A.

Oral Communicative Activies

The following activities are all designed to provoke spoken
communication between students and/or between the techer and the
students. The activities devide into seven categories:
 Reaching a consensus,
 Discussion
 Relaying instructions
 Communication games
 Problem solving
 Talking about yourself
 Simulation and role play

1. Reaching a consensus

Oral communicative activities are all activities designed to stimulate

communication between students and/or between teacher and students.

In these examples students h-ave to agree with each other after a

certainamount of discussion. The task is not complete until they
do.Consensus activities have been very successful in promoting free
andspontaneous language use and we can now look at three examples.

(a) Going to New York1

In this activity students are told that they are going on holiday and
have todecide what ten objects to take with them. They will have to reach
aconsensus on these objects, divided into some stage :

1. All the students are asked to write down the ten items they would

choose to have in their luggage if they were going to stay in

New York for two weeks.

2. When all the students have completed their lists they areput intopairs.
Each pair has to negotiate a new list of ten items. This willinvolve each
member of the pair changing their original list to someextent.
3. When the pairs have completed their lists two pairs arejoinedtogether
to negotiate a new list that all four students can agree to.
4. Groups can now be joined together and the lists renegotiated.
5. When the teacher thinks the activity has gone on for longenough
asession is conducted with the whole class in which eachgroup explains
and justifies its choices.
This activity, which can be used from the elementary level upwards,is
greatfun and produces a lot of English. Of course there is no
particularreasonfor selecting New York as the destination. Other places
can beused.

2. Discussion

Many teachers can be heard complaining that their students 'have

nothing to say': they complain, for example, that they have no opinions
and are not prepared to discuss anything.

Part of the problem here is the way in which some

teachersapproach discussion as an activity. If students are asked to
express themselves fluently on a difficult topic in front of their peers in a
foreign language (often with no warning) they may find themselves
reluctant to do.Some discussions develop spontaneously during the
course of a lesson. A student reacts to something that is said, another
student joins in, and soon the whole class is bubbling with life. Such
discussions are often the most successful sessions that the teacher and
the class ever have together, but they can't be planned. Between these
two extremes (the students with nothing to say and the spontaneous
outbreak of conversation) there are techniques that can be used to get
students talking. We can give some hints about organising discussions:

a. Put students in groups first.

Before asking students to discuss as a whole class, put them in groups

to try out the topic. This will allow them to give opinions in a less
threatening environment than in front of the whole class. It will also give
the teacher a chance to see if the topic is interesting for the students. If it
is not and the teacher decides to end the discussion, this can be done
without the 'loss of face' that accompanies the cancellation of a discussion
session in front of a whole class.

b. Give students a chance to prepare.

Where a more formal discussion is due to take place students need a

chance to prepare their opinions. If they are to discuss the role of the
family or the relative merits of radio and television they need time to
marshal^ their thoughts and come up with arguments to support their
case. This is especially true for debates (see (c) below).

c. Give students a task.

One way of promoting discussion is to give students a task as part of

the discussion process. They can be given a list of controversial
statements about a topic and asked to score them from 0 (= very
negative) to 5 (= very positive). They can do this in pairs and groups;
once again this will be excellent preparation for any full-class session.

The types of discussion activity :

a. The buzz group

This is where students are put into loose groups of three or four and
asked to think of the topic. Freuently the teacher may ask them to think of
‘as many...as possible’. First the teacher puts them into groups for a two-
minute session. They should think of as many forms of addictions as they
can. The class pools the informations. Perhaps the students are doing
some work about seaside holidays.
b. Controversial topics

In above we said tht controversial statement were good discussion

provekers. The students are given the following statements about
smoking and told that they have to circle the number wich best reflects
their agreement with the statemet. When they have done this they
proceed s if for a consensus activity. This technique is a good example of
using a small task to provoke discussion.

c. The debate
There is still room for the formal debate-where two sides argue a
case wh
ich is the put to the vote. The activity is suitable for more advanced
classes. Student are given a controversial proposition. They are then put
into two groups which the proposition. When the arguments are ready the
teams alect a proposer and a seconder who make formal speeches to
argue their case.All the end other student s can take then part with short
interventions.At the end of the discussion the teacher can organise a free
vote to see whether the propositin wins or not.

Discussion activities are an important part of many lessons. The

main thing to remember is that proper organisation cn ensure their
success. Lack of it can provoke their failure.
In this type of activity students have to give each other
instuctions.The success of the activity depends on whether the students
to whom instructions are being given perform the tasks successfully. In
other words, were the instructions the right ones,and were they
understood.

3.
4. Relaying instructions
In this activity, students have to give each other instructions. The
succes of the activity depends on whether the students to whom the
instruction are given perform the tasks successfully. On the other words,
were the instruction the rights ones and were they understood.
a. Exercises
In given exercise, divide into two stage :
1. The teacher writes down the names of a number of common exercises
or better still has drawing of them.
2. Students have to get their colleagues to do the exercises using only
words.
b. Making models
Making models divided into two stage :
1. A small group of students is given material to make model.
2. The original group now has to instruct another group of groups so that
they can duplicate the original model. It is necessery for the original
model to be hidden from the second group or another group at this
stage.
c. Describe and draw

In describe and draw, we can give a picture to the students and

asked them to describe the picture then draw to identical picture.

