THE MAIN ATTRACTION

Suddenly it happens. You just know he’s the man for you, and you haven’t even been introduced yet. But how do you know? And can you make sure he feels the same way? Company investigates...

What first attracts men to women? Whereas women tend to notice the eyes, teeth and smile in particular, men will be more likely to assess the face in general and pay more attention to figure and legs.

According to a recent survey by Singles magazine, these are the top ten attributes that men and women look for in each other, in order of priority

From the Beginners' Choice by Sue Mohamed and Richard Acklam

As a follow-up to these reading tasks, the teacher asks the students to think of people who they find attractive (friends, film stars, athletes etc.). They are then asked to say what the most attractive thing about them is. The discussion can lead on to descriptive writing etc.

Notice that this patchwork lesson started with an Engage activity, then went on to an Activate exercise (working with a partner), followed by an Activate reading (do you agree with the passage?), a Study reading (answer the questions) before being followed up with Activate exercises.

Notice, too, how important the first Activate exercise was: it gave the students a chance to predict what was coming.

Example 2 (lower intermediate)

In the second example, the class is once again prepared for the reading by discussing what, if anything, the students know about ghosts. The teacher may get them to say whether they believe in ghosts or not and if they have ever seen one.

After that, the textbook from which this reading text is taken gives students some information about ghosts (that they are usually the result of a tragic death, that they appear at night etc.).

The students are now asked to read the text on page 74 to say whether Orcas Manor is a typical haunted house. This is a general reading task designed to let them get an overall picture of the text.

For the next reading, the students are asked more detailed Study-type questions, e.g.

Complete the table

The students can check their answers in pairs before the teacher puts the chart on the board and has individuals come out and fill it in to check that the whole class have understood the text.

SANDFORD ORCAS MANOR

Dorset, England

MT ex I to the church in the village of \m Sand ford Orcas there is an old gatehouse. If i » you go through the gate you arrive at the sinister manor house which is famous for its large number of ghosts.

The present owner of the manor says that it is difficult to keep servants because the ghosts frighten them. Many people have seen the ghost of the previous owner. He was a farmer who committed suicide by hanging himself from the gatehouse, and he often appears in the garden wearing old working clothes.

Another ghost is an 18th century- priest who used to kill visitors while they were asleep in their beds. He still sometimes frightens guests in the middle of the night by standing over their beds holding a knife.

The ghost of a servant sometimes walks along the dark corridors of the house. He murdered his master at Sandford Orcas, but nobody knows why*

But perhaps the most frightening story is of a young man who grew up in the house and then became a sailor. While he was at sea, he killed a boy, and then went mad. When he returned to Sandford Orcas, they locked him in a room at the back of the house. He never left the room again, and died there several years later. On some nights when the moon is full, you can hear him screaming and banging on the door of the room.

From Language in Use by Adrian Doff and Chris Jones

The teacher wants students to understand how we use pronouns to refer back to subjects we have already mentioned. He asks them who or what ‘it’, ‘them’ and ‘He’ refer to in paragraph two. What do ‘they’, ‘their’, ‘He’ refer to in paragraph three?

As a follow-up task, students can write a description of a haunted house which they can invent. They can do this individually or in pairs or groups. They can read out their final versions to the rest of the class.

Once again, a patchwork lesson has started with an Engage session where teacher and students talk about haunted houses and read some information about ghosts. Then they read for general understanding — an Activate type of exercise - before Studying the text - both for meaning and then for language use (personal pronoun use in text writing) — and then doing another Activate follow-up.

Example 3 (intermediate)

In this example for intermediate students, the students first look at a picture of people sunbathing and say whether it is a positive, safe and attractive image — or whether it is the opposite.

They are then shown the following magazine article.

POLLY GRIFFITHS GOES DOWN TO THE SEA FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO LOOK GOOD AND STAY SAFE.

So you think you're too pale and want to get a good suntan this summer? Why not? Except that unless you're careful the sun can make your skin old and leathery and can even give you skin cancer.

If you must sunbathe (and let's face it, lots of us think it's a good idea), then have a look at these gorgeous guys and babes I found on the beach and see which of them is like you.

ROGER

I'm the type who | always burns. It's I because I'm fair- ! skinned - and I've got red hair and freckles. That's why I'm so good-looking! But I still burn unless I use a really high SPF (sun protection factor) - about 20 in strong sun.

MELINDA

I have to be careful 'cause I'm the type who burns easily. But I do tan in the end. If you've got fair hair and blue eyes like me you'd better use quite a strong sunscreen (an SPF of 15 to start with) ...

