RATE Issues

by Carmen-Mirela Ursu, "Ștefan Bârsănescu” School, Iași

Key words: productive skills, speaking, writing, practice, communicative activities, interaction

Abstract
The purpose of this article is to provide some guidelines on the requirements of effective communicative activities. Since students have numerous sources of exposure to English outside school, their receptive skills are generally better than the productive ones, which take more time and effort to develop. In principle, there is a wide range of activities that support the development of speaking and writing skills, but not all of them are equally successful. The article describes some of the challenges encountered by teachers when designing communicative activities and suggests possible ways to overcome them.

When discussing about skill acquisition in second language learning, Jensen (2007, p.126) mentions the paramount importance of practice. Learning takes time and effort and sometimes the long-term results are difficult to perceive. Controlled and repetitive practice have their benefits, but limited utility, while deliberate practice is the one that has the strongest effect. The difference from other types of practice is that it involves more concentration on the task, which comes from motivation and engagement. Controlled practice involves repeating a new language form in a restricted manner, and it is usually focused on accuracy. Its limitations derive from its repetitive nature, which often tricks students into believing that they know that language structure. Consequently, they stop paying close attention to it, producing it automatically, but not necessarily accurately. Deliberate practice is systematic and more effortful, as the learners have to observe themselves and assess their own performance continuously in order to improve it.
Moreover, in order to maximize the desired effects, students need to be aware of the goal of the practice and have a clear picture of what success looks like. For them to remain engaged and to persist the quality of the practice is more important than the quantity, as well as monitoring and feedback. (Jensen, 2007, p. 129)
Ingredients of effective teaching
In his book Visible Learning (2012), John Hattie summarizes the conclusions of a meta-analysis of over 50,000 studies related to achievement in school-aged students, conducted over a period of 15 years. The purpose of the research was to discover the variables with the greatest impact on learning and the most effective practices. He included variables connected to students, curricula, school organization, teachers, teaching approaches, etc. He established that everything teachers do has an impact on learning, with two key questions: whether the impact was positive or negative, and if it was high enough to matter. Among the high-impact elements, relevant to the topic of this article, Hattie mentions teacher talk, a supportive classroom climate, the role of peers and collaborative learning, the quality of practice activities and formative feedback.
One of the findings of the book is that the ratio of teacher talk in classroom has to change to allow students to talk and participate more. For instance, a study on teacher talk found that usually less than 5% of class time is allotted for group discussion or to interactions that encourage a meaningful discussion of ideas. Lessons in which teachers dominate by talking 70-80% of the time produced the lowest engagement, and there was much less teacher-talk during activities that students reported as challenging, relevant and engaging.
Even if in real life situations we live and learn with peers, much of the learning in schools has been directed at the individual. There are many ways in which peers can contribute to learning. They can tutor, exchange ideas, act as a resource, give feedback or simply make school a friendly place where students come with joy. Teachers play a major role in ensuring not only a positive classroom climate and positive interactions between students, but also provide opportunities for them to work together. Some teachers avoid group work because they believe that the more capable students do all the work, while the weaker ones just copy the work of their peers and do not benefit at all from this kind of activities. Research has shown that students are more receptive when someone their age explains things to them, while the beneficial effects on the “tutor” are just as high.
Successful communicative activities
When talking about successful language learning, Brown states: “at the heart of current theories of communicative competence is the essentially interactive nature of communication.” (Brown, 2000, p. 48) Thus, it is essential to create opportunities for authentic interaction in the classroom. As he formulates is, interactive learning can be recognized by the following main characteristics:
• pair work and group work occupy a significant part of the activities
• students are exposed as much as possible to authentic language in real-world contexts
• meaningful communication is the purpose of producing language
• the use of classroom tasks that prepare them for real-life situations
• oral communication that builds confidence and spontaneity
• writing to and for real audiences.
As far as productive skills are concerned, Harmer (2001) focuses on the communicative aspect of activities and summarizes very clearly some key elements that should be considered. “When students are working on their language production, they should be operating towards the communicative end of the of communication continuum.” (Harmer, 2001, p. 249) Oral language drills or writing sentences using a specific grammar structure are not activities that promote productive skills, because language production involves, first and foremost, achieving a communicative purpose.
Non-communicative activities Communicative activities
• No communicative desire
• No communicative purpose
• Form not content
• One language item only
• Teacher intervention
• Materials control • A desire to communicate
• A communicative purpose
• Content not form
• Variety of language
• No teacher intervention
• No materials control
The communication continuum (Harmer, 2001, p. 95)

