LA LENGUA EXTRANJERA ORAL. LA COMPLEJIDAD DE LA
COMPRENSIÓN ORAL. LA TOMA DE LA PALABRA: DE LA PRODUCCIÓN IMITATIVA A LA PRODUCCIÓN AUTÓNOMA
The 1st perspective in teaching Fls aims to be not only comprehensive, transparent and coherent, but also open, dynamic and non-dogmatic. Communicative approaches seem to be the best tool teacher do have for the whole fulfilment of the teaching/learning “adventure” in this new-born century.
In this topic we are going to get in deep into Oral Communication. We will define the complexities beyond a simple “speech act” and the skills involved in the process of speech events highlighting the importance and difficulties of each one and the necessity of and adequate integration of both to develop on our students conversational skills.
Question development
1. ORAL COMMUNICATION
Although communication occurs in many different ways, oral communication is the most natural way of using language. Oral communication is restricted to those cases in which the speaker intends to use the oral language to convey certain information to the hearer. The hearer recognizes our intention, based upon what we have said.
Communication implies expression and interpretation of our ideas and interaction. Authentic learning of a FL is a process of developing Communicative linguistic competence, firstly orally in order to code –decode and en-code messages – conveying meaning to a linguistic sound- through a process of negotiation of meaning, practice and production.
Short time for an answer
Immediate answer. No time for thinking
Affective factors may produce a lack of fluency Grammatically simple
Dynamic
Relies on verbs Spontaneous language Context-dependent
Nextness. In spontaneous language, phrases are produced one after another Parallelism: repetition is mostly used
Repair: echoing; corrections and hesitation markers to produce utterances and organize thoughts simultaneously
Conjoined clauses: and; then; so... Contextualized language
Oral discourse do usually focus on interaction and consequently do show features on interpersonal involvement:
Overlap showing encouragement Examples demonstrating understanding Collaborative completions
Clarifying questions
Mimicking voices Actions and agents emphasized more than states and objects Feedback signals and repairs used where needed
Personal quality (1st/2nd person pronouns)
Oral communication are enhanced by an understanding of non-verbal gestures, cultural symbols and rituals, global trends, regional varieties of language, and local traditions and contexts. For students of language to contribute to society, they must learn the academic, technical and workplace uses of language and how those realms of knowledge relate to other fields of study. Students learn to communicate for a complete range of purposes including personal, school-based, community, vocational, recreational and professional. In modern languages, curricular designs reflect the importance of students developing simultaneously all four-communication skills— listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Traditional grammar taught us to view a word as a basic part of speech in grammatical analysis (Traditional/Normative grammar), later on to contemplate a sentence (syntax and structure of finite utterances –Structuralism- to a more contemporary vision of grammar as an act of speech and discourse – functional discoursive grammar-). In order words this former emphasis on words or in the construction of sentences has recently changed towards an increasing interest in analyzing the sentences work in sequence to produce coherent and cohesive stretches of language conveying meaning. This interest has developed into discourse analysis - Some linguists normally use discourse analysis as the general term which can be described as the study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc. For example, discourse analysis deals with: how the choice of articles, pronouns and tenses affects the structure of the discourse. the relationship between utterances within a discourse; the moves made by the speaker to introduce a new topic, change the topic, or assert a higher role relationship to the other participants.
It is generally recognized for practical oral discourse analysis; SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS Analysis of spoken discourse may be called as well Conversational discourse.
Speech acts
The term speech acts was coined & developed by the linguistic philosophers Austin (1962) and Searle (1969). They attempted to explain language functions within spoken discourses. The three basic fields of the Speech Act Theory are: the communicative context, the propositional statement and the speaker`s intended meaning. In other words, the importance of the context of situation and culture to interpret a meaning, the
locution , perlocution and illocutionary acts of speaking.
