, Prince of Songkla University, Haad Yai, Thailand

References : Byrne, D. 1986. Teaching oral English.

London: Longman. Fowler, W. S. and N. Coe. 1978. Quick-

check tests. London: AD. Nelson. Sheen, R. 1992. Getting students to ask

questions.English Teaching Forum, 30, 1. pp. 42-48

Ur, P. 1984. Teaching listening comprehension. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

( 9 ) Organizing and Implementing Group Discussions

By: Wolfgang Kahler

If our students are to become effective communicators in the target language, we must provide them with ample opportunities to develop in the classroom the types of interactive skills that most closely approximate communication in the “real world.” The most natural way to develop

these skills is through language-learning activities that promote conversation and discussion skills. The former can most practically be accomplished through personal student-student interviews, as well as information-gap activities; the latter, through debates or group discussions. Of the four types of language-learning activities I have mentioned, “group discussion” most closely mirrors authentic communication, which, according to Dakin (1973:6), “is essentially personal, the expression of personal needs, feelings, experiences and knowledge in situations that are never quite the same.”

Unfortunately, initiating and sustaining effective discussions is no easy task, in spite of our students’ eager insistence that they be provided with more opportunities to talk. The main reasons that discussion sessions flounder-providing the students possess adequate communication skills-are )1( a lack of sound preliminary planning, )2( lack of an effectively structured task-based framework to channelize the discussions, and )3( lack of stimulating discussion topics. In this article I hope to show how to effectively design and implement a group-discussion component based on a problem-solving approach, which, as Duff (1986) discovered, prompts more interaction than debating tasks.

Merits of problem-solving discussions:According to Bourne et al. (1986:241),

“problem-solving is a ‘real time’ activity that utilizes active memories and quite clearly

requires not just remembering, but operating on those active memories.” Solving a problem-which utilizes both short-term and long-term memory-involves a process of discovering what must be done to achieve a goal. Problem-solving discussion is a task-based activity that Breen (1987:23) defines as “any structural language endeavor which has a particular objective, appropriate content, a specific working procedure, and a range of outcomes for those who undertake the task.” According to Johnson (1979:200), “fluency in communicative process can only develop within a ‘task-oriented teaching’-one which provides ‘actual meaning’ by focusing on the tasks to be mediated through language, and where the success or failure is seen to be judged in terms of whether or not these tasks are performed.” Allwright (1984) considers the negotiating of meaning that occurs in this interactive process to be the key element in second-language development, as the learners, responding to a need to modify or adapt the language input, are able to manage their own learning, through personalized and individualized language instruction.

Organizational framework:A number of important factors promote

successful discussions, among which sound organizational planning plays the key role. This involves not only rearranging the classroom to insure face-to-face communication, scheduling a regular weekly session for this activity, and providing a step-by-step problem-solving model and a

list of negotiating strategies for the students to use; it also requires a clear understanding of the aims and specific objectives of the activity, as well as orienting the students to the non-traditional roles to be played by both teacher and students for this activity to be successful. As Maley and Duff (1978:17) suggest, “In order to use these techniques (involved in group-learning activities) successfully there may have to be a radical change in the relationship between teacher and student. The activities cannot work unless there is a relaxed atmosphere. Rearranging the layout of the room will help, but you will also need to alter their idea, and possibly yours, of what the teacher is there for.”

Procedural steps:The actual procedures of the discussion

sessions-which I schedule on a weekly basis throughout the semester-run as follows: The group chairperson (I choose a different one for each three sessions) coaxes several students to comment on the previous session-on the nature of the discussion topic and the solutions formulated, as well as their efficacy in solving the group task and a review of the negotiating strategies employed. I have the students focus on just two or three notional-functions in a session to avoid overload. Examples of the notional- functions employed include requesting clarification, interrupting politely, asking for and giving an opinion, agreeing, disagreeing tactfully, making suggestions, etc.

The next step entails selecting the discussion topics, which have to be of a problematic nature as well as pertinent to the needs, desires, and interests of the students. As Maier (1963) suggests, the best problems for discussion groups are those that include an attitudinal component and multiple solutions. Finding effective discussion topics is not a problem if each of the students is asked to come up with two or three problems they would like to talk about, thus creating a bank of topics. These are prioritized by the class, and the most popular ones are discussed first. The chosen topic is then analyzed in the light of a problem-solving model, which I formally present to the students. The model I have found most useful is one formulated by the eminent educator and thinker John Dewey (1933).

After the solutions have been formulated and prioritized via a timed brainstorming session, the chairperson directs a number of students to give an oral summary of the proceedings of the current discussion session. At this point you might be wondering about the teacher’s role in this activity. As the chairperson’s main task is to orchestrate the session, ensuring that all of the group members have an opportunity to participate in the discussion, the main role of the teacher is to act as language consultant, to resolve communicative blocks, to provide, if called upon, commentary on any incongruencies in the thread of the arguments, and to make a note of the more blatant competence-based errors, which can be pointed out and drilled at a more

appropriate time between the sessions. I also make it a point to videotape at least one of the discussion sessions, so that the students have the pleasure of seeing themselves in action. A videotaped feedback session provides an opportunity to scrutinize linguistic and communicative competencies.

Although I am still in the enviable position of having small classes in our new institution, this activity can easily be implemented with an average-size class of, say, 20. In this case, the students are simply divided into three groups, each with its own chairperson, with the teacher perambulating and observing all three. It is necessary, however, in this instance, that the discussion topics for all three groups be of a uniform nature, so that the individual groups, when re-forming for a “whole class” activity, can debate, evaluate, and prioritize, through an appointed group spokesperson, the solutions of each of the groups, to arrive at a whole-class consensus.

Conclusion:Group discussions are an excellent

means for raising the students’ motivation level and increasing their involvement in the learning process. Such discussions promote the corporate skill of cohesion as well as analytical skills, and provide the students with an opportunity to express their needs, feelings, interests, and opinions in a non-threatening learning environment via the realistic and functional use of the target language.

REFERENCES:

Allwright, D. 1984. Why don’t learners learn what teachers teach?-The interaction hypothesis. In Language learning in formal and informal contexts, ed. D. M. Singleton and D. G. Little. Dublin: IRAAL.

