Педагогические науки/5. Cовременные методы преподавания

Михайленко А.В., Проценко Т.В.

Национальный Технический УниверситетУкраины”Киевский Политехнический Институт”

SPEAKING AND LISTENING COMPREHENSION TEACHING OF ESP STUDENTS

Almost all of us learn to speak and in fact speaking is so much a part of daily life that we tend to take it for granted. However, learning to speak involves developing a number of complex skills and different types of knowledge about how and when to communicate.

It is useful when thinking about speaking to consider how we develop speaking in our mother tongue. If you have had any contact with very young babies you will know that although they cannot speak, there still appears to be some kind of communication taking place. This involves interacting with those around them through different types of cries, different sounds, various lip movements and facial expressions such as smiles and frowns. Family members often react to a young baby's smiles or gestures as if they were turns in talk.

To go beyond this, at very early stage young babies must develop a number of verbal skills as preparation for speaking. They must listen to and try to imitate the sounds of the language made by the people around them. This is the point when learning to pronounce the sounds of the mother tongue begins. Usually at around six months babies begin to utter sounds which have particular meanings attached to them. These are not recognisable words and often the only people who can understand their meaning are the caregivers. This stage, before actual language use has developed, has been called the proto-linguistic stage [2].

Implications for teaching.

We can use the concepts of parataxis and hypotaxis in speech production to help ESP students to understand how speakers typically build up their speech by linking a series of informational elements through commonly used conjunctions. Depending on the level of the learners, classroom strategies for teaching could include:

- discussing with learners the different ways in which spoken and written language connect pieces of information using samples of natural speech by native speakers from different contexts in recorded or transcribed forms

- providing listening exercises where learners can listen to the way talk is segmented into informational chunks

- encouraging learners to note how informational units are linked and what conjunctions are used

- giving learners practice in producing extended stretches of talk where they put forward a point of view or recount a series of events over a prolonged turn at talk.

We can also think about how we can increase the length of the turns that students are given in classroom interactions. Usually teachers only allow a short amount of wait time before they supply answers to their own questions, continue the interaction on behalf of students, or call on other students. Providing students with more time for classroom turns may help them to practise the linguistic devices of parataxis and hypotaxis required for more extended speech [2].

Speaking in the classroom.

In considering ESP students' speaking needs, we should also consider the role of spoken language in the classroom. Spoken language is central to the management of the classroom and we should be aware of the level and types of spoken language we use, as teachers, to manage the classroom. We need to spend time in programs focusing on the language of classroom management and the interpersonal uses of language within the classroom environment. If we ask students to participate in classroom activities, we need to make sure that we use spoken instructions which they can understand. We also need to familiarise students with the types of texts which we use to manage the classroom and the texts which develop classroom social interactions [3].

Students will not all bring the same resources to the process of learning English. Some students may have had limited formal learning experiences. These students may not be aware of the uses of spoken language in the classroom and may not be prepared for the way teachers use spoken language to manage the classroom.

Some students with minimal competency in spoken language may not be able to distinguish between the spoken language of classroom management and the spoken language, which teachers are trying to teach. For example, students can be confused when the teacher moves rapidly from explaining a language feature to giving instructions for a classroom activity. It is helpful, therefore, to develop ways of signalling the different types of spoken language in the classroom and use these consistently throughout a program.

When teaching spoken language, teachers can present three types of spoken texts to their students:

- scripted texts, which are generally found in course books;

- authentic texts, which are recordings of native speakers in contexts outside the classroom;

- semi-scripted materials.

Scripted dialogues.

In language teaching, speaking has often been taught through the use of dialogues. These are usually invented or scripted by a textbook writer and are based on intuitions or assumptions about what people say when they speak. They represent an idealised version of how speakers interact in different situational contexts, but the kind of language presented is usually very different from real samples of natural speech. This is because idealised versions of oral language have usually been derived from grammars that are based on written rather than spoken language [2].

Methodology in teaching spoken language

While most language programs recognise that language learning is a gradual process, the methodologies, which have been put forward for the teaching of speaking, have varied over the years.

Methodologies based on communicative approaches to teaching speaking tend to focus on spoken language use rather than the form of the language. This has meant that in the classroom the teacher has been encouraged to focus on activities, which will get students speaking and little attention has been paid to providing them with the means to interact. As a result, there was often little guidance given to teachers on how to integrate a focus on the form of spoken language [2].

A suggested methodological framework.

