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    English Teaching Professional Magazine 62

    Uploaded by

    Brahim Koukou

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 61
    Celebrity culture Lindsay Clandfield True or false? Mario Rinvolucri Take nothing for granted! Sue Leather and Simon Smith Over the wall ... Alan Maley oc Sr cag SE ST Ee ‘lips & techniques Su competitions & reviews www.etprofessional.com ~ Contents Sea SHOW SOME EMOTION 49 ohn Anderson expizins how teachers can tap into CELEBRITY CULTURE 4 their students true feeings Lindsay Clanaifietd finds faut with favouring the famous {© AN A-Z OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT 50 ‘Simon Brown offers @ useful alphabetical ist to help Es tuachers conte hel lasroome ‘TRUE OR FALSE? SEE reece errr Cee we ni GET THEM TALKING! 12 Joes Egwarube esses or ctig Raber Buckmaster avceforeschenen studems 0 speak ig presentation tctnclogy FROM ZPD TO ZMD 2 16 FIVETHINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED 60 Edward Alden aters actives to adapt them for TO KNOW ABOUT: ACRONYMS IN ICT fei bites Nioky Hockly tacdes abbreviated technical terms THINK, THEREFORE | LEARN 5 18 WeBWATCHERsS—~*«ST. ‘Tessa Woodward explores th pont! of Russel! Stannard fnds sos fr practising visual ids pronunciation PHRASAL VERBS? THEY'RE EASY! 1 20 OVER THE WALL... ar é @ ACTIVITY CORNER: 37 Alan Maloy encourages teachers to find ther own STRUCTURING EXAM COMPOSITIONS inspiaon In erature ‘Jon Marks. ASPOONFUL OF SUGAR ... 34 @PREPARINGTOTEACH.. 0. pI Binen Pearman les eo oly setegy wth Golourtl language e ‘wonagee dtm Pata 1B EYE ON THE CLASSROOM: 82 PECs WRITING DOWN YOUR OBSERVATIONS READY FOR READING Ficceeeeeeeadiclebentersntseeseeeesnsnrseeeeeesnntnccce Parthasarathy Ramanujam describes the READING FOR PLEASURE 63 dlovetopment ofa racing programme Rose Sontor TT WORKS IN PRACTICE a2 a r Richard Ostik inccetes now his students can © SORAPBOOK 54 improve thar presentation ils a COMPETITIONS. 41, 64 Recetas ‘TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED! 48 ‘Sue Leather and Simon Smith boliove that asking the tight questions early isthe key to successful training (B INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION FORM 33 Includes matarials dsigned to photocopy (S) + wan. otprotessional.com ENGLSH TexciiNG Professional +a 2 May 200 + Editorial tis often sald that there aro usually et leat two [erie renee nee of articles which eee things from different Viewpoints. Both Richard Ostick and Robert Buckmastor have written about presenting. However, one looks at the topic from the point of view of teaching business students how to improve thelr presentation skis, and the other considers how teachers can use technology to ‘enhance thelr own presentation skils as they teach their classes, train other teachers or present at conferences. ‘Mario Rinvolucri derives inspiration for classroom ‘activities from the difference between truth and. falsehood. He finds that students have a fascination for inkling out the truth from different versions of the same story or choosing between true and false definitions of words. ‘Alan Maley sees potential for continued development in looking beyond the usual sources of information on teaching and teachers. In a new series, he will recommend works of literature and books outside the ELT field, which offer a different perspective on our profession and which he believes readers will ind Inspirational. For Sue Leather and Simon Smith, teacher training and trainer training are areas where itis important to uncover different expectations and different viewpoints ‘early on in the process. They suggest a series of ‘questions that can be asked at the planning stage of a training course to avoid lator misunderstandings. Finally, In a world caught up in the cult of the celebrity, Lindsay Clandiield offers a different point of view and considers cutting celebrities out of his coursebooks and his classroom. Hela Helena Gomm Editor Tana. gam koywayepubicing com PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 BHD, UK F BIG) stove ene memento ee Fax: +44 (0)1243 576456 Web: wwwetprofessional.com ae piney Published by: Koyways Publishing Ltd, Part ofthe ‘OLM Group, PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex, Editorial Diroctor: Peter Col foe Rea aeeg cua (© 2008, Keyways Publishing Lid aera ISSN 1382-5276 ‘Advisory Panet: Dave Alan, Ruth Gains, ‘Suean Norman, Janot Oteareki ‘Advertising Sales: Sophie Dickson, Mainline Media, Tel 01596 747333 Fax; 01596 746565 Emait sophle.clokson@mainlinemedia.co.uk Publisher: Tony Grovile ‘Subsoriptions: Keyways Publishing Ltd, PO Box 100, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 