Techniques for Improving Oral Communication Skills

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Techniques for Improving Oral Communication
Skills

• Johanna Katchen (???)
• National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
• katchen_at_mx.nthu.edu.tw
• http//mx.nthu.edu.tw/katchen

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Student Skills

• Reading is usually their best skill this is
  useful for reading textbooks
• Memorize grammar rules
• Speaking and listening skills often not very good

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Societys Needs

• More tourists, so more jobs in the service
  industry demand English speaking skills
• More international trade and professional
  contacts, so professionals need English
• More international students

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• Computer dealers may need to sell or repair
  English operating systems
• Doctors and nurses may have to treat injured or
  ill tourists or foreign residents
• Taxi drivers and store clerks deal with tourists
• Many more needs

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What techniques can we use to motivate our
students to take more interest in developing
their listening and speaking skills?
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Using Video in ELT

• For years we have been using videotape
• With modern technology, we have DVDs and digital
  recording

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What do we do with video?

• Showing videos to students
• Videotaping student activities

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Advantages of Using Video

• Input in target language
• Naturally used language (although scripted),
  varieties (regional, socioeconomic, ethnic,
  gender, age), levels of formality, etc.
• Show nonverbal behaviors
• Show cultural artifacts and behaviors
• Appealing, colorful, story line motivating

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Purposes for Using Video

• To provide language input
• To provide a stimulus for language
  outputspeaking or writing
• To illustrate pragmatic and nonverbal behaviors
• To illustrate elements of culture
• To teach content, media literacy, etc.

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Authentic Language

• Different varietiesregional, ethnic, age, gender
• Situational differenceslevel of formality,
  social position
• Individual differencesspeed of speech, voice
  quality, talkativeness, clarity, situation (e.g.
  on telephone, with food in mouth)

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What are Authentic Tasks?

• Watching movies
• Watching sitcoms
• Watching news stories
• Watching travel shows
• And so forth

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• Listen and comprehend
• Write down some key information
• Talk about what we heard with others
• Summarize it in a letter or e-mail

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• Might practice note-taking, comprehension
  questions, ticking off
• May also do less authentic things in the
  classroom for practice, such as filling in the
  blanks of a transcript to focus on lexical or
  grammatical usage
• DANGER dont overteach transcript

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Strategy Use

• Using background knowledge to fill in gaps in
  informationeducated guessing
• Predictionwhat will happen next?
• Use knowledge of genre type
• Use knowledge of context/situation and human
  nature

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• Asian students tend to decipher word by word,
  bottom-up
• Turn off sound and force them to read the
  nonverbal behaviour and images
• Look at how nonverbal behaviour as well as
  paralinguistic (intonation, stress, volume)
  modify the meaning of the words

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Comprehensible Input

• Many EFL materials do not challenge studentsthey
  just memorize and pick over the text word by word
• Students and their teachers fear authentic
  material is too hard

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• The teacher can choose film clips and design
  activities such that students are challenged but
  can complete the activitiese.g. with the same
  clip beginners can listen and just check off a
  list of things they heard higher level students
  can answer completion questions
• Careful and appropriate pre-teaching helps

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Multiple Intelligences

• Gardner 1983. Frames of Mind the Theory of
  Multiple Intelligences.
• Tatsuki 2001. Multiple Intelligences and Video.

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Use of video and film in relation to multiple
inteligences

• To profile multiple intelligencesview a complex
  film and then debrief which features of the
  segment were attended to?
• Film may provide an alternative route to
  understanding a concept (good teachers provide
  explanation/illustration in more than one mode)

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• Linguisticvideotape storytelling and provide
  immediate feedback
• Logical mathematicalillustrations of physics
  concepts (DVD, CD-ROM)

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• Visual spatialstop film and predict what will
  happen next students make videotapes or
  documentaries instead of written reports
• Bodily kinestheticstudent uses remote control
  using moving images to illustrate concepts

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• Musicalinteractive video disks (e.g. Beethovens
  Ninth Symphony see score as it is played, hear
  individual instruments, read about composer)

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Uses of the Video Camera
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• Primary purposestudents see their performances
  and self-critique, see non-fluencies, nonverbal
  behaviours, etc. They can track their
  improvements, see their good performances and be
  proud of them.

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• Secondary purposes(1) dont have to grade in
  class, can grade more thoroughly later (2) use
  the best examples as teaching materials
• After teaching the new unit (process, comparison
  and contrast, cause and effect, etc.)
• Students say by seeing the example speeches, they
  have a good idea what I want them to do

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Why Use Previous Student Speeches?

• They are not perfect
• However, most native speakers cannot speak as
  well as the best native speaker examples. Why
  should we expect more of our students?
• It is not necessary for our students to be
  perfect speakers, but it is possible for them to
  be reasonably effective speakers

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• Seeing peers, previous students they may know,
  students who have been where they are nowis
  motivating.
• Students get ideas from seeing what previous
  students have done, and they are motivated to do
  even better. I can do that. I can do better
  than that!

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What to Model

• Introductions and conclusions
• Working with audio and visual materials
• Using Power Point
• Types of speechesprocess (show and tell), also
  comparisons, descriptions, argumentation

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When will students view the video?

• In-class?
• What about individual embarrassment and face?
• Will the rest of the class be bored?
• In conference with the teacher?
• Make sure you tell them something positive about
  their performances. Help them build up their
  confidence.

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• Out-of-class?
• What kind of guidance will you give students?
• All students think they look terrible at first.
  Encourage them.
• Show students how videotaping is a tool for
  future improvement.
• Have them look for one good point and one point
  they would like to improve next time.

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What Can Students See?

• Their fluency or hesitations
• How well they prepared
• Their gestures and other nonverbal behaviour
• Their use of audiovisual aids
• Their interaction with their audience

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Uploading to the Internet

• Most important question How much space do you
  have?
• Our school gives each professor 500MB shared
  among personal website and e-mail. Its not
  enough for my courses
• If one uses the schools e-learn (Blackboard),
  each course has 500 MB

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• Real Media using the free Real Player compresses
  more, 1 MB/minute, quality is not so good for
  language teaching materials and students have
  complained about this
• Low quality Windows Media gives about 3 minutes
  per MB, but the quality is even worse. Recently I
  have used medium quality (about 5 MB per minute)
  to show student speeches and students have said
  it is acceptable.

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Podcasting

• Most often this refers to making your own
  internet radio programs what can be downloaded to
  an iPod or MP3 player can include video
• Students practice their speaking skills and have
  a purpose for speaking sort of like an audio
  blog

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• All you need is a computer with speakers and a
  cheap microphone. Can record ones voice with
  the Sound Recorder on your computer, other free
  software like Audacity, or downloadable
  podcasting software.
• An excellent article for advice Yeh, Aiden,
  (2006) Using Podcast for Oral Skills, Selected
  Papers from the 15th International Symposium on
  Language Teaching, pp. 609-617. Crane.