PDFMB10000017 Helping Secondary Students to Deal With Speaking (1) (1)

Title: Helping Secondary Students - Speaking

© Pearson PHOTOCOPIABLE

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Opportunities Teachers’ Room

Helping Secondary Students to Deal with Speaking

by Michael Harris

Synopsis

This article looks at some of the ways in which we can help secondary students, learning English in a monolingual context, to deal with and overcome the problems of speaking in another language. Firstly, thearticle examines some of the features of the monolingual classroom and the crucial importance of strategic competence . Secondly there are a series of activities aimed to develop students’ awareness of speaking (in both their own language and English). Thirdly, tasks are presented which train students in the use of a range of speaking strategies. The final section deals with ways of getting learners to assess their own progress in speaking.

Contents1 The Monolingual Challenge p.2

2 Awareness of Speaking p.4Activity 1 Speaking vs. WritingActivity 2 Cross-cultural DifferencesActivity 3 Cross-cultural MistakesActivity 4 Non-verbal CommunicationActivity 5 Speaking and PersonalityActivity 6 Attitudes to Speaking

3 Preparation Strategies p.9Activity 7 Preparation Strategies

4 Fluency Strategies p.11Activity 8 HesitationActivity 9 Just a MinuteActivity 10 Yes/no gameActivity 11 Not Answering the Question

5 Self-Correction p.16Activity 12 Dealing with Oral MistakesActivity 13 Reducing Oral Mistakes

6 Avoiding Problems p.18Activity 14 Simplified RoleplayActivity 15 Simplified Storytelling Game

Source: Opportunities Teachers’ Room



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7 Boosting Communication p.20Activity 16 GesturesActivity 17 IntonationActivity 18 Getting Around ProblemsActivity 19 Unknown Word Storytelling

8 Self-assessment p.23Activity 20 Speaking DiaryActivity 21 Self-assessment of Progress in Speaking

Reflection/Bibliography p.26

1 The Monolingual Challenge

Learners who study English as a second language living and possibly working within the target language community will have a lot of opportunities to speak. For example, an immigrant to Australia will be surrounded by English, on television, in the street, at school. The same is true to a limited extent of learners who go on courses to study English in any English-speaking country. A student on a summer course abroad may be staying with a family and will be largely surrounded by an English-speaking world. Contact and exposure can help these students overcome affective difficulties and their daily contact with the language helps them to see progress in real, tangible terms.

If you study two or three hours of English a week at school in your own country, you are in a very different context. When you leave class you will probably never hear a word of English until the next time you come to class. This means that students need even more help to deal with the problems involved in communication mentioned. It is probably not enough to give students lots of oral practice, because they will not have the chance to extend it outside the class. What is needed is perhaps to go beyond the traditional communicative approach, not only to give students plenty of opportunities to communicate but alsoto focus consciously on communication and to try to help students deal with it.

Getting students to speak in a secondary school context is therefore a challenge. Not only do most teenage students lack confidence but the number of hours of English a week, the numbers of students in classes and problems of class control all mean that speaking is the most difficult skill to ‘teach’. Therefore we need to do everything we can to motivate and help students to speak in English.




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Tasks which motivate students to speak about things that are important to them, classroom organisation and control, systematic assessment of speaking and work on class and group dynamics are all essential ingredients of any communicative secondary classroom. However, it is not enough just to do speaking activities in class; we must also focus on communication explicitly. In this way we can build up students' confidence and awareness, develop their ability to use different communication strategies and become aware of their ownperformance and progress.

Activities that educate learners about communication, that develop ‘communication awareness’ can help students to realise that speaking can be traumatic for everyone even in their own language and that we have all felt embarrassed at one time or another. Activities can also help students to understand more about oral communication both in their own language and in the foreign language. An important part of this is the realisation that what matters is effective communication, even if mistakes are made. We must convince learners of the importance of the ability to use language appropriately (sociolinguistic competence) and to communicate successfully in real contexts by assessing the situation, planning for it and then carrying outcommunication (strategic competence).

Strategic competence performs the function of matching ‘the new information to be processed with the relevant information that is available’ and mapping this ‘onto the maximally efficient use of existing language abilities’ (Bachman 1990 p.102). Students must be made aware that communication, sociolinguistic and strategic competence, is just as important as the ability to use language correctly (linguistic competence) (see Canale 1983 and Bachman 1990 for discussion of communicative competence).

Work on communication strategies can then boost the communicative potential of students whose linguistic knowledge is limited, helping them to overcome problems. While there is as yet no research that has fully investigated the link between communication strategies and foreign language acquisition (Ellis 1994 p. 403) it does seem logical to try to increase the strategic competence of learners as well as developing their linguistic or sociolinguistic competence. Below is a list of some of the skills and strategies that have been identified in second language research literature and which will provide the focus for practical activities in this section.