HD Printed by: Matrix Print Consultants Ltd, Kettering, Northants, NN¥6 9QJ Te 01596 527207 emer do Commission Pata: 1008 U tet Pie funks = EURYA.75; 8 Fabernement nunéros) = EURSD. Dhotaur dea Pubeaton: Ty Grove Pages 7-99, 40-41, 51, 52-58 and 54 nce mates whi te designed fo photocopy. Al ter ght aro reervd ard no part of his ubication may be reproduced, trad nae system or anomie without pro permisen in wring tom the publehers, 2 + tem 62 May 2000 + ENGLISH TEACHING professional + www.etprofesslonal.com + BURN ole Re Moonee LieaM CMe kU asl AO Las Ce Ee eu ca) Oe eer ‘© 12 grades from Al to C2 in the Common European Framework of Reference Integrated Skills in English (ISE) examinations + Five levels from A2 to C2 in the Common European Framework of Reference ‘Accredited by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (GCA) and recognised by universities as evidence of Coenen esi a eotscteray www4trinitycollege.co.uk/esol ee ‘Special Features ofthe programme: & Flexible, modular structure allowing part (up to four-year 1 Transferable credits may be accrued as follons: {60 credits ~ Certificate TESOL 120 eredits~ Diploma TESOL, 180 credits~ MA TESOL orfulltime study All modules are based on the principe of linking theory to the ESOL classroom and professional development e active participation in Programme offers core modules plus a range of options allowing, specialisation Anon-assessed Graduate Study Skills courte provides help and advice related to both study and professional development Tneerntional Academy, Univerily often Wivenhoe Park, Colehes Telephone: 441206 872317. Faxi¥44 7206 B7HOT. Emile dilyeesaei ack Lees elebrity Lindsay Clandfield contemplates the constellations of stars in our coursebooks. ‘’s another morning at work. 1 am surfing the internet, aimlessly Tooking for inspiration fora text, for a coursebook. That’s when I see ita big photo of Brad Pit and ‘Angelina Jolie hurrying through Tokyo airport with six children in tow. My hand lingers on the mouse ... bmn, six childrea, look at them! (© How many of them are their biological children? ‘© Which ones are adopted? ‘© What countries are they from? ‘© How many famous people have adopted chiléren? © Isitout of altruism else? ma now clicking on the links left, right and centre, selecting bits of information ‘and mentally filing them away. Could this ‘be @ good topic for a unit on families? or something Celebrities and curiosity ‘Asa materials writer, using celebrities to hang a text or lesson topic on has its advantages. First of all, many students will zecognise a celebrity and may have some background knowledge of their life. The way this knowledge is represented and organised in the mind is called ‘schema’. It helps the student make sense of the experience, and is very important for text comprehension, A text about ‘Brangelina’ and theit brood, along with that photo, may be ‘easier to process than, for instance, a text about an invented couple with six children, + tenn 62 May 200» NGLSH TEACHING professional’ wanwetprotesstonsl.com + culture Secondly, stories about celebrities are aren't they? After al, look hhow many people watch the Oscars every yeat. There are television shows and even ‘whole channels that focus on the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Who hasn't talked about the latest big celebrity break ‘up? If student piped up in clas and said they had been stuck in a lift with Robert Redford (this happened in a class of, mine, by the way), wouldn't that arouse people's interest? Isn't it motivating? Cau Chee-lefelis ‘Brangelina’ and their brood, along yi late) aie be easier to process than a text about an invented couple with six children Finally, celebrities have far more imteresting lives than most people. I's what makes them more ‘textworthy' or “topic worthy’ to English teachers, and especially materials writes. John Travolta has a plane parked in the garage of his ‘mansion! Liz Teylor has boen married seven times! Ewan McGregor drove across the world ona motoreyce! Jamie Oliver is changing the way people view English food! David and Vitoria | Beeicham are... You get my point. ‘We live in a world where celebrities ‘are big business and people want to ‘know about them. The numbers are staggering. In the USA, the circulation ‘of major news magazines (eg Time, Newsweek) increased two per cent ‘between 2000 and 2005, while the | circulation of major entertainment and calebrity magazines (eg People, Us Weekly) increased by 18.7 per cent, Now admittedly, the USA is more be inherent in modern celebrity culture. ‘Now, it may be possible to encourage students to critique this culture using the Celebrity {Gxt anc image temcles en tobe culture fa there are texts that do ths Fae seen many that encourage students to thin etal bout fame expecially in Jackson now). More generally, the image the context of realty television (a recent of a celebrity in a book instantly dates favourite topic in coursebooks that it. To get around this problem there are coincides with the meteoric rise of this br ‘two possibilities: either produce anew kind of television around the world). book with new, updated celebrities or However, the mere fact that rich and simply leave them out altogether. It famous good-looking people do appear ‘seems that many publishers have been so much in coursebooks makes these ‘opting forthe former | compli inthe export ofthis cultre ‘One also has to look at how the ground the word Advertising ‘visual and design quality of | companies will pay large sums of coursebooks has improved over the | money to. place their products in films, years Many are now as sleek and glosry | even if it means that the bad guy is as magazines. The inclusion of colour drinking Coca-Cola or smoking photos of ‘Avis celabrities within the | Marlboros. Tn our coursebook, these books increases that magazine feel. In | celebrities are geting ther product fact, this is another criticism levelled placement for free. (pethaps unfairly) at coursebooks - that |" Temay be that this doesnt bother they are too glassy. ‘many teachers, and even less so their students. It is also true, as Meddings and Thornbury point out, that many Language studeats view the acquisition of English teaching materials: a8 a passport to material well-being and : international travel. invariably. express a value system and: Celebrities and culture i transmit some cultural (BARNA eg Tee limits to celebrity culture. As the British roll uelelrelg ‘newspaper The Guardian observed in Cee let | Ba Cay a kn of raf of | the pompous and the weighty. But it ‘There is, though, potentially a cannot escape its bageage of vacuity.’ deeper problem with celebrities ‘The editors of the newspaper were appeating in our teaching materials. talking about how the British people i | Critics of coursebooks often talk about Were coming out of ten years of Secrets eae | Siavedice wl nginbyto sae | Goldstein, writing in Issue 61 of ETp, more about serious issues. Isn't it time || remarks, ‘the dominant paradigms for we English teachers did s0, too? | tm Br nat ws bea | Meera cnet rn of ge re ‘ore holhanheiclecrens | Celebrities and the take centre siage’. He goes on to point | English class ‘out that coursebook characters tend to | I'm not necessarily suggesting that ‘be ‘rich, successful and superficial’. | celebrities should never be the topic of Gillian Brown has called this ‘any English class, Some current ‘celebrity material ‘cosmopolitan English’, which stories’ may in fact be the most ‘assumes a materialistic set of vues in| intresting and appropriate material fora Which iernational travel, not Being _-_particalar class, and now more and more bored, positively Being entertained, having _ teachers can access that material via the leisure, and above all spending money internet and use it the very same dey casually and without consideration of the Nor am suggesting that we do | sum involved in the pusut of these ends, | away with coursebooks altogether, | are the norm’. cither. My criticisms of celebrities aide, ‘These are norms and values that are + there are often lots of otter topics and (6 + ssaue 62 May 2000 » ENGLISH TEACHING professional « warmatprotessional.com + texts in contemporary coursebooks that | || have provided interest, motivation and | conversation in my classes, ‘The question that troubles me is how | such cultural capital these celebrities | add to our teaching materials. Cultural | capital sa sociological term which includes imowledge, sill and education that basically help people achieve @ | higher status in society, While linguage teaching materials are often designed first and foremost to help students achiove communicative goals, they invariably expres a valve system and transmit some cultural capital, implicitly or explicitly ‘An alternative rich area that still remain relatively untapped is literature Including mor literature, from different cultures and countries, could fill that ‘ap and provide analfernative to the “bageage of vacuity’ that accompanies celebrities. would also, T argue, provide more valuable cultural capital to our learners. tee ‘You would be forgiven if you thought, after reading allthis, that T can’t stand celebrities. The truth is that I enjoy celebrity gossip as much as the next person. I, too, would be ‘star struck’ if I got into a lft with Robert Redford or ‘even Lindsay Lohan. But I can’t help feeling that they needn't be so visible