“Two monologues do not make a dialogue.” Jeff Daly

After having fostered a Communicative Classroom throughout the year, we’ve decided to try out a new approach to the discussion of Tricia Hedge’s “Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom.” Considering that it takes two to Tango, we’ve decided to discuss speaking respecting its main characteristic: having, at least, two participants.
We will formulate possible aims for a Speaking component of a coursebook following Hedge’s categorization of successful oral communication; and then, we will compare them with the New English File – Intermediate ones.
Our book will have as an ultimate objective to foster the use of language for communication. Upon completion of this course, students will have an intermediate degree of fluency that will allow them to keep up a conversation in the target language including listening skills, taking turn skills and the proper management of interaction. Students should also be able to present information/instructions about defined topics to others in a clear, organized way and to participate in discussion groups.
In order to attain those goals, students should be able to demonstrate understandable pronunciation and an acceptable level of mastery of stress, rhythm and intonation patterns. They should be familiar with conversational skills, register and syntax. Students should have developed awareness in structure and strategies used in meaningful true-to-life conversations.
After establishing the objectives for the Speaking component of our ideal coursebook, we invite you to take a look at the actual ones in the above mentioned book:

Now, let’s have a look at a randomly chosen set of activities taken from the same book, do they actually match either their or our objectives?

Speaking Activities - NEF Intermediate - Methods2 - 2009

As far as you can see in the activities, the book is coherent with its objectives. It provides students with a wide variety of speaking, listening and pronunciation exercises that pay the way for successful completion of set goals!
What this well-known coursebook proposes is to give students the necessary tools for them to be able to speak fluently, accurately but, most importantly, confidently. Considering the variety of activities that we selected from the coursebook, it can be said that students are provided with interesting topics that will motivate them to speak (mobile phones and money) as well as useful phrases and to-the-point guidelines for them to have a starting point from which they can start to speak more freely. Each speaking activity (as well as the listening and pronunciation ones) is organized in several steps which, in turn, give students enough time for them to organize what they are going to say.
Another useful tool provided by this book is that students are given opportunities to practice and improve their pronunciation in terms not only of sounds but also stress and intonation, which are two of the most essential aspects for a student of English to learn so as to become an effective communicator.
All in all, it is important for us, as English teachers, to keep in mind that speaking cannot be taught as if it were an isolated skill that can be improved only by means of working on grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation. We must show our students that speaking is an essential tool for us to be in contact with others. Speaking, as a tool for communication and social interaction, must be dealt with in class following its most important characteristic: interacting with others. There must always be a coming and going of messages in speaking and, therefore, we should give our students as many tools as possible to help them face that thrilling challenge of interacting with others in a foreign language. Our students need to be able to speak both fluently and intelligibly and for them to achieve such an objective we must provide them with a balance of grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary and listening activities as well as a wide range of opportunities to develop communication and negotiation skills.
Our students must be taught pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary not because we want to form language experts but simply because they are the tools they need so as to become efficient communicators.

Discussion Topic taken from "Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom," Chapter VIII, Tricia Hedge, Oxford University Press.

The more we observe others, the more we learn about us!

Hi there! I'm here again sharing with you another classroom observation report. In this case I observed a lesson so as to concentrate on what students actually do while doing the different activities they are assigned.
It was a really enriching experience since I learnt a lot about my own teaching. I was able to go back to my own lessons to analyse the balance of different kinds of activities I give my students. With this analysis, I realised that it is important to bear in mind our students' learning style when it comes to preparing a lesson. What is the main type of activities we always give to our students? Are they cognitive, affective or physical? Are these activities compatible with our students' learning preferences? Are we ready to sacrifice our own teaching preferences so as to match our students' learning style?
So here goes the lesson observation report in which I did my best so as to start answering these questions. Hope you enjoy it!

6th Report / Alejandra de Antoni / Classroom Observation / Methods 2 2009

What makes a Listening Task motivating, relevant and useful?

The most important and useful tool teachers have to enhance students' listening skills is the quality of listening tasks they are given. But what makes a good listening task? In order for me to try to find an answer to such a difficult question I decided to analyse a listening task randomly chosen from one of the coursebooks I currently use in one of the courses I teach. I will evaluate the listening task against the criteria provided by Tricia Hedge in her book "Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom." I believe that while analysing this listening task I will be incorporating the evaluation criteria in such a way that it will help me make well-informed decisions while choosing future listening tasks for my students.

Evaluation Criteria:

• the extent to which learners are given a reason to listen;
• whether appropriate contextual information is required;
• in what ways a pre-listening stage prepares students for the language of the text;
• in what ways a pre-listening stage activates prior knowledge;
• the usefulness of any while-listening work;
• the relevance and range of any post-listening work.

The Listening Task: (taken from the New English File Pre-Intermediate Student's Book. NB I do not own this activity. It's copyrighted by Oxford University Press. I just posted it to analyse a listening task so as to enhance my teaching skills.)