Bourne, F., R. Dominowski, E. Loftus, and A. Healy. 1986. Cognitive processes. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Breen, M. 1987. Learner contribution to task design. In Language learning tasks, ed. C. N. Candlin and D. F. Murphy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Dakin, J. 1973. The language laboratory and language learning. Essex: Longman.

Dewey, J. 1933. How we think: A restatement of the relations of reflective thinking to the educative process. Lexington, Mass.: Heath.

Duff, P. 1986. Another look at interlanguage talk: Taking tasks to tasks. In Talking to learn, ed. R. Day. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Johnson, K. 1979. Communicative approaches and communicative processes. In The communicative approach to language teaching, ed. C. Brumfit, and K. Johnson. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Maier, N. 1963. Problem solving discussions and conferences. New York: McGraw Hill.

Maley, A. and A. Duff. 1978. Drama techniques in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

( 10 ) Helping Students Stay in English

By: Leslie Bobb Wolfe

In most state school classrooms around the world we have large groups of students who speak the same mother tongue. If we want these students to get practice in the oral skills, the most common solution is to dedicate a large proportion of class time to working in pairs or small groups. However, one of the main drawbacks of this

arrangement is that, since the majority of the students at any given time are working without direct teacher supervision, the decision as to which language they use to work in is theirs-and they often go into their own language rather than struggle to cThe least successful way, in my experience, to get students to use as much English as possible is for me (the teacher) to tell (ask, shout at, beg, etc.) the class to use English. I’ve found that to be pretty much a waste of breath and energy, because whether or not English is used is a decision each student makes. There is no way I can know in a class of 20 students (much less of 40, 50, 60, etc.) that they are using as much English as possible if I have them working in pairs or small groups. If I try to take the responsibility for their using as much English as possible, all I’ll probably achieve is to drive myself crazy and get the students to put their creativity into finding new ways to avoid using English without my catching them. What I have discovered that does work is certain “tricks” to get my students to want to use as much English as possible, taking the responsibility of that decision themselves, communicate in English.

The three questions:The “trick” I like to use first with a class

is to ask them three questions after they have finished a small-group activity (having chosen an activity at a level in which I know they can work mostly in English). I ask the students to write their answers individually, not say them aloud or show them to any

other student or to me. (The first time I insist on this quite a bit, in a kind of teasing tone: “I’m going to ask you three questions, but I don’t want you to tell me the answer. Just write it, and don’t let anyone else see your answer.”) The first question is: How much English did you use during the activity? The answer should be a percentage, a number: 10%, 50%, etc. I say, “Just think how much English you used and write the number, please.”

The second question is: How much English could you have used? Again I ask for a written percentage and mention that 100% isn’t always realistic. There tends to be some nervous giggling at this point. Before asking the third question, I say that this one is just to think about, not to write anything. It is: What could you do in the future to have the first number move nearer to the second one? (I ask the three questions in English or in the students’ language, depending on their level.)

My objective in asking these questions is to put the responsibility for using English onto each student. They know that in English class they should use as much English as possible, but timidity, rebelliousness, peer pressure, etc., can impede their doing so. If the teacher accepts the responsibility for keeping the students in English, students can “play” at using as little English as possible. The above questions, asked in a neutral, not angry or accusing, tone of voice and with corresponding body language, show the

students that the decision is theirs. They tend to respond over time by using Closely related to the first “trick” are the following, which I incorporate gradually after using the one described above two or three times: Before starting an activity, I say that when it is finished I will ask for percentages of English (the above three questions). Or, again before starting an activity, I ask each student or small group to write the percentage of English they think they can use. And then after the activity, I ask them how well they’ve been able to fulfill their goal, whether they could improve, whether they were too optimistic, etc. And finally, once in a while with some groups and not until all the above have been used more than once, after an activity I ask the students to either write their percentages on a paper to give me or to say them aloud. more English, as much as they can.

Little messages:

While the students are working in small groups, sometimes I write little messages on the board concerning the language they’re using: something like “Are you using English?” I write this in rather large print and then walk around the class simply tapping one person in each group on the shoulder and pointing to the board. I don’t say anything, just tap and point and go on to another group. A variation I’ve seen another teacher (Manuel Gonzalez, Teachers’ Centre, Leon) use is to write the message in large letters on a piece of paper and walk around

the groups silently showing the paper to each group.

The message can be more or less complex, depending on the groups’ general level. Other examples are: What language are you using, English or Spanish? How much of what you’re saying is in English? I don’t hear any “funny” language, do I?

Classroom language:Many times students use their own

language because they’re not sure or don’t remember how to express the idea in English. In these cases, my job is to find out what they need and make sure they have it to use.

While the students are working in small groups, I walk around (as unobtrusively as possible) listening to what they’re saying in their own language and write this on the board in English. Often much of what I hear is classroom language that will be used over and over again. I either simply write the sentences on the board in English and walk around pointing them out to the class (as described above), stop the small-group work and point them out to the class, or write the sentences on the board in their own language, stop the groups, and ask them to help me put them into English before going on. Depending on my own energy level and quickness of mind on any given day, I may ask students to write these sentences in their notebooks, keeping a record of them to use on future occasions. This probably should be done systematically.

Another related possibility is to ask the class, before starting an activity, what sentences they think they will need while doing it. Asked like this in the abstract, I’ve found it difficult for students at first to think of what they’ll be wanting to say. With time and practice they learn how to think this out. For some activities it’s quite obvious. For instance, filling in a questionnaire for which they need to ask their classmates questions, we go over what the questions will be before starting. I usually ask the students not to write the questions themselves. For lower-intermediate levels, we often write the questions on the board- different students voluntarily write and/or correct what’s on the board. This means that the students have the questions written somewhere if they need to refer to them, but it’s not a little piece of paper in their hands that they’ll mumble into instead of looking at the other person.

Observers:

An idea that I didn’t use much myself at secondary-school levels but which other teachers have told me is very successful for them is to ask one person from each group, or a specific group of students, to act as observers. The observers do not participate in the activity itself but keep track of what’s being said and report back afterward.

