Axis of Fluency and Accuracy
In my classes I focus on fluency rather than accuracy. However, this does not necessarily mean that I completely ignore accuracy.
At our school we are implementing skill-based instruction and we teach speaking together with listening. Our speaking course book is Interactions Access Silver Edition. It provides the learners with the input they need to speak via contextual and topic based listening materials. Each chapter naturally has a number of learning outcomes.The very first chapter is entitled "Neighborhood, Cities, and Towns". For this chapter, for instance, one of the outcomes was to be able to talk about public transportation. As my students were at elementary level, I encouraged them to produce even a set of simple words (on foot, by bus) to answer a question like “How do you get to school?” These simple words they used proved to be accurate as they answered the questions by using the accurate prepositions like “on” and “by”. (It should also be kept in mind that in real life daily speech, people do not answer this question with full sentences) Also, before they talked about the vehicle they used, they had listened to a conversation about the public transportation two students used to get to school. When they made mistakes (like “by foot”, “of bus”), I waited until they finished and uttered the correct version: “So you get to school by bus?” and “You walk to school? You go on foot?” Then I reacted to their answers by using expressions like “How lucky you are! You are close to school. I live far from the campus.” These types of reactions turned the practice into an authentic social chat going on the class as well.
While the students were expected to talk about the transportation they used, they were also supposed to talk about how long it took to get to school by using that particular transportation vehicle. To talk about transportation-stating the particular transportation vehicle to get to school- did not require full grammatical sentences. However, saying “It is a fifteen-minute ride” requires grammatical knowledge (rather than saying “fifteen minutes,” they were supposed to turn it into an adjective by saying a “fifteen-minute ride.” Of course, the students produced inaccurate sentences. What I did was to let them make grammatical mistakes. Thus, I did not interfere when they made mistakes. As the main problem of lower level students are anxiety and not having language proficiency, I listened to them and after some practice I wrote some students’ sentences on the board. For example; I wrote: “Celal goes to school by bus. It takes fifteen minutes. It is a fifteen-minute ride.” In this way, I reflected on the correct version without discouraging the students by just focusing on the mistakes. It is an example of balance between fluency and accuracy. I emphasized fluency and communication by showing the students that I understood what they were talking about whatever their level was since I wrote their sentences. This also helped me to accentuate the accurate grammar form since I underlined “fifteen-minute ride.”
Another outcome of the same unit was to make the students say days and dates. This production required more focus on accuracy than fluency. Thus, while the students were doing a communication gap activity, (They were asking about the missing days and dates in their calendars and filled their versions with the information they got from their peers) I tried to address the errors just after the problematic sentence was finished. For example:
Student: It is on May.
Teacher: It is …?
Student: It is in May.
In conclusion, I ignore neither fluency nor accuracy in my speaking classes. The nature of a certain activity determines if I should put more emphasis on accuracy or fluency. I still balance between them by addressing the important-the key grammar points needed to implement a speaking activity- without interfering the student’s intention to communicate his ideas. One important issue to keep in mind is that even if the student knows all the grammatical rules, he still may not be fluent enough to communicate- he may not be able to communicate at all. Accuracy without fluency or fluency without accuracy is impossible, so the best way is to weave these two components together to produce our masterpiece in class: communication. In other words, we, as teachers of English should let our students to make mistakes to be fluent. We should also address their mistakes without discouraging them from speaking in order to train them to make fewer mistakes.
To ask OR not to ask
I generally teach speaking to lower level students. Currently I am teaching elementary level listening/speaking. When I reflect on my questioning techniques in this course, I find out that I use most of them in my speaking class. I use “yes/no questions”, “wh- questions (what, when, where, who)”, and “why” questions. The most frequent question I use is “open-ended (especially the wh- types)” and “why” questions. I suppose I never use “or” types.
This week we are studying Interactions Access Unit 4. The title of this unit is Health Care. At the end of this unit the students are expected to talk about their health problems, give advice to each other on various problems, make an appointment from a health clinic to see a doctor and discuss their eating and sleeping habits. I have been able to teach students how to give advice to someone so far.
To teach how to give advice, I began the lesson by telling my students that I had a serious problem: being too busy. I gave details about my workload and complained about it, which they listened with great interest. However, the only question type I asked them to elicit responses was “open-ended wh- type”. I notice that I tended to ask what I should do. I could also have given them two options and asked them to help me choose the best advice. For example I could have said: “Should I find another job or plan myself?” In fact, most students were enthusiastic about giving advice to me on such an issue, and they told me to plan myself; however, if I had given two alternatives before they gave advice, the less successful students would have chosen one of them instead of keeping silent. This could have encouraged them to interact and they would have felt they were also participating in the flow of discussion going on in the class.
Then I had the students to write their current problems (or those of someone they know) on a piece of paper. I collected the pieces of papers and randomly chose them one by one. I read the problem aloud and asked the students the same question: What should he/she do?” In this activity I could have asked “yes/no questions” together with “or” types. Saying “Should she leave the dormitory?” or “Should she leave the dormitory or talk to the principal about his problem?” would have been more productive in terms of keeping interaction and making the students get used to different question types in English.
After listening to the students’ advice on a particular problem, I reflected on some of the advice given by asking “Why should she leave the dormitory? Isn’t it difficult to do?” These types of questions, when I reflect on them now, may have been too challenging for the students as it was the first time they had encountered advice giving structure. After practicing advice giving via “Should he/she” (yes/no) and “Should she ____ or ________?” (or type), I should have asked “wh- open ended” types and “reasoning type: why.”
The most important thing I have become aware about my questioning types in my speaking class is I might relax my students by giving two options for them to choose when I ask their opinion about a particular subject so that they can feel themselves using English for meaningful purposes-for expressing their personal ideas on an issue. I have also become aware of the fact that by asking a lot of “why” questions I might be discouraging them from expressing their ideas and feelings since “why” requires more sophisticated answers. Reasoning requires improved cognitive skills and more proficiency.
In the light of reflection I have made, my action plan for my upcoming speaking courses is to integrate as many questioning types as possible in order to make my students hear and practice various English language structures and make them participate in the speaking activities more by producing a wide range of responses. I will try to incorporate “or” questions and use “why” less frequently. However, it should not mean that I will never use “why” types. If I do not use any “why” types, it means that the students’ proficiency level will never go up. I will carefully plan my questioning techniques and try to have my students get used to producing language by providing them a prism of different questions. I will prefer “yes/no” and “or” types first. After making them respond to simpler questions in English, I will ask them to answer “wh-“, “why” and “open-ended opinion” questions. To make them participate in speaking activities I should be using easier (yes/no, or) questions which still appreciate their personal ideas. The thing is to show them they can produce the language orally to communicate their ideas, which “yes/no” and “or” questions can really achieve. To express opinions is not just about successfully answering “What do you think” or “Why do you think so” questions. When I reflect on my class and revise my notes on “Interacting in the classroom” lesson, I understand that only the teacher’s appropriate questions can encourage lower level students to communicate in English.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder