Jo Gakonga

www.elt-training.com

Get them speaking – get them speaking right.

Learning a language is a practical skill – to improve you have to practise

Undivided attention

Huge increase in potential talking time

Learner can choose topics and control the direction of the lesson

Individual needs can be addressed

Output and input

Corrective feedback

How do you keep them talking?

Relevant Interesting

The only way to learn a language is in a country where it is spoken.

Text chat talk

• Slows conversation down

• Gives thinking time

• Allows for easier correction

Speaking dictogloss

novelistremotedropping insecludedisolateddawnsolidly built

..concentrate on my ------ without any ------

..getting fed up with people ---ing the -------

It definitely prevents ---- from -------ing in

I --- much better ----

If I feel the need for ----- I can always --------

Whenever I ------ there’s a -------

1.Listen to the story

2.Retell the story

3.Look at some vocabulary

4.Listen again

5.Retell the story

6.Look at more phrases

7.(Listen again)

8.Retell the story.

Bring the outside in

Another of my favourite techniques is to tell something to a speaker of the language and have that person tell the same thing back to me in correct, natural form. I then tell the same thing again, bearing in mind the way in which I have just heard it. This cycle can repeat itself two or three times… An essential feature of this technique is that the text we are swapping back and forth originates with me, so that I control the content.

‘Earl Stevick’ activity from ‘Success with Foreign Languages’ (1989: 148):

Who was your favourite teacher?

If you could meet anyone in history, who would it be?

What is your first childhood memory?

Recording and analysing

conversation

Output and input

Corrective feedback

When is feedback most effective?

Hot correction –on the spot

When is feedback most effective?

Cold correction –after the event