Since I started at university level I have used this “trick” more, and the students have reported back that they’ve found it

useful. Rather than putting an emphasis on whether or not English is used, each observer has an oral-assessment sheet and listens for pronunciation and grammar mistakes, interaction, and overall fluency skills of each member of the group. In fact, quite often I plan an activity for 20 minutes, have the students work in groups of four, and ask each member of the group to take a turn being the observer-monitor for five minutes. All I do is signal when to change observer every five minutes. At the end of the total time, I ask each student, on the same evaluation sheet, to self-assess her/his own speaking performance (3-4 minutes) and then give the small groups another 10 to 15 minutes to comment on their mutual assessments person by person (everyone will have evaluated everyone else and themselves).

Students have told me in written feedback that although at first they found it difficult to drop out of a conversation and listen for how their classmates were speaking rather then what they were saying-and to listen for specific mistakes-after practising a few times not only did their ears sharpen to hear others’ mistakes but this helped them to realize specific areas they themselves needed work on.

There’s no way I can physically put much time into listening to each student in a class of 30 to 50 people (which, of course, means eight to fifteen small groups). But they can learn to do it themselves. Here, for me, is a

good example of how students can learn from each other and, through this, get to working on self-improvement. And this takes me back to the idea of students taking the responsibility for their own learning to the degree that they are able.

For me this is the common factor in all these “tricks.” The responsibility of using as much English as possible is on the students, which, in my opinion, is where it should be.

A useful list:

Here are the same “tricks” organized according to when I use them in relation to what the class is doing.

1.Before beginning an activity:

a. Ask each student or group to write the percentage of English s/he thinks s/he can use during the activity.

b. Say that when this activity is finished you will ask for percentages of English. (See below.)

c. Ask the class what structures they think they’ll need to do the activity (i.e., How will you say . . . ?).

2. During the activity:

a. Listen to the sentences the groups say in their own language and write these on the

blackboard in English. (For example: It’s my turn. I don’t understand. Wait a minute.)

b. Write little messages on the blackboard about the use of English. (For example: How much English are you using? Are you using English? Are you speaking English or Spanish? What language are you using?)

c. Have one person from each group go to another group and make a mark each time non-English is used-or perhaps do so for each person in the group individually. I meet briefly with these people and explain that each should: (1) sit outside or behind the group, (2) not participate in the activity, and (3) not explain to the group what s/he is doing. (They’ll figure it out, but it’s more intriguing this way.)

d. Go to a specific group and quietly suggest that they try using more English.

3. After finishing an activity:

a. Ask each student or group to write the percentage of English they’ve used during the activity. Then ask them to write the percentage of English they could have used. Finally, ask each to think about what s/he could do in the future to have the first percentage move nearer to the second.

b. When small groups before an activity have written the percentage of English they think they’ll use, ask them if this percentage has been fulfilled or not.

c. Ask observers to comment on their notes with the small group.

d. Ask the class what they’ve said in their language during the activity, to get the English version for the next time.

e. Ask students to say their percentages aloud or to write them on the papers they give you.

( 11 ) Speaking through Association

By: Oya Tunaboylu

Of the four language skills, speaking is generally considered the most difficult to learn. Many students have the misconception that writing in the target language is superior to speaking. Nevertheless, it is only our tongue that builds a communication bridge between the listener and the speaker.

There are many reasons why students tend to be silent listeners rather than active learners in the oral-English class. The most important reason is the psychological pressure of making mistakes in the presence of their classmates; the second reason is their poor vocabulary.

A useful technique:

I shall describe a simple technique for developing and using vocabulary that I call “Speaking through Association.” This technique can be employed in practically any speaking class. This is how it is done: The teacher writes a list of useful words and phrases and asks the students to think about them. The words should be chosen according

to their general usefulness and productivity. They should be words that can be related to the students’ life experience.

After giving the students a few minutes to think about the words, the teacher should have them choose one word from the list and try to recall or figure out its meaning. One student should try to explain what he thinks the word means. When the first student finishes his explanation, the teacher asks others whether they can expand on the information already given, drawing on their experiences and knowledge of their environment

An example:

This technique can be illustrated with a simple example. Take the list:

traffic lightscentral heatingmailing systemmagazineclearance sale(s)

From the above list, a student chooses the word magazine and tries to explain its meaning. After a few minutes of preparation to collect his knowledge about the word, he begins his explanation as follows: “A magazine is a kind of newspaper we read.”

The teacher then asks the other students to expand on the explanation by adding more meaningful words/sentences. Another student may say: “A magazine is a periodical

or publication better than a newspaper, which is issued regularly.”

A third student, picking up on the word regularly, adds: “A magazine is a periodical which contains articles and pictures and is issued weekly or monthly.”

The difference between the first and last explanations shows that the students may have more or less knowledge of the word according to their daily-life experiences.

After learning the basic meaning of the word, the students want to know whether it has any more meanings. This motivates them to turn to a dictionary-a task that they usually consider burdensome and arduous.

Drawing from life experience:

Here is an example, using a word from the above list, that shows the importance of using everyday life experience in language learning:

The vocabulary item traffic lights may be selected, which represents something in the students’ everyday life. The teacher asks a student to explain the phrase, drawing on his real-life experience. He will at least know the functions of the three colours, and he should also be able to find appropriate words (verb, noun, adjective, etc.) related to a traffic light’s form and function. For instance, he should know and use the verb to turn to when speaking about the traffic lights. So, drawing on his life experience and related words, he can say:

related word life experienceWhen it turns to green ...safeWhen it turns to yellow ...cautionWhen it turns to red ...stop

One student may explain the meaning of the three colours, another student may enlarge on the explanation, speaking about the function of the light, the importance of this system, and so forth.

Similarly, if the student selects the item heating system, he should be able to use related words such as main, tank, pipe, to boil, etc., in his explanation.

Advantages of this technique to sum up:

1. This technique requires the students to bring their daily-life experiences into the classroom, making the speaking practice more entertaining.

2. Contradictory explanations given by different students motivate them to find out which one is correct (one explains that a magazine is a newspaper, another disputes this explanation and says it is a periodical rather than a newspaper). Therefore they are motivated to use a dictionary, which further enriches their vocabulary.

