3. Using language to talk about language

Language learners are often too embarrassed or shy to say anything when they do not understand another speaker or when they realize that a conversation partner has not understood them. Instructors can help students overcome this reticence by assuring them that misunderstanding and the need for clarification can occur in any type of interaction, whatever the participants' language skill levels. Instructors can also give students strategies and phrases to use for clarification and comprehension check.

By encouraging students to use clarification phrases in class when misunderstanding occurs, and by responding positively when they do, instructors can create an authentic practice environment within the classroom itself. As they develop control of various clarification strategies, students will gain confidence in their ability to manage the various communication situations that they may encounter outside the classroom.

15. Presenting and practicing speaking structures

Short dialogues

Dialogues are a type of text – a spoken text which we listen to, although for teaching and learning purposes we also look at them in their written or transcribed form. Although they are a type of text, it is worth considering them separately from reading and other listening texts as they are often used as a model for speaking practice of structures.

Dialogues are often used as an alternative, or in addition, to introducing language through visual means, especially with lower level students.

This dialogue practises language for making suggestions:

It’s Rosie’s birthday next week. What shall we get her?/What about… (the students choose). That’s a good idea because… or No, because…

A dialogue can often lead into a cued roleplay, such as the one in Task 3 on p. 43. See also Setting up activities on p. 44. Dialogues can also be used to illustrate the different social identity and the relationship between the speakers, and the kind of language they would use. For example, the way you ask a close friend to lend you enough money to buy a cup of coffee would be different from the way you ask a bank manager for a large loan.

What are the disadvantages of using dialogues?

o        If dialogues are uncommunicative, predictable and not mixed in with other approaches to presentation they can be boring.

o        They are rarely useful of students above elementary level, who benefit from seeing language within a wider context, no in isolated chunks.

o        Because they are idealized, they don’t prepare students for the unexpected – in real life people don’t always play their part as set down in the dialogue practised in class! For example, the Customs Officer in the dialogue on p. 132 is just as likely to say Your bag, is it? as he is to say Is this your bag?

o        It is not always easy to find or create a dialogue which is naturally generative, and in order to make them generative the dialogues can often be rather artificial and repetitive.

Giving or working out the ‘rule’

In this way of presenting a structure, the teacher explains the rules or patterns of form and use and maybe, in a monolingual group, translates the structure into the students’ mother tongue. You can start the lesson by telling them explicitly what language you are going to deal with: for example, Today we are going to look at how we use the third conditional: of example – If you’d woken me on time I wouldn’t have been late. Then you can go on to give the rules of grammar and use then set up some practice.

Alternatively, you can give some example sentences containing the structure and encourage the students to work out or suggest the rules for themselves. For example, a number of paired sentences can be given and the students encouraged to say when for and when since is used with the present perfect:

aI’ve been here of six hours.bI’ve been here since 3 o’clock.

aThey’ve lived in this country for ten months.bThey’ve lived in this country since October.

The ‘rule’ can be elicited and then practice can be given. This approach is sometimes referred to as guided discovery and is particularly useful if you think the students have some familiarity with the target structure or if you want to revise the structure.