The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
Issue link: https://thelinguist.uberflip.com/i/527274
thelinguist.uberflip.com JUNE/JULY The Linguist 13 FEATURES practice, they are less likely to be motivated to speak. Providing a genuine information gap creates more opportunities for spontaneous speech, as in the following ideas. ID form. A simple form can generate extensive speaking opportunities. A fairly advanced form might include First name, Surname, Age, Date of birth, Marital status, Brothers and sisters, Hobbies, Favourite colour, Favourite food, Favourite TV programme, Hero, Holiday destination last year and Ambition – all written in the target language. However, the questions can be adapted to reduce the amount of language that students need to use. Students are given two copies of the ID form. First they must complete the form for their teacher – asking the teacher the relevant questions as a group. This allows them to revise the question forms needed in the next stage. Students are usually highly motivated to ask the questions as they are eager to uncover the teacher's deepest secrets. The students are then instructed to fill in the form for a partner, taking turns to ask each other the questions. When all forms have been completed, the teacher asks each person to select the three most interesting facts about their partner and report them to the rest of the class. Again, students usually find it interesting to discover something new about their classmates and this presents the teacher with a valuable opportunity to brush up their use of the possessive adjectives ('her' and 'his'). Spot the difference. Each student has a picture of a room with various items of furniture in it, which they mustn't show to their peers. There are some differences between the pictures and students must find these by asking each other questions, such as 'Where is the guitar?', 'Is there a bookcase in the?'. Happy families. Each student is given a sheet of pictures of faces or people. The faces should be numbered or have names. Student A describes a face or person to Student B, who must guess the correct number or name. Pupil A gives them one sentence only to begin with, such as Il a des cheveux noirs, after which Pupil B makes a guess. If the guess is correct, Pupil B takes over; if not Pupil A gives another clue, and so on. The aim is for Pupil B to guess the identity of the person as quickly as possible. Pronunciation Many students are afraid to speak because of a lack of confidence in pronunciation. It can boost students' confidence to draw their attention explicitly to how certain phonemes are pronounced, rather than relying merely on correcting mispronunciation. The following is an adaptation of strategies used by Catherine Cheater with primary- aged pupils; I have used it successfully with much older students to enable them first to distinguish between individual sounds and then to reproduce them. • Highlight pairs of common, problematic sounds, such as 'ie' and 'ei' and 'au' and 'eu' in German, by using a football. Instruct the pupils that when the ball is bounced on the floor they respond by saying 'ie'. When the ball is thrown in the air they say 'ei'. The speed is increased as students become more confident. • Two sounds are displayed on pieces of card at either side of the room. Students must point to the correct card when they hear the teacher say the sound. • The teacher reads out a list of words containing the sounds and pupils must indicate the correct card. The words become increasingly difficult and it is interesting to see how students struggle with this exercise, even if they are already familiar with the words. • Groups of students are each given a different sound on a card. The teacher reads out a text and when the pupils hear their sound they must raise their hand. A good exercise to follow on from this is to present students with a list of unknown words or surnames containing the sounds and ask them to work out how they are pronounced. Tongue twisters are also a fun means of practising pronunciation. For an extensive collection in 118 languages, visit www.uebersetzung.at/twister/index.htm. The key to enabling students to speak independently and spontaneously is to provide plentiful opportunities that motivate them to do so. Hilary McColl's website (http://hilarymccoll.co.uk/tlproject.html) offers numerous strategies to help you achieve this. Notes 1 Barnes, A, 2007, in Pachler, N & Redondo, A, A Practical Guide to Teaching Modern Foreign Languages in the Secondary School, Routledge Providing a genuine information gap creates more opportunities for spontaneous speech ROUTES INTO LANGUAGES SAY IT ALOUD A recent Routes into Languages event