Speak on three components of an effective communicative task: choice, information gap, and feedback

Choice A major aspect of joyful reading (see page 99) is that students should be able to choose what they read - both in terms of genre but also, crucially, level. They are much more likely to read with enthusiasm if they have made the decision about what they read. Feedback Students should have an opportunity to give feedback on what they have read, either verbally or in written form. This does not mean formal reports, however, since that might take the pleasure away from reading. Instead, there might be a quick comment form on the inside cover of a book, or a folder with different forms for different titles. Students can then record their reactions to a book they have read. Other students looking for a new book to read can use those comments to help them make their choice.

The most obvious characteristic of CLT is that almost everything that is done is done with a communicative intent. Students use the language a great deal through communicative activities such as games, role plays, and problem-solving tasks (see discussion of these in the review of techniques).

Activities that are truly communicative, according to Morrow (in Johnson and Morrow 1981), have three features in common: informa­tion gap, choice, and feedback.

By an information gap is meant that one person in the exchange knows something that the other person does not know thus, the teacher-to-student question 'What colour is your coat?' usually does not involve an information gap as both the teacher and the student know the same information, while the friend-to-friend question 'What are you doing tomorrow?' does involve an information gap because the person asking presumably does not know the answer, while the person asked probably does. The presence of an information gap in the language experience adds one more association which is often missing from classroom materials, an association with information-seeking and giving. An information gap is where two speakers have different bits of information, and they can only complete the whole picture by sharing that information - because they have different information, there is a 'gap' between them.

One popular information-gap activity is called Describe and draw. In this activity, one student has a picture which they must not show their partner (teachers sometimes like to use surrealist paintings - empty doorways on beaches, trains coming out of fireplaces, etc). All the partner has to do is draw the picture without looking at the original, so the one with the picture will give instructions and descriptions, and the 'artist' will ask questions.

By choice is meant that the student has some choice in what to say and how to say it; thus, reading a dialogue does not involve choice in this sense. The presence of choice also adds one more association which is often missing from classroom materials, an association with choosing - usually in connection with trying to figure something out or with trying to get something done.

By feedback is meant the speaker gets some meaningful response-other than the teacher saying, "Good! Good!" -which indicates that the communication was understood; thus, if a boy tells a girl that she has pretty eyes, and she blushes and bats her eyelashes, this constitutes feedback, there is at least reason to believe his message was understood. The presence of feedback also adds still another association which is often missing from classroom materials, an association with making progress while problem-solving – as the feedback is usually given in response to some sort of information-seeking, problem-solving task.

Example: "Who Am I?" - A Communicative "Game

In the game, the teacher is a well-known person either living or dead, and the students are to figure out who it is by asking yes-no questions, questions that can be answered by yes or no. The students ask yes-no questions until they succeed in guessing who the teacher is supposed to be.

The widely-known game "Who Am I?" illustrates these three principles quite clearly. There is an information gap. The teacher knows the answer; the students do not-but they want to. There is choice. The students have a wide variety of choices about what to ask. And, there is feedback. Every question is answered with a yes or a no.

One of the things that makes the above game effective is that the students are actually trying to find out some information while they are going through the process of forming and asking questions. That is, the questions are real questions; thus, these questions are associated in memory with information seeking. These extra characteristics of the material mean extra processing, which means deeper and stronger memory patterns, and extra associations, which also means deeper and stronger memory patterns.

This is in sharp contrast with exercises in which students turn statements into questions; such exercises establish little or no association of question formation with information seeking.

27. Speak on different ways of organizing oral-aural interaction in a FL classroom. Say if variation plays an important role. Aural-oral instruction is a method of teaching usage that depends on the student's native to understand grammar intuitively rather than through analytical means, its basic assumptions, many of which have met the test of research, include the following:

1. Students can be taught to "hear" and reproduce patterns of syntax, usage, and pronunciation without reference to the technical terminology of formal grammar. (They can learn to say "I did it" instead of "1 done it" without learning about the principal parts of verbs.)

2. Students can develop two or more sets of1anguage habits, and in any particular social situation they can learn to call up the appropriate language- habits for that situation.(They might use "I done it if it is accepted language in the home and peer group but shift to "I did it" in the school or work situation.)

The implications of these assumptions are striking. Aural-oral instruction implies that problems of non-standard dialect can be met at a behavioral level, without introducing analytical machinery that is often outside of the intellectual range of junior and senior high school students. It stresses the notion, now an axiom among linguists, that the criterion for "correctness" in oral communication is appropriateness to one's audience, not conformity to a single, unchanging standard of usage. Its goal is linguistic flexibility in a variety of social situations, not mastery of grammatical concepts or memorization of the rules that may invariably produce in English.

Students learn standard usage in aural-oral construction mainly through patterned drills, often called pattern practices. The teacher, having selected pattern practice that deal with his student 2' deviations from Standard English provides oral models for the students' responses. The teachers must also provide opportunities for students to apply their newly acquired language habits -- mock job inter-views, telephone inquiries, and other role-playing activities. The rest of this bulletin presents inconsiderable detail approaches and procedures for carrying out an affective aural-oral program.

Occasions for relevant, loosely structured speaking activities - especially role-playing should be provided so that students gain a sense of the appropriate social situations in which standard English is used. In other words, the teacher must work to insure the movement of the second dialect from pattern practice to social situations in which standard English is required.

In role playing the teacher or the students define common social situation for a brief impromptu dramatization. A general approach is mapped out, and then in the dramatization some members of the class assume the various roles, using a second dialect.