in our educational materials Surely they don’t need any more coverage than they | getalreadyl @D Brown, @ “Cultural valves: the Interpretation of cloccurse' ELT ours! 44 (1) 1900 “Getting Serious Ectorlal in The Guarcfen Apri 14 2007 Goldstein, B ‘English forsale! English Teaching Professional 61 2008 “Meddings, Land Thornbury, § Teaching Unplugged Botta Pubiching 2000 BIE] Lindsay Clandteté nae wnten several coureebooks ‘and books for toachor, He ‘San author forthe ‘Gnestopenglish website and Roo writen component tor acmilan’s Searghtorvard Toanaiiaddyahoo.ca ‘Ghock the complote let of readers on our web ate Proase ask for a samp copy by wring to us at y esverioue, ‘eles@helbtinglanguages.com Cray, West Sussox True or false? Mario Rinvolucri finds fact versus fiction fascinating. or the most part, autistic Tis a genetic activity that can be done Pore do at ues as repel wit ies opis Dik {tscems that this human taleat | Herbert lean it from me or di I arm epends onthe bility to put | trom hi’ The answer i ost in the yourself in another person’ shoes, the | mists of time. ‘Ability to see the world, at least to some |g Group the students in threes and ask ‘small extent, from their point of view. | vem to deck ie A, whois: Seainiess lying is ahighly-developed ee oes verformaues sil and the whole area of Aska he A students to describe a truth and falsehood fascinates people, recent holiday. Tell them that they are capecialy teenagers, Tam not sure why to tell lies and nothing but lies (The it gercates so much interest among ‘whole clas hears this instruction to toonages Is it because they are changing / the 4 students) Explain that they 0 fast fom day today that what is eal | pave 00 seconds ds ying time, Time the forthem meres imsprepibly with what | SQ xconds thls) ae ears identity evolution | Agk the B students also to describe @ Between fact and fiton? eae Z Finally ask the C stents to describe a Fact or fabrication? recent holiday but mixing tru andes, One ofthe first people Tknow to have | _ 50:50. Again, give them 90 seconds tsed the trutalsehood continuum in| @ Allow time for the listener 10 anguage teaching, is Androw Wright, | winnow out the truth from the C the gest ELT teller of stories This isan | students’ mixture of fact and fiction activity eart from him. i «Set your students an essay tile for. «(Love it or bette iv? homework. + Knowing when there is genuine emotion ‘@ Tell them to include three statements | behind the words you hear is part of ‘in the essay that are false. inter-personal intelligence and is also. «In the nex lesson, group your part of realy understanding something stadent in threes and ask them to in asecond language. In the activity read each other's texts and to ferret that follows, the learners read two ‘out the bits that are untrue. Allow | interviews. In one, the interviewee tine for discusion inthe threesomes. | deseribes film he loves and inthe “This activity i i my view, asimple and | eS a ik es indies tof hot brit way of providing he essay writers | “Be the interviewee doseibes 16 winced dee acie | Soe ey rte nor er baa tons mem=nt | onder how cts can el ish inthe eb de cram. eh without Bering the interview as {0 much of our interpretation of uptoan exam as youmay fed fred oat ee i cones fot intonation, the students the type of hackneyed topic Probie’ Meets Pt on they wil have to write about on the day. Stes. sPue of divers ons of Woes = etc. The variation described below gives ; 5 de epportunty to explo these Faithful or fraudulent? Fetus of opoken discourse. Howeve, The next activity I want to offer yous even from the bare written text, itis ‘one I have done frequently in joint clear that the socond interview is about taining sessions with Herbert Puchta. the film that he loves because of the use |B «leave 62 May 2009 » ENGLISH TEACHING professional + www.etprofessionel.com + of the present tense and the waterfall rhythm of thoughts and words. ‘© Tell the class you are going to give them two interview transcripts in which a BBC presenter from the 1980s, Robin Day, praises two films. His praiso for one film is heartfelt, while with the other film he is faking it © Give them the two interviews (see the ‘box oa page 9) to read, and group them. in fours to discuss which is genuine. ‘¢ Ina whole-clas discussion, ask for their views. (You may want to tell them that Some Like it Hot is the film Robin Day actually likes. Some teachers prefer to avoid this type of closure and withhold the information.) ‘Why only give the students third-party interviews? You, their teacher, wil interest them much more than any BBC presenter from the 1980s could. Try this version of the same activity. ‘# Aska student to interview you about ‘two countries, two people, two books, two towns ete, one of which you really ike and one that you are indifferent 1. ‘© As the student asks you questions, try to hide your preference by trying to praise both equally. The person. interviews you fist about one of the pair and then, separately, about the other. ‘© Ask tho students to discuss the to interviews and decide where your preference lies. ‘© Ask individual stadents to explain to the group what they base their _guesses on: words, Yoice, the look on your face, things they already know about you, ete. (© Ask the class to vote then tll them ‘which of the two you realy like. Do this truthfully! | This isa powerful istening activity in the course of which the students are ring to the whole message, not simply to the words in the target 4 Interviewer So, Si Robin, wiat’s your tavourte fim? Day Gone withthe Wind. Interviewer And why’ that? Day Oh, ts, it its 2 classic. Great characters, grat fm star ~ Clark Gable; great actress: Vivien Leigh, very moving, Interviowor And who's your favourite character int? Day Oh, Gabie. Intorviowor And how many times have you seen i? Day Um, think about hal a dozen. | | Interviewer And when was the frst tims you saw i? | | ay wnen't frst came out | think that ‘was in about 1839, fe | | Interviewer So, Si Robin, what's your | | faeourte ta | | Bay An, e; Some Like it Hot | | interviewer And why do you ike thar? |_| Bay Oh, because it gets funnier every | | time that see There are al cits of bits in tat | love. And ik ther ‘more each time that | se0 it. Interviewer Who's your favourte ‘haractor init? ay Oh, Tony Cuts, | think. Hes 90 prety . and hes so wity, and he mimics Cary Grant so:woll and he's ‘ary funny the way he tries to resist being secuced by Marlyn Monroe, Interviewer And whon was th fet time you saw : Day thik wnen it came out and | forget when that was. || language. Compare the power of this ‘kind of listening with the anodyne nature of much coursebook listening. | Incident or invention? | Let us move on to another excellent | listening activity. To prepare fortis, | yu nee to pick two real incidents fom your childhood and mentally prepare to. tell thom very briefly, Restrit yourselt 090 seconds, Also concoct a fctitions incident cccurring during the same petiod of your cildhood 6 Explain tothe students that you are sping to tell them thre brief pecsonal Siotis, two wil be true and one will be invented, Ther task isto desiée shih is which, ¢ Tell your first story in 90 seconds and allow the students 45 scconds reaction time to talk about iin pairs ‘© Tell your second story and third stories, each time in 90 seconds and | siving the students 45 seconds" reaction time. | ‘Now group the students in fours and | ask them to decide which story is | invented. (© Flave a whole-class discussion in which the students tell each other what they think and why. (© Tell them which isthe invented story. ‘A crather wicked variation on the above technique isto tell three true stories about your childhood but with the instructions as in the activity above! E Ihave yet to meet a class that does not ‘enjoy this type of activity. Dream or reality? {A good fiend of mine, the Ite Chris Sion, used to do the following activity with his students ‘© Send one student out of the room. ‘© Tell the others thet you are all going to pretend that you know a dream the student outside the room had last | night but which they have forgotten, | as one often does, ! ‘© Explain that the student willbe told to ask the class yesino questions. If the question ends in a consonant the class | | aust chorus Yes, if itends in @ vowel they must chorus No. (Many diferent systems can be used besides the consonantvowel one outlined here) Call the student back in and explain about their ‘dream’. Tel the student to start asking the class yesino questions to find out about this dream. (© The activity ends when the questioning student discovers the system being used in giving answers. Correct or concocted? Have you ever got your students playing Bluffing definitions? This is, I believe, | pretty well-known ELT activity that is based on playful deception, © Give your students three definitions ‘of a word or phrase they are unlikely to know. Here is an example: To. Go DUTCH Definition 1: After a rostaurant meal ‘each person pays for what they ate, Definition 2: To flatten out the ground before, for example, building an airport. | Definition 3: To shows false bravery after getting drunk. (Definition + is correct) ‘© Ask the students to work in threes and ‘decide which isthe correct definition. ‘© Reveal the answer, and then ask pairs of students to prepare two false definitions, and one true definition as above, for a