JEAN

I Yeah I tan easily, j People like me I who are dark- I skinned (with I dark hair and brown eyes) are not only really cool but we go even browner in the sun. I still use a sunscreen though, something light with an SPF of about 6 ...

ALICE

Me, I've got built- in protection! I don't burn, but I don't sunbathe anyway. I mean what for? I like

around on the beach,

The teacher checks that they have understood by asking them questions like ‘What sun protection factor does Roger use?’ ‘Does Melinda burn?’ ‘Who is dark-skinned, fair skinned?’ etc. Students then use language from the article to describe themselves.

In this straight arrows lesson, the teacher starts by Engaging the students with discussions of sunbathing. They then Study the text before going on to Activate the knowledge which the text has given them.

Example 4 (intermediate to advanced)

The final example shows that reading does not have to be a static activity dealing with prose passages. We can make it much more dynamic than that.

The teacher wants to get his intermediate students reading poetry, both because he thinks they will enjoy it (if done in an Engaging way) and because he thinks it can provide a useful focus for language study.

He asks students if they like poetry. Can they remember any poems? What are they about? What do poets normally write about?

He tells them that he is going to put students in groups of nine. Each student in the group will get a line from a poem. They can read it aloud but they must not show it to the other eight members of the group. The task of the group is to put the lines in the right order for the poem.

He then hands out the following lines (at random) to the nine members of the group.

And would suffice.

But if it had to perish twice

From what I've tasted of desire

I

To say that for destruction

Some say the world will end in fire,

They read their lines out to each other and see if they can put them in the right order. Ideally, the groups will be standing up in circles so that the members can change position when the group have decided where their lines come in the poem.

As the activity goes on, the teacher goes round the groups listening to how they are getting on. If they are not making any headway, he may prompt them by saying ‘Shall I tell you what the first line is?’ or ‘Think of the sounds of the last word in each line’ etc.

When the students (think they) have finished the task, the teacher reads the poem aloud for them to check their versions. This is what he reads:

Some say the world will end in fire.

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favour fire.

But if it had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction Ice is also nice And would suffice.

The groups have to decide on a good title for the poem which they can then compare with the original (which is Tire and Ice’ - the poem is by Robert Frost).

The teacher can then ask students to say whether they like the poem and whether they think it is funny, sad, serious or tragic. He then gets them to describe the rhyme scheme of the last words in each line (A, B, A, A, B, C, D, B, B).

The teacher then gives students first lines of poems and tells them to write their own (he can make it ‘the worst poem in the world’ competition to bring in humour) using a particular rhyme scheme, for example.

This reading activity works because students really have to Engage with the meaning and construction of the poem. When they are trying to put the poem in order, you will hear them discussing rhymes, punctuation, logic and word meaning. It is popular with students (if used only occasionally), even with those who are not natural fans of poetry. Interestingly, after an initial Engage session, it quickly becomes a perfect mixture of Study and Activation - studying the poem’s construction whilst still activating all the language they know.

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2 Students read jumbled instructions for a simple operation (using a public phonebox etc.) and have to put the instructions in the correct order, (elementary/ intermediate)

3 Students read a recipe and after matching instructions with pictures, they have to cook the food! (elementary/intermediate)

4 Students read an extract from a play or film and, after ensuring that they understand it, they have to work on acting it out. (any level)

5 Students are given a number of words from a text. In groups, they have

to predict what kind of a text they are going to read. They then read the text to see if their original predictions were correct,

(elementary/intermediate)

6 Students have to match topic sentences with the paragraphs they come

from, (intermediate/upper intermediate)

7 Students read a text and have to guess which of a group of people they

think wrote the text (using the pictures provided), (lower

intermediate/advanced)

8 Students read a narrative with the end missing. In groups, they have to supply their own ending, (intermediate/advanced)

9 Students read a ‘factfile’ about a country, population, machine or process etc. They have to convert the information into bar graphs or pie charts, (intermediate/advanced)

• talked about the reasons for using reading texts in class: for language acquisition, as models for future writing, as opportunities for language study and, of course, for practice in the skill of reading.

• discussed the balance that has to be reached between genuinely authentic material (written for fluent native speakers) and material specially designed for students. We have talked about the need for topics and reading types depending on who the students are.

• said that students need to know the difference between scanning and skimming. They need to realise how to read for different purposes - including reading for pleasure and reading for detailed comprehension.

• come up with six reading 'principles': reading is not a passive skill, students need to be Engaged while they are reading, students need to be Engaged with the content of a text, not just its language, prediction is a major factor in reading, the task needs to be matched to the topic, and good teachers exploit reading texts to the full.

