Noel Houck Cal Poly

Donna Tatsuki KCUFS

7 Ways to Get Your Students Talking in the EFL Classroom

Poll 1 Which of the following is your main concern:

 Producing intelligible speech  Using conventional expressions  Speaking for special purposes  Engaging in conversations  Giving presentations  Other

7 Ways to Get Students Speaking  1. Say Something – Anything! Repeat it  2. Say Something – Anything! Memorize and produce it  3. Say Something Meaningful – but keep it short

 4. Say Something Meaningful – to other students  5. Say Something Meaningful – but say it accurately.  6. Say Something Meaningful – but say it fluently.  7. Say Something Meaningful – to an L2 speaker.

Embed Activities in a Pre-Post Activity Sequence

 Pre Activity Preparation  Vocabulary  Grammar focus (if F on F)  Activate schema

 Post Activity  Reporting  Turn in activity sheet  Teacher or peer feedback

1. Say Something – Anything! Repeat it! Goal: Students become used to producing chunks of language  Repeat in chorus

 *Backwards build up  Repeat after Teacher  Left side, right side  Unison

 Sing Songs, Recite poems, Perform chants  Read aloud

 Unison  Sequentially

Example: Backwards Build up Tonight.

Dinner tonight. For dinner tonight.

Go for dinner tonight. Want to go for dinner tonight.

You want to go for dinner tonight. Do you want to go for dinner tonight?

Where do you want to go for dinner tonight?

How about the new Thai restaurant? I hear it is expensive. No problem. My treat.

2. Say Something – Anything Memorize it! Goal: Students produce longer chunks of language  *Read and look up  *Talking circle

 Recitations  Poems  Slogans  Jokes

Read and Look Up (Bresnihan) Example: Dialogues (Rainy Weather)

Situation: You walk into a store to get out of the rain, and you see your partner

Situation: You are standing in a store, waiting for it to stop raining so hard. Your partner comes into the store.

A 1. What a day! It looks like it’s never

going to stop raining. 3. a. No, the forecast this morning said

we’ll have at least 3 more days of it. b. Around this time of year it does.

Sometimes you think it will never stop.

5. a. Really? It doesn’t rain much where you come from, huh?

b. Really? It rained like this all the time there, huh?

B 2. a. It looks like it will never stop, doesn’t

it? b. Yeah, I’ve never seen so much rain.

Does it rain like this all the time here? 4. a. I’m glad to hear that. It’d be awful if it

went on day after day. b. Boy, I don’t see how you stand it. We

never have anything like this at home. 6. a. Nope. You get more rain in a week here

than we get in a year at home. b. Yeah. And I forgot my umbrella, too.

Ex: Talking Circle – Survey Activities (Bresnihan)

Find someone who… --likes windsurfing --has been to Hawaii --was born in January Ask someone… --What is your favorite color? --What did you eat for breakfast? --What is your ideal vacation?

3. Say Something Meaningful – but keep it short Goal: Students respond to meaningful questions

 *Short answers to personal questions  *Short answers to common conversational questions  *Short answers to story   Short suggestions during story

Short Answers to Teacher Questions  Example Questions Yes-No Questions 1. Is Srisucha wearing a red sweater? 2. Do you have a dog? 3. Have you ever eaten sushi? Wh-Questions 1. What’s Srisucha wearing? 2. Who in the class wears glasses? 3. What did you have for dinner last night? 4. What countries have you visited?

Short Answers (Wong & Waring, 2010)

 Teacher Questions - Student Answers 1. Q: How was your weekend? A: Great. Thanks. 2. Q: What did you do? A: Oh, I went to a party.

3. Q: Who did you go with? A: A couple of my friends. 4. Q: Where was the party? A: Just around the corner. 5. Q: How long has Jack been sick? A: A couple of months. 6. Q: Is he really going to lose his job? A: I think so.

7. Q: When did he find out? A: Yesterday.

Answer Questions on a Story: Dog Story (Byrne, 1967)

4. Say Something Meaningful - to other people (pair/group activities) Goal: Students interact with classmates to make decisions and

solve problems  Definition of Task

 Types of Tasks  *Jigsaw  *Info Gap (one picture)  Problem solving  Decision making  Opinion giving

Example: Jigsaw A & B (Bygate, 1987)

Example: Information Gap -The Kite (Yorkey, 1985)

Example: Tricky Info Gap City Tour A & B (Anderson & Lynch, 1988)

Example: Picture Order Story (Anderson & Lynch, 1988)

Poll #2  Which of these techniques do you already use?

