SPEAKING FOR GROUP ACTIVITIES

MODUL

For 1st Semester of Student

COMPILED BY

One Lailla Trisanti M.Pd

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION PROGRAM

STKIP SITUS BANTEN

To the Teacher
We began with the question, “Who is the most important person in the classroom?”, and
answered, “The student is the most important person, because the university and the teacher are
there to serve the student’s need tolerant, just as the hospital is there to treat the patients, or the
police to protect the security of the citizens.”

Ironically, however, institutions can end up serving the purposes of those who run them so an
imbalance is created that downplays the rights of those to be served. Teachers should always
remember this and try to look at their classes from the student’s point of view. In short, we need
to do what the students need and not make them do what we need. Unfortunately, until the end of
the twentieth century, classrooms in Thailand, and elsewhere throughout the world, were teacher-
dominated and teacher-centered. This is changing now, which is why the title of my talk at the
conference was, “Good Morning Class, Welcome to the Twenty-first Century.”

Let’s look at what students of English as a foreign language need. First of all, they need to
develop the four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, but they also need to
practice in such skills in a way that makes them :
• Think independently
• Be creative
• Follow their inspiration and interest
• Learn what they want to know
• Learn how to find information
• Learn to do their own research
• Learn to report their findings
• Learn to present their ideas to others
• Learn to communicate conclusions
• Learn to take pride in their achievements
• Learn to develop personal responsibility
• And how to continue to develop said skills, In a way that will make them successful in their
careers and lives.
“Learn” is something the student does for him/herself, while “Teach” is something the teacher
does to the students. Nowadays in this age of progress the teacher has to come down from his
pedestal at the front of the room to interact with the individuals in the class, “on the level” to use
and English idiom. What should happen, then, is that they become partners in progress, and the
students should show greater willingness to participate if they feel it is their class rather than the
teacher’s. The teacher should not have sole-ownership of the class. Instead, it should be a joint-
venture in which the teacher helps the students in a constructive way to learn what they feel they
need.
This is certainly better than the old way of :
• Memorizing lists of facts
• Making ticks on multiple Choice sheets
• Following orders like cadets
• Showing no independence and
• No ability to think for themselves
• No ability to share in decision-making and
• No experience in sharing responsibility
Instead of looking down on your students from a position of authority, you should look at your
students as the hope of the future. The new generation does not want to become a bunch of little
robots, that are trained to follow orders and just do as they are told. They will obviously want to
participate in the process life and social change in a constructive way.

Before that can happen, teachers must change from being bureaucratic dictators to becoming
benevolent helpers. The problem is that this will take courage. I don’t know how many times I
have been told :
• Follow the course syllabus exactly.
• Do only exercises in the prescribed text.
• Follow orders with no exception.
• Don’t change anything.
• Don’t do anything different.
• Don’t try to be creative.
• Don’t think for yourself.
• Don’t do anything based on your own experience.
• Follow the department traditions.
• Follow bureaucratic procedures.
• Don’t break the rules.
• Don’t deviate from the norm.
• Do things the way that we’ve been doing them for the last forty years.
• Remember that we are a highly respected institution and that we are expected to adhere to
traditional standards.

We should sit down in our departments and hammer out a new, task-based curriculum more-
suited to the needs of present day society, based on activities that encourage independent
development.
The cornerstones of student-centered learning are as follows :
• Task-based learning means helping the students choose a job that they want to do and then let
them go out and do it, individually, on their own or within peer-learning a group.
• Student-centered learning means allowing the students the freedom to work on topics of their
own choosing, within reasonable guidelines, in accordance with the body of knowledge.
• Self-access learning means letting the students go out and find their own information on their
topics from anywhere they can, such as the Internet, books, journals, magazines, newspapers,
interviews, and etc.
• Group Activities means allowing the students to form groups of four or five in which they will
share the responsibility of getting-the-job-done and of doing the planning, preparation and
presentation of their accumulated information as a team, each with an assigned task to fulfill, so
they can learn from working with others and from the constructive comments the teacher makes
in helping them through the steps of the process.
In such a process, the teacher is seldom at the front of the room, but usually mingling with the
students, going from group to group, answering questions and encouraging progress as he/she
goes. This way, the teacher has a better opportunity of talking with each individual student about
his/her part of the job/task and the student benefits from talking with a native speaker in an
informal, up-close manner while getting guidance along the way.
 Chapter One
Warm-up Activities

This first chapter starts with some lower intermediate classroom activities that can help the
teacher and the students to get to know one-another, in an easy and relaxed atmosphere.
There are two types of tasks proceeding in series. on alternate pages :
The first type is based on having the students interviewing one-another and asking questions, so
that there is an independent dialogue between class members, with a minimum of interruption
and supervision by the teacher.
The second type is based on easy games and speaking tasks that should not be seen as
threatening to the students and that should help to ease them into talking in programmed,
student-centered exercises.