Planning (Oxford 1990): preparation and rehearsal before doing a speaking task Hesitation (Wiese 1984): gaining time/using fillers /using repetition




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Repair (Wiese 1984): correcting our own mistakes of language and content as we go alongReduction strategies (Faerch and Kasper 1983): simplifying content and/or language to fit our capacityCompensation strategies (Oxford 1990): use of gestures/use of approximation of meaning/use of paraphrase and circumlocutionLinguistic strategies (Poulisse 1990): using words from L1/making up words

Self-assessment and peer-assessment of speaking can follow this up by providing an individual focus for learners and enabling them to see their progress in terms of communication.

2 Awareness of Speaking

The best place to start developing awareness of communication is with students' own language, particularly when they can deal with some of the abstract concepts involved. Students may hold various misconceptions about oral communication which can perhaps negatively affect their learning of another language. (see Activity 1below).

One common misconception is that we should try to speak as we write and that speaking is a degenerate form of writing. It is very important to make students aware of the differences between oral and written communication, which has in fact become more evident recently with the study of corpus linguistics.

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Activity 1 - Speaking vs. writing

Which of these things do you do when you are speaking (S) and which do you do when you are writing (W) in your own language?

a have lots of time to think about what to sayb try to imagine who you are communicating with c be polite to the person you are communicating withd make a lot of grammar mistakes and repeat yourself a lote go back and correct yourself

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When we are writing we have lots of time to think about what to say (a), whereas we do not when we are speaking. Similarly we need to imagine who we are communicating with (b) especially when we are writing and we do not know the person or people we are writing to




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(though we can also do it when we are talking on the telephone to somebody we have not met). We need to be polite (c) when both writing and speaking, though the forms we use are often different (e.g. Writing: ‘I would be grateful if...’ Speaking: ‘Do you mind possibly ...?’).

We tend to make small grammatical mistakes when we speak and repeat ourselves (d), even in our own language as has been mentioned above, but we must try and avoid grammatical mistakes at all costs when we are writing. That is why it is vital to go back and correct what we have written (e). When we are speaking we do not have the time to do this and if we try to correct too much we will end up boring the other person.

Another area linked to communication awareness is that of cross-cultural awareness. It is important to make students aware of cultural differences which can affect communication. This sounds very complex but it can be done even at low levels, by focusing on examples of communication and getting students to think about differences between these and communication in their own language.

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Activity 2 - Cross-cultural differences

Look at the conversation below. How would it be different in your language? Would you use ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ as much in your language?

A: Good morning. Can I have a kilo of apples and two oranges, please?B: Right. Terrible weather isn't it?A: Miserable. It's good for the garden though.B: Here you are. Anything else?A: Ah yes please, er ... a kilo of potatoes, please.B: That will be four pounds twenty, thank you.A: (gives money)B: Thank you. (gives change)A: Thank you very much.B: Thank you.A: Bye.

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When going over the dialogue above, you could comment on the following cross-cultural differences:

1 The use of please and thank you- which is more frequent than inmost languages. Often ‘thank you’ actually means something else –




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e.g. the last one in the dialogue means ‘goodbye’. Not to use ‘please’and ‘thank you’ can cause considerable offence in Britain.2 Fruit is much more expensive in Britain than in Mediterraneancountries and people buy individual oranges instead of kilos.3 People talk about the weather a lot more, because it is constantly changing!

Breakdowns in communication caused by cultural misunderstanding are potentially much more serious than those caused by grammatical or lexical mistakes (see Activity below).

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Activity 3 - Cross-cultural mistakes

Read the dialogues. What mistakes does B make?

1 A: Would you like a drink Mr Gonzalez?B: Well, all right.

2 A: How do you do I'm Adam Smith.B: Very well thank you. I'm Maurizio Ricardo. What do you do?A: I'm a chiropodist and you?B: I'm a racing driver. How much do you earn?

3 B: I want a saver return to Middlesborough.A: Sorry?

4 A: I am leaving on Wednesday. We're going to Patagonia for two weeks. It should be amazing. We're going to take pictures of whales. Then we're going to the mountains and we're going to visit a glacier. B: Yes.

For ideas on communication problems see Thomas (1983), Riley (1989), White (1993), Scollon and Scollon (1983).