hard word, which they ‘ean choose from the dictionary. (© Tell the pairs to exchange their sets of definitions, They now have to decide ‘hich of the definitions they have been siven isthe correct one. (Don't allow ‘them to use dictionaries at this stage,) (© Ask the students to check their answers with those who wrote the definitions My best lie Tam well aware that there are some Counties in the world where it will be acceptable to invite students to talk about their own lying and others where this is a taboo subject. However, this activity has worked well for me. © Bring to mind two really good lies you have told in your life ~ this could be the way you pulled the wool over your parents’ eyes when you were lite it could be a suocessful April Fool story you concocted; or maybe a specious ‘no homework’ excuse; ot ‘whatever else comes to your mind. ‘¢ Tell the first story to your students, ‘© Ask them to prepare to tell the story of a sucvessful le they once told. Tell them to listen to your second lie story, but to be thinking about a lie of their own at the same time. ‘© Group the students in sixes to tell each other the stories of their best lie. kkk Having come with me through the text thus far,can you understand why the area of fact versus fiction, tuth versus "untruth, veracity versus deception is of ‘such immense interest to human beings across cultures? The word lar in English is quite powerful one How strong the corresponding word in your culture? Maro Rimoluert work {or Prgrims, UK ana his recent book + wurmwetprotessional.com ENGUSH TEACHING professional « aus 62 May 2000 + Balan (ergo RS elt Len al eo) ‘www.ielts.org OnE Ran Cy Tem mtg Sy ty et or ra See ace ea Se aa eer ae SU ee PGA ERR You can rely on IELTS to test roading, wri Iistening and speaking kiln English. ‘Our high-quailty, practical and secure tost fensures that you can better determine which ‘students can actively engage in your ‘eadoric community. Why IELTS? Established: inuse shoe 1999, the IELTS test hasbeen led and tasted Original fourskistost that assesses, real ccmmuricaton il ‘Secure: Use cur ree online rests veniicstion service to authenticate IELTS results. IELTS Enhance Your English Teaching Skills Si Cnsca recone Ly Ho nar avaible “Canadian education system and eutent Inlonpusgeeaucation For Eng each Fghntermasine to adrenced Ens proilancy. For more information Welt ur webste or ee Eo een rea Genes Get them talking! Joseph Egwurube ‘beepectacld ogg sheaded don i appeared in one of my finds his law students: pedagogical dreams and i handed down the following respond to pairwork and ten commandments to me, ‘First, thou shalt build rapport with chocolate bars. ‘your learners” he commanded. noted this down on my sell ‘Secondly thou shalt listen to your learners mare than they listen to you in and out of the classroom!” be continued. "Thirdly, thou shalt consider learners as speakers engaged on ajowney to make them more perfecible speaker, with you asthe teacher serving as one ofthe many helping hands ints quest! Fourth ‘thou shal respet she naive language of learners and not take ubrage i learners | somietines make astop-over ni on their ‘expedition towards English, the target second language! Therefore fy, thow | shalt accept translations made by learners of target structures, phrases or | words in French if such help the ‘comprehension and use of English! | Stet, thou shalt accep? errors and | mistakes whether in sentence for, strutire, pitch oF intonation! Seventy | thow shalt concentrate on both receptive {reading and listening) as well as | productive (speaking and writing) ski using as many tools (authentic and pedagogically alored) as you deem it land appropriatel Eighty, how shalt use learners as auxiliaries to help you ‘occasionally get some pedagogical ressages across more eal. Ninth, thou shalt tell your learners periodically the wonderful progress they are making in the use of the English language! And lastly, and thie extremely important, ‘thou shalt get your learners speaking as often es possible!” 