Effective Ways of Teaching Spoken English.docx

effective ways of teaching spoken englishabstract：oral instruction now becomes the major concern of many pedagogy approaches, among which the communicative teaching approach (clt) and the task-based learning (tbl) are the most typical ones, which aims at achieving the communicative goal of the language and helping students become communicatively competent. there are many techniques or ways based on the principle of clt and tbl. the purpose of this thesis is to look into the different techniques of teaching spoken english in order to find out the effective ways for chinese learners. the writer mainly focuses on the communicative use of three techniques: discussion, role-play and communication games. she discusses each technique in detail and provides guidelines and examples to illustrate how to use them in real teaching. she has also suggested several kinds of tasks as support. after a general review on their contribution to communicative competence, the writer comes to the conclusion that these communicative tasks should be very effective in teaching spoken english since they enable students to learn to communicate through communicating in real-life tasks. they should be very effective when applied in chinese classroom. hopefully, my thesis will provide some good ideas for oral english instruction in china. key word: communicative teaching approach task-based learning spoken english instruction 教授口语有效方法探讨 摘要：口语教学已经成为了众多教学法关注的中心，其中交际法和任务法是两个最为典型的例子。他们的教学目标是实现语言的交际目的，帮助学生提高语言的交际能力。在交际法和任务法的基本原理下有一系列常用的教学方法，这篇论文的目的便是探讨各种口语教学方法并找出适合中国学生的教学方法。笔者主要讨论了对三种教学方法小组讨论，角色扮演和交际性游戏的交际性应用。并对每种教学方法进行了仔细的分析讨论，针对如何应用于实际教学提出了一些指导原则和具体实例。笔者同时也提供了几种任务来支持以上原理。通过对这些教学方法和任务的效用进行了简单的分析，笔者得出：交际性任务是口语教学中一种极为有效的方法。在交际性任务中，学生可以亲身体验类似现实生活中的交际场景，通过交际来学习交际。因而十分适用于中国课堂。希望这篇文章可以为我国的口语教学提供一些帮助。关键词：交际法 任务法 口语教学1. introductionspeaking is the most basic means of human communication. almost every language in the world begins with a spoken form but not a written one. additionally, when a child begins to learn his mother language, he is exposed to a natural environment of his mother language and able to speak far earlier than able to write. due to the importance of the skill of speaking, oral instruction now becomes the major concern of many pedagogy approaches, among which the communicative teaching approach and the task-based approach are the most typical ones. while the old or traditional approaches pay more attention to the skills of writing and reading, the communicative approach and task-based learning focus mainly on the development of communicative oral skills. wang (2004) mentions in introduction to tesol methodology that the goal of teaching speaking in general is for oral communication and for helping learners to become communicatively competent. however, learning to speak competently is a complex task especially in china. first, learners are exposed to an efl (english as a foreign language) environment and continue to speak chinese after class; they therefore lack the environment to practice what they have learnt in the classroom. second, classes in china are usually too big for everyone to get chances to speak in class. finally, it is easy to notice that teachers in china always pay more attention to accuracy than fluency. they tend to correct the mistakes students made about grammar or structures and it will more or less frustrate students, thus making them more reluctant to speak in the future.to help students get good mastery of real spoken english and achieve the communicative goal of the language, communicative language teaching (clt), with its focus in language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on the mere mastery of the structure, has become rather popular in english language teaching, and especially in the oral english instruction. meanwhile, task-based learning (tbl), which presents students with a task instead of language structures, provides students varied exposure to languages and chances to practice speaking in real-life activities. there are various kinds of task in tbl, if we present students with some communicative task to perform in oral class, it should be very effective for the improvement of their spoken english.the purpose of this thesis is to review the researches into the ways or techniques in teaching spoken english based on the principle of clt and tbl and try to find out the effective ways that can be applied to teaching spoken english in chinese context. for each kind of technique, i will suggest some effective activities. hopefully, my thesis will provide some good ideas for oral english instruction in china. 2. literature review2.1 clt and task-based approachesthe development of communicative language teaching (clt) dates back to 1970s, based on the theory of british functional linguists, who maintain the importance of the context of situation in understand a language and american linguists, who propose the term communicative competence to represent the ability to use language appropriately, as wang (2004) points out in her works. peoples focus on language learning shifted from language structures to its use as a communicative vehicle to convey information. therefore, clt was born as a new approach to promote the development of communicative abilities.according to hughes (2002), the communicative approach aims at fostering the development of learners communicative competence, which is identified in the study of canale and swain (1980) from four dimensions, i.e. grammatical competence, discourse competence, social-cultural competence and strategic competence. hughes (2002) also points out the following characteristics of clt: (1) place a high value on language in use, (2) regard errors as a natural part of the progression towards a greater understanding of target language, (3) link teaching methodologies