 Repetition  Memorization  Meaning focused  Meaning with a focus on form  Fluency

5. Say Something Meaningful But say it right! Goal: Produce accurate speech (with a Focus on Form)  *Picture Description  *Picture Comparison Jigsaw

 *Picture Strip Jigsaw  *Form-Focused Story Questions  *Dictocomp

Example: Picture Description Present Progressive and Present Perfect

Example: Picture Comparison Jigsaw (Granger & Plumb, 1981) A B

Example: Picture Strip Jigsaw Stick Figures A (Palmer et al.)

●

Example: Picture Strip Jigsaw Stick Figures B (Palmer et al.)

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Form-Focused Story Questions 1.  What happened on the princess‘s birthday? 2.  Describe the princess‘s living situation. 3.  What happened to the ball one day? 4.  Where was the frog? What was the frog

doing?

Example: Dictocomp – San Francisco  1848 to 1880 was a time when San Francisco grew rapidly.

In 1848 its growth was stimulated by gold, which was discovered nearby. Soon afterwards, it became home to many Chinese, who were hired to build the railroad. The growth in population that had begun with the Gold Rush continued. By the 1880s San Francisco had been transformed from a small mining town into a major city that was respected for its economic and social life..

6. Say Something Meaningful But say it fluently

Goal: Produce a text with a minimum of pauses, false starts, etc.  *Taking turns naturally  *Strip story jigsaw  *60-second conversation  *Conversation jigsaw  Prepared speech  *4-3-2 (opportunities to repeat a story or short speech)

Example: Taking Turns Naturally (Carroll, 2011)

 Conversing about food preferences –example of a spontaneously produced, naturally timed conversation :

A: I like pepperoni pizza.

B: Oh, I love pepperoni pizza! C: I like ramen. What do you like? B: I like octopus sushi. C: Oh, me too! A: Eeew! Yuck!

Example: Strip Stories

Example: 60-second conversation  Sample Topics – for Japan (may vary according to on where

you are): skiing typhoons karaoke comic books baseball sushi cell phones Adele

Fluency Jigsaw – Sunny Weather (Palmer et al., 1985)

Situation A: Walking to school, you see your partner. You hurry to catch up.

Situation B: You are walking to school. Your partner catches up with you.

1. Sure is a great day, isn’t it? 3. a. Yeah, really. I don’t like

going to class on a day like this.

b. Oh, I’d say it’s at least seventy-five, maybe eighty degrees.

5. a. What do you think about? b. Well, I’d like to, but I really

think I’d better go to class?

2. a. I don’t know what you mean. This weather is beautiful!

b. Yeah. Makes you want to be outside, doesn’t it?

4. a. Oh, sitting under a tree with a good book.

b. Me neither. I keep looking out the window and daydreaming.

6. a. Oh, just about all the things I’d rather be doing.

b. Not me. I just get sleepy.

Example: Hat Story (Heaton, 1976)

Example: The Snake Story (Heaton, 1975)

7. Say Something Meaningful to an L2 Speaker Goal: Interact with speakers of the target language   Interviews (in and out of class)  Experiential tasks outside of class

 Model United Nations Simulations  Project work (data collection)

Thank You!!

Selected References (Pictures)   Anderson, A., & Lynch, T.(1988). Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press.   Tai City Tour, Jumbled Picture Story    Bygate, M. (1987). Speaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. – Jigsaw with faces    Byrne, Donn. (1967). Progressive Picture Compositions. Harlow: Longman    Carroll, D. (2011). Talking naturally. In N. Houck & D. Tatsuki (Eds.) Teaching natural

conversation. Arlington, VA: TESOL.    Granger, C., & Plumb, J. (1981). Play games with English, 2. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinmann. (photocopiable) – the memory pictures    Granger, C., & Plumb, J. (1981). Play games with English, 2. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinmann. (photocopiable) – the memory pictures    Heaton, J. (1975). Composition Through Pictures. Longman.    Heaton, J. (1976). Beginning Composition Through Pictures. Longman.    Hill, A.L. (1960). Picture Composition Book. Longman.    Palmer, A.., Rodgers, T., & Olsen, J. W-B., (1985). Back & Forth Hayward, CA:

Alemany Press. (photocopiable) – Rainy weather, Stick Pictures    Yorkey, R. (1985). Talk-a-Tivities. Addison Wesley. – Kite picture, strip story 

  Carroll, D. (2011). Taking turns and talking naturally: Teaching conversational turn-taking. Pragmatics: Teaching Natural conversation. Alexandria VA: TESOL.

