21.2.4 Reluctant students When trying to speak a foreign language, most people can be placed somewhere on a cline between desire (to speak) and fear (of appearing foolish, of ‘losing face’). The job of the teacher is to move the students towards the desire end of that cline by helping them to overcome any natural shyness they might feel and by making them feel good about speaking, | Making students feel relaxed Because students do sometimes feel anxious about speaking, we will do our best to create a relaxing environment when we ask them to speak, | We want to lower what has been called their affective filter (see 3.1.1); this is the barrier which results from anxiety, and which gets in the way of successful communication, — Clare Cunningham likes to use music to create an atmosphere where her students will feel relaxed about speaking, and so she plays background music to reflect and establish the mood she wishes to create, ‘akin to a coffee bar, a genteel public house, or some other establishment where conversation flows’ (Cunningham 2014: 182). For her, the alternative | (@silent classroom) isa bit like trying to ‘kickstart’ conversation in a library. But whether we use music or some other way of making the students feel relaxed, our concern will be to minimise the natural tension that some of them feel. Matching level and task One of the reasons, perhaps, that students become nervous and reluctant is that we sometimes ask them to do more than they are capable of, It is especially important with speaking activities to set tasks at a level that the students are comfortable with. Using pairwork and groupwork We frequently conduct ‘question and answer" speaking activities with the whole class. This can be quite intimidating for some learners and tends to favour the more confident students. That is why using pairwork and groupwork (see 10.3) is so important. Not only does it give everyone a chance to speak — even the shy students - but itis less pressurised for many people. Preparation We sometimes seem to expect our students to speak fluently with no warning, but this can be difficult for those who are nervous or need time to gather their thoughts. This was certainly true for David Wilson (2005) trying to use German while living in Austria. If, for example, he was about to go into a restaurant and order something, he found it was much better if he spent some time outside the restaurant, feading the menu and then rehearsing what he was going to say. Without this ‘preparation’ time, he would have found speaking much more difficult. Students, too, will perform much better if they have the chance to think about what they fe going to say and how to say it. This may involve just giving them quiet time to think in their heads about the words they will use, as David Wilson was doing. Having students use their ‘inner voice’ like this is, an r . anyway, something we should encoura lents, and Not just for speaking-task Preparation (see 5.5.5). en ‘ Sometimes, when students are thinkin their initial ideas in this way. more effective. However 2 pees shel eventual Presentation in English may well be the classroom (see 3.1.6), Pend on our attitude to the use of the students’ L1 inSpeaking ivities Despite what we have said ab of makin /e said about preparation, a different way actives in every eae more relaxed about speaking is to include quick ‘instant’ fluency feel more configene Seen do this, the students soon get used to them and gradually start to Millet, it makes sense ton reek: But rather than do this for a whole semester, suggests Sonia students can then ben ut fluency as a goal over a shorter period (say, four weeks). The Dursts every day during re Guickspeak’ ‘quickwrite’ and “quickread’ activities for short fluency-type activiieny 'at Period (Millett 2008). The more we include short enjoyable bursts of atamomentarets nue lessons, the more accustomed our students will become to speaking When, with more sake ever We have to judge when such activities are appropriate and re substantial tasks, the students need preparation time. ore pene aPbropriate teacher roles The roles (see 6.2) we take on when our students We mentioned above eating on where they feel they are on the desire-fear cline that peta an We will often find ourselves prompting the students ~ giving them going. Someti and feeding in words and phrases they might need to keep the conversation As fee. dback na, it may help if we are participants in a speaking activity ourselves. du Providers, we have to decide how and when to offer feedback and correction CUFINg speaking activities (see 8.4), Should we intervene when a student says something incorrectly in a communicative activity, or should we wait until later and offer ‘offline’ Correction? Too much correction may push our students back towards ‘fear’. Too little may mean that we miss ideal opportunities for work on language. Mandatory participation in a conference presentation many years ago, William Littlewood bemoaned the presence of ‘social loafers’ when groups do a task, that is, students who sit back and let everyone else do the