42 -lesu 62 May 2009 «ENGLISH TEACHING professional » www.etprofessional.com + In the beginnin, Getting my third-year law students speaking was a daunting tak for & umber of reasons, Firs, mony were Zot sed to being asked to speak in class and so thy had very iim experince in controled or spontaneous oral production inthe classroom, Secondly, ‘many hed not used English for quite sometime ss English was offered in their first year a the faculty. Thirdly, had relatively lang cases (an average of 33 students per class) which made it ‘uit tricky to acrange for everyone to {et an equal opportmity to spent Fourthly, there was a need to convince & sizeable percentage ofthe learners of the need to speak English, the need to tse English and the need to invest in {improving ther comamunioaton skis in English beyond the immediate objective of obtaining the minimum grades that ‘would enable them pas thei end-of- yeor examinations and obtain thei ‘degrees. Finally, there is paucity of tateril available at my institution for teaching legal Engish in a parcipatony studentled, student-oriented manner. It ‘as thus necessary to construct a communicative pdagogial sequence from seratch, ‘The pedagogical sequence I used revolved around the American Constitution and was divided into four sections, i Reading comprehension ‘The first section involved reading ‘comprehension work on the American legal system, with particular reference to the US Supreme Court. For this, prepared a text, part of which is shown on page 14, which T gave the students to read at home i comprehension quiz In order to check that they had understood the gst ofthe text, I gave the students the comprehension quiz on page 14 10 complete in the next lesson. ‘This quiz provided the opportunity to consolidate knowledge on the American legal system as well as to answer a variety of questions asked by the students on the American political system. During the reading comprehension phase, the students were active participants, but only as receptors ‘or receivers rather than as agents oF producers of meaning. The next phase in the pedagogical sequence [followed revolved around making them more productive and gotting them speab Pair discussion used « pairwork approach, following a numberof guiding principles, First, in composing my pars, Irie to pair students up using many variables, including their evel of English, ther sex, their personalities (introverted versus extroverted), and their traditional sting arrangements in cass ried, for example, ‘otto constitute pairs made up of friends). My method was therefore, ppurporeful rather than random. Secondly, {tried to introduce an element of peer ‘group competition by promising the frst vo pairs to finish the two series of exercises an incentive in the form of chocolate bar. Tae process of getting the students speaking was done in two phases. ‘The first phase involved asking the students to choose 20 words to complete 4 gapped summary of the activities of the Supreme Court, hich I would then reed to them, Each pair had a maximum of one minute to chat and brainstorm possible alternatives befor finaly deciding together which word they thought was the most appropriate to fill in each gap, The objective here was for the students to talk to their partners rather than to the whok class and in this vay T tied to overcome the reticence of those who were too shy to talkin front of the entte clas. The students were told to brainstorm in English, but if some of them used French now and then, this was accepted since the key ‘objective was for them to chat, rather ‘than to speak English correctly. Fach pair ad to write dowa the words they had chosen next to the relevant number in the score shet, which is reproduced on page 15 along wit the gapped text. ‘They then exchanged sheets with a acighbouting pair who marked it as 1 read out the complete text, and ‘calculated the sore out of 20, “The results were extremely interesting. All the students spoke actively, including those who were usually retient. Bach pair wanted to win one ofthe chocolate bars Thad exhibited prominently on my table, and there were sometimes animated discussions. During the marking phase, {randomly asked pairs to call out the phrases or words that had been chosen by the students they were evaluating if these differed from the expected answers, Some students then tried to justify their choioes to the whole class, which sometimes accepted these justifications and sometimes didn't. I gained a new insight into many of my students because they spoke without restraint as they tried to convince either their partners or the entire lass that their choices were valid ‘My objective was oral practice zather than accuracy, and I felt that this hhad been attained because the students ‘were the main participants during this session, taking central stage for almost an hour, both as readers and givers of meaning as well as evaluators of thei peers. Rapport was established between the students and myself, but most ‘importantly between the students themselves, to the degree that they requested that pairwork activities such as this be done on a more regular basis. i felialel terete getting students to speak and to build their confidence to Speaking really works Pair production Once the par disousion work was done and the chocolate bars had been

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