Speaking 271

8.4 What are the implications for classroom

practice in the teaching of spoken English?

8.4.1 Talking with students about spoken English

Oneissue to consider is whether and to what degree we might discuss explicidy
with students what is needed for effective speaking in English. There is
immediately evident value, for example, in discussing the use of politeness
conventions. In 2.2.2, we saw the scale of politeness possible in choosing
howto express the same message, ranging from TU use your phone, OK?' to
'Sorryto trouble you, but do you mind ifI use your phone?' Ir would, in fact
be necessary, rather than simply desirable, to tal k about who might be
speakingto whom in each situation and how their relative status and role
relationship would affect the choice of language. Teachers might also
considerwhether and how to teach strategic competence. There are several
quitesimple strategies which could be explicidy taught in the early stages of
!earning,for instance:
- waysof opening a conversation in order to get practice with other students
or English-speaking members of a community
- ways of asking for repetition, asking someone to speak more slowly, or
requesting clariflcation, in order to get more comprehensible input
- ways of checking that someone has understood, for example 'OK?'; 'Do
you foUow me?'
- ways of getting information about language, for example 'How do you
pronounce this?'; 'How do you say that?'
- ways of keeping a conversation going, for example, with phrases like
'Right', 'Yes', or '1 see'.
1sit desirable or necessary to tal k about other aspects of conversation, such as
turn-taking, or to use metalanguage in talking about such features as topic
shift,adjacency pairs, closings, or interruptions? Teachers have a choice of
twobasic approaches, which Richards (1990) has caUed direct and indirecto
The indirect approach simply involves students in conversation through
role-playand problem-solving tasks, and gives them opporrunities to practise
thesethings in classroom activities. The direct approach applies a systematic
analysisto the elements of speaking competence and takes students through a
programme of awareness-raising and practice. An example of the latter is the
book Conversation Gambits by E. KeUer and S. T. Warner (1988), which
definesa gambit as:
a word or phrase which helps us to express what we are trying to sayoFor
example, we use gambits to introduce a topic of conversation; to link

r l
272 Dweloping the language skills

Materials extract B.A

2. Breaking..;;;;....--------
in
1Excuse me Often we have to approach strangers to ask them for some
information or help.
Sarry
Two to four students volunteer to be the questioners. They
Excuse me lor should think up some things to ask about (ideas below).
interrupting, but ... The rest of the class stand up and form small groups (3/4) and
talk about anything you want. (hobby? friend? tomorrow?
May I interrupt lor
holiday?)
a moment?
The volunteers then approach the groups and 'break in' to ask
... ,2please their questions. Try to use phrases from the list.

3Certainly When each of the volunteers has be en to each of the groups,

everybody sits down again. The volunteers then report the
answers they got.

Examples

Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to the cafeteria?

May 1interrupt for a moment? I'd like to know how to get to the
cafeteria.

1. Used lo attracl
attenlion. Some things to ask about
2. Mosl common allhe
How to get to the nearest supermarket/bus stop/telephone box.
end 01a request.
Where you can get change/a haircut/stamps.
3. The Iriendly way lo
Where you could find a good, but not too expensive restaurant.
say Yeso
Where to get advice on buying a computer/new caro

(Keller and Warner: Conversation Gambits, page 8)

what we have to say to what someone has just said; to agree or disagree;
to respond to what we have heard.
(page 4)
The authors point out that a speaker who does not use gambits can appear
rude, over-direct, or abrupto The interesting question is whether students
who are introduced systematically to gambits, as in Materials extract 8.A,
will acquire these more easily and use them more fluently than students who
are noto

It would be useful to set up a small-scale experiment to compare the progress

of students in programmes using direct and indirect approaches. Alternatively,
teachers can take the common-sense approach, experiment with this kind of
 ;~

Speakíng 273

material, and see whether some students appear to take up the language
usefully.

Thesuccess of an indirect approach will depend on such factors as whether

input provides examples of conversational strategies, whether speaking
activitiesgenerate useful practice, and whether individual students get oppor-
tunitiesto practise within activities. The success of a direct approach will depend
onwhether students are able to transfer the strategies they practise in more
controlledlanguage-focused activity to fluency activities. Both approaches
havepotential and problems. It is not surprising, then, that many teachers
andtextbook writers try to achieve a mix of awareness-raising and practice.

8.4.2 Making accuracy-based practice meaningful

Thecommunicative dassroom will need to expose learners to input which
theycan attend to, and opportunities to produce outpur in more controlled
activities.Controlled activities can focus on a number of things, for example:
agrammatical structure, a phonological feature, a conversational gambit, a
communicative function, or the time sequencers that might be needed in
tellinga story. What they have in common is a conscious focus on language
anda high degree of control over student ourput. Various labels have been
suggestedfor this type of activity: perhaps 'skill-getting' (Rivers and Temperley
1978),'pre-communicative' (Littlewood 1981), 'accuracy based' (Brumfit
1984a)and 'form-focused' (Spada 1997) are the best known. The first two,
in relation to the terms 'skill-using' and 'communicative' also suggest a
sequencein instruction to reflect the belief that a preparatory stage is needed
toequip learners with the resources they need before engaging in a freer
communicativelyoriented aciivity.

lf the purpose of form-focused work in speaking activities is to equip the

learnerwith the knowledge and skills needed for communication, this begs
thequestion of what characteristics we should be looking for in such activities.
Oneapproach would be to consider more precisely what learners need as
preparationand what implications their needs have for activity designo It is
possibleto identifY four needs, and we will now look at these in more detail.