3. It helps them to learn beyond and independently of their textbooks.

4. It fosters a unique cooperation among the students. When a student finishes his explanation to the best of his knowledge of both the L2 and his life experience, another, expanding on the explanation, adds more associated words and completes the explanation.

( 12 ) Teaching Time-Creating Devices in Spontaneous Speech :

A Focused-Learning ApproachBy: Wu Kam-yin

In teaching speaking skills in the L2 classroom, it is not enough merely to provide students with opportunities to speak in English. We need to help students to speak, and hence help them to learn to speak. In this article, I describe a series of activities designed specially to teach a speaking strategy. In particular, I focus on how a method that facilitates oral production, i.e., the use of time-creating devices, can be taught using the focused learning approach.

What are time-creating devices? They are devices that are used to gain time for the

speaker so that he can formulate what to say next in spontaneous speech. They include: (1) fillers, e.g., well, actually, I mean, you know, let me see now, oh let me think, and (2) repetition of key words in one’s interlocutor’s utterance, e.g., A: When are you leaving? B: When am I leaving?

Rationale for teaching time-creating devices in speechWhen participating spontaneously in class discussion or conversation, students need time to plan and organise their message while they are speaking. Inevitably they will use devices like fillers and repetition of words to gain time to speak. Very fluent students may not use these devices often and may find them of limited usefulness. However, for less fluent and less competent speakers, time-creating devices provide a valuable speaking strategy.

Less fluent students sometimes give the impression that they can produce only minimal responses because they use long pauses to gain time to think when speaking spontaneously. These pauses, often misinterpreted as the end of a turn in speaking, prevent them from holding the floor and cause them to lose the chance to go on speaking. The resultant impression is that the students are incompetent speakers who fail to contribute as much as is desirable to class discussion or spontaneous conversation.

Teaching time-creating devices is a way to help these less fluent students. If they

know how to signal that they are planning their speech and have not finished their turn, this will enable them to speak more, and more effectively. Hieke (1981) and Crystal (1981) (quoted in Arevart and Nation 1991:91) suggest that fillers and hesitation markers are features of well-formedness that contribute to better-quality speech production. Nolasco and Arthur (1987:53) state that their use in speech can contribute to an impression of fluency.

Focused learning:

Having outlined the rationale for the teaching of time-creating devices, I shall now explain the term focused learning. Focused learning is a theory of how language can be learnt effectively in the classroom context. According to R. K. Johnson in a lecture given at the University of Hong Kong, focused learning is based on these six principles of learning:

1. Students learn best if objectives are clearly stated. If students know the objectives of a particular exercise or activity, they will perceive that the teaching programme has purpose and direction. This will overcome their resistance to learning.

2. Students benefit if complex tasks are broken down into their component elements.

3. Learning is a process by which students move from conscious knowledge to automatic

performance (automatization). For this reason, consciousness-raising is an important technique in focused learning, which asserts that conscious, learned knowledge can be transformed into unconscious knowledge at some stage of the learning process.

4. Automatization requires practice. As Sharwood-Smith (1981:166) points out, “it is quite clear and uncontroversial to say that most spontaneous performance is attained by dint of practice.”

5. Practice is most effective when the time spent is concentrated and attention focused.

6. Students benefit from explicit feedback that focuses on the learning objective and that leads to renewed learning experience.

Basically, the contrast between focused learning and unfocused acquisition corresponds to Krashen’s distinction of learning and acquisition. Focused learning, as its name suggests, is a learning-based model. It is analytical in nature: exercises or tasks for teaching purposes are structured and incremental, and students learn one language item/skill after another. In contrast, unfocused acquisition is an acquisition-based model. It assumes that learning is naturalistic and holistic, and language items/ skills to be learnt are integrated in teaching tasks rather than separated.

Although different in nature, focused learning and unfocused acquisition should not be treated as mutually exclusive in an

ELT curriculum. An acquisition-based model has a place in language development, but this model is not optimum. It needs to be supplemented by a learning-based model. In other words, both focused learning and unfocused acquisition play important roles in language-proficiency development.

Steps in teaching time-creating devices:

I shall describe how the principles of the focused-learning approach can be used to design a series of speaking activities to teach the use of time-creating devices. These activities are intended for intermediate students whose oral proficiency is below average.

Stage 1: Consciousness-Raising Activity:

1. Choose a topic, e.g., friendship, and give an unprepared talk on it in class for about five minutes. Tape-record the talk.

2. Play the cassette tape to the whole class, pausing at places where fillers and repetition were used. Explain the use of these devices.

3. Explain that repetition and expressions like well and I mean are time-creating devices. Emphasize that their use does not result in “bad language” but helps people plan their speech and sound more natural.

4. List the main time-creating devices in English on the blackboard. Explain, step by step, how they are used in spontaneous speech. Tell the students not to use long pauses in discussions or conversations. Instead, when they need to plan what they will say next or search for a word, they should fill the gap by using fillers or repetition.

Rationale. The activity described in nos. 1 and 2 above is called “modeling think-aloud” (O’Malley and Chamot 1990:158). It raises students’ awareness of the strategy to be learned through giving a demonstration of how the teacher himself/herself uses the strategy.

The explanation of the rationale of the strategy and the naming of it help to develop students’ knowledge of time-creating devices.

Stage 2 : Practice Activity :

1. Select an audio tape of a talk or a group discussion where one or more students speak spontaneously. The talk or discussion should contain long pauses.

2. Play the tape to the students, asking them what is wrong with the talk or discussion.

3. Provide each student with a transcript of the talk or discussion. Remind them of the time-creating devices used in English.

4. Have students form pairs and ask them to improve the talk or discussion on the tape by

using time-creating devices. Students practise saying their improved versions of the talk or discussion by speaking to each other.

5. Go round the class and listen to students. Provide support and give further explanation if these are needed.

Rationale. This controlled activity aims to give students confidence and support in the use of time-creating devices.

Stage 3: Fluency Practice:

1. Prepare a list of topics that are within the students’ experience and that motivate them. For example:

school life money   pleasures foodholidays sportsTV/movie stars boyfriends/

girlfriends   karaoke   personal

experiences   concerts   TV games   fashion   part-time jobs

Write each topic on a small piece of paper. Fold all the pieces of paper and put them into a box.