• looked at four reading sequences showing the use of Engage and Activate exercises for prediction, and the need for follow-up activities. We have seen one example where the main reading activity (combining Study and Activating) is more like a puzzle.

•

• Many of the issues related to reading are similar to listening issues

- as we will see in Chapter 10.

How to teach writing

• Why teach writing?

• What kind of writing should students do?

• What do writing sequences look like?

• How should teachers correct writing?

• What can be done about handwriting?

• How does writing fit into ESA?

• More writing suggestions

Why teach writing? The reasons for teaching writing to students of English as a foreign language include reinforcement, language development, learning style and, most importantly, writing as a skill in its own right. We will look at each of these in turn.

Reinforcement: some students acquire languages in a purely oral/aural way, but most of us benefit greatly from seeing the language written down. The visual demonstration of language construction is invaluable for both our understanding of how it all fits together and as an aid to committing the new language to memory. Students often find it useful to write sentences using new language shortly after they have studied it.

Language development: we cant be sure, but it seems that the actual process of writing (rather like the process of speaking) helps us to learn as we go along. The mental activity we have to go through in order to construct proper written texts is all part of the ongoing learning experience.

Learning style: some students are fantastically quick at picking up language just by looking and listening. For the rest of us, it may take a little longer. For many learners, the time to think things through, to produce language in a slower way, is invaluable. Writing is appropriate for such learners. It can also be a quiet reflective activity instead of the rush and bother of interpersonal face-to-face communication.

Writing as a skill: by far the most important reason for teaching writing, of course, is that it is a basic language skill, just as important as speaking, listening and reading. Students need to know how to write letters, how to put written reports together, how to reply to advertisements - and increasingly, how to write using electronic

media. They need to know some of writings special conventions (punctuation, paragraph construction etc.) just as they need to know how to pronounce spoken English appropriately. Part of our job is to give them that skill.

In general, however, we will try to get students writing in a number of common everyday styles. These will include writing postcards, letters of various kinds, filling in forms such as job applications, writing narrative compositions, reports, newspaper and magazine articles etc. We may also want to have students write such text types as dialogues, playscripts, advertisements, or poems - if we think these will motivate them.

Another factor which can determine our choice of writing task is the students’ interests. If everyone in the class works in a bank, we might choose to get them writing bank reports. If they are all travel agents, you can imagine getting them to write alluring advertisements for special deals. But, of course, this should not preclude using other types of creative writing with such groups.

When we have a much more mixed group - students, secretaries, doctors, teachers and police officers, for example - their interests won’t be so easy to pin down. At this point we will choose writing tasks which we think are generally useful but which, more importantly, they are likely to enjoy doing. Students may never have a need to write a scene from a soap opera, for example, but they might enjoy having a go, so it is worth doing.

There is no limit to the kinds of text we can ask students to write. Our decisions, though, will be based on how much language the students know, what their interests are and what we think will not only be useful for them but also motivate them as well.

Example 1: postcards (elementary)

In this example at the elementary level, students Study a particular type of writing and then write something which is very similar in design and structure to what they have just been looking at.

The teacher starts by having students look at this postcard.

The teacher checks that the students understand the information in the card and then she asks them to identify four different patterns in it: the present continuous (^£We’re staying at a lovely hotel...’), the present simple (‘We get up late every day ...’), verbless sentences, postcard style (‘After lunch - siesta!’) and present continuous for future (‘Tomorrow we’re going

The students then discuss the fact that, in postcards, greetings (like ‘Dear Judy’) are not necessary. Signings-off are informal (‘Love Mary’).

Now that students have examined the structure of the postcard, the teacher asks them to imagine that they too are on holiday. They must decide where. She tells them that they, too, must send a postcard to an English-speaking friend. Like the example postcard, they should say where they are, what they do every day, what they’re doing tomorrow/next week etc., and they should sign off informally.

When the students have completed the task, the teacher can collect the postcards and correct them later (see below page 84) or the students can read them out, or they can show their cards to other people.

This postcard activity is an example of‘parallel writing’ - where students stick closely to a model they have been given, and where the model guides their own efforts. It is especially useful for the kind of formulaic writing represented by postcards, certain kinds of letters, announcements and invitations, for example.

Example 2: altering dictations (intermediate)

In this activity, the teacher dictates statements which students have to alter to suit their own preferences and priorities. It is a writing activity which is especially useful during a lesson sequence which is designed to ask people

to take positions on a certain subject - and can therefore be used as a prelude to a discussion, or a controversial reading, for example.