Locution/illocutionary acts and perlocutionary effects (Austin)
When we speak we act, we have aims and repercussions. Speech Acts were defined by the philosopher Austin as the complex group of things we typically perform when speaking. He distinguished the simple locutionary act of saying something meaningful, the force of the illocutionary act of employing this language for some purpose, and the further perlocutionary act of having an actual effect on those who hear the utterance. Thus, for example, in saying (locution) to a friend, "That's an ugly necktie," I may also insult him (illocution) and persuade him to dress differently (perlocution).
The simple speech act of generating sounds that are linked together by
grammatical conventions so as to say something meaningful. Among speakers of English, for example, "It is raining" performs the locutionary act of saying that it is raining, as "Grablistrod zetagflx dapu" would not.
Illocutionary act
The speech act of doing something else—offering advice or taking a vow, for example—in the process of uttering meaningful language. Thus, for example, in saying "I will repay you this money next week," one typically performs the illocutionary act of making a promise.
Perlocutionary act
The speech act of having an effect on those who hear a meaningful utterance. By telling a ghost story late at night, for example, one may accomplish the cruel perlocutionary act of frightening a child.
Speech Act Theory & Speech Event Theory:
Speech act analysis has proved to be a valuable way to look at language functions and the connection between language function and grammar forms in oral conversation. Speech event analysis attempts to establish the components of a functionally described interaction. This provides a bridge between speech acts and the higher levels of the communication system.
Some examples of speech events:
Compliments: (compliment elicitation)....Oh the ring!!! + compliment...such a gorgeous weeding + acknowledgment/denial.... it was, really + bridge ....keep on with the
conversation
Complaints: opening (identification/self justification) + complaint act + (possible justification) + an apology + negotiated remedy + bridge.
Speech acts and events because are part of the discourse theory are therefore affected by the co-text and the context (mostly of culture) and therefore speech event may differ from a culture to another... for instance in the way a Spanish speaker do complain and a British do act.
Listening and Speaking: oral communication (Understanding, Expressing, Interaction and Mediation)
Oral communication involves listening and speaking, understanding and producing oral messages, that is, social "interaction" between people.When people communicate, they exchange meanings, ideas, opinions, knowledge,etc. in a meaningfill context. Social interaction exists when a two-way flux of mutual cooperation and empathy is reciprocally established between speakers. Listening + Speaking = Conversation Oral interaction requires from language users to apply basic strategies sucha as:
• Understanding the oral message: it implies a process of decoding and encoding of the oral message, in which students do need to select most relevant information, fill up the gaps of non “picked up” concepts, use their own knowledge of the matter, takes decision, pay attention to paralinguistic issues, etc…. and that in less than a second!!! • Process: decoding and making meaning
• Note taking: Taking decisions of what is relevant and dealing with an hypothesis
• Organise: new input should be organized, negotiation of meaning and feedback through paralinguistic elements with the message sender
• Speak: Giving and answer and paying attention to turn taking rules in English
Rivers refer to "interaction" when learners use the target language so that their attention focus on sending and receiving real messages in a meaningful context.
In an instructed foreign language learning , the English classroom provides the environment where pupils can iníeract in the target language with the teacher and among themselves, so that we must bear in mind this need when designing communicative activities for the English lesson.
Factors affecting EFL learners' oral communication
usually called "fossilization"-the permanent cessation of second language development. This shows that the aging process itself may affect or limit adult learners' ability to pronounce the target language fluently with native- like pronunciation (Scarcella and Oxford 1992). Even if they can utter words and sentences with perfect pronunciation, problems with prosodic features such as intonation, stress, and other phonological nuances still cause misunderstandings or lead to communication breakdown. Adult learners do not seem to have the same innate language-specific endowment or propensity as children for acquiring fluency and naturalness in spoken language.
