Listening and
understanding
Speaking
WRITTEN WORD
Reading and
understanding
Writing
This is a very general picture of language skills. It does not mean that skills are
separate and should be treated as such. Very often one skill cannot be performed without
another. Moreover, in order to use language skills, competent users need a number of subskills for processing the language that they use and are faced with. For instance, the way we
listen for general understanding will be different from the way we listen in order to extract
specific bits of information. The same is true for reading.
A great deal of what English teachers do in their classes can be considered
communicative, and their objective is to develop their pupils communicative competence. In
fact many teachers would probably say that they follow the Communicative Approach. They
might however find it difficult to say precisely what they mean by this, or to define
communication, as definitions can vary.
Linguistic competence is the ability to manipulate the system of the language.
Sociolinguistic competence is the awareness and ability to adapt all use of language to a
communicative context. In combination, these two competences can be said to form
communicative competence. Two other competences, strategic competence and discourse
competence, are also involved.
sociolinguistic
competence
communicative
competence
linguistic
competence
strategic
competence
discourse
competence
Language macrofunctions
The list is endless! However, there are six underlying functions of language (or
macro functions of language):
i)
directive: influencing other peoples behaviour (e.g. request for permission,
order, instructions)
ii)
descriptive: talking about the world, the past, etc.
iii) expressive: expressing emotions, imagination, opinions, etc.
iv) phatic: promoting human warmth (e.g., Its cold today, isnt it?)
v)
metalinguistic: talking about the language one is using (e.g. John is the subject
of the sentence).
vi) poetic: using language creatively (especially in literature and humour).
Each macro-function can be sub-divided into the functions we can identify in our
everyday interactions with people. The directive, descriptive, expressive and phatic macrofunctions and their many sub-divisions, are the most likely to be relevant to the average
general English pupil.
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Practice can be graded from very controlled to semi-controlled to freer practice. This
progression gives your pupils the chance to see when and how they need to use the target
items in real life and to become more independent language users. Some activities will be
accuracy based, i.e. aimed at the correct production of specific language, but as we move
along the continuum from controlled to free, there are increasing opportunities for the pupils
to practise and develop fluency. This will occur whenever they are more interested in the
content of what they are saying than in the forms they use, when they are engrossed in an
activity and concentrating on carrying out a task.
Generally speaking, the speaking practice activities that you organise will offer your
pupils the chance to both practise specific language items and develop the speaking skill
itself, which will be useful to them in communication.
If for example, your pupils are involved in an activity where they choose an
appropriate apology for a variety of situations, they will be practising both specific apologetic
formulae and will be making linguistic choices appropriate to context. In other words, you aim
at either accuracy or fluency or at some point along the continuum that connects them.
Accuracy
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Fluency
All these choices have implications on how the activity contributes to the pupils
overall speaking skill in all its various dimensions.
In the course of teaching both accuracy and fluency must be worked on and
developed, and must both be a part of your teaching at any level. In some activities, e.g.
semi-controlled practice, it may well be difficult to separate the two. It is however difficult to
work effectively on both at once. It will be helpful if you decide what the main priority is for
any given activity. Both advanced classes, which are already relatively fluent, and early levels
classes may need emphasis on accuracy work. Fluency activities may be graded to the
abilities of the pupils, both in terms of the level and amount of language needed to complete
the task and in terms of the amount of autonomy your pupils are able to cope with. What is
important, is to give all levels classes opportunities to use language creatively and for their
own purposes.
Whether an activity is accuracy or fluency-biased may not depend on the activity
itself, but on the way in which you set it up: are the pupils told to use particular language or
are they free to use any language at their disposal? Similarly, the kind of feedback you give
may determine whether the pupils see the activities in terms of accuracy or fluency.
Controlled practice activities
The aim of controlled practice activities is to provide practice in manipulating and
discriminating sounds, stress, intonation, formal components (e.g. word order) and in
reinforcing and discriminating meaning.
a) Repetition practice. A variety of drills may be employed at the controlled practice
stage of a lesson, usually starting with choral and individual repetition practice and then
extending into substitution drills, often followed by a question and answer drill.
Repetition and substitution practice is based on the model provided by the teacher.
The pupils repeat in chorus or individually the model given. In the substitution drills, you also
provide the new word.
What procedure would you use for a question and answer drill?