Firstly, I don't really know up to what extent students are given a reason to listen. I mean, the reasons why they may want (or need to) listen to this text are only classroom-bound ones (i.e. created by the task itself -or the teacher- and not because students really want to listen to these two people being interviewed). It is true that through the pre-listening stage students are introduced into the text's topic and that some interest must be created. That is why I will still say that it does give students a reason to listen because of what they are asked to do in the second pre-listening stage. Students are asked to decide if some sentences as regards singing are true or false. They are very general thoughts that will certainly make students provide answers following their own beliefs on singing and singers. Once the students have discussed the sentences, I really think that they will be definitely interested in learning what the true answers are in order to check whether they were right or not and that is the perfect reason for them to listen to text.
Secondly, I think that no specifit contextual information is required for students to be able to sucessfully understand the text and carry out the activity since the text is about a teacher and a student from a music school and the interview is not restricted to musicians or singers (it actually claims that anyone can learn how to sing well in one day without previous training or experience).
Thirdly, as regards the pre-listening stage, I think that it successfully prepares students for the language of the text. When they are asked to decide whether the sentences are true or false they are presented with the core ideas that the teacher and the student will discuss in their interview. This helps students get hold of the language they will encounter (which is, by the way, not very difficult and it's not restricted to a specific grammar form) as well as the main ideas that will be tackled in the text. The seven sentences provided by the second pre-listening activity provides the students with an excellent background for them to be able to understand both the language and the content that will be present in the text.
With regard to the students' prior knowledge, both the first and the second pre-listening activities help its activation. In the first one, students are asked about their own singing experiences which is something useful both to get them involved and to 'force' them to retrieve any language related to music (which will definitely help them to set their minds into the task and to understand the text better). In the second activity, furthermore, students' prior knowledge of certain English structures (such as relative clauses and comparatives) is activated together with their own beliefs on singing which will help them, again, to understand the text better.
When it comes to the while-listening work, I have to say that the two activities provided by this task can be classified into global and specific while-listening ones. The first one, in which students have to listen to the interview to check their whether the seven sentences from the pre-listening task were true or false, is a global while-listening activity because students are asked to listen to the text as a whole and to focus on its main ideas. I think that this activity is very useful because it helps students to learn how to listen to something without concentrating on every single word but just on main ideas. Furthermore, it promotes the need for texts to be listened to more than just one time as well as the belief that students cannot be asked to focus on very specific and detailed information the very first time they listen to text. Listeners need a first listening to become familiar with text's gist and the speakers' accents and voices. That's why I believe that it is always better to ask our students to go first for the core of the text and then to focus, if necessary, on details or specific language forms or vocabulary. In the particular case of this listening task, students are asked to listen to the text for a second time so as to complete some sentences (it's a restricted cloze in this case because students are given three options to choose from in each blank). In this second (specific) while-listening activity students are asked to listen to the text to find specific information and, in this way, they are also helped to developed their "bottom-up"* listening skills (e.g.: their ability to "retain input while it's being processed, recognize word divisions, recognize key words in utterances, use knowledge of word-order patterns to identify constituents in utterances"* and so on)
*'Bottom-up' Listening Skills; Richards (1990) quoted in "Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom," Tricia Hedge.
Finally, as regards the post-listening work, there is no need to say that there is none provided by this task. However, I do believe that post-listening work is essential for student to make a connection between what they have listened to and some aspect of their lives so as to make it memorable. A post-listening activity can be simply to ask them if they think that it is possible for a person with no experience at all to become a good singer in just one day (why / why not?). They can be asked if they would like to go to such a school (why / why not?) and if they think they will become good singers or not and why. They can also be asked to say if they agree or not with what the teacher says and his methods. The teacher could also ask them to think of any other ability they think that can be taught and learnt in one day. The post-listening stage doesn't need to take more than five minutes and it can be a very good opportunity for the students to make a relevant and valuable connection between the text and their lives.

Give them a reason to listen. Help them to succeed in the task: provide them with appropriate contextual information and activate both their prior knowledge of the topic and the language they need to understand the text. Step into your students' shoes: are the while-listening activities useful and relevant? Let them know why they are doing this or that activity. Make it memorable: use a post-listening activity to make a connection between what the students have just listened to and their lives. We always remember better what is related to our feelings or thoughts than what is said by someone else.

If you are interested in the analysis of listening tasks, please take a look at the lesson observation report I wrote in which I intensively analysed a listening activity carried out in one of the lessons I observed in a secondary school.

Discussion Topic taken from "Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom," Chapter VII, Tricia Hedge, Oxford University Press.

Teacher's Decisions: What about the options we do not opt for?

In this report, following an excellent observation task provided by Jim Scrivener in his book Learning Teaching, I tried to analyse several actions taken by the teacher I observed both in terms of the decision taken and the other available options that, for some reason, the teacher did not choose.
I found it really interesting to start thinking about the decisions we take and the reasons why we go for a certain option and not another. Managing and organising a classroom is such a challenging task that the best way of approaching it is by means of starting to reflect upon the decisions we take and if they were the most appropriate ones at that moment in that context. It is important, of course, to ask ourselves why we choose a certain option; but, what is even more intriguing is to reflect upon the reasons why we did not opt for te other available options.

