THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING [304754]

[anonimizat]-NAPOCA

FACULTATEA DE LITERE

CATEDRA DE LIMBA SI LITERATURA ENGLEZǍ

[anonimizat]Ǎ PENTRU

OBȚINEREA GRADULUI DIDACTIC I

Coordonator științific: Candidat: [anonimizat]. univ. dr. [anonimizat] 2010

[anonimizat]-NAPOCA

FACULTATEA DE LITERE

CATEDRA DE LIMBA SI LITERATURA ENGLEZǍ

THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

Coordonator științific: Candidat: [anonimizat]. univ. dr. [anonimizat] 2010

CONTENTS

Foreword 5

[anonimizat] 8

1.1 Theories of language learning 8

1.1.1 Behaviourism 8

1.1.2 Cognitivism 8

1.1.3 Acquisition and learning 9

1.1.4 Task-based learning 10

1.1.5 Humanistic approaches 10

1.1.6 Self-directed learning 11

1.2 [anonimizat] 12

[anonimizat] 15

2.1Definition 15

2.2 The roles of the communicative activities 16

2.3 The characteristics of the communicative activities 17

2.4 Types of communicative activities 19

1 Oral communicative activities 19

2 Written communicative activities 33

3 Projects 37

[anonimizat] 47

3.1 Characteristics of successful and unsuccessful groups 47

3.2 The teacher’s roles and responsibilities 49

3.3 Integrating communicative activities into the syllabus 52

3.4 Issues regarding classroom dynamics 53

3.5 Sources of problems in groups 57

[anonimizat] 59

4.1 Components of communicative language ability 60

A. Linguistic competence 60

B. Pragmatic competence 61

C. Discourse competence 61

D. Strategic competence 62

E. Fluency 63

4.2 Significant implications of communicative language ability in the curriculum 64

4.3 The implications for the communicative classroom 65

4.3.1 The communicative tasks and their roles in teaching and learning 65

4.3.2 Managing a communicative classroom 68

4.3.3 Communicative language teaching and authenticity in the classroom 69

[anonimizat] 71

[anonimizat] 78

CONCLUSIONS 142

BIBLIOGRAPHY 145

ANNEXES: 148

‘Communication works for those who work at it.’

[anonimizat]: [anonimizat], testing them and so on. But when our students have (we hope) [anonimizat].

I have chosen this particular subject matter because I [anonimizat], age, needs and interests will develop their personal and social competences. [anonimizat], interesting and engaging tasks than traditionally.

This paper intends to deal with this side of language teaching that has come into greater prominence in recent years, emphasizing that instead of the idea, associated with the audio-lingual school, that students should use language in more or less controlled exercises until they have mastered its structures to a high degree, and only then begin to talk freely, it is now accepted that some sort of dynamic, individual and meaningful oral practice should be included in English lessons right from the beginning. Most courses now emphasise the importance of fostering learners’ ability to communicate in the foreign language rather than their skill in constructing correct sentences, and there is a corresponding increase in the time and energy allotted to communication exercises in the classroom.

It is, however, worth noting that if communication practice is one of the most important components of the language learning/teaching process, it is also one of the most problematical. It is much more difficult to get learners to express themselves freely then it is to extract right answers in a controlled exercise.

In order to understand the importance of communicative activities in English language teaching nowadays it is essential to have a look in the 1st part of this paper at the most important ‘Language Learning Theories’ and what they meant for the process of language teaching and learning, with a special emphasis on the Communicative Approach. The Communicative Language Teaching is a theory of language teaching that starts from a communicative model of language and language use and that seeks to translate this into a design for an institutional system, materials, teacher and learner roles and behaviours, classroom activities and techniques. The goal of the Communicative Language Teaching is to develop a communicative competence that is what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community.

The 2nd chapter of this paper ‘The Communicative Activities’ brings into discussion all the aspects concerning communicative activities, from possible definitions, the roles and functions they accomplish , the characteristics they share to a brief presentation of the most important types of oral and written communicative activities.

Communicative activities create useful contexts, permitting a density of language practice. In addition to employing meaningful language, they also require gestures, handling of objects, touching and many other forms of non-verbal communication. As they play games, students stop thinking about language and begin using it in a spontaneous and natural manner within the classroom.

Such as there is a variety of communicative activities, there is also a wide range of functions they accomplish. Beyond their main purpose-the entertaining one, they provide a lot of other ways of learning and practicing language, as well as procedures for approaching the needs of a class as a group. That is why this paper also tackles the concepts of classroom dynamics in the 3rd chapter ‘The Concept of Classroom Dynamics’ and communicative classroom in the 4th part ‘The Communicative Classroom’. The practical activities that the teacher inserts into his or her lesson not only fade and break the routines that teachers (and students) tend to fall into, but they also provide practical ways to enhance classroom interaction and peer teaching. They also contribute to that community spirit which is so crucial to successful teaching of any kind and can be very challenging, too.

Communicative activities are those which exhibit the characteristics at the communicative end of the communication continuum. Students are somehow involved in activities that give them both the desire to communicate and a purpose which involves them in a varied use of language. Such activities are vital in a language classroom since here the students can do their best to use the language as individuals, arriving at a degree of language autonomy.

The most useful place for these communicative activities is at a free stage of the traditional progression through practice to free communication; they can be used at the beginning of a lesson, as warm-up activities or to be used as a culmination of the lesson, as a chance to use the language they have learnt freely and as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. They can also serve as a diagnostic tool for the teacher, who can note areas of difficulty and take appropriate remedial action. Part five ‘Communicative activities in textbooks’ intends to analyse the communicative activities in the textbooks I currently use and the last part ‘Applications’ focuses on several successful applications which I proposed to my students during our English lessons.

Carrying out communicative tasks requires active involvement on the part of the learner, which in turn makes the lessons more motivating and more effective. These factors are vital in any learning situation. Most of the learners who have used communicative activities and games have been positive about their benefits in their practice of English, because they encourage learners to take the initiative in their learning process or make it memorable and therefore successful.

Some students who are more energetic or reserved and need new impulses all the time may feel lonely and experience depression or have low self-esteem when facing traditional frontal teacher-centered activities or constant drilling tasks that do not challenge their imagination, creativity and curiosity. They may begin to feel that they will never learn English or never feel comfortable in their ability to speak up. Offering well-designed and well-executed communicative activities can help turn the English classroom into an active, safe, and enjoyable place where literacy- and beginning-level learners can learn what they need and want to learn.

Most English language learners have had access to some schooling. Most subjects were probably very teacher-directed. Learners were expected to be quiet and listen to the teacher and then, when asked, to respond to the teacher in unison with the one correct answer. Because of this, some English language learners may be initially disconcerted when their English teacher begins asking them to get up and move around, work in pairs or groups, and talk to one another. It also may be difficult for learners to realise that there can be more than one correct response to a question and many ways to ask a question or that some times there are no rules according to which they can grasp a certain expression or a specific way of saying something. However, many, if not most, learners adapt and prosper with increased interactivity and independence.

PART – LANGUAGE LEARNING LANGUAGE TEACHING

1.1 Theories of language learning

The process of learning languages is quite difficult to describe as there are no specific explanations although a great deal of research has been done into the subject. Certain theories have strongly influenced the practice of language teaching and continue to do so. Therefore, this first part will focus on some of the main theories and trends that have informed the practice of English language teaching over the last decades.

1.1.1 Behaviourism

The results of the experiments the two psychologists Watson and Raynor had carried out with a young baby in 1920 are an early example of the idea of conditioning. This idea is based on the theory that you can train an animal to do anything following a three-stage procedure where the stages are stimulus, response and reinforcement.

In a book called ‘Verbal behaviour’, giving the name of the theory. The same model of stimulus-response-reinforcement, he argued, accounts for how a human baby learns a language. Behaviourism, which was after all a psychological theory, was adopted for some time by language teaching methodologists, particularly in , and the result was the audio-lingual method still in use in many parts of the world. This method made constant drilling of the students followed by positive or negative reinforcement a major focus of classroom activity. The language ‘habit’ was formed by constant repetition and the reinforcement of the teacher. Mistakes were immediately criticised and correct utterances were immediately praised.

1.1.2 Cognitivism

The term cognitivism refers to a group of psychological theories which draw heavily on the work in linguistics of Noam Chomsky. In 1959 Chomsky published a strong attack on Skinner’ ‘Verbal Behaviour’ which became very famous.In his review of Skinner’s book Chomsky (1959, p23) explained his rejection of the behaviourist view of language acquisition on the basis of his model of competence and performance.

Chomsky maintained that language is not a form of behaviour. On the contrary, it is an intricate rule-based system and a large part of language acquisition is the learning of the system. There are a finite number of grammatical rules in the system and with a knowledge of these an infinite number of sentences can be performed in the language. It is competence that a child gradually acquires, and it is this language competence that allows children to be creative as language users.

Language teaching has never adopted a methodology based on Chomsky’s work but the idea that language is not a set of habits-that what matters is for learners to internalize a rule and that this will allow for creative performance –has informed many teaching techniques and methodologies.

1.1.3 Acquisition and learning

The distinction between acquisition and learning has become the centre of some more recent investigations of how people become language users. Stephen Krashen characterised acquisition as a subconscious process which results in the knowledge of a language whereas learning results only in ‘knowing about’ the language. Acquiring a language is more successful and longer than learning. In his view second (or foreign) language learning needs to become more like the child’s acquisition of its native language. (1981,pp 41-56)

Krashen saw successful acquisition as being very bound with the nature of the language input which the students receive. Input is a term used to mean the language that the students hear or read. This input should contain language that the students already ‘know’ as well as language that they have not previously seen. Krashen called the use of such language to students ‘rough-tuning’. According to Krashen, students can acquire language on their own provided that they get a great deal of ‘comprehensible input’. This is in contrast to conscious learning where students receive ‘finely-tuned’ input-that is language chosen to be precisely at their level. This finely-tuned input is then made the object of conscious learning and such language is not acquired and can only be used to monitor what someone is going to say. Language which is acquired is part of the language store we use when we want to communicate whereas the only use for consciously learned language is to check that acquired language just as we are about to use it.

1.1.4 Task-based learning

Many methodologists have concentrated on the learning tasks that students are involved in and not so much on the nature of language input. There has been an agreement that language has to be acquired as a result of some deeper experience than the concentration on a grammar point.

In the 1970s the British applied linguist Allwrightconducted an experiment which challenged traditional notions of language teaching. He (1979,p 5)theorized that' . . if the language teacher's management activities are directed exclusively at involving the learners in solving commutation problems in the target language, then language learning will take care of itself . . .' He stated that ‘there is no need for formal instruction’. Instead students are simply asked to perform communicative activities in which they have to use the foreign language. The more they do this the better they become at using the language.

In 1979 in , , N.S. Prabhu originated a long-running project which used task-based learning in a very different context. Like Allwright he theorised that ‘students were just as likely to learn structures if they were thinking of something else as they were if they were only concentrating on the structures themselves’. (1987, pp 12-16) Prabhu suggested that if emphasis in class was on meaning, the language would be learnt incidentally. The way this was to come about was through a series of tasks which had a problem–solving element: in solving the problems the students naturally came into contact with language, but this contact happened because students were actively involved in reaching solutions to tasks. Prabhu called these tasks ‘procedural syllabus’ and unlike other syllabuses he comprised a list of tasks in which students have to solve problems.

Like Krashen, Prabhu believes in the importance of the development of comprehension before production and like Allwright he sees meaning as the focus where language learning can take care of itself.

1.1.5 Humanistic approaches

Another perspective which has gained increasing prominence in language teaching is that of the student as a ‘whole person’. In other words, language teaching is not just about teaching language, it is also about helping students to develop themselves as people.

These beliefs have led to a number of teaching methodologies and techniques which have stressed the humanistic aspects of learning. In such methodologies the experience of the student is what counts and the development of their personality and the encouragement of positive feelings are seen to be as important as their learning of a language.

For example, Community Language Learning, based on the educational movement of counseling learning, attempts to give students only the language they need. Students sit in a circle outside of which is a ‘knower’ who will help them with the language they want to use. When they have decided what they want to say they do it in their own language and the knower translates it for them so that they can then use the target language instead. In this way students acquire the language they want to acquire.

Suggestopaedia is a methodology developed by Lozanov in which students must be comfortably relaxed. In such settings students are given new names and listen to extended dialogues. The contention is that the general ease of the situation, the adoption of a new identity and the dependence on listening to the dialogues will help students to acquire the language.

The developed by Caleb Gattegno is marked by the fact that the teacher gives a very limited amount of input, modeling the language to be learnt once only and then indicating what the students should do through pointing and other silent means. The teacher will not criticise or praise but simply keeps indicating that the student should try again until success is achieved.

Total Physical Response, developed by James Asher (1969, p116) is a method which finds favour with Krashen’s view of roughly-tuned or comprehensible input. In TTR the teacher gives students instructions. The students don’t have to speak; they simply have to carry out the teacher’s commands. When they are ready for it they can give commands to other students. They thus learn language through actions, through a physical response rather than through drills.

1.1.6 Self-directed learning

Methodologists have also turned their attention not just to the teaching of the language but also to training students how to be good learners. If students make the most of their own resources and if they can take their own decisions about how best to study, their learning is better and they achieve more. Ideally, a language programme would be a mixture of class work and self-study.

The main aim of such methodology is to encourage students to take charge of their own learning: we cannot teach students everything so we have to train them to teach themselves.

1.2 Modern trends in English language learning and teaching-The Communicative Functional Language Teaching Approach

In 1972 the British linguist D.A. Wilkins (1976, p6) proposed a functional/ communicative definition of language as a basis for developing communicative syllabuses of language teaching. He analysed communicative meanings that a learner needs to understand and express rather than the grammar and vocabulary of a language. The systems of meanings that lay behind the communicative uses of language are according to Wilkins:1) notional categories: time, sequence, quantity, location and frequency; 2) categories of communicative function: requests, denials, offers, complaints.

The goal of the Communicative Language Teaching is to develop a communicative competence that is what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community. A person who acquires communicative competence acquires both knowledge and ability for language use. Besides the theory of communicative competence there is another theory of the functions of language which complements it. There are seven basic functions that language performs for children learning their first language as well as a second language: 1.) the instrumental-using language to get things; 2.)the regulatory-using language to control the behaviour of others;3.) the interactional- using language to create interaction with others; 4.) the personal- using language to express personal feelings and meanings; 5.) the heuristic- using language to learn and discover; 6.) the imaginative- using language to create a world of the imagination; 7.) the representational – using language to communicate information. There is a strong relationship between linguistic systems, their communicative values in text and discourse.

The communicative competence has four dimensions: 1.) grammatical competence- refers to linguistic competence, to what is formally possible; 2.)sociolinguistic competence- refers to an understanding of the social context including role relationships, the shared information of the participants and the communicative purpose for their interaction; 3.) discourse competence- refers to the interpretation of individual message elements and of how meaning is represented in relationship to the entire discourse or text; 4.) strategic competence- refers to the coping strategies that communicators employ to initiate, terminate, maintain, repair and redirect communication

One of the first models of syllabuses is Wilkins’ notional syllabus which specified the semantic grammatical categories (frequency, motion, and location) and the categories of communicative functions that learners need to express. The Council of Europe expanded and developed this into a syllabus that included descriptions of the objectives of Foreign Language courses for European adults, the situations in which they might need to use a foreign language, the topics they might need to talk about, the functions they needed language for, the notions they might make use of in communication as well as the vocabulary and grammar needed.

The learning and teaching activities should enable learners to attain the communicative objectives of the curriculum .The exercises should engage learners in communication and require the use of such communicative processes as information sharing, negotiation of meaning and interaction. Functional communication and social interaction activities are the major activity types in Communicative Language Teaching. Functional communication activities include such tasks as: learners comparing sets of pictures and noting similarities and differences; working out a likely sequence of events in a set of pictures; discovering missing features in a map or picture; following instructions; solving problems from shared clues; giving instructions on how to draw a picture or a shape or how to complete a map. Social interaction activities include such tasks as: conversation and discussion sessions; dialogues and role-plays; simulations; skits; improvisations and debates.

In Communicative Language Teaching the teacher has two main roles: 1) to facilitate the communicative process between all participants in the classroom and between participants and the various activities and texts; 2) to act as an independent participant within the learning-teaching group. There is a set of secondary roles a teacher ca assume: a) as an organizer of resources and as a resource himself; b) as a guide within the classroom procedures and activities; c) as a researcher and learner, with much to contribute in terms of appropriate knowledge and abilities, experience of the nature of learning and organizational capacities. Other roles teachers can assume are:1) as a needs analyst- the Communicative Language Teaching teacher is responsible for determining and responding to learner language needs, informally and personally, talking through the students’ perception of his learning style, assets learning goals and formally, administering a needs assessment instrument. On the basis of such needs assessments, the teacher plans group and individual instruction that responds to the learners ‘needs; 2) as a counselor- the teacher is a n effective communicator seeking to maximize the meshing of speaker intention and hearer interpretation through the use of paraphrase, confirmation and feedback.; 3) as a group process manager- it is the teacher’s responsibility to organize the classroom as a setting for communication and communicative activities .During an activity the teacher monitors, encourages and suppresses the inclination to supply gaps in lexis, grammar and strategy by notes such gaps for later commentary and communication practice.

The Communicative Approach acknowledges the importance of linguistic structure and vocabulary but if only these are taught, preparation for communication will be inadequate (students may know the rules of language usage but will be unable to use the language).Communication means to use the language to accomplish some functions (arguing, persuading or promising) and we carry out these functions within a social context. Students use the language through communicative activities: games, role-plays, problem-solving tasks. These activities have three features: 1) information gap- exists when one person in an exchange knows something that the other person does not; 2) choice-when communicating the speaker has a choice of what and how she will say it; 3) feedback true communication is purposeful. A speaker can evaluate whether or not her purpose has been achieved based upon the information she receives from her listener. If the listener does not have an opportunity to provide the speaker with such feedback, then the exchange is not really communicative. Activities are often carried out in small groups in order to minimize the time allotted to each student for learning to negotiate meaning.

The teacher is the initiator of the activities but not always interacts with students, sometimes the teacher is a co-communicator, but more often he/she establishes situations that prompt communication between and among the students. Students interact with one another in different configurations: pairs, triads, small groups, whole group. Students are more motivated to learn a foreign language because they feel they are learning something useful with the language they study. Teachers give students opportunities to express their individuality (share ideas, opinions) and for cooperative interactions with their fellow students and the teacher. Students’ native language plays no particular role. The target language should be used during communicative activities, in explaining them, in assigning homework. The target language is a vehicle for communication not an object to be studied.

PART TWO-THE COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES

2.1 Definition

The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998, p371) defines 'communicative' as, "willing, eager, or able to talk or impart information.’ From the same source, the verb 'communicate' is defined as ‘to share or exchange information, news, or ideas.’ or to ‘impart or pass on information, news, or ideas: convey or transmit in a non-verbal way: succeed in conveying one's ideas or in evoking understanding in others’.

There are two critical differences between the adjectival and verbal forms of this term: one concerning number and one regarding the criterion of success. The adjective 'communicative' refers to a single person, giving us information about the individual. The verb, 'communicate' includes a criterion for success, and as one-way communication is not possible, 'communicate' requires at least two players. The singular nature of 'communicative' is reinforced as we recognise that it is possible to speak of a 'communicative' person simply on the strength of their reputation as a communicator even if they are being inactive at the time the label is being applied. Moreover, we may usefully ask questions about the nature of sharing and commonness, too.

Brumfit( 1984, pp 1-9) argues for ‘natural language use’ and suggests the need for what he calls ‘fluency or communicative activities’. In his definition, fluency or communicative activities ‘develop a pattern of language interaction within the classroom which is as close as possible to that used by competent performers in the mother tongue in real life.’ (Ibid.pp9-10) He sets a set of criteria necessary for achieving fluency:

– The language should be a means to an end, i.e. the focus should be on the meaning and not on the form.

-The content should be determined by the learner who is speaking or writing. The learner has to formulate and produce ideas, information, opinions, etc.

-There must be a negotiation of meaning between speakers, i.e. students must be involved interpreting a meaning from what they hear and constructing what to say as a response. In other words, they should not be reliant on the teacher or materials to provide the language. This criterion clearly brings into play pragmatic and discourse competences as well as fluency.

-In order for the previous criterion to function, what a learner hears should not be predictable, i.e. there should be an information or opinion gap.

-The normal process of listening, reading, speaking and writing will be in play, for example improvising and paraphrasing in speech; in other words, students will practice and develop strategic competence.

– Teacher intervention to correct should be minimal as this distracts from the message.

In Brumfit’s view, fluency or communicative activities will give students the opportunity to produce and understand items which they have gradually acquired during activities focused on linguistic form, which he calls ‘accuracy work’.

According to Stone, L.A, ( 1988, pp4-5) these activities have a goal or purpose that requires the use of the target language, but is not itself centered on that language. They utilize the unique features of the language laboratory to create a learning environment that cannot be duplicated in the classroom. They involve the student in a way that intrinsically motivates, lowers the affective filter, and creates a desire to excel. The role of communicative activities is to use the target language contextually, and to explore the target language through situational activities.

2.2 The roles of the communicative activities

Communicative activities typically involve students in real or realistic communication, where the accuracy of the language they use is less important than successful achievement of the communicative task they are performing .Playing with words, inventing or repeating riddles and jokes, solving puzzles or playing games involve creativity and challenges, too. People discover themselves or make themselves into speakers by developing their own personal voices and overcoming some personal fears.

There is a wide variety of communicative activities, and also a wide range of functions they accomplish. Beyond their main purpose-the entertaining one, they provide a lot of ways of learning and practicing language, as well as procedures for approaching the needs of a class as a group. These practical activities that the teacher inserts into his/her lesson not only fade and break the routines that teachers and students tend to fall into, but they also provide practical ways to enhance classroom interaction and peer teaching. They also contribute to that community spirit which is so crucial to successful teaching of any kind and can be challenging, too. The most useful place for these activities is at a free stage of the traditional progression from presentation through practice to free communication; they can be used at the beginning of a lesson, as warm up activities or to be used as culmination of the lesson, as a chance for students to use the language they have learnt freely and as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. They can also serve as a diagnostic tool for the teacher who can note areas of difficulty and take appropriate action.

Communicative activities have many other roles such as: the organizing one-allowing better time management for both student and teacher; the motivational one-the atmosphere created during their development is different than the one from other types of activities ( they lack the feeling of threatening, encourage collaboration, facilitate attaining success because of the influence of chance, even less skilled students have the opportunity to succeed which is less probable in conventional tasks); -the teaching role-activating all participants they make possible complex development, allowing forming different abilities such as speaking, intellectual, strategy etc;-the cognitive role – for the teacher the focus is on the students themselves, their personality, skills, achievement and their problems. Students can express freely and can develop other individual features such as: temperament, source and dynamics of motivation, need of success, way of thinking, tendency for risk;-the educational role-by creating opportunities for evaluating the activity of students, taking into account both efficiency and behaviour, communicative activities allow the manifestation of the instructive influence of the teacher. Thus, this is a strategy that facilitates the forming of a personal scale of values. Taking part into such activities that ask for knowledge, skills and abilities for interaction with other competitors, form specific behavioural rules.

While recognising the roles of communicative activities in the efficient development of the teaching and learning process, we must be aware that these activities have to complete techniques already applied and verified. The proportion of such activities depends on the age of the students, the moment of the lesson, the students’ motivation level and the students’ mood.

2.3 The characteristics of the communicative activities

The communicative activities are the activities the students are involved in on the output stage. In its purest form, a communicative activity is an activity in which according to Jeremy Harmer (2000, pp 49-50) there is:

a desire to communicate

a communicative purpose-students should be using language in some way to achieve an objective and this objective (purpose) should be the most important part of the communication.

a focus on language content not language forms-if students have an objective of this kind then their attention should be centred on the content of what is being said or written and not on the language form that is being used.

a variety of language used- the students will have to deal with a variety of language ( either receptively or productively) rather than one grammatical construction.

no teacher intervention- while the students are involved in the communicative activities the teacher should not intervene, should not tell students that they are making mistakes, insisting on accuracy and asking for repetition etc because this would undermine the communicative purpose of the activity. The teacher may be involved in the activity as a participant and will also be watching and listening very carefully in order to be able to conduct feedback.

no control or simplification of the materials-the communicative activities do not involve the use of materials as they restrict the students’ choice of what to say and how to say it and in this way the materials are denying the language variety characteristic which is important for genuine communication.

Tips for Maximizing the Effectiveness of Activities

Communicative activities such as those described below can be used successfully with many class levels. They are especially crucial for literacy- and beginning-level classes as vehicles to move learners toward independent and confident learning. To make these activities as useful as possible there are a few things to remember:

-Keep teacher talk to a minimum.

– Explain as much as possible by demonstrating the process, explaining in different ways, and repeating.

-Don't worry if every learner doesn't understand every part of an activity.

-Move on when the majority of the learners get the idea, and then circulate and help as needed-unobtrusively. One way to gauge the success of a class for English language learners is to observe how much or how little the students are depending on the teacher. The more learners are
working independently, in pairs, or in small groups, the more successful the class.

-Literacy- and beginning-level learners, as well as those at intermediate and advanced levels, are highly competent individuals. They may lack English and (for some) school skills, and it is the teacher's job to help them with that. These students have successfully weathered many difficulties to get to the class spirit. Give them the credit they deserve.

-Have fun. Communicative activities are designed to be lively, interactive, and fun. When people are comfortable they are likely to learn more. An active, cooperative class is a class where a great deal of learning-social, cultural, and linguistic-is evident.

Communicative activities provide opportunities for learners to use the language with one another and with people in the community.

2.4 Types of communicative activities

1 Oral communicative activities

A. Communication Games

The most important types of teaching games are strategy and combined games. Strategy games are based only on the player’s skill. Winning depends on experience, knowledge, skill, memory, ingenuity, anticipation abilities etc. Chance has no influence upon the final result. This type of games has a special value for the teaching process. Players refine during the game their existing abilities, such as: evaluation, analysis, prediction and especially their language and communication skills. Throughout the activity, students adapt their actions to the ones of their classmates and reach conclusions regarding their efficiency. If they observe lack of efficiency, students change their behaviour, either relying on cleverness or taking up completely different courses of action.

Combined games( Hadfield, J, 2002, pp 31-44) have all the characteristics of the strategy games plus an indispensable element: hazard. Victory in this type of games depends not only on ability, knowledge or adequate anticipation but also on luck. Due to the importance of chance, these games are especially motivational in activities which involve students with different ability levels. Combined games allow refining the achieved skills, but they do not assure the victory of the best player and, because of this, they become attractive even for the less skilled students. The tension generated by the uncertainty of the final result makes all the players deeply engage in playing the game. Chance can influence the result of the game by allowing and average skilled student to win, which offers the feeling of success.

Games focused on language skills are to develop the abilities to identify and build sentences with correct structure. Correctness may refer to syntax, spelling, phonetics etc. During the activity, the students gain points for identifying the correct form, or lose them for wrong use. These games can take the form of traditional exercises-drills, substitution tables, completion exercises, rephrasing or fill in the gaps- but are characterized by a relaxed atmosphere and the desire to win. Because they require immediate evaluation, the teacher’s role is very important.

Vocabulary games( Coleman, J.,1967,pp 12-13) focus on spelling and words as well as on forming general abilities such as: concentration, making associations and developing memory. Most of the difficulties in communication come from the lack of vocabulary; lexical limitations block the transmitter and the receiver of information, while grammar difficulties only affect the fluency of communication.

The role of vocabulary games is to avoid forgetting words already known. The multitude of possible associations, which comes from the rules of the game, allows efficient learning. Besides this, games are attractive activities for students. Developed at a quick pace, they produce students moments of excitement and mental exercise, without requiring a large amount of time.

Here are two examples of game-like tasks students have to complete using all or any of the language they possess:

Find the differences ( or similarities)

Students are put into pairs. In each pair student A is given a picture and student B is given a picture which is similar, but different in some vital respects. They are told that they must not look at each other’s material but that they must find out a certain number of differences between the two pictures through discussion only.

Describe and arrange

Students are told they are going to work in pairs. In each pair student A is given a set of pictures and told not to show them to student B. Student B, on the other hand is given the same pictures, but cut up so they are not in any order. It is student B’s job to arrange the pictures in the same order as student A’s.

B. Simulation

Many students derive great benefit from simulation. Students 'simulate' a real-life encounter (such as a business meeting, an encounter in an airplane cabin, or an interview) as if they were doing so in the real world, either as themselves in that meeting or airplane, or taking on the role of a character different from themselves or with thoughts and feelings they do not necessarily share. Simulation and role-play can be used to encourage general oral fluency, or to train students for specific situations especially where they are studying .

For a simulation to work it must, according to Ken Jones (1982, pp 4-5) have the following characteristics:

*   There needs to be a ‘reality of function’: the students must not think of themselves as students, but as real participants in the situation.

*   ‘A simulated environment’: the teacher says that the classroom is an airport check-in area, for example.

*   ‘Structure’: students must see how the activity is constructed and they must be given the necessary information to carry out the simulation effectively.

According to the level of imitation of reality in the game we can divide games into games without simulation and games of simulation.

An unsimulated game can be any activity given to the student, as long as it offers satisfaction. Such a task can be approached by working in groups or with the entire class and implies the practical usage of previously gained intellectual and emotional experience. Sometimes, in order to intensify motivation, the teacher may insert an element of rivalry. During the game students solve the task given by the teacher in a relaxed atmosphere. An unsimulated game is solving different types of charades: crosswords, singing and gesticulating at the same time etc. This kind of games may include content related to auxiliary materials, personally devised. An entertaining activity can be the production itself of the games, which is assigned either to all the students or only to those who finished first a certain task or who learned quickly the taught material.

The simulated game is an organized situational pattern, whose structure is given by the rules which define all the relationships among the participants. The main obligation of the players is the exact following of the rules. The general pattern of the simulated game is generated by factors such as: the structure of the actions done by the players or determined by hazard, possible absence of information, the importance of reward. This type of games combines the characteristics of the games themselves and the ones that define simulation. They are games in which the actions done by participants are similar to acts which people do in real situations, involving a wide range of abilities and skills. In order to support education, the best are the games in which accomplishing the goal or being a winner becomes easier due to the knowledge and skills the teacher wants to emphasize.

Due to the organization of the rules we differentiate between structured games and games with flexible structure. (Schultz, M. and A. Fisher, 1988, pp 45-48) Structured games have clearly defined objectives, presented in a certain pattern. All games based on drawing materials generally belong to this category. The student’s task is to reach the finish, but in order to do this he has to overcome a series of obstacles previously planned, to solve a series of problems, or to answer a set of questions. This kind of games can also be represented by all kinds of role-plays, with a thoroughly planned script, or exercises which consist of filling some sheets, in the cases when each player in the game has different information and their task is getting all the data.

In games with flexible structure, the players themselves decide upon the details of the simulated model. These activities stir the students’ interest and require active participation. The differences among games with flexible structure lie in the type of reality they depict. Thus, they are games such as: brainstorming, situation-solving activities, biographies and role-play.

Brainstorming implies inventing some ways to overcome a difficulty. These games are made up of two stages. In the first one, the players make proposals for solving the task- their goal is to present a large number of solutions in the shortest possible time. This is the creative stage of the game, because players can invent unconventional and even absurd solutions. The players stand out by the number of proposals they found. In the second stage, players focus on selecting the best solution. Only when evaluating a proposal do students realize how creative their solution is, even if they may have been afraid of proposing it because of their classmates’ criticism. This type of games is useful for developing communicative abilities because they imply the simultaneous use of more abilities: familiarizing with the problem-by listening or reading it; expressing the hypotheses- orally, by listening or in writing; evaluating the hypothesis- by reading, speaking or listening.

Situation-solving activities allow a thorough study of a problem (Siek-Piskozub, T., București, 1997, pp117-120) The proposals for solving the task are the result of a previously developed, as much as possible, analysis. The competitors are presented a situation which requires taking a decision, they analyse it carefully and then find the best solution. Such a situation can be, for example, planning a trip. The students’ task may be the creation of a programme for preparing the trip. In order to end the game, the players have to evaluate the situation, to make proposals and to sustain them, to complete other proposals, to find other solutions, to take the final decision. These activities also develop the communicative skills.

Biographies require the students to adopt a real or fictional personality. Such activities are those in which a group of students interviews someone who pretends to be a certain person. They can also imagine a meeting between different personalities who express their points of view upon an issue (for example, the criminal and his victim).The creator of such a character has to be able to play his part, to express his opinions and feelings and to explain his behaviour. The ones who put the questions have to be inquisitive, to find interesting moments in the biography of the played character, to evaluate exactly his role.

I will now look at two examples of simulations.

1) The travel agent

Students are divided into pairs in which they play the roles of a travel agent and a customer. The latter wants to book a holiday in a hotel, but insists that the hotel should have a number of qualities (such as the right price, good food, etc). The travel agent has all the information about the hotels. The teacher tells students not to show each other the information they are going to get, then tell them to study their information for a short period. When all pairs have completed the activity (or when the majority have finished) the students and the teacher will discuss what choices have been made.

2) Arranging to meet

In this simulation groups of students are going to arrange a reunion to celebrate some event (a birthday, anniversary, etc). They have to agree when and where the reunion will take place. The teacher tells the class that they are going to work in groups of five, and that they are going to arrange to meet in honour of… (Here, the teacher can invent a reason based on the members of the class).The teacher explains that each group must decide where they should meet and when, based on the information that they will be given. The teacher tells the students that they are going to get some pieces of paper, and they should not show them to each other and asks them to think about the instructions for a short time and then start the activity. This activity is very successful and produces a great deal of spoken English. The teacher will need to keep an eye an each group and perhaps act as a prompter to make sure that they realize there are two variables-where they are going to meet and when.

C. Role-play

Role-play is one of the most popular games. It consists of setting a situation in which several people are involved. The players have defined and clear roles and a clear purpose. They have to decide by themselves how to accomplish their goal. Every player knows his task, knows who he gets in touch with, but does not know the others’ reaction. Gillian Porter Ladousse (1992, pp 236-252) suggestively defines the term looking at the words themselves. When students assume a ‘role’, they play a part (either their own or somebody else’s) in a specific situation. ‘Play’ means that the role is taken in a safe environment, in which students are as inventive and playful as possible. In a role-play we add the element of giving the participants information about who they are, and what they think and feel. Thus we might tell a student that they are a motorist who thinks that parking restrictions are unnecessary or you are Michelle and you want Robin to notice you, but you do not want him to know about your brother, etc.

Role-plays are effective when they are open-ended, so that different people have different views of what the outcome should be, and a consensus has to be reached. That way there is a dynamic movement as the role-play progresses, with people clearly motivated to say as much or as little as they need to achieve their aims. In a different kind of role-playing activity, students write the kind of questions they might ask anybody when they meet them first. Students are then given paintings by Goya, for example, and are asked to answer those questions as if they were characters from the painting .The same kind of imaginative interview role-play could be based around people in dramatic photographs. The clear purpose of using role-play is to train students to deal with the unpredictable nature of linguistic communication. The main reasons for including role-play in communicative activities in classroom are:

Through role play a very wide variety of experience can be brought into the classroom. The range of functions and structures, and the areas of vocabulary that can be introduced, go far beyond the limits of other pair or group activities, such as conversation, communication games, or humanistic exercises. Through role-play we can train our students in speaking skills in any situation.

Role play puts students in situations in which they are required to use and develop those forms of language which are so necessary in making social relationships efficient, but which are so often neglected by our language teaching syllabuses. Many students believe that language is only to do with the transfer of specific information from one person to another. They have very little small talk, and in consequence often appear unnecessarily abrupt. It is possible to build these social skills from a very low level through role play.

Role play helps many shy students by providing them with a mask. Some more reticent members of a group may have a great deal of difficulty participating in conversations about themselves, and in other activities based on their direst experience. These students are liberated by role plays as they no longer feel that their own personality is implicated.

Perhaps the most important reason for using role play is that it is fun. Once students understand what is expected from them, they enjoy using their imagination. Although there does not appear to be any scientific evidence that enjoyment automatically leads to better learning, most language teachers would probably agree that in the case of the vast majority of normal students this is surely so.

Finally, role play is one of a whole series of communicative techniques which develops fluency in language students, which promotes interaction in the classroom, and which increases motivation. Not only is group learning encouraged by it, but also the sharing between teacher and student of the responsibility for the learning process. Role play is maybe the most flexible technique in the range, and teachers who use it are able to meet an infinite variety of needs with suitable and effective role play exercises.

Role play belongs to that category of language teaching techniques sometimes referred to as low-high output.(ibid. 1992, pp 157-160) This means that the teacher-centred presentation phase of the lesson is very short and not all the same as it would be for a controlled practice drill. After a brief introduction, the students plunge into an activity in which accomplishing the task is more important than using the exact word, in which fluency predominates over accuracy. In fact, there are two ways of looking at language work in role play. Either students manage with the language they know, or they practise structures and functions that have been presented to them at an earlier stage of the lesson, in a free and uncontrolled way. In the first situation, when students just cope as best as they can, the teacher’s aim is to bring them to the point of awareness at which the necessity of acquiring certain structures is evident, as these structures are of immediate relevance. Students can see how they could have put them to good use. They will retain them all easily because they are rooted in a meaningful context. In the second situation, role play is the active phase of learning and offers an opportunity for students to make personal use of language that has been presented to them formally. Role play can be used in this way right from the start in elementary classes.

Here are two examples of role-plays:

1) A popular debating game which has survived many decades of use is the 'balloon debate', so called because it is based on a scenario in which a group of people are travelling in the basket of a balloon. Unfortunately, however, the balloon cannot take their weight. There is a leak, and unless someone leaves the balloon, they will all die. Students take on the role of a real-life person, either living or historical – from Confucius to Shakespeare, from Cleopatra to Marie Curie. They think up arguments about why they should be the survivors either individually, or in pairs or groups. After a first round of argument, everyone votes on who should be the first to jump. As more air escapes a second round means that one more person has to go, until, some rounds later, the eventual sole survivor is chosen. Participants in a balloon debate can represent occupations rather than specific characters; they can take on the roles of different age groups, hobby enthusiasts, or societies.

2) The “Gift Game” is a board game with a picture of a potential gift in each square. There is also a stack of cards that identify people (uncle, mother, best friend, girlfriend etc.) The player throws a die and moves the required number of spaces. The space he lands on will have the picture of a gift he is supposed to have bought. He draws a card that will tell him who the gift is for. He then has to justify why he bought that particular gift for that particular person. The other players decide whether the player has adequately justified buying such a gift. Sometimes, the gift does not quite suit the person (e.g., a bicycle for one's grandmother), and this would require more justification.

D. Discussion

The most natural and effective way for learners to practice talking freely in English is by thinking out some problem or situation together through verbal interchange of ideas or in simpler terms, to discuss. The words “discussion” is used here rather broadly to include anything from the simplest question-answer guessing process, through exploration of situations by role-play, to the most complex political and philosophical debates, including not only the talking but also any reading and writing that may be entailed.

The aim of a discussion in a foreign language course may be efficient fluency practice, but it is by no means the only one. It is today commonplace to say that language is never used (except in the classroom) for its own sake, but always for the sake of achieving an objective, or to perform a function: to persuade, inform, inquire, threaten, etc. ‘Language, in short, is always a means if we do not supply a reasonable end’.(Ur, P., 1999, pp3-4) Hence achieving an objective in itself must form one of our aims in holding discussions. As language teachers, we may see this as more or less secondary, but never negligible; and for our students at least it should be the central thought focus during talking. The purpose of the discussion, whether it is solving a problem, exploring the implications of an idea, constructing proposals or whatever, is to be taken very seriously and the results respected by teacher and students alike. So the first thing to do is to bring interesting subjects of conversation to the classroom. Teachers increasingly hold topic centred discussions or debates as a framework for fluency practice, and many books for use in the classroom have been published to help them think of suitable subjects. Such exercises are useful; at any rate, they are a vast improvement on the unstructured conversation class. However, topic is certainly important, often seen by many teachers as the central focus of classroom discussions but the crux is not what to talk about, but why you need to talk about it.

Learning from context may be a third aim; in many discussions there is much to be learnt from what it is said: information may be acquired, for example, or new point of view considered.

Finally, I would like to foster another kind of learning: learning how to participate constructively and cooperatively in a discussion. This involves clear, logical thought on the one hand and debating skills on the other. By clear, logical thought we understand things like the ability to generalize from examples, or the converse, to draw analogies, judge priorities, infer causes and so on. Debating skills include listening to what someone else has to say, not interrupting, speaking relevantly and clearly.

A discussion that works is primarily one in which as many students as possible say as much as possible. Comprehension is as important as speaking-or more so- but listening can be done by all the class simultaneously, whereas only a limited number of students can talk at one time; and talking, therefore, is liable to be practiced less.

A further characteristic of a successful discussion is the apparent motivation of the participants. If all those not actually speaking are concentrating their attention on the speaker(s), and that their expressions are alive, that they are reacting to the humour, seriousness or difficulty of the ideas being expressed-then that is another sign that things are going well. Students need a reason to speak more than they need something to speak about; once they have such a reason, however, the fact that the topic is stimulating will make the whole discussion more interesting.

Jeremy Harmer (2000, p124) gives some hints about organising discussions:

1. Divide the class into discussion groups before asking students to discuss as a whole class. This will increase participation and the amount of talking as students are allowed to give opinions in a less threatening environment than in front of the whole class. The motivation of participants also improves when they work in small groups because the physical focus of the discussion is close and directed towards the individual student, that is, whoever is speaking is only a small distance away, clearly audible, facing the others and addressing them personally.

2. Give students a chance to prepare. The topics are often rather limited. Most teachers and materials-writers mistakenly treat the concept interesting as somehow synonymous with controversial, and discussion as the same as argument. Most of our normal talking is concerned with subjects that are more or less interesting to us, but few of them are actually controversial, and very little of our talking is arguing. If we want our discussions to give the students practice in a varied sample of language functions, then we must allow them enough time to prepare their opinions, to their thoughts and come up with arguments to support their case.