to appropriate communicative tasks, (4) tend to favor inductive, students centered routes and put learners at the center of the learning procedure. task-based learning (tbl), which is a kind of responses to the above fundamental tenets, becomes quite popular now. as cited in the practice of english language teaching(hedge, 2001), the tbl was greatly popularized by n prabhu (1987), who, working with schools in southern india, speculated that students were just as likely to learn language if they were thinking about non-linguistic problem as when they are concentrating on particular language forms. in task-based learning, students are always presented with a task they have to perform or a problem to solve and the focus of the lesson is the task, but not the form. different from ppp (presentation, practice, and production), task-based learning is like a ppp upside down. students are given a task to perform and only when the task has been completed does the teacher discuss the language that was used and make corrections and adjustment. therefore, a task can be divided into three steps: pre-task, task cycle and language focus. in the pre-task, teachers explore the topic with the class, helping students to understand task instructions. students may hear a recording other people doing the same task. during the task cycle, students perform the task in small groups while teachers monitors from a distance. they then report on the task to tell the rest of class what has happened. at last stage, students examine and discuss any specific features of any support text they have referred to for the task and teachers may conduct some form of practice of specific language features which the task provokes (harmer, 2001) . there are evidently many advantages according to richard frost, from a very popular language teaching website teaching english (.uk/think/methodology/task_based.shtml): (1) students are free of language control. (2) a natural context is developed from the students experiences with the language that is personalized and relevant to them.(3) the language explored arises from the students needs.(4) it is a strong communicative approach where students spend a lot of time communicating.(5) it is enjoyable and motivating. from above review, we can find out that both clt and tbl care much about the communicative and oral ability of students. there are a few issues which are of highly importance in learning spoken english. one is about the input hypothesis of krashen (1985), which points out that there is a need for meaningful input which will engage learners in working with language at a level which is slightly above their competence. hedge (2002) interpreted “meaningful” as “relevant and topical to learners and their interest” or “realistic”. so a comparable real-world task, which is a natural part of tlb, will be very useful to language learners, especially in oral english learning and teachers should provide students topics that are interesting to students and also suitable for acquisition. another issue comes to the role of students in activities. according to wang (2004), students are the center of the classroom. they should actively manage the learning activities and learn to communicate through communicating. beside, since communicative approach pays more attention to fluency than accuracy, errors are a natural part of language development and should be tolerated. teachers should not intervene in activities to correct the mistakes made by students in grammar, structures or pronunciations. teachers in clt classroom should either be a facilitator helping participants get well through communication or act as an independent participant (richards& roger, 1986).2.2 factors promoting good communicative tasks as i have mentioned above, clt mainly focuses on the development of fluency rather than accuracy. brumfit (1984) argues that fluency activities develop a pattern of language interaction within the classroom which is as close as possible to that used by competent performers in the mother tongue in the real life. he lists a list of criteria necessary for communicative activities. (1) the focus should be on the meaning but not the form. (2) the content should be determined by the learner who is speaking or writing. (3)there must be a negotiation of meaning between speakers. in other words, students must be involved in interpreting a meaning from what they hear and constructing what to say as a response. (4) in order for the previous criterion to function, what a learner hears should not be predictable, i.e. there should be an information gap. (5) students will practice and develop strategic competence. (6) teachers intervention to correct should be minimal. when arranging a communicative activity, teachers should also take the above factors into consideration, four of which, i will review in more detail.2.2.1 information gapit is accepted by many scholars that information gap is a key to enhance communicative activities. as we know, students become willing to talk when there is an information gap between the speaker and other speakers, when others hold information he is interested in but with few ideas of. students then need to interact in order to bridge the gap. in this way, it resembles a real-life communication but not a practice of structures and thus making students more communicative.2.2.2 small- group practicesgrouping is very necessary for big classes, which is just the characteristic of chinese classroom. lazaraton (2001) suggests teachers divide students into groups of three to five members, with consideration to the gender, background knowledge and talkativeness and it is a good idea to regroup students from time to time. grouping in an appropriate way is vital since students cannot improve if a few talkative students dominate the group or there is no one willing to promote interaction within the group.there are many obvious advantages of group work. first, like communication in reality, group work involves students in a face-to-face communication. everyone needs to speak to maintain the interaction. besides, by dividing students to small groups, students have more chance to practice than whole-class communication. moreover, some learners, especially chinese learners, are too shy to speak in public. group activity can provide a chance for these students to practice speaking and help build up confidence. in addition, it is important to make sure that when reporting to the whole class what they did and how the task went, students should take turns to do it so that everyone has a chance to present in front of the class. 