Contextualized practice
Thefirst need is contextualized practice, which aims to make dear the link
betweenlinguistic form and communicative function. This means finding a
situationin which a structure is commonly used. For example, it used to be
commonpractice to teach the present continuous tense through dassroom
actionssuch as 'I'm opening the window'; 'What are you doing?'; 'Are you
lookingat your book?' This demonstrates the way the tense is used to
describecurrent actions, but it is not normal in everyday life for people to
214 Developing the language skills

give a running commentary on what they are doing. A more useful context-
ualization would be a telephone conversation in which the ca11erasks to
speak to a friend and the reply is: 'Just a minute. He's putting the children to
bed. 1'11get him.' Contextualization is particularly important when structures
tend to occur natura11y in combination, as with the modals 'have to' and
'need' which can be found in exchanges like:
Materials extraet 8.B

7.6 O Listen again and tick the phrases you hear.

Making suggestions Accepting suggestions
1 suggest ... Yes, that's a good idea.
How;lbont ? Yes, Iet's do that.
What abol1t ?
Why don 't we ... ? Rejecting suggestions
Why not ? Yes, but ...
We could I'm not sure abont that.
I'm afraid 1 don't like that idea.
Asking for suggestions
Do yon ha ve an y snggestions for. .. ?
Any ideas on ... ?

8 Discnss one of these topics in gronps. Use the phrases in 4 above to

snggest solutions, and accept or reject the ideas of your colleagues.
At present your company pays for your English course. Next year,
it wants employees to pay 50% of the costo What can yon do to stop
this change?
2 It's your company's 50th anniversary next year. Suggest ways of
celebrating the occasion.
3 y our town wants to improve its leisure facilities. Snggest changes and
improvements.

(Taylor: In ternational ExpressPre-intermediate SB, page 65)

A Do 1 have to pick up the groceries today?

B No, you needn't. George can do it.

Personalizing language
The second need is to personalize the language in activities which enable
students to express their own ideas, feelings, preferences, and opinions. It has
been claimed that personalized practice makes language more memorable. Ir
can certainly be motivating, and helps learners to see the ways in which they
can make use of language resources in interpersonal situations. The
implication is that practice must allow students some degree of choice in
what they sayoThis can be seen in Materials extract 8.B, which fo11owson
fram a listening activity that demonstrates ways of giving opinions.
 Speaking

Materials extract 8. e
FOCUS
Closing strategies

• Ending conversations:
We!!, 1suppose 1ought to get 011.
Listen, 1rea!!y have t%ught to be going now.

• Giving a reason for ending the conversation:

1must get back to work.
J've got some 1F0rkto do.
It's getting late.

• Making arrangements to make contact again:

(Look), lFe must get together some time.
(Listen), why don't lFe meetfor lunch?
(Look), J'!! give you a ring.

• Leave-taking phrases:
See you (soon/next )
Good luck with/on .
Givemy regards to .
Have a good evening/weekend/time on Monday.
Talcecareo
Bye (for) nOIF.
ACT IT OUT
Act out a telephone conversation with a friend who has been ill. Telephone
your friend to tell her/him about a party you have been to. Say what it was
likeand if you enjoyed it.

One of you must end the conversation. Say you have to go and give a reason.
Yourfriend must respond appropriately and make arrangements to meet at
another time.

(Abbsand Freebairn: Blueprint lntermediate SB, pages 100-1)

Buildingawareness of the social use oflanguage

The third need is to build awareness of the social use of language and to
practise essemial e
features of this. For example, Materials extract 8. practises
closing strategies after studems have analysed examples of these in recorded
dialogues. This aims to achieve an understanding of what is appropriate
socialbehaviour and the language that accompanies it. Failure to conform to
social convention about how to close a conversation can cause offence as
¡here is a tendency to see the cause as stemming from imerpersonal rather
¡han language problems.
?6 Developing the language skills

Building confidence
The founh need is to build ease and confidence in students so that eventually
they are able to produce language quickly and automatically. This is where
initial practice of the kind provided in Materials extracts 8.B and 8.C gives
opponunities for repetition.
Controlled practice can be exploited usefully to build cohesiveness in a class
of students as they try out the language together. The teacher can create a
positive climate for classroom communication by standing back whenever
possible and using cross-class questioning or pairwork practice. This will
facilitate the more difficult, risk-taking encounters of fluency work.

8.4.3 Designing and evaluatingfluency-based

activities
There is a wide range of fluency-based activities available to the teacher. This
section will cornrnent on three basic types of activity and consider what each
can contribute to the development of speaking skills.

Materials extraet 8.D

Cruel to be kind?
SPEAKING 1

1 Look at the photograph and

the texL Do you agree ",ith this
",ay of bringing up children' Ho'"
does it compare to the "'ay they
are brought up in ~"Oursociet,-'

2 Write do",n fj\"e

characteristics of ideal parents.
Think about factors such as age,
personali!y and beha\"iour. Use
the Present Simple and \\'ords like
lIel'er and (/I1m)'s. Example: ((;J}idl!r.11J/(IZ,,/lílfll
lJ//líOlll1i/,,·)
7be)' lIel'er tose tbeir temper.

3 In groups, disCllSS \\'har

you V,.Tote and agree 011 fiyc
characteristics.

(Bell and Gower: Upper Intermediate MattersSB, page 10)

 Speaking 2

Free discussion
Freediscussion can provide important opportunities for developing certain
aspectsof fluency. Ideally, over a period of time, free discussion activities will
involve students in talking about a range of topics which engage their
interests, opinions, histories, and experiences, such as i:heactivity in Materials
extract 8.D. Here students are invited to give opinions, agree or disagree,
statepreferences, and make comparisons.

Freediscussion can also encourage students to use the language needed to

sustain conversation over a period of time by drawing in other speakers. This
lastpoint, in fact, relates to perhaps the greatest advantage that free discussion
hasover other types of activity. This is the opportunity it provides for students
to practise the strategies required in interpersonal communication, for
example, taking and holding turns, intraducing a topic or shifting to a new
topic, and encouraging responses and other contributions.
Teachers often worry about less structured fluency activities because there
areprablems to overcome if the advantages are to be enjoyed: for example,
studenrs' anxiety in formulating opinions or ideas about topics which may
beunfamiliar and which they may never have discussed in their hrst language;
the possibility of a few more conhdent, more extravert, or more prahcient
studenrs dominating, or of the teacher dominating in his or her efforts to
stimulate a quiet graup. Free discussion, even ifit takes place in small groups,
doesnot ensure participation fram all members. For these reasons, discussion
usuallyneeds support or structure of some kind.

One kind of support comes from the amount of information given by the
teacheror materials. The activity in Materials extract 8.D, for example, uses
a picture and a quotation which focus the discussion and provide content
andlinguistic resources.