3. Give students a task. One way of promoting discussion is to give students a task as part of the discussion process. They can be given a list of controversial statements about a topic and asked to score them from 0(=very negative) to 5(=very positive). They can do this in pairs and groups; once again this will be excellent preparation for any full-class session.

I can now look at two types of discussion activity:

1) The buzz group

This is where students are put into loose groups of three or four and asked to think of the topic. The teacher may ask them to think of “as many …as possible”. For example the teacher may ask students to read a text about addiction. In groups they should think of as many forms of addiction as they can. The class pools the information. Perhaps the students are doing some work about seaside holidays. They could be put into buzz groups to think of as many seaside activities as possible.

2) Controversial topics

The students are given some controversial statements about a certain topic and told that they have to circle the number which best reflects their agreement or disagreement with the statement (0=totally disagree, 5=totally agree).When they have done this they proceed as if for a consensus activity (they compare their answers in pairs and then groups and they have to agree a score).

E. Relaying instructions

In this type of activity students have to give each other instructions. The success of the activity depends on whether the students to whom instructions are being given perform the tasks successfully.

1) Exercises

The teacher writes down the names of a number of common exercises or better still has drawings of them. These are given to individual students without the others seeing. Students have to get their colleagues to do the exercises using only words (no gestures, etc.).

This activity can be very amusing, and certainly involves real communication. Apart from physical exercises, students can instruct each other in a dance, in certain mimes, etc.

2) Describe and draw

One of the most popular instruction games is “describe and draw” in which one student is given a picture which the other student cannot see. The second student has to draw an identical picture (in content, not style) by listening to the first student’s instructions. The students must be put in pairs and they must be told not to look at each other’s pictures until they have finished the activity. It is because students cannot see each other’s pictures that the communication takes place.

F. Reaching a consensus

In this type of activity students have to agree with each other after a certain amount of discussion. The task is not complete until they do. Consensus activities have been successful in promoting free and spontaneous language use. Consensus, the skill to agree and implement a course of action, is essential to any team if it is to be effective. This short exercise gives participants an opportunity to try out and develop this vital skill. You explain the need for consensus, especially if the participants have been having difficulty in reaching agreement in other exercises. The participants discuss the key elements of consensus and then begin the exercise. The observer watches, listens and makes notes to give detailed feedback later. At the end of the exercise the participants debrief by receiving feedback from the observer and reviewing how they can become more effective in consensus, discussion and decision making.

Guidelines for reaching a consensus:

Listen carefully and be open to different ideas

Avoid changing your mind to simply avoid conflict

Do not vote

Do not “horse trade”

Welcome differences of opinion

You have reached a consensus when…..

Your point of view has been fully heard and considered by the team.

You have considered everyone else’s point of view.

You can “live” with the decision and will support it.

Here are some examples:

1) The Desert island

One popular version of the task is to give students a scenario where they are shipwrecked on a desert island and only have time to retrieve 10 items from their rapidly shrinking ship. Students have to choose from a list of items.

2) The Balloon

Another version has students given a list of important people who are in a balloon. The balloon will crash land unless one of these people is ejected from the balloon. Students need to reach consensus on whether, for example, Marie Curie or Claude Monet should be ejected.

In all these above scenarios, students initially will come up with their own individual list or decision, usually in writing. Then they join with a partner to come up with an agreed list, then join another pair and negotiate to consensus for the whole group of four. This can be continued to bigger groups, but the time involved is usually not warranted, and boredom can set in if students are asked to repeat the process too many times.

Problem solving

Problem solving activities encourage students to talk together to find a solution to (a set of) problems or tasks. Cooperative problem-solving is likely to be effective if children share a goal, and have differing perspectives on the best way of attaining it. This sharing of differing points of view in the attempt to achieve a common goal results in cognitive advance. Cooperative problem-solving often occurs in classrooms–for example, when two children attempt to ride on a swing at the same time. Teachers can encourage children to interact and share their perspectives during cooperative play by:

*Planning Activities in Which Children Have a Shared Goal. It is not enough to have children working side by side on an activity. For example, when two children are playing with building blocks together but working on different parts of a structure, they may not be trying to accomplish the same goal. Children who try to achieve a shared objective will find it helpful to discuss their ideas about the problem and agree on a strategy. Teachers can promote real cooperative activity by encouraging collaboration during the activity-planning stage.

*Ensuring That the Goal Is Intrinsically Interesting. Young children are likely to pursue a goal only if they find it interesting. Quite often, when teachers present problems that they see as important, they inadvertently fail to consider the children's degree of interest in solving the problem. One effective approach for maximizing the child's intrinsic interest is to involve children in activities in which they can determine their own objectives, that is, activities with several possible goals or which offer several ways of reaching the goals.

*Making It Possible for Children to Achieve Their Goal Through Their Own Actions. This guideline, suggested by Kamii and DeVries (1978,pp 4-5) for physical knowledge activities, can lead to successful cooperative problem-solving. Through acting on objects and observing the effects, young children receive feedback, which helps them adapt their differing perspectives when working cooperatively. Rolling a ball down a ramp to hit a target, for example, provides many opportunities for adapting the actions involved. Children can vary the speed and direction of the ball, the slope of the ramp, and so forth. They can discuss why they miss the target and the best way to solve the problem.

*Seeing To It That the Results of the Child's Actions Are Visible and Immediate. The give and take of sharing perspectives and strategies during cooperative activity will be encouraged by immediate feedback about the results of children's actions. As Kamii and DeVries point out, when children see results, they are likely to be motivated to keep trying different strategies.(ibid.p6) Contrast an activity such as planting seeds, which results in a long-delayed reaction, with a game of target-ball, in which the child chooses the objective, produces the object's action, and observes an immediate result.

I will look at two examples:

1) Desert dilemma

Students are given a complex situation and told to work out a means of survival. They are then put in groups. Each group must follow the instructions and work out how to survive this desert situation. The teacher can then check to see how ingenious (or otherwise) the solutions are. This exercise is suitable for intermediate students. Apart from organizing the groups and conducting feedback, the teacher can leave the students very much on their own.

2) Survival Scenario Exercise

This classic group communication and decision making exercise, with many variations works for a wide variety of ages and purposes, indoors or outdoors. Consensus can be hard to reach, however, set the aim for all participants to at least partially agree to each ranking on their final list. Encourage groups to complete the task without the use of tactics such as voting, trading in or averaging. Watch for participants avoiding conflict or changing their minds simply to come to agreement.

An important outcome of this exercise can be learning that sometimes a bit of give and take is necessary in order to move forwards to a solution. Watch for over emphasis by some participants on needing 100% accurate answers. Steer the group towards the aim of the exercise which is heightening awareness of communication and decision making processes, rather than over emphasis on 'getting the answers exactly right'. Display of this need is a point of observation and one worthy of debrief.

There are two classic types of "paper & pencil" group survival scenarios (selecting equipment and selecting people).  In each case:

Provide instructions & hand out materials

Set a time limit (~15-30 minutes)

Let the group go – answer questions, watch, & observe!

H. Talking about yourself

The students themselves are often ‘an underused resource’ (Deller, S., 1990, p 17), in particular we can use their lives and feelings for any number of interpersonal exchanges. Such activities are often useful at the beginning of classes to warm things up (‘warmers’) or to create a good and positive atmosphere in new groups which are a bit ‘icy’ (‘ice breakers’).

I will look at two simple activities that are quick and easy to organize:

1) Your name

The teacher puts the students in pairs and asks them to tell each other how they feel about their first name( do they like it, etc.), what name they would choose for themselves if they had to choose one that was different from the one they have (and why). This activity is simple, but it demonstrates the advantages of ‘talking about yourself’. Many people have strong opinions about their names and from such simple questions an interesting personal discussion can develop.

2) What we have in common

This is an ideal icebreaker. Students are put in pairs at random and told to discover five things which they have in common. This encourages them to cover a number of areas and topics including musical tastes, sports, families, etc. It is also a positive activity since it investigates what joins people together, not what breaks them apart.

2 Written communicative activities

It is often much easier to provide opportunities for spoken communication in the classroom than it is for the written medium. Frequently writing is relegated to the status of homework and this is a pity since writing, especially communicative writing can play a valuable part in the class.

I will look at several written communicative activities:

A. Relaying instructions

Just as in the activities designed for spoken communication, one group of students has information for the performance of a task, and they have to get another group to perform the same task by giving them written instructions. Here are two examples:

(a) Making models

This is the same as the communicative activity except that instead of passing on oral instructions the original group of students have to write directions.

Stage 1 A small group of students is given material to make a model with

(e.g. building bricks, Lego, etc.) and they are told to make a model.

Stage 2 The group now writes instructions which will enable other people to duplicate the model.

Stage 3 Other students are given the instructions and told to build the model by reading the instructions.

There is, of course, immediate feedback. The original group can see how well they have written instructions by watching the efforts of the other students to duplicate their model.

(b) Giving directions

In this activity students write directions which other students have to follow.

Stage 1 Students are told to write directions from the place where they are studying to some other place in the same town or city. They are told not to mention the destination by name.

Stage 2 Students give their directions to a partner who has to guess what the destination is by following the directions.

The same effect can be created by letting the students work from a street plan of a town with clearly marked buildings, etc.

B. Writing reports and advertisements

I will look at two activities in which students write news reports or advertisements.

(a) The news broadcast

Students write items for a news broadcast which they then organise for 'transmission'.

Stage 1 The teacher asks all the students in the class to write two news items on a piece of paper.

Stage 2 The teacher then collects all the pieces of paper and forms the class into small groups. Stage 3 The teacher then distributes the pieces of paper equally between the groups in no special order. The students are asked to combine the items (making changes where necessary) to make up a complete news broadcast.

Stage 4 Each group then reads its broadcast to the rest of the class. Ideally, of course, each group could record their broadcast to make it more realistic.

This activity is attractive because it involves all the skills, as well as the ability to order and organise ideas. It also involves current events and is thus interesting and motivating.

(b)The tourist brochure

In much the same way as the news broadcast, students can be asked to join together to write a brochure about the place they live in or are studying in.

Stage 1 The students are all told to write two sentences (or more) about the attractions of the place they live or study in.

Stage 2 The class is then divided into small groups.

Stage 3 In each group the students pool their sentences and use them to devise a short brochure about the place they live or study in for a tourist magazine.

Stage 4 Students from each group may read out their final version. A better alternative, however, is to put the texts in a folder which can be passed round the class or to stick them to a notice board in the classroom.

C. Co-operative writing

In this section we will look at more activities where students actually write things together; where the process of co-operation is as important as the actual fact of the writing itself. In the first two of these activities there is a definite game-like quality present.

(a) The fairy story

In this activity students are put into groups and told that they are going to write joint stories. This example shows a fairy story being used for this process.

Stage 1 Students are put into groups. Where possible, they should be of equal numbers.

Stage 2 Students are told to tear a page from their exercise books and write the following sentence on it:

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who lived in a large castle at the edge of a forest.

Stage 3 The students are then instructed to continue the story by writing the next sentence.

Stage 4 The students are then told to give their piece of paper to the student on their left. They should now continue the (new) story they have in front of them by writing the next sentence. The procedure is repeated until the papers have gone round the whole group but one. The teacher then tells the students to write the penultimate sentence.

Stage 5 The stories are now returned to their originators (by passing the papers to the student on the left). They must write the concluding sentence. Students can read the resulting tales to the rest of the class.

This activity can be immensely enjoyable, and often produces wildly differing stories. Of course there is no reason why the activity should concern a fairy story. Another alternative is not to supply the original sentence.

(b) Story reconstruction

This activity follows a similar procedure to that for oral story construction. In other words, students are put into four groups (A, B, C, and D) each of which is shown a picture from a story sequence. Instead of talking about the pictures, however, the activity continues as follows:

Stage 1 The students individually write two sentences (in the past) about the pictures they have seen.

Stage 2 The teacher forms new groups of four (i.e. one student from the original group A, one from the original group B and so on).

Stage 3 The students show each other their sentences and they then use them to construct a narrative.

The finished stories can be circulated round the class, put on the board or used for student-student correction.

3 Projects

The project has become a popular element within the process approach. Projects are extended tasks which usually integrate language skills work by means of a number of activities. These activities combine in working towards an agreed goal and may include the following: planning; the gathering of information through reading, listening, interviewing, and observing; group discussion of the information; problem solving; oral and written reporting; and display. The language teaching in schools is too limited to classrooms. Real life presentations and the world are brought into classrooms with the help of many media, then well exploited by teachers and after that taken in by students but often quickly forgotten by them. A project work has as goal to make students develop their own opinions and reflections from actively being involved in the immediate reality and consequently building critical, learning and working competence and social competence as well. If students are direct emotionally involved in things they are interested in and they find actual, the results will dramatically increase and they will take charge of their own language acquisition bringing about improvements in all language related areas without any effort or any tiredness.

Projects have a clear goal which allows students to discover and find out something new and unknown before; in the foreign language teaching this goal must be chosen so that students employ different communicative functions according to the topics they have to approach and which are part of their life and they may have an interest for, e.g. friendship, clothes and fashion, sports, travelling, environment etc. Projects imply a common planning between teachers and students, students try to use the means and tools teachers come up with adding their own knowledge and searching for any other they may need or find useful.

Teacher acts as helper and medium, advisor and resource, counselor, they do not have all the answers and solutions to a certain situation but they only initiate, organize and advise students how to approach or deal with a certain topic or problems they may be facing during the project development, bringing the outside reality in the classroom and facilitating the students’ active involvement in tackling with the world and themselves. Projects fulfill the need to communicate and interact, providing contacts through pair-and group work, discussions and the need to self conscious and independent learning which gives students freedom and joy when achieving success with something they have produced and brought to a final produce. Confidence, curiosity, creativity and imagination are features that projects develop and exploit, taking them to higher level and making them a guaranty for further personal and interpersonal development.

Projects meet a number of skills and techniques such as according to Frey, K. (1996, pp81-97) e.g.:

Planning

Choosing

Deciding

Discussing

Arguing

Cooperating

Searching

Documenting

Discovering

Producing

Presenting

Evaluating

Projects usually involve a number of features which fit the principles of communicative language teaching discussed in the first chapter:

an emphasis on group-centred experience

the encouragement of student responsibility for planning, carrying out,
and presenting a task

a sequence of activities over a period of time, e.g. planning, fieldwork,
preparation of information, and presentation

the use of a range of skills

activity outside the classroom in the students' own time

the study and use of authentic English-language material.

There are several steps in the development of a project:

Project decision

Analyse of the project decision( collective teacher+ students); the result; project outline

Joint development of the project plan( establishment of the approximate project development: who, what, when, how, which are our goals, etc)

Project realisation

Project end

Presentation through posters, Power Point slide shows, etc.

No absolute product but: what have I learnt?

Stages of a project:

Ideas brainstorming

Ideas clarifying

Wishes examining and evaluating

Needs illustrating

Conceptions assessing

Implementation planning

Intentions accomplishing

Achievement learning

Project reconsidering

The project consists of two main parts:

A research (through conversation/ interview, Internet, etc.)

A presentation of the results of the research, which will give students insight in the chosen topic both factually and emotionally .The presentation must be illustrative, well arranged, coherent, comprehensible and lively. The evaluation / reflexion is essential at the end of the presentation and teachers must underline mostly the positive parts of the students projects and try to have the negative elements dealt with sensitively.

The evaluationin Bachman’s opinion (1990, p125) at the end of the project work (product and presentation) is complete through questions about the development of the project (process): What did we have to do? How did we do it? What was good/bad? How could we have done it better? (Plenum discussions).Observations regarding the organisation and the contents are also important for the future projects as students develop project skills gradually and they must learn from these comments and do not take observations personally and feel offended and demotivated.

One of the most difficult problems of the project work is the teacher’s evaluation. The teacher has to assess not only the individual participation but also the group implication and performance. A simple grade would not reflect the waste of energy and resources as well as the group members’ dedication and hard work so often teachers take into account project diary students have to fill in during their work, reflecting the tasks each of them had, how they felt and all the stages they went through until completion. Some teachers use two grades, one for the individual performance and one for the performance of the whole group. The other students’ comments are welcome but they should not be allowed to mark the projects based on their own opinions. However, they should be encouraged to discuss the projects on the basis of some assessment sheet containing the guidelines to projects, bringing arguments and observing if projects reflect the objectives they have set before, if contents, organisation, form, presentation of the product match their expectations and requirements and if objectives, planning, construction, development, management of the process are in the parameters they have previously agreed with.

Evaluation of a project (Legutke, M., 1989, pp 125-140) consists of:

Evaluation of the product: Contents

Structure

Representation

Presentation

Evaluation of the process: Objectives

Planning

Development & Management

Evaluation sheet a)

THEME: ________________________________________________________

Presentation

Arrangement, construction, graphics

Factual contents, knowledge level, methods

Comprehensibility, clarity, language command, fluency

Worksheet, flyer, visual, audio means

Evaluation sheet b)

Project name: ____________________________

Individual/team member:___________________

Evaluator’s name:_________________________ Assessment

– – -0+ + +

1. Objective, factual and methods ability

-good research

-correct presentation of the results

-completion of the tasks

-relevance of the information for the presentation

-sequence of sub-topics

2. Communication

-good use of appropriate language in the topic

-is able to explain logically his/her approach

-involves audience

-employs interesting language structures

-introduces the listener, viewer to the topic stirring interest

3. Ability of action and performance

-works steadily and object- oriented

– sets new tasks to complete and challenges relevant to the topic

-includes tasks and challenges irrelevant

-achieves the purpose of the presentation within the time limit

-the time limit is over passed due to useless tasks, information

4. Self-reliance, self-confidence

-develops new ideas during presentation

-reads out

-loses track of speech

-creates confusion due to disorganization of ideas/clear sequence of ideas

-deals with the topic using own ideas, thoughts, opinions/copy-pastes sequences of ideas, thoughts, opinions

5. Evaluation of the presentation

-contents

-construction

-visuals, audio, video

-language:-loudness, comprehensibility, pace/speed

-body language:- eye contact, gestures, mimic, position

-activation of the audience

A good project plan should be structured in the following way:

I will look at three kinds of projects.

1) Everything about me-starter level 4th grade

The following questions will help you:

What’s your name?

How old are you?

When is your birthday?

Where do you live?

Have you got any brothers or sisters? If yes, what are their names? How old are they?

What do you look like? (hair colour, eyes colour)

What do you do?

What do you do in your free time? (hobbies, pastimes )

Please stick your photo or draw your portrait

Name: Your most beautiful class experience:

Nickname:

Surname:

Age:

Birthday: Zodiac sign: What is your favourite book?

What do you like the most? Which writers do you like the most?

What do you like doing? Do you like travelling? Where? Why?

Your longest journey was….. Where do you meet your friends?

2) The good guide to my town- beginner level 5th grade

Imagine you are visited by someone from another country. What information would he need?

…where to stay. …where to have a coffee. …what to do in the evening.

…where to eat. …where to change money. …which club/disco he should go to.

…where to go shopping. …what to see. …where not to go.

…what to visit. …what to do. …what not to do.

Ask students to bring some pictures, photos or magazine advertisements about places they what to include in their guide.

What information would you like to find in a guide to a town?

…interesting places to go. … the best place to go shopping.

… a good place to eat. …the best clubs or discos to go to.

…where to go if you need anything.( a good hairdresser’s, a cheap chemist’s, a modern toy shop, etc)

….what to avoid (expensive car wash, bad restaurants, etc)

Students decide what to put in their own guide: write about interesting places to see; name the best place to go shopping; write about a good place to eat; name the best clubs or discos to go to; how to divide up their work: collect the photos or take them, find information talking to your family, neighbours and friends or on the Internet, tourist guides; how much time will be needed: two weeks and how to allocate it: one week for the research and one for making the posters and the presentation.

3) Everything about us- Our class (A class portrait, A class Magazine….) intermediate level 8th grade

The presentation of the project planning in the classroom is accompanied by many expression students can make use of not only for this particular project .The goal is to have students speak and be in contact with English as mush as possible from the planning to the presentation of the project.

Let’s make a wall magazine!

…a photo course!

…a collage! !

…a short newspaper!

…a cartoon!

Excellent! It’s not worth it!

A good idea! A bad idea!

Great! I don’t feel like it!

I don’t have time!

I don’t know…..

I’m taking… … pictures.

…interviews.

I’m writing… …articles.

… poems.

…reports. …it takes too much time.

… stories. … we have too many tests.

I’m drawing… …the teachers. …we have too much to do.

…the school.

…cartoons.

…pictures.

Projects have been promoted in for a number of reasons: for example, learners' use of language as they negotiate plans, and analyse and discuss information and ideas, is determined by genuine communicative needs. With younger learners, project work encourages imagination and creativity, self-discipline and responsibility, collaboration, research and study skills, and cross-curricular work through exploitation of knowledge gained in other subjects.

Successful use of project work will clearly be affected by such factors as availability of time, access to authentic materials, receptiveness of learners, the possibilities for learner training, and flexibility of timetabling. However, where project work can be designed to fit contextual considerations, it is achieving growing popularity and has become part of ministry of education recommendations in some countries as well as in .

