Dr. Grace lives in Singapore where she teaches ESL

“Do you speak English?” How often have you been asked this question by native speakers of English? When they say “Do you speak English?” they usually mean “. . . and do you understand it, too?” This simple question in itself requires competence or comprehension on your part to enable you to respond or perform the speech act to the question. Competence refers to one’s knowledge of a system, event, or fact; it is the nonobservable ability to do something or to perform something. Performance is the overtly observable and concrete outcome of competence, the actual doing of something, e.g. walking, singing, dancing, or speaking. For example, it is assumed that school children possess certain competence in a given subject and that this competence can be measured and evaluated by means of the observation of performance called “tests” or “examinations.”

Two Modes in Oral Communication
Oral communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener (or listeners) and involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of comprehension (or listening with understanding). The two modes in oral communication are competence and performance. Competence is one’s underlying knowledge and comprehension of the linguistic system of a language--its rules of grammar, its vocabulary, and how these pieces fit together. Performance is the actual speech production of linguistic events.

In very broad terms, a language is an instrument of communication, and speaking is a natural activity that permits people to communicate with each other as can be seen in the following conversations. These conversations could be considered authentic because the speakers conducted their talks in real situations in unrehearsed contexts. Let us consider the Chinese speakers in the following dialogues in terms of competence/comprehension and performance modes of communication. Can you relate them to some students in your language classroom?

Conversation I

Mr. Jones: Can you please tell me where the National Palace Museum is?

Chuan He: (in Chinese) Ta chiang shenme? (What is he saying?)

Mei Lin: (to Chuan He in Chinese) Pu zi dao. (I don't know) (to Mr. Jones) What?

Mr. Jones: (pointing to the opposite direction) Where is the National Palace Museum?

Mei Lin: (shaking her head) Don’t know. (in Taiwanese) Pai sei! (Pardon me.)

Chuan He: (in Chinese) I thought you learn to speak English in school.

Mei Lin: (in Chinese) I can’t understand every word he said to answer him. Besides, he speaks too fast..

It is obvious that Chuan He and Mei Lin had no problem communicating with one another because they understood and spoke the language which enabled Mei Lin to express her feelings of frustration to her friend. On the other hand, Mei Lin and Mr. Jones were unsuccessful in communicating with each other even though each was speaking what was clearly a language. The communication broke down because Mei Lin not only lacked the knowledge of functional English vocabulary but also the ability to understand enough to respond in English. In other words, she missed out on competence and performance.

Conversation II

Ms. Lee: What you Want?

Customer: To buy a Chinese robe.

Mr. Lee: We sell all Chinese.

Customer: (pointing to some clothes on the racks) I want to buy a silk robe for my wife.

Ms. Lee: You (pointing at the customer).

Customer: No, not for me. For my wife.

Obviously, Ms. Lee in the above conversation had difficulty in linguistic knowledge, word comprehension as well as cultural understanding of the English language to communicate effectively. In other words, her need to seek and convey information to a native speaker of English was hindered by her limited English proficiency.

Conversation III

Student A: Where did you go for summer vacation?

Student B: Great Britain.

Student A: Whereabouts in England? Scotland? London? Cambridge?

Student B: London, most of the time.

Student A: Did you visit Kew Gardens? It’s beautiful in summer.

Student B: Yes, we did. My cousins and I took many photos there.

In this dialogue, the exchange between students A and B went well because both speakers could comprehend and produce the English language. Each speaker was able to communicate with the other about what was on his mind by using linguistic knowledge and social aspects of communication skills, When B asked A “whereabouts in England?” he was telling A rather than just making a general social inquiry, he really wanted more explicit information. In other words, B was negotiating about the purpose of the conversation in the form of shared knowledge that evolved from a common experience of having visited London.

The Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT)

The term “communicative competence” is an offshoot of the approach to “communicative language teaching” (CLT). Although it is not our intent to advocate one EFL/ESL approach over other approaches, we certainly subscribe to the basic principle of CLT, that is, teaching a foreign language for the ultimate goal of communication with native speakers of the target language. As a caution, it seems appropriate to remember here that teaching involves more than a knowledge of methods or a particular new approach. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to offer ideas to refresh your teaching with useful techniques both new and old, so you can wisely adapt them to your classroom needs, not adopt.

According to Brown (1987), ‘communicative competence’ has become a “household word” in second language research and teaching since the 1980’s. He defines communicative competence as a speaker’s knowledge of the rules of language (e.g. rules of pronunciation and spelling, grammar, vocabulary and word formation) and the appropriate choice of language that enable him/her to understand and use it in communicating with another person(s) in diverse situations. If English learners are able not only to produce and understand structures but also use them to express the communicative functions they need to do things through language, we say that they have ‘communicative competence’ in the language.