Another kind of support comes fram phasing the activity with careful
instructions, as in Materials extract 8.D where the students prepare for their
discussion by writing down some ideas. If phases are not included in the
materials, teachers can add their own. For example, many teachers add a
quiettime as a hrst stage for individual brainstorming of a topie. This respects
thedifferences among learners, for example that some people need to think
beforegiving opinions. The teacher will also need to decide whether or not
thereis to be a reporting stage when students hear about the decisions and
ideasof other groups. This can be done by re-forming graups, with members
drawnfram each of the earlier groups to report on the discussion they hado
This has the advantage of making it necessary for students to follow the
arguments of their graup in order to report these accurately, and may
encouragestrategies for negotiation of meaning. Ir also pravides practice in
the'reporting' style of monologue.
?18 Developing the language skills

A third kind of support comes from structuring interactions with suggestions

for group roles, such as chair or secretary, though the teacher will need to
monitor the choice of spokesperson from one activity to another to ensure
equality of opportunity for public monologue. The question of roles, in fact,
needs careful thought as, ideally, students need to have control over as many
aspects of the interaction as possible, and freedom to interrupt, choose topics,
change topics, and so on. Teachers need to realize what is gained and what is
lost if they suggest the appointment of roles such as chairperson.
A fourth kind of support comes from establishing goals for the discussion.
The activity in Materials extract 8.D asks groups to try to reach a consensus,
and the procedures involved in comparing ideas, and defending, modifYing,
and refining them provide motivation to speak and to use communication
strategies in trying to comprehend points made by other speakers.
There may be wider educational concerns involved in setting goals for activities.
One reason for promoting groupwork in some school classrooms is that an
educational goal within the general curriculum is to encourage cooperative
learning. This is seen to have valuable outcomes both within education and
in the world beyond the classroom. Co-operative learning has been variously
defined, but one general characteristic is that individuals are responsible
within the group and accountable to it, and that all members are therefore
expected to make their contribution. A second characteristic is interaction in
which students are dependent on one another to achieve an ourcome. One
can see immediately how well these educational ideas fit with insights from
second language acquisition research about the kind of tasks which promote
negotiation of meaning, and with teachers' concerns to engage as many
students as possible in practice opportunities. In such situations, teachers
may have a particular concern to set a co-operative goal rather than a
competitive one (Johnson, Maruyama, Johnson, Nelson, and Skon 1981).
To summarize our review of discussion activities, the teacher will be involved
in decision-making of the following kinds:
how much support to give for content and how this is presented
how much to structure the activity with phases and group roles
whether to establish a goal and what kind of goal to set
how to organize feedback
how to encourage as much participation as possible and as much
negotiation of meaning as possible.

Role-play
Teachers use the term 'role-play' to refer to a number of different activities,
ranging from simple dialogues prompted by specific information on role
cards to more complex simulations which pass through a number of stages,
 Speaking

Materials extract 8.E

3 Role play the following situation. A meeting e) [~ 3.2] Befme you present your suggesl
of the editorial board of the magazine Nostalgia. to your group, listen to the tape. Speakel
Workin groups of four m five students. You are makes suggestions and speaker B tactfull
the editors of the magazine and are planning the disagrees in order to prescnt altcrnativc
next issue. suggcstions. On the list below, tick the
strategies each speaker uses. An examplt
a) Decide on interesting topies for the four m
been done for you.
five main articles you would like to publish.
b) Each member of the group chooses an idea A
e.g. Don'tyou
Ibat's
do
donyou
Wbat
you? alike
'tyou
do great
tbink
you idea,
' ... hut
...like?
tbink' idea! ' ...
for an article andAffirmative
jots downquestion tags, it to
ideas about Negativequestion
Yes/No
Wh-
Negativequestions,
Apparent
questions,
Genuine questions,
agreement,
agreement, tags,
present to the others. Think of a topie whieh
can be presented from an interesting angle,
e.g. a dramati<;.or memorable scene m event,
a memory whieh is full of emotion, etc.

4 Now present your suggestions for article

the group using the samc strategies as the
speakers on the tape.
, I
a) Thc group selccts the most interesting arti,
to present to the whole class.
b) Thc class listens to the presentations and
makcs a final, wcll-balanccd choice of top
fm the magazine.

(Porter-Ladousse: Language Issues, page 22)

asin the example in Materials extract S.E. What they all have in common is
¡hatthe setting, the situation, and the roles are constrained by the teacher or
materialsbut, within these, students choose the language they use. They may
also,tú a greater or lesser extent, develop the personalities and the situation
astheywish. The example in Materials extract S.E, in which students take on
rolesas editorial board members for a magazine, do es not specifY the details
ofthe roles and allows for considerable flexibility in choice of personality and
lllterests.

Anumber of advantages have been claimed for role-play as a fluency activity

ifit is performed in pairs or groups rather than one group acting in front of
280 Developing the language skills

the class. Ir encourages participation from a large number of students. If it is

based on real-life situations, both transactional and interpersonal, it is useful
rehearsal for these. Some students find role-play easier than free discussion
beca use they do not have to face the cognitive challenge of finding original
and intelligent things to contribute. Some students enjoy the opportunity to
act and assume other personae. A rol e-play which has a clear goal gives a
purpose and a direction to the discussion. Ir is interesting that the role-play
in Materials extract S.E involves both competitive and co-operaríve
elements. Moreover, as students take on a variety of roles during a
programme of role-plays they will practise language which varies according
to the setting, the formality of the situaríon, the degree of politeness or
emotion required, and the funcríon required for the particular role, for
example to persuade, disagree, complain, invite, and so on.
In terms of speaking skills and strategies, the role-play in Materials extraet
S.E demonstrates the possibilities. Ir perhaps has a greater chance than free
discussion to involve all the students and oblige pracríce, except when free
discussion is limited to pairwork. However, there will only be equality of
opportunity for pracríce where roles have equal significance and 'key roles'
do not hold the floor to an excessive degree. Whether or not it encourages
interaction skills will depend on the details. There are certainly chances for
this at (a) and (4a), but whether or not they are exploited will depend on how
the interaction is structured by the group or by the teacher. The initial decisions
at (a) would seem to imply a need for negotiation of meaning as members of
the group will need to be clear about how they move from these decisions
into (b).