PART THREE – THE CONCEPT OF CLASSROOM DYNAMICS

Because communicative activities are mostly performed in groups or pairs it is very important to have a good approach to the dynamics of the group and to try to develop a cohesive and supportive classroom. As Jill Hadfield( 1992, p10) says, ‘ a positive group atmosphere can have a beneficial effect on the morale, motivation, and self-image of its members, and thus significantly affect their learning, by developing in them a positive attitude to the language being learned, to the learning process, and to themselves as learners.’

Whatever the composition of the class the teacher will probably find that the dynamics shift during the course of a semester and what was an appropriate strategy in the first weeks may no longer be suitable or necessary by mid-semester. When planning out what activities to select you will need to be constantly responsive to changes in roles and relationships within the class.

3.1 Characteristics of successful and unsuccessful groups

Among the most important features in teaching English, two seem to hold the top position as they form the basis for successful teaching and learning: the atmosphere in the class and the chemistry of the group. The teacher’s business is not the way the students relate to each other but it is to transmit content and whether the class get on with each other or not is irrelevant. However, teaching and learning can and should be a joyful experience for both teacher and learner, and most teachers will know from bitter experience that there is no more miserable teaching experience than to shut up inside the four walls of your classroom with a prickly and uncooperative group.

A successful group dynamic is a vital element in the teaching/learning process. In present day EFL classrooms, where pairwork and groupwork have become the norm, relationships within the group become more important and it is fundamental to the success of these activities to have support and co-operation from the group and a harmonious relationship between its members. Where students act as a pool of resources for each other, refusal to co-operate means that a vital element of the learning process is missing. A group whose members are not on speaking terms will not learn much in a student-centred classroom whereas a cohesive group works more efficiently and productively. A positive group atmosphere can have beneficial effect on the morale, motivation and self-image of its members, and thus significantly affect their learning, by developing in them a positive attitude to the language being learned, to the learning process, and to themselves as learners.

Jill Hadfield (ibid.pp11-12) tries to list the characteristics of a successful and an unsuccessful group , consequently an unsuccessful group in language learning terms is one where:

The individuals in the class do not cohere into a group.

There is an uncomfortable, tense, or negative atmosphere.

The members of the group are all intent on their individual ambitions and are unwilling to compromise or define group goals for learning.

Some members of the group will not participate in group activities.

Some members of the group tend to dominate group activities at the expense of shyer members.

The members of the group are territorial or cliquey and will not interact equally with all members of the group.

Members of the group will not listen to one another.

Group members are not interested in each other and are even antagonistic towards each other.

Group members are not self-reliant but dependent on the teacher.

Group members cannot put problems in perspective; trivial things develop into major upsets.

There may be an 'indigestible' group member who causes problems or creates a negative atmosphere.

Group members will not co-operate to perform tasks.

Members of the group do not trust each other.

Individuals in the group are competitive and attention-seeking.

Members of the group are intolerant of cultural and personal differences.

Group members have certain fixed or rigid ideas which they are reluctant to modify.

Members of the group lack responsibility: they are reluctant to make an effort or take the initiative.

Group members tend to be over-serious with little sense of fun.

Group members lack confidence in themselves as learners, what they are learning, and the way they are being taught.

In contrast, a successful group will be one where:

The group is cohesive, and members have a definite sense of themselves as a group.

There is a positive, supportive atmosphere: members have a positive self-image which is reinforced by the group, so that they feel secure enough to express their individuality.

The members of the group are able to compromise. They have a sense of direction as a group and are able to define their goals in group, as well as individual, terms.

Group members are not cliquey or territorial but interact happily with all members of the group.

Members of the group listen to each other, and take turns.

Group members are interested in each other and feel they have something in common.

The group is self-reliant and has a sense of responsibility. It is able to overcome problems and difficulties without recourse to the teacher.

The group is tolerant of all its members; members feel secure and accepted.

Members co-operate in the performing of tasks and are able to work together productively.

The members of the group trust each other.

Individuals in the group are not competitive and do not seek individual attention at the expense of others.

Group members are able to empathize with each other and understand each others' points of view even if they do not share them.

Group members are open-minded, flexible, and receptive to new ideas.

The group has a sense of fun.

Group members have a positive attitude to themselves as learners, to the language and culture being studied, and to the learning experience.

3.2 The teacher’s roles and responsibilities

The concept of ‘role’ has become very popular in and is a term in common usage to denote the functions that teachers and learners perform during the course of a lesson. In the social setting of the classroom, teachers’ and learners’ expectations about what are appropriate functions in various learning tasks will determine the roles each performs, and these will be culturally influenced. Using a framework suggested by Harmer(2000, pp235-243), it is possible to identify the teacher in a number of roles on the lessons: as controller in eliciting words; as assessor of accuracy as students try to pronounce the words; as corrector of pronunciation; as organizer in giving instructions for the pairwork, initiating it, monitoring it, and organizing feedback; as prompter while students are working together; and as resource if students need help with words and structures during the pairwork. Harmer’s framework deals exclusively with roles that relate to classroom procedures. Other frameworks include categories which move beyond the immediate pedagogic concerns of getting the learning task done into areas much influenced by attitudes in the social and cultural environment. Karavas-Dukas (1995, pp28-29) undertook a study with a multicultural group of experienced teachers from widely differing worldwide contexts on the roles they performed as teachers. It seems that a large number of teachers perceived the need to fulfill the general roles of instructor, organizer, prompter, counsellor and helper. The list below shows the role categories that emerged and the percentage of teachers who mentioned functions pertaining to a particular category:

1. Source of Expertise: 1.1 Denoting authoritarian stance? -Instructor;

(46.4%) – Presenter;

– Actor;

– Pedagogist

1.2 Denoting supportive stance? -Informant;

-Input provider;

-Information provider;

– Resource;

-Source of knowledge

2 Management roles -Manager

(35.7%) -Organizer

-Director

-Administrator

-Public relations officer

-Arranger

3 Source of advice -Counsellor

(53.5%) -Advisor

-Personal tutor

-Psychologist

-Listener

4 Facilitator of learning -Learning facilitator

(64.2%) -Helper

-Guide

5 Sharing roles – Negotiator

(17.8%) -Participant

-Student

-Catalyst to group discussion

-Prompter

-Mediator

6 Caring roles -Friend

(25%) -Sister/mother

-Caretaker

-Supporter

7 Creator of classroom atmosphere -Entertainer

(14.2%) -Motivator

-Source of inspiration

8 Evaluator

(10.7%)

9 Example of behaviour and hard work

(3.5%)

The potential problem for teachers, when experiencing change in methodology and in the roles they need to perform, lies in the precise circumstances in which they need to perform them. It is when there is a tension between the requirements of the learning task for teacher behaviour and cultural expectations of what is appropriate teacher behaviour that problems can arise for both teachers and learners. For a teacher to move successfully from functioning traditionally as prompter, sitting at his/her desk, at the front of the class, in control and responsible for learner activity prompting the individual student with a display question to respond in a typical classroom sequence of initiation→response→feedback to functioning successfully in a setting where the teacher is perceived as a more equal partner in the learning process, and where teacher and students participate jointly in activities may require more than a simple change in methodology, it may require a change in self-perception. For the students to accept that a teacher sits with them as they work together in class requires a corresponding change in their perceptions of authority and responsibility.

Research in recent years has attempted to investigate the responsibilities of the teacher in terms of providing effective teaching, though the concept of effectiveness in relation to teaching is quite complex. Many teachers would list careful planning of a coherent pedagogic process as a necessary dimension of teacher competence. Indeed, research in education supports this belief by suggesting that effective teaching pays attention to creating a logical sequence of activities in a lesson, with clear aims and clear links. Over-precise timing can result in teaching the lesson but not necessarily the students.

The field of educational management has much to say about planning and what are considered to be the characteristics of an effective plan. For example, Everard and Morris (1985, p37) suggest the following: ‘it is purposeful, task specific, temporal, integrated, adaptable, and cost-effective’. It is interesting to review these characteristics in terms of effective lesson planning. If we applied them to lesson planning, the following features could be derived:

– The learning activities are clearly linked to prioritized aims for the lesson.

-The types of activity are clearly identified and the learner and teacher roles associated with them.

– Times are specified but timing is monitored for its appropriateness as the lesson proceeds.

– The activities are interdependent in seeking to achieve the aims of the lesson.

– The plan allows for flexibility and contingency in adapting to the emerging needs of the students and to the unexpected event.

– The plan is economical in terms of time and energy spent on input and output.

– Try writing down your instructions for the activity in full in your lesson notes and make them clear and concise.

-When you plan your lesson, make decisions about group size and where groups can be located in the classroom.

-Plan the composition of groups according to levels of proficiency, friendship, and mix of first languages.

-Prepare how to explain the rationale for the activity to your students.

-Ask one group to demonstrate part of the activity, if this is possible, before dividing the class.

Give students time to ask for clarification.

-Ask students to repeat your instructions in the class, and elicit from them the stages they will go through.

Another aspect of teaching competence is the ability to manage activities and interactions successfully in the sense that learners know what they need to do and why they are doing it, are motivated to work actively, are monitored and guided when help is needed, and can work undisturbed by discipline problems. The management of interaction needs care and subtlety Planning, managing interactions, monitoring learning, giving instructions, and giving feedback are the teacher's main responsibilities.

3.3 Integrating communicative activities into the syllabus

When the teacher has a tight programme, or a rigid syllabus, or teaching towards an examination, he or she may be wondering how to afford the luxury of games and group dynamics activities. This is why most of the activities should be conceived with a dual function. Most of the activities do not need a special 'group dynamics' slot on the timetable, and can form part of the normal language syllabus as grammar, speaking or writing practice. The only difference is that considerations of group dynamics should form part of the teacher's criteria for selecting these activities. For example, if the teacher needs a writing activity that practises the simple past, but wants at the same time to increase group solidarity, he would rather choose co-operative activities rather than a gap-filling exercise or essay set for homework. There can also be games that fulfill the triple function of quickly revising a structure taught the previous day, warming students up, and keeping seating arrangements fluid to discourage the formation of cliques. Affective and linguistic aims need to be combined.

While the teacher does not need to make a distinction for the students between these activities and other language practice activities, there are certain types of games whose purpose needs to be made explicit, since they are cognitive rather than entertaining, that is, their purpose is to encourage the students to think about and understand some element of the learning process. These activities will need to be built into the course in some way. There are games that need to be programmed into courses oriented towards speaking skills; they should be designed to be used with whatever materials form the basis of the teacher's course. Feedback techniques should also form a regular part of a speaking skills course. All of the entertaining features of a course, unlike those with a self-evident practice aim, will need to be explained to the students with a brief argumentation.

3.4 Issues regarding classroom dynamics

Any group of students will have different expectations of what learning English involves and what they want out of the class. One problem may be that they have not really defined these expectations to themselves; another problem may be that they have never really questioned received attitudes to language learning; yet another problem may be that they are unaware of alternative attitudes to language learning and learning styles. All these problems have the potential to cause friction even in an otherwise good-natured group. Some members of the group may want to study grammar rules, while others think that the way to learn English is by listening and speaking, and forgetting about boring old grammar. Some people are intuitive language learners while others are analytic language learners. Again, some learners are visual types, whereas in others auditory memory is more developed. If each category thinks that its style is the only way to learn, than the teacher has potential for resentment and conflict, unless he or she helps learners to understand how aims, attitudes and learning styles may differ, and also encourage them to start thinking about how they as a group can reconcile what may be conflicting aims and interests. The question of defining goals and learning to compromise to achieve them is not a simple one or one that can be dealt with in a single lesson.

Some frustrations in groups can arise because individuals focus only on the drawbacks of group life and fail to appreciate the benefits. If a student cannot see beyond the temporary frustration of an individual ambition – the class is engaged in a speaking activity when he or she wants to study grammar, for example – to the wider advantages ed by the group, such as support, encouragement, interaction, and opportunity for language practice, then he or she is not likely to be a very co-operative group member. Sometimes just one such student can sour a whole group.

Forming a group is relatively easy: the initial stage of group life is usually harmonious students begin to work together. Maintaining a cohesive group during the entire activity is far more difficult. It requires establishing trust, maintaining a positive atmosphere, bridging cultural and personality gaps, maintaining contact between all members of the group, encouraging students to participate fully and to listen to each other, developing the ability to compromise and co-operate, encouraging empathy, giving the group a clear sense of direction and a sense of achievement, and developing a sense of cohesion and group solidarity. It should again be stressed that all these elements are interdependent: you cannot neglect one without doing damage to the others, and the teacher, like a juggler, must try to keep all these concerns in motion at once.

One of the richest sources of discussion activities is the exploitation of the ‘gap’, whether information gap, opinion gap, or values gap. Questionnaires, ranking activities, and values clarification tasks are all designed to highlight the differences between people and thus to stimulate discussion and debate. In terms of their potential for language exploitation, these are obviously very valuable classroom activities, but from the point of view of successful group dynamics, the effect of a series of such activities over a semester for a year, with the consequent constant emphasis on individual differences of opinion or taste, may be to intensify divisions in the group. Groups are more likely to be cohesive and amicable if their members have some things in common. Bridging activities are designed to bring people together, by emphasizing the qualities they share rather than what is different about them. The inclusion of these activities from time to time may have a beneficial effect on classroom dynamics, particularly if the classroom has recently gone through a series of opinion gap discussions and activities, or if the class is composed of forceful individuals.

‘Territoriality’ is one symptom of lack of cohesion in a group. Group members show a marked preference for ‘their’ seats, and they are reluctant to move and to sit with other people. Cliques may develop where members are selective about who they work with sometimes actively refusing to work with certain students. This does not make for a very pleasant classroom atmosphere, and makes the process of organising discussions, games and other activities fraught with hazards. But good classroom atmosphere is not the only reason for discouraging territoriality. It is important to ensure that students do not always work with the same partner or partners for several reasons: always working with the same partner will place limits on the amount of language used – pairs may develop their own ‘restricted code’, always using the same vocabulary and phrases. They may also set to know each other too well, and have too few information gaps, thus becoming bored with each other.

Members of a group are more likely to have a sympathetic and harmonious relationship if they make an attempt to understand each others' feelings and points of view. Many activities invite students to tell each other about their personal tastes, opinions, lifestyle, and background, and this usually has a very positive effect on both individual motivation and on group dynamics, as well as providing excellent language practice. But these activities largely focus on the simple transfer of information, rather than on the use of this information to increase understanding of others. Students will probably be more interested in talking about themselves than in hearing about their partner, partly for the human reason that one's own preoccupations are always more interesting than other people’s, and partly because students tend to regard such activities primarily as a chance to practise their own speaking skills; they rarely seem to regard listening to another foreign student as very good language practice. Students should be invited to complete questionnaires, or write autobiographies not from their own point of view, but as if they were someone else, that is, to step into their shoes and see things through their eyes for a while. This can lead to a more direct and immediate understanding than the act of listening and interpreting another one's words through your own viewpoint. All successful classes have one thing in common: the individuals in the class have a positive self-image and a strong sense of identity, maybe even a slight tendency to mythologize themselves, not as individuals as much as a group. This warm, positive group feeling creates a supportive and enthusiastic atmosphere which leads to efficient learning, so it is worth fostering.

Feelings of insecurity play a large part in the build-up of a negative group atmosphere. The vicious circle is the following: the student isn't sure what other people think of him or her, so he or she does not give anything away for fear of criticism or hostile reaction, or simply of looking silly in public; the less he or she gives away, the more unsure he or she is about what other people may be thinking or feeling. If this process is going on simultaneously in the hearts and minds of fifteen or twenty people in your – classroom, the result will be the kind of introverted, taciturn, ungenerous group that so many teachers complain of. The members of such a group are not necessarily hostile or aggressive. They may just be insecure and lacking in confidence. Understanding this is important, because their reactions can easily be mistaken for hostility, so that the group that starts off merely lacking self-confidence can easily slide into negativity and antagonism.

The alarming thing about negative feelings is that once they develop they are very tenacious. Negativity has a very powerful attraction. For some reason, criticism is easier to voice than praise, dissatisfaction than satisfaction. People often seem to find certain solidarity in complaining and once negative feelings get a grip on people it is easy for the group to descend in a rapid downward spiral of negativity. Another source of negative feelings is the fact that students feel uncertain about themselves, their place in a group, their learning abilities. This can result into timidity and lack of self-confidence; it can also lead to a defensive reaction towards others in the group. A positive attitude towards oneself as a learner, towards the learning process and towards the language and culture being studied are obviously essential if any progress is to be made.

A frequent problem in groups is that not all members participate equally in discussions.

Sometimes a dominant member or members will take over a discussion completely, while shyer students are unable to get a word in edgeways. It is difficult to deal with both types of student. The dominant members may be forceful or somewhat aggressive people, but often they are simply lively, enthusiastic, talkative students who contribute a great deal to the class, and it is hard to encourage the others to talk more, and them to talk a little bit less, without dampening their enthusiasm. Sometimes they are not aware of the problem and thus activities designed to heighten their awareness of the imbalance in group participation may help to alleviate it. Students who make little contribution to discussions may be shy or quiet people in their own language. It is hard suddenly to be required to change your habits, and feelings of inadequacy about language ability may make this doubly hard. Activities that give such students something to say, rather than those which require invention, and activities which make turn-taking in a discussion into a kind of game rather than a real-life decision, may help with this problem.

Another problem affecting learning efficiency is the fact that students do not pay enough attention to listening to one another. There could be many causes for this problem: students could find one another boring; they could be seeing a speaking activity purely as an activity that practises their speaking without realising that in order to speak effectively and with confidence a sympathetic audience is the first requirement; they may not find listening to a non-native speaker very productive in terms of their own language learning; they may be so busy thinking what they're going to say next that have no time to listen to their partner; or they could just be exhibiting that very natural human tendency to be more interested in one's own preoccupations than in anyone else's. All these reasons have one thing in common, that students are viewing language learning as a narrowly individual affair. They cannot look behind their own personal goals to the fact that communication is always reciprocal in nature. People talk more confidently and fluently if their interlocutor is giving their full attention, and in turn will respond more directly and appropriately if they have listened to, and are basing their reply on, what their partner has said, and so on.

The teacher needs to insert into the teaching process, games and activities that help students become aware of the need to listen to each other, and to create situations where they have to listen closely to the other person.

It is fundamental to the successful working of a group to have a sense of direction and a common purpose. Defining and agreeing aims is one of the hardest tasks the group has to undertake together. It can be hard for many reasons: students may not have defined their aims clearly to themselves; they may only have a hazy notion of what learning a language involves; they may think that the traditional grammar-translation techniques are what language learning is about; and they may have very precise and narrow aims of their own, which may conflict with others' aims or the wider aims of the group. The teacher has the difficult task not only of helping students individually to clarify their aims, but of somehow weaving all these individual wants and needs together into a coherent programme which satisfies everyone in the group.

The ability to compromise is fundamental to a successful working group. If everyone in the group is only intent on getting what they want at all costs, then the group becomes an obstacle in the way of individual ambitions instead of a support system and a source of strength. Paradoxically, it is this very insistence on individual wants and ambitions that, by dividing the group into factions, makes those ambitions harder to achieve. If, for example, faction A want traditional grammar teaching but faction B think grammar is a waste of time and want to do as much speaking and listening as possible, then unless a compromise can be negotiated to everyone's satisfaction, the kind of uncomfortable situation can arise where faction A signal their dissatisfaction by refusing to co-operate in any speaking activities, while faction B retaliate by showing very plainly how boring they find grammar lessons. The net result can be that nobody's aims were achieved, and that everyone has a thoroughly miserable time. Given a different attitude, the group would be learning perfectly well – from the activity they are less enthusiastic about as well as those they favour.

3.5 Sources of problems in groups

There are three main potential sources for problems with groups (Hadfield, j., 1992, p55): 1) teacher-group conflicts, 2) intra-group conflict and 3) the 'indigestible' group member.

1) Teacher-group conflicts: – Conflict of expectations about progress

– Resistance to communicative methods

– Resistance to leadership style

– Rebellion against 'authority'

2) Intra-group conflict: – different aims, levels of ability, or motivation

-an inharmonious mix of ages, personalities, sexes, or nationalities

3) The 'indigestible' group member: – misfits

– the insecure

-rebels

-frustrated leader

It is important to give students some sense of continuity after the abrupt end of a course that may have been a major part of their lives for a year, or even longer. Two areas are important here: keeping up with the English they have learned, and keeping up the friendships they have made.

A ‘group brainstorm’ on ways of learning English after the school year is over, is an useful way of gathering ideas: students will be able to suggest ideas that may not have occurred to others in the group. Also, they may not know of sources of authentic English that the teacher can suggest to them, for example the English language magazines, novels and movies. The teacher needs to develop activities designed to round off the group experience in a way that is positive and forward-looking, so that the students not only remember the high points of the English class, but can also evaluate what they have learned , identify areas for further work.

PART FOUR – THE COMMUNICATIVE CLASSROOM

Communicative activities enhance acquiring communicative skills, without which the rules of grammar would be useless, in the desire for effective communication in English. Even young learners are aware of their future needs for intercultural communication and knowing English has become a strong personal goal. To be able to operate effectively in the real world, students need plenty of opportunity to practise language in situations which encourage them to communicate their needs, ideas and opinions.