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The mistakes above are as follows: 1 ‘Well, all right’ is very rude in English while it would not be so in some languages (like Spanish). ‘I'dlove one.’ would be more appropriate. 2 The first reply is incorrect. It should be: ‘How do you do? I'm ...’. In the last line it would also be very rude to ask someone how much he/she earned. 3 The use of please is very important here: ‘A saver return to Middlesborough,please.’ 4 There needs to be more reaction to A. Example: ‘Thatsounds really fantastic!’




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Another area which it is useful for students to be aware of is that of non-verbal communication. In general, British English speakers use fewer gestures, touch much less, stand further apart and look less directly than most people from some other cultures. This can mean that when students meet a British person they can mistakenly feel that he/she is being cold and unfriendly, when in fact the person is acting normally. One of the most useful ways of heightening awareness of these features of communication is by looking at British or American films or TV programmes without the sound and getting students to observe non-verbal communication. Soap operas or comedies are particularly good as they provide lots of everyday communication situations. (see Activity 4 below)

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Activity 4 - Non-verbal communication

When you are watching the video compare how the people act with your culture and complete as much of the table as you can.

SAME DIFFERENT HOW?

GESTURES

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

TOUCHING

DISTANCE

EYE CONTACT

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Another part of communication awareness is related to affective factors. It is important for learners to realise that speaking in another language can be traumatic, particularly if they are shy. ‘People who typically have trouble speaking in groups are likely to experience even greater difficulty speaking in a foreign language class where they have little control of the communicative situation and their performance is constantly monitored’ (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope 1986 p. 127). Youcan get students thinking about their own personality, which will inevitably affect how much and when they speak English in class. There is no point trying to force shy people to speak English in front of everybody else if this is going to make them nervous and uncomfortable. It will only have a negative effect on students'learning. The important thing is to help students realise that




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everybody in the class has an opportunity to speak when there is less pressure on them.

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Activity 5 - Speaking and personality

Which of these people do you identify with most?

a I am quite shy in English classes. I don't like speaking in English in front of the whole class or in groups because I get nervous. But I do speak English when I do activities with my partner.

b I speak when I am with my partner or when I am with my friends in a group. However, I don't like speaking in front of the whole class. I feel everybody is looking at me.

c I am not at all shy. I like speaking English with the teacher and speaking in front of the class. I also like giving presentations to the rest of the class.

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A final area which is related to feelings and personality is that of attitude. It is vital that students should have positive attitudes to speaking in class. Often negative attitudes to speaking are reinforced because students feel that speaking is not as important as other things like grammar, perhaps because it is not assessed or because they do not want to seem enthusiastic and keen in front of their friends. The activity below involves discussion of attitudes. This can then be followed up throughout the course by systematic self-assessment of attitude and effort in oral activities.

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Activity 6 - Attitudes to speaking

Which of these attitudes are positive for the development of speaking (+) and which are negative (-)?

a What's the point of speaking? The most important thing is grammar!b I think it's very important to try to speak in another language.c I don't speak because I am not as good as other people in the class.




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d I don't want to make a fool of myself so I say nothing.e I think that everybody in a group should have the chance to speak.f I like listening to my partners' opinions and ideas.

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When discussing attitudes (a) and (b) you can point out to students the importance you give to speaking in your assessment and show students that you reward effort and oral participation in class. Attitudes (c) and (d) show lack of confidence. It is essential to underline to students that there is no competition and that everyone in the class has an opportunity to make a contribution, even if it is limited. The most important thing is for everybody to make an effort, whatever their level of English. The final statements are linked to groupwork. It is vital that students should respect what others say and listen to others.

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3 Preparation Strategies

The next step is to look at activities which develop students'communication strategies . One useful strategy is that of planning and rehearsal, before students actually try to do a speaking activity. Preparation stages should be built into speaking tasks as a matter of course, so that students have an idea about what they are going to say before speaking. We must be careful not to overload secondary learners by trying to make them think on their feet in many situations. For example, it would be unrealistic to expect a group of sixteen-year-old learners to have a discussion about pollution, unless they had some time to think about things and prepare them beforehand.

While a lot of preparation must be built directly into tasks and materials it is important to get students themselves to prepare for speaking activities. Brainstorming activities can be useful, as can activities where students write notes about what they are going to say. It is import ant here however, that students do not write out exactly what they are going to say, but just write out key words and expressions.

Before roleplay situations, where it is possible to predict the kind of dialogue, students can work on language themselves, checking vocabulary and key phrases. Then they can rehearse things to themselves before actually doing the roleplay with their partner (see Activity 7 below).




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This can be done in the following way.

1 Divide the class into pairs , A and B. Give one half the sheet below for Student A, the shopper. Give the other half the sheet for Student B,the shopkeeper

.2 Give students time to prepare their roles. Go around and help with

vocabulary and write any key expressions on the board. Make sure that students do not try to write out the whole dialogue, but just write lists of things to buy or sell and maybe key expressions.