However, the success of role-play depends on overcoming some of its

limitations. Perhaps the main limitation is to do with asking students to take
on roles, and whether or not they are able to empathize with the role they
choose or are given. And this may well depend on the degree of distance between
the reality of the student's own roles in life and the 'fantasy' of the role
imposed. Functional roles do not present a great problem as all speakers need
to apologize or offer help, for example, and social roles such as 'guest' or
'purchaser' are also universal. However, professional roles may begin to
present difflculty as many role-plays involving transacríonallanguage assign
one student of a pair a role such as 'doctor' or 'travel agent' and students can
find this alien and not very use fuI. The problem is exacerbated when roles
require students to change their status, personality, or even gender. Ulrímately
it will depend on the willingness and motivaríon of students to change
persona, and this is an individual matrero
 Speaking L

'Gap' activities
Since fluency activities carne into common use in ELT, there have been
attempts to investigate which might be the most useful in second language
acquisition in relation to providing negotiation of meaning and the conversa-
tional adjustments which push students to more· accurate output. The
'information gap' activity in particular has been studied. This involves each
learnerin a pair or group possessing information which the other learners do
not have. The learners' information must be shared in order to achieve an
outcome. Doughty and Pica (1986) set up a study which hypothesized that
if students worked in pairs (also known as 'dyads'), with an activity which
had a requirement for information exchange, they would engage in more
negotiation of meaning than with activities where such modification is
optional, as in freer discussion, or in activities with more participants. They
basedthis hypothesis on the assumptions that pairwork is less threatening,
that a student would notice confusion in a partner, and that pairs would
come to a stop with the task unless they could understand each other.
Therefore there would be more comprehension and confirmation checks,
more clarification requests, and more repetitions. The task they employed
involvedone student arranging flowers on a felt-board garden following the
instructions of a partner who held the master-plan. The study confirmed the
hypothesisand seemed to demonstrate the usefulness of pairwork information-
gapactivities for language acquisition. Another value of this kind of task is
themotivation engendered by bridging the information gap to solve a problem.
Information-gap tasks have their own advantages and limitations. They assist
languageacquisition, but they do not necessarily involve students in conversa-
tionalstrategies in the same way as role-play or discussion.

The efficacy of different activity types

Unfortunately, it would be mistaken to draw conclusions from this discussion
of three activity types that their use will ensure that students practise the
skillsand strategies they try to encourage. Students do not necessarily conform
to task instructions and will find ways around the problems that activities
present,as a study by Yule and Powers (1994) has shown. This demonstrated
howstudents found different solutions to the problems in an information-
gaptask in which each student in a dyad had a town map, one an older and
theother a newer version with some major referential differences. For example,
onemap displayed one office block and the other three office blocks. One
student, the sender, gave directions to the other, the receiver, who had to
followthem and draw a route on their version of the map. The students
foundvarious ways around the task. For example, some receivers indicated
problemsthat were acknowledged by the senders, who simply said 'Never
mind.Forget it', so that the receiver chose any path. On other occasions, the
senderwould acknowledge a problem indicated by the receiver and make an
82 Developing the language skills

arbitrary decision abour a feature of the map. The questions are, how much
modification of interaction occurred before decisions were made, and was
negotiation of meaning avoided?
A more recent study has also shown the difficulty involved in designing tasks
which might encourage negotiation of meaning. Foster (1998) reports on a
classroom observation of the language produced by adult intermediate EFL
students involved in four information-exchange tasks in pairs and small groups
in the classroom. The tasks were chosen from communicative textbooks.
One type of task can be called a 'required information exchange task' as it can
only be done if the participants share information which others cannot see.
For example, in the study, two students looked at sheet A or B which showed
slight differences in a certain number out of twenty line drawings. They had
to establish which pictures were the same and which were different by
exchanging information abour them. The other task-type can be called an
'optimal information exchange task' because all participants have the same
information. For example, a group were given a given a discussion task in
which they were told they had been made redundant, were given several
possible courses of action, and had to achieve consensus on which course to
follow. They were then given a new piece of information which created
another problem which they dealt with in the same way. Foster tried each
type of task with both pairs and groups so that any differences in the amount
of negotiated interaction could be observed.
The study showed no clear overall effect for the type of task or the grouping,
though pairwork was more effective in getting students to talk. Most students
made only a few attempts to negotiate meaning through requests for clarification
or comprehension checks, and all made very few, or no, attempts to make
their own language more comprehensible in response to signals of mis-
comprehension ..
In looking for reasons to explain this lack of negotiated meaning, Foster
suggeststhe frustration students might experience in holding up the interaction
every time there is a problem, the discouragement that can set in if students
repeatedly fail to understand, and the classroom setting which may encourage
students to let problems pass in the interest of rapport with colleagues. She
concludes that tasks to encourage negotiation of meaning are 'hard to design,
can be frustrating to perform and classroom students don't behave in them as
experimental studies suggest they should' (ibid.: 20).
Ir is noteworthy that all three studies cited above were small-scale. We need
many more such studies before we have generalizable findings that can provide
useful insights for teachers about the efficacy of different activity types.
However,consideration of the three types, discussion, role-play, and information-
gap, has gone some way to demonstrating the need for understanding the
 Speaking 2,

possiblecontributions and limitations of each to the development of spoken

English. It suggests to us the need to create range and variety in a language
programme sufficient to ensure that different skills are covered and practised.