The communicative movement in encompasses all modes of language use. It has, as one of its bases, a concept of what it means to know a language and to be able to put that knowledge to use in communicating with people in a variety of settings and situations. One of the earliest terms for this concept was ‘communicative competence’(Hymes,D., 1972, p 281) In defining the term, Hymes demonstrated a ‘shift of emphasis among linguists, away from a narrow focus on language as a formal system’, a focus most clearly seen in the work of Chomsky, who used the term ‘competence’ to describe knowledge of language. Hymes, as a sociolinguist, was concerned with the social and cultural knowledge which speakers need in order to understand and use linguistic forms. His view, therefore, included ‘not only knowledge but also ability to put that knowledge into use in communication’(ibid. pp 269-293) and for that reason other terms, thought to be more effective in describing what it means to know and to be able to use language knowledge, have developed. One of these is Bachman's communicative language ability( Bachman, L.F., 1990, p 11)

Hymen’s work proved to be of substantial influence among English language educationalists, coinciding as it did with growing dissatisfaction with the predominantly structural approaches to English language teaching in the 1960s and early 1970s. Moreover, other influences were at work in the profession. As the field of English for specific purposes developed to meet the professional or academic needs of English language users, course books designers had to find ways of analysing real-world tasks in order to identify their communicative demands and to specify these as learning goals. In the meantime, a syllabus based on functional and situational views of language was set up.

As the goals for became more concerned with enabling learners to interact successfully with members of other societies, so the explorations of applied linguists into the components of communicative ability assumed increasing relevance and usefulness to the work of classroom teachers and materials designers.

4.1 Components of communicative language ability

The key components, as identified by researchers, can be listed as: linguistic competence, pragmatic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence, and fluency.(Hedge, T., 2008, pp 46-54) I will now explain these components of communicative language ability as they provide insights into the goals and tasks for English language learners, and the issues which arise for teachers.

A. Linguistic competence

Linguistic competence is concerned with knowledge of the language itself, its form and meaning. Thus it involves knowledge of spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, grammatical structure, sentence structure, and linguistic semantics. An important point for the teacher to note is that linguistic competence is an integral part of communicative competence. The role of grammar or formal accuracy has been a major concern in in recent years and teachers need to address a number of issues in designing courses and classroom activities for learners. Acquisition of grammar will probably involve explicit knowledge of grammatical concepts, categories, and rules and teachers will need to decide which description of there to choose from those available. There is also the question of which procedures for raising awareness of language form and for practising it are most effective.

Perhaps the most difficult question to resolve has been how to achieve a balance between ‘focused’ or ‘form-focused’ classroom activities which aim at linguistic accuracy and 'unfocused’ activities which involve learners in negotiation of meaning and aim at fluency. Key issues in are: the appropriate balance of the enlisted activities in one lesson and the extent to which this will be determined by the age, stage of learning, and existing proficiency level of learners; the organizing principle; the balance between focused and unfocused activities and their coherent integration in the language learning programme.

B. Pragmatic competence

Pragmatic competence is generally considered to involve two kinds of ability. In part it means knowing how to use language in order to achieve certain communicative goals or intentions. This has also been called illocutionary competence. (ibid. p47)An example would be: ‘It's so hot today’. This statement could have a number of illocutionary forces. It might be a statement about the physical atmosphere, a request to open the window, or an attempt to elicit the offer of a cold drink. Thus, one element of pragmatic competence knows how to perform a particular function or express an intention clearly. In order for communication to be successful, however, spoken or written messages must also be appropriate to the social context in which they are produced. Learners need to know the appropriate social conventions. ‘Social knowledge is necessary to select the language forms to use in different settings, and with people in different roles and with different status’.(ibid. p48) This has also been called ‘sociolinguistic competence’. It can relate as much to non-verbal as to verbal communication. It can also relate to knowing when to speak and when to be silent, or what to say in certain circumstances.

Part of communicative competence in a foreign language is to know what is appropriate, what is incongruous, and what might cause offence. In these ways, the sociolinguistic component of pragmatic competence enables a speaker to be ‘contextually appropriate’ or in Hymes words, to know ‘when to speak, when not, what to talk about with whom, when, where and in what manner.’(Hymes,D.,1972, p283)

C. Discourse competence

Learners of English will need to become aware of how discourse works in terms of the common cohesive devices used in English. Discourse competence refers to the following aspects in conversational use of language: how to perform the turns in discourse, how to maintain the conversation, and how to develop the topic. Second language learners need to acquire useful language for strategies such as initiating, entering, interrupting, checking and confirming in conversation. For example, they will need to learn the typical discourse markers which signal the direction of discourse, such as ‘By the way…’ introducing an incidental remark); ‘I'd like to take (up an earlier point…’ (returning to consider an earlier argument), and ‘That's all very well but…’(challenging an argument).Students will also need to develop a similar kind of competence for written texts. For example, students reading technical English will have to follow the structure of different types of expository prose such as descriptions of processes, cause-effect analyses, and comparisons of systems. They will need to understand the relationships between the propositions of adjoining sentences and to interpret these relationships through formal devices.

These various abilities needed to create coherent written texts or conversation, and to understand them, have together been termed discourse competence (Canale and Swain,1980, p22) or textual competence. (Bachman, 1990, p 36)

D. Strategic competence

Canale and Swain define strategic competence as ‘how to cope in an authentic communicative situation and how to keep the communicative channel open’ (Canale, M & M. Swain, 1980, p 25) Strategic competence consists of using communication strategies. These strategies come into play when learners are unable to express what they want to say because they lack the resources to do so successfully. They compensate for this either by changing their original intention or by searching for other means of expression. The reduction strategy is put into practice when students avoid using forms they are uncertain of.

Clearly the advantages of using achievement strategies or taking risks with the language is that they keep the conversation going and may encourage the listener to provide the necessary language. Second language acquisition research suggests that ‘the exposure of learners to language provided at a point of need and in a meaningful context which they have created for themselves in trying to express something is a good situation for acquisition’.

The question that may appear is whether strategic competence can be trained. Certainly the teacher can help students early in a language class by teaching them the appropriate questions for requesting help, for example ‘What does this mean?’ and ‘How do you say…? ‘, and the language to ask for vocabulary items, for example ‘What do you call a person who…?’ and ‘What do you call a thing that…?’ The teacher can also act as listener in classroom interaction and respond to students' appeals for help, providing language at the point of need. There is little in current materials, however, to suggest that learners receive much help in how to deal with problems themselves as they try to express themselves in English.

E. Fluency

The term ‘fluency’ relates to language production and it is normally reserved for speech. It is the ability to link units of speech together with facility and without strain or inappropriate slowness, or undue hesitation. Fluency can be included as a component of communicative competence. Faerch, Haastrup and Phillipson (1984, p 143) list three types of fluency: semantic fluency (linking together propositions and speech acts), lexical-syntactic fluency (linking together syntactic constituents and word), and articulatory fluency (linking together speech segments).

Fluency is constituted by ‘the ability to respond coherently within the turns of the conversation, to link the word and phrases of the question, to pronounce the sounds clearly with appropriate stress and intonation, and to do all of these quickly, in real time’(ibid. p145). has addressed the issue of how to develop fluency in various ways. Coursebooks in the 1970s often contained fluency drills, but these were aimed solely at increasing the learner's ability to link syntactic segments with ease. More recently, teachers have debated whether it is possible to teach tricks to help learners become more fluent. We use tricks in a H conversation when we want to interrupt, for example ‘Can I just come in here?’, or to respond, for example ‘I agree with that in part, but …’ These tricks have been called ‘lexical phrases’. (Nattinger, J.R, 1988, p80) They are ‘items of prefabricated language, learned holistically as chunks, and include not only phrases but clauses and sentences, too’.

Nattinger suggests that this kind of lexical learning plays a much stronger role in language learning than previously appreciated. The advantage of teaching lexical phrases is that, if they can be retrieved quickly from memory, they will help learners to produce the language more fluently. (ibid. p82) Certainly, practice activities in spoken English will need to involve learners in interpreting and assessing the meaning of what they hear and constructing appropriate responses independently of language input from the teacher or textbook. This implies situations in which students will determine the content of what they say in interaction with other students.

4.2 Significant implications of communicative language ability in the curriculum

Linguistic competence:

to achieve accuracy in the grammatical forms of the language

to pronounce the forms accurately

to use stress, rhythm and intonation to express meaning

to build a range of vocabulary

to learn the script and spelling rules

to achieve accuracy in syntax and word formation.

Pragmatic competence:

to learn the relationship between grammatical forms and functions

to use stress and intonation to express attitude and emotion

to learn the skill of formality

to understand and use emotive tone

to use the pragmatic rules of language

to select language forms appropriate to topic, listener, etc.

Discourse competence:

to take longer turns, use discourse markers, and open and close conversations

to appreciate and be able to produce contextualized written texts in a variety of
genres

to be able to use cohesive devices in reading and writing texts

• to be able to cope with authentic texts.

Strategic competence:

to be able to take risks in using both spoken and written language

to use a range of communication strategies

to learn the language needed to engage in some of these strategies

Fluency:

to deal with the information gap of real discourse

to process language and respond appropriately with a degree of ease

• to be able to respond with reasonable speed in ‘ real time’

4.3 The implications for the communicative classroom

4.3.1 The communicative tasks and their roles in teaching and learning

The communicative approach to language teaching is premised on the belief that, if the development of communicative language ability is the goal of classroom learning, then communicative practice must be part of the process. The question is what kind of practice will lead to the development of communicative language ability. Brumfit, for example, argues for "natural language use"(1984, p64) and suggests the need for what he calls ‘fluency activities’. He uses the term ‘fluency’ in a different sense from Faerch, Haastrup, and Phillipson. In his definition, fluency activities ‘develop a pattern of language interaction within the classroom which is as close as possible to that used by competent performers in the mother tongue in real life’.(1984,p69)He lists a set of criteria necessary for achieving fluency:

– The language should be a means to an end, for example, the focus should be on the meaning and not on the form.

– The content should be determined by the learner who is speaking or writing. The learner has to formulate and produce ideas, information, opinions, etc.

– There must be a negotiation of meaning between the speakers, for example students must be involved in interpreting a meaning from what they hear and constructing what to say as a response. In other words, they should not be reliant on the teacher or materials to provide the language. This criterion clearly brings into play pragmatic and discourse competences as well as fluency.

– What a learner hears should not be predictable, for example there should be an information or opinion gap.

– the normal processes of listening, reading, speaking and writing will be in play, for example, improvising and paraphrasing in speech; in other words, students will practise and develop strategic competence.

– Teacher intervention to correct should be minimal as this distracts from the message.

In Brumfit's view, fluency activities will give students the opportunity to produce and understand items which they have gradually acquired during activities focused on linguistic form, which he calls ‘accuracy work’.

Much material has taken up the concept of fluency activities and presents tasks which conform to the criteria above. The aims of these activities are in the students' ability to use any language resources they have acquired and are not directed into using particular structures. Members of the group should determine their own contributions and choose appropriate language for expressing ideas and opinions. They should negotiate meaning as they structure group interaction, checking that they have understood, asking for clarification and further explanation, and as they speak they should use communication strategies such as paraphrase and restructuring.

One issue of great interest has been how to create the ‘gap’ of information of opinion which exists between speakers in the real world, and which creates the unpredictability of normal discourse. Prabhu(1987, pp 46-47) gives a useful typology of activities which have formed the basis of much contemporary material:

1. Information-gap activity, which involves a transfer of given information from one
person to another-or from one form to another, or from one place to another –
generally calling for the decoding or encoding of information from or into
language. One example is pairwork in which each member of the pair has a part of
the total information (for example an incomplete picture) and attempts to convey it
verbally to the other.

2. Reasoning-gap activity, which involves deriving some new information from given
information through processes of inference, deduction, practical reasoning, or a
perception of relationships or patterns. One example is deciding what course of
action is best (for example cheapest or quickest) for a given purpose and within
given constraints. The activity necessarily involves comprehending and conveying
information, as an information-gap activity, but the information to be conveyed is
not identical with that initially comprehended. There is a piece of reasoning which
connects the two.

3. Opinion-gap activity, which involves identifying and articulating a personal preference, feeling, or attitude in response to a given situation. One example is story completion; another is taking part in the discussion of a social issue. The activity may involve using factual information and formulating arguments to justify one's opinion, but there is no objective procedure for demonstrating outcomes as right or wrong, and no reason to expect the same outcome from different individuals or on different occasions.

Such activities have generated creative materials in all four models of language use: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It has also generated a number of issues which are the focus of current debate. The fundamental issue is how learners actually use the activities they are provided with in order to acquire language, and whether different ways of exploiting activities provide different opportunities for learning.

Another issue is what helps learners to become more accurate. If there is no time pressure in a task, students have the chance to prepare the content of what they are going to say and may focus more on correct expression. It is therefore possible, in the case of using a cycle of preparatory and follow-up tasks, to create a balance between accuracy and fluency activity.

An understanding of how learners use tasks can inform the teachers' decision-making about how to incorporate them into a language teaching programme. There is an argument that a series of tasks can usefully provide the basis of a programme, in which case their selection, organization and sequencing will need to create opportunities for a focus on accuracy and input into the interlanguage system as well as fluency. Alternatively many teachers and especially textbook writers see communicative tasks as an essential element in a programme but as part of a balanced diet of accuracy and fluency work. Brumfit, for example, sees these as co-existing but suggests that ‘the balance would change over time’. (1984, p71)His suggestion is that ‘one might expect to find preponderance of accuracy-based work early on, for beginners, but that there would be a gradual shift in emphasis as learners acquire more language and that upper-intermediate students might be involved for a high proportion of class time in fluency work.’(ibid.p72)

Teachers and textbooks designers have been preoccupied with how to integrate input on language form, rehearsal of language form and communicative practice. The ‘Presentation, Practice, and Production’ approach was one attempt to achieve integration. At the presentation stage, the teacher presents a new language item, described functionally to help learners to appreciate its communicative purpose. Unfortunately, it has been the experience of many teachers that it is very difficult to control the language which can occur naturally in such activities. Students will use whatever language resources they have at their command and may use reduction strategies to avoid using any forms they are uncertain of. Directing their attention to the form in efforts to persuade them to practise it while they are focused on the messages they are trying to communicate to their peers is distracting and counter-productive in terms of fluency. Various alternatives to the approach have been suggested in the attempt to deal with the use of integration.

4.3.2 Managing a communicative classroom

Many communicative tasks involve learners in face-to-face encounters in the classroom. Interaction in work in small groups provides a basis for language acquisition. It also gives students practice in communicating and negotiating meanings in establishing positive rapport, in maintaining a conversation with appropriate turn taking conventions and, at the same time, allows them to establish how well they can understand and make themselves understood. In lessons where reading and writing are the focus of communicative activity, work in small groups also has substantial value. For example, if students collaborate while revising drafts of writing, they can suggest improvements, correct errors, and generally act as editors while reading each other's work.

It is important for teachers to consider carefully the demands made on learners by participation in this type of interaction, and to be aware of the socio-psychological factors which influence learner responses to those demands.

Building cohesiveness within the group is clearly an important managerial role for the teacher. It can be at least partially achieved through attention to seating arrangements, through a progressive introduction of interaction activities from simple pair work on a short task to more complex role-play activities, through training learners in peer feedback, and through careful management of group size.

The composition of groups is another consideration, one which assumes increasing importance as group work moves into, the kind of teamwork required for projects or for the preparation of complex simulations. Here, the teacher will need to make decisions about whether to allocate roles within the group such as chair, scribe, spokesperson, and timekeeper, or whether to let members of the group decide these among themselves. One issue for the teacher is whether to keep the same groups together over a period of time to allow the process of group formation to be successfully completed. Another issue is whether this process can be facilitated simply by using ice-breaking activities at the beginning of a course as groups form. An alternative would be to invite learners, after tasks have been completed, to review the procedures they have used and to improve on them.

Another perception suggests that, for a group to be effective in completing a task, it needs at least one member who is interested in keeping the group on task and achieving a useful outcome, and one member who will be interested in maintaining good relationships within the group. This will ensure that a variety of functions are catered for; those which assist the task such as suggesting ideas or asking for opinions and those which build cohesiveness such as drawing in quieter members or making compromises between different points of view. Further issues for the teacher, then, are how to select group members and how to raise awareness of the need to perform these roles, and what kind of re might be needed.

The communicative classroom also involves the teacher in a wider range of roles beyond that of providing and presenting new language. A good deal of time will be spent on managing learning: setting up activities, organizing material resources, guiding students in groupwork, encouraging contributions, monitoring activities, and diagnosing the further needs of students. Teachers need to build competence and confidence in fulfilling these various roles to ensure that, in any moves towards implementing communicative approaches in the classroom, teachers are properly supported.

All of this is not to suggest that current methodology, influenced by ideas about the ‘learner-centred’ classroom, promotes learner responsibility at the expense of teacher authority. Whatever the moves in recent years towards placing greater responsibility upon learners and encouraging their independence, students still need to place themselves within the authority of teachers. They remain the ultimate organizers of activity, the ones who must ensure positive learning outcomes for students, the ones accountable to any external authority involved, and the arbiters of standards.

4.3.3 Communicative language teaching and authenticity in the classroom

With communicative language teaching pressure has come to use authentic materials, in other words, materials which have not been designed especially for language learners and which therefore do not have contrived or simplified language. The argument is quite simply that if the goal of teaching is to equip students to deal ultimately with the authentic language of the real world, they should be given opportunities to cope with this in the classroom. It has been argued that contrived listening texts, in particular, have characteristics which in no way approximate to real spoken language. If students hear only unnatural language in the classroom, their first experience in hearing authentic spoken English in the real world can be demoralizing. The classroom, it is argued, can provide supportive conditions of learning in which authentic texts can gradually be introduced and exploited in ways which build confidence.

Communicative methodology has displayed an increasing tendency to use authentic materials in relation to listening and reading skills. Speaking and writing activities can also be referred to as authentic if they reflect the relevant criteria for task design discusses earlier (see 4.3 A) and also mirror the real-world purposes and situations in which and for which language is used. The use of authentic materials for work on the receptive skills of reading and listening has been surrounded by controversy. On the one hand, there are writers who advocate the use of texts in which nothing has been changed. On the other, many teachers would argue that the needs of learners at lower levels of proficiency demand the use of ‘simulated-authentic’ materials. These emulate original materials, but are contrived in some way to assist the learner. For example the overall structure of a comparison/contrast argument can be highlighted by adding connectives such as ‘whereas’, ‘while’, ‘on the contrary, ‘on the other hand and ‘in comparison’. Presenting learners – for whom the building of confidence is all important – with texts which they can approach successfully is seen as the common-sense approach. It is a question of providing texts which are authentic to the needs of learners, ones with which they can interact. For example, a learner with a passion for cars may well make sense of a book on car maintenance written at a level of English above that of his own proficiency simply because he has a good prior knowledge of the topic.

The keys to approaching a text successfully lie in the relevance of the text to the learners, its interest, the experience they can bring to making sense of it and the appropriacy of the task required. Quite difficult texts can be made accessible through simple but appropriate tasks. The selection of authentic texts will, of course, depend on the particular needs of the learners in view.

PART – COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN COURSEBOOKS

English language learners at all proficiency levels, including literacy- and beginning-level learners, need to speak and understand spoken English for a variety of reasons. They need English for daily life to communicate with the doctor, the school, the community whenever they travel abroad or have foreign company. Learners at all proficiency levels can communicate, and they appreciate being encouraged and challenged to further their skills. They participate in interactive, communicative activities in all facets of the class—from ice-breaking activities, needs assessment, and goal-setting to life-skills, phonics, and spelling. This is especially true where there is a strong classroom community that supports natural language production.

A brief review of course books in current use shows that the concepts previously discussed, such as classroom dynamics and communicative classroom, are constantly approached and applied through communicative activities whose role is better understood and exploited by some book writers than others. It would be a good idea to analyse their presence in course books. Due to the change of the curriculum, there is a wide variety of students’ books analyzed and Ministry approved, thus the importance of course books has also changed this becoming alternative. The wide range of alternative textbooks is a positive aspect because it gives both teachers and students the freedom to choose that book which meets all needs regarding the teaching process: adapting to the requirements, level and needs of the class, the teacher's preference of a certain publishing house, but especially the quality of a textbook to present in a structured and accessible manner the objectives and the activities mentioned in the syllabus. Next, I will make a short report on the presence of communicative activities in different course books, on all levels (from beginner to advanced), which I have used in my teaching activity.

Beginner level (3rd and the 4th grade)

With the starter level we can hardly speak of communication as an oral fluent exchange of messages and more of a guided first teacher-student dialogue, then a student-student oral interaction. As it can be assumed, games have a privileged role in teaching students at beginner level. The 3rd grade syllabus(București, 2005) mentions the following games and activities (which contribute to reaching the main teaching objectives); pairwork (for practising simple dialogues); basic role-play (in order to make students familiar with the language needed in particular real-life situations); language games (aiming to allow students to make connections between given images and typical language structures).

