Theme and Activity : Speaking about the English and British culture

Objective :

The trainees will be brought to say whatever they wants to on a topic chosen by the class.

Resources :

teacher : tape recorder,visual documents

student : dictionary

Teacher Preparation :

Find visual documents refering to the topic.

Getting ready to give the students vocabulary prompts-any words or phrases they might need to discuss

the topic.(see procedure 2)

Procedure :

1.Teacher writes something connected with the topic on the board to elicit responses :

What do you know about the English ?
What do they drink?
What about their cars?...

Students' answers are being written on the board :

they drink tea,
drive on the left,
have a monarchy,
etc.(column 1)

Students have to say more things in order to complete what has previously been said.

They are allowed to say whatever they want, provided it is (even loosely)

connected to the theme under study :

What else would you like to say ?
Anything else you’d like to know?
More about the English : Prepare more things to say.
etc.

Teachers may want to use mother tongue with beginners.

A new column is being added to the existing one:

More about the English.

The new column will be filled in after step 2.

2.Go round the class and prompt all the students with any word or phrase they wish and intend to say .

Have them repeat and check pronunciation.

Students learn their sentences by heart (no longer than two or three sentences) .

3. Student speak to the class and say their sentences.

Teacher sees that good listening conditions are ensured :

All the students have to stop pair work and be ready to answer questions.

Oral productions are being recorded while the students' sentences are being written on the board.

The teacher stimulates oral exchanges and enhances conversation :

Do you agree?
Could you find another way of saying it ?
Who can answer the question ?
Can you explain what he/she means by…
etc.

Check comprehension. Some trainees may be asked to explain or translate expressions which are difficult for the beginners to understand. Advanced ones often like to display knowledge and show off !

Reformulate and explain

It is to be expected that many learners will say the same things.Such mimetic thinking is a godsend,and must be pedagogically exploited because it enables a reformulating process to be activated.Re-using the same structures in different contexts enables memorization while it ensures,at the same time,a first syntagmatic deconstruction of the enounced.

Variations & adaptations :

Any other topic complying with the students' needs or level may be opted for.

Patrick Lecordier (e-mail LECORDIER-Patrick@wanadoo.fr. )

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