The teacher tells students she is going to dictate a number of sentences. However, the students should change the sentences as she dictates them so that they reflect their own points of view. In other words, the sentence they write down will be an amended form of the sentence the teacher starts with. As an example the teacher reads this sentence.

Human beings do not treat animals well.

and tells students to re-write the sentence to suit their own feelings. She may read this original sentence more than once and she then gives students time to complete their sentences. Here are examples of what students might write:

Some people think that human beings do not treat animals well, but I do not think this is very important.

Human beings must treat animals better because they are living creatures too.

The teacher then reads out more sentences, giving students adequate time to alter them, e.g.

The way people treat animals tells you what kind of people they are.

There is no difference between killing animals for food and killing people in war.

If all the world was vegetarian, we'd all be a lot happier.

The students then compare what they have written in pairs or groups before reading them out to the class. The teacher only corrects where there are glaring errors. Alternatively, pairs and groups could be asked to pool their sentences and come up with a new one which represents a fair compromise between the various points of view.

The finished sentences either then lead into a reading or listening text about vegetarianism - or they may form the start of a discussion activity (see Chapter 9).

Example 3: newspaper headlines/articles (intermediate)

In this sequence, the teacher introduces students to the way newspaper headlines are constructed and then gets students to write their own newspaper articles. The sequence starts when the teacher asks the students if they read newspapers, and what they read about. They have a short discussion. The teacher then gets students to match newspaper headlines with the stories they came from, as in the following example.

1 Match the newspaper headlines with the stories they came

*^rom‘ . At the monthly meeting of the housing

^{a 1} committee of Barkingside district council,

Neighbour slams rock party chairman Geoffrey Caspar resigned

dramatically when his opposite number Glenda Beckett

b ii Housing chief quits at stormy meeting

When his neighbours played loud music until three in the morning Philip Mitchell (82) went mad. "I couldn't stand it any more," he said. "I'm an old man and I need

• The teacher now elicits the facts that, for example, headlines frequently use the present simple tense and invariably leave out articles and auxiliaries. She might point out that there is special vocabulary for headlines (e.g. ‘slams’ for ‘complains about’, ‘quits’ instead of‘leaves’).

• Students are then asked to choose one of the following topics: a disaster, a neighbourhood quarrel, a resignation/sudden departure of a public figure, a sports triumph, a scandal involving a public figure (actor, politician etc.). In pairs, they have to think of a short story to go with the topic they have chosen.

• The pairs now write the headlines for their stories and write them up on the board for the rest of the class — who have to guess what the story is about. The teacher can suggest changes, corrections and amendments to the headlines during this stage of the lesson.

• The students then write articles to go with the headlines. While they are doing this, the teacher goes round the class offering them help when and if they need it.

• The teacher can stick the articles up on the class noticeboard or, if this is not possible, have students read their stories out to the rest of the class.

• Newspaper writing can be used in a number of different ways. In this example, for instance, when pairs have made up a headline they can give it to another pair who have to use it to invent a story of their own. Or perhaps all the headlines could be detached from their newspaper articles so that a new matching exercise could take place.

Example 4: report writing (advanced)

In this example for an upper intermediate or advanced level class, the writing task forms part of a much longer project-like sequence. The teacher is going to get students to write a report about leisure activities.

The teacher introduces the topic and asks students to give her any words they associate with leisure activities. She writes them on the board and adds any of her own that she thinks the students need.

She then asks students to design a questionnaire which will find out how people spend their leisure time (see pages 89-90 for the use of questionnaires as speaking activities). When they have collected the information they need through their questionnaires, they discuss how they are going to write the report. This is where the teacher will introduce some of the features of report writing that are necessary for the task, e.g. ‘In order to find out how people spend their leisure time we ...’ or ‘One surprising fact to emerge was that...’ and ‘The results of our survey suggest that ...’ etc. As with many examples of writing style, the teacher can suggest ways in which the text should be constructed (what comes in the

introduction, middle paragraphs and conclusion) and offer language which the writing style uses (as in our report-writing example above).

The students now draft their reports which the teacher collects to correct. When she hands them back, the students write them up in final form and show them to their colleagues to see if they all said more or less the same thing.

Of course, some pieces of written work are completely full of mistakes, but even in these cases, over-correction can have a very demotivating effect. As with all types of correction, the teacher has to achieve a balance between being accurate and truthful on the one hand and treating students sensitively and sympathetically on the other.

One way of avoiding the over-correction problem is for teachers to tell their students that for a particular piece of work they are only going to correct mistakes of punctuation, or spelling, or grammar etc. This has two advantages: it makes students concentrate on that particular aspect, and it cuts down on the correction.