It is appropriate here to reiterate the two assumptions that underlie the principle of communicative competence: 1) language learners are concerned in the classroom with language use, not language knowledge; 2) students learn language most effectively by using it in realistic situations. Whereas linguistic (grammatical) competence puts emphasis on knowledge “about” language rules and forms, communicative competence highlights the knowledge that enables an EFL/ESL learner to communicate functionally and interactively. Thus, communication is not something that happens, but it is functional, purposeful and designed to bring about some effect on the learning environment of the listener and the speaker.

Participation in verbal interaction offers language learners the opportunity to follow up on new words and structures to which they have been exposed during language lessons and to practice them in context. Indeed, many traditional as well as current teaching methods and materials reflect this point of view (e.g. see overviews by Brown,1994; Richard & Rodgers, 1992; Savignon, 1989). Needless to say, “communicative competence” has significant implications for understanding a communicative approach to language teaching especially for those teachers who are used to the grammar-transformational approach to teaching. As you may have found out, the focus on the use of rote imitation, extensive memorization and exclusively manipulative practice do not encourage personal expression and functional language use. If you intend to help your students develop communicative competence, you will have to put forth effort to continue to improve your classroom practice. You need a new orientation, that is, you must recognize that like the first language, the English language is a means for communicating the four language skills.

Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Communicative competence depends upon the extent in which learners are exposed to and involved in genuine communication in the target language. In order to produce communicatively competent speakers, it is of vital importance to provide students with lots of opportunities to interact directly with the target language; that is, to acquire language competence by using it rather than by studying it. The communicative language teaching approach suggests that if we want our students to use spoken English effectively, we need to include a strong communicative component in our teaching by incorporating the following features in our classroom practices:

provide more opportunities for students to be exposed in real communication;
provide adequate opportunities for students to actually use English in real situations;
conduct activities which are meaningful to students and which will motivate them to become committed to sustaining that communication to accomplish a specific goal, such as, completing a task or solving a problem that is both communicatively useful and relevant to their own particular language needs;
provide students with opportunities to negotiate conversation on topics which are goal-oriented and in which they have a vested interest;
create a stress-free classroom atmosphere (classroom interaction and environment) conducive to active listening and speaking practice;
increase student-talking time by reducing teacher-talking time;
encourage cooperative learning by having students work in pairs or in small groups.
Instructional Strategies

The following section provides suggestions for putting the communicative competence features into useful practice in your classroom. There are six significant areas of classroom interaction that you should be aware of in analyzing your present mode of teaching. Understanding them will help you implement appropriate teaching strategies of oral communication skills. They are directly related to 1) the classroom environment; 2) cooperative learning; 3) from manipulation to communication or from form to function; 4) teaching aids; 5) the variety of task-based activities; and 6) the need for feedback and correction.

Create a Supportive Classroom Environment: One of the most important facets of the language learning experience for ESL/EFL students is a good social environment. This belief is supported by copious research in teacher effectiveness and in instructional situation. In a study conducted at the UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles ), Bailey (1976 ) found that a) a good social climate promotes communication; b) teacher warmth and enthusiasm consistently show a positive correlation with student achievement; and c) what the teacher says and does is significant in establishing a classroom atmosphere that can outweigh the effects of materials, methods, and educational facilities. Given the pressures of curriculum demands, the differing needs of the students, overcrowded classes and too little time, what can you do to promote a good social climate in your classroom? Here are some suggestions:

· Social climate--Any language activity which involves the entire class cooperating on a specific task can enhance social climate. Learning the students’ name can be facilitated by knowing something about the individuals in the class. Solicit information about their interests, their family background and favorite things (colors, food, person, TV programs, songs, hobbies, etc.) and compile a class information sheet. The class information sheet can provide meaningful contexts for many grammar lessons, e.g. forming WH-questions, for comparatives and superlatives or relative clauses (e.g. The person who likes swimming is _______)

· Physical Environment --The physical environment of a classroom can greatly influence the social climate. Whatever the physical set-up of the classroom may be, you can either bring in items of interest or creatively use what little is available in order to arouse student motivation, or to promote classroom interaction, or even to brighten the classroom. For example, bring in travel posters/pictures/photos to stimulate interest for the topics in current study, put up students’ work, drawings, or a display around a grammar point, a vocabulary set of minimal pairs, idioms or humorous cartoons showing usage of slang, etc. Encourage student contribution or give interesting and productive assignments for your artistic students to be responsible for their classroom ‘English Corner” decoration. An “English Corner” can be created by using a corner or a particular spot in the classroom for putting up English-related material.

· Students’ input and feedback --The social climate can be improved if the students have some voice in what they are learning and feel that their teacher is responsive to their needs. An informal brief written questionnaire in midterm gives students a chance to provide feedback about their perception of class activities. Or, encourage students to drop in their input or feedback in a classroom suggestion box.

