Match the following techniques and their features

Some activities are more associated with reading and listening (receptive skills), while others are more often used with speaking and writing (productive skills).

Information gap is organized to promote speaking activities. Information gap is a situation when a participant or a group possesses the information, which others do not have, while others command the information that the other party is missing. E.g. a student in a pair with the other student might have the train timetable for odd (нечетный) numbers, while her partner might have the train timetable for even (четный) numbers. Their task is to use communication for finding out complete information on how the train runs. Information gap can take the format of an opinion gap when the participants differ in their opinions. The gap is filled in the course of active communication.

Any activity with an information gap can be turned into a communicative game if there are rules to name the winner. Information gap is a frequent technique used in order to organize a communicative game. E.g. you have new neighbors. They can tell you about themselves only what is given on their role cards. Try to guess their professions. Ask any questions. Direct questions about professions are excluded.

A popular speaking activity is reading from cues. It is organized when the participants write information about themselves on sticky labels in the form of separate words, dates, names etc. Other students ask questions trying to find as much as possible about the person, To achieve this goal they have to think first what a date on the sticky label might mean and ask a question like “Were you married in 1991?”, “May be you got your first job in 1991?” etc.

Reading and speaking processes can be boosted by a “matching” activity, in which the participants are to match pictures and texts, pictures and pictures, texts and texts (both oral and written) by using questions.

Jig-saw reading activity is organized most often with the texts that are meant for reading or listening (“jig-saw” reading and “jig-saw” listening). A text is divided into several parts. Every participant has access to only one part of the oral or written text. They ask each other questions and provide information to pool the parts of the text together and to know the contents of the whole text. Another variant is a jig-saw listening when each participant or a small group listens to only some information as part of the whole. These pieces can be brought together only in the course of active communication efforts.

Another activity for reading is sequencing (re-ordering). The task consists in asking the learners to restore the logical order between parts of the text. This can produce an “opinion gap” and boost communication.

Productive skills of speaking and writing are developed in simulations (моделирование). A simulation means that an episode of the real world is reproduced in the classroom environment in the form of the role-play, discussion (problem solving), piece of writing or a project work.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1022