Aural medium. The central role of listening comprehension in the L2 or foreign language acquisition process is now largely accepted. And there is little doubt that listening plays an extremely important role in the development of speaking abilities. Speaking feeds on listening, which precedes it. Usually, one person speaks, and the other responds through attending by means of the listening process –L2 negotiation of meaning; oral interaction -. In fact, during interaction, every speaker plays a double role-both as a listener and a speaker. "While listening, learners must comprehend the text by retaining information in memory, integrate it with what follows, and continually adjust their understanding of what they hear in the light of prior knowledge and of incoming information" (Mendlsohn and Rubin 1995:35). If one cannot understand what is said, one is certainly unable to respond. So, speaking is closely related or interwoven with listening, which is the basic mechanism through which the rules of language are internalised. The fleetingness of speech, together with the features of spoken English-loosely organized syntax, incomplete forms, false starts, and the use of fillers,
undoubtedly hinders EFL learners' comprehension and affects the development of their speaking abilities, as well.
Sociocultural factors. Many cultural characteristics of a language also affect L2 or foreign language learning. From a pragmatic perspective, language is a form of social action because linguistic communication occurs in the context of structured
what degree a speaker may impose a given verbal behaviour on his/her conversational partner (Berns 1990). Due to the influence or interference of their own cultural norms, it is hard for non-native speakers to choose the forms appropriate to certain situations. For instance, in Chinese culture, paying a compliment to someone obligates that person to give a negative answer such as "No. It is not so good," and so on in order to show "modesty," whereas in North American culture such a response might be both inappropriate and embarrassing.
Affective factors. The affective side of the learner is probably one of the most important influences on language learning success or failure. The affective factors related to L2 or foreign language learning are emotions, self-esteem, empathy, anxiety, attitude, and motivation. L2 or foreign language learning is a complex task that is susceptible to human anxiety (Brown 1994), which is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, and apprehension. Speaking a foreign language in public, especially in front of native speakers, is often anxiety-provoking. Sometimes, extreme anxiety occurs when EFL learners become tongue-tied or lost for words in an
unexpected situation, which often leads to discouragement and a general sense of failure. Adults, unlike children, are concerned with how they are judged by others. They are very cautious about making errors in what they say, for making errors would be a public display of ignorance, which would be an obvious occasion of "losing face" in some cultures such as in China. Clearly, the sensitivity of adult learners to making mistakes, or fear of "losing face," has been the explanation for their inability to speak English without hesitation.
Characteristic of orality
1. Used to regulate social interactions 2. Topic usually here and now
3. Familiar words; repetitive syntax and ideas
4. Intonation and non-verbal cues important for cohesion and conveying meaning 5. Usually has fragmented quality
8. Listeners often give immediate feedback
As shown in above, characteristics of orality include its use in regulating social interactions and the opportunity for the listeners/ communication partners to give immediate feedback to the speaker. Clarification and rephrasing can occur "on-line."
Oral Communication within Communicative competence
"Language proficiency is not a one-dimensional construct but a multifaceted modality, consisting of various levels of abilities and domains (Carrasquillo 1994:65). Hymes (1971) also assumes that L2 learners need to know not only the linguistic knowledge but also the culturally acceptable ways of interacting with others in different situations and relationships. His theory of communicative competence (1971) consists of the interaction of grammatical, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and probabilistic language components. Built on Hymes' theory, Canale and Swain (1980) propose that
communicative competence includes grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence, which reflect the use of the linguistic system and the functional aspects of communication respectively. In the framework of Canale and Swain (1980), we can show graphically the abilities underlying speaking proficiency.
Grammatical competence. "Grammatical competence is an umbrella concept that includes increasing expertise in grammar (morphology, syntax), vocabulary, and mechanics. With regards to speaking, the term mechanics refers to basic sounds of letters and syllables, pronunciation of words, intonation, and stress" (Scarcella and Oxford 1992:141). In order to convey meaning, EFL learners must have the knowledge of words and sentences; that is, they must understand how words are segmented into various sounds, and how sentences are stressed in particular ways. Thus, grammatical competence enables speakers to use and understand English language structures accurately and unhesitatingly, which contributes to their fluency.