· Teacher behavior - Ultimately, the responsibility for the classroom atmosphere lies with you, the teacher. Social climate is affected by your behavior, inside and outside of class. It is unlikely that your students will become actively involved in the teaching material if you don’t seem to enjoy teaching them or your subject. Here are some pointers to help you project an enthusiastic and positive image:

a) make the class come alive by being enthusiastic in your teaching;

b) express interest in your students as individuals;

c) try often to find ways of encouraging your students that they are making progress in the language;

d) capitalize on your students’ desire to talk with their friends to motivate them in language practice and use by cutting back on the amount of “teacher talk” and increasing the opportunity for student participation;

e) attempt new things or techniques to stimulate communicative competence;

f) involve all students, especially the shy ones, in tasks that require language use (e.g. attendance roll-calling, giving out papers, word-calling for Bingo game, etc.)

2) Encourage Cooperative Learning - Communicative language teaching puts emphasis on students working in pairs or in small groups. By definition, pair-work is independent work by pairs of students working simultaneously on a task or practice activity. It is often an extension of ordinary controlled practice or drilling, with more opportunity for students to talk, hence high student-talking time. There are many cases in which students can benefit from working in pairs instead of having the attention of the entire class focused on the teacher as in the normal practice of whole class instruction. In using students in pairs, it is important to give clear and concise directions to the class by:

a) providing the basic information ( the data or rules to work with); and

b) carefully structure and define the task they are to perform..

To avoid confusion of moving around, students can pair up according to seating arrangement, one working with another seated next to him/her, or the one in front with the one sitting behind him/her, interchangeably.

However, some language learning or language practicing activities are more appropriate for small group work than for pair work. Group work is independent work carried out simultaneously by groups of three or more students on a task or tasks. A teacher who decides to try using small groups should consider the effects of various grouping strategies on student participation. The method of dividing the class into groups depends largely on the students’ language proficiency and the objective of the lesson or activity. It is often helpful to use heterogeneous or mixed ability grouping by language background to guarantee the use of English as the medium of discussion. As with pair work, during group work, your role is to assist when help is needed, to keep the students on task (by offering encouragement, settling disputes, clarifying directions, etc.) and to observe the students’ use of the language.

Besides producing more language, it is found that language learners working together in pairs or small groups display greater motivation, more initiative and less anxiety regarding their learning. Omaggio (1986), Jones, et al.(1987) and Long and Richards (1987), lend support to the advantages of small-group and paired communicative practice for language learners, teachers and researchers:

What students say:

* Group work leads to more learning, understanding and practice.

* Working with peers take some of the pressure off them who often feel intimidated by

the need to perform in front of the whole class.

* They like sharing and exchanging ideas.

* They are motivated to participate in oral communicative activities.

What teachers say::

* Students get more speaking practice.

* Students use a wider range of language.

* They encourage students to feel free to take communicating initiative

* They motivate students to be task-oriented.

* They promote a positive affective climate in the classroom.

* They provide variety in the class.

* They take some pressure off teacher-talking time

What researchers say::

* Both quantity and quality of practice are increased.

* Input is more finely tuned to the individual.

* Learners get feedback from different sources --teachers and peers.

* Accuracy is comparable to whole class work.

* Other corrections and completions are increased; miscorrection is rare.

3) Move from Manipulation to Communication This strategy applies to moving from the rigidly structured practice of grammar (form) to a less controlled situation in which the learner can communicate his or her own ideas in a functional way (function). Form, often synonymous with structure is the actual words or sounds used to express something in language, as opposed to meaning or use. Basically, a function is a label attached to a sentence saying what it does. Therefore, the function of a structure is the communicative purpose of that structure on a particular occasion, such as, what the speaker is trying to do through language.

In fact, students do not need to ‘learn’ functions since they are universal to all languages; but they do need to learn how to express these functions in English. Recognizing the importance of functions will give the English lesson a different emphasis, and students will be more aware of why they are practicing particular structures.

All language learning activities can be classified as either manipulative or communicative. An example of manipulative activity is a drill in which the learner merely repeats sentences after the teacher or a substitution drill which focuses on the teaching of structure. Such type of activities dominate most English textbooks used in Taiwan. But various kinds of drills, question-and-answer exercises, paraphrases of dialogues, and other oral and written activities can become predominantly communicative as they move away from simple repetition or memorization toward a freer expression of the student’s own knowledge and ideas (Hubbard, Jones, et. al. 1987). Here are sample activities that demonstrate the modes of presenting a structure moving from a manipulative form to a communicative function.

Sample Activities: Teaching ‘present continuous tense’

(A) Form Only

Oral Drill:

T: I am sitting.

Ss: I am sitting.

T: You’re standing.

Ss: You’re standing

T: She’s touching her head..

Ss. She’s touching her head.

T: ...

Ss: ...