Ur (2012) also discusses the characteristics of successful communicative activities:
• much of the time allotted to the activity is occupied by learner talk, instead of teacher talk or pauses;
• learners’ participation is even (the discussion is not dominated by a few participants);
• motivation and engagement are high and the language produced by students is easily comprehensible and of an acceptable level of accuracy. (Ur, 2012, p.120)
In practice, few classroom activities meet all these criteria satisfactorily.

Students’ perception of communicative activities
There are a number of reasons why students have difficulties in participating in speaking and writing activities, ranging from the difficulty of the task or the manner in which it is explained, to personal factors like introversion, lack of spontaneity, lack of interest in the topic or “language ego” (Brown, 2000, p. 61). Moreover, productive skills are described as active skills precisely because they require more effort and focus.
• The language level
The task is too difficult, namely the students do not have the vocabulary or the grammar they need to accomplish it. They have ideas but they do not know the necessary words, how to connect them or are insecure about the grammar rules. Work becomes tedious and frustrating and some students do not even attempt to complete it. To begin with, the teacher should know the students very well and choose tasks that are not very high above their level of competence. They have to be carefully planned throughout the school year, in order to allow students time to acquire and practice enough content as to be confident about their capabilities. In addition, the teacher could indicate a set of words or structures that can be included in their production, especially at beginner and elementary levels. This way they will focus less on finding the right words and more on how to use them in communication.
• The topic
To ensure the success of an activity is important to ask students to talk or write about topics that interest them. Otherwise, it is unlikely that they invest the same amount of effort as they do when the topic is stimulating and relevant. Sometimes teachers choose topics that they consider interesting and educational, but students find boring or cannot connect with them. Moreover, choosing a topic that students are unfamiliar with and cannot speak about even in their own language will most likely result in a failed activity. On the other hand, putting students at the centre of the learning process is a recipe for success. Exploiting their numerous interests, passions, knowledge outside school is a good way to start and keep a conversation going. Not only do people like talking about themselves, but they also feel very good when they appear competent and knowledgeable in front of their peers. This again means that the teacher takes time to know his students and find ways to use them as resources. The process of collecting data about the students can be easily included in the current activity, through various “about me” assignments, interviews or questionnaires, which could help teachers anticipate what topics would produce the best results.
That is not to say that teachers should not attempt to introduce unfamiliar topics. There is no certain way of knowing how students might reach to something new. Even unpromising tasks and topics can be successful if teachers find ways of engaging the students and creating interest. Teachers’ attitude and enthusiasm are a first step in setting the tone for an activity. We can organise a brainstorming activity to elicit what students might know, discuss the topic in “buzz groups” or ask those who are familiar with it to share their thoughts with the class.
Another ingredient of successful teaching is variety. Even if students show a preference for certain topics, at some point they might get bored and out of ideas. In addition, we should expose them to different genres and types of tasks in order to provide opportunities to become confident in expressing themselves in numerous types of spoken or written contexts.
• The nature of the task
Sometimes students are interested in the topic and motivated to participate, but it is unclear to them how to perform a certain task. It is quite difficult to role-play an interview or write a letter if they have never heard or seen one before. That is why providing models and examples of good practice is very important for them to get familiarized with the type of task, discuss it, exchange ideas, ask for clarification.
Besides models, the teacher should also provide them specific information about the content, the structure and the duration of an activity, or length of a written product. Students should have a very clear picture of what is expected of them and what success looks like (how much time they should speak, who is who in a role-play, the number of ideas they should come up with, the number of lines an email should include etc.) Once these things have been discussed, it is essential to check for understanding. This might mean asking some students to model the task or summarize the instructions and give them the opportunity to ask for clarification, if needed.
• Affective factors
The “affective filter” occupies an important position in Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition. (Krashen, 1982, p. 9) He says that a student’s anxiety, low self-esteem or lack of motivation can function as causes for a mental block that prevent the successful acquisition of a second language. The lower the affective filter is, the higher the chances of success. Other theoreticians use the concept of “language ego”. “As humans learn to use a second language, they also develop a new mode of thinking, feeling, and acting – a second identity. The new ‘language ego’, intertwined with the second language, can easily create within the learner a sense of fragility, a defensiveness and a raising of inhibitions.” (Brown, 2000, p. 243)
Various personality factors like shyness, confidence and risk taking, students’ previous experience with the language and their perception of their own competence and chances of success can greatly influence learning. Teachers have little control over some of the variables that determine students’ self-esteem and motivation for learning, but they have a great impact on what happens in the classroom, starting with their attitude and relationship with students. Ensuring a warm, supportive classroom climate is another thing that deserves spending time on. Being corrected and laughed at by colleagues is one of the reasons most frequently cited by students for their fear of speaking in class. Others mention that even if they want to participate, some teachers usually do not allow enough time for everybody to contribute and faster students get more opportunities to have their voices heard. It is important to create an atmosphere in the classroom that encourages students “to try out language, to venture a response” and positively reinforce the habit of making risky attempts, especially when focusing on fluency. (Brown, 2000, p. 50) Teachers should also consider learners’ language ego when they decide who to call on, when and how to correct mistakes, how to pair students, how to give personalised feedback and numerous other micro-decisions that they make during lessons.
On a more technical level, building students’ sense of competence determines how the teacher chooses tasks that are challenging, but not affectively overwhelming, the sequence of activities and various scaffolding techniques. Learning happens best when students are assigned tasks with the right level of difficulty: high enough as to involve some cognitive effort, but not so high as to become discouraging.

Conclusion
In order to organise successful communicative activities, language teachers should take into consideration general learning principles (a supportive classroom climate, high quality practice activities, level and age-appropriate tasks, formative feedback and collaborative learning), as well as concepts and elements specific to language teaching (exposure to authentic language, meaningful communication, preparing students for real-life situations etc.). Moreover, an essential aspect is knowing one’s students beyond a basic inventory of language knowledge and skills. I strongly believe that if we tried more often to see what hides underneath poor language skills, reluctance to participate in class or lack of enthusiasm for school, in general, we would be better equipped to meet their learning needs.

Bibliography
• Brown, H. Douglas. Teaching by Principles (2nd ed.). Pearson ESL, 2000. Print.
• Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching (3rd ed.). Harlow: Longman, 2001. Print.
• Hattie, John. Visible Learning for Teachers. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print.
• Jensen, James. C. “Skill Acquisition and Second Language Learning”. Kindai University Language Journal, 3 (2007): 119-135. Print.
• Krashen, Stephen. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Pergamon Press, 1982. Print.
• Nunan, David. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge University Press, 1989. Print.
• Richards, Jack. C. The Language Teaching Matrix. Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print.
• Skinner, Burrhus Frederic. Verbal Behaviour. Copley Publishing Group, 1991. Print.
• Ur, Penny. A Course in English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print.

Biodata

Carmen-Mirela Ursu has taught English since 2003, when she graduated Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași. One of her main interests is how personality factors and family life influence learning experiences and school performance, with a focus on language acquisition. For the past few years, she has participated in numerous courses and trainings on the use of digital resources in education, as part of the solution for bridging the gap between school and “the real world”.