8.4.4 Providing a range and balance 01activities in

a course
Aninitial dimension to consider when selecting activities is the relationship
between the range chosen and the situations in which learners will need to
function. This can be part of needs analysis with adults learning English as a
secondlanguage within an English-speaking community (see 10.2) and it is
relatively easy to derive a list of those transactions which learners must
perform in their daily lives. It is also possible to draw on the checklist of
settingsand topics in a syllabus specification such as Threshold Level (van Ek
1975) as this is based on enabling people to engage in conversation when
theyvisit English-speaking countries. Using these devices should ensure that
rangeis offered in terms of transactional and interpersonal situations. It will
alsoprovide a range of relevant functions to practise.
Another consideration is to find a balance between practice activities which
aremonologue and those which involve two speakers or more. Some learners
mayhave a need to practise monologue in gentes that relate to their lives, for
example,making a presentation, justif}ringa decision, giving a verbal evaluation
ofsomething, or presenting a report. For many of these, it would be normal
tohave time to prepare, and classroom methodology can reflect this, as in the
simulation in Materials extract 8.E. Monologue can, as here, be practised
within interactive activities. It can also be practised as a genre aparto The
book Once Upon a Time (Morgan and Rinvolucri 1983) is a good source of
ideasfor storytelling, for example, and the more sustained language required
bythese activities will help students to develop the confidence to make their
turns in interaction longer.
Achieving a balance between accuracy- and fluency-based tasks is a further
essential criterion in developing a programme. It has been argued (Brumfit
1984a) that, as students move through the levels of an English programme,
increasing time should be allocated to fluency work. The assumption here is
thatbeginners will need a strong focus on learning to use grammar, vocabulary,
andfeatures of pronunciation in more controlled, intensive forms of practice,
but that they will then need opportunities to use the resources they have
acquired in fluency work which simulates reallanguage use.
However, John and Liz Soars, in the Introduction to Headway Upper
lntermediate Teacher's Book, argue that students who have passed through
the 'intermediate stages' of a programme and who have 'sufficient linguistic
284 Developing the language skills

eonfidenee and ability to survive in a target language environment and

understand the gist of what is going on around them' (page iii) will still have
inaeeuracies and a relatively narrow range of voeabulary. Therefore 'maintaining
or even inereasing the amount of aeeuraey work might eliminate some of
these mistakes and enrieh their language repertoire'" (ibid.). The teaeher's
decision about whieh of these lines to follow may well depend on the
praetiee opportunities available to their upper-intermediate students outside
the classroom, and faetors sueh as class size, resourees, and time available for
lessons, whieh will affect the possibilities for doing aeeuraey work within
fluency aetivities, for example, group analysis of recorded aetivities (see 8.4.6).
A number of eriteria, then, can be used in formulating the speaking eomponent
of a eourse. Several eheeklists of flueney aetivities have been published. For
example, Klippel (1984) offers interviews, guessing games, jigsaw tasks,
questioning aetivities, ranking exercises, diseussion games, values-clarifieation
teehniques, thinking strategies, problem-solving aetivities, role-play and
simulation, and stories. Harmer (1991) and Littlewood (1981) provide similar
lists, but all of these are eategorized in different ways. The teaeher seleeting
fram these resourees or evaluating what is provided in a particular eoursebook
needs eriteria to apply. These questions might provide a basis for evaluation:
1 Participation within the group
(a) Does the aetivity oblige all students to eo-operate and contribure, or
do es it allow some students to domina te?
(b) Are students obliged to negotiate meaning as they perform the task?
(e) Are group roles suggested, e.g. ehair, or can students decide their own
group strueture?
2 Complexity of interaetions
(a) Does the aetivity require one type of interaetion, e.g. pairwork, or
do es it require several in sequenee, e.g. pairwork followed by two pairs
in a"group offour?
(b) Does the group composition stay the same or does it ehange throughout
the aetivity?
(e) How mueh movement is needed within the classroom?

3 Opportunities for management of interaction

(a) Does the aetivity require students to open and close eonversations?
(b) Do students need to manage topies and change topies?
(e) Do students have a ehanee to control their own turn-taking?
(d) Does the aetivity eneourage or oblige longer turns?
4 Degree of simulation required
(a) Does the aetivity keep students in the eonversational setting of their
own classroom or ask them to imagine another setting? Is this known
to them or difficult to imagine?
 Speaking

(b) Do students have to assume roles (and are these familiar and/or useful)
or can students be themselves?
(c) Can students express their own attitudes and opinions or are these
given?
5 Structure of the activity
(a) 1sthere a gap of some kind?
(b) 1sthere a set ofinstructions for students to follow or can they make up
their own procedure?
(c) How many phases does the activity have, and are these best managed
as in-class or out-of-class work?
(d) 1sone outcome expected from the activity or can the students decide
their own outcome?
(e) Does the activity give students time to plan or rehearse, or does it
involve spontaneous interaction?
6 Motivation
(a) 1sthe topic one which will motivate a particular class?
(b) What is the source of the motivation, e.g. the nature of the problem,
the topicality of the subject?
There is clearly some overlap between these categories and certain questions
wiUbe more relevant to some teaching situations than others. For example,
category 2 will be of particular concern to teachers of large classes or to
teachersintroducing students to these types ofinteractions.

8.4.5 Téaching thepronunciation component 01

a course
Balancingholistic and atomistic approaches
One current view on creating a balance between holistic and atomistic
approaches is that the former should be of primary importance. Esling and
Wong(1983), for instance, suggest that if students are given early instruction
onhow to set their articulatory organs to produce the typical voice quality of
North American English speakers, then it will be easier for them to produce
individual sounds. This early training may involve both consciousness-
raising and practice. Thornbury (1993), for example, suggests an early
activityfor adult Spanish learners ofEnglish as a foreign language.
Contrast a Spanish speaker ofEnglish and a native speaker performing
the same task in English on tape. Students listen and note any character-
istics in pronunciation, perhaps selecting from a list and matching
them to the speaker. For example:
a. he/ she sounds fiat
286 Developing the language skills

b. he/she speaks with a 'creaky' voice

c. he/she hisses a lot
d. he/she says some things fast and some things slow
e. he/she speaks 'through her nose'
After group/pair discussion, the teacher leads an open discussion abolit
salient suprasegmental features ofSpanish and English accent (including
features of stress and rhythm, as well as voice qualities.)
(Thornbury ] 993: 129)

Certainly, activities like this, if used for consciousness-raising, have the advantage
of exposing learners to communicative situations in which various elements
of pronunciation integrate before they move on to recognize and practise the
elements more atomistically.