(B) Form + Meaning

Explanation is given by T. to aid the meaning of the form:

T: Today, we’re going to study present continuous tense. The present continuous tense is used to describe an action happening at the moment of speaking, like, I’m touching my head (doing the motion). Everybody, touch your head and say, “I’m touching my head.”

Ss: (touching their heads) I’m touching my head.

T. Su Ching, touch you shoulders. What are you doing?

Su Ching: (touching her shoulders) I’m touching my shoulders.

T: Su Ching, keep on touching your shoulders. Now, Min Fu, what’s Su Ching doing?

Min Fu: She’s touching her shoulders.

(C) Form + Meaning = Use

Role Play: Teacher asks for 5 volunteers to role play the following situation. First, she reads the situational story and then have four ‘members of the family’ to choose their actions and tell what they are doing outside the living room at 1 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. The function of one of them is to inform Dad about a third person’s whereabouts.

Situation: Mr. Huang is married and has four children. One Saturday afternoon he comes home from his office. Only his son Li Kung is in the living room. Mr. Huang wants to know where the others are. We might then have a dialogue that sounds something like this:

Father: Where’s your Mom?

Li Kung: She’s watering the plants.

Father: Well, where’s Li Po?

Li Kung: He’s cleaning his bike.

Father: What about Li An?

Li Kung: She’s taking a shower.

Father: And Li Chuan?

Li Kung: He’s reading a comic book.

A teacher could use the above material to present to the class the form and meaning of the present continuous tense in one of its uses. Another use is to have Father announcing, “I’m home. Where’s everybody?” Then the various members of the family respond wherever they are, saying, “I’m ______________.”

To present a meaningful use of the structure, the teacher needs to incorporate into the material a communicative purpose. Functions are quite simply things we do with language.

In an intermediate or advanced class, instead of having students memorize a list of requesting for permission such as “May I . . ., Shall we . . ., Would you mind . . ., Is it all right . . .?”students could in small groups work on a dialogue to a particular set of circumstances, for example, two teenagers requesting permission and persuading their parents to let them go to a movie with their classmates. In this exercise, the stress should be on what it is you want them to communicate through the target language and not so much on how, when and where they use the language.

In general, much more time should be spent on practice than on presentation. Meaning and form should be made obvious quickly, otherwise your students will not understand what you want them to practice. The nature of the structure may suggest the mode of presentation (any form of dialogue, role play, game, etc.). Once you get used to this, with practice, in time you should be able to come up with interesting and creative modes of presentation for this teaching strategy.

4) Use a Variety of Language Teaching Aids/Instructional Materials – Defined simply, teaching aids are tools used to enhance the learning process. The reasons for their use may be varied, but the basic purpose should be the teacher’s desire to maximize student motivation that best achieve the learning objectives. A good instructional aid is one that appeals to the senses, able to attract and hold the learners’ attention in the essential elements to be learned.

Language learning is made much more effective through the use of teaching aids. That a language classroom must contain a variety of teaching aids if it is to provide the learners with an active teaching-learning situation is widely recommended by language experts. Teaching resource materials provide stimulus for a variety of oral communication skills. You need to arouse motivation in your students. It is generally believed that if used effectively, teaching aids add a very important dimension to classroom activities in motivating student participation in the four language areas, in particular, the spoken language. However, the role of instructional materials within a language classroom should reflect decisions concerning the primary goal of materials, the form of materials, the relation the materials hold to other sources of input, and the abilities of the teacher (Long & Richards, eds., 1987) Whatever aids you may have at your disposal or you would like to acquire, first, ask yourselves these questions:

* What will you use this teaching aid for?

* Which are likely to be most effective in your teaching situation?

* Are they varied or attractive enough?

* Are you making full use of the teaching aids you already have at your disposal?

Before you rush out to get new teaching materials, don’t forget the five basic media that are within your disposal: the teacher, the students, the chalkboard, the textbook, and the classroom. Usually a lesson built around one or more of these basic five, depending upon the teacher’s preference. Of the five, the chalkboard is probably the most useful of visual aids available to us and yet, many teachers do not make full use of it Used effectively, it can be a source of lively interaction between the teacher and students because it allows a teacher to have direct communication with the learners. If sectioned off into three areas, one section can be kept for writing tables or lists, one part for planned work and another part for impromptu work for unforeseen things that crop up in your lesson. This way, you can save the section you need for the next lesson, especially if you share the board with other classroom teachers.

In a classroom where communicative language teaching and learning is stressed, stronger resources besides printed materials are needed to teaching something as contextually loaded as the English language. The following list includes audio-visual and technical projected aids. Many of the visual aids are inexpensive and some can be made easily. They include: word flashcards, travel posters, picture flashcards, pictures in sets, sentence strips, wall charts, magazine pictures, photos, crossword puzzles, songs, worksheets, newspapers, games, chants/poetry, supplementary readers, magazines, native-speaker ‘guests’, realia (coins, food, accessories,etc.) maps / atlases, globe, tape recorder & cassette/CD’s, opaque projector, slide projector & slides, overhead projector & transparencies, filmstrip, computer & CD ROMs, videos, television, movies, radio.

