This document discusses potential problems that may arise in classroom discussions and provides suggestions to promote student participation. It notes that students may lack motivation, knowledge, or time to think if thrown into an open discussion. To address this, the document recommends framing the activity well, allowing preparation time, using role cards or specific topics, and varying seating arrangements. Sample discussion activities are also provided such as interviews, comparing information, finding differences in pictures, and planning a group activity. The goal is to encourage meaningful communication over accuracy.

1. An introduction to classroom management Part X : Potential problems 主讲： GEYUN 制作：浙江外国语学院 08 英本 3 班 指导教师： VICTORGAO 教材： Learning Teaching Chapter 6

2. 1 Reasons for speaking Task 1 You are a student in a foreign language class. The teacher comes in and says Today we're going to discuss oil pollution. How do you feel as a student? Why might you not feel like taking part in the discussion?

3. Commentary Many people outside the Word of English language teaching seem to have the impression that running a discussion class is something anyone can do-you don't need any training or experience, surely! Just go in and talk. The truth is that a lesson like the one described in Task 1 is more likely to produce silence or a desultory sentence two than a scorching debate.

4. Why this happens is not too hard to fathom. Imagine yourself as a student in that lesson. Probably you have no interest in the subject, no relevant knowledge or experience, no motivation. No desire or perceived need to speak about it and worst of all, a slight panic: The teacher wants me to say something and I haven't had time to think. Hence, as a result of all of these,there is nothing to say.

5. If we want to get student talking we need to answer all these objections

6. Task 2 1 What is the aim of a discussion in the language classroom? 2 How can you enable as much student participation as possible?

7. Commentary There may be several aims for a discussion, but usually the main aim is to provide an opportunity to practice speaking, with more attention to improving fluency than to getting accurate sentence.

8. To achieve the main aim we often want to find ways of enabling as students as possible to speak as much as possible.

9. Here is a selection of ideas for getting speaking activities to work: 1.Frame the activity well. 2.Your students may need some quiet time before the speaking activity, nor to write out speeches, but perhaps to look up vocabulary in their dictionaries, through their thought,make a note or two, etc. 3.Giving students brief role-cards sometimes helps.

10. 4. Rather than giving the students a general topic to discuss,try setting a specific, related problem. 5. ｀ Pyramid discussion ' is a simple organizational technique that works particularly well with simple problem-based discussion.Start with individual reflection followed by discussion in pairs. 6.Different variations of seating/stangding arrangements can be useful.

11. Task 3 Find a way to use this piece of material in a discussion lesson. How would you introduce it? Would you need other materials? If so, what?

12. Commentary A discussion could be based around a decision as to which of the three building should be built on the vacant site. The discussion would probably be a lot more interesting if the speakers had a real involvement in the issues.

13. Task 4 The subject is pop festivals. Devise a discussion activity suitable for a range of levels.

14. Commentary I n group, plan a pop festival for our town. Who should be invited to play? Where would it be? What problems might there be? How will we keep the locals happy?etc.

15. finally design an advertisement poster to include important information and encourage visitors to come. At the end, the separate groups pin up their posters around the walls, and visit each other’s. In the role of potential visitors and festival organizers, they ask and answer questions.

16. 2 communicative activities The aim of a communicative activty in call is to get learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of information.

17. Task1 Consider the definition above and tick which items on the following list are communicative activities . a repeating sentences that the teacher says; b doing oral grammar drills; c reading aloud from the coursebook;

18. d giving a prepared speech; e acting out a scripted conversation; f giving instructions so that someone can use a new machine; g improvising a conversation so that it includes lots of examples of a new grammar structure; h one learner describes a picture in the textbook while the other students look at it.

19. Commentary By my definition, only f above is a communicative activity; it is the only one that involves a real exchange of information. I exclude h because the communication is meaningless . h is a display activity, showing off language learned, but there is no communication here.

20. g is excluded from the list because in real communication the language that the students use is largely unpredictable. Here are examples of some communicative activities you may wish to try out. Note that in every case we are primarily concerned with encouraging communication, rather than with controlled use of particular items of language or with accuracy.

21. Pairs interview This is useful at the start of a course to help prople get to know one another and to create a friendly working relationship. It also establishes the fact that speaking is an important part of a course right from the start.

22. Put the students into pairs. They should interview the other students, asking any question they wish, and noting down interesting answers. When finished they introduce the person they interviewed to the rest of the class (or to a small group of students).

23. Pairs compare First stage:filling the grid dictation Give one copy of the grid below to each student. Give instructions for words or pictures to be put in each square.

24. Second stage: comparison, discussion In pairs (or small groups) the students can now compare what they have put in the grid. Many small discussion topics can easily grow out of the.

25. Third stage:whole class After sufficient time for a good conversation in the pair or groups, you may want to draw together any particularly interesting ideas or comments with the whole class.

26. Picture difference In pair, one student is given picture A, one picture B. Without looking at the other picture they have to find the differences

27. Stamp collecting Divide the class into groups of four students. Tell them that they are stamp collectors and that they desperately want three more stamps to finish their collection. At the end of the game the students can then meet up and pass over the agreed stamps and see if they have got what they wanted or not!

28. Planning a holiday Collect together a number of advertisements or brochures advertising a holiday.Divide the students into groups of three and give each group a selection of this material. Their task is to plan a holiday for the whole group When they are ready, each group makes their presentation and the class discusses and chooses a holiday.

29. Survival Tell a lost in the forest story. Students must plan what they should do to have the best chance of survival.

30. Whole class puzzle The task is , of course, to find out what a splurg is. What are splurgs? • Some of these sentences are untrue: • There are special splurgs to use in the car. • Splurgs are usually made mainly of plastic and metal. • You can often find something made of paper inside them. • Splurgs need electricity to work. • Babies are sometimes frightened by splurgs.

31. • Splurgs make a noise when you use them. • People throw away what they find inside splurgs. • Splurgs usually have long wires. • Splurgs are often used in this school, but not by the students or teachers. • Splurgs feature in a famous spy novel. • Splurgs help to keep a plave vlean. • You can buy splurgs at a newsagent’s. • You need at least a day’s training before you can use a splurg.

32. • Most splurgs are about five centimetres long. • Most splurgs are red, a few are orange or pink, and there is one famous one in the USA that is green. • Splurgs are mainly used by men.

33. Any questions?