Thanks to a very enabling teacher trainer I realised that, in this report, I sounded a bit too judgemental. I would like to let you know that I never meant to write as if I were "crying over spilt milk". I just followed the task and it seems that I sound far too critical. That was never my intention. With regard to the conclusion, I must admit that I did not even think of including one. I thought there was no need for one. But now that I thought about it, it would have been a great idea to include one so as to explain what my intentions were when writing the report. I am in no position to judge any teacher and I never wanted to do so. I guess that when trying to show what my beliefs are, I unwillingly did so by means of comparing them with the teacher's development of the lesson. I am really aware of the fact that every classroom, and within that classroom, each of the lessons is a whole world and it is by no means a valid proof of what actually happens in this classroom.

5th Report / Alejandra de Antoni / Classroom Observation / Methods 2 2009

What does a real-life listening activity look like?

Here I'm sharing with you a very interesting report in which I carefully analysed a listening activity that was carried out in one of the lessons I observed at a secondary school in Buenos Aires city. It was a really interesting experience which helped me to analyse and look critically at my own listening activities. What do we do a listening activity in the English lesson for?
Maybe trying to make a true-to-life listening activity is one of the most evident challenges when it comes to preparing and designing activities. In this report, I tried to go over the minumun requirements for a listening activity to be valid in a communicative classroom while reflecting upon the one I have observed.

REPORT 4-alejandradeantoni-classroom observation-methods2-2009

A new learning experience: A very thought-provoking classroom observation

This the 3rd report of my Classroom Observations. In this case, it was a lesson in a state secondary in a town near Buenos Aires City. Analysing this lesson helped me a lot to understand how different classrooms realities can be and how difficult it is sometimes for us, teachers, to adapt our own views and beliefs to match the situation and the students' needs.
I really hope you enjoy this report!
Any comments are welcome! Feel free to react to anything you find in this report (:

3rd Report / Alejandra de antoni / Classroom Observation / Methods 2 2009

Learn to Read and Read to Learn

In the previous entries I have been discussing what it is like to teach grammar and vocabulary in the English Classroom. The following list shows a few examples of what students say they do when they meet difficulty in reading comprehension, particularly when they meet a new word (Hedge; Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom: 6):

• "I think about whether the word is important for understanding the whole text."
• "I think if there is a Spanish word like it."
• "I study the words around it."

Before analysing the previous four statements, I would like to clarify that I will agree or not with them following my personal view on reading comprehension in the ESL and EFL classrooms. When students are given a text (or when they bring their own texts to the lesson, which is a great way of encouraging authentic and interesting reading), it is essential for them to know that reading in the English classroom needs to resemble the reading they do in their mother tongue. That is why, for instance, when they encounter an unknown word, there is no need for them to panic or desperately resort to an inmediate translation or definition simply because when we are reading a novel, an article or a story in our first language we do not generally need the help of a dictionary. The first idea listed is one of the best ways for students to go about new words in a text. Unless it is a specific type of text, we always read in our mother tongue to get its meaning, ideas and thoughts and not to make an intensive analysis of its vocabulary. It is of great help for the students to know that unless, the unknown word is essential to understand the whole text, it should be paid no attention. I will certainly (and I actually do) encourage this excellent way of approaching a text since it gives words their most important role in a text: to help you understand its meaning. It is important to highlight, however, that this line of thought cannot be applied to those texts used especifically for intensive reading, in which students are asked to conciously concentrate and work on vocabulary, grammar and form. The second one on the list cannot be said to be of my preference. Apart from implying that the student is concentrating more on vocabulary than meaning, it can most of the times be a misleading tool. Even though it is true that there are some words that are similarly spelled in English and Spanish, it is also true that most of the time words similar in spelling are not even close to being similar in meaning. False Cognates (pairs of words in different languages that are similar in form but different meaning; e.g.: the Spanish word "Librería" vs. the English word "Library") can be really misleading when trusted as tools for understanding new words. Finally, the third one is another idea that I always try to foster among my students. Paying attention to the words around a new one, i.e. to guess its meaning through its context, is a very useful and reliable tool when we encounter an unknown word which has already been decided to be necessary for the understanding of the whole text. Even in our first language, when we face a new word, it is certainly the most natural thing to do to try to understand it with the help of the surrounding words and sentences.

It is now our mission as teachers to raise awareness among our students as regards the importance of reading in building and recycling knowledge. Regardless of what we are learning or studying it is undoubtedly true that it is mainly through reading that we get most of the input we need to succeed in our studies. When we teach English we are giving our students an infinite number of tools and possibilities for them to increase and polish their knowledge and reading is definitely one of the most important ones. We help them learn how to read for them to be able to learn by reading.

Discussion taken from "Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom," Chapter VI, Tricia Hedge.