3 When students are ready and have practised expressions, divide the class into new pairs, making sure that each pair has one A (shopper) and one B (shopkeeper). Get students to act out the dialogue, making sure that they do not try to read it.

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Activity 7 - Preparation Strategies

Student A: (shopper) Do these things before acting out the situation with your partner.

a It's Sunday morning. Make a list of things you want to buy from acorner shop. Look up words in your dictionary or ask your teacher.

b Write out your ‘shopping list’.c Practise saying words that are difficult to pronounce to yourself. E.g.

‘toothpaste’d Practise saying important phrases to yourself. E.g. ‘Could I have ...’

‘Have you got any ...’e Try to predict what the other person will say.f Imagine the dialogue to yourself.g Practise the dialogue, making expressions and gestures.__________________________________________________________

Student B: (shopkeeper) Do these things before acting out the situation with your partner.

a Make a list of things you have in your shop. Look up words in your dictionary or ask your teacher.

b Write out a list of some of your products. ‘Corner shops’ sell food, newspapers and magazines and things like soap, toothbrushes, etc.

c Practise saying words that are difficult to pronounce to yourself. E.g.‘toothbrush’.

d Practise saying important phrases to yourself. E.g. ‘Can I help you?’




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‘I'm afraid we haven't got ...’e Try to predict what the other person will say.f Imagine the dialogue to yourself.g Practise the dialogue, making expressions and gestures.

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The stages in the activity above could well be of practical use for students when they do actually need to use English in the real world. Preparation of situations like shopping, meeting people and telephoning someone can reduce anxiety and increase the effectiveness of our communication.

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4 Fluency Strategies

Having looked at ways of helping learners to prepare for speaking, it is important to look at ways of increasing fluency. One very usefulstrategy is that of hesitation. As mentioned above, words and sounds that work as fillers are very useful for first language speakers. For language learners, who feel the pressure of time much more than native speakers, these fillers are vital (see Activity 8 below).

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Activity 8 - Hesitation

1 What words do you use in your language to give you time to think.2 What sounds do you make when you hesitate?3 Look at the sentences below. Underline the sounds used to

hesitate, e.g. ‘er’.4 Highlight words and expressions that give people time to think, e.g.

‘well’.

a ‘Well, er I think mmm that it's, you know, very important.’b ‘Yeah, er actually you see, she's a friend of er, of John's. ‘c ‘Mmmm ..., right, it's a really old building, er … you know what I

mean?’

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First of all, the sounds we make are different in various languages. In English the sounds shown above, ‘er’ and ‘mmm’, are different from those in many languages. Choral drilling of these sounds can be good fun and can provide students with very useful tools for hesitation.




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Some words and expressions that can be useful as fillers in English are:well/you know/actually/yeah/you see/right/you know what I mean.

The use of fillers can be practised in virtually any roleplay or discussion activity. It is also possible to focus more explicitly on hesitation in fluency games like ‘Just a minute’, which can be done like this:

1 Tell students that they are going to do a game in which they have tospeak as long as possible without stopping.

2 Give them the topics and get them to write notes about them and tolook up important vocabulary. Make sure that they do not try to write out what they are going to say.

3 Look at the example of the game shown in the activity. Choose three or four good students and do a game in front of the whole class in which you can be the timer. If no-one else knocks, knock on the desk when

people stop speaking and get the person next to them carry on.

4 When you have done a couple of games with the whole class, divide the class into groups and get them to do it. If you think that this will cause classroom management problems, you can carry on doing the gamewith the whole class.

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Activity 9 - Just a minute

Work in groups of four. One person is the timer. He/she must control how long everybody speaks for.

The game starts when one person begins talking about one of the subjects listed below for as long as possible. You can hesitate as much as you like, but if you stop speaking the others can knock on the desk and you have to stop completely. The person who has knocked can then continue. The winner is the person speaking at the end of one minute.

Topics

a Monday mornings b bananas c doing homeworkd my friends e football f holidays




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Example

A: ‘On er Monday mornings you know, I usually get up at mmm er at eight o'clock and well, then, mmm I have breakfast and ...’ (stops speaking).C knocks.Timer: ’C- you have forty seconds to speak about Monday mornings.’C: ‘Well, you know mmm I hate Mondays and Monday mornings are really terrible you know what I mean? Actually, I get up at about nine mmm and er after that I you know I er mmm have a shower and well, I then ...’ (stops speaking).B knocks.Timer: ’B- you have fifteen seconds to speak about Monday mornings.’B: Personally, er mmm you know I think Mondays are fantastic, mmmMondays are the first day of the week and I, well, I really love them. Mondays are brilliant because ...’ Timer knocks on desk.Timer: ‘The winner is B!’