Developing Task-Based Activities -- In developing activities, a teacher can manipulate the input of the tasks. Input, for example, may be in the form of dialogue. Tasks may vary according to whether they require a mechanical, meaningful, or communicative response. A task requiring a mechanical response would be a discrimination task where the learner is required to distinguish between two words or sounds, and where comprehension is not required. A meaningful response would be one in which comprehension of the input is required, but no creative abilities are called into play (e.g. when a learner has to match one of two sentence to one which he or she hears). A communicative response is one in which the learner has to create a suitable response on the basis of what is understood, and when interpretation, adaptation and the addition of the new information is required ( e.g. suggesting a solution to a problem). The criterion for selecting and evaluating tasks, however, is not their interest or ingenuity, but the degree to which they relate to the teaching of learning objectives.

There are many different kinds of learning activities that can be used for oral practice. These include whole class activities and tasks done in small groups, pairs or individually. This variation allows for a change of pace within lessons and the extensive use of pair-work and group-work activities is ideal in both large and small classes and gives students a greater amount of individual practice and interaction with others in the classroom. The following list of task-based activities are designed with emphasis on meaningful communicative practice.

I. DIALOGUES: A dialogue is usually a more practical use of language for beginning students than is a story. Having beginning language students memorize a set dialogue and make substitutions as needed gives them the confidence that they have something they can say in a given situation. There are some ways to use dialogues more flexibly, in ways that more closely resemble real situations and which involve communication, not just memorization.

Here are some ways:

1. Half-dialogue or one-sided dialogue - Only one speaker’s words are given, and a student supplies the other part.

2. Taped dialogues - Students listen to a taped dialogue for specific information or to answer questions. Encourage them to reconstruct the dialogue orally in their own words. This is an excellent way to expose language learners to listening to a variety of English speakers.

3. Student-created dialogue - Students working in pairs or small groups create a dialogue based on a topic or idea presented to them or a passage read to them.

4. Conversational exchange phrase sheet - This can be a good follow-up activity to go with ‘form to function’ teaching. For example, after teaching the language form of inviting and responding , encourage the intermediate/advance students to practice using the expressions and phrases in a role play or dialogue for accepting or refusing an invitation.

Phrases like “I’d like to invite you to…Oh, sure, thank you. Thanks for asking me, but I’m sorry… I’d like to, but …” etc Two other ways are: a) exchanging personal information and b) information gap exercises for pairwork.

5. Scrambled dialogue - Have students read their mixed-up lines and then put the conversation in order. Later, encourage them to engage in conversation using their own words.

6. Interviews and informal debates - This activity is more appropriate for intermediate and advanced students who have to come up their own questions to ask the interviewees. Working in small groups taking the sides of two opposing teams, students brain-storm for ideas on a given topic for a debate. Both of these tasks incorporate writing and oral discussion.

II. ROLE PLAYS: These are activities where the students are assigned fictitious roles from which they have to improvise some kind of behavior toward the other role characters in the activity.

The format consists of three basic parts: the situation, the roles, and useful expressions.

III. COMMUNICATION GAMES: Each game involves completing a definite task or reading a communicative purpose, e.g. What’s in the Picture? What’s My Line? Language Chains; Guessing Game; Picture Description; Giving Directions and Responding; Flashcard Games - Go Fish.etc.

IV. TOTAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE (TPR - modified) ACTIVITIES: Students respond to a series of command forms physically and retell the actions taken. The TPR procedure can be repeated as many times as necessary when new actions and vocabulary are introduced. Advanced students are asked to carry out a series of commands and then retell the sequence of actions.

V. SHOW AND TELL: For beginners - students are encouraged to bring something of interest to show and tell about it to the class.

VI. SONGS, CHANTS, POETRY: Recitation of chants and poems and song lyrics helps learners to become aware of speech rhythm, intonation, stress placement, pitch and fluency in speaking.

VII. ORAL REPORT: This can be a small group project or individual contact assignment. For intermediate and advanced students, e.g. writing a summary of a short story to report to class; gathering information about a topic of interest (students’ choice) to share with other groups or the whole class.

6) Giving Feedback and Correcting Errors

In a language classroom, the learner is constantly attempting to solve problems and make sense of the linguistic evidence around him. Consequently, mistakes or errors are inevitable; it is, in fact, an integral part of the learning process and of developing competence in the target language. Therefore, errors are not to be regarded as signs of failure or harmful to the learning process On the contrary, students learn by making mistakes and having them corrected. At the same time, student errors allow teachers to adjust the level of difficulty according to their students’ progress and motivation.

