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A
Step-by-step Fluency Activity for English Learners in China
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It is generally agreed that fluency is an
essential requirement for communicative competence. It is also agreed that an excessive
concern with accuracy will raise the affective filter and block fluency. One way of
overcoming this obstacle is to provide students with so much oral input and output in
communicative activities that they are forced to focus on meaning rather than on
monitoring grammar rules. This article describes one activity called Speak Out ,
which my students used successfully to achieve fluency in the classroom. Speak Out
is a 30-minute speaking activity which works well in an integrative skill program. The
objective of the activity is to improve students' fluency through communicative
interactions. The topic of the activity is personal experience, discussing rites of
passage. There are three main procedures in the activity, which progress from a controlled
interaction to a guided activity, and finally to a free, social interaction.
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I. Controlled interaction-group work
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Procedure I is a pre-communicative interaction.
It is controlled in the sense that the students depend to a great extent on the text. In
other words, both the topic that the students are going to discuss and the language used
for the discussion are based on the text.
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Speak Out starts after students have read
an article "Rites of Passage" individually and returned the handout to the
teacher. In this procedure, there are two tasks. The first one asks the group members to
discuss the meaning of the title, "Rites of Passage." The second one asks each
member to take his/her turn to retell one of the milestones experienced by the author.
(There are 13 mentioned in the text.) To scaffold the interaction, the teacher draws the
students' attention to Table 1 (See Table 1 ) on the blackboard. Students will speak using both the text
and the table.
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While one student describes the milestones,
others in the group interact with him/her cooperatively. They can help the speakers when
they have difficulty expressing themselves, so that the communication does not break down
and the whole class develops a positive and participatory atmosphere. The class is told to
form groups of four, each with a volunteer student group leader to ensure the progress of
the activity. Each group has 10 minutes; first, to discuss the meaning of the title and to
reach a group agreement; second, to retell one milestone event mentioned in the text. The
listeners should be supportive and cooperative, not interrupting but rather asking
clarification questions for aspects which are not clear.
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II. Guided interaction-pair work
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Procedure II is a guided interaction. The
students now form into pairs. Each student is provided with a picture. There are seven
pictures in a set, covering some of the most important events in an average American's
life. The students discuss the pictures they receive from the teacher. But it is left to
the students to decide how to describe the pictures or what words are used for the
description.
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The pictures depict stages in life such as
starting school, obtaining a driving license, graduating from high school, becoming
financially independent, getting married, having children, and retiring. Procedure II
calls for careful organization
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on the part of the teacher because it is
necessary to ensure that each student in the pair will be given different pictures, which
will not be shown to partners. These pictures guide the students to talk further about the
topic, activating their prior knowledge for Procedure III, free interaction.
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After each person has obtained a picture, the
whole class examines the picture closely for a while, and then each student takes a turn
using his/her own words to describe the picture to his/her partner. After the description,
the partner will sum up the significance of the event according to the description and
give a title for the picture.
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The speaker bridges the information gap by
conveying meaning naturally without overly worrying about the accuracy of language form.
Meanwhile, the partner will ask for clarification in order to give a summary of the
message of the picture and to figure out the title of the picture. The interaction,
therefore, entails some verbal communication strategies such as explaining and
paraphrasing, appealing for help, and asking for clarification. In this way Procedure II
goes a step further to achieve fluency. To guide the interaction, the teacher provides a
reference list on the blackboard with the following questions:
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- Who are the characters involved?
- What are they doing there?
- What is the setting?
- At about what date does the event take place?
- How do the characters feel about themselves?
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When the students have finished describing and
summarizing the pictures, the whole class sorts out the seven pictures and puts them into
a logical order so that the students can have a complete idea about the topic. The
instructions for Procedure II are: Select a partner to form a pair. Take turns and use 5
minutes each to describe your "secret picture" to your partner. The partner
should summarize the significance of the picture and then give it a title. Use the list on
the blackboard as a reference for the description.
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III. Free interaction-pair work
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Procedure III is a free communicative
interaction. Students are free to use their own words to talk about their own personal
events in their own way. Though the setting is still the classroom, the interaction takes
place between students in an authentic communicative context. Fluency is the foremost
requirement in this context and is the aim of the activity.
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After the first two procedures, students should
be quite clear about the content of the lesson. At the same time, their related experience
has been activated. For the free interaction, they are familiar with both the content and
language to use in the activity. They can keep their real identity, sharing their personal
events with a friend, or they can play the role of a journalist, conducting an informal
interview with their partner. Alternatively, they can do a brief survey, guiding the
partner to fill in a questionnaire they have designed.
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The instructions for Procedure III are the
following: Each pair should take 10 minutes for a free conversation about some significant
events in your school days. You and your partner can be:
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- two old friends recalling your school days;
- a journalist and a well-known writer talking about a memorable event;
- a social surveyor and his/her informant filling in a questionnaire.
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Justification of the activity
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Speak Out is designed according to a
functional view of language and a skill- learning model of learning (Littlewood, l981:44).
This view of language sees language as a vehicle to express functional meanings in a
social context. Such a view of language implies that English classroom teaching should
bridge the gap between language forms and language functions. It proposes that language
teaching should develop communicative competence, which prepares the learners with a
potential ability to deal with unpredictable, authentic communicative situations.
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The skill learning model of learning presumes
that "the acquisition of communicative competence in language is an example of skill
development,.performance.occurs mainly through practice" (Littlewood 1981:74).
Because of the foreign language learning environment in China, students learn English
under a tutored condition in classrooms. The lack of a natural language environment is a
big handicap.
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Speak Out provides ample student-
centered speaking opportunities for the students to interact with one another in English.
Though the classroom is not a totally authentic communicative situation, it can be "a
real social context in its own right" (Littlewood 1981:44). So through talking about
a text, some important events in American life and their own personal experience, students
practice the use of English for meaningful communication in the classroom.
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Speak Out is a fluency-based activity,
which can upgrade students' oral performance. It provides sufficient opportunities for
each student to use oral English in both pre- communicative and communicative contexts.
The three procedures are structured to assist and stimulate active participation from all
the students. Such active meaningful participation fosters a positive classroom spirit,
which lowers the affective filter. The underlying principle is to improve students' oral
fluency through communicative and step-by-step practice.
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Leng
Hui teaches English at the Liaoning Normal University, Peoples. Republic. of
China. |
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Return
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- Domyei, Z. and S. Thurrell. 1991. Strategic competence and how to teach it. ELT Journal,
45, l, pp. 16-23.
- Krashen, S. 1982. Principle and practices in second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
- Lennon, P. 1990. Investigating fluency in EFL: A quantitative approach? Language
Learning, 40, 3, pp. 187-417.
- Littlewood, W. 1981. Communicative language teaching: An introduction. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
- Long, M. H. and P. A. Porter. 1985. Group work, interlanguage talk, and second language
acquisition. TESOL Quarterly, 19, 2, pp. 207-28.
- Savova, L. and R. Donato. 1991. Group activity in the language classroom. English
Teaching Forum, 29, 3, pp. 12-26.
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Table 1
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Place
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Approximate
Time |
Event
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Significance |
1 |
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2 |
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3 |
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4 |
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