Professional Documents
Culture Documents
through Communicative
Activities
Erin Lowry
Senior English Language Fellow
Workshop for Manizales Bilingüe
February 17, 2009
The Challenge
• To integrate skills
Helgeson, 2003
Types of Classroom Listening
• Reactive
• Intensive
• Responsive
• Selective
• Extensive
• Interactive
Brown, 2001
Principles for Designing Listening Techniques
Brown, 2001
Successful Listening Activities
• Purpose for Listening
– A form of response (doing, choosing, answering,
transferring, condensing, duplicating, extending,
conversing)
• Brainstorming
• Think-Pair-Share
• Word Webbing/Mind
Mapping
• Team Interview
Easy-to-Plan Listening Tasks
• Agree or disagree (with explanation)
• Create Venn diagrams
• List characteristics, qualities, or features
• Strip story (sequencing game)
• Match speech to visuals
• Compare and contrast to another speech or
text
• Give advice
More Listening Tasks
• Compare and contrast to your own experience
• Create your own version of the missing section
• Plan a solution to the problem
• Share reactions
• Create a visual
• Reenact your own version
Activities in a Listening Lesson
• Introductory
– Intro to topic of the listening text and activities
that focus on the language that will be used
• Main
– Comprehension activities developing different
listening subskills
• Post
– Learners talk about how a topic in the listening
text relates to their own lives or give opinions
Easy to Plan Post-listening
Assessments
• Guess the meaning of unknown vocabulary
• Analyze the speaker’s intentions
• List the number of people involved and their
function in the script
• Analyze the success of communication in the
script
• Brainstorm alternative ways of expression
TEACHING SPEAKING
Distinctive Feature
PHONOLOGY Phoneme
Syllable
MORPHOLOGY
Morpheme
Word
Phrase
STRESS
SYNTAX RHYTHM
Clause
INTONATION
DISCOURSE Utterance
Text
What Makes Speaking Difficult?
• Clustering
• Redundancy
• Reduced forms
• Performance variables
• Colloquial language
• Rate of delivery
• Stress, rhythm & intonation
• Interaction
Tips for Teaching Speaking
• Use a range of techniques
• Capitalize on intrinsic motivation
• Use authentic language in meaningful
contexts
• Give feedback and be careful with corrections
• Teach it in conjunction with listening
• Allow students to initiate communication
• Encourage speaking strategies
Fluency vs. Accuracy
• Speaking using
at normal
correct
speed,
forms
without
of grammar,
hesitation,
repetition, or
vocabulary, and
self-correction,
pronunciationand with the
smooth use of connected speech
Principles of Teaching Speaking
Beginners
• Provide something for the learners to talk
about
Bailey, 2005
Principles of Teaching Speaking
Intermediate
• Plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation
for meaning
Bailey, 2005
Tasks & Materials
1. Conversations, guided conversations &
interviews
2. Information gap & jigsaw activities
3. Scripted dialogues, drama, & role-play
4. Logic puzzles
5. Picture-based activities
6. Physical actions in speaking lessons
7. Extemporaneous speaking
Communicative Tasks
• Motivation is to achieve some outcome using
the language
• Activity takes place in real time
• Achieving the outcome requires participants
to interact
• No restriction on language used
Example Communicative Tasks
• Information gaps
• Jigsaw activities
• Info gap race (p. 83)
• Surveys
• Guessing games
Questions?
• Email: erin.lowry@gmail.com
• Website: http://colombotech.pbwiki.com
References
• Bailey, K.M. (2005). Practical English Language Teaching: Speaking. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Bishop, G. (2006). AP State English Lecturers Retraining Program Teacher’s Handboook.
Senior ELF Seminar Series given in Hyderabad, India.
• Brown, H.D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy.
White Plains, NY: Longman.
• Helgesen, M. (2003). Listening. In D. Nunan (Ed.). Practical English Language Teaching. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
• Liao, X.A. (2001). Information Gap in Communicative Classrooms. EL Forum, 39 (4). Retrieved
from http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol39/no4/p38.htm.
• Lynch, T. (2003). Communication in the language classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Richards, J.C. & Renandya, W.A. (eds.) (2002). Methodology in language teaching: an
anthology of current practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Slagoski, J.D. (2006). Teaching Listening Skills. Senior ELF Seminar given in Samara, Russia.
Retrieved from http://slagoski.googlepages.com/downloadpresentations.