Teachers usually draw from a range of methodological approaches in their choice of activities and tasks for the classroom. Having an overall framework is also useful in communicating methodological decisions to students who can sometimes be left floundering when they cannot see the teacher's rational behind the sequencing of activities - it is important that teaching is not a game for students of guess what's in the teacher's mind.

Generally student access to formal learning is limited and therefore it is important to adopt a methodology which:

- is systematic

- can be explained to the students

- clearly identifies teacher and student roles in the classroom

- develops student independence in using spoken language

- recycles activity types so that students can concentrate on language rather than on learning to deal with constantly changing activity types [1].

The framework is based on the notion of scaffolding, which involves providing systematic support for students in the learning process. The term scaffold was first used by Bruner (1983) and derives from the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky who argued that learning occurs in social situations and that learners cannot be given immediate and full responsibility for the achievement of tasks but must share this responsibility with their teachers. As a learner's competence improves, the teacher decreases the amount of support provided and learners are expected to take increasing responsibility for performance.

Listening comprehension teaching of ESP students

The standard format for listening comprehension teaching of ESP students consists of varied dialogues and monologues chosen as far as possible, and often very imaginatively, for their 'intrinsic interest', which tends to run for a roughly equal length of time. A typical class consists of the teacher playing the tape, and the students answering questions on the tape. As we have already remarked, the questions tend to be fairly equally distributed throughout the written transcript of the text, and in general deal with 'facts', information that has been specifically stated in the text or which can be directly inferred from the text [4].

If the intention of a course is that students should be exposed to more than one type of text, then different texts need to be chosen on the basis not only of variation in topic, which seems to have been the main criteria so far in most courses, but in terms of the purposes for which the text was intended. If a text was produced by two speakers who were simply 'being friendly' and taking short interactional turns, then that short text should be studied as an example of that genre. Students should not be asked to answer questions concerning the 'facts' communicated in such a discourse. The 'facts' are more or less irrelevant to the purpose of the discourse. They should pay attention to what the discourse was produced for, and observe the various strategies of being friendly that the participants manifest. This demands an analytic, careful, consideration, which not all students may be prepared to produce. If the students prefer working with tapes, which provide 'facts', then it is clearly more appropriate for them to work with transactional turns where the point of the communication is the transferring of information.

One basis for selection of texts is that they should be chosen to illustrate the different things that language is used for in real life, and presented in a manner which relates as far as possible to the way that sort of purpose is dealt with in language in real life. Thus, an instructional text containing detailed information should either be very short and repeated, in the way a person giving route directions to a tourist will repeat what he said, several times over sometimes, or it should be produced by a speaker who is actually giving instructions to another student who does the task as he listens. That is to say, the language will be produced at a speed, and with the appropriate pausing, to permit the instructions to be followed. It is not adequate to ask a speaker giving instructions to 'imagine' that he is speaking to someone who is carrying out those instructions [4].

If the discourse consists of a discussion, which slides between one person seriously informing another and the second person commenting on this, and the student is obliged to adopt the role of overhearer, the tape may be used for two quite distinct purposes (to mention only two). First, the student may pay attention to the 'facts' produced by the first speaker in one of the variety of ways suggested by existing courses. Secondly, the student may pay attention to the role of the second speaker - examine the second speaker's expressions of opinion and determine whether that second speaker is maintaining a consistent point of view or not. This, after all, is the sort of judgement native speakers make on each other when they say of someone, 'I can't pin him down', 'he's really slippery', etc.

One of the things that follows from deciding to use different sorts of texts for different purposes is that you no longer necessarily want texts which all take up the same amount of time. The teacher might use a few small snippets from conversations to illustrate some particular conversational, then go on to play a more extended piece of interactional conversation to illustrate the use of this strategy, and then spend the last half of the lesson working with a fairly short transactional text where the students are required to complete a task. What seems to be required in course construction is a selection of strategies and tasks, exemplified in texts graded in the sort of way we have been describing, and a fairly fluid approach to the construction of a set of menus for each particular lesson, menus which may sometimes consist of a number of short extracts (particularly in the early stages) and may sometimes consist of a long blockbuster text whose content is made accessible for students by careful preparation and the judicious use of supports.

Literature:

1. March Ellis, Nina O’Driscoll and Adrian Pilbran – Professional English Teaching Guide – Longman, 2002.

2. Anne Burns, Helen Joyce – Focus on Speaking – National Center for English Language Teaching and Research – 1999.

3. English for Specific Purpose (ESP) – National Curriculum for Universities – British council - Ukraine, Kiev, 2005.

4. Gillian Brown and George Jule – Cambridge University press – 2000.