work (Littlewood 2004b). How, he wondered, could he ensure that all the students were equally engaged in a task? He called one of his ideas ‘numbered heads’: in each group of four, for example, the students are asked to assign a number from 1 to 4 to each member, without telling the teacher who has which number. At the end of an activity, the teacher indicates a group and a number (1-4) and asks that student to report on what happened. Neither the teacher nor the students knows who will be called and, as a result, all the students have to stay on-task. Other techniques, such as fluency circles (see 10.4.2), also demand participation from all the students if they are to work. Mandatory participation also lies at the heart of jigsaw reading activities (see Example 7 on page 331) and story-circle writing (see Example 6 on page 376) since both these - and other similar activities - only work when all the students take part. Speaking repetition , os one ; ition i redient in successful language learning. This is patie sealers See ah fine We aadene ene eee say the same especialy SUS OLreeia sportunities to try language out, refine what they are (or similar) things, they get extra oppor ee saying and especialy, fee increasingly confident about what they are saying, One of the ways of prompting repetition Is to get the students to take, in \ . erent i see 21.4.1). We can also ask them to tell the same story from di ee eee ‘an get them to tell the same story first in four minutes, then in two Aine ar art minute as @ way of making them think quickly and efficiently about what minutes, then language they need to use. Digitalizado com CamScanner21.4 1.4.4 | as emotion, action, physicalisation, gesture and how to show A different kind of repetition involves the students in learning how to ‘speak well” by reciting poems and speeches. They can do this by first reading, analysing and listenin to the text being well spoken before, after a considerable amount of individual Practice, ‘performing’ their poem or speech for the group or the class ~ or recording it and posting i online. This is similar to the procedure we outline for reading aloud (see 18.2). One kind of task repetition which is extremely effective (but which takes a lot of time involves the students recording what they say and then transcribing it (see 21 -4.4). When they come to repeat the task (after checking the transcripts and correcting errors, etc), they almost always perform better on this second attempt. Speaking activity types There are a number of widely-used categories of speaking activity. Many of them fall somewhere at the communicative end of the communication continuum (see 4.3). We will look at specific speaking examples in 21.5. Acting from scripts We can ask our students to act out scenes from plays and/or their coursebooks, sometimes filming the results. We often ask students to act out dialogues they have written themselves, Playscripts It is important that when students are working on plays or playscripts, they should treat it as ‘real’ acting. In other words, we need to help them to go through the scripts as if we were theatre directors, drawing attention to appropriate stress, intonation and speed. We can ask them to decide on adverbs (anxiously, quietly, passionately, etc.) to describe how their lines should be said - so that when they are said, they will have real meaning. By letting the students think about and say their lines repeatedly before they give their final performances, we ensure that actin producing activity. Laura Miccoli made drama a main feature of her work with her adult students, They started with preliminary stages, which included relaxing, breathing exercises and learning how to laugh with each other. During an intermediate stage, they worked on such things crying and laughing. Finally, in the presentation stage, they worked on the script itself. She found that using drama (and having the students write about it in their Portfolios) was motivating and provided ‘transformative and emancipatory learning experiences’ (Miccoli 2003: 128). Mark Almond (2005: 10-12) points out that, quite apart from the benefits for pronunciation and general language use, drama also helps to build student confidence, Contextualise language, develop the students' empathy for other characters, involve them 'n appropriate problem-solving and engage them as ‘whole’ People (that is, marrying 9 Out is both a learning and a language lents to extend /amend ke them sound More natural.We can have them exagger I | enjoyable anna, in order te p ate intonation and gesture, ete, to make the activity more } say theirtinesinateen >? heii same dialogue more than once, we can have theny ays (whisper | and get thers oct crent Ways whispering, shouting, apy, ms ably, etc.) (Saito 2008) Derren toles each time they repeat the dialogue. eee eae to come to the font of the class to perfor dialogues. When 9 his, we should be careful not to choose the shyest students fis! | | | We need to work create the ti E tocivethe pence the right kind of supportive atmosphere in the class, and we ¢ to Work on thelr dialogues, so that everyone feels comfortable. 