Developing oral fluency

1. COMENIUS MEETING DROPS OF SKILLS -
SHARING METHODS
MEETING IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA, 01-05/12/2014

2. DEVELOPING ORAL
FLUENCY IN THE
SECONDARY CLASSROOM
Teacher Training Course, IPC Exeter, UK
March 2014

3. Reasons to attend the course:
- Difficulties to make students talk;
- Get to know different strategies to improve their learning;
- Prepare young people for life and for the world of work.
Main contents of the course:
- How to lead students to talk
- Examples of activities teachers can use to achieve this goal;
- The role of a teacher in a communicative activity.

4. Why do communicative activities?
“At the risk of stating the obvious, ‘Getting students to talk’ is the major
and one of the most difficult tasks confronting any teacher of
languages. But talk they must; not only because research into second
language acquisition consistently advocates developing a context of
spoken interaction in the classroom as the key variable in the quality
and quantity of students language learning, but also because it is
through cooperative talking that learners are enabled to simulate and
thus prepare for the actuality of out-of-class communication.”
Professor Christoph N. Candlin, General editor in Getting Students
to Talk, by Aleksandra Golebiowska, p.ix,1990 [Prentice Hall]

5. What makes a good communicative activity?
Authenticity (real life communication is stimulated by the fact that
people know different things and have different opinions)
It should contain either an information gap:
- role plays “learners are given a task to complete … the learners are
told who they are, what their opinions are and what they know that is
unknown to the others”
or an opinion gap:
- simulations: “learners are told who they are and what their task is.
They present arguments according to their own beliefs.”
- discussions: “learners retain their own personalities and views. Their
task is to come to an agreement regarding an issue introduced by the
teacher.”
Aleksandra Golebiowska, Getting students to Talk, p.5,1990 [Prentice Hall]

6. Other exemples of communicative activities
• Find someone who …
• Board games
• Spot the similarities/differences
• Mutual creative writing
• Crosswords
• Surveys
• Ranking activities

7. Activities should be motivating; group work is an integral part of a
communicative activity. It:
- Generates more student talking time;
- Frees the teacher to teach more effectively;
- Is learner-centred, activily involving all students;
- Encourages students to be responsible for their own learning;
- Encourages social skills like teamwork.
Some rules for communicative activities to work:
For the students:
- Not to show the role card to anyone;
- Not to reveal all the information card to anyone
- Speak English

8. For the teachers:
- Ask the students to memorise their role-cards
- Establish and enforce rules to promote the use of English in a
communicative way;
- Present materials in a professional way;
- Give simple instructions to students.

9. Student A
You are ill and are going to the doctor’s surgery. Follow the prompts below:
1. Greet the doctor
3. Explain why you are at the surgery
5. Give all the information required
7. Thank the doctor, say goodbye and leave the surgery
Student B
You are the doctor and have to advise the patient and prescribe medication. Follow
the prompts below:
2. Respond and ask for the reason of the visit
4. Ask questions about the condition (e.g. when/how…)
6. Tell the patient what the condition/disease is and advise him and/or prescribe
some medication.
Idea taken from Role Plays for Today, Jason Anderson, Delta Publishing

10. What is the role of the teacher in a communicative activity?
- Monitoring
- Listening for errors/mistakes and noting them for future reference
- Prompting/encouraging
- Being available as a reference source

11. Thank you for your attention
Margarida Marques
English Teacher
Agrupamento de Escolas Miguel Torga
Bragança
Portugal