Another technique which many teachers use is to agree on a list of written symbols (S = spelling, WO = word order etc). When they come across a mistake they underline it discreetly and write the symbol in the margin. This makes correction look less damaging.

However many mistakes you may want to identify, it is always worth writing a comment at the end of a piece of written work - anything from ‘Well done’ to ‘This is a good story, but you must look again at your use of past tenses - see X grammar book page 00’.

Two last points: correcting is important, but it can be time-consuming and frustrating, especially when it is difficult to know what the mistake is because it is unclear what the student is trying to say. Common sense and talking to students about it are the only solutions here. The other really important point is that correction is worthless if students just put their corrected writing away and never look at it again. Teachers have to ensure that they understand the problem and then redraft the passage correctly.

Many nationalities do not use the same kind of script as English, so for students from those cultures writing in English is doubly difficult: they are fighting their expressive limitations as well as trying to work out a completely new writing system at the same time. And now that word processors are becoming more and more common, people have less motivation for good handwriting.

Teachers are not in a position to ask students to change their
handwriting style, but they can insist on neatness and legibility. Especially when students are heading towards an exam, such things are crucial. With students who are having problems with English script, special classes or group sessions may have to be arranged to help them. In these classes they can be shown many examples of certain letters, and the teacher can demonstrate the strokes necessary for making those shapes - and where the letter starts (writing from left to right is difficult for some students). They can be asked to write ‘in the air’ to give them confidence or they can be asked to imitate letters on lined paper which demonstrates the position and height of letters, e.g.

In the altering dictations’ activity, the students are, hopefully, Engaged by the dictation and topic of the sentence they write down. When they alter the sentence they are Activating the knowledge of English which they have. After the discussion (Activate) which this will provoke, the teacher will give feedback on the language used, making corrections where appropriate (Study).

A different kind of boomerang procedure is evident in the newspaper- writing activity. Students are first Engaged with the topic of newspapers before doing the matching task (Activate). They then Study headlines before going on to a creative writing stage (Activate).

In report writing, a number of stages are gone through, giving the whole sequence a patchwork feel. Students need to be Engaged with the topic, they need to Study the language which they will need, knowledge which is Activated in the collection of results before students come back to study the structure of reports in order to produce a final piece of work (Activation).

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2 Students expand a variety of headlines into newspaper articles, (intermediate/advanced)

3 Students write/design their own menus, (beginner/lower intermediate)

4 Students design posters for a party/play/concert etc. (beginner/lower intermediate)

5 Students write a radio news bulletin, (elementary/intermediate)

6 Students write a letter of application for a job. (any level)

7 Students write the description of a room while listening to music, (intermediate)

8 Students send e-mail messages (real or simulated) to other English speakers around the world, (any level)

9 Students write invitations of various kinds, (elementary/intermediate)

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• looked at the reasons for teaching writing: reinforcement of learnt language, the development of the students' language through the activity of writing, the appropriacy of the activity of writing for some styles of learning and the importance of writing as a skill in its own right.

• said that what students write will depend on level and the motivational effect of the task. In general, students should practise writing postcards, letters, forms, narratives, reports and articles - as well as (perhaps) more frivolous tasks.

• studied four writing sequences.

• tackled the difficult subject of correcting writing, suggesting that over-correction should be avoided and that teachers should always strive to be encouraging.

•

• The next two chapters are about the spoken word. They mirror many of the comments made about reading and writing.

• After that comes Chapter 11 on textbook use, a vital teacher skill, and then Chapter 12 on lesson planning.

What kind of speaking should students do?

What do speaking activities look like?

How should teachers correct speaking?

What else should teachers do during a speaking activity? How do speaking activities fit into ESA?

More speaking suggestions

Rehearsal: getting students to have a free discussion gives them a chance to rehearse having discussions outside the classroom. Having them take part in a role-play at an airport check-in desk allows them to rehearse such a real-life event in the safety of the classroom. This is not the same as practice in which more detailed study takes place; instead it is a way for students to get the feel’ of what communicating in the foreign language really feels like.

Feedback: speaking tasks where students are trying to use all and any language they know provides feedback for both teacher and students. Teachers can see how well their class is doing and what language problems they are having (that is a good reason for

‘boomerang lessons); students can also see how easy they find a particular kind of speaking and what they need to do to improve. Speaking activities can give them enormous confidence and satisfaction, and with sensitive teacher guidance can encourage them into further study.