2.4.2 Communication games Communication game: Communic games aim to get the students talking as fluently as possible. Two particular ategories are worth mentioning here: Infor: , oration Gap games Many games depend on an information gap: one student has to alk to a partner in order to solve a puzzle, draw a picture (describe and draw). put things in pictures. the right order (describe and arrange) or find similarities and differences between | | | pevaualon and radio games When imported into the classroom, games from radio and TV | often pr ‘ovide good fluency activities, as the following examples demonstrate. In “Twenty | Questions’ the chairperson thinks of an object and tells a team that the object is either | animal, vegetable or mineral - or a combination of two or three of these. The team has | to find out what the object is by asking only yes/no questions, such as Can you use it 0 the kitchen? or Is it bigger than a person? They get points if they guess the answer in 20 | questions or fewer. | Just a minute’ is a long-running comedy contest on UK radio. Each participant has to speak | for 60 seconds ona subject they are given by the chairperson without hesitation, repetition or deviation. In the radio show, asin the classroom, ‘deviation’ consists of langues’ mistakes ther contestant hears any of these, he or she | as well as wandering off the topic. If ano! ith the subject. The person who is speaking at the interrupts, gets a point and carries on wit end of GO seconds gets two points. medy improvisation games, too, such as the one where people take part in a conversation but one of them is told (secretly) that he or she is, for example, an undercover tax inspector who has to find out if the others are cheating on their taxes. The thers have to work out what their colleague's secret occupation is. ferent tricks or devices are used to make fluent speaking amusing, In two students speak on any topic they like, but at a pre-arranged each into a fishbowl and take out one of the many pieces of paper sly written phrases, questions and sentences. They have to .r into the conversation straightaway. There are a number of co! In other games, dif ‘Fishbowl, for example, signal, one of them has to Fr on which the students have previou incorporate whatever is on the pape! 21.4.3 Discussion Discussions rang! group interactions. from highly formal, whole-lass staged events to informal small- Digitalizado com CamScannerBuzz groups (brainstorming) These (often short and informal) discussions can be use for a whole range of purposes. For example, we might want our students to predict the content of a reading text, or we may want them to talk about their reactions to it after they have read it. We might want them to discuss what should be included in a news broadcast or have a quick conversation about the right kind of music for a wedding or party. Buzz groups are useful for getting the students thinking about a bigger, more formal task, such as a prepared talk or debate (see below). Charles Januzzi (2008a), for example, had his students create a word map (see Example 6 on page 265) about different kinds of sushi before they embarked on a discussion about which kinds they liked best and why. Hal) Houston suggests ‘brainslipping’, where the students place sticky notes about a topic around the classroom and the class then gets up and circulates around the room, discussing the opinions they find displayed (201 1a). Formal debates In a formal debate, the students prepare arguments in favour of or against various propositions. When the debate starts, those who are appointed as ‘panel speakers’ produce well-rehearsed ‘writing-like’ arguments, whereas the others, the audience, pitch in as the debate progresses with their own (less scripted) thoughts on the subject. Preparation is a key ingredient for successful debates, just as it is for presentations of other kinds (see 21.4.4). The students who are proposing and opposing the debate’s propositions (motions) need to be given time to plan their arguments. They can do this in groups. We can direct them to websites or articles where they will get ‘ammunition’ for their point of view; we can also ‘feed into’ their discussions with arguments that may help them. Webquests (see 17.4.1) are often good ways of preparing students for debates. The teacher can divide the class into groups and then give links to different websites to the different groups. It is a good idea to allow the students to practise their speeches in their groups first. This will allow them to get a feel for what they are going to say. For an example of a formal debate see Example 10 on page 403. A popular debating game which has survived many decades of use is the ‘balloon debate’, so called because it is based on a scenario in which a number of people are travelling in the basket of a hot-air balloon. Unfortunately, however, there is a leak and the balloon cannot take their weight: unless someone leaves the balloon, they will all die. The students take on the role of a real-life