In the coursebook entitled WayAhead 1 (by Ellis,P. and M. Bowen, Macmillan Romania, București, 2005) the authors propose a considerable amount of games, which have the purpose to combine the acquisition of basic language structures with the formation of elementary vocabulary. Games like ‘Copy me do’, ’Draw and guess’, ’Guess what I am thinking about?, ’Blind-folded’,’ The dice game’,’ Sue says….’etc raise the children’s attention, interest and pleasure of learning English in a far less threatening way and an enjoyable atmosphere.

Pairwork activities encourage and facilitate the practice and reinforcement of new vocabulary or grammar structure in at first teacher guided then free short dialogues maximizing the amount of time they are speaking English or role-playing mini conversations assuming new identities and becoming actively involved in the process of language acquisition.

The same amount of games and communicative activities is present in Splash – 3rd grade (by Abbs, B., A. Worrall, and A. Ward, Longman, Edinburgh, 1997) but in this case, the games are more elaborated and aim to develop more skills at the same time.’ A shopping game’ requires the practice of the future going to along with lots of vocabulary items belonging to the topic, students being able also to memorize and acquire new words they did not know before from their partner during the game. Other games such ‘Simon says…’, ‘Let’s have breakfast!’, ‘Snakes and Ladders at school’ are welcomed by students who can hardly wait to play, pretend and dream they are real English people ‘Talk to your friend’ is the form lots of speaking activities employ minimizing the direct and scaring impact an oral sentence exchange in English may have on some shy and reserved students whereas talking to each other exploits the time they are using English on one hand and help them to gain more self –confidence on the other. Rhymes ( ‘Moving Day’,’ Bees in the garden’,’ On the ghost train’ etc) songs (‘I can be anything’, ‘We like spaghetti!’, ‘Cold in winter’, etc) and chants(‘ At the theatre!’, ‘A happy hippo holiday’, ‘Dear Aunt Jane’ etc ) reinforce vocabulary and sometimes grammar items in a much more pleasant and relaxed environment increasing the students confidence and their communicative ability.

Language projects are introduced but students are expected to make use of their acquired vocabulary and language structures in simple sentences describing topics like: Me, My family, My favourite room, Pets, Wild animals, etc. The 4th grade syllabus( Ibid. ) continues the one for the 3rd grade, developing the objectives previously mentioned and allowing the variation of activities (from simple to more complex ones). WayAhead 2 (by Ellis, P.and M.Bowen, with I.Buciu, Macmillan , București, 2006) unfortunately has only two games, and even these two are common and simple activities: an alphabet game and a guessing game. Splash – 4th grade (by Abbs B., A.Worrall, and A.Ward, Longman, Edinburgh, 1998) has a clear orientation towards games, poster-like projects on familiar topics (People I like, My family and friends, A project about water, My favourite animal, etc) the authors insisting on pair and group work, thus evaluating if students have understood the structures and as a way of varying the rhythm of the lesson. The series of good and attractive games continues, keeping the student’s interest and joy alive. They suggest repeating some games, because in this way students may have the opportunity to become fond of a certain game and playing it more they will become confident and skilled as well as introducing new lexical or grammatical games which are meant to give more practice to more complicated and difficult vocabulary and language items making them more accessible and easy to use.

Lower intermediate level (5th and 6th grade)

The role of games during this phase of learning is diminished. The syllabus (București, 2005.) only mentions simulations. In spite of this, the authors of Generation 2000 – 5th grade (by Granger C., and D.Beaumont, Macmillan, , 1998) insert complex games that allow practising vocabulary, grammar and communicative skills. For example, they propose games such as: instructions game, memory game, dice game, treasure hunt, quizzes and bragging game. Projects are the strong point of this cousebook as it introduces them every five units. Students are provided with a sample project as they are at the beginning of their project work, suggestions, useful tips help as well organizing their own work much better .

The same approach is identified in Generation 2000 -6th grade (by Granger C., D. Beaumont, and G.Pritchard, Macmillan, , 1998), the authors clearly continuing the series of games in the previous textbook including role-plays as well. Snapshot Starter( by Linley F., B.Abbs, C.Barker and I.Freebairn , Longman, Harlow, 2001), another alternative for the 5th grade takes into account the nature of the students and the characteristics of the teaching situation and follows four principles in order to make the learning material to be effective for teenagers: 1. Capturing students’ attention , by using authentic location photography and magazine articles; introducing a group of teenage characters with whom students can identify; focusing on situations and emotions which students will recognize and respond to; presenting real language and expressions which young British people use in conversation with each other; including topics which interest students and expand their knowledge, without patronizing them. 2. Holding students attention, by involving students in the understanding and learning of grammar through problem-solving tasks; providing activities like questionnaires, quizzes and information-gap exercises which stretch the students’ minds as well as their linguistic skills; featuring real-life communicative exchanges which students can put into practice immediately; personalizing the language which students are learning through open-ended ‘Over to you’ tasks that allow the students to talk about themselves and give their own opinions.3. Giving all students the opportunity to achieve success at their own level, by providing multi-level exercises in the Language Booster; including regular projects in the Students’ Book which enable both weaker and stronger students to express themselves creatively; giving clear presentation of grammar in Grammar snapshots and Grammar flashes in the Students’ Book and in the Grammar Builder section of the Language Booster. 4. Setting goals, providing ways to monitor progress and encouraging learner independence, by providing clear learning goals so that students know what their learning objectives are; offering opportunities for students to monitor their own progress through Fast rewind revision pages at two-unit intervals throughout the book; encouraging students to assess their own progress through Progress update charts; giving advice on how to study effectively through regular Helplines in the Students’ Book and Study Corners in the Language Booster.

The same communicative principles are to be followed in the next level of this Students’ book, Snapshot Elementary-6th grade (by Linley F., B.Abbs, C.Barker and I.Freebairn , Longman, Harlow, 2001) .Many of the exercises are designed so that students can work in pairs, simultaneously, increasing the students’ talking time dramatically .Students can work in closed pairs( side by side, talking to each other) or open pairs(side by side, talking in front of the rest of the class).For certain activities, e.g. role-plays, discussions, questionnaires, task-based activities and projects, students can work in groups. Groups can provide an opportunity for shy students to talk more informally and are valuable educationally as a way of encouraging cooperation.

Intermediate level (7th and 8th grade)

The 7th grade syllabus(București, 2005) includes games such as: simulations, pair work, group work, and other games. I prefer to work with the 7th graders with the third book of the Generation 2000 series,level 3,( by Grange C., D. Beaumont and D.Sawer, Macmillan, Oxford, 1998), because there is continuity in the structure and approach of learning. Beyond 5 and 6th grade games, there are new types also, such as general knowledge quiz and guessing game. The Snapshot pre-intermediate (by Linley F., B.Abbs, C.Barker and I.Freebairn, Longman, , 2001) offers a better alternative for the 7th grade, continuing the other two levels’ structure and approach, insisting on interactions, communication. The communication sections focus on the important communicative functions to be practiced in the unit. The communication exchanges either develop the grammar from the unit in a communicative context or exemplify communicative sentences without emphasis on the underlying grammar. The authors have introduced communicative exercises since the 5th grade but they have become more and more complex, most of the times being associated with role-plays as communicative functions are best practised in pairs or groups.

Beginning with the 8th grade, role-play is more frequently used along with the simulation of various real-life situations. Reward intermediate (by Greenall S.& S.Kay, Macmillan,Oxford,1999) the coursebook used for this level, does not contain any game, the emphasis being on grammar practice and on traditional activities, the frontal activities are preferred and a direct teacher-students contact seems to be the key in the writers’ opinion to a good communicative ability. However, the projects teachers can work with, become more complex covering areas of general interest such as travelling, reading versus television, books versus films etc requiring more complex and careful layout as well as the level of language and vocabulary students have mastered so far, has reached a high level. The presentation skills employ fluency, confidence, determination, persuasion and clarity.

Snapshot intermediate-8th grade (by Linley F., B. Abbs, C.Barker and I.Freebairn , Longman, , 2001) closes the four-level series for the secondary students and offers again a better alternative. Following the same four communicative principles like the other three books of the series, emphasizing the activities in pairs and groups, focusing on interactions and communicative exchanges, the intermediate level is trying to introduce and stir students’ interest in reading and English literature in particular. The Big Picture sections, after every five units of the Students’ book gives practice in developing spoken fluency. The sections cover four different themes: leisure activities, education, crime and animal cruelty in sport. The photographs and the vocabulary banks are helping students to brainstorm words to do with the topics, talking about themselves and the overall theme. The thematically-linked role-plays provide extended fluency practice and encourage students to be confident. The sequence of activities culminates in a project, to give students an opportunity to produce a piece of creative work based on their own ideas.

Upper intermediate level (9th and 10th grade)

In spite of the fact that the syllabus(București, 2005)does not mention games anymore, the 9th grade coursebook Upstream (by Evans V., and J.Dooley, Express Publishing, Oxford, 2002) contains a game for every unit as the writers are very much aware of the joy and excitement any game-like activity brings into the students’ learning experience.. All the games are aimed to enhance the practice of the grammar structures taught in that unit. Most of them are competition games, with different structures: chain stories and teamwork.

Another alternative coursebook for the 9th grade is New Headway intermediate(by Soars, L.and J., OUP, Oxford, 1996), which, compared to Upstream, does not have a game for every unit but it still contains games such as: general knowledge quiz, guessing games, jigsaw and especially role-play.

The alternative students’ book for the 9th grade ‘Going for gold upper-intermediate’ (by Acklam R. and A. Crace, Longman, Edinburgh, 2003) progressively develops the students’ competence in all areas of language, providing graded tasks of the type found in the Cambridge FCE exam in order to introduce students to the requirements of the exams. At the back of the Course book there are unit-by-unit Communication activities that provide interesting and challenging speaking activities in pairs or groups, role-plays or discussions as well as different vocabulary or grammar games that are meant to practise, review ,reinforce or extend the grammatical structures or the vocabulary connected with a certain topic.

The next textbook in the series Upstream – upper intermediate for the 10th grade (by Evans V. and B.Obee, Express Publishing, Oxford, 2003) is focused on a variety of authentic stimulating reading and listening tasks, role-play, pair and group work, a wide range of speaking and communicative activities, grammar sections covering all major grammatical areas but there are no games or activities as in the first course book.

New Headway – upper intermediate for the 10th grade (by Soars, L. and J., OUP, , 1996) is mainly focused on role-play and at this level there is a little different approach. Language items are no longer examined in isolation and grammatical areas are treated in greater depth, language becomes much more particular, exceptions are taken into account so that students begin to perceive the systems that underlie the language. Students have all grown up in the authors’ view so playing with the language does not find a suitable place but a more refined and complex examination and serious practice comes into focus.

New First Certificate Gold-10th grade (by Wyatt R. with J.Newbrook and J.Wilson, Longman, Edinburgh, 2004) continues the trends of the previous level, offering progressive preparation for the FCE exam, as well as developing and extending students’ competence in the language Exam-style tasks are generally at exam level from the early stages of the book, with graded support being gradually withdrawn as the course progresses. Visuals for the Paper 5 Speaking tasks and communication activities that include role-plays, information gap activities, and quizzes are extensively present and emphasize the communicative language and strategies in the course. The grammar, vocabulary and skills sections all provide opportunities for speaking practice, which can be dealt with as a whole class or through pair- and group work. These fluency activities are an important part of the course and should not be omitted as students are encouraged to respond to what others say so that their conversation sounds natural.

Advanced level (11th and 12th grade)

For the last two years of high school, the syllabus (București, 2005) focuses exclusively on types of activities which have nothing to do with games or simulations but still role-plays and discussions or debates are very well exploited. The aim is to develop more complex skills, which is done by using traditional methods of language teaching. The idea is not that games are not important or that there aren't games for the advanced level, but there has been a shift of focus from entertaining teaching to more controlled one, in order to help students prepare for exams, such as the Cambridge Advanced examination, or the Cambridge Proficiency examination. Upstream – advanced (by Evans V. and L.Edwards, Express Publishing, , 2003) in contrast to New Headway – advanced (by Soars, J. and L.,OUP, , 1997) has no games or entertaining activities, except for a single role-play in Unit six. The latter resumes to role-play and problem-solving activities, which are diversified and well represented.

PART SIX – APPLICATIONS

In every study of this kind, the theoretical part represents only the basic knowledge to start with and it is very useful in familiarising with concepts, but of great importance is the methodology which reflects the activity of the teacher during the English class. Concepts such as the classroom dynamics, communicative classroom and not at least communicative activities are the focus of my applications. Moreover, this part outlines the preoccupation of the teacher for improving the teaching process and its continuous upgrade. Taking this into consideration, I will present in this part several applications, which consist of different types of communicative activities I have been using in my teaching activity.

Application 1

Projects

Highlights: I like working with projects because learners' use of language as they negotiate plans, and analyse and discuss information and ideas, is determined by genuine communicative needs. With younger learners, project work encourages imagination and creativity, self-discipline and responsibility, collaboration, research and study skills, and cross-curricular work through exploitation of knowledge gained in other subjects. The goal of any project is to have students speak and be in contact with English as mush as possible from the planning to the presentation of the project. I have been using projects for a lot of time because students seem to enjoy being given a certain freedom to search for the information they need, exploit the visuals as they like and put their aesthetic sense into practice when designing the layout of their projects. The project presentation resembles better the situations in real life when they are supposed to talk about different topics to an English language speaker.

Objective: Learners plan, search, find, select and share information to put it in the form of a previously agreed layout in order to complete a task.

Context: Most of the time, projects start in the class, with teachers generally proposing a topic or a theme and students brainstorming ideas to include discussing, arguing and reaching a consensus on the items that their projects should include. Students are nowadays exposed to lots of sources of information and the abilities of searching, choosing and rating can only be built in time.

Estimated time: The time varies, but usually ranges between 1 or two classes to much more if the project takes the form of Power Point slide shows with much more complex themes and more advanced levels..

Materials: Students will have to find out information about a certain topic using any sources of information they have access to, select the one they think it is suitable for their aim(s), back it up by attaching the most relevant visuals (photographs, pictures, and drawings), audio materials (music) or video clips (short films).

1. Snapshot of my town-5th grade level: high beginners

Motivation: As students have just finished a unit in which they found out a lot of information about Brighton, an English town I thought that the best way to revise and consolidate vocabulary regarding facilities, prepositions of place, the structures there is… and there are will be to ask them to present some important aspects of their home town.

Aim: to make a guide about their town and neighbourhood.

Procedure:

1. I began the class by asking students to imagine they are visited by someone from another country. What information would he need?

…where to stay. …where to have a coffee. …what to do in the evening.

…where to eat. …where to change money. …which club/disco he should go to.

…where to go shopping. …what to see. …where not to go.

…what to visit. …what to do. …what not to do.

2. I asked them what information they would like to find in a guide to a town?

…interesting places to go. … the best place to go shopping.

… a good place to eat. …the best clubs or discos to go to.

…where to go if you need anything.( a good hairdresser’s, a cheap chemist’s, a modern toy shop, etc)

….what to avoid (expensive car wash, bad restaurants, etc)

3. I asked students to look for some pictures, photos or magazine advertisements about the places they want to include in their guide and the exact location. The use of prepositions of place will help them a lot as well as the vocabulary items about facilities.

4. Students decided what to put in their own guide: write about interesting places to see; name the best place to go shopping; write about a good place to eat; name the best clubs or discos to go to; how to divide up their work: collect the photos or take them, find information talking to their family, neighbours and friends or on the Internet, tourist guides; how much time will be needed: two weeks and how to allocate it: one week for the research and one for making the posters and the presentation.

Evaluation: When there was the time to present their projects, students were very excited and curious about their projects. Some of them developed their ideas in the form of a snapshot, others preferred the guide form. Being at the beginning of making more complex projects, the evaluation should be gentle and the correction has to take the form of giving advice. The emphasis should be on having fun playing with language in a more relaxed way and less on spotting what was wrong.

What really amazed me was the dedication and the amount of work they put in their project, looking for information and pictures on the Internet, buying postcards or making their own drawings. Some of the projects could really stand for some mini-guides a foreign tourist may use.

I have enclosed a few.

Project 2: Interesting animals- 5th grade- high beginners

Motivation: As students have nowadays access to a lot of information sources, I thought that a project on interesting animals will really appeal to them. Looking for facts about an animal that you think is fascinating can give students the opportunity to find out much more information than before and other students can also learn interesting things. Instead of simply writing down a number of facts I thought it would be more challenging to make students do their projects like a quiz involving the other students too.

Aim: to write a quiz about an interesting animal (What do you know about…….?)

Procedure:

1 I began the class by writing up the word Quiz on the board. I asked the students to explain it, eliciting from them words like contest, questions, answers, information, the best.

2. I, then, focused their attention on the model quiz from their books. I pointed out to the title ‘What do you know about dolphins?’ and the fact that this project was written by two students. I asked the class to find their names (Sabir, Errol).

3. We went through the quiz questions, dealing with any language difficulties.

4. I divided the class in pairs and asked them to write down their answers to the questions. I encouraged them to guess the answers if they didn’t know.

5. I went round to monitor their efforts and check that they understood what they had to do helping them with the answers when they were not sure.

6. After they had finished, I asked a pair of students to give their answers to Part One of the quiz. If any students disagreed with the answers, I got them to say why. Then I got other pairs of students to give their answers to Parts Two and Three of the quiz, getting the class to discuss any disagreements.

7. I also asked students if they knew any other facts about dolphins eliciting from them answers like: Dolphins helped save people from drowning; they are part of the whale family; they are very intelligent; they like to play games etc.

8. We decided that they needed a week to write their own quiz about an animal of their choice. Many of them already had an animal they liked and they knew a lot of things about, others had to think better.

9. I pointed out the various types of questions in the dolphin quiz (Choose the correct answer, True or False) and got students to think of at least two different types of questions to include in their own quiz.

10. I also encouraged them to think about the pictures they would include and how they could make them part of the quiz. I reminded them to prepare an answer sheet with all the answers to their quiz.

Evaluation: After a week the students’ projects were ready. They could hardly wait to have their classmates answer their quizzes. I got pairs of students to swap their projects. After they wrote down their answers, the pairs sat together and went through the answers.

Most of them knew the answers to their partners’ quizzes and very few had difficulties giving the correct information. I also asked some volunteer students to tell the class about the animal they found out about in the lesson.

Project 3: Help save the planet -6th grade- elementary

Motivation: As students at the elementary level are already familiar with the idea of projects I decided to propose this time a project about the environment especially because pollution, recycling, ways of reusing materials are aspects youngsters need to learn from early ages.

Aim: to make a poster on environmental issues.

Procedure:

1. I began the class by writing up the word Environment on the board. I asked them if they could think of any words connected with environmental issues which they knew or they would like to know.

2. Students came up with words like energy, water, pollution, rubbish, air, save nature and with my additional questions I elicited recycle certain materials like: paper, glass and plastic, reduce energy, water.

3. I asked my students about the things they would like to use in their posters and we agreed that there would be three tasks: reduce, reuse and recycle, the 3 Rs as one of the students suggested.

4. I asked students to think of as many things we can reduce and how we could do that. Students thought of reducing the amount of energy we use, also mentioning some ways of not using so much energy; the amount of water we are using was another thing we could reduce.

5 I reminded my students the form and use of the imperatives as they will be used for giving advice/orders: Switch off lights when you’re watching TV!; Make a notice; Have a shower not a bath! Don’t get new plastic bags every time you go shopping! Don’t let your computer on when you’re doing your homework!

6. I elicited ideas about what and how we can reuse .They immediately thought about reusing water, plastic bags, plastic bottles.

7. When it was about recycling things they remembered paper, glass but they didn’t actually knew how these could be recycled.

8. After discussing ideas to include in their projects, setting the three tasks clarifying any language difficulties, pointing out that they would need pictures, drawings to make their point, we agreed that they would need a week to complete their projects.

Evaluation: The posters are displayed on the flipchart or on the classroom walls and students are invited to present them, giving some more information about the ideas presented on their posters. Other students can express their own opinions about their classmate’s project but I always insist on outlining the positive parts and less on the negative. However, students need to be made aware of the things they did, how they did them, the level and complexity of the language they are using as well as the way they presented their projects.

I was quite surprised about the way my students worked. The ideas they put down were amazing. The use of pictures and drawings to make their ideas stronger and the way they organised their materials were astonishing.

I have attached some of the best but they were all wonderful in their unique way.

Project 4: Hobbies-6th grade-elementary

Motivation: Elementary students are now capable of speaking about their hobbies or pastimes. They will also have a great time writing this in the form of a quiz, including various information about what they like doing in their spare time and what this activity means to them.

Aim: to write a quiz about a topic they know a lot. (A Question of……..)

Procedure:

1 I began the class by writing up the word Quiz on the board. I asked the students to explain it, eliciting from them words like contest, questions, answers, information, and the best.

2. I, then, focused their attention on the model quiz from their books. I pointed out to the title ‘A question of sport’ and the fact that this project was written by two students. I asked the class to find their names (Karen, Mike).

3. We went through the quiz questions, dealing with any language difficulties.

4. I divided the class in pairs and asked them to write down their answers to the questions. I encouraged them to guess the answers if they didn’t know them.

5. I went round to monitor their efforts and check that they understood what they had to do helping them with the answers when they were not sure.

