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spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

YES, because as I said earlier:

Sashadroogie · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:24 am Post subject:

Spiral, I fear that may smack too much of educationese to be accepted as valid by the hosts of 'communicative approach' lessons in classes of forty plus low-level learners who get but the tiniest amount of talking-time and cannot be assesed properly, or even corrected. Ooops! Have I lapsed into discoursese?

buravirgil · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 11:37 am Post subject:

Sashadroogie · Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 11:52 am Post subject:

Possibly so. But I am more concerned by the label 'communicative' being applied to situations which don't appear to involve much communication.

Scott in Incheon · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 58

I would suggest teaching 'speaking skills' in your oral classes.

I did this during my time at a high school in HK and at a university in Korea. I have used it for all levels.

It helps with marking as you can assess whether or not they used the skills. I assessed my students with an impromptu speech....choose a topic from a jar.....1 min to prepare and then 1 min to speak. The second assessment was 10 min group discussion. I have used shorter ones for lower level classes.

Groups were given a prompt and time to think.

I have assessed students in pairs as well as groups of three and four. I had a strict curve in Korea so I could count the skills they used (each skill had to be used a certain number of times) and then compare their scores.

I made a list of 'speaking skills' I wanted the students to use while they are having discussions. I would teach the skills slowly building up the set.

I also had a rubric for fluency and quality of contributions, structure...things to the quality of their speaking skills.

A lot of the skills came from books by Kehe and Kehe

voice control
Idea, Reason, Example (teaches the students to give longer answers to questions) (sometimes, I broke this into three separate skills....for lower levels)
Using rejoinders
Agreeing
Disagreeing
Asking ?s for more info
Clarifying Questions (didn't hear)
Comprehension Questions (don't know)
Interrupting
Helping (helping someone in the group)
Controlling discussions (starting stopping changing speakers)

Maybe a few others that I can't remember now.

I would listen to their discussions and check off as they used the skills...this was the hardest part as I had to keep track of every skill they used but it was great when students questioned their marks as I could point out that the missed one or two skills.

I filled class time with activities that allow the students to practice their speaking skills.

roadwalker · Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Posts: 1750 Location: Ch

I often correct students in oral English. If I think it can be done tactfully and without a hint of bullying/shame, I'll do it immediately upon hearing an error. That usually involves either prompting the student with a facial expression or gesture, or asking the class to group correct him/her. I don't find it devastating to the typical student, and I praise more than correct anyway. If it's something we haven't gone over much, and it's a common error, then I'll take a few minutes to teach that grammar point/pronunciation/whatever.

If the class is at a pretty high level, as with many English majors,besides teaching a lot of pronunciation, stress, cadence and that kind of thing (I'm not well versed on the vocabulary of instruction), I'll also teach those utterances that we use when agreeing with someone, when showing someone that we're listening, or when we're thinking about/ considering something. Students seem to enjoy it, and I'd guess that it helps their listening too.