  DeKeyser, Robert (Ed.). Practicing in a second language: Perspectives from applied linguistics and cognitive psychology. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

  Doughty, K., & Williams, J. (1998). Communicative focus on form. In C. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.). Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Gattegno, C. (1976). The Common Sense of Teaching Foreign Languages. New York: Educational Solutions.

  Ilson, R. (1962). The dictocomp: A specialized technique for controlling speech and writing in language learning. Language Learning, 12(4), 299-301.

  Krashen, S. & Terrell, T. (1983). Natural approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom. Oxford: Pergamon Press.   Maurice, K. (1983). The fluency workshop. TESOL Newsletter, 17, 429.   Nation, I.S.P. (1989). Improving speaking fluency. System 3, 377-384.   Pica, T., Kanagy, R., & Falodun, J. (1993). Choosing and using communication tasks for second language acquisition. In

G. Crookes & S. Gass (Eds.), Tasks and language learning: Integrating theory and practice (pp. 9–34). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

  Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97–114). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Toth, P.D. (2008).Teacher- and learner-led discourse in task-based grammar instruction: Providing procedural assistance for L2 morphosyntactic development. Language Learning 58(2), 237-283.

  West, M. P. (1941). Learning to read in a foreign language. London: Longman.   White, J. . Getting the learner's attention: a typographical input enhancement study. In C. Doughty & J. Williams

(Eds.). Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Gattegno, C. (1976). The Common Sense of Teaching Foreign Languages. New York: Educational Solutions.

  Willis, J. (1996). A framework for task-based learning. London: Longman.

Selected References (General)

Frog and Princess Story The Frog and the Princess Once upon a time there was a king.  He had a beautiful young daughter.  For her birthday, the king gave her a golden ball that she played

with every day.   The king and his daughter lived near a dark forest.  There was a deep well near the castle.  Sometimes the princess would sit by the well

and play with her ball.  One day, the princess threw her golden ball in the air, but it did not fall into her hands.  It fell into the well.  Splash!  The well was deep and the princess was sure she would never see her ball again.  So she cried and cried and could not stop.

“What is the matter?” said a voice behind her.  The girl looked around, and she saw a frog. He was in a well, his head sticking out of the water.

“Oh, it’s you,” said the girl.  “My ball fell into the well.” “I can help,” said the frog.  “I can get your ball.  What will you give me if I do?” “Whatever you want,” said the princess.  “I’ll give you my beautiful gold ring.  I’ll give you flowers from my garden.” “I do not want your beautiful gold ring or flowers from your garden,” said the frog.  But I would like to live with you and be your friend.” He continued, “I would like to eat from your dish and drink from your cup.  I would like to sleep on your bed.  If I get the ball, will you

promise me all this, Princess?” “Oh, yes,” said the princess.  “I’ll promise.”  But she thought, “Silly frog!  I could never live with him!” When the frog heard her promise, he went down into the well.  He soon came up with the golden ball in his mouth.  He put it at her feet. She was happy when she saw her ball.  She picked it up and ran away. “Wait,” cried the frog.  “Wait for me!  Take me with you!” But she did not listen.  She just ran home.  She soon forgot the poor frog. That night the princess was eating dinner when – plop-plop, plop-plop – something came climbing up the steps.  When it reached the

door, it knocked.  It cried out in a loud voice. “Daughter of the king, open the door for me.”

The princess ran to the door.  There was the frog, wet and green and cold!  She slammed the door in his face. The king saw that she was afraid. “My daughter, what are you afraid of?” he asked “It’s a fat, old frog,” said the princess.

And what does he want from you,” asked the king. The princess explained what had happened, how her ball had fallen into the well and the frog had brought it back to her; how she had

promised him he could be her friend; how she said he could eat from her dish and drink from her cup.  But she never thought he would leave his well.  She said she had even promised that he could sleep in her bed!