6. After they had finished, I asked a pair of students to give their answers to Part One of the quiz which deals with objects. If any students disagreed with the answers, I got them to say why. I also helped them with the words they didn’t know. Then I got other pairs of students to give their answers to Parts Two and Three of the quiz, getting the class to discuss any disagreements.

7. I also asked students if they knew any other information about the sports mentioned .

8. We decided that they needed a week to write their own quiz on a topic of their choice.I went round the class and noted down who was doing what quiz and helped students decide on the subject of their quiz. Many of them already had a sport or a hobby they liked and they knew a lot of things about, others had to think better.

9. I pointed out the various types of questions in the sport quiz ( matching words and pictures, multiple-choice questions, true and false questions) and got students to think of other types of questions to include in their own quiz. They mentioned Yes/No questions, Wh questions.

10. I also encouraged them to think about the pictures they would include and how they could make them part of the quiz. I reminded them to prepare an answer sheet with all the answers to their quiz.

Evaluation: After a week the students’ projects were ready. They could hardly wait to have their classmates answer their quizzes. I got pairs of students to swap their projects. After they wrote down their answers, the pairs sat together and went through the answers.

Most of them knew the answers to their partners’ quizzes and very few had difficulties giving the correct information. I also asked some volunteer students to tell the class about the sport or the activity they found out about in the lesson.

Project 5: If I had the power-7th grade -pre-intermediate

Motivation: Being responsible of your own deeds is something teachers should try to develop in their students. Rather then just telling them how they should behave and what they should do in order to become good people it is much better to let them discover by asking them to actually be in the position of making their choices.

Aim: to make a poster about something you would stop if you had the power.

Procedure:

1. I asked students to open their books. I focused their attention on the title of the project and asked if the students could remember what it was that Hanna Caine the musician in Lesson 37 would stop if she had the power (She'd stop people killing each other for stupid reasons, she'd stop war.)

2. Then we focus our attention on Part One of the poster and I got the students to read it silently. Then I got individual students to match the photos with the sentences.

3. We moved on to read through Part One with the class explaining any language difficulties as we went along.

4. Students had to read out Part Two to the class and discuss the reasons for smoking. I asked the students if they could think of any other reasons why people smoke eliciting reasons like: because smoking makes them feel good, because their friends smoke, because advertisements tell them to smoke, etc.)

5. I read out Part Three to the class and we discussed the ideas for stopping people smoking, asking questions like: Would the ideas work? What is the best idea? I also asked the students what other ideas they had, getting answers like: I'd have anti-smoking ads on TV, I'd close all the tobacco factories, I'd have a big education programme in schools, I'd give prizes to people who stop smoking, etc.

6. We, then, discussed what the students would stop if they had the power. I wrote up some of their ideas on the board.

7. Then I told the students that I wanted them to make a poster about one of these issues in their own time.

8. I read the instructions with the students and then I divided the class into pairs.

9. I also asked them to look for pictures, photos or make their own drawings to illustrate their ideas.

10. We talked about the time they needed to complete their posters and we agreed that a week would be enough

Evaluation: After students completed their posters, I displayed them on a flipchart or a classroom wall. I got pairs of students who treated the same issue to swap their posters and to discuss the similarities and differences between the two. They then swapped posters with a pair that treated a different issue and asked and answered questions about them. The students dealt with topics such as alcohol, drugs, pollution, abuses, violence in such a manner that they included lot of ideas, came up with different solutions to stop them that they actually behaved as mature adults not as children.

Application 2

Biographies – Famous People-8th grade -intermediate

Highlights: Biographies require the students to adopt a real or fictional personality. Such activities are those in which a group of students interviews someone who pretends to be a certain person. They can also imagine a meeting between different personalities who express their points of view upon an issue (for example, the criminal and his victim).The creator of such a character has to be able to play his part, to express his opinions and feelings and to explain his behaviour. The ones who put the questions have to be inquisitive, to find interesting moments in the biography of the played character, to evaluate exactly his role.

In order to play this game students have to previously prepare short biographies of famous people. Being intermediate learners, they were assigned as homework the preparation of information sheets. They were suggested to use as sources of information the Internet, encyclopedias or magazines and were advised to research about personalities belonging to the Anglo-Saxon or American culture. Thus this game implies the students' enrichment of the British and American cultural background.

Aim: This game requires both good knowledge of English and attention so that it is recommended to be played with intermediate or advanced students for practising communicative abilities, deduction and perspicacity.

Time: As this game requires a lot of facts about famous people and personalities, the students were asked to search for important and interesting facts about any personality they like previously to class. The information exchange in class may last for 40-50 minutes.

Procedure:

1. I asked my students to think and note down all the questions that they considered useful for finding out the personality chosen by their colleague (brainstorming phase). We decided together upon the following set of questions:

What nationality is he or she?

What field of activity was he or she representative for?

When did he or she live?

How long did he or she live?

Was he or she popular and recognized during his or her lifetime?

Which is his or her main achievement?

Was he or she ever rewarded something?

2. I wanted to exemplify the activity as I myself prepared two biographies and when the students identified the personalities, the first two were asked to come in front of the classroom and to try to guess, by asking questions, the personalities I had thought of. The biographies chosen by me were these two:

Oliver Cromwell

(1599-1658)

Profession: Statesman

Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire. He studied at , and in 1628 he was first elected to Parliament. Cromwell opposed the absolute power of the crown, and when war broke out he became a military organizer for the Parliamentary forces. Realizing the inferior quality of the rebel troops, he organized a 'godly' regiment – the 'Ironsides'. The Ironsides were men of strong convictions who fought with religious enthusiasm.

After the Civil War and the execution of King Charles I, Cromwell became first chairman of the new republic. He suppressed an insurrection in (1650) with a severity remembered by the Irish Catholics with bitterness. In the same year he defeated a Royalist army in , and he fought the Dutch in several naval battles. In 1653 Cromwell dissolved Parliament and he became Lord Protector of the new puritanical republic. As Lord Protector he concluded the Anglo-Dutch War, sent an expeditionary force to the Spanish West Indies and destroyed the Spanish fleet at . In the fall of 1658 Cromwell died, and fell away from his attempt to realize a puritanical commonwealth of free men.

One of the winning students asked me the following questions:

Q: What nationality is he or she?

A: He is British.

Q: When did he live?

A: He lived in the 17th century.

Q- What is he famous for?

A: He was famous for his political career and his influence on the British history.

Q Was he popular during his life?

A: He was, in a way, but he was also a controversial figure. Did he accomplish his dream?

A: No, he didn’t.

Q: Is he Oliver Cromwell? A: Yes, he is.

Agatha Christie

(1890-1976)

Profession: Writer

English detective story writer

Born in Torquay, , as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller. Christie's second husband was the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowari, and she gained much material for her later novels during his excavations in the . An extraordinarily popular author, Christie wrote over 80 books, most of them featuring one of her two famous detectives; Hercule Poirot, an egotistical Belgian, and Miss Jane Marple, an elderly spinster.

Her novels, noted for their skillful plots, include The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920),The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Death on the Nile (1937), And Then There Were None (1940), Death Comes as the End (1945), Funerals Are Fatal (1953), The Pale Horse (1962), Passenger to Frankfurt (1970),Elephants Can Remember (1973), and Curtain (1975); her plays include The Mousetrap (1952), one of the longest-running plays in theatrical history, and Witness for the Prosecution (1954). Christie also published novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. She was named Dame Commander, Order of the , in 1971.

The other winning student didn't need as many questions as Andrei did; she identified the personality after only 4 questions:

Q: What nationality is he or she?

A: She is British.

Q: What profession did she have?

A: She was a writer.

Q- What kind of books did she write?

A: She wrote detective novels.

Q-Is she Agatha Christie?

A: Yes, she is. You won! Congratulations!

3. I divided my class into pairs and every pair began to work by asking questions for finding the personality his or her colleague thought of. They had to monitor the number of questions because the first two students to guess the personality with the minimum number of questions were to compete against each other at a later stage.

4. I went round to monitor their efforts and check that they understood what they had to do not interrupting the flow of conversation as mistakes occurred, so I made a note of them to correct them later.

Conclusion: My students enjoyed this game because they had the freedom to pick a personality and by reading about that personality, they had the chance to find out interesting and surprising facts. Because they had to find the answer as fast as possible, they concentrated on forming the questions quickly and precisely. In spite of the fact that they were under time pressure, they did not forget about grammar and its rules. They also had to use their logic and deduction.

Application 3

Vocabulary Game – Jigsaw Puzzle-8th grade-intermediate

Highlights: Vocabulary games focus on spelling and words as well as on forming general abilities such as: concentration, making associations and developing memory. Most of the difficulties in communication come from the lack of vocabulary; lexical limitations block the transmitter and the receiver of information, while grammar difficulties only affect the fluency of communication.

The role of vocabulary games is to avoid forgetting words already known. The multitude of possible associations, which comes from the rules of the game, allows efficient learning. Besides this, games are attractive activities for students. Developed at a quick pace, they produce students moments of excitement and mental exercise, without requiring a large amount of time.

Aim: Learners have to make their own jigsaw puzzle using vocabulary items they are familiar with and guessing the answers to their classmates’ puzzles testing their vocabulary knowledge to practice listening comprehension and making inferences.

Time: As students need at first to understand the purpose of this vocabulary game, some explanations and practice are required so the activity may well last 50 minutes.

Procedure:

1. As preparation for this game I wrote some key sentences on slips of paper. The object of this game is to put verbal clues together to solve a "puzzle". Basically, there are four key sentences per puzzle. Each sentence describes one aspect of a person, place, or thing.

2. I began by having the students solved several "jigsaw puzzles" as a group:

Answer: an egg.

Answer: a film.

3. Then, I divided the class into four teams of seven, telling each team to make their own "jigsaw puzzle". I recommended them to write no more than four quizzes, and instructed them to generally state the clues in order of most difficult to easiest, and told them not to make the puzzles too difficult to answer. Rather, the four clues should suggest the logical answer. Some of the puzzles they wrote were:

Answer: an iPod

Answer: George Bush

Answer: a clock

Answer: an ice cream

4. I checked each team's puzzle and made the necessary corrections where needed, before play began. Each team read one clue at a time at the regular pace and, the members of the other teams were supposed to write them down as they weren't too long and difficult to require dictation rhythm.

5. Then, when all the teams had read the first clue, as nobody solved any puzzle, the second clue was read aloud by each team. At the end of this turn, one of the teams guessed the puzzle with the American president. The fact that this team guessed one of the puzzles didn’t mean that they were out of the game and they continued to give their remaining clues until the other teams solved the puzzle, too. Two teams guessed the i Pod and the ice cream puzzles after the 3rd clue was read aloud. The last jigsaw, the clock one, was solved only after all the clues had been read. The winning team was given an extra puzzle to test their ability once more:

It has words.

It has no cohesion.

It is heavy.

It can teach you many things. What is it?

Answer: a dictionary

At the end of the game I read a long descriptive passage, this time only for listening practice:

It has many teeth though it cannot bite. It's sometimes greasy and sometimes clean. A lot of people carry it when they go out. It is used more in the morning than any other time of day. If you don't use it, your boss may get angry with you. Most people use it when they stand in front of the mirror. What is it?

Answer: a comb

Conclusion: This game can be played at the end of a unit which focuses on learning and/or revising (new) words, the teacher insisting on his or her students to use the definitions of the (new) words. Being also a game of listening for comprehension, I think that this activity rehearses the kinds of listening purposes and situations that students will experience outside the classroom. It helps develop good listening habits and strategies and also paying attention to what is being said. Being designed as a competition, the purpose of the listening motivated students to listen to carefully and to try to be the first. Because students had to come up with their own puzzles, this game also implies the use of imagination and creativity.

Application 4

Vocabulary game – Personality Bingo-9th grade- intermediate

For the 9th grade I also proposed a game aimed to practise vocabulary with descriptive adjectives and thus working to enrich students' word bank, in order to make them able to describe both the personality and appearance of any person. This game doesn't require any division of the class in groups and also any materials that is why it is a game that can be played at any time, focusing only on vocabulary and not on grammar structure or syntax.

First of all, I wrote the following list of occupations on the board: movie star, priest, politician, butler, flight attendant, farmer, and executive. For each occupation I elicited from the class personality characteristics associated with the occupational stereotype. I wrote each adjective on the board next to the occupation, adding it to the list only after an initial discussion about its appropriacy. Of course that some students came up with adjectives which were not typical for that certain occupation, or with words which were not familiar to all the students, so they had to have them explained.

The completed list of adjectives looked like the following:

Movie star: glamorous, wealthy, good-looking, sexy, ambitious, selfish, charming, irritable, energetic.

Priest: trustworthy, reliable, generous, unselfish, well-educated, strict, hard working, pious, patient.

Politician: ambitious, clever, wealthy, honest/dishonest, selfish/unselfish, outgoing, charming,

energetic.

: loyal, reliable, trustworthy, patient, unselfish, hard working, obedient, careful,

practical.

Flight attendant: patient, energetic, practical, outgoing, reliable, hard working, quick-thinking,

pretty.
Fanner: hard working, practical, reliable, unambitious, stolid, quiet, patient, steady, energetic.

Executive: loyal, reliable, ambitious, well-educated, intelligent, businesslike, practical, poised, urbane.

Next, I had each student draw a bingo grid with sixteen squares. Then I had them to choose random adjectives from the list on the board and write one in each square: each a different combination. One example is given below:

Then, I randomly chose a student and put him or her, to describe a personality type to whom one of the adjectives on his or her grid applies. For example, one student gave the following description:

This person doesn't tell the truth. He always lies. Some students identified the adjective corresponding to the description: dishonest.

This person doesn't like to share things. He wants everything only for himself. The corresponding adjective: selfish.

This person always gives good answers. He knows a lot of things. Students identified the word: intelligent.

When the students had guessed the correct adjective, those who had it on their grid crossed it off. We continued in this manner until one student crossed off four consecutive items, either vertically, diagonally, or horizontally. That student called out: "Personality Bingo!”

After the bingo game, I divided the students into two teams. I had each team recreate a new bingo grid. The teams began alternating giving hints about their grid and crossing off the guessed items until the other team got "bingo". Each team had to give the other as much help as possible. The play continued until both teams got "bingo".

Conclusion: A particularity of this game is the fact that it includes luck. Winning depends on the way in which each student builds up his or her grid. The second part of the game, the one developing in teams, is a noncompetitive one.

Application 5

Structured game – Relay Race-8th grade-intermediate

In order to support the exercises in Unit 8 of Snapshot – intermediate (for the 8th grade) I decided to end one of my lessons with a game which is, in fact, a complex activity, because it is a mixture of vocabulary, grammar and syntax. The goal of the game is to practise structure, to complete sentences and to revise quantifiers and their use in positive, interrogative and negative sentences. The materials we needed were slips of paper with blocks of sentences previously paired (Annexes 2). The sentence slips contained the first and second halves of sentences, the first half of each sentence only combined with one second half. The sentences contained quantifiers used in all their aspects (positive, negative and interrogative).

I decided that the best way to play the game was to divide my class into groups of eight players except for one class member who was named to judge whether the sentence was correct or not. Then, I called four members of one group to the front. I positioned that group of four against one wall while the other half of the group stood in the middle of the room. The players against the wall received the slips of paper with the first half of sentences and those in the middle slips with second halves. At my signal, students standing against the wall ran to the middle of the class, attempting to find players who have the slips of paper which complete their sentences. As each pair found its matching slip, the player from the group standing against the wall passed his or her slip to the student from the group in the middle of the room. This student then ran and touched the far wall. The first student from the second group to touch the far wall, while holding two slips containing a correctly completed sentence received one point, so did the partner. In order to obtain that point, the students read their sentences aloud.

The same procedure was repeated with all the students from all the groups until the entire class participated in the game. Obviously, some of the students picked up the wrong matching sentence so, when they reached the far wall and read the sentence aloud, the judge (accompanied by me) decided that it wasn't the correct one and eliminated them. At the end of each race, I had the runners read the sentences to the class again and, with the entire class, we wrote down the correct complete sentences. In the end I listed the names of winning team members on the blackboard.

Conclusion: This activity is a genuine game because it involves both competition and physical movement. The idea of race itself motivates students and they don't see the game as an English class exercise but as a real competition and therefore being stimulated to use their English without any constraints. This is also a good opportunity to revise the use of quantifiers in a more free way, which are a constant threat to their accuracy of language.

Application 6

A maze-9th grade-intermediate

One of the most fascinating communicative activities that my students enjoy when reviewing and reinforcing conditionals is this maze introduced in New Headway intermediate (by Liz & John Soars, OUP, 1996).Following some grammar practice on conditionals and a reading activity on winning money in the Lottery and its consequences on several people, this maze comes to round up students’ use of conditionals in a much more enjoyable and stress-free way.

Highlights: Mazes should generate a lot of speaking as students try to argue about what is best to do. With some groups, however, they will agree to go in one direction without talking about it. Hopefully, they will soon get the idea that the maze isn't at all serious.

Aim: to speak English in real and hypothetical ways using conditionals.

Estimated time: As it is a rather complex activity they will need 50 minutes

Procedure:

1. We read the introduction as a class.

2. I photocopied the maze cards on page 124-32 of this Teacher's Book. I sticked them onto some cards so that they last longer. (Annex 2)

3. We read card number 1 in the Student's Book. I made sure that students knew what they had to do.

4. I put students to work in groups of four making sure that the more lively students are not in the same group as this activity should be a lot of fun.

5. I gave the groups the cards reminding them that they should spend their money wisely making the right choices.

6. I went round to monitor their efforts and check that they understood what they had to do not interrupting the flow of conversation as mistakes occurred, so I made a note of them to correct them later but if students asked me I reminded them once again the rules of forming conditionals as they had to speculate a lot so obviously letting them go on making mistake after mistake would have ruined the aim of the maze.

7. According to the commitment and the interest, different groups finished at different times. If students seemed interested in the activity, they could go back and start again wherever they liked – at the beginning, or at a point where they had to make an interesting decision. There were about sixteen different endings, so students could go down a completely different route and make completely different decisions.

8. When they all came to the end, I asked the groups to report to everyone where their decisions took them, and how their maze ended. The full class feedback was a good opportunity for me to check if they had been forming conditionals correctly and I provided a quick review of the way they should build conditional clauses.

Evaluation: Walking around the room observing learners during the activity let me know how well individual learners use and understand English in the activity and particularly the conditionals.

Conclusion: Students had a great time solving this maze; the way they made their decisions forced them to go down a completely different route but they had the opportunity to start the maze again and change their options which actually generated a lot of speech, speculating on the situations using conditionals of different types.

Application 7

Information Gap Activity& Role-play-10th grade-upper-intermediate

Highlights: In this activity two learners share information to complete a task. In one-way gap activities, one learner has all the information (e.g., one learner describes a picture and the other learner draws it). In two-way gap activities, both learners have some information and must share it with the other to complete the task. Because this activity usually combines speaking and listening with reading and writing, all the skills are practiced. The teacher prepares a master handout based on information, language structures, and vocabulary the students have been working on. Then, the teacher deletes pieces of information on two sets of handouts. For example, Handout "A" will have some information deleted that handout "B" will provide. Handout "B" will have other pieces of information deleted that handout "A" will provide.

Objective: Learners find and share information by asking and answering questions in order to complete a task.

Context: This activity is taken from New Headway- upper intermediate( Unit 2, page 18, activities 3 &4) and it can be used as a follow-up activity to revise all English tenses both interrogative and affirmative forms, as well as question words with upper-intermediate students. It is a complex activity whose aim is to form questions and to exchange information and moreover it is built to be continued with a role-play.

Estimated time: The time varies, but usually ranges between 20 and 30 minutes for the information completion and 15-20 minutes for the interviews.

Materials: Students will have to find out information about a large international company Virgo, therefore I photocopied information sheets about this company for Student A and Student B. Students will not have the same information as their partners and in order to complete it they will have to ask and answer questions That is why it is important that students are completely sure of what they are expected to do.

Procedure:

1. I cleared up all the unknown vocabulary items that could have prevented students from understanding the two texts.

2. I divided the class into two groups, Group A and Group B and gave out the appropriate Virgo text.

3. I read through the instructions with the whole class.

Student A Student B

Originally, Virgo sold records. The company Originally, Virgo sold records. The

was founded in….(When?)The chairman and company was founded in 1980. The

owner of Virgo, Jimmy Kramer, opened his chairman and owner of Virgo, opened

first record shop in . his first record shop his first record shop

in….(Where?)

4. I explained the information-gap procedures by modeling a sample gap activity with an able volunteer from the class.

5. I made it clear that students had to take turns to ask questions to fill the gaps in the text.

6. I asked students to spend a few minutes reading through their text and preparing their questions. One learner in each pair gets Handout "A" and the other gets Handout "B".I told students that the As would ask all the odd number questions, and the Bs all the even numbers. I asked two learners to model the asking and answering of questions in the gap activity before the whole class begins the activity.

7. I went round to monitor their efforts and check that they understood what they had to do correcting and explaining once again how questions were formed whenever it was necessary.

8. When they finished, I asked learners to compare their papers with each other then conducted a full class feedback and asked for the questions again to check if they had been forming them correctly.