Compare your answer with the one suggested at the end of the unit.
b) Action chain / Chain drill. One way of ensuring a lot of question practice is to do
the drill as an action chain or chain drill. Pupils sit in a circle and P 1 asks P2, P2 asks P3, and
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so on. It is essential to set this up clearly, and it helps to keep all the prompt or picture cards
moving in the same direction.
c) Mingling activity. Another way of maximising practice is to extend the drill into a
mingling activity, where pupils walk around the class asking their questions to as many other
pupils as possible. This can also be a question and answer drill in which the pupils may
respond to written or picture prompts or, depending on the nature of the questions, may be
giving genuine (communicative) answers based on their own experience.
d) The Information Gap technique can be applied to question and answer
practice. If you ask the pupils to give answers based on their own experience (e.g. about their
likes or dislikes) there is a natural information gap as the questioner probably does not know
the answer. For other types of material the information gap may be supplied by the teacher.
Example
Pupils A and B have the same account of the life of Jim Walter, but each account has
different pieces of information blanked out. The target structures are Past Tense Simple and
wh- question forms. The level of study is elementary.
Pupil A
15 May 19, Jim Walter
was born in , Great Britain.
1977: He started school
1999: He married Ella Burns.
Pupils A has to ask:
What year was Jim Walter born?
Where was he born?, etc.
Existing materials can be easily adapted to make
out the material with gaps included.
th
Pupil B
15 May 1970, Jim Walter
was born in Brighton, .
19: He started school.
1999: He married, etc.
Pupil B has to ask:
When did he start school?
Who did he marry in 1999?, etc.
information gap material, by typing
th
Good morning.
Shopkeeper:
Good morning.
Customer:
Shopkeeper:
Certainly, sir.
Customer:
Shopkeeper:
Customer:
Thank you.
Once the dialogue is established, give each customer three other items to buy and
each shopkeeper three other prices.
How much drilling is advisable and when depends on the level of your pupils and the
nature of the language item (easy vs. difficult). In drilling, the language choice is kept to a
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minimum through the linguistic and situational limits set up by you. In this way the practice of
a particular rule can be focussed on. In controlled activities the primary aim is fluidity, i.e. the
rapid and accurate production of patterns or sentences. Within the limitations on choice,
some creativity and real communication are, however, possible.
Mechanical, meaningful and communicative drills
Many drills provide merely mechanical practice of form, but this is not true of all drills.
A drill is mechanical when the sentence(s) being practised have no context and the prompts
that generate the manipulations of form are provided at random either by the teacher or the
material (as in repetition, substitution and transformation drills). Such practice is useful in
promoting fluidity.
Meaningful drills provide both context, and the mechanical manipulation necessary
for accurate fluidity. Although designed for paired practice, they are not truly communicative
Why cannot meaningful drills be considered communicative?
Communicative drills, combine the mechanical practice and context principles, but
also add the information gap principle.
Meaningful and communicative drills and imposed dialogues can promote
reinforcement of meaning.
Controlled practice and pair work
Though many controlled practice activities are usually done with you as focus, most
can be extended into pairs practice to increase the amount of practice each individual pupil
gets. It may be necessary to demonstrate the activity in open pairs (i.e. across the class)
before letting pupils practise in closed pairs. This is particularly true of information gap
activities.
Personalisation of controlled practice activities
Even at the controlled stage of the lesson, you may allow your pupils some
opportunity to experiment with the language more freely and creatively. You may ask them,
for instance, to add their own examples at any stage in the controlled practice.
It is also common practice to include a personalisation stage towards the end of the
initial presentation stage, where the pupils relate the language they are learning to their own
lives and experience. For instance, if they have been working on there is / there are in the
context of rooms and furniture, they may at this stage describe their own rooms. Or; if the
structure is used to do they can talk about their childhood, education, former habits, etc.
Some structures, however, may be difficult to personalise. At the personalisation stage the
activity is usually quite short so as not to demand too much of the pupils.
Principles of controlled oral practice
Controlled oral practice is essential. Controlled refers to the control and limitation on
the range of language choice open to the pupils while practising, and not to the degree of
authority you impose on the class. It promotes fluidity with sounds and sound sequences,
with rhythm and intonation. It can also promote fluidity with stock phrases (e.g. How do you
do?, Do you mind if I...).
Controlled oral practice activities allow the pupils to experiment with a language
structure within a limited range of choice. At the same time, they give you the chance to
provide correction on grammar and phonology.
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4.2.2
The aim of less controlled practice activities is to offer either more pronunciation
practice or more practice of recently learned language. They provide context to reinforce the
meaning of recently learned language or in making linguistic choices. Thus the pupils may
become more linguistically independent.