Engagement: good speaking activities can and should be highly motivating. If all the students are participating fully - and if the teacher has set up the activity properly and can then give sympathetic and useful feedback - they will get tremendous satisfaction from it. Many speaking tasks (role-playing, discussion, problem-solving etc) are intrinsically enjoyable in themselves.

Example 1: information gaps (elementary/intermediate)

One type of speaking activity involves the so-called ‘information gap’ - where two speakers have different parts of information making up a whole. Because they have different information, there is a ‘gap’ between them.

One popular information-gap activity is called ‘Describe and Draw’. In this activity one student has a picture which he or she must not show his or her partner (teachers sometimes like to use surrealist paintings - empty doorways on beaches, trains coming out of fireplaces etc). All the partner has to do is draw the picture without looking at the original, so the one with the picture will give instructions and descriptions, and the ‘artist’ will ask questions.

Describe and Draw has many of the elements of an ideal speaking activity. It is highly motivating (if used only very occasionally), there is a real purpose for the communication taking place (the information gap, completion of the task), and almost any language can be used. Remember to swap the students’ roles around if the activity is used more than once, so that the describer becomes the drawer and vice-versa.

A further extension of the information gap idea occurs in the following story-telling activity.

The teacher puts the class into four groups, calling them A, B, C and D. To each group he gives one of the following pictures.

From Touchdown for Mexico by Jeremy Harmer, D’Arcy Adrian Vallance and Olivia Johnston

The groups have to memorise everything they can about the pictures - who’s in them, what’s happening etc. They can talk about the details in their groups.

The teacher now collects back the pictures and asks for one student from each group (A, B, C and D) to form a new four-person group. He tells them that they have each seen a different picture but that the pictures taken together - in some order or other - tell a story. The task is for the students to work out what the story is. The only way they can do this is by describing their pictures to each other and speculating on how they are connected.

The final stories may be different. The groups tell the whole class what their version is, and the teacher can finally re-show the pictures.

This story-telling activity can, of course, be used as a prelude to written narrative work.

Example 2: surveys (elementary)

One way of provoking conversation and opinion exchange is to get students to conduct questionnaires and surveys. If the students plan these questionnaires themselves, the activity becomes even more useful.

In this example for elementary students, the present perfect tense has recently been introduced. The teacher wants students to activate all their language knowledge and would be only too happy if this provoked natural use of the present perfect.

The topic is sleep - ways of sleeping, sleeping experiences etc. First of all, the teacher talks about sleep. Perhaps he tells a story about not being able to sleep, about a nightmare, or about someone he has seen sleepwalking. He gets students to give him as much ‘sleep’ vocabulary as they can (e.g. ‘dream’, ‘nightmare’, ‘walk in your sleep’, ‘heavy sleeper’, ‘light sleeper’). The students now work in pairs to plan questions for their sleep questionnaire and the teacher goes round helping where necessary.

A simple student questionnaire might end up looking like this:

fid

Sleep aUBSTlONNAme

• How many hours do you normally sleep⁷___

• Are you a light sleeper/heavy sleeper?____

•

talked in your sleep? walked in your sleep? had a nightmare? fallen out of bed?

If you answer yes, describe the experience (s):

The students go round the class questioning other students and noting down what they say. While they are doing this, the teacher listens and prompts where necessary and he then gets them to tell the class of any interesting experiences they have uncovered before moving on to remedial language work that may be necessary (see How should teachers correct speaking? on page 94).

Encouraging students to get up and walk around talking to other classmates (not only the ones they are sitting next to) has many advantages. It varies the structure of classroom periods, allows people a bit of physical movement, and provides a welcome variety of interaction.

Students can design and use surveys and questionnaires about any topic

- smoking, TV watching, feelings and emotions, transport, musical preferences etc. They are often a good lead-in to writing work.

Example 3: discussion (intermediate/upper intermediate)

Most teachers hope that they will be able to organise discussion sessions in their classroom, particularly if the exchange of opinions provokes

spontaneous fluent language use. Many find, however, that discussion sessions are less successful than they had hoped.

The first thing to remember is that people need time to assemble their thoughts before any discussion. The ability to give spontaneous and articulate opinions is challenging in our own language, let alone the language we are struggling to learn. The following sequence, therefore, stresses the need for discussion preparation and shows the teacher building the discussion up in stages.

The teacher starts by asking individual students to name the last film they saw. Did they enjoy it? Was it funny? Serious? Violent? The replies he gets at this point will be fairly monosyllabic, but at least the topic has been introduced and the students are enjoying thinking about movies.