person, either living or historical - from Confucius to Shakespeare, from Cleopatra to Marie Curie. They think up arguments for why they should be the survivors, either individually or in pairs or groups. After a first round of argument, everyone votes on who should be the first to jump. As more air escapes, a second round means that one more person has to go, until, some rounds later, the eventual sole survivor is chosen. Participants in a balloon debate can represent occupations rather than specific characters: they can also take on the roles of different age groups, hobby enthusiasts or societies. Unplanned discussion Some discussions just happen in the middle of lessons: they are unprepared for by the teacher, but, if encouraged, can provide some of the most enjoyable and productive speaking in language classes (see 12.1). Their success will depend upon oUF ability to prompt and encourage and, perhaps, to change our attitude to errors and mistakes (see 8.4) from one minute to the next. By contrast, pre-planned discussions depend for their success upon the way we ask the students to approach the task in hand. Digitalizado com CamScanner21.4.4 Reaching a consensus One of the best ways of encouraging discussion is to provide activities which force the students to reach a decision, often as a result of choosing between | specific alternatives. An example of this kind of activity (with particular relevance to schools) is where the students consider a scenario in which an invigilator during a public exam catches a student copying from hidden notes. The class has to decide between a range of options, such as: The invigilator should ignore it. She should give the student a sign to show that she has seen (so that the student will stop). She should call the family and tell them the student was cheating. She should inform the examining board so that the student will not be able to take that exam again. The fact of having to make such an awkward choice gives the discussion a clear purpose and an obvious outcome to aim for. Prepared talks and presentations One important kind of activity is the prepared talk, where a student (or students) makes a presentation on a topic of their own choice. Such talks are not designed for informal spontaneous conversation; because they are prepared, they are more ‘writing-like’ (see 20.6) than this. However, if possible, the students should speak from notes rather than from a script. For students to benefit from doing oral presentations, we need to invest some time in the procedures and processes they are involved in. In the first place, we need to give them time to prepare their talks (and help in preparing them, if necessary). We can encourage the students to record the first version of their presentations and transcribe them so that they can improve them before delivering them (see 21.3). Then, the students need a chance to rehearse their presentations. This can often be done by getting them to present to each other in pairs or small groups first. Before they do this, the teacher and the class can decide together on the criteria for what makes a good presentation and the listener in each pair can then give feedback on what the speaker has said. The presenter will then be in a good position to make a better presentation. We need to be able to help our students with the multimedia elements of their presentations if they wish to use them (see 11.3). We should allow time for the students to discuss with us and with each other what kind of media (audio, video, PowerPoint, etc.) will be appropriate for them to use. When students listen to their colleagues’ presentations, we want to make sure that they listen attentively, not only for their own sake, but also because this will help the presenter. In order for this to happen, we can give the students tasks to carry out as they listen. Maybe they will be the kind of feedback tasks which we and the students have previously agreed on. Perhaps they will involve the students in asking follow-up questions. The point is that presentations have to involve active listening as well as active speaking. Whether or not feedback comes from the teacher, the other students or a combination of both, it is important that students who have made an oral presentation get a chance to analyse what they have done, and then, if possible, repeat it in another setting so that they do it better.21.4.5 21.4.6 Questionnaires that both th Questionnaires are useful because, by being pre-planned, they ore, Depending upon questioner and the respondent have something to say to each ot ose Eee how tightly designed they are, they may well encourage the Crh ee certain language patterns - and thus can be situated in the middle ion continuum (see 3.1.4). | ; The students can design questionnaires on any topic that Is appropriate. aeal do the teacher can act as a resource, helping them in the design process. ae rained from questionnaires can then form the basis for written work, discussions or Prep: S. For an example of a questionnaire see Example 11 on page 252. Simulation and role-play Many students derive great