Though some part of these activities will be teacher-centred (e.g. setting it up, drilling
for intonation, etc.) pair work is likely to play a great part in this stage of the lesson.
Correction in less controlled practice activities
Correction will still be necessary for target items, but your pupils may now be able to
correct each other to a large extent. You will still be needed for some correction (e.g.
intonation, pronunciation of lexical items not included in the controlled stages) and as a
resource for the language needed by individual pupils or groups.
Adapting controlled practice activities for less controlled practice
A number of activities used for controlled practice may be adapted for less controlled
practice. For example, an information gap may be based on a jigsaw reading. Thus it will
provide pupils with the opportunity to use target items in new contexts.
Similarly, dialogues may be handled in a less controlled way. Instead of using an
imposed dialogue, you may use a) a cued dialogue, b) a completion dialogue or c) an elicited
dialogue. These activities can be used to revise and consolidate structures, vocabulary, or
functional exponents, to give pupils an opportunity to practise making linguistic choices, to
help them assimilate new language into their existing pool or to develop their use of rhythm
and intonation.
Examples
a) Cued dialogues will be acted out.
Pupil A
You meet B in the street
Greet B
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Pupil B
You meet A in the street
Greet A
b) In a completion dialogue activity, half the pupils get one part of the dialogue,
the other half get the other part. In pairs or groups the pupils work out possible responses.
Then they re-form in new pairs so that the two roles interlock, and they read out the
utterances they have devised. The original prompt dialogues are set aside during this
interlock session. The ensuing dialogue is usually coherent and the pupils intrigued by their
own ingenuity.
Pupil A
Two sisters one has just arrived
home and looks ill.
Jenny: You look awful Sue!
Sue:
.
Jenny: What on earths the
matter?
Sue:
Pupil B
Two sisters - one has just arrived
home and looks ill.
Jenny:
..!
Sue: I feel awful.
Jenny:
?
Sue: Ive got a dreadful stomachache.
Jenny:
.?
Sue: No, nothing special, only that
Chinese meal last night.
Jenny:
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Games
Language games are an ideal activity for providing semi-controlled practice, as the
nature of the game tends to restrict the actual language used. Some games are so limited in
the language they require that they can be used for controlled practice e.g. Spot the invisible
fly, where you choose the location of the fly and the pupils guess, asking Is it on my nose /
in your bag / under the table? etc. The winning pupil chooses the next location.
Most games, however, allow for some choice in the language used. Playing the game
may lead naturally to the use of language items the pupils have not come across in other
classroom activities, but which may be useful to them in other circumstances. These phrases
may be pre-taught, or taught as they crop up in the game. (Pupils often, for example, want to
know the verb to cheat or the phrase Its your turn, etc.)
Depending on the way you set up the activity, some games may be adapted to
provide freer practice.
Example Alibi
Two pupils are accused of a crime that took place within a fixed period of several
hours the day before. They go out of the room and plot their joint alibi, while the police who
remain in the classroom prepare questions to ask them. The suspects are then questioned
one at a time and the police try to break their alibi. If you prompt, help or correct in the
preparation stage, the activity is semi-controlled. If, however, the class are left to their own
devices, the game allows for freer practice, as they can ask any questions they want.
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4.2.3
Freer Practice
The aims of these activities can be to increase the pupils ability to deal with the
unpredictable, to give them maximum opportunity for self-expression, for the exploitation of
their language resources and for the practice of their communicative skills. They encourage
pupils independence and risk-taking rather than risk-avoiding strategies. They give them
more practice in making linguistically and socially appropriate choices. Your role in such
activities is of advisor, facilitator, monitor, or guide.
At the freer stage, the pupils choice of language is not directly prompted by you.
The activities are likely to lead naturally to the production of the target language. However,
some teachers like to preface the activity with instructions like Try to use the language we
have been practising or Try to use the Past Perfect, etc. In general, the success or
otherwise of a free practice activity depends on how far the pupils get into the activity, and
this basically depends on a few factors.
What are, in your opinion, the factors that will determine the success of
a freer practice activity?