Discourse competence. In addition to grammatical competence, EFL learners must develop discourse competence, which is concerned with intersentential relationships. In discourse, whether formal or informal, the rules of cohesion and coherence apply, which aid in holding the communication together in a
a language require one's ability to perceive and process stretches of discourse, and to formulate representations of meaning from referents in both previous sentences and following sentences. Therefore, effective speakers should acquire a large repertoire of structures and discourse markers to express ideas, show relationships of time, and indicate cause, contrast, and emphasis (Scarcella and Oxford 1992). With these, learners can manage turn- taking in conversation. Sociolinguistic competence. Knowledge of language alone does not adequately
prepare learners for effective and appropriate use of the target language. Learners must have competence, which involves knowing what is expected socially and culturally by users of the target language; that is, learners must acquire the rules and norms governing the appropriate timing and realization of speech acts. Understanding the sociolinguistic side of language helps learners know what comments are appropriate, know how to ask questions during interaction, and know how to respond nonverbally according to the purpose of the talk. Therefore, "adult second language learners must acquire stylistic adaptability in order to be able to encode and decode the discourse around them correctly" (Brown 1994:238).
Strategic competence. Strategic competence, which is "the way learners
manipulate language in order to meet communicative goals" (Brown 1994:228), is perhaps the most important of all the communicative competence elements. Simply put, it is the ability to compensate for imperfect knowledge of linguistic, sociolinguistic, and discourse rules (Berns 1990). With reference to speaking, strategic competence refers to the ability to know when and how to take the floor, how to keep a conversation going, how to terminate the conversation, and how to clear up communication breakdown as well as comprehension problems.
4. DEVELOPING ORAL COMPREHENSION(LISTENING).
What is "listening"? Listening as a complex and active process. Sub-skills involved.
Listening is a receptive oral skill and it can be considered a complex and active process, since it involves the integration and activation of aural perception, linguistic knowledge and semantic intuition.
•The listener has no control over the speed nor the tone of voice of the utterance.
•While listening, the learner has to try to anticipate, predict, what is coming and remember what she has heard before
• Skills and sub-skills involved in Listening (extracted fromMcLaren & Madrid, 1995; Munby, 1978) A) "Ear-training" skills
-Discriminating sounds in isolated words and connected speech*. -Discriminating stress patterns within words
-Recognizing variation in stress in connected speech -Recognizing the use of stress in connected speech
-Understanding intonation patterns: uses of tone; interpreting attitudinal meaning through variation of tone.
B) "Comprehension" skills
-Understanding explicitly stated information
-Understanding* implicit information in the text, not explicitly stated (inferencing) -Understanding conceptual meaning, notions* (time, location, quantity,...)
-Understanding the communicative valué, function, of utterances and sentences -Understanding relations within the sentence and between parts of a text. -Interpreting texts
-Recognizing indicators used fon introducing/developing an idea, transition to new idea, concluding, emphasizing, explaining/clarifying, etc.
-Distinguishing the main idea(s) from supporting details -Extracting relevant (main) points to summarise
-Transferring information from verbal code to, for example, diagrammatic display . -Relating what is listened to the learner's own experience
-Internalizing what is communicated
General reasons for encouraging listening practice in the FL class:
-Listening provides "comprehensible input"* (Krashen), essential for language learning -It is needed in real life
-It's something the whole class can do
-It allows students to distinguish sounds, stress, intonation patterns
-It is related to what the learner often does anyway: listening to pop-songs, watching cartoons. in English on the TV, videos, etc
-Succesful listening may provide motivation
Krashen (1982) proposes an "input hypothesis" where the learner's interlanguage is developed as a direct result of the amount of "comprehensible input" which s/he receives.