2. Ask students to form pairs. In each pair, one student draws a piece of paper with a topic on it from the box. He does not show the topic to his partner, but he has to give an unprepared talk on it for about five minutes,

during which time he cannot mention the words on the paper. In giving his talk, the student is encouraged to use a variety of time-creating devices. At the end of his talk, his partner guesses what the topic is.

3. Tape-record the talk of all the students.

4. Play the tapes to the whole class. Ask the speakers on the tapes individually to think aloud in front of the class, i.e., to verbalise their own thought processes while doing the task.

Rationale. This activity provides less controlled activities that enable students to use English for communication. Whereas in the last activity the teacher provides support while students practise, in this activity support is phased out to encourage autonomous strategy use. Jones et al. (1987) call this “scaffolding instruction.”

The game-like nature of this activity increases students’ motivation to practise speaking.

Students’ performance is tape-recorded so that students can be asked to think aloud after the activity is over. The think-alouds enable the teacher to see how students use time-creating devices in spontaneous oral presentation. The recording can also be used as formative assessment of the students’ progress.

RoleAYou are the principle of a school that is raising money to build a new library. You are going to attend a press conference next Monday, where you need to explain why a new library needs to be built in your school and how much money is needed. Write your speech and be ready to present it. The speech should last about 10 minutes.

RoleA You are a reporter attending a press conference where the principle of the school is describing his plan to build a new library in his school. You do not find this topic very interesting. Instead, you want to find out why so many high-school students have committed suicide recently. You have to leave the conference in 10 minutes, so you cannot wait for the principle to finish his speech before you ask your questions. Interrupt him and ask your questions now.

2. This activity is to be done in pairs. A week before class, give student A in each pair role card A so that he can prepare his speech beforehand.

3. Student B will be given role card B in class.

4. In pairs, students do the roleplay. Student A will begin by reading out his speech. Student B should not allow him to finish. Instead, he should ask student A questions that have answers student A has not thought about beforehand, e.g., “Is there really too much homework for students to do at school these days?” With very weak students, these

questions may be prepared with the help of the teacher.

Rationale. This activity allows students to understand that in real-life communication, one sometimes has to answer unexpected questions. On these occasions, keeping silent in order to think of the answers is not an appropriate or effective strategy. Instead, time-creating devices like repeating one’s interlocutor’s question(s) may be employed.

The use of roleplay adds variety to the kinds of activities the students are asked to perform.

Stage 5: Feedback Activity for Students:

1. Select audio tapes of students’ oral work recorded before and after time-creating devices were taught. Prepare the following task sheet, adapted from Nolasco and Arthur (1987:134-36):

2. Give each student a tape of his oral work and a copy of the Task Sheet for Evaluation.

3. Have students evaluate their own performance.

Rationale. Students sometimes lose interest in participating in speaking activities because they fail to see their educational value. They feel that they are made to speak in English for the sake of doing it. They do not think that they have actually learned much. To counteract this feeling, feedback tasks should be incorporated into the speaking class. The feedback task described

above allows students to listen to their oral performance before and after time-creating devices were taught. The comparison will help them to see the improvement they have made. As students feel a sense of satisfaction in their work, they will become motivated and will want further activities of a similar kind. This is beneficial as it leads to renewed learning experience.

Stage 6: Evaluation Activity for the Teacher:

1. Listen to the students’ tapes in stage 5.

2. Using the Task Sheet for Evaluation, evaluate how well students have learned time-creating devices in speech.

Rationale. This activity enables the teacher to evaluate his/her success in teaching time-creating devices.

Conclusion:

Richards (1990:79-80) suggests that in designing a speaking program goals must be set, samples of which include how to use conversational fillers. In this article, I have described a series of activities that teach students how to use fillers and hesitation devices. These activities are designed with students’ interests in mind. As they are interesting to students, they motivate the students to speak and to learn how to speak.

REFERENCES:

Arevart, S. and P. Nation. 1991. Fluency improvement in a second language. RELC Journal, 22, 1, pp. 84-94.

Bygate, M. 1987. Speaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jones, B. F., A. S. Palincsar, D. S. Ogle, and E. G. Carr. 1987. Strategic teaching and learning: Cognitive instruction in the content areas. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Jones, L. 1981. Functions of English, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nolasco, R. and L. Arthur. 1987. Conversation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

O’Malley, J. M. and A. U. Chamot. 1990. Learning strategies in second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J. 1990. The language teaching matrix. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sharwood-Smith, M. 1981. Consciousness-raising and the second language learner. Applied Linguistics, 2, pp. 159-69.

)13( Brainstorming to Autonomy

By: Leslie Bobb-Wolff

The technique referred to as brainstorming is used when you want people, working together, to generate ideas on a specific topic. (See Footnote 1 ) As such, it can be a useful and enriching tool in the EFL classroom and a means of showing students that they are collectively capable of generating far more ideas to improve their learning process than they believed possible. This in turn, leads to an increase in their autonomy of learning and self-responsibility. Most of the examples included in this article come from second year university students studying English philology, but others are from secondary schools, EFL classes where the author first experimented with different types of student brainstorming. I believe, however, that the technique can be used successfully to enrich the classroom and promote learner autonomy within any subject in secondary, tertiary and adult studies.

In sum, I have found brainstorming to be useful in a wide range of areas as a device to help students identify their over-all classroom dynamics. But most importantly, it improves the quality of student participation and student production in class.

I. Ways of organizing brainstorming:Whole-group brainstorming is what

usually comes to mind when the term is used, but here we will also look at two other possible ways of organizing this technique which I found to be successful for generating students' ideas in a wide variety of areas. The first alternative is pyramid brainstorming; i.e., moving from small groups to the whole class. The second alternative concerns going from the individual to the whole class. After a presentation of these two variations I will discuss the whole- group activity of brainstorming. Among these three types only the first steps vary. As we shall see, the complexity of the area students brainstorm is what usually defines which type of organization will work best.Organization One: Pyramid brainstorming-from small group to whole classStep 1 State the topic: You, as the teacher, state the topic or write it on the blackboard (ex., "What one does to learn new vocabulary.") You then give any explanation that may be needed. The topic to brainstorm can also come from a single student or from a student groupStep 2 Generating ideas: The students form groups of three or four. They can make their own suggestions usually by collaborating with the people around them, or follow teacher-suggested criteria, such as grouping with classmates they have not worked with recently, or classmates with whom they have not discussed this topic. Ask the small groups to talk and write down their ideas.