The teacher now says that the class is going to concentrate on the issue of violence in films. Is there too much? Does it matter? Should anything be done about it? He puts the students into groups. In one group, the students have to think (and make notes about) the level of violence in films and what effects it might have. In another group, students have to think of (and make notes about) ways of stopping the portrayal of violence in films. In another group, students have to think up (and make notes about) reasons why the level of violence in films is quite justifiable and unworrying.

When students have had a chance to think of ideas (with the teacher going round to individual groups offering help where necessary), he asks for an opinion about violence from one of the groups. When a student has given it, he encourages other students to ask questions about that opinion. He then asks a different student to say what can be done about it, and that student, in turn, is questioned. Finally he asks a student from the Violence isn’t worrying’ group to disagree with the idea that violence in movies is a bad thing.

The teacher keeps prompting in this way until the conversation takes off, with different opinions being freely exchanged. Later, when the activity has run out of steam, he can work on any language arising out of the activity.

This kind of discussion can be formalised into a proper debate - speakers on different sides giving speeches, comments from ‘the floor’ and a vote at the end. It can also be provoked by giving pairs statements they have to assess on a 0 (= completely disagree) to 5 (= completely agree) scale for, e.g.

There's too much violence in movies. 0 1 2 3 4 5

or by giving the class a number of different statements. They have to choose one and defend it.

There are many discussion possibilities. The important thing is that students need to be Engaged with the topic. They then might do some Study (if there is a necessity for language input, facts or figures, for example) and move quickly to Activate stages - which include the discussion itself. Almost certainly, however there will be feedback, including Study, after the discussion is over.

Example 4: role-play (upper intermediate/advanced)

Role-play activities are those where students are asked to imagine that they are in different situations and act accordingly. We may tell them to role- play being guests at a party, travel agents answering customer questions or participants in a public meeting about a road-building project for example. Role-play activities provide the kind of rehearsal possibilities we discussed at the beginning of this chapter.

In the following example, a meeting is being held to decide whether a new supermarket should be built on land which is currently used as school playing fields. Students are put into groups of six. Each student is given the following card.

Homefield college, a teacher training establishment, is running short of money. It wants to sell half of its playing fields to the Taksi supermarket chain. The chairperson of the city planning committee has called a meeting to discuss the issues raised. At the meeting are the chairperson, Colin Grafter (a representative from Taksi), local residents Muriel Fightwell and Brian Shelfsurch, and Councillors Clare Howe-Sing and Amby Valent.

The students decide who is who in each group and the teacher then hands out the following cards to the individuals, with the instruction that they should read them but not show them to anyone else. This is what the cards show.

Chairperson

It is your job to run the meeting and make sure everyone's voice is heard. Start by getting everyone to introduce themselves by name and say what their occupation is. Ask them to state their point of view, but at all stages allow other members to question them. At the end of the meeting, you will call for a vote on the supermarket project.

Colin Grafter, Taksi representative

You represent Taksi. You are offering an important facility for the public. You will pay for a new slip road from Taksi's funds and you will make the new supermarket attractive with adequate parking and play areas for children.

Muriel Fightwell, local resident

You love the playing fields and frequently walk there with your dog. The last thing your area needs is a new supermarket with hundreds more cars clogging up the streets, and polluting the air for the families around, not to mention the destruction of a beautiful piece of land in the heart of a residential area.

Brian Shelfsurch, local resident

You welcome the idea of a new supermarket. The nearest one is four miles away and in the rush hour (when you normally do your shopping) it takes hours to get there. This new scheme will be just right for your own shopping needs - and since Taksi have agreed on a new road it shouldn't cause too much of a problem.

Councillor Clare Howe-Sing, local politician

You do not think the council should agree to this use of the land when there is a shortage of low-cost accommodation for the city's residents. If the land is to be sold by the college, it should be used for building flats and houses for low-income tenants - that's what the council's priority should be.

Councillor Amby Valent

You are sympathetic to both sides of the argument. You think the supermarket would benefit locals, but you don't want to see the loss of green spaces. You will decide which way to vote when you have heard the discussion (you should ask as many questions as necessary to help you decide).

The teacher tells students that they can ask him about any details they are not sure of. He tells them that they must stick to the information on their original cards, but that they can invent new facts which fit with that information.

The teacher now tells the groups to start, but sets a time limit for the chairperson to announce the result of the vote. While the activity is going on, the teacher goes round the groups prompting where necessary and making notes on examples of good and bad English usage that he hears.

When the time limit is up, the teacher asks the various chairpeople to say how their groups voted and why. This can lead into a discussion about resolving different demands on land use, for example. The teacher then gives the students feedback: what he heard and was impressed by; what mistakes he heard which he thinks they might all benefit from concentrating on.