5. Communication games

Communication games are based on the principle of the

information. Student are put into a situation in which they have to use all
or any of the language they posses to complete a game-like task.

a. Find the differences or similarities

Student is put into pairs. In each pair student A is given a picture

and student B is given a picture which is similar, but different in some
vital respects.

b. Describe and arrange

Student are told they are going to work in pairs. In each pair student
A is given the following pictures and told not to show them to student B.

c. Story reconstruction

Student are given different parts of a picture story. They have to

reconstruct the whole narrative even thought individually they have seen
only a small part of it.

d. Poem reconstruction
 The same principle (of reconstruction) can be applied to simple
poems. Students have to reassemble lines which they are given. The
activity mixes reading, listening and discussion.
6. Problem solving

Pro

blem solving activities encourage students to talk together to find a

solution to problem or tasks. We will look at two examples :

a. Desert dilemma

Student are given a complex situation and told to work out a means of
survival.

b. Fast food

A welcome development in language teaching has been the

introductions of computers into the classroom. Despite the scepticism of
some teachers they provide a valuable aid for language learning.

7. Talking about yourself

The student themselves are often an underused resource. In

particular we can use their lives and feelings for any number of
interpersonal exchanges. Such activities fall into the ‘humanistic’ category
and are often useful at the beginning of classes to warm things up
(‘warmers’) or to create a good and positive atmosphere in new groups
which are a bit ‘icy’ (‘ice breakers’).

We will look at three simple activities that are quick and easy to organise :

a. Your name

The teacher puts the students in pairs and asks them to tell each other :

 How they feel about their first name.

 What name they would choose for themselves if they had to choose
one that was different from the one they have (and why).

b. What we have in common

This is an ideal ice breaker, student are put in pairs at random and
told to discover live things which they have in common. This encourages
them to cover a number of areas and topics including musical tastes,
sports, families.

c. Musical assosiation

In this activity the teacher encourages the students to use the title
of a song to provoke discussion of feelings and memories, etc.

8. Simulation and role play

The idea a simulation is to create the presence of real-life situation

in the classroom: student ‘simulate’ the real world. Thus we might ask
them to pretend that they are at an airport, or we might organize them to
get together to plan an imaginary reunion. What we are trying to do-
arterially of course -0 is to give students practice in real-world English.

B. Written Communicative Activities

Provide opportunities for spoken communication in the classroom
than is for the written medium. Frequently writing is relegatedto the
status of homework. This is a pity since writing, especially communicative
writing, can play a valuable part in the class.

We will look at :

1. Relaying instruction
Just as in, one group of student has information for the performance of a
task, and they have to get another group to perform the same task by
giving them written instructions.

2. Writing report and advertisemens

We will look at three activities in which students write news report or

advertisements.

a. The news broadcast

Students write items for a news broadcast which they organize for
transmission.

b. The tourist brochure

In much the same way as the news broadcast, students can be asked to
join together to write a brochure about the place they live in or are
studying in.

c. The advertisement

After discussing what successful advertisements contain, students can

write and their own.

3. Co-operative writing

In this section we will look at more activities where students actually write
things together ; where the process of co –operation is as important as
the actual fact of the writing itself. In the first two of these activities there
is a definite game – like quality present.

a. The fairy story

In this activity students are put into groups and told that they are going
to write joint stories.
b. Story reconstruction
This activity follows a similar procedure to that for oral story construction
in other, students are put into four groups each of which is shown a
picture from a story sequence.

c. The word processor

One of the best uses for the computer in language teaching is as a word
processor.

4. Exchanging letters

In this section we will consider ways of getting students to exchange

letters with each other. Particularly with the more realistic tasks student
have a good chance to practice real written communication.

a. Writing message

The most basic form of letter writing is the message. This can be used at
beginner levels to generate written questions and answer.

b. The agony column

This activity has long been a favorite with both teachers and students. It
involves student writing letters to ‘agony columns’ – those parts of
newspaper and magazines where supposed experts give advice and
everything from marital problems to trouble with the neighbors. In this
activity students invent some problem and then have it answered by other
members of the class.
c. The complaining customer

In this activity students write complaining letters about goods they have
bough after seeing an advertisement. The student representing the
company who make the goods then have to reply to these letters.

5. Writing journals

One area of writing that we have no touched on so far is the written

communication between students and teacher. In an important article
Mario Rinvolucri desribed how he had become involved in letter writing
with his students. At the beginning of the course he wrote to them telling
them something about himself and inviting them to write letters to him
which he would reply to personally (they all got the same letter). Some of
them took up his offer, and over the period of the course he engaged in a
lengthy corresponence about language learning, the students’
experiences, how he and they felt about the classes, etc.