Integrating pronunciation teaching

Ir will generally be the teacher's responsibility to decide when to focus on
pronunciation, and on which aspects. There are usually ample opportunities
to integrate work on both segmental and suprasegmental features into
lessons which focus on speaking, either through activities which prepare for
speaking tasks or through follow-up activities.
Perhaps the easiest aspects to integrate are work on individual sounds, word
stress, sentence stress, and various types oflinking, as these can be drawn out
of many different classroom activities. This is the approach taken in The
Cambridge English Courseby Michael Swan and Catherine Walter, in which
phonology is one dimension in a multidimensional syllabus, and the criterio n
for choosing content is key features of English 'that can give big rewards to
the learner in exchange for relatively modest input of practice time'
(Teacher's Book 1, page x). Their choice of foci are English as a stress-timed
language and linking between words.
Intonation can be a specific focus in accuracy-based activities which show
students its importance in indicating attitude in conversation. Ir is possible
to pick out dialogues from textbook material which exemplifY the link
between stress, intonation, and emotion or attitude, or to build dialogues
with students on the board, for example of a 'complaining' transaction
between a customer and a shop assistant over faulty goods. Key turns can be
highlighted, especially those where there is consistency in stress and intonation,
for example: 'This is quite unacceptable'; 'Ir just isn't good enough', and '1'11
have to take it further', and students asked to analyse the patterns and link
them to emotion. Students can then practise in a controlled way before role-
playing other situations. This approach has been formalized in Headway
Pronunciation where supplementary pronunciation material s are linked to
 Speaking

Materials extract 8.F

• Intonation and sentence stress ITJ4.5.B. Now listcn to the following dialogues.
I

Mark the dialogues like this* if you think B does

not belicve what he is rcporting.

5 Showing disbelief a. A Does Jud~th likc her new job?

B Shc said she likeJ it.
IT.14:S.A. ¡ Listen 10 the following dialogues. \Vho
does not bclievc what Sally said? How does the b. A Haw \Vas Paul's dinner party,?
stress and intonation shmv this? B Everyonc said they enjoyed- it. *
c. A Where did Petcr gct thar {lO note?
B He said hc'eI founo it.

d. A Can you remind Hclcn about my f20?

B She said that shc had already paid you.

e. A Wh)' didn't Phil come 10 the lesson yesterday?

B Hc said he \vas too bus)'.

f. A How's :Vlandy's diet going?

B She said she had 10st.5 kilos.

g. A Has David found my book )iet?

B No. but he said he'd lookcd evcrywhere.

h. A \Vhat's happening between Linda and Tony?

B I don't kno\\!, but she said she \Vasn't intcrested
in him.

Writc six things that pcople have told you recently,

three that you bclicve and thrce that you do not
believc.

Examples

A IVOmG11 at lVork rold me rlUIrher husband had jusl

han promoted again.
A1y brother said laslnight that he hadn't bl'cn
smoking.
NotitT the stress ano in!onation. '1'0sho\\' dishclid
Ten your partner about the things that you have
tbcrc is a specíal stress 011 said amI the intonation
written do,",'n in conversations like this. You should
gocs dO\vn likc this:
make it clear from )'our intonation whether or not
believed what you were told .
)'OL!

. ~D'--'
She s;lId she haJ a headachc.

Whcrcas the intonation in the ordinary typc of

sentcncc is like this:

Listen again ane! repeat the replies, paying

attcutian lo the intonation.

(Cunningham and Bowler: Headway lntermediate Pronunciation, page 82)

rhemain coursebook and, for example, give students practice in intonation,

asin rhe activity for showing disbelief in Materials extract 8.E
Manyteachers would say that pronunciation work is one of the most difficult
areasfor students because awkwardness, inhibition, embarrassment, and fear
oflosing face tend to come strongly to the fore. Correction of pronunciation
errors,therefore, needs to be done in as positive a way as possible.
288 Developing the language skills

8.4.6 Treating error in the classroom

As we saw in Chapter 1, recent years have seen a debate abour the value of
error correction in the classroom. This stemmed largely from Krashen's
suggestion that, in acquiring a first language, a young child takes linle notice
of parental correction and that, since adults follow a similar process in acquiring
a second or foreign language, correction by the teacher is of Clubious value.
His first point is easily demonstrated by examples from writing on first
language acquisition, for example Derrick (1976) presents this anecdotal
conversatlon:

She said, My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
I asked, Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?
She answered, Yés.
I then asked, What did you say she did?
She answered again, She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
Did you say she held them tightly?I asked.
No, she answered. She holded them loosely.
(DerrickI976: 19)

His second point, however, is less easily supported. On the contrary, many
adults would claim that feedback on errors is useful and that they are able to
process it in productive ways. For example, in my own learning ofSwedish, I
well remember being told by a Swedish friend of my error in placing the
negative particle after the modal auxiliary in a relative clause, as in English.
For example:
She is a woman who cannotsmile.

when the correct position in Swedish is before the auxiliary. Ir was only after
the feedback, understanding of the rule, and sustained effort, that I eventually
eradicated the error.

In many foreign language situations, where there is little exposure to English

or practice available in the community, error correction is an expected role
for the teacher. However, the debate has been useful in raising issues. Allwright
(1988) has discussed the confusion that can be created by inconsistency in
error correction. He gives a simulated example of classroom talk in which a
teacher fails to correct one student, who is known not to make any anempt
tú use feedback, but corrects another, more careful, student on the same
language point:
T When's your birthday, Alvaro?
Alvaro Twelfth November
T Okay. Now, Santos, when's your birthday?
Santos Fourteenth of September
T No, Listen: the fourteenth. Again ...
(Allwright 1988: 210)
~

Speaking 2E:.

Allwrightpoints out that a number of questions arise from the teacher's disparate
treatment of the two srudents. Do the other students appreciate that Alvaro
iscarelessand that the teacher has decided not to bother correcting him? Do
they realize that the teacher is more positive towards Santos and will give
usefulfeedback? Do they realize that 'Okay' did not indicate approval? If the
classrealize these things, they will understand the different responses of the
teacher, though they may not approve of the discrimination displayed. If
theydo not realize these things, then they might hypothesize a rule from the
feedback, for example: 'In dates, the presence of "of" necessitates the use of
"the".' The implication of this example is that teachers need not only to
think about the effect of correction on the srudent being corrected, but also
its effect on the whole class or group who might process the feedback. A
carefulpolicy of error treatment will require consistency in its application.
Thisis far from easy in practice. We will now look at the kinds of decision we
needto make to guide Out classroom management.