In the first type of task, after some initial introductions, all the students will be asked to stand up
and walk around the room, in an open, empty space, pushing their chairs to the side, where
necessary, and speaking and getting information from as many different people in the room as
possible. They may also ask the teacher to answer any of the questions that they find on their
handout sheets.

The main strategy of these interview tasks is to have the students find answers to the various
questions, using the various verb tenses, without consciously realizing that they are also
practicing grammar. The teacher should, however, not just give them the sheets and let stand up
and start talking, because they would certainly use the wrong grammar and verb forms.
Therefore, in the first stage of this exercise, the students should be asked to formulate and jot
down each one of their questions, so they can read them out to the teacher who can check to see
if the verb forms are correct. In other words, only after they have got the questions straight, is it
time to have them stand up and walk and talk.
The second type of task consists of a series of tried, true and tested fun activities, playing easy
games that will almost certainly work for both the teacher and the students on this level. There is
enough variety so that the teacher can pick and choose which sheets he/she thinks are most
appropriate for the group, depending on interest, skills and ability. The teacher may find that this
chapter is too easy and search further into the book to find more appropriate materials. In
general, the tasks gradually become more difficult, the text proceeds, chapter by chapter, from
lower intermediate to intermediate and then to upper intermediate and, finally to advanced levels
that will really help to improve students’ comprehension and pronunciation skills
 Chapter Two
Introductions

Since this is a speaking class the teacher should begin by telling his students something about
him or herself, for example, the teacher’s name, his/her place of birth, qualifications and
experience, what he/she as teacher expects students to do and to get from the class, followed by
some guidelines on how student performance will be evaluated.
Getting to Know You Interview
Start with an activity to introduce the people in the class to each other as a warm-up task. Put the
students in pairs, in two rows of chairs opposite one another, and have them interview each other
in English, taking-down notes, following the guideline below. When the interviewing is finished,
each student stands up and introduces his/her partner to the class in no more than two to three
minutes. When the first pair have finished, go to the next pair and so on.

I would like to introduce you to my friend........... Whose nickname is ...........”

Name
Nickname
Birth Date
Place of birth
Family members
Education
Skills
Hobbies
Other interests
Job experience
Sports
Prizes/Awards
Travel experience
What makes this person unique?
Chapter Three

Find Someone Who...

Every student takes a copy of this sheet and stands up and walks around the room, asking the
other students about the information below, asking and answering only in English and using only
full sentences. For example,
Question: “Kai, have you been to Chicago?”
Answer: “Yes, I have been to Chicago.”
Or “Nobody has been to Chicago.” Then, write down, “Kai has been to Chicago.”

Find someone who

Doesn’t like rock music.
Never drinks alcohol.
Never tells a lie.
Doesn’t eat beef.
Has never been to Ranong.
Doesn’t have a TV.
Can do Thai dancing.
Cannot cook.
Can drive a motorcycle.
Can program a computer.
Likes computer games.
Can use Microsoft Word.
Has a bank account.
Never takes a taxi.
Usually takes the bus.
Doesn’t live at home.
Gets up at 4:30 a.m.