While many of the practice activities can be adapted for freer practice, certain
activities are particularly suited to this stage of the lesson.
a) Information gaps. If, for example, you are working on reported speech, you
might base your work on a jigsaw reading or listening. The pupils, in groups, could listen to a
number of candidates (no more than three) being interviewed for the same job and would
then re-group to choose the successful applicant. At this stage it would be natural for them to
use reported speech to pool their information. Similarly, the groups could read statements
made by witnesses of an accident (or suspects for a crime, etc.) and after re-grouping they
would decide who was responsible.
b) Problem solving. Information-gap activities involve the pupils in making a
decision. Thus their free speaking has a definite aim, and they have a task to complete. This
motivating principle can also be exploited in specific problem-solving activities.
Examples
i)
Tell the class Theres a dead man in the middle of a road with a pack on
his back. The class must find out what happened from you, but you can only answer
Yes or No. Thus the class will get a lot of practice in asking past simple questions.
[Answer: his parachute didnt open].
ii)
Survival problems. From a list of 20 items, the pupils choose six which
would help ensure their survival on a desert island or on the moon. If treated as
hypothetical questions, these will lead naturally to practising the Conditional II. If on
the other hand, the pupils are on a sinking ship, the Conditional I or will for
spontaneous decisions is more likely to occur.
c) Games. Though most games, by their very nature, imply some measure of
control, they may well allow the pupils a wide choice of language and may be very
appropriate as free stage activities. Alibi for example can easily be set up as a freer practice
of past tenses.
d) Discussions. A discussion will offer your pupils free practice in the language of
agreeing or disagreeing, but discussion topics can be chosen to lead naturally to a variety of
other language areas. Thus a discussion of the future of the world ecological problems is
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likely to involve future tenses, and Conditionals I and II. A discussion of the merits and
importance of past discoveries and inventions will lead to the use of the Conditional III.
These examples are more suitable for higher level pupils. For lower levels discussion
topics need to be carefully chosen to ensure that the pupils have sufficient language at their
disposal to express their views. Discussion is possible however with quite early levels if the
topic is geared to pupils personal knowledge and the vocabulary required is not too complex.
Discussions on different cultural customs, celebrations and common superstitions can prove
fruitful at quite early levels.
Some discussions may involve an element of role-play. The classic example is the
balloon debate where the members of the class represent famous people (or jobs /
professions) trapped in a balloon (or rocket or nuclear shelter) where resources will only
allow one to survive, so each must justify their own existence and talk the class round to
choosing them.
What is the difference between a role-play and a simulation?
2.
3.
4.
Roles: give appropriate roles to the pupils, taking care not to give dominant
roles to either quiet or dominant pupils
5.
Preparation time: allow your pupils the time to think, prepare, formulate
language and ideas (in groups or individually, in class or at home)
6.
Class management: plan the use of props and the seating. Your role will be in
the background (monitoring, advising or participating as a peer)
7.
Learners language: make notes of mistakes, and use them as a basis of future
remedial work.
8.
Feedback: organise remedial work, use written consolidation, a summary of
topic points, and a summary of language points.
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4.3
2.
the focus has been on communication, so mistakes may not have interfered
with the pupils successful completion of the task and may therefore be irrelevant
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3.
4.
where the pupils have struggled to communicate, some help or repair work will
be needed. This could be given in a later lesson rather than as instant feedback.
Summary
Here is a simple framework for integrating practice in communication, offered by
William Littlewood in Communicative Language Teaching:
Structural activities (1)
Pre-communicative activities
Quasi-communicative activities (2)
Functional communication activities (3)
Communicative activities
Social interaction activities (4)
(after William Littlewood, Communicative Language Teaching)
Your pupils will need preparation for communication. The activities geared to the
easy manipulation of structures (e.g. substitution drills) and the practice activities which do
not necessarily involve real communication (e.g. info gaps activities) are bridging activities.
The pupils will then be ready to practice in communicative activities (functional
communication activities and social interaction activities.)
In functional communication activities the pupils are using language for the purpose
of carrying out a task (e.g. solving a problem, reaching a consensus, etc). This type of
communication practice will be complemented by social interaction activities where the pupils
simulate the kind of conversations situations they may be involved in outside the class and
may need to choose appropriate styles, intonation patterns, etc. Role-plays and simulations
are examples of this category.
Littlewood points out that there is no clear dividing line between these different
categories; they represent differences of emphasis rather than distinct divisions. Also, at any
level all four types of activity may be employed but graded in scope and difficulty to the needs
and abilities of the pupils.
Key Concepts
communication
controlled practice
less controlled practice
freer practice
accuracy
fluency
Further Reading
1. Harmer J., 2001, The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman
2. Littlewood W. 1981, Communicative Language Teaching, CUP
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