Which errors to correct

Thisis perhaps the hardest question to answer. Ir relates in part to a distinction
often made between systematic errors, which are evidence of a learner's
current stage ofinterlanguage and which are to do with in complete or faulty
knowledge of English, and mistakes, which are caused through inability to
performthat knowledge in production because of factors to do with carelessness,
tiredness, distractions, or difficult circumstances such as talking on a faulty
te!ephoneline and having to respond to partly heard messages. The mistakes
can probably be self-corrected if the learner's attention is drawn to them.
With errors, the teacher must decide whether an indication of error is likely
lO provide useful feedback which can help the individual and others in the

classto progress in their understanding of the language. However, since it

has now been shown that, as well as working out rules, learners acquire
whole'chunks' oflanguage which they have not necessarily analysed and for
which they may not be able to process feedback, this traditional distinction
inhow a teacher might respond to mistakes and errors has become blurred.
Another way of dealing with errors is to decide which of them impede
communication. Global errors cause misunderstanding by the listener while
localerrors tend not to as they relate only to pan of what is said. For example,
'They ate smoked worm' is not immediately apparent as 'They ate smoked
ee!'whereas 'There are long trees on each side of my street' can be easily
adjustedin the mind of the listener to 'tall trees'. Again, though, the distinction
is not always an easy one to make during the quick interactions of the
classroom.
290 Developing the language skills

How to get a balance between correction and encouragement

Trainee teachers are usually advised to be sensitive to how insistent they are
in correcting an individual publicly in class as embarrassment or anxiety can
eliminate any productive outcome. There is always a need to balance
negative feedback on errors with positive feedbackon the student's attempts
to produce the language, and this means consideration of.affective factors
and knowing 'when to push and when to stop'. Another strategy which
reduces tension is to correct another student's errors and return to the
original error-maker later in the process.

Students unused to the demands for speaking in public made by the

communicative classroom, even if that 'public' is a relatively small number of
their peers in groupwork, may be reluctant to speak up through lack of
confidence or fear of'losing face' by making mistakes. One way of providing
out-of-class opponunities for error correction is explored by Allan (1991).
This is the use of tape journals. Her procedure follows four stages: first, the
student records a ten-minute talk, speaking from notes rather than reading a
prepared text; then the student listens and tries to note any mistakes,
recording comment on these at the end of the tape. Next the teacher listens
and notes down errors for the student. These are categorized into pronunci-
ation and syntactic or lexical errors. And then the teacher records comments
on a representative sample of these as well as making a personal response to
the content of the tape. In this way, the process of error correction becomes
far less threatening for the student.

Allan's experiment with this procedute with a class of Japanese universiry

students met with enthusiasm from the students. They were wary of
claiming improvement in accuracy but they reponed heightened awareness
of their errors, reduced hesitancy in delivery over a period of time, and
motivation that carne from being able to ask the teacher, on tape, about
language queries, for example, 'Do you say ''!'m very looking forward to"?'
Allan points out the limitations of the procedure for large classes, and, as this
is planned discourse, its limitations in terms of communication. However, as
students build confidence, they may be able to progress from speaking with
reduced anxiety in classroom activities which give them planning time to
speaking in activities which demand more spontaneous production.

Which strategies to choose for correction

Below is a list of strategies for error correction observed in the classroom style
of different teachers during controlled practice:

1 The teacher frowns and says 'No, you don't say that. What do you say?
Can anybody help Juan?'
 Speaking
/' 2

2 The teacher repeats a sentence the student has just said, with rising intonation
up to the point of the mistake, and waits for the student to self-correct.
3 The student has just produced a present-tense answer to a past-tense
question from the teacher. The teacher repeats the question, stressing the
past tense form, and waits for the student to self-correct.
4 The student uses incorrect intonation in a question. The teacher asks the
class for an accurate version, then repeats it, asks the class for choral
repetition and individual repetition, and finally returns to the original
student.
5 The teacher looks puzzled and requests clarification by asking 'What did
you say?', which the students recognize as indication of an error. Then the
teacher waits for the student to self correcto
6 The teacher moves his or her hand to indicate error, gives the correct
version, and asks the student to repeat it.
Theseexamples indicate the range of decisions the teacher has to make in
treatingerror during controlled practice: how to indicate that an error has
beenmade; how to indicate where the error is in what the student has said;
whetherto give the correct form or prompt self-correction in some way; and
whetherto involve the rest of the class or noto These decisions will relate to
the points raised earlier abolit whether the student is likely to use the
feedback,whether it is a careless mistake, how often the error has been made
inthat particular class and how many students have been making it, and the
confidenceor anxiety of the individual student concerned.
Increasingly,research studies provide teachers with insights into the functioning
ofthesedifferent strategies. For example, Nobuyoshi and Ellis (1996) report
ona small-scale exploratory study which investigated the effect of using
requestsfor clarification when students produce errors in a form-focused
communication activity, rather than making corrections. (A request for
darification can be exemplified by 5 above, while 1 and 6 are correction
strategies.)The question for Ellis and Nobuyoshi was whether the use of
requestsfor clarification would push the student to self-correction and
therebyto producing more accurate language. They found, in a group of
adultlearners ofEnglish in Tokyo, that some students self-corrected successfully
andothers did noto lnterestingly, they also noted that the former students
maintainedtheir improved accuracy on later occasions. This suggests that an
important role for the teacher might be to encourage self-correction. Ir
certainlyfits with contemporary ideas abolit building responsibility in
learnersand reducing dependence on the teacher.