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As well as the use of fillers for hesitation, you can practise general fluency including ‘waffling’, which is when you talk but do not actually say anything very much. People waffle to gain time or because the do not want to answer a question (like many politicians in all countries!). Various fluency activities can be used for this.

For the activity below you can do the following:

1 Go over expressions for avoiding ‘yes’ and ‘no’ with the whole class.2 Get students to fire questions at you and answer them without saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’.3 Divide the class into groups of four. Three people ask questions and one answers. See how long the person can go without saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

The winner is the person who answers the most questions.

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Activity 10 - Yes/no game

The objective of this game is to answer questions without ever saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’.You can use other expressions such as these:




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Not exactly.Not really.

I don't.I don’t think so.

That's true.I agree.You're right.

I disagree.I'm afraid that's wrong.

In groups of four, take turns to answer questions. Everybody else asks them questions as quickly as possible. Somebody in the group takes note of how many questions are asked. The person who asks the most questions is the winner.

Example:

B: Do you like Pearl Jam?A: Not really. My favourite group is Megablast.C: Manchester United are a terrible team. Don't you agree?A: I don't think so. I think they're fantastic.

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Below is another activity that develops fluency and ability to carry on speaking. This can be linked to mock interviews of famous people, who want to avoid answering certain questions. It would be better to use this activity with higher-level students.

1 Focus on the examples. Students match people with the replies.2 Students choose three or four famous people or imaginary people. 3 In groups, students work out difficult questions that the people would

not like to answer.4 Students take turns in the groups to be different famous people and

answer questions from everyone else. At the end, students evaluate who was the best at not answering the question.

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Activity 11- Not answering the question

1 Look at the examples below. Match the people with them.

1 a famous footballer 2 an actor/actress 3 a politician

a ‘That's an extremely good question that you have just asked me. And I am very pleased that you have mentioned this interesting topic. Now, it's a very complex area. A lot of people are very worried about it. It's very important to listen to what people say. That's why I travel around the country and meet people, ordinary people.

b ‘I can't say if I am going to leave the club or not. We have a very important match tomorrow and we must really concentrate on it. We had a bad game last week, but football is like that you know ...’

c ‘My personal life is nobody's business. I think that Boris is a very interesting man and a brilliant professional. In show business that is the most important thing, being professional. Last week when I met Al Pacino at the Oscar ceremony, he said to me ...’

2 Choose several famous people. Then, in groups, work out some ‘difficult’ questions for them to answer.

3 In groups, one person is the famous person and the others must interview him/her. If you are interviewed, do your best to avoidanswering the question.

Example

A: ‘Mr Silvanian. Is it true that you are going to divorce your wife?’B: ‘My wife is a great woman. I met her for the first time at the Cannes film festival. She was wearing ...’

When you have finished, think about who was the best ‘famouspersonality’ at not answering the questions.

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5 Self-Correction

Another useful strategy for students to think about is that of self-correction or ‘repair’ (see table on communication strategies in section 1). It is always useful to point out that most mistakes when speakingare not so serious and that the most important thing is to try to communicate.

It is also good to explain how you as a teacher deal with mistakes. Many students feel that teachers should correct everything that is wrong and if they do not, they are not doing their job. Point out to students that you do not correct them when they are speaking unless you have problems understanding, because you are interested in what they have to say. If you continually interrupt and correct them, there will be no communication. When they do make a mistake that blocks communication you can help them by clarifying and expressing what they want to say yourself. Then the best policy is perhaps to go over language mistakes that students have made after the activities have finished.

Students also need to think about how they themselves deal with oral mistakes and how they deal with mistakes made by their partners (see Activity 12 below).

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Activity 12 - Dealing with oral mistakes

Interview your partner and find out how he/she deals with oral mistakes.

1 What do you do when you make a small mistake? (E.g. ‘My sister live in Warsaw.’)

a: stop speaking completelyb: continue speakingc: try to correct it

2 What do you do when the other person doesn't understand you?

a: repeat it in the same wayb: say it again more clearlyc: say it using different words d: say it in your own language

3 What do you do when you hear your partner in class make a simple mistake?




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a: do nothing but make a note of itb: correct itc: laugh at him/her

4 What do you do when your partner makes a big mistake and you don't understand?

a: ask him/her to repeat - ‘Sorry?’b: ask him/her to clarify - ‘What do you mean?’c: help him/her by clarifying yourself - ‘You mean that ...’d: say you don't understand - ‘What?’

