TeachingEnglish
Adding variety to speaking lessons
Submitted by sandymillin on 4 March, 2009 - 09:53
I'm one of five teachers for an Intensive group of adults (20-30 year olds) preparing to take the PET exam in June. The class are doing a lot of speaking work, but they don't seem able to interact with each other naturally in test situations - they resort to just asking and answering the questions according to the information on the paper in front of them, without actually engaging in conversation.
How can I help them to engage instead of just repeating what is in front of them?
How can I add variety to the speaking lessons so they are not just asking and answering questions or taking part in roleplays all the time?
Thank you very much,
Sandy
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version
Log in or register
Follow TeachingEnglish
 |
 |
 |
 |
I used to teach a spoken english course and part of it was extempore. Extempore, as we taught it is basically what you do for the IELTS long turn, you're given a topic you have to speak continuosly and coherently for a minute with minimal preparation, but it's a vital part of conversation that learners often bypass. With native speakers most conversations will include relating personal anecdotes, stories from our own life and the experiences of our freinds and family. With PET students you might not want to thow them in at the deep end with extempore cue cards right at the beginning, but why not?
It might not be suitable for your classes, but student presentations are an opportunity for students to try speaking in front of the class. They can prep. for homework, and letting 2 students do one each class doesn't take up much time, but it's great opportunity to praise students and it can be a real confidence booster for them.
Try collaborative tasks, that involve them reaching decisions together. But avoid anything that is too paper based as the students might focus on that and ticking boxes rather than communicating.
Picture prompts to stories- the kind of thing you find in Cutting Edge with a dozen picture prompts. SS have to arrange them in a logical order and then tell the story.
Best of luck for the exam,
Sa
Dear Friend,
In my opinion, we had better put our students in making real conversations. Our everyday life is full of different activities which can be used as a basis of conversation in the classroom. We all do shopping, doing different kinds of activities such as plying physical games, discussing or even arguing with our friends. All these activities could be led to a good active conversation in the class. Your students may be reluctant to share their experiences but the teacher can ask them" Suppose you are to arrive in an airport of a country you are visiting for the first time, how and what do you do to find your way to your destination if you have lost your friend's address, your telephone book or your passport?" Here students have to use their imaginations to make a good conversation. The important thing to remember is that we prepare the required vocabularies on the board and induce them to use the sentence models suitable for every discussion.
Best wishes
Ali asghar Mazinanian
Hi, Sandy
Upon reading your account, I was struck by your sensitivity to your students' needs. Congrats for you! Not only do you prepare them for the exam but you're also concerned with their actual learning and by doing that you surely will make this happen. But, are you sure that they know they truly need to learn and not just make it past the exam?
I'm asking you that so as to make you think that perhaps there is variety and a lot of opportunities passing by your students that they may have not realized. Sometimes, students need to be reminded that they ARE learing and that it is an active process that needs their attention and concentration for it to happen.
As I have faced similar situations, what I did with my students was exposing their blatant lack of interest and engagement to their naked eyes, that is, I didn't come and lectured them on it, but I brought some out-of-place elements to their classes so that they had to adjust their appraisal and by doing so had the opportunity to notice what was really going on and not what they had led to happen in their passive reaction to the tasks.
Add surprise and not variety, add unexpected reactions and unbecoming comments and your students will surely be shaken into action!
I hope to hear good news from you soon!
Best,
Mirela Ramacciotti
Thank you all for your comments - I'll try some of the ideas out in class!
Sandy
The best solution is to give them the situation orally in test situations. Give them a specific time frame after which they need to start conversing. When you talk about assessments, there is this fear of the unknown which dominates their mind and totally hampers the thinking process.
You could try out the following activities :
ON THE SPOT TOPIC Give them a topic on which they need to start speaking immediately for atleast two minutes without taking any pause or repeating the same point. You will find students thinking the traditional way and not out of the box. For example, if you ask a student to give a speech on HAIR, tell the student that he needs to be sharp and creative. Ask the students to use the linking method.
A student can start by saying, Water is the essence of life. Water makes up close to 80% of the human body. It is in the rainy season that we get abundant water. Water can also be used for generating electricity. If you burn your hands, you pour water on the affected part, which gives you relief. When a child is about to cry, we say that, his eyes were filled with water. In Chemistry, water is called as H2O. You also have an idiomatic phrase which says, In deep waters as in when a person is going through a bad phase or situation.
CREATIVE STORY TELLING Make the group sit in a circle. Ask one student to start telling a story. Each student is allowed to speak only one sentence. He then calls out the name of any of his classmate, who has to continue with the story. Make it clear to the class that they need to make the story as creative and as mad as possible. This will also improve their listening skills since no student knows whose name will be called.