As a language teacher, your attitude toward error is of crucial importance. Nothing will undermine a learner’s confidence as much as constant nagging or derogatory comments about his language performance. Insensitive feedback or correction during oral work can be particularly damaging because it encourages a withdrawal attitude in the learner. Nevertheless, you must have a positive attitude to errors and be prepared to do something about them. How, when, and why feedback is given depends on the teacher’s awareness of the need to find a proper balance, both for individual students and for classes as a whole, between feedback which focuses attention on an error and feedback which encourages the learner to make further attempts at communication.

Here are some possible techniques for correcting spoken errors, for example:

a) Give the correct form; the student repeats it.

b) Indicate where the error is, but let the student correct himself or herself.

c) Pass the question on to another student, then give the first student a chance to repeat the correct form. To help students develop a positive attitude to errors, encourage them, focusing on what they have got right or partly right. The best axiom is to give praise and encouragement not only for good work done by the students but especially for effort put forth by the ‘slower’ students so that they feel they are making progress.

That learners can be providers of feedback to each other has been documented in a number of studies in learners’ interaction. Bruton and Saunder (1980) found that learners working together in the classroom made numerous correction moves and much of this kind of student- student feedback was made possible through pair-work or small group interaction.

Application Activities

I Dialogues

1. Half Dialogues or One-sided Dialogues

Here are examples, but it’s not difficult to reconstruct this type of dialogues from conversational texts (e.g. LTE or SC) or create your own.
‘At the post-office’ (B)

Mary: Good morning. I want to send a letter to Singapore.

Clerk: __________________________________________

Mary: I think I’ll send it air-mail. I want it to get there quickly.

How much does it cost?

Clerk: ____________________________________________

Mary: (gives the clerk NT$50.00) Here you are.

Clerk: ___________________________________________

Mary: Thank you. Where’s the post box?

Clerk: __________________________________________

‘Telephone dialogue’ (I &A)

Peter: ________________________________________

Jane: Yes, it’s me. I missed you at school.

Peter: _________________________________________

Jane: Oh, that’s too bad. How did it happen?

Peter: __________________________________________

Jane: Oh, that’s too bad. How did it happen?

Peter: __________________________________________

Jane: Well, I hope you’ll be on your feet again soon. Is it still very painful?

Peter: _______________________________________________

Jane: Helen’s fine. I’ve got a message for you from her, but of course she

didn’t know about your accident when she gave it to me. She wants

you to meet her at Sally’s party on Saturday. Will you be able to?

Peter: _____________________________________________________

Jane: Well, do be careful, and don’t move about too much.

(doorbell rings) That’s the door. I must go. Get better soon and don’t

forget Helen’s message.

Peter: __________________________________________

Jane: ‘Bye, Peter.

2. Taped dialogues

(B) Use any of the “Listening Practice” exercise in LTE. Tell students to listen

for specific information in the conversation to answer the questions provided

in the exercise. Or have them reconstruct the dialogue orally in their own

words.

(I & A) Use the reading tapes of any conversational type of lessons in SC and

give the same instruction as above. Explain briefly the new vocabulary in

the dialogue (not long) before playing the tape for them to listen to.

3. Student-created dialogues (B, I, A)

Encourage students to generate a list of topics they want to talk about, and have them choose one from the list (which you should keep in a file for future use).
This can be an extended activity of using a topic or idea drawn from the reading lesson or an article from LTE or SC which they have just read, but the topic must be of interest to them, e.g. comparing the food they are eating at MacDonald’s, like chicken nuggets and cheese-burger.

4. Conversational exchange and phrase expressions

Common expresions (B & I)
Make a copy of “Popular Expressions” (Conversation Warm-ups by Joyce Vander Well, p. 29) for students to work in pairs. Select matching phrases for them to practice with each other, e.g. a) greetings phrases like:

“How are you?” “Nice to see you”, “It’s been nice talking with you”.

“Have a good day!” b) on the telephone: “May I speak to _____?” “One

moment, please.” or “Please wait. I’ll call her/him” etc.

Always provide a purpose and real situation for each practice, e.g. A bank manager calls Mr. Li at his home, and his son/daughter answers the phone, and this is what they say. Write on the board some imperative instructions and have students change that into polite requests (A):

Get me a hot drink. Please get me a hot drink. or Please may I have a hot drink?

Call the police. Could you call the police, please?

Wait over there. Could you please wait over there?

Stop smoking. Would you mind not smoking here?

Drive me to the airport. I wonder if you’d mind driving me to the airport.

Conversational exchanges
(B) Have students come up with a purpose for a real situation,such as, two

sisters asking permission and/or persuading their mother to allow them to

_________ (e.g. go to a evening movie show/shopping) with a classmate.

In this case, three students will be involved, and the exchanges can be

fun and challenging.