benefit from simul a real-life encounter (such as a business meeting, an int aeroplane cabin, a hotel foyer, a shop or a cafeteria) as i They can act out the simulation as themselves or take on thi r character and express thoughts and feelings they do not necessarily share. When we give our students these roles, we call the simulation a role-play. Thus, we might tell a student: You are 2 motorist who thinks that parking restrictions are unnecessary or You are Michelle and you want Robin to notice you, but you don’t want him to know about your brother, etc. Simulation and role-play can be used to encourage general oral fluency or to train students for specific situations, especially where they are studying English for specific purposes (ESP) or business English (see 1.2). Stephen Evans, for example, has his Hong Kong students role- play office encounters that are similar to those which, in an extended research project, he observed in a Hong Kong business setting (Evans 2013). When students are doing simulations and role-plays, they need to know exactly what the situation is, and they need to be given enough information about the background for them to function properly. Of course, we will allow them to be as creative as possible, but if they have almost no information, they may find this very difficult to do. With more elaborate simulations, such as business meetings, mock enquiries or TV programmes, for example, we will want to spend some time creating the environment or the procedures for the simulation. Of course, the environment may be in the teacher's and the students’ heads, but we want to create it, nevertheless. _Simulations and role-plays often work well when the participants have to come to some kind of a decision. In one such intermediate-level activity (‘Knife in the school’), a boy has brought a large hunting knife intoa school and the boy, his parents, the head teacher and Class teacher have a meeting to decide what must be done about it. The students take the i ore = races based pe Lee oe which tells them how they feel (e.g. /0 but are afraid to confront Brian Gate You be fe As see the knife yourself. However, you don't w: rae eee ccna responsible for this meeting. You want to a f ieee ee erecta of five, the students role-play the meetin: eet oer ee aaa Lead e. 1g, and at the end, the different groups discuss the ae they have come to. Clearly ‘knife in the school’ might be inappropriate in some situations, but other role-plays such as planning meetings, televisi 2 and public protest meetings are fairly easy to replicate in a aa lation and role-play. Students may simulate erview or a conversation in an f they were doing so in the real world, e role of a completely different Digitalizado com CamScanner1.4.2 Ina different kind of role-playing activity, the students write the kind of questions they might ask someone when they meet them for the first time. They are then given postcards or Copies of paintings by famous artists, such as Goya, and are asked to answer those questions as if they were characters from the painting (Cranmer 1996: 68-72). The same kind of imaginative interview role-play could be based around people in dramatic photographs. Simulation and role-play have three distinct advantages. Firstly, they can be good fun and are, therefore, motivating. Secondly, they allow hesitant students to be more forthright in their opinions and behaviour, without having to take so much responsibility for what they say: they can ‘hide’ behind their role. Thirdly, by broadening the world of the classroom to include the world outside, they allow the students to use a much wider range of language than some more task-centred activities may do (see 4.4). Storytelling 'n our daily lives, we tell stories all the time. When we arrive at work, we talk about our journeys. When we get home, we talk about what happened at work. We tell each other the story of a movie we saw or a book we have read. We spend hours of our lives telling other People what has happened to us and gossiping about other people. And in more formal settings, too, — from fiction to history ~ we talk about things that have happened and tell the stories that have been passed down to us. Storytelling is a vital part of any language user's abilities, in other words, and it is extremely useful for language learners for a number of reasons. Firstly, it mirrors the kind of human. activity we have been discussing and thus is highly motivating for the students. Secondly, it taps into a skill that everyone possesses to some extent and so is not as unnatural as some language learning activities can appear to be. But the main value of storytelling for language learning is one of its major characteristics in real life. That is, that we tell the same stories again and again. Our favourite anecdotes become practised in the retelling, and each time we tell them a little better. If, as we have said, repetition is a vital part of successful language learning (see 3.1.3), then the telling and retelling of stories would seem to be an ideal way of doing this. Digitalizado com CamScanner