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When students make small mistakes like in Q 1 above, it is always best to continue speaking and concentrate on what they want to say. If they stop after every mistake and try to correct everything, communication will soon break down. When people do not understandthem (Q. 2) it may be because of their pronunciation, in which case they should try to repeat more clearly. It may be because of their vocabulary or grammar, in which case they should try to say it again using different words. It is not a good idea to get used to saying things in Spanish, as only other Spanish speakers will be able to understand.

Questions 3 and 4 refer to other students' mistakes. When partners make simple mistakes the best thing to do is to say nothing, but make a mental note of it. If they make a serious mistake that causes a breakdown in communication, the first three options are all possible (the last one sounds very rude in English). If the pronunciation is not clear students can ask their partner to repeat. If it is a problem of vocabulary or content, they can ask them to clarify or explain what they have said. They can also try to help out their partner, especially if their level is higher than by clarifying and explaining themselves.

While helping students to deal with mistakes while actually speaking it is also useful to get them to reflect on the kind of mistakes that they keep making orally. They can then think about ways of reducing simple mistakes. This is particularly important in the monolingual class where students can easily become used to making the same mistakes over and over again, because everyone else understands them and because everyone else makes the same mistake.

Self- and peer-monitoring can be a good way of becoming more aware of mistakes. Recording is a particularly useful strategy, as it enables students to play back what they have said and have time to listen to themselves and their partner (see Activity 13 below).




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Activity 13 - Reducing oral mistakes

Which of these ways of getting rid of oral mistakes are useful for you?

a Record myself and correct the mistakes.b Get my partner to listen to me and write down some mistakes I make.c Make a list of my very common mistakes.d Listen to mistakes other students make.e Do written grammar exercises.f Repeating words or structures again and again.

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6 Avoiding Problems

Another area of communication strategies is related to ways in which students can deal with their lack of language when communicating in English. This a problem for all of us who use another language, because we will always be short of vocabulary and structure to be able to express exactly what we want to say. Their are two ways of dealing with this problem. One is reducing and simplifying what we are going to say, so that we are actually capable of saying it (reduction). The other is by using a series of strategies to compensate for our lack of language (compensation).

One of the greatest frustrations of communicating in another languageis that we cannot say everything what we want to. There is a gap between our knowledge of what we are capable of saying in our own language and what we can say in a foreign language. It is therefore useful to help students simplify what they are going to say and to simplify the language that they are going to use to say it.

One reduction strategy is to simplify the content and to avoid topics which are too difficult to talk about. In the preparation stage of roleplays students can think about what they will be able to talk about and what will be too complicated (see activity below).

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Activity 14 - Simplified roleplay

You want to tell a friend about your holidays. Which of these things can you talk about and which are too complicated?




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* where you went* who you met* what sports you did* how you got on with your friends/family* what the weather was like* what the food was like* how you felt when the holiday was over

Now, in pairs, find out about your partner's holiday avoiding difficult topics for you.

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As well as reducing content and avoiding topics it is possible to simplify language to make sure that we can communicate. One way of practising this is telling stories, only using a very limited number of words (see Activity 15 below).

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Activity 15 - Simplified story-telling game

Have you seen the film ‘Dancing with Wolves’? Use only the words below to tell the story of the film.

soldier(s) there was the went a fort American nobodyand wolf friend then Sioux Indians were watchedcalled happy to with woman not beautiful marriedcaptured killed took camp from

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Reduction strategies are particularly useful for weaker students but it is possible for students with higher levels to carry on using them when they should be taking more risks (Schmidt 1983). In this case, with learners who continue to use basic vocabulary and expressions even when they know more the story-telling activity above could be adapted. Instead of a few words a large amount of vocabulary and structures could be given and students have to include as much as possible of it when they tell the story.

____________________________________________7 Boosting Communication

Compensation strategies are vital in that they allow students to boost their capacity to communicate. One of the most important ways of doing this is by the use of facial expressions and gestures. By using




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gestures we can communicate things when we do not know the words or phrases.

There are some gestures that are culture-specific (for example ways of insulting people). However, there are many gestures and facial expression that can be understood universally and mime can be used to express many actions or objects (see Activity 16 below). Noises can also be made to give extra information about an action or object.

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Activity 16 - Gestures

1 Which gestures would you use to explain the following things?

a ‘It's tiny, miniscule.’ d ‘I've got no idea!’b ‘It's great!’ e ‘Sorry, I didn't hear that.’c ‘It's over there. f ‘It's hot in here.’

2 Imagine you want to buy things in shop but you do not know the words. In groups, one person uses mime and noises to show which object he/she wants to buy.