You can set a time limit or simply walk around the class. When you see that a group has two or three ideas written down, ask them to write them on the board. Then ask the other groups, to add on the board any thoughts or ideas that they may have. No attempt should be made to put things in any kind of order or make corrections or comments.Step 3 Clearing up ideas: When it appears that no new ideas are forthcoming, you ask the whole class or small groups to discuss the relevancy and the clarity of the ideas on the board. (Some ideas will most certainly be eliminated.) For example, if the topic is what is to be included on the next test, after the class has brainstormed, they go back over the list to make sure everything said during the brainstorming is relevant to the test (i.e. related to the objectives and contents to be covered on this test).

Now is the time to ask questions about anything that does not make sense. First ask if anyone in the class has any questions about what is on the board. You, yourself also may wish to ask questions. If some ideas seem too vague or general, ask the group who wrote them to explain what they mean and then add this new input to the board.Step 4 Choosing ideas: Ask everyone to copy the entire list to keep as a reference, or follow one of these four steps:

1. Each student or small group chooses one of the items on the board for a future task. For example, ask each one to choose one of

the topics to develop a dialog or write an exam.2. Each individual chooses and writes the ideas s/he considers most relevant or important. For example, if the topic is reading strategies, each student chooses those s/he thinks will be most useful personally.

3. Each class member chooses a given number of the items that s/he believes to be most important. For example, after the class has brainstormed all the new vocabulary from a lesson, each chooses eight items to add to his/her individual vocabulary list.

4. Ask the whole class to discard all but five or ten items on the blackboard. This can be done through discussion or voting. For example, if the topic is popular songs, the class votes to choose five songs they would most like to work on together.

Organization Two: From individual to whole class:

Step 1 State the topic: Same as aboveStep 2 Generating ideas: Give each student three-to-six minutes to write his/her ideas on the selected topic. This step can also be assigned as homeworkStep 3 Selecting ideas: Form pairs and ask each pair to make a list of their individual ideas, possibly limiting the number to eight ideas between the two.Set a time limit. Have the pairs form groups of four, again sharing and combining their

ideas into one list of a limited number of items. Set a time limit. Then, form groups of eight students.

Ask each group either to read the list of ideas or write the list on the blackboard. You may now need an alternate Step 3 (clearing up ideas) or you may go directly to step 4 (see organization one above), or you can ask each group for a copy of the list.Organization Three: Whole class brainstorming:

In this type of organization, probably the most traditional form of brainstorming, the entire group works together from the beginning. Whole-class brainstorming is useful when individual students must come up with ideas without previous small group discussion period. I have used it to generate ideas concerning the concepts and content of a reading selection based only on the title. I have also used this organization when students are identifying places where they could find foreign speakers to interview. Once the topic has been stated, the class members simply say whatever ideas occur to them. These may be written on the board, a transparency or by a secretary-often the teacher-or not written at all. The choice here depends on the outcome desired, the complexity of the brainstormed area, the size of the class and the dynamics within the group. As stated in Organization One, do not at this point correct or comment, but you may wish to ask for a more detailed or specific explanation. Time limits may help the students to learn how to think and say their ideas faster. Following this, go on to

steps three and four in Organization One above.

Which type of brainstorming to use:I have found Organization One, pyramid

brainstorming from the small group to the whole class, to be most useful where students have to reflect on how they do something and/or when small group discussions will help them generate more ideas. This includes work with strategies. We have found Organization Two, from individual to whole class, to be most suitable when we want students to clear up ideas individually before sharing or comparing them with others, such as choosing which vocabulary to learn from the new words. Organization Three, whole-class brainstorming, takes the least time but can have results which are less rich in ideas. It seems to work best for using simple topics which will interest most of the class in participating (ex., where to find foreigners to interview). Unfortunately, in whole-group brainstorming, the tendency is for contributions from only a few with the majority sitting passively. To encourage greater participation, switching to one or the other of the two alternatives can well be your solution.

II. Ways the teacher can enhance a brainstorming activity

Our experience has been that, when using this technique, students come up with a great many ideas, but we have also found it true that there are groups, or days, when the total number of ideas generated, or the

quality of these ideas, leaves something to be desired.

Hints during small group discussionIn small group/pyramid brainstorming,

once the students have been working a few minutes on generating ideas, I often go around to the groups and ask them what they have written so far. Sometimes students have ideas which are very general so I ask them how they can make them more specific. This helps them to generate more ideas. Other times the group has not understood clearly enough the area to be brainstormed and we can help them get back on track. You can also compliment them on what they have written or, say a few words in private to get a sleepy group thinking.

CompilingPutting together the lists of various

groups of students and handing this cumulative list to all the groups can be one way to give the learners more ideas. This can include giving the group lists compiled by the class(es) from a previous year for incorporation into their own initial brainstorming lists

Teacher's inputYou, the teacher, may add your own

ideas or suggestions to the list the students have accumulated on the board near the end of step two. For example, when brainstorming for strategies, to help make reading easier and more profitable, I have suggested the idea of reading a piece the

first time as fast as possible to get a general idea, then re-reading it for details. In the area of defining what to include in a test, the teacher may wish to add something the students have not mentioned or may wish to eliminate a student suggestion. An example of the latter is including translation from their first language to the FL, an activity we had not done in class. (The students' response was that "there is always translation on our tests." After discussion, the group agreed to drop this item from their list of suggestions.)

III. Putting the ideas into practiceBrainstorming, particularly on strategies,

can generate ideas, but we also want to "push" the students towards putting these ideas into practice, ideas such as how to help yourself to read better or to improve composition writing.

With some areas we have found that simply giving out a photocopy of the final list of suggestions or ideas suffices. I have done this in areas such as the criteria for assessment which the students then use for their self-assessment.