The role-play can now lead into a number of possible writing tasks: a segment of the dialogue, a newspaper report on the decision, letters to the newspaper, posters and newsletters from the anti-Taksi campaign etc.

Two things can be added to this description. Firstly, the teacher could make the role-play a whole-class activity by having all the students act out a public meeting with many speakers. This might be very enjoyable but would cut down on the amount of speaking time for each individual. But it would at least make the voting more unpredictable, and you could build in public’ question sessions at various stages of the meeting.

Secondly, not all role-plays need to be this intricate. If you ask your students to role-play a party situation, for example, all you might need to

do is set the party scene and then tell students to go either as themselves - or as a living or dead person they would like to be!

Role-play is more than just play-acting: it offers chances for rehearsal and Engagement that some other activities fail to give.

Many teachers watch and listen while speaking activities are taking place. They note down things that seemed to go well and times when students couldn’t make themselves understood or made important mistakes. When the activity has finished, they then ask the students how they thought it went before giving their own feedback. They may say that they liked the way Student A said this and the way Student B was able to disagree with her. They will then say that they did hear one or two mistakes and they can then either discuss them with the class, write them on the board or give them individually to the students concerned. In each case, they will ask the students to see if they can identify the problem and correct it.

As with any kind of correction, it is important not to single students out for particular criticism. Many teachers deal with the mistakes they heard without saying who made them.

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules about correcting. Some teachers who have a good relationship with their students can intervene appropriately during a speaking activity if they do it in a quiet non- obtrusive way. But it is a risky enterprise. The general principle of watching and listening so that you can give feedback later is usually much more appropriate.

There’s nothing wrong with teachers getting involved, of course, provided they don’t start to dominate. Although it is probably better to stand back so that you can watch and listen to what’s going on, students can also appreciate teacher participation at the appropriate level - in other words, not too much!

Sometimes, however, teachers will have to intervene in some way if the

activity is not going smoothly If someone in a role-play cant think of what to say, or if a discussion begins to dry up, the teacher will have to decide if the activity should be stopped - because the topic has run out of steam - or if careful prompting can get it going again. That’s where the teacher may make a point in a discussion or quickly take on a role to push a role- play forward.

Prompting is often necessary but, as with correction, teachers should do it sympathetically and sensitively.

Some commentators like to talk about opportunistic teaching - that is, the desirability of teaching a piece of language which only becomes apparent as a result of something going on in the class. Thus, it may become clear that students have not been able to use some language that would have been helpful during an Activate stage - or which might be helpful for something they are doing right now. The teacher uses this as an ideal opportunity to suddenly decide - opportunistically - to bring forward some new language for study because it ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’. The boomerang starts to look more like a patchwork.

A mistake some teachers make is to think that, once a piece of language has been studied, a good speaking activity will immediately cement it in students’ minds. This is not always the case. Most teachers will tell you that it usually takes a bit of time, a few lessons, before new’ language comes out in fluency activities. Today’s speaking activity may be provoking students into using language they first learnt some time ago.

Speaking activities may well form one part of a much longer sequence which includes reading or listening and, after the activity, Study work. We will often use such activities simply to provide welcome relief from more formal work.

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2 Students, in pairs, each have similar pictures, but with differences. Through talking to each other, they have to ‘find the differences’ without looking at each other’s pictures, (elementary/intermediate)

3 Students make a list of the kind of things that people like or do (e.g. go jogging, brush teeth five times a day etc.). They have to go round the class to ‘find someone who’ does, did, likes etc. those things, (any level)

4 Students think of five famous people. They have to decide on the per gift for each person, (any level)

5 Students in groups look at five different photographs. They have decide which one should win a photographic prize. The groups t' have to agree with each other to come to a final decision, (intermedi; advanced)

6 Students role-play a formal/business social occasion where they mei number of people and introduce themselves, (elementary/any level)

7 Students give a talk on a given topic and/or person, (advanced)

8 Students conduct a ‘balloon debate’ where only one person can staj the balloon and they have to make their case as to why they should the one. (upper intermediate/advanced)

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In this chapter we have

• said that speaking activities perform an Activate rather than a Study function.

• seen how speaking activities provide opportunities for rehearsal, give both teacher and students feedback and motivate students because of their Engaging qualities.

• looked at examples of four types of speaking activity: informatic gap, survey, discussion and role-play.

• discussed the way teachers should correct in speaking activities, i interrupting while they are going on, but giving feedback later.

• suggested that there may be times when teachers need to help < activity along through prompting (and perhaps participation) provided it is done sensitively.

• decided that speaking activities typically f

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 2576