9. To complete the activity as a whole group, I asked volunteers to come up to the board to fill in information they had gathered from their partner. This helps solidify the knowledge and gives some slower learners or pairs a chance to catch up and check their work without stress.

10. I also noticed that some pairs hesitated when forming the interrogative for the Past Simple and Present Simple so I outlined the correct way of building questions with the Past Simple and the Present Simple.

e.g. →What did he buy in 1992?

→How many people does he employ?

Evaluation: Walking around the room observing learners during the activity let me know how well individual learners use and understand English in the activity.

Extension activities: We had a role play as a continuation of this information-gap activity. The class stayed in its two groups.

Role-play

Procedure:

1. I told Group A that they were journalists and they were going to interview Jimmy Kramer about his Virgo group. Group B were ‘Jimmy Kramers”.

2. I gave out the appropriate sheet to each member of the two groups and asked them to work together to prepare for the interview

3. I allowed them 5 minutes to do this then asked each A to find a B and start the interview with words suggested in the Student’s Book but I also told them to use their imagination in case they did not have on their information sheet everything they were interviewed about..

4. I went round and monitored how they were doing. Not only did they ask and answer questions from their sheets, but they also let their imagination free and invented a lot of other interesting and funny facts about Jimmy Kramer and the Virgo Company.

5. I rounded off the activity by asking two ‘reporters’ to tell the class what they found out about Jimmy Kramer. By adding new facts about Jimmy, which were not on the information sheets, the two students almost draw different portraits of Kramer.

Version A: Jimmy Kramer is a serious businessman who runs a big company that employs over 22.000 people. His company is called "Virgo Group" and he intends to move the company into financial services, business loans and insurance. He is 48. He is a married man, the father of two children. In spite of loving adventure, his dream is to take up gardening and grow his own vegetables. Jimmy plays tennis and cricket and thinks these are the most challenging games ever. He didn’t graduate from university but he loved studying and his favourite subject was geography.

Version B: Jimmy Kramer is a middle-aged man who loves adventure. He climbed and and his dream is to climb three more important peaks until he is 60. Kramer is the chairman and owner of "Virgo Group", a company founded in 1980 that initially sold records. His main purpose is to develop his company into a large media trust. He is married to Penny, his second wife and he has got two children, Sally and Ben. He would like to teach his own son how to fly a helicopter, the same as his father had taught him. His favourite activity is chess and he says he also likes tennis, but only when winning.

The information sheets I used did not limit my students' imagination but they set some definite points to be covered in the interview. I constantly outlined the fact that they were supposed to act as they would do during a real interview and told them that the role-play requires the exchange of information in a lively manner, rather than in a dull one. Because special attention needed to be paid to the correct use of tenses in the questions and to syntax, I took the liberty to immediately correct the errors I spotted.

Conclusion: The discussion after completing the role-play was both instructive and entertaining. The class was given a chance to hear once again all the correct questions and answers and, at the same time, my students were amused to compare the different versions of Kramer’s profile. The information gap and the subsequent role-play were very useful for my students because they required pair work, information exchanges and a lot of fun pretending and imagining that they are reporters or company owners. Practising asking questions and answering them in this manner shifted the focus of their attention from pure exercise-like grammar to something more challenging and authentic.

Application 8

Simulation- An advertising campaign-11th grade-advanced

Highlights: Students 'simulate' a real-life encounter (such as a business meeting, an encounter in an airplane cabin, or an interview) as if they were doing so in the real world taking on the role of a character different from themselves or with thoughts and feelings they do not necessarily share. Simulation and role-play can be used to encourage general oral fluency, or to train students for specific situations especially where they are studying . For a simulation to work it must, according to Ken Jones, have the following characteristics:

*   There needs to be a reality of function: the students must not think of themselves as students, but as real participants in the situation.

*   A simulated environment: the teacher says that the classroom is an airport check-in area, for example.

*   Structure: students must see how the activity is constructed and they must be given the necessary information to carry out the simulation effectively.

Aim: Learners learn how to plan an advertising campaign

Time: The time varies, but usually ranges between 20 and 30 minutes to make the proposals and 15-20 minutes for the presentations.

Context: This activity is taken from New Headway advanced (by Liz & John Soars, Mike Sayer, OUP, 2003) and it is an extended role-play that is why it requires the preparation of roles and ideas. Students may already be familiar with the topic of advertisements and advertising in general but they will certainly have no ideas about how to relaunch a certain product. It will certainly generate a lot of speaking, ideas, discussions and arguments so students will enjoy ‘working’ in the advertising industry.

Procedure:

1. As a lead-in, I brought in a chocolate bar ( Poiana) and told students that it was time to relaunch it because sales were falling. I eliciting suggestions from the students of how they could relaunch it: change the name, add something new to the name, change the packaging, add more flavour, change the advertising to target a different age group, drop the price, make a discount, increase the quantity etc.

2. I divided the students into groups of six. Then we read through the introduction as a class.

3. I asked students to look at the chart, which showed them how to structure their answer. In order that they understood better I referred to the information in the chart, delivering a short ‘business-like’ presentation, using business presentation phrases such as We feel that…, It is vital that we…, Let’s move on to…, Let’s turn to…, Firstly…, Secondly…, To sum up…I had also photocopied a mini guide ‘How to make a presentation’ (Annex 3) so I gave students one to use it as support for their own presentations.

4. Then I nominated roles and asked the students to decide who was going to take which role, appointing one student in each group to be secretary as it is their job to copy the model chart and complete it with ideas from their discussion.

5. I gave students their role cards and asked them to look at them and then plan the campaign.

6. I told students that they had 15-20 minutes, though they needed almost 30 minutes to complete their task.

7. I went round the class, from one group to another, monitoring their discussions, listening carefully and noting any interesting errors made by the students. When mistakes prevented the understanding of a point students wanted to make I prompted the correct way by asking appropriate questions or phrases.

8. When all groups finally ended, I asked one volunteer student from each group to present their group’s proposals.

9. I invited students to make comments and to vote for the best presentation as well as to express their own opinions on the role of advertising in our lives.

Evaluation: While students were intensively working in groups to prepare their relaunch suggestion, I walked from group to group, monitoring their discussions, the language and structures they were using, making corrections on the spot only when I felt they could not make their ideas comprehensible. The new identities and the proposals students had to prepare generated a lot of talk, sometimes groups having difficulties reaching an agreement or deciding on the right moves. Students enjoyed the activity and the presentations they delivered at the end were excellent.

Conclusion: The discussion while completing the role-play was both instructive and entertaining, students really like pretending they were working in the advertisement industry and they had the’ power’ to change a certain market product. The students were given a chance to learn how to make a good business-like presentation and the group work was very useful for my students because they required persuasion, determination, information exchanges, imagination, creativity and a lot of fun pretending and imagining that they were actually trying to make something work again.

Application 9

Prediction game-dillema!-11th grade-advanced

How well do you know your classmates?

Highlights: The simulated game is an organized situational pattern, whose structure is given by the rules which define all the relationships among the participants. The main obligation of the players is the exact following of the rules. The general pattern of the simulated game is generated by factors such as: the structure of the actions done by the players or determined by hazard, possible absence of information, the importance of reward. They are games in which the actions done by participants are similar to acts which people do in real situations, involving a wide range of abilities and skills.

Aim: The aim of this activity is to encourage lots of speaking in a competitive group game.

Time: 40-50 minutes

Context: This activity is taken from New Headway advanced (by Liz & John Soars, Mike Sayer, OUP, 2003) and includes the use of the second conditional, which can be revised here in preparation for the contrast of would for fact and non-fact as well as the use of some modals that have been practiced in this unit such as might, could etc.

Procedure:

1. Before the class I photocopied and cut up the situation cards (Annex 4)

2. I divided the class into groups of five, then I handed each group at first ten different cards.

3. I asked students to read through the instructions and their cards, monitoring each group and making sure they all knew what they were doing.

4. I also modeled an example by saying: Imagine I have the card about the taxi driver. I choose Maria .I think Maria would take the money to the police station, So I write, Maria would take the money to the police station. When it is my turn to speak, I read the card to Maria and she has to tell me what she would do. If she says what I have written, I score the point. If she says something different, I can challenge her by saying how I think she would react, and giving evidence to prove my point.

5. I asked students to sit so they could see each other and I appointed one to begin.

6. I moved from one group to another monitoring their work and helping students decide if they won a point or not, reminding them to write it on a piece of paper as the winner was the group that scored most points..

Evaluation: In competition games students always want to win and they do their best so while monitoring their work I also noticed students who didn’t like losing points and wanted to argue with their classmates but after explaining once again that the key to winning this game was to think about the way their classmates were, behaved , they played well. The majority of the actual speaking came when the questioner challenged the person who had said what he/she would do. After finishing the game they were quite surprised that they didn’t know most of their classmates as well as they initially thought.

Conclusion: Competitive games highlight the students’ ambition, determination and willingness to be the best. This prediction game demonstrated students how well they know each other and also taught them thing they did not know before. Students enjoyed discovering their classmates’ personality and winning was part of the process.

Application 10

Class Survey- EATING HABITS- 10th grade upper- intermediate

Highlights: A class survey responds to several aims. Firstly it provides practice in free but purposeful interaction with both the teacher and with other students, encouraging socialization and active participation in a lesson. The ability to initiate and structure short conversations is also central. The survey can also provide practice of a more structured nature in important language such as the language of direct and indirect questions and in important skills such as report writing. A more general educational aim is to provide students with personal experience in using a simple form of a common academic tool.

Objective: Learners gather information about a particular topic. They increase proficiency and confidence in asking one or more questions at the same time as they are increasing graphic literacy skills.

Context: This class survey activity is especially useful for beginning levels because not much information needs to be asked or recorded and only one or two questions and answers need to be learned. Surveys can be used with higher levels if more complex questions and answers are required.

Estimated time: Time varies according to how much information is gathered. The time to do the survey will vary according to how many learners there are in the class, and how long it takes for the task achievement.

Materials: The teacher needs to make a survey form so learners can easily ask the question or questions and record answers. If the information is going to be gathered into a simple bar graph or pie chart, or recorded on flip chart paper, this needs to be ready in advance.

Potential problems: Surveys require students to socialise and circulate freely around the classroom – not recommended in a class that is difficult to control. Considerable management is needed to get students to cooperate sufficiently to make a survey worthwhile. It also requires a lot of time, at least one hour, so it has to prove itself before it becomes a regular activity.

Procedure:

STAGE 1

The teacher introduces the task and helps students prepare. At this stage the teacher is probably controlling all student actions from the front of the class. Some kind of sheet like the one provided below is recommended to provide a focus for preparation. The teacher can then demonstrate possible survey questions to students in the whole-class session and get students to demonstrate their questions in interaction with the teacher. There is also a pre-survey option of drilling the language that is likely to be needed or providing language support handouts. (See "Asking Questions" below.) It is assumed that the vocabulary of the topic itself has been introduced elsewhere as it is probably the topic of a unit which has been studied during previous lessons. Going into a survey "cold" is not recommended. Varying combinations of reading texts, listening exercises, teacher-led introductions or discussion, pair/group exercises will normally already have established a topic.

STAGE 2

Students and teacher circulate freely round the class doing the survey, providing a rare opportunity for one-to-one interaction of a more equal nature between the teacher and a lot of students. In this way the teacher will also become aware of any problems. More controlled formulas for student movement can also be set up with difficult classes. While conversations are relatively spontaneous, a survey also requires repetition practice of the same structures (the same questions are repeated in each conversation) in a more natural context than a traditional drill activity. They also often tend to require follow-up questions and questions asking for clarification if the survey is to be done well.

STAGE 3

Students return to their seats to prepare their report. The teacher can demonstrate by giving a report from his/her own survey and can then assist students in preparing their report notes.

STAGE 4

Several students report back to the whole class. The teacher can intervene here to correct language or suggest improvements to the report. An optional fifth stage is to ask students to write up their reports as homework.

Class Survey Report Sheet

Evaluation: Circulate and listen to the questions and answers. Collect the information sheets to look for writing issues.

Language support- Asking questions in a Survey

During your surveys, it will be important for teacher and students to ask questions. Make students notice the different grammar and when to use each kind.

Type one: Polite Questions. You could use this kind of question to start your survey, or to ask a "delicate" or personal question.

Examples:
Would you mind telling me …..?

Could you explain a bit more please?

Could you tell me…?

Type two: "" (neutral) questions. (Use this kind for your second or third questions when you just need information.)

Examples:
How did you…..?

How many times a day/ week do you…?

Type three: Short questions: (Use these to avoid repeating the whole question, which sounds unnatural.)

Sample Conversation.

I'm doing a survey about eating habits. Could I ask you if you eat healthy?

Yes, I do. I eat lots of vegetables and fruit and I hardly ever eat meat. How about you?

Yes, I also eat vegetables but I don’t like fruit. I love steaks.

First, would you mind telling me how often do you eat fast food?

I eat fast food every time I am out with my friend, that is every weekend.

What exactly do you eat?

I usually order hot-dogs because they are cheaper but occasionally I also like pizza.

Useful Grammar.

Normal Questions. Check the word order.

Polite (indirect) Questions. Notice the different word order.

Reported Questions:
After your survey, you will have to make a report for the class. Make students aware of the differences between the question and the report of the question in these examples.

Examples.
Question – Would you mind telling me how often you eat green vegetables and when did you last eat green vegetables?
Report – During my survey, I asked ten students how often they ate green vegetables and when they last ate green vegetables.

Question – How healthy are your eating habits?
Report – I wanted to know how healthy my class's eating habits were.

CONCLUSIONS

This research paper whose aim is the role of communicative activities in English language teaching, first of all needs to be well scientifically documented and secondly backed up by the practical applications it proposes, which focus on the methodology of language teaching and learning.

Learning English is an intense experience, requiring a lot of concentration. There will inevitably be times when students lack energy, feel pressurized, or have reached saturation point; when they need warming up, cooling down or a break in the rhythm. When students come into their first lesson in the morning their energy level will be low. They may be half awake, their mind may be full of last night's problems or a row they had at breakfast, they may not have spoken English since you last saw them. It is important to begin the morning with a short, not-too-demanding activity which will energize people and put them in the mood for learning.

At the end of a lesson, and particularly at the end of a morning or afternoon, some time needs to be spent on the opposite process: cooling down. Lessons often end very abruptly with the teacher realising that there isn't time for everything on the lesson plan, breaking off an activity as the bell rings, and hurriedly setting homework. If two or three lessons end like this in the same morning, the effect on the students can be to make them feel hurried and under pressure. It is important to give students time to reflect on what they have done and what they have learned during the day. The students need to somehow summarise the content of the lesson and see its relevance to themselves.

In the middle of a morning or afternoon, halfway through a lesson, or after a difficult activity or one requiring a lot of concentration, it is important to give students a break. Students may also welcome this as a short respite from the group: a short individual breathing space. Such breaks should be non-verbal.

A week and a semester will have their own rhythms, too, similar to those of a lesson or a day. Monday morning is notorious, and if you can spare the time, it is worth devoting the lessons on Mondays to positive, group-forming, energising activities. The end of a week, like the end of a lesson, is a time for cooling down, for taking stock of what has been previously achieved, and clarifying goals for the next week. The middle of a semester is often a period where students experience a slump. They may become bored with routine, or depressed because they feel that they are not absorbing new language anymore or working as well as they did at the beginning. If there doesn't exist a half-semester break, the middle of the semester is the perfect time for a few classes of completely different activities. Mini-projects would both provide a break in routine and give the group a sense of solidarity and achievement – something they strongly need if they are going through a mid-semester slump.

Communicative activities enable teachers to adjust their teaching material, style and mood to the very needs and interests of students, making their common activities as efficient and effective as possible. These communicative tasks allow the practice of grammatical structures and clearly defined lexical fields. Starting from this point, this paper focuses first of all on theoretical issues: the theories of language learning, the definition and classification of communicative activities, the concept of classroom dynamics and the idea of forming a communicative classroom with successful well-formed pairs or groups. It also proposes a wide range of activities through which the teacher can diversify and enhance his or her teaching strategy. The fact that I chose those certain activities doesn't mean that they are the best or that they are the only ones. There are always opportunities of developing new activities or adapting the existing ones to the particularities and the needs of a specific classroom. By employing communicative activities the teacher doesn't take the risk of dealing with a bored audience as it may happen when following a traditional approach. Games, role-plays, simulations have the ability to actively involve the entire class and therefore stimulate it during the English language acquiring process.

Only by knowing the dynamics of a classroom and developing its communicative capacities, can the teacher decide when and how to play with his or her students. The teacher's job is not only to teach efficiently, he or she also needs to pay attention to group processes. The way students in the class relate to each other is the teacher's business, and whether the class gets on with each other or not is also his or her concern. The teacher's role goes beyond transmitting content and form; he/she needs to be an observer and a negotiator between the factions that divide the class. Students’ expectations, frustrations, likes and dislikes can at times sabotage the fluency of a communicative activity whose primary goal is to encourage cooperation and change it into a competition due to the students’ feelings of territoriality and the wish to stand out.

Students need to be prepared for the outside world; therefore role-plays or problem-solving situations, which are based on authentic material, help them achieve the practical, efficient skills they will need in real life. Games and all the features they include (organisation, attention, commitment,) make the rigid, unpleasant grammar or lexical item turn into an adventurous, challenging competition or cooperation task, whose completion brings students joy and happiness. Projects are even more challenging as they combine the language ability with other skills students have. They are much more demanding and creative, sometimes time and energy-consuming but the final product gives students much more satisfactions than simply writing an essay on a certain topic.

I have also studied the presence of communicative activities in different alternative course books and in the syllabus, in order to have a better perspective upon the degree in which these activities are applied and the functions of language they refer to as well as the authors’ perspective and view when writing communicative activities with clear educational intentions.

Because the practical aspect is very important, this paper proposes some of the activities which I found interesting and useful during my teaching experience and students had a great time doing.

To conclude with, the inclusion of communicative activities as an integral part of any language syllabus provides an opportunity for intensive language practice, offers authentic contexts in which language is used meaningfully and as a means to an end, and acts as diagnostic tool for the teacher, highlighting areas of difficulty. Last, but certainly not least, although my analysis focuses on both methodological and practical considerations, I am aware that one of the most important reasons for using communicative activities is simply that they are immensely enjoyable for both teacher and student.

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DICTIONARIES

The New Dictionary of English, OUP, , 1988

DOCUMENTS

***The National Curriculum, Syllabus for the 3rd – 4th grades, Language and Communication, English Language and Literature, M.E.C., Bucharest 2005.

***The National Curriculum, Syllabus for the 5th – 8th grades, Language and Communication, English Language and Literature, M.E.C., Bucharest 2005.

***The National Curriculum, Syllabus for the 9th – 10th grades, Language and Communication, English Language and Literature, M.E.C., Bucharest 2005.

***The National Curriculum, Syllabus for the 11th – 12th grades, Language and Communication, English Language and Literature, M.E.C., Bucharest 2005.

TEXTBOOKS

Abbs B., A.Worrall, and A.Ward- Splash – 3rd grade, Longman,, 1997.

Abbs B., A. Worrall, and A. Ward- Splash – 4th grade, Longman,, 1998.

Acklam, R. and A.Crace -Going for gold upper-intermediate- 10th grade, Longman, Edinburgh, 2003.

Ellis, P. and M. Bowen- WayAhead 1, Macmillan , București, 2005.

Ellis, P. and M. Bowen, with I.Buciu- WayAhead 2, Macmillan , București,, 2006.

Evans, V. and J.Dooley -Upstream intermediate 9th grade, Express Publishing,, 2002.

Evans,V. and B.Obee -Upstream-upper intermediate-10thgrade, Express Publishing, , 2003.

Evans,V. and L. Edwards- Upstream – advanced- 11th -12th grade, Express Publishing, Oxford, 2003.

Granger C., and D.Beaumont -Generation 2000 –Level 1- 5th grade, Macmillan,, 1998.

Granger C, Beaumont D., and G.Pritchard -Generation 2000 –Level 2-6th grade, Macmillan,, 1998.

Granger C., D. Beaumont and D.Sawer -Generation 2000 level 3, Macmillan,, 1998.

Granger C., D.Beaumont and D.Sawer -Reward intermediate-8th grade, Macmillan,,1999.

Linley F., B.Abbs, C.Barker and I.Freebairn- Snapshot Starter-5th grade, Longman,, 2001.

Linley F., B.Abbs, C.Barker and I.Freebairn -Snapshot Elementary-6th grade, Longman, Harlow, 2000.

Linley F., B.Abbs, C. Barker and I. Freebairn -The Snapshot pre-intermediate-7th grade, Longman, Harlow, 2001.

Linley F., B.Abbs, C.Barker and I.Freebairn -Snapshot intermediate-8th grade, Longman, , 2001.

Soars, L. and J. -New Headway intermediate 9th grade, OUP, , 1996.

Soars, L. and J. -New Headway – upper intermediate -10th grade, OUP, 1996.

Soars, L. and J. -New Headway – advanced -11th – 12th grade, OUP, 1997.

Wyatt, R. with J.Newbrook and J.Wilson- New First Certificate Gold-10th grade, Longman, , 2004

ANNEXES:

Annex 1:

:

Annex 3

Annex 4