The "frequency hypothesis" states that learners learn quicker what they hear more frequently
(*)A useful account of listen ing-based teaching methods and SLL can be found in Cook (1986)
Teaching listening. Basic points
Listening should be taught systematically, in varied ways and regularly. Some of the basic points to bear in mind when considering the teaching of the listening skill are:
-The importance of distinguishing "pre-listening", "while-listening" and "after-Iistening" phases and activities in teaching the listening skill
Pre-listening: brainstorming activities, working through the visual aids is mostly involved. Students are waken to the communicative situation presented. Old vocabulary is recycled and new vocabulary is correctly contextualized. Inductive approach to new input presentation
While-listening: activities to work out the listening through, Wh- qiestions, true & false, drawing, matching or any other activity. Clear directions should be given.
Post-listening: The text is seen as a whole and as a principal motivator to keep on working –maybe reading aloud the listening, doing a writing activity..etc.
General assumptions
- The need for motivation: if the student understands, s/he is happy. For this reason , wherever possible, tasks and activities should be "success-oriented"
-The need for a large amount of listening and "comprehensible input". (Input / Intake)* (* "/npí//" indicates the exposure to listening in the FL the learner has, while "intake" refers to the amount of language the learner actually processes by means of listening.)
-Only "reasonable comprehension" is demanded. Students do not have to forcé themselves to understand every single word in a text. We must practise "listening for gjst".
-The importance of the purpose of the task, which should be explained to the students before they do the exercise, so they know why they are listening, as we do in real life.
-The problem of "communicative stress". Several principal features of language input have been found to be influential in listening comprehension, among them:
-features of the context (a familiar one, a formal setting,...); -the way in which the information is organized
-the listener's familiarity with the topic
-the type of input: "siatic" (descriptions), "dynamic" (stories, action,...) -the explicitness of the information given.
Training in Listening
We should bear in mind intensive & extensive listening.
Intensive listening: Scanning the text : it is closer to ear-trainig and therefore to accuracy. We get them to listen carefully to phonemes and words in order to develop a grapho-phonological relationship. The listening is primarily concerned for language items as part of the language teaching programme. Extensive listening:Skimming the text: It is closer to text-based approach and therefore fluency. We try our students to get a general picture of what has been heard.
Tasks and Activities for Listening: A brief Taxonomy
We have to provide the learner with a variety of tasks which will enable her to practise and develop the skill mentioned abo ve. The folio wing is a brief taxonomy of listening tasks:
A) Some "before-listeníng" activities:
-Activating vocabulary on the topic of the listening activity -Answering "before- questions"of a general and specifíc nature -Reading information and relating it to personal own experiences
-Looking at a visual/díagramatic aid (map, photo, diagram,..) related to the topic to oriéntate future listening and predict what the text will (probably) be about.
-Completing a table or questionnaire
-Reading short stories as preparation for listening -Reading a short summary of the material to be heard
- Preparation for listening to specially difficult types of text (e.g. "disembodied voice"*)
B) Some "while/after listening" activities:
It is not always possible to determinne exactly which activities may take place while listening, and which after the act of listening has finished. They are grouped together:
-Identifying_thp tnpic(«;) ta^H about
-Identifying the number, sex, nature of the speakers -Identifying the attitude(s) of the speaker(s)
-Filling incomplete ("gapped") texts with information obtained in the listening task -Conpleting a form or a table
-Writing information in spaces on a map or diagram -Indicating a route on a plan ("draw a Une")
-Reading, listening and associating sentences with the appropriate pictures -Answering "true/false" questions
-Answering "multiple-choice" comprehension questions
-Answering "inference-type" and alternative comprehension questions -Distinguishing between vocabulary data
-Correcting incorrect data, according to information in the listening
-Reacting to a story in an appropriate way (by laughing, showing surprise,...) -Re-ordering the jumbled steps
-Summarizing a (narrative) text
Some examples af activities for listening in Primary According to CEFER regulations)
Understanding the message:
•Listening and Acting. "Total Physical Response" (song:"Head,shoulders,knees and toes
•Listening with visuals {L and drawing (e.g. a red ball). Using maps (N, S, E, W), plans
*Listen and match (words / sentences with pictures expressing actions/location,etc
*"Find the picture"
Listening to sequences (order of words; re-order jumbled steps in a story;...) •GAMES (Bingo,...)