2.2.3 students central rolein traditional teaching approaches, teachers dominate the class; however, in communicative classrooms, students are the center of the class and teachers should not intervene during the interaction to correct the mistakes made by students. when willis (1994) suggest three stages of a task, i.e. pre-task, task cycle and language focus, she points out that during the task cycle, students should plan and perform the task in pairs or groups by themselves while teachers monitors from a distance. only after students finish the task and report, teachers can conduct some form of practice of specific language features which the task provokes.without too much intervention, students could communicate like what they are expected to do in a natural environment and cope with the difficulties they encounter. 2.2.4 topic varietiesharmer (2001) points out in the practice of english language teaching that when doing communicative task students should use a variety of language structures rather than just one, therefore a wide range of topics should be available for practice. wang (2004) suggests in her introduction to tesol methodology that teachers should choose topics which are broad enough to allow choices on the part of students. topics could touch all walks of life, from social problems to economics, from culture to science and technology, from daily entertainment to special ceremony etc. a variety of topics, on the one hand, allow students to practice english that are very likely to be used in various situations and at the same time enable them to master more variety of language structures. 3. effective ways for chinese learners from the above review, it is clear that communicative language teaching and task-based learning are all very effective for the development of learners communicative ability. therefore it will benefit learners if we bring these two approaches into spoken english class. in this chapter; i will look into some specific techniques that can be used in communicative classrooms.3.1 discussiondiscussion is a commonly-used technique in oral class and is among the most communicative ones. students, in small groups, discuss with each other on specific topics in order to form an opinion or find a solution to a problem. hedge (2000) suggests that free discussion can provide important opportunities for developing certain aspects of fluency since there are many chances for the practice of speaking strategies in discussion; such as beginning a topic, interrupting, hesitating, shifting to a new idea or encouraging others to speak. as i mentioned in literature review, strategic competence is among the four kinds of competences of communicative competence (canale and swain, 1980) and therefore is worthy of practicing. there are a few kinds of adds to discussion, according to hedge (2002). background information is one of them, which the chinese teachers usually directly provide to student, but if students could find out the relevant information by themselves, they will surely have a deeper understanding and become more active in discussion. another kind of support comes from phasing the discussion into several stages with careful instruction. there may be a period for individual brainstorming a topic or writing down some ideas. teacher may also decide whether there is a report stage after the buzz discussion. the reporting stage could be done by choosing a representative from each group or regrouping the students for reporting.below is a discussion task selected from keep talking by klippel (1984), based on the theory of task-based communicative activities.rescueaimsskill-speakinglanguage-stating an opinion, giving and asking for reasons, agreeing and disagreeing, comparisons.other-think about ones valuelevelintermediate/advancedorganizationgroup of five to eight studentstime10-20minutesprocedurestep 1: the teacher explain the situation:the earth is doomed. all life is going to perish in two days due to radiation. a spaceship from another solar system lands and offers to rescue twelve people, who could start a new world on an empty planet very much like earth. imagine you are the selection committee and you have to decide who may be rescued. think of a list of criteria which you would use in selectionstep 2: each group discusses the problem and tries to work out a list.step 3: each group presents its list of criteria to the class.the list is being discussedvariationthe task can be made more specific, e.g. find ten criteria. you can award up to 100 points if a candidate gets full marks on all counts.remarksalthough the basic problem is a rather depressing one, it helps students to clarify their own value as regard judging others.the above example is a typical communicative task, with a clear aim for developing fluency, done in small groups and through a three-stage procedure . in this activity, students practice the using of speaking strategies and focus mainly on the meaning but not the form, trying to express their opinions of the criteria and are encouraged to use any expression they know. they finall