I love the idea of not asking students to talk and instead giving them a task they can only complete by speaking to...

I love the idea of not asking students to talk and instead giving them a task they can only complete by speaking to one another! I can see how saying the ‘talk’ as a command can seem daunting.

Comments

  1. Jelena RuzicNovember 18, 2017 at 6:13 AM

    I fully agree! When I prepare students for international exams, the second I say ''let's do part 2 speaking'' or something like that- their English instantly changes! Before that, they are chatty and fluent, but when we start doing controlled speaking activities - their behaviour changes, they are more silent, they lose fluency...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Suzanne BardaszNovember 18, 2017 at 10:46 AM

    Yes, it definitely makes us think about how we give directions and set up the task.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thanks Penny for sharing an interesting topic: error correction.

Image
Thanks Penny for sharing an interesting topic: error correction. Allow me to share with you what my students and I have done with the error correction practices in our essay writing class. 1. I have encouraged my students to do peer-review as a part of writing cycle before submitting their final drafts. We did that using Google doc. I see this peer-review activities worth doing at least based on the following considerations: a. Learn how to read carefully, with attention to the details of a piece of writing (whether their own or another writer’s); b. Learn how to strengthen their writing by taking into account the responses of actual and anticipated readers; c.Learn how to formulate and communicate constructive feedback on a peer’s work; d. Learn how to gather and respond to feedback on their own work. 2. Before the peer-review session, I taught some techniques of correcting their peer's to them: make the errors explicit so that the writers knew about what and how to improve the e...
Read more

Title

Konnichiwa, everyone! My name is Anne, and I'm waving to you from rural Japan, where I have lived for alllllllmost one year teaching very young learners (ages 2 and up). I have been teaching since 2002, mainly in South Korea and recently in Japan. I am here because I want to teach better, get new ideas and learn new ways to use old ones, and help my littles be more comfortable with their English-speaking selves. I’m also interested in creating non-competitive activities and other strategies to help learners who need a different class structure. In my non-teaching time, I do freelance writing and proofreading and study Japanese. One of these days I’ll have free time, and then I’m going to read the piles of books that keep stacking up, do some baking, and take long bike rides. It’s a pleasure to meet you all, and I look forward to learning together!
Read more

Hi Everyone.

Hi Everyone. I've been incredibly busy this week, so this is the first chance I've had to read everyone's comments and add my own reflections. I enjoyed last week's session and I'm looking forward to the next one! Last weekend (on Saturday) I went to a conference in Taipei. Stephen Krashen was speaking, and he highlighted a lot of rules and guidelines that are commonly used by language teachers but which, in his view, need to be reconsidered. They are: 1. If you don't understand, signal (often an agreed-upon signal is used) 2. If I am speaking too quickly, slow me down (with a signal or short utterance) 3. Don't repeat what I say. 4. Don't worry, I won't call on you. 5. When you speak in class, you won't have to use full sentences. 6. Don't worry if you can't easily retrieve words you think you know. 7. Don't worry about making mistakes 8. Look at my facial expressions and body language 9. You don't have to understand ev...
Read more