Interaction:
Listen and repeat (presentation of new input) •Listening and reading
•Listening to dialogues: role play and simulations SONGS (listening to general /specifíc information) Mediation:
Listen and summarize “whispering” games Dramatization
Listen to a narrative and create a dialogue Listen and adapt the text
Listen and drawing the sequence
5. SPEAKING (ORAL PRESENTATION/ PRACTICE/ PRODUCTION) What is "speaking"? Concept of "speaking"
social, interaction is an exchange of opinions, ideas, knowledge, impressions...between people.
Stages in the process of acquiring speaking
The whole process of learning oral communication takes places in two stages (Rivers & temperley 1978)
Cognitive stage: (receptive):
Knowledge of communication components: rules, categories, functions... Internalizing the rules relatin those categories and functions.
Productive stage:
Practice of sequences of sounds (that may incluse “words”, clauses, sentences.. Practice in production complete communicative intentions: asking for
information, introducing oneself, expressing likes or dislikes..etc
Stages in the process of teaching speaking
For practical terms these stages when implemented in the FL classroom are reduced to: Presentation: New comprehensible input is introduced throuhg different
resources and materils such as realia, texts (dialogues), posters, videos, drawing....etc
Practice : controlled and guided activities are involve. Accuracy is emphasized. Most of the time teachers do create their worksheets or do use of the ones presented ion the textbook or workbook
Production: free – or pseudo-fre- activities are involve-. Fluency is emphasized
Didactic considerations for the "Speaking" skill
In the teaching process, learners are the subjects of a series of cognitive
(*) In the Audiolingual, structuralist, method pupils reproduced structures in "drills", exercises which aimed to internalize rules through repetition without a meaningrul context. Meanwhile, tasks and activities in Communicative Language Teaching are designed to promote interaction and provide input and opportunities for oral (and written) communication.
When we are doing oral communication in the EFL classroom in Primary schools, we must be conscious of the limitations and constraints that we have:
• Our students can communicate their ideas and emotions using their Ll, with fluency, expressing, in a natural way, their meanings, but in English they have serious
limitations and lack of language, so they inevitably use reductive and simplifícation strategies in order to express themselves with the language they are able to use.
• Due to lack of competence, at an elementary level, students will often insert Ll linguistic elements combined with the FL already learnt. This is natural at that stage of their interlanguage and sometimes fulfils the communicative purposes.
• At the initial stages, young leamers often make many grammatical, lexical and
phonetic mistakes which must be corrected systematically. Nevertheless, when they are involved in communicative activities and the main objective is to develop their fluency, the teacher must be more flexible and tolerant with errors and not interrupt
communication (the teacher can write down the errors produced and correct them later)
Procedures, tasks (activities) and techniques to encourage oral practice and oral production (Speaking)
Oral presentation:
Using visual aids: flashcards, wallcharts or realia to introduce new input. Listen and repeat. Following 3 phases:
1. Natural speech: Listen to a natural model of pronouncition of the new input 2. Isolation + distortion (Where an isolated phoneme is over-emphasized and
teacher plays with stress; tone ; final ending consonant, long vowels, etc 3. Natural speech: A final listen and repeat activity so students get a final
pronounciation close to a natural model.
Some variations: New input can be introduced through a communicative event –role play- or short story or ,merely asking open questions to the students about their preferences in Spanish an contrasting already known input to the same ones in a new code L2. In any case the 3 phases indicated above should developed no matter the mean we use to introduce new input.
