One of the factors that indicate success in ESL classrooms is the competence of students in oral communication. Whether the ESL class is for...
One of the factors that indicate success in ESL classrooms is the competence of students in oral communication. Whether the ESL class is for basic, intermediate or advanced students, students' ability to articulate simple to complex ideas in English can be verified, evaluated and improved using various ESL techniques. Once students feel comfortable using the basic approaches of communicating meaning in English, they can begin to participate in conversations in English, either through orchestrated settings or in real life encounters.
In any linguistic context, the conversation process involves listening, the mental formulation of meaning and speech. Each participant in a conversation has to perform all three tasks to remain an active and relevant player in the match. Because these tasks are not easy for most non-native speakers, the experience of successfully participating in a full session provides a lot of pleasure, excitement and satisfaction among ESL / EFL students. Often, there is some kind of eureka moment when an idea expressed in English is correctly learned by the student and when a specific idea that students are trying to convey in a foreign language is articulated correctly and clearly by a native English speaker. . Similarly, teachers of English as a second language or foreign language whose students have developed conversation skills are adequately affirmed in terms of their profession, as well as the learning strategies and techniques they adopt.
Obstacles that prevent full participation in conversations.
However, getting students to develop English speaking skills is fraught with challenges. The fact is that the various forms of oral speeches (light conversation, role plays, debates, topic discussions and recitations) are viewed with fear and apprehension by many students. This results in considerable shyness or hesitation among students to proactively articulate their thoughts in English. Several factors that cause or reinforce students' reluctance to speak in English have been identified. These include–
1. The subject is irrelevant or totally foreign to the student.
2. The student does not have an opinion or anything to articulate on the subject.
3. The student does not know how to articulate an idea correctly and fears making mistakes and the class or the conversation partner ridicules him.
4. The student feels intimidated by the higher level of competence exhibited by other students. The possibility of being compared with more articulated students results in a persistent reluctance to participate even when the student has valid ideas on the subject.
5. The student is aware and ashamed of the peculiar accent he exhibits when he speaks in English.
Eliminating these common obstacles is the first important step that a competent ESL / EFL educator should take. For students to develop acceptable skills in oral communication in English, any obstacle that prevents active and meaningful participation in oral speeches must be addressed. Here are some logical and commonsense approaches to do so:
1. ESL / EFL educators must be aware of the sociocultural contexts in which they are teaching. Aligning lesson plans that make use of very relevant and familiar topics (common ingredients of Thai dishes or street foods, Korean television series and unique wildlife of Borneo, for example) will help students easily form ideas and opinions they need express in english.
2. To facilitate a better learning environment, English teachers should make a point to meet their students individually as much as possible. In smaller classes, learning about students' hobbies or interests can help generate valuable conversation topics. However, this may not be possible in much larger classes. One way to circumvent cases in which students cannot form ideas or meaningful opinions on a topic is to assign them fixed and prefabricated roles or opinions. In this way, students can focus on language production skills instead of forming points of view or drawing from their own personal experiences.
3. Creating an open, tolerant and socially constructive classroom is essential to foster collaborative learning. At the beginning of the course, the ESL / EFL educator should have already established that mistakes will inevitably occur and that there is no reason to be ashamed of them. The teacher can also choose to give due credit to risk takers, even when they make mistakes. This is an opportunity to correct mistakes and encourage other students to participate.
4. In some learning scenarios, competition is a strong motivation for success. In others, however, collaboration techniques that fully benefit the group are best used.
5. Exhibiting accents is a normal manifestation in the articulation of a second or foreign language. However, educators and linguists differ in how they consider this phenomenon. On the one hand, the spread of English throughout the world has transformed it into a global language, so that no ethnolinguistic group can now really claim it as their own. The British and Australians have their respective accents. Why are the accents that indicate that a Japanese or Filipino speaker is considered incorrect when the transmitted meaning is apprehensive to any English speaker? After all, linguists believe that language is organic and evolves continuously, with different groups assimilating a particular language and giving it its own characteristic nuances and accents. On the other hand, there are educators who argue that encouraging the use of a neutral accent in English is the best long-term course, especially in global communication. Because some variants in English and pidgin forms are difficult to understand quickly, neutral accents are preferable when significantly different sociolinguistic groups communicate in English. Therefore, educators should constructively teach the globally acceptable way of speaking in English without marginalizing the specific variant of English characteristic of the place where they are teaching.
Effective aids for conversations in English.
Oral and auditory expression exercises remain by far the most effective way to improve conversation skills. However, any obstacle that prevents students from fully participating in these exercises must be addressed immediately by the ESL / EFL teacher as explained above. The use of conversation reference cards used in role-playing sessions can also help students be less apprehensive about participating.
Transition exercises that teach students to listen and talk about relevant daily encounters should be an integral part of the conversational English course. Talking about the weather, buying food, meeting a new acquaintance, a job interview and offering to rent an apartment are just some of the scenarios where you can start potentially useful English conversation exercises.
Since these scenarios are familiar, students are more likely to participate in the communication of their thoughts. Once the educators have become familiar and have made the students feel comfortable with the speaking and listening exercises, the class can proceed to more complex activities. These include formal discussions on different relevant topics. When conducting discussions, remember that it is more important for students to focus on how to articulate than on concentrating on how they really feel about a topic.
To help students develop a neutral English accent, teachers should advise them to 1) observe and imitate the mouth movements of competent English speakers; 2) use the dictionary to learn correct pronunciations; 3) listen to audiobooks in English; 4) read books or magazines in English out loud; and 5) record their conversations in English and oral readings to identify common mistakes and correct them.
Finally, in addition to classroom activities, ESL / EFL teachers can encourage their students to visit online portals that offer live English conversations to second-language or foreign students. Most of these are paid services, but other websites offer free audio records of different situational dialogues. These audio records can be a good practice to help students improve their English conversation skills.
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