When everyone has finished asking questions and has written down the names of which students
have done what, then, the teacher can put the students in a circle and ask them questions one-by-
one and correct their grammar mistakes as they speak.
Sometimes, the teacher can help with the answers, for example: “Everyone can use Microsoft
Word.” “There is no one who can program a computer.” Then, check their grammar before they
actually stand up to do the task.
Chapter Four

Ball Game

This game seems a bit simple at first, but it’s not as easy as it appears. First, you need a ball that
can be bounced off the floor from one student over to another. A big ball is better than a small
one. Then, you need about twelve to fifteen students standing in a circle with enough space so
one person can bounce the ball off the floor across to another student.
The first student holds the ball and asks a question like
“How old is your boyfriend?”
As the first girl is asking the question, she bounces the ball on the floor over to a friend who in
turn must answer the question before touching the ball to catch it. Otherwise, if the friend
hesitates for too long, or is too slow and hasn’t finished answering before she touches/catches the
ball, then she is disqualified and must leave the circle and sit down.
Then, next girl on her right takes the ball, and asks yet another question while bouncing it to yet
another girl, who in turn must answer before her hands touch the ball, and so on and so on, until
there is only one girl/person left standing.
Some sample questions
What’s your mother’s age?
How many children are there in your family?
What is your favorite sport?
What is your favorite color?
Actor?
What is your favorite gemstone?
What Sport do you play best?
How tall are you?
How much do you weigh?
What kind of movies do you like?
Music?
Car?
Fast food
What is the capitol of USA?
Chapter Four
I Spy with my Little Eye...

This is another one of those little children’s games that can be used as a speaking activity. Here’s
how it goes. You get a group in a room or a class or a garden, etc. Then, the first speaker looks
around and chooses any object or thing that he/she can see and notices the color, such as the
garden grass which is green and then says the following :
“I spy with my little eye something that is green.”
Then the others have to guess what the speaker has in his/her mind’s eye, which has the color of
green. For example, one speaker may ask,
“Is it a leaf?” but the answer will be, “No, it is not a leaf.”
Then, the next participant may say, “Is it a tree?”
and the answer will be, “No, it is not a tree.” And so on, “Is it a snake?” “Is it a frog?” until
finally someone says, “Is it the grass?” and the answer ill be, “Yes, It is the grass.”
And, then, the round will be finished.
Next, someone else can take another turn, looking around and doing the same thing, and saying,
“I spy with my little eye something that is red,” like an apple, for example.
And the others can keep guessing with questions like,
“Is it my dress?”
“Is it my shoes?”
“Is it my nail polish?”
until finally someone guesses right and says,
“Is it an apple?”
and the answer is
“Yes, it is an apple.”
And the round is over, and the players can keep choosing new words and playing the game again
and again to their heart’s content for as long as they are not yet bored.

Chapter Five
Whisper in my Ear

There are several tasks that can use whispering something in someone’s ear as a curious starting
point. In the first one, for example, put about fifteen students in a circle, and whisper a full
sentence into the ear of the first student, who, will whisper it to the next student and so on, all the
way around the circle until we get to the last student at the end of the round, who must repeat
what he/she heard the second-to last speaker whisper. A sample sentence might be,
“When in Rome do as the Romans do.”
As often as not, what comes out at the other end bears little resemblance to the original sentence.
Another example to try might be
“He drank all night with another woman and didn’t home until after dawn.”
Sometimes the story changes altogether. Yet another example might be,
“He really, really loves her a lot but lately he has been writing to another girl.”
Another activity to do is let the SDS use their imagination to think up some short stories to
repeat.
For example, a nasty piece of untrue gossip would often make the best sort of unique narrative to
whisper from ear to ear so that the whisperers will get the words all mixed-up and change the
plot of the story. Don’t say anything that will cause harm.

Whispering to the Mime

Or you can try this is simple task in which the teacher whispers a sentence to one student who
must mime what he/she hears so the other student can guess the idea.
For example,
“Get away from me. I’m afraid of you.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you very much. I am hungry.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry but I don’t have any money.”

Chapter Six
What Do You Do in Your Personal Weekly Schedule?

Ask the others what they are doing at certain times of the day. For example,
“What are you usually doing on weekdays at six PM in the evening?”
Time Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs.
6 AM Sleep Awake Awake Awake Awake
7 Coffee Sleep
8 Bus Sleep
9 Work Sleep
10 Awake Awake
11 Brunch Brunch
12 PM Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch
1 Walk Shop
2 Tennis
3 Swim
4 Relax
5 Drinks
6 Nap Dentist Dinner
7 Dinner Dinner Snack Dinner Dinner
8 TV TV Date
9 Dine
10 Disco
11 Disco
This is a sample of how a time sheet can be used as the basis of a speaking activity. Get
every person to make out his/her own individual time sheet, and then allow the others to ask
questions like :
“What are you doing on Wednesday at one o’clock?” “What will you be doing on Saturday night
at midnight?”
Chapter Seven
Things That We Like

Everybody has special things they like to do or eat or drink or see, etc. Call
on all of the class members to tell you all the things that they like and enjoy
and write them into the list below. This is a great way to practice
vocabulary:

Ice cream
Usually, we have a lot more things that we like than we dislike, so it should
not be too hard to fill in all the blanks in the above list, if we call on
everybody.