For areas which the students will put into practice outside the classroom more often than in class, I ask the students to keep a "plan of action" in their notebook. This plan of action has two parts: The action (idea, strategy) itself and then, when, where, and how often it will be put into practice. (See Appendix 1 ) Each student makes a personal list and then adds new ideas as they appear.

This means that after any topic is brainstormed, each student will choose one, two, or three items from the brainstormed list, add them to an individual "plan of action" including when, where, and how often s/he will try to do this.

About once a month, you, the teacher, can ask the students to write and hand in an assessment of their "plan of action," that is, what isn't working and why/why not. This pushes the students to keep track of their own work, to check if they are trying out new strategies, and evaluate which is/is not useful. The objective is to help the students organize their own learning, that is, to help them to acquire metacognitive strategies related to the organization and evaluation of their way of working.

IV. How does brainstorming help students become more autonomous? Changing attitudes and acquiring skills

One outcome of student brainstorming, what they do and what they could do, is making them conscious of the strategies each already has. It also helps them discover what other classmates do. The former is useful because students are often unaware of how they go about a task themselves. The latter, because it has often never occurred to most of them that there is any other way to face a task other than their own habitual way. The realization that they can get ideas from their classmates is one more way to help students understand the teacher is not the only source for learning.

Asking students to brainstorm specific areas, contents, or processes, is a way of showing them, as opposed to simply telling them, how much they, individually and collectively, already know and know how to do. A blackboard covered with student ideas on a given area is an implicit message of this collective knowledge or ability. This message can be made explicit by the teacher pointing out to the group the number of ideas they have come up with or by asking them if they had expected that they would find so many possibilities before beginning the brainstorming activity. This is one way we have found to help students change their attitude towards their role in decision-making in their learning process.

Brainstorming, especially pyramid brainstorming, helps the student to become conscious of the skills s/he has already acquired, what s/he already does in order to learn and what else s/he could be doing. In other words, students identify the strategies they already have and also what other strategies s/he could be putting into practice.

Further, pyramid brainstorming helps each student to reflect on his/her present way of working, and to discover that this way is not the same as for someone else. This can come as quite a shock to students and teachers.

As students become more conscious of how each one learns and of their capabilities

of making decisions about their own learning process, they begin to acquire the ability to accept the responsibility of this learning process. They are now on their way to becoming more autonomous. Simultaneously, as the teacher sees the class of students collectively come up with ideas in a given area and then use these suggestions to improve their learning process while accepting greater responsibility for the in-class work and overall group dynamics, the teacher becomes more willing to let the students try working with ever greater amounts of autonomy. In this way the "snowball keeps growing."

Leslie Bobb-Wolff teaches English and methodology in the Modern Language Department of the University of La Laguna, in Tenerife,Spain.

)14( Conversation ClassesBy: Jiang Xia

In my English conversation class at Xuzhou Normal University, I only have a blackboard and some chalk. The class is made up of 70 students. These students are good at doing multiple-choice exercises but are poor at doing exercises in which they are asked to produce and create in the language. This weakness is due to the types of exams the students have to take at the end of the semester. In the class, the students are encouraged to think in English instead of translating, learn to write essays, and pass Level Four in a year’s time. Both the teachers and the students are under much pressure to do well. I believe that my first responsibility is to help the students make rapid progress in speaking the language. I usually focus on speaking activities beginning with the first class.Teaching plan :

I begin by teaching some general expressions (e.g., "I’m sorry," asking directions). I follow this with situational expressions such as what to say at the bank

or at the post office. The students are asked to recite all of the expressions. It is hard and sometimes boring. Most of them will recite because they are eager to speak the language. To make it interesting, I usually ask them to practice with their classmates.

To my surprise, most of the students, when asked to practice with their classmates, refuse to do so or at least don’t put their hearts into it. When asked why, they tell me they think it is silly to talk in "baby English" and they feel embarrassed because they speak slowly and use broken English. To me, the shortcoming of this kind of practice is that I don’t know who is practicing and who is chatting in Chinese. And if they make any mistakes, no one will correct them because the other students are preparing their own sentences. Feedback is the responsibility of the teacher, but I don’t have time to check and monitor the performance of all of the students

Second, I ask the students to listen to the VOA Special English program. I encourage them to try to imitate the English they hear in the program and to use it for their four-to-five-minute daily reports. The students like doing this. They learn much from their classmates this way. What’s more, the other students’ excellent work will be an impetus to them. However, the shortcoming of this activity is that they still do not communicate naturally.

In preparation for giving their reports, they listen to the VOA, read newspapers, translate, look up new vocabulary in their dictionaries, and talk about their report with others. With all of this preparation, they generally give an excellent report. Students who do not prepare for the reports are not able to answer my questions and they use broken English. To motivate the students, I try to give them interesting topics, but only some of the very brave students want to get involved. I realize that what I’m asking them to do might be too difficult.

An activity :

I often hear foreign teachers complain that Chinese students are too indirect and too silent. This is not always true. For example, I was at a party with my students and they were very active and noisy because they were playing an idiom game. Each students had to say an idiom containing four words. The last word of the idiom and the first word of the one following it had to be the same. The students were very active and happy as they were playing the game.

As I watched them an idea came to mind. Why not use this technique in class and ask each of them to say just one or two sentences and thus make a complete story? I tried it out during my next class. I told the students that they were going to tell a story and that each of them would be responsible for saying one or two sentences as part of the story. They seemed very pleased with the exercise. They also looked forward to the

next class when we would do the exercise again.

I asked them why they liked the activity. They told me that they didn’t feel pressured any more and that the lack of pressure made it easier for them to participate and say something. They also said that they weren’t afraid of embarrassing themselves in front of their classmates because even if they didn’t have much to say, one sentence was easy to deal with. The first time we did the story, it took 50 minutes because I had to break in constantly to correct their mistakes immediately, to insert some words to make the sentences connect, and sometimes to repeat to let everyone hear clearly. That took too long; so the next time we did the exercise, I divided the class into two. Now, while one half is telling the story, the other half is writing it down and making the necessary corrections.