(I & A) Suggest that they exchange personal information about their own
lives, interests, experiences, etc. There is a natural ‘information gap’

because every student has slightly different experiences and interests

(especially out-of-school experiences), e.g. what they like and don’t like,

what they can do (e.g. ballet dancing), or share about a happy/sad/funny event.

‘Information gap’ exercise (I & A): Two students in each pair are given different information, e.g. X has the shopping list, Y sells what X needs. Student X asks for item prices which is provided by Student Y. X buys what he needs and asks for the total amount he should pay. Y adds up and responds.
5. Scrambled dialogues

How to cook instant noodles (B)
Scrambled the sentence directions for cooking instant noodles. Make enough copies for your students to work in small groups of six. Time the activity.

First, put some water into a pot.

Next, heat the water until it boils.

Then, put the instant noodle into the water.

After that, cook the noodles for three minutes.

Finally, pour the noodles into a bowl.

You may add any spices to make it tasty.

Select suitable dialogues from SC basic or advanced. Cut the xeroxed copies parts for students to work into groups to piece them together. First, they read their parts and then ask each other in their group for a match.
6. Interviews and Informal Debates (I & A)

Work with students to generate questions they would ask in an interview with a famous person. Let them choose a celebrity for this interview activity. They work in pairs--the interviewer who already has the questions will take notes of what the celebrity says. Call a couple of pairs to share what they found out.
Informal debates (A)--To start with, choose the good students (four for each debate team) to read up a “For and Against” topic in SC advanced to prepare for the debate on that topic. Tell each student on either team to focus on one main point to present a summary for the debate. Instruct them how to present ‘for’ and ‘against’ on the same point/issue taken from the reading material. Once they get the hang of doing this, encourage them to add their own points of view. For this extended exercise, you need to place a time limit and be prepared to be the moderator.
II. Role Plays: (B, I, A)

a) Controlled role play: Role play based on a dialogue inthe textbook. Any conversation and/or story in a textbook or found in LTE and SC can be adapted for role plays. The important point is to choose them that most meet your students’ interests and needs.

b) Free role play: Discuss with the whole class what the speakeers migh say, and write prompts on the board. Let all the students practice the role play in pairs first. Then ask one or two good pairs to perform the role play in front of the class. Suggestions for topics: asking for directions/information (about airlines train/bus ticket prices or schedules or information about ads found in the papers; ordering food at a restaurant, making an appointment, making a hotel reservation, etc. It will be challenging for the students if more than two people are involved in the role play, although much depends on the story line and the characters needed in a particular situation, e.g. involving shy students to participate as part of a crowd with a short speaking part. See also the sample activity.

III. Communication Games (B -I-A)

For more game ideas, see Lee’s Language Teaching Games and Contests (1987) and Granger’s Play Games with English, Books 1 & 2 (1986)

* Language chains (B)--This is also a good game to reinforce listening memory

skills. Student #1 says, “I went to the store and bought an apple.” Student #2

repeats and adds an item that begins with the letter B. Student #3 repeats the

sentence with A and B words and adds a C word. If a student forgets, he is out and

the next student tries. If three students in a row miss, a new game should begin.

* Three wishes (B)--Say; If you had three wishes, what would you wish for? Students

share in pairs. For intermediate students, this can be followed up with writing

their three wishes. In a group of five, each student picks up a written paper

from a box, reads the three wishes, and the rest guesses the person who wrote

those wishes.

* Hangman (B, I, A)--Draw a noose on the board. Think of a vocabulary word and

draw blanks to represent the number of letters in that word. For CLASSROOM

write _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ on the board. The students must guess which letters are

in the word. When someone guesses a correct letter, fill it in at the proper place.

If a student guesses a wrong letter, draw one part of a stick figure man under the

noose until a body is completed. The parts which may be drawn are: head, body,

2 arms, 2 legs, hands, feet, eyes, nose and mouth. If there are double letters

in the word (as two ‘o’s’ in ‘classroom’), both should be filled in when one is

guessed. If the body is completed before the word is guessed, the student who

correctly guesses the word becomes the leader.

* Twenty Questions (B, I & A)

Give a name of a person written on a slip of paper to student ‘leader’ X who

makes this statement” “I’m thinking of a person.” Questions asked by the rest of

the class can only be answered with “yes” or “no” by student X. Teach students

to ask constructive questions that will help the next questioner. For example,

“Is this person a man?” “Is he alive?” Avoid confusing questions like “Is he

old?” Instead ask “Is he older than 50?” Only 20 questions may be asked. If

the person is not guessed, another student ‘leader’ is chosen.

This is a very adaptable game and may be played with animals, foods or general

objects.

* What’s in the bag?” (B) --This can be a shopping bag and things specially

prepared are put in there. Tell the students the category of the things in the bag,

e.g. things found in the classroom. Students take turns to ask this question:

“Is there an eraser?”student Y,who has the bag.gives this answer: “Yes, there’s

an eraser.” or “There isn’t an eraser.” Student Y takes out the object if the guess

is correct. This is a good game to practice using ‘a’ or ‘an’ article and the

phrases, “Is there... There’s a/an... There isn’t a/an...”