How to respond to error during different activities

Inthe use of correction techniques a balance is needed between accuracy and
Auency,and many handbooks for teachers stress the importance of not
impedingor distracting learners' attempts to communicate during fluency
292 Developing the language skills

activities. Harmer, for example, lists 'teacher intervention' among the character-
istics of non-communicative tasks and 'no teacher intervention' among the
characteristics of communicative ones (1982: 167). The teacher's notes
which accompany many coursebooks often instruct teachers to leave
correction until the end in fluency activities. Experienced teachers would
apply this 'rule' with discretion however. 1 remember sitting on the edge oE
a business English simulation, observing a learner struggle to use a
communication strategy to produce the word 'providence' instead oE
'provision' and then, as other srudents took 'providence' up and repeated it
frequendy, wishing 1 had used a quick stage-whisper to correct the
originator. In general, though, it is useful to have a repertoire of 'after the
event' techniques which might include:
noting down each individual's main errors on separate cards and giving
these to them for reflection. If students keep a cumulative record of these
cards they can monitor them to see whether some of their errors are
gradually being eradicated
recording the activity (on video or audio cassette) and asking srudents to
listen and see if they can identify and correct their own errors and those oE
peers
making a note of'key' errors, for example, those made by several srudents
or those relating to a recent teaching point, and going through these with
the class afterwards
noting down examples of errors and using these for a game in the next
class.

This review of the questions which form the framework of any policy on
error treatment, the options that exist for correction strategies, and the
factors influencing choices, shows that it is hardly surprising that error
correction is considered to be one of the most complex aspects of classroom
management, requiring substantial judgement and skill on the parr of the
teacher. For learners, classroom error correction is parr of a wider process oE
recognizing and understanding their errors and then having opporrunities to
try and try again in speaking activities.

8.4.7 Managing classroom interaction

Speaking activities are probably the most demanding for srudents and teachers
in terms of the affective factors involved. Trying to produce language in fronr
of other students can generate high levels of anxiety. Students may feel that
they are presenting themselves at a much lower level of cognitive ability than
they really possess; they may have a natural anxiety about being incompre-
hensible; they may have cultural inhibitions abolit losing face, or they may
simply be shy personalities who do not speak very much in their first
 SNaking L

!anguage.Ir is therefore a major responsibility for the teacher to create a

reassutingclassroom environment in which students are prepared to take
risksand experiment with the language.
Classroommanagement is also a key issue given the complex structure of
somecommunication activities. In Chapter 2 (Mate~ials extract 2.D) we saw
anexample of a jigsaw task which combined reading, note-taking, reporting
ingroups, and discussion in two phases. Analysis of teacher roles during these
phasesshowed the need for careful direction, organization, and monitoring.
Role-playand simulation also require precise structuring at the planning
srageas they integrate a number of things: input, sometimes from a number
ofsoutces both written and spoken; preparatory activities to do with the
information content of the role-play, and others to do with its language
demands,and various interactions such as pairwork leading into groupwork
andfollowed by whole-class discussion. And all of this will need to be phased
rhroughout one or severallessons.
Lookingat the complexity ofjigsaw tasks and simulations raises the question
oflearnertraining for this kind of methodology. The key principIe is gradual
inrroduction of more complex tasks, beginning with simple pairwork
acrivitiesand building through intermediate stages of complexity to more
ambitious activities. This may be particularly important with secondary-
schoolstudents who are unaccustomed to moving around in the classroom,
andwho may be more difficult to control than motivated adults who are
!earning English from choice. Ir also means developing clear classroom
procedures.Those for pairwork might involve:
- givinga careful explanation ofwhat is needed, with a teacher demonstration
if appropriate
- rhe teacher asking the class to recap, or getting two students to try the
activity out as an example
- monitoring as soon as the pairwork starts in order to check that each pair
is 'on task' and understands what to do.

Even so-called 'simple' pairwork needs consideration, as they are many

factorsat work beneath the surface of the class which will affect its success,
especiallywith adults who have moved away from the school experience of
havingto accommodate to other people in the close quarters of a classroom.
Age,gender, and personality can all playa part in making pairwork a difficult
experienceand add to the natural tension of trying to make oneself understood.
Moving pairs around is one answer if the teacher chooses the pairs rather
rhanthe students being self-selecting, but it means that the teacher needs to
keepan eye on the factors listed above. A particularly sensitive issue is the
feelingof disappointment or irritation that can ensue from the member of a
pairwho has high proficiency in English and who feels that little is learned
294 Developing the language skills

from a less able partner's input or feedback. To overcome this problem, the
teacher may need to talk explicitly about the value of pairwork in a commun-
icative dassroom as compared with methodologies which adult students
may have experienced earlier in their learning careers. The teacher also needs
to confront the issues that can arise, and suggest how mixing and matching
students might be one way to resolve them.
Similar issues arise in the use of groupwork, and particular difficulty can be
experienced when students come from an educational setting in which a
competitive or individualistic goal structure is the norm and are not familiar
with working cooperatively. The implications, as with pairwork, are for
gradual and patient training and for careful decision-making on the practica!
details. These would indude:

The ideal size of a group for a particular activity, and whether there is
value, in some information-gap or other problem-solving tasks, in using
initial pairwork followed by two pairs interacting in a group of four.
The best way of selecting group members, and whether the teacher should
be the one to do this in order to achieve a constructive mix. This may
certainly be the best initial procedure until students begin to feel comfortable
with groupwork and are better able to see the value of achieving a mix
through self-selection. Alternatively, there may be occasions when a more
random selection is needed and the teacher can use various devices for
grouping students.
The length of time that groups should keep the same composition. There
are arguments for keeping a group together for a period of time in order
for the members to achieve a cohesiveness which will facilitate their
interaction. However, this do es not predude occasional one-off changes
in group composition for some activities.
How to cope when groups finish an activity at different times. This may
involve getting the groups that finish early to rehearse reporting to each
other, or having extra activities ready which relate to the topic. The
situation is often helped by setting a time-limit in the first place.
The decisions will be informed by the particular nature of any dass. For
example, in a multilingual dass of adults, there is dearly value in students
being exposed to a variety of accents and interlanguage features, especially if
they are learning English in order to communicate with other speakers from
a variety oflanguage backgrounds.

8.5 Conclusion
This chapter has set out to demonstrate that, in order to design a useful
methodology for developing speaking skills, we need insights about the