Conclusion:

After doing this exercise for two months, I can report that it works very well. The students show much more confidence in speaking. They think about what they are going to say and enjoy talking about various topics. They almost don’t need me any more.

In conclusion, I know that when I give them a topic to talk about for the next class, they will participate and maybe even argue in English.

Jiang Xia is an English teacher at Xuzhou Normal University, China

)15( Teaching Pronunciation - Why?

By: Essam Hanna Wahba

Learning to pronounce a language is a very complex task, and the learning process can be facilitated if the learner is aware of exactly what is involved. It is obviously difficult for learners to do this for themselves. So the teacher’s job is to help learners by dividing the language into its components, such as sounds, syllables, stress, and intonation. The learner needs to understand the functions of these components as well as their forms.

Once learners are aware that English words have a stress pattern, that words can be pronounced in slightly different ways, and that the pitch of the voice can be used to convey meaning, they will know what to pay attention to and can build upon this basic awareness. Learners also need to develop an awareness of the way they pronounce words. Egyptian students face certain problems related to pronunciation. Some of these problems are related to stress, others are related to intonation. However, most of these problems can be attributed to the differences in pronunciation between English and Arabic.

Stress:

It is important for students to know which words of a sentence are stressed and which are not. English words can be divided into two groups:

a) Content words: These express independent meaning. Content words include nouns, main verbs, adverbs, adjectives, question words, and demonstratives. Content words are usually stressed.

b) Function words : These have little or no meaning in themselves, but they express grammatical relationships. Function words include articles, prepositions, auxiliaries, pronouns, conjunctions, and relative pronouns. Function words are usually unstressed unless they are to be given special attention.

While all content words receive major word stress, one content word within a particular sentence will receive greater stress than all the others. This type of emphasis is referred to as the major sentence stress. In most cases, the major sentence stress falls on the last content word within a sentence.

In English there is a special relationship between the different parts of a word. In an English word of two or more syllables, one of these will have a stress. If the learner does not stress one syllable more than another, or stresses the wrong syllable, it may be very difficult for the listener to identify the word.

The stress pattern of a word is an important part of its identity for the native speaker and may affect comprehensibility.

Generally speaking, stressed words are different in three ways:

They are louder. They are spoken with a different pitch.

They are usually lengthened.

Stress is also used to emphasize information in a sentence. Usually the words that are stressed are the ones that give new information to the listener, information that the listener does not really know. In the following statement, the speaker is introducing the subject: "I went to the movies last night" (no change in pitch). But if it is an answer to the question "Where did you go last night?" the answer should stress "the movies." If the question is "Who went to the movies last night?" the answer should stress "I," and so on.

When using someone’s name, we separate the name a bit from the rest of the sentence. The pitch is often different from the rest of the sentence, and the name is stressed. Look at this example:

"Ali, I’d like you to meet Carol."

This is an introduction. "Ali" is slightly separated from the rest of the sentence and it is stressed. The teacher can use countless examples to show students how stress affects the meaning.

Intonation:

Speech is like music in that it uses changes in pitch. Speakers can change the pitch of their voice, making it higher or lower at will. So speech has a melody called intonation. The two melodies are rising and falling. These can be very sudden or gradual and can be put together in various combinations (rise-fall-rise, fall-rise-fall, etc.).

Speakers use pitch to send various messages. For example, if Ali had said "There isn’t any salt on the table," Carol might have repeated the same words but with gradually rising pitch. This would have had the effect of sending a message such as "Are you sure? I am amazed. I was sure I put it there." Alternatively, Carol might want to send the message "There is salt somewhere, but not on the table," in which case she could do this by using a falling then rising pitch on the word "table."

What does intonation do?

1. Intonation is used to put certain words in the foreground. Speakers use pitch to give words stress. There are two ways in which pitch is used: (a) the speaker can emphasize a word by jumping up in pitch, and (b) the speaker can use varying pitch, rising or falling sharply, to make a word stand out.

2. Low pitch is used to put things in the background, to treat something as old,

to show anger, or as shared information.

3. Intonation is used to signal ends and beginnings in conversation.

4. It is used to show whether a situation is open or closed. A high or rising pitch indicates an open situation, whereas a falling pitch indicates a closed situation.

5. Intonation is used to show expectations. Strong expectations are shown by low or falling pitch, whereas lack of expectations is shown by high or rising pitch. The best example here is the use of the question tag. With a falling pitch on the tag, this shows that we expect the answer to be "No." (He doesn’t speak Russian, does he?)

Teaching pronunciation to Arabic-speaking students

There is a difference in the comparative force of pronunciation of stressed and unstressed syllables in English and Arabic. In English there is a great difference in force: unstressed syllables can be pronounced very weakly; stressed syllables can be fully pronounced. In Arabic this difference is not nearly so extreme; unstressed syllables can have full vowels and be pronounced fairly clearly.

Sentence stress in Arabic is similar to that in English. Content words are usually stressed, and function words are usually unstressed. However, there are two differences that can lead to problems:

1. Function words in Arabic do not have two forms. Vowels in words in an unstressed position keep their "full" value, unlike vowels in unstressed words in English, which are reduced to "schwa."

2. Verb phrases do not occur in Arabic. Therefore, teachers of English have to pay special attention to errors such as the use of full forms of auxiliary verbs when the weak form should be used ("I can /kan/ do it" instead of "I can /k2n/ do it"). It will sound as if the speaker is protesting or denying a previous statement ("I can do it even though you say I can’t"), when this meaning is not intended.

The most noticeable difference between English and Arabic with regard to intonation is that Arabic tends to use a narrower range of falling pitch over the phrase or clause. To the English speaker’s ear, this may be interpreted as a lack of the correct.

Another difficulty that teachers of English to Arabic-speaking students usually encounter is the absence of certain English sounds in Arabic, like /p/ and /v/. This makes it difficult for students to pronounce correctly words containing such sounds completion signals and may give an impression of inconclusiveness.

References:

Avery, P., and S. Ehrlich. 1992. Teaching American English pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kenworthy, J. 1987. Teaching English pronunciation. New York: Longman.

1995. Speech Works. University of Maryland Baltimore County Computer Lab. Software Program.ss