Example: A: I'm looking for a ... (mimes object) B: Ah you are looking for this. (points at picture)

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Another strategy that can increase students' range of communication is the use of different intonation. Even using very simple vocabulary students can express a wide range of feelings and ideas if they exploit intonation. For example, the sound ‘mmm’ can mean many different things according to the intonation used (see Activity 17 below).

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Activity 17 - Intonation

In pairs, one person asks a question and the other person answers‘mmmm’ with different intonation to show one of the options. Then the first student guesses which it is.

1 Would you like to come to the cinema?a ‘Yes, I'd love to.’b ‘I'm not sure.’c ‘Not really.’




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2 Do you like that ice-cream?a ‘Not much.’b ‘Yes, it's delicious.’

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Other compensation strategies involve using a general word or a word that has approximately the same meaning instead of the word that is not known (e.g. ‘It's a sort of lorry’). Alternatively, paraphrase and circumlocution can be used to get round problems (e.g. ‘It's a thing you use to cut wood with.’) We use both these strategies in our own language when we do not know words and they are also very useful for foreign language learners.

The shopping roleplay above is a good way of practising these strategies, when students do not know the words for objects but they describe them. They can be also used to test vocabulary (see Activity18 below).

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Activity 18 - Getting around problems

1 What are the words that are being described below? E.g. 1 = Stetson

a A sort of hat that cowboys in America wear.b A type of big bird. It lives in South America.c It's stuff you use to wash plates with. d It's a kind of small house in the country.e They're things you wear on your hands. f It's a metal thing. You use it for cutting paper.g A person who goes to football matches.

2 Test your partner's vocabulary. Choose a word and describe it in the same way and see if your partner guesses what it is.

____________________________________________Different compensation strategies can be practised together in many open-ended oral activities in which students have to talk about things without knowing all the English words for them. The same can be done in a more guided way when students are given a list of words in theirown language which they have to use to tell a story in pairs.

* First you can get students to work out how they would say the wordsin English, without knowing the exact word. An alternative to this is when the teacher explains the key words to the class using gestures and paraphrase, but does not give them the English word. This has the added advantage that students have seen the strategies used by the teacher.




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* When students are clear about the words, they work out the story in pairs. Go around the class and monitor use of strategies.

* Finally, pairs then tell the story to other pairs or to the rest of the class. When they have finished, you can tell them the meaning of the words in English: chapel/ bell tower / owl / goose pimples / ghost / chains / scream / fancy dress / guffaw of laughter / relief

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Activity 19 - Unknown Word Story-telling

1 How would you say the words below in English? Do not look up thewords in your dictionary. Use these strategies to help you say them (as well as gestures and sounds).

It's a sort of ... it's like ... it's a place where ... it's a bird that ...

Give students a list of these words in their own language: chapel/ bell tower/ owl / ghost / sheets / chains / scream / guffaw of laughter /relief/ fancy dress party.

2 In pairs, use the notes to complete the story (in English).

two teenagers go into ruins of chapel - holding torches / go up to topof ruined bell tower - dust everywhere - owl outside the window / in cemetery - see three ghosts wearing chains and sheets over heads-teenagers are terrified / ghosts take off sheets - friends coming back from fancy dress party

* words in bold to be in students’ own languageExampleThere were rumours about a ghost in Aberlockey. Patsy and Damian decided to investigate. They went to the old part of the city. They came to a place which was like a small church you know (chapel) which was now in ruins.

3 Now tell your version of the story to another pair.

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Other strategies that can be practised along with compensation strategies are those that are ‘linguistic’, where students borrow words




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from their language or make up new words in English. Latin languages have many cognates with English and often students can put the words into English successfully. While students are often warned about ‘false friends’ there are a large number of words that can be transferred with no problems. Other words can be made up or coined from existing English words which can be understood even if they are not correct (e.g. a ‘bookplace’ for the word ‘bookshelf’).

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8 Self-assessment

In the same way as for listening, self-assessment activities can provide an individual focus and develop students' awareness of their own performance and progress. Self-assessment can also be a time when students can think about the kind of strategies that they use to express themselves orally.

Self-assessment of performance in speaking tasks tends to be more difficult for students to do as precisely as for other skills areas. Unless the task is taped (audio or video), it can be difficult for students to recall and assess in detail. More general questions to review performance are perhaps more useful. These can be used in general learner diaries or if you want to emphasise speaking over a particular period of time in ‘speaking diaries’ in the same way as ‘listeningdiaries’. One of the most important things to focus on in speaking diaries is attitude: effort, participation and respect for other students (see Activity 20 below).

