speaking

This series of posts explore some of the features of connected speech with the following aims.

• To revisit and consolidate old knowledge by
  • creating a list of common features of connected speech in English.
• To provide a reasonably accessible resource for others to use so that it may be used to
  • give weight to the argument that phonetics is an important classroom tool.

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Do you teach speaking with few or no materials? Here are some speaking activities that you can try with your classes. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some more activities, some of which you can use with little or no prepararion. These are activities that I have found by dredging my computer directories. I there fore do not know the sources fo these activities. I would be happy to give any credit where it is due.

Lying: an icebreaker

air off students. It’s a good idea to pair off the students off oneself, as they might be a bit bashful in pairing off with a partner they don’t know. Read the rest of this entry »

automatic

• largely or wholly involuntary, especially as with a reflex
• acting or done spontaneously or unconsciously

automatize

• to make automatic [noun derivations: automatization the process of making automatic; automaticity the state or condition of being automatic]

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This is an activity that requires no setting up and can be done at the drop of a hat just the kind of activity that I love to have in my toolbox! Essentially, the idea is to promote automatization through quick responses, under moderately stressful conditions.

Aim: learners will recycle vocabulary and/or create short sentences under moderately stressful conditions.

Materials: none - don’t you just love it … Read the rest of this entry »

• Developing ability to describe objects and processes
• Responding to various forms of questions and sustained questioning in appropriate contexts
• Interacting in real world speaking activities
• Performing one way and two-way information tasks
• Raising awareness of conversational structure [opening, turn-taking, sustaining a turn, negotiating meaning, nominating a topic, repairing a mistake, linking ideas, adjusting the message by rephrasing, or using circumlocutions, changing topics, & closing a conversation]

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To complement the posts on speaking, especially regarding curriculum design, I have included a list of speaking sub-skills. Read the rest of this entry »

In this post the classroom ideas are marked with a:

Whatever type of approach you intend to use for a particular activity in the classroom, making the differentiation between fluency and accuracy is a very important one.

However, here are some things to think about. From Brumfit…

• Just because we are talking about fluency, it does not mean that accuracy cannot be present. Accuracy is a focus on issues of appropriacy and other formal factors.
• Overuse of accuracy monitoring can cripple language development, making the students lose confidence through the teacher’s over correction.
• Any language activity that involves the learners not working like native speakers cannot be called a fluency activity.
  • The “quality” of the language is irrelevant.
  • Because:
    • work that focuses on language alone = accuracy work
    • and work that focuses on the language of the native speaker = fluency work.

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Some courses fail the learners in that they fail to distinguish between spoken and written language. The litmus test for this assertion is to ask whether the syllabus/curriculum treats spoken language as something distinct from written language with its own grammar, syntax and lexicon. If productive skills work is a vehicle for the teaching of structures rather than training for skill and sub-skill acquisition then the course would probably have to be described as a grammar based course, no matter how communicative it is hyped up to be.

Here then, are some of the features of spoken language as I have identified them. Read the rest of this entry »