What Do Teachers and Bosses Like?

Teachers like students who are Teachers don’t like students
who are

Hardworking Lazy
Polite Impolite
.
.
.
.
.
.

Chapter Eight
Show and Tell

Get the students to give a demonstration or explanation of the process of how to perform a task.
It can be a task that is actually performed in the classroom or a presentation using diagrams or
pictures on the board or using the OHP. Don’t use dangerous chemicals or open flame or
anything that could endanger the safety of others. Show and tell how to do things like the
following:
 Make an omelet
  Brew a cup of tea
 Make a tuna sandwich
 Make a cheeseburger
 Make a grilled cheese sandwich
 Prepare instant noodles
 Prepare fried rice
 Iron a shirt
o Wrap a birthday present
o Fold an origami bird
o Make a paper airplane
o Make a paper doll
o Make a kite
o Fold drinking straws into imitation flowers
 Give a facial massage
 Apply a face-cleansing masque
 Brush your teeth correctly
 Braid a lady’s hair into a ponytail
 Tie a gentleman’s necktie
Choosing from the list above, choose you own idea.

Chapter Nine

Some Questions and Answers

Have students ask the teacher the first, ten questions, which the teacher answers, reading the
replies below. Then, put the students in pairs to do the question and answer sequences twice
themselves. Once asking the question and once answering it. The teacher should listen and
correct any mispronunciations.
May I have permission to leave the room?
Do you mind if I borrow your pen?
May I take this seat?
Is it OK if I leave this here for a few minutes?
May I open the window?
Do you mind if we turn off the air conditioner?
Would it be all right to leave ten minutes early?
Could I come to class half an hour late tomorrow?
Could you let me make a copy of this and give it back tomorrow?
You don’t happen to have a headache tablet, do you?
Can we get out of class half an hour early today?

Answer the above questions by reading the answers below.

Yes you may leave the room.
Yes, you may borrow that pen.
No, I’m sorry. That seat is already taken.
Yes, you can leave it here.
Please don’t open the window.
Yes, you may turn off the air conditioner.
Yes, you can go home ten minutes early today.
No, you may not come to class half an hour late tomorrow.
Yes, you can borrow it if you don’t forget to bring it back.
No, I’m sorry but I do not have a headache tablet on me.
No, I’m sorry but we cannot get out of class early today.

Then, cover over the replies and answer the questions without looking.
Now practice this last one, doing a teacher/student role-play.
Teacher: “What would you say if I were to suggest that we cancel all of our
Classes for the next week so that I can go on a short holiday?”
Student: “I would say that since we had to pay money when we registered for

Chapter Ten
Singular and Plural Nouns

Read out the singular and the plural forms of the words below, together with the tongue-twister
at the end of the row.
Singular plural Tongue-twister
branch branches 4 bamboo branches
squid squid 77 succulent squid
country countries 12 civilized countries
phenomenon phenomena 4 fiery phenomena
tray trays 10 trays of surgical tools
lash lashes 2 lovely ladies’ eyelashes
life lives 11 lonely lives
hoof Hooves 4 horse’s hooves
secretary secretaries 66 sexy secretaries
path paths One-way primrose path
church churches 2 Christ Church converts
watch watches 11 wound-up watches
octopus octopi* 11 eight-legged octopi
hippopotamus hippopotami* 2 huge hippopotami
class classes 7 clever calculus classes
bench benches 17 wooden-benches
winch winches 11 electric winches
bush bushes 8 burning bushes
story stories 6 secular stories
bunch bunches 7 bunches of bananas
wife wives 5 wonderful wives
ash ashes 100’s of heaps of ashes
roof roofs 22 hooves on the roofs
love loves 3 lady loves
wench wenches 2 clenching wenches
watch watches 33 ticking-watches
trickster tricksters 66 tricky tricksters
twister twisters 6 twisting-twisters