Oral Practice:
It is important to notice that we are considering oral practice as a processand as an ability that can be improved with practice and training, by using certain procedures and techniques. The following procedures and activities/ tasks are designed to encourage oral practice and develop the ability to move from imitating models to autonomous oral expression. Practice is therefore moving from an accurate presentation phase to a more fluent one. Activities indicated hereafter should be understood as in between these two processes (presentation and production) and they will be closer to the former or latter depending on how much freedom is left to students in their production
Spot the odd one out: making contrast or deducing from a list Substitution tables
Discrimination activities Substitution drills Expansion drills Transformation drills Conversation drills
Using picture cues: Making true statements comparing the things in the picture Saying which you would rather
Describing one object Pair work: filling the gaps Controlled or guided role-plays Asking and Answering questions
Playing with language
Playing linguistic and communicative games in the EFL classroom is one of the most popular and motivating activities. At elementary level games must be simple to play.
-Who is it? - 20 questions (*)
- I spy with my little eye... - Pass the message
- Who says what ? Guess what I am doing ?
Mime, Gestures and Physical movement
Mime is a non-verbal communication procedure to represent an idea or a sequence of ideas (story) through gestures and bodily movement. It can be used as a strategy to compensate for breakdowns in oral communication.
Mime is particularly recommended for children, Activities such as "action songs", Total Physical Response, mime (guessing) games, etc. are funny and motivating
Oral production
We are considering oral production as the final oral product to be used in a mock-authentic real communicative situation. Oral production is therefore understood as a freely communicative act either interactive ( in most of the situations) or individual ( sort of micro-speeches). Oral production is not necessarily close to target language but students can include their own knowledge (acquired in previous courses or
exta-activities...etc). Evaluation of oral production should take into account content and final message and not isolated pronounciation on one hand, and on the other one para-language. The final goal of oral production is communication and as far as the message is transmitted – no matter the communicative strategy in use- should be valued.
Activities indicated hereafter should be understood as oral production although some of then mybe in between practice and production. Everything depends on how much freedom is left to students in their production
Acting out
levéis, students need to be supplied with a basic corpus of communicative situations which can be used as models for developing their communicative competence.
1. Role-plays
In this case, the students also take roles and act out what would happen in each situation. The most sequence for role play includes these stages:
•Setting the context and situation
•Characters and "roles" to perform, act out, in the particular situations
•Presentation of the useful language that students may choose when playing the roles.
•Aim or purpose of the conversationor role-play
•Demonstration (or rehearsal) to put into practice the different options •"Role-play": performance of roles and use of the language to reach the aira
Role-plays can be classifíed into 3 categories: Controlled role-plays Guided role-plays Free role-plays
2. Simulations: Through these 'activities, the students reproduce or simulate real life situations . They are given roles and are instructed to act out in a situation (dramatization). The difference with role-play or dramatiations stands in that an evaluative phase is introduced. Teachers can present situations in which there are cultural misunderstandings that cause people to become offended, angry, and confused. Then, thought-provoking information and questions can follow each description or anecdote for in-class discussion. Students can be asked to analyze and determine what went wrong and why, which will force students to think about how people in the target culture act and perceive things, and which will inevitably provide a deeper insight into that culture. This kind of exercise can strike a healthy balance between the necessity of teaching the target culture and validating the students' native culture, which will gradually sharpen students' culture awareness.
3. Dramatizations: A contextualized role-play where acting, setting, dressing is included
use the communicative functions of language, focusing primarily on the meaning of the interaction (rather than formal language)
Explanation and description: interpretations of graphs, maps, diagrams: 1. Mini-speeches on topics of interest