There are two valuable aspects to role playing. One value is in the insight and understanding gained by the student's imaginative projection of himself into the new role. For example, a student playing the part of a policeman issuing a ticket for speeding to two teenagers might see speeding teenagers for the first time through the eyes of an adult. The specific language goal of role-playing is in the conscious effort made to assume the speaking characteristics of one who speaks a standard dialect.

Choral reading is a natural bridge between oral communications activities and the literature program. Although the term has unfortunate connotations-- the ghostly cadence of a Greek chorus, the lilt of elementary schoolchildren reciting "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" it can be a valuable tool both for increasing the student's understanding of dialect differences and deepening his appreciation of how rhythm functions in poetry.

Just as the aural-oral technique is an ear-oriented method of teaching usage as opposed to analytical methods, choral reading is an ear-oriented way of teaching rhythm in verse that can precede or at lower grade levels replace teaching of formal scanning of verse. Ballads are the most common starting point, but the high appeal of modern verse like the Gwendolyn Brooks and John Mardi selections' below should not be overlooked. Many different kinds of poetry can be studied as student interest is maintained and developed. The taping of individual and choral interpretations for later playback to other classes has proved to be an excellent motivational device in choral reading.

28. Speak on using authentic audio recordings in FLTL: where you can find them, criteria to choose the appropriate piece, how to work with them in the classroom. Listening is good for our students' pronunciation, too, in that the more they hear and understand English being spoken, the more they absorb appropriate pitch and intonation, stress and the sounds of both individual words and those which blend together in connected speech. Listening texts are good pronunciation models, in other words, and the more students listen, the better they get, not only at understanding speech, but also at speaking themselves. Indeed, it is worth remembering that successful spoken communication depends not just on our ability to speak, but also on the effectiveness of the way we listen.

One of the main sources of listening for students is the voice of their teacher. However, it is important, where possible, for students to be exposed to more than just that one voice, with all its idiosyncrasies. There is nothing wrong with an individual teacher's voice; of course, there are significant regional variations in the way people speak English in a country like Britain. For example, the 'a' of 'bath' is pronounced like the vowel sound in 'park' in some parts of Britain, but like the 'a' in 'cat' in others.

Listening sources. A lot of listening is experienced from recorded extracts - on CD, tape or via MP3 players of some kind. Frequently this is commercially produced, either as part of a coursebook or as supplementary material. But there is no reason why teachers should not record their own listening materials, using themselves or their friends or colleagues. With modern recording technology available through a range of media, it is quite possible to produce recordings of reasonable quality. We can download a huge amount of extremely useful listening material from the Internet, too, provided that we are not breaking any rules of copyright.

Recorded extracts are quite distinct from live listening, the name given to real-life face-to-face encounters in the classroom. To some extent all teacher talk is live listening, but in particular the term live listening is used to refer to situations in which the teacher brings visitors into the class or, if this is not possible, role-plays different characters for the students to talk and listen to. The main advantage of live listening over recorded extracts is that the students can interact with the speaker on the basis of what they are saying, making the whole listening experience far more dynamic and exciting.

Listening levels. We will want our students to hear listening material in a number of different genres and registers. This may include news broadcasts, public announcements, recorded messages, lectures, phone conversations, dramatic dialogue, etc). But we will also have to decide whether what they listen to should be authentic or not. Authentic speech is speech not spoken just for language learners - in other words, it is language spoken for native- or competent speakers of English, with no concessions made for the learner. Much recorded speech on the radio or on the Internet, for example, is of this type. However, it is often far too difficult for lower-level students, and is, therefore, inappropriate for use with them. But we don't want to give our lower-level students inauthentic language (which doesn't sound at all like the real thing) either. What we aim for instead is realistic language use which, while roughly-tuned to match the students' level, nevertheless approximates to real-life language. But we will aim to get our students to listen to (and understand) authentic English as soon and as often as they can.

29. Speak on receptive lang. skills to be taught in FLTL: their role and place in the learning process ways of organizing work for their development. The receptive skills are listening and reading, because learners do not need to produce language to do these, they receive and understand it. These skills are sometimes known as passive skills. They can be contrasted with the productive or active skills of speaking and writing.

Utilization Of Receptive skills:

For adequate receptive skills, the habits of listening and reading are to be improved. A student should be a good listener. He should be a careful reader as well. Through a curiosity of high magnitude and a thirst of knowledge he may acquire maximum receptive skills. But his competence to produce something remains questionable until it attains perfection. A student may understand a well-written essay but still he may be unable to produce one till he becomes perfect through a constant hard practice. For an excellent output, an adequately strong input is necessary. Now input demands certain things like vigilance, absorption, concentration so far as listening is concerned. As far reading is concerned, it necessitates extensive study. The best selection of reading material, different opinions and viewpoints on the same subject, works of competent authors/writers. Writings of different styles such as based on romance, or reality, simple and complex writings. A considerably large receptive vocabulary and psychological approach on a certain topic are additional requirements of reading as receptive skill. The books on different subjects like, science, geography, history, geology, botany, zoology or biology etc have different touches of the same language. A vast circle of terminology is used therein. Hence the study of such subjects requires much more carefulness.

Example.
Often in the process of learning new language, learners begin with receptive understanding of the new items, then later move on to productive use.

In the classroom.
The relationship between receptive and productive skills is a complex one, with one set of skills naturally supporting another. For example, building reading skills can contribute to the development of writing.

Benefits of receptive Skills for a student: A hard and tough competition always goes on among the students and scholars for the achievement of ultimate success. The student, who are vigilant, curious and having thirst of knowledge make the best use of their receptive skills. They are good listener and untiring readers they are fond of being with learned personalities for listening their lectures and they like to spend their maximum time in reading books, so as to enrich their mind with more and more knowledge, till they could be able to produce wonderful things at their own.