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Activity 20 - Speaking Diary

Answer question one and one other question of your choice.

a What speaking in English have you done today? E.g. speaking to my partner about films.

b Did you make an effort to speak as much as possible in class?

c Did you manage to communicate what you wanted to? If not, why not?

d Did you work well with your partner and in your group?




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____________________________________________

Peer assessment is very useful for speaking, as it can increase awareness of both the students who are assessing and those beingassessed. It is probably advisable to avoid detailed peer assessment of individuals and focus on how pairs or groups have performed, in order to avoid demotivating weaker learners.

One way of carrying out peer assessment is when students work as pairs in groups of four. While the first pair is carrying out a roleplay or an information gap, the other pair has time to observe, monitor and assess. Students can write down any mistakes they hear and assess students using one or more of these criteria:

* message (how relevant and appropriate what they said was)* fluency (how quickly and fluently they spoke)* pronunciation (sounds and intonation)* accuracy (how many serious mistakes they made - which made it

difficult to understand)

When starting off, fluency and accuracy are possibly the easiest criteria to focus on. Later on the other two aspects can be included.

Peer assessment is also very useful when students perform something or present something in pairs or groups to the rest of the class,possibly as a final task. With tasks that have a performance element in them (like roleplays or drama) one way of doing peer assessment is by having the rest of the class holding numbers from 1 to 5, like judges in an Olympic gymnastics competition. They judge the performance in global terms, in terms of interest or amusement. When a group has finished, the rest of the class hold up their score cards. A scorer can work out the score of each group.

Finally, self-assessment of progress can get students to think back to what they have been doing over the past few weeks, asking students to assess how well they can do things, which strategies they have found useful and how much effort they have made.

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Activity 21 - Self-assessment of progress in speaking

1 Use the scale to assess how well you can do the things below.

a I can do this with no problems at all.b I have some problems, but I can communicate.c I cannot do it at all.




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1 Give your partner personal information. (age/family/hobbies etc.)2 Ask your partner for personal information. (age/family/hobbies etc.)3 Talk about the music you like and dislike.4 Ask your teacher questions in class when you have problems.

2 Which of these things have you found useful to help you?

a Not worrying about making mistakes when I am talking.b Using gestures to help you express things.

3 Assess you well you have done these things (marks out of 5).

a Participation and effort in class /5b Respect for what others say /5c Working in groups /5

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As pointed out earlier, self-assessment can help students chart their own individual progress in speaking. This is vital as progress in speaking is very difficult to perceive and students can easily become demotivated when they feel that they are not making progress. Another way of doing this is to record students doing an activity right at the beginning of the year and then record them doing the same activity later on in the year. This should show them how much they have improved.

Reflection

1 How do you feel about speaking in English? Make a list of some of the

problems you have had and what you do to overcome them (e.g.being

nervous, shy, making mistakes).

2 Which speaking strategies mentioned do you find most useful?(planning, hesitation, repair, reduction, compensation, linguistic).

3 How do your students feel about making mistakes? Discuss with them

how you correct orally.

√√Source: Opportunities Teachers’ Room



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Bialystok, E. (1990) Communication Strategies. Oxford: Blackwell.Brown, G. Yule, G. (1983) Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: CUP.Bygate, M. (1987) Speaking Oxford: OUP 1987Bygate, M. (1988) ‘Units of oral expression and language learning in small group interaction.’ In Applied Linguistics 9: 59-82Corder, S.P. (1983) Strategies of communication. In Faerch and Kasper (1983).Ellis, G. and Sinclair, B. (1989) Learning to Learn English Cambridge: CUPFaerch, C.and Kasper, G.(1983) Strategies in Interlanguage Communication London: LongmanParibakht, T.(1985) ‘Strategic competence and language proficiency.’Applied Linguistics 6: 132-146Poulisse, N. (1990) The Use of Compensatory Strategies by Dutch Learners of English Enschede: SneldrukRiley, P. (1985) Discourse and Learning. London: Longman.Riley, P. (1989) Well don't blame me! In: W. Olesky (ed 1989) Contrastive Pragmatics. Amsterdam. John Benjamin. Scollon, R. and Scollon, S.B. (1983) ‘Face in interethnic communication’In Richards and Schmidt.Thomas, J. (1983) Cross-cultural pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics4(1):91-112. Cited in Riley, P. (1989) quarterly, vol 24, no 2. Summer 1990.White, R. (1993) ‘Saying please: pragmalinguistic failure in English interaction.’ ELT Journal Vol 47/3 Oxford: OUP.


Bibliography

Andersson and Trudgill,1990) Bad Language. Harmondsworth: Penguin

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