2. Street directions
3. Instructions for operating a machine for instance
4. Describing a process; a plant –lentis- growing for instance.
Discussions: about a concrete topic in teams most of the time (uniforms at school: fors and againsts
Using picture cues: for narrating the story behind a picture or a set of pictures
Games and problem solving:
1. Guessing games (teams or whole class) class has to guess by asking questions: personalities; hide and seek
2. Elimination games: my mothe r went to the market (expansion drill) 3. Arrange jumbled key paragraphs/ pictures/ dialogues...etc
Oral productive activities classified according to CEFR
Oral expression
Repeating and miming oral activities. Articulation and oral repetition New comprehensible input is introduced throuhg different resources and
materils such as realia, texts (dialogues), posters, videos, drawing....etc
Production: free – or pseudo-free- activities are involve-. Fluency is emphasized
Oral interaction:
dialogues, pair work, role play…in other words “Practice” : controlled and guided activities are involve. Accuracy is emphasized. Most of the time teachers do create their worksheets or do use of the ones presented ion the textbook or workbook
Oral mediation:
say in different words, summarize, select key points, etc
In interacting with foreigners, native speakers tend to be rather tolerant of errors in pronunctiation or syntax. In contrast, violations of rules of speaking are often interpreted as bad manners since the naive speaker is unlikely to be aware of sociolinguistic relativity. (Wolfson 1983)
Communicative interference is understood as the transference of the rules of speech belonging to a community to what seems to be a corresponding situation in another speech community – for instance turn-taking or voice tone is clearly differnt in Mediterranean cultures than in north-European
ones-Norms of interaction
1. Sociolinguistic competence :
Use of titles; status is predominant over age
Open a conversation; greetings; telephone calls; the weather; etc Introduction of new topics
Accepted forms of address, perform,interpret and respond to speech acts; for instance compliments or disapproval;….. thin non very thin person; not thin, is he?
Compliments: She looks really nice; she is a really nice person 2. The negotiation of meaning
It allows the adjustment that are needed for successful communication. Factors to bear in mind: This negotiation of meaning mainly focuses on verbal communication or production rather than written communication and reading because verbal
communication requires speakers to negotiate meaning with each other consistent with sociocultural theory.
Some factors affect the process of negotiaton: cooperative principles; turn-taking procedures; repairs and communication strategies.
The cooperative principle : (Richards & Schmidt 1983); conversation is more than merely the exchange of information. When people take part in
Turn taking procedures : the distribution of talking among the participants in a conversation is governed by turn-taking norms and conventions:
These norms differ according to the type of speech event, ex. Raising a hand, etc They must be generally negotiated in conversation; ex: openings: guess what... sorry to trouble you.... lovely day....got a match?...but never how much do you earn?
Ongoing checks: by the speaker: do you see?; can you guess what he said?, are you with me?; do I make myself clear?, let me put it in another way, what I’m trying to say is...
By the listener: have I got you right?, I don´t get you...you mean....
Changing topic: that reminds me... incidentally...., by the way... makes you think , doesn´t it?
Ending: sorry, but I have to go now...nice talking to you....
Repairs:the exchange of meaning also involves monitoring to ensure that I ntended meassages have been communicated and understood.
This involves correction of unsuccessful attempts where necessary: self repairs; backchannets; listener repairs; echoing, non-verbal language.
By and large, with all the activities and tasks suggested, using audiovisual stimuli brings sight, hearing, and kinesthetic participation into interplay, which gets students across the gulf of imagination into the "real experience" in the first place. Meanwhile, the task-oriented activities give students a purpose to talk. Ideally, the flexibility and adaptability of these activities are essential if the communicative needs of learners are to be met. With the limited time available in class, it is necessary to follow open language experiences with more intensive structured situations, dialogues, and role-playing activities. These will give students both the chance and confidence actually to use the language.
The main goal of teaching a foreign language in Primary Education is the
development of the pupils' communicative competence, which comprises the linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic and sociocultural competence.
A Communicative approach to language teaching emphasizes the importance of developing the four language skills; and the Primary curriculum recommends the introduction of the oral skills (listening and speaking) before the written skills (reading and writing), and also the receptive skills (listening and reading) should precede the productive skills, so the order would be: L > S > R > W.
Learning activities should try to promote real communication in the English class and therefore oral communication. In that sense we should integrate label the language skills as it happens in real life interaction.
6. Bibliography
LOE LOMCE LEA
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Scarcella, R. C. and R. L. Oxford. 1992. The tapestry of language learning: The individual in the communicative classroom. Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle Publishers.
