INTRODUCCIN

El conjunto de asignaturas que se presentan en el mapa curricular de la especialidad en lengua

extranjera se propone que los futuros profesores desarrollen las competencias, las habilidades y la
sensibilidad necesarias para la enseanza del ingls a los adolescentes que asisten a la escuela
secundaria. Desde esta perspectiva, la formacin del profesor de lengua extranjera tiene
particularidades en relacin con otros campos disciplinarios, pues se requiere que adems de tener
un conocimiento formal de la materia (la lengua extranjera), adquiera la habilidad para emplearla
como medio de comunicacin y de enseanza.
En los cursos que forman parte de la especialidad, los contenidos y las actividades se caracterizan
por ser flexibles. Esta flexibilidad radica en las variadas formas de presentar los temas o contenidos
que dan sentido a las asignaturas, en las mltiples estrategias que el maestro puede implementar
para su tratamiento en los grupos de las escuelas normales y en el empleo de recursos y materiales.
La intencin es que los alumnos enfrenten situaciones que les demanden la utilizacin de las cuatro
habilidades bsicas (escuchar, hablar, leer y escribir), en el marco de tres lneas de formacin
especfica: perfeccionamiento de la competencia comunicativa, desarrollo de la competencia
didctica y conocimiento de los adolescentes, y prctica educativa. Para ello es necesario que
maestros y estudiantes tengan presentes los propsitos generales que se plantean en la
especialidad para la formacin de nuevos docentes, as como los particulares de cada materia en el
semestre que se cursa.
El trabajo con las asignaturas de la especialidad demanda prcticas en que los profesores son
actores centrales para promover los cambios deseados en los estudiantes normalistas, lo que incluye
el constante mejoramiento de las formas de enseanza y el trabajo coordinado entre los maestros
que imparten los distintos cursos de ingls.
El curso Estrategias y Recursos II. Comprensin Auditiva y Expresin Oral contina con las bases y
lineamientos del curso anterior, es decir, propicia tanto el dominio del idioma como las competencias
didcticas que los alumnos normalistas requieren para utilizar el ingls como medio de comunicacin
y para poder ensearlo a los estudiantes de educacin secundaria. En esta asignatura los
estudiantes normalistas, adems de ejercitar ambas habilidades adquieren las herramientas
necesarias para favorecer su desarrollo.
Para que los alumnos puedan comunicarse oralmente en ingls fuera del saln de clase deben
aprender un tipo de comunicacin que tiene ciertas caractersticas comunes como: comunicarse con
un propsito que no slo sea la prctica del idioma; centrar la atencin en qu se comunica
(informacin, ideas, opiniones y sentimientos) y no en cmo se comunica (por ejemplo, la gramtica
del idioma), y utilizar lenguaje variado tanto en el vocabulario como en la gramtica.
Por lo anterior, es necesario que el maestro y los estudiantes se comuniquen la mayor parte del
tiempo en ingls dentro del aula, y que el profesor seleccione materiales apropiados a las
caractersticas de los alumnos: su nivel de lengua, su edad, sus intereses y, adems, sus estilos de
aprendizaje. El docente motivar y apoyar a los alumnos para que expresen sus ideas y sientan
confianza al comunicarse, por lo cual debe evitar la correccin inoportuna que, ms que contribuir al
aprendizaje, provoca inhibiciones y alteraciones en el ambiente de trabajo.
Es importante subrayar que se deben utilizar como modelos textos autnticos o adaptaciones de
stos, donde el lenguaje conserve las caractersticas tpicas del discurso oral (efmero y muchas
veces gramaticalmente incompleto), como por ejemplo diferentes tipos de conversacin, fragmentos
de programas de radio