Speaking and Writing

COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING ACTIVITIES

Sometimes students can be given the same information and must discuss a solution to a problem.

The well known ‘desert island debate’ in which students in groups choose ‘5 things from a list that they would take to a desert island and why’ falls into this category. They can also at higher levels be given an article on current affairs (such as one on obesity in modern Britain perhaps) and be asked to come up with some ideas about how to solve the problem and present them to the class.

e) The feedback and/or whole class phase.

Some sort of ‘rounding off’ of any group speaking activity is essential so that the activity becomes something students can build on. Teachers need to monitor closely what is going on in speaking activities and take notes to use in the feedback or whole class phase.

Here are some ways of feeding back to the class on how they have done with an activity:

Bring one or two of the more successful pairings to the front of the room to demonstrate what they have been doing to the others. Discuss the strong points of their role play.

Summarise the main points of a discussion for the class with key words on the white board that they can note down and take away with them.

Note down common errors and also well-expressed phrases and ideas. Make a collection of these on the white board and discuss them as a class.

Involve the class in monitoring themselves - for example have demonstration role plays and then ask the class to note what was good about them.

Have students come up to the front and share with the class a few good phrases or new words they have learned.

Always allow yourself time after a freer activity to bring the class back together at the end of the lesson, re-arrange the furniture, give homework etc. Wherever possible, link homework to a speaking activity you have just done as this helps to fix new words in their minds.

Note from the above that there are many different kinds of groupings that can be used in the classroom - speaking does not always mean ‘information gap paired activities’.

Whenever you set up information gap activities - make sure that they are trying to speak clearly and checking if their listener has understood. Encourage students to say things like ‘I’m sorry I didn’t catch that’, and repeat the instructions back to whoever gave them, not revert to their own language if it is a monolingual class.

Asking for clarification and repetition are very important communication strategies.

DO YOU REMEMBER THIS FROM LECTURE 5?

The white board has the table below on it.

T: Good morning class. Settle down. I hope you had a nice weekend. Did anybody go away at the weekend? (3 hands up) Where did you go, Mohammed?

Mohammed: Beach. (teacher writes beach in the table)

T: Did you stay in a hotel?

Mohammed: No, my brother’s friend house. (writes friend’s house)

T: How about you Raisa?

Raisa: I stayed in a hotel of my family. (writes hotel)

T: And you, Hassan?

Hassan: Fishing. (teacher writes fishing)

T: That’s interesting! I went horse riding with my husband.

Today we are going to talk about travelling.

Teacher: Look at the table on the board and let’s see if we can add some more activities and places you went to recently. (Students discuss other activities they have done and places they have been.)

SELF-CHECK 3:3 3

In another part of the same lesson the teacher sets up an activity in a travel agency asking and answering about holidays. Tick the things that the teacher forgets to do.

Teacher:

The next activity will be a pairwork activity. OK everyone, find a partner.

Now each student choose either the A or the B role on the card I have handed to you.

This task is going well. Why? Think of five reasons.

The teacher has given roles to the students. (D is writing things down.)

The task is long enough. (There are quite a lot of things to decide).

There is a real information gap. (The students have different sheets).

There is a clear aim to the activity (They have to fill in a table).

The task is at the right level.

Grouping of students is discussed in later models but here are a few things to think about when setting up speaking activities.

• Pick a topic that everyone can access and enjoy discussing or practicing. Perhaps ask the students for something they are interested in or feel strongly about.
• Give clear roles to the students to avoid one person dominating.
• Make sure a discussion or debate lesson is just that and not the teacher giving forth on his/her favourite topic. The students can be more involved if they have read up on a topic beforehand and have adequate key vocabulary.
• Make sure that everyone knows exactly what they are doing before you begin or you will have to go round to ten different pairs re-explaining the task! This is best done as suggested above by modeling and also by clear instructions. (See Lection 5)
• Vary groupings as you will have a range of speaking skills in any one class.