After they have played the game using items in different categories (cut-out

pictures can substitute real objects, e.g. pictures of food, toys, clothes, etc.) a

few times, plurals come in naturally here, e.g. “Are there any oranges in your

bag?” The answer: “Yes, there are some oranges in my bag.”

* “Who am I?” (B)--Introduce the word ‘charade’ and the activity to them. Act

out a role without saying anything (e.g. a bus driver) and then ask, “Who am I?”

Let students volunteer to act out roles of people in different occupations, e.g.

a doctor, a nurse, a taxi driver, a dentist, a principal, a pilot, a salesman, etc.

The guessing question to use is: “Are you a ______?”

* What’s my line?” (I & A)--Have students write on 3x5 index cards three

sentences describing different professions and put the cards in the box. Divide

the class into two teams. Each member of Team A picks a card and reads it.

Team B members take turn to guess the profession. Give one point for each

correct answer. After 10 turns, Team B takes over the reading while Team A

does the guessing. The team that gets the most points, wins.

A variation is to write on cards different instructions for students to guess the

instructors,e.g. “stir slowly; add a cup of water and a teaspoon of salt’ let it boil

for 10 minutes”; “lie back in the water; don’t panic; keep your body straight;

slowly kick with you legs”: “don’t try to translate every word; listen carefully;

speak as much as possible”; “take his temperature every six hours; let him take

this with warm water; make sure that he gets a lot of rest”

The instructors to choose from are: an English teacher, a nurse, a swimming

instructor, a cookery teacher.

IV. Total Physical Response (modified TPR) activites (B,I,A)

For beginning students, give the command form one at a time for the class to

perform the action. Randomly call on one student to respond orally to your

question: “What did you do?” in order to elicit an answer with a past tense verb.

Intermediate and advanced students should be able to follow a series of

commands and to respond the sequence of actions using adverbs such as,

first, I _______; then I __________; after that, I ______ Last of all, I ________.

V. Show and Tell (B)

Assign five students for every week during one semester to bring something

from home to show and tell the class. Each student is allotted two minutes

to describe his/her object in four/five sentences prepared at home. Provide some

guidelines on what they can include in their presentation, e.g. What is it called?

What can you do with it? How did you find it? How long have you had it?, etc.

VI. Chants, Poems, or Songs (B, I, A)--Refer to Carolyn Graham’s selections of chants

and select appropriate ones to teach to your class. Her instructions for teaching

each chant are easy to follow.

Most poems can be used not only as reading materials or for recitation and oral

practice, but they can also be used for concept discussion. Discussion can take

the approach of reading between the lines to find out what the writer meant to

convey and reading beyond the lines of what some words/phrases/idea mean

to the readers. This is a good way to activate the students’ contextual background

knowledge.

“People Everywhere” (I & A)

It’s time to be aware

That we have much to share,

The more we get together

The more we know each other.

People everywhere

North, south, east and west,

People everywhere

Have feelings, have feelings:

Hope and gladness, fear and sadness,

Failure and rejection, success and elation.

People everywhere

North, south east and west,

People everywhere

Have needs, have needs:

Family and friendship, love and relationship,

Food and protection, work and education.

People everywhere

North, south, east and west,

People everywhere

Have customs, have customs:

Celebrating birthdays, festivals and holidays,

Victories and weddings, and all new beginnings.

It’s time to be aware

That we have much to share.

The more we get together

The more we know each other.

== Grace Hsu

a) Have students identify the words that indicate what people in the world have in

common, e.g. needs, customs, feelings.

b) Write these categories in a semantic map or a chart like this:

People everywhere have

l

_______________________________________________

feelings needs customs

hope family celebrating birthdays

gladness friendship celebrating festivals

fear love celebrating holidays

sadness relationship celebrating victories

failure food celebrating weddings

rejection protection celebraing all new

success work beginnings

elation education

c) Working together, each pair brainstorms for related words/phrases for each concept.

d) They share what they have found out with other pairs working on similar categories.

For example, this might apply to ‘hope’: hope for myself/my family/community/

Taiwan/ better grades/ for a bigger apartment to move into/ for passing JCEE/

getting selected to attend Tai Ta/for better security/the future, etc. Next,

they could discuss on possible solutions or steps to be taken for one or two ideas.

VII. Giving oral reports (A)

This should be a contact assignment especially for your top students who need

to be challenged and who are able to work independently on a project that

conbines reading, writing and oral presentation to the whole class. They could

report on a story/ a simple poem/a passage assigned for extensive reading.

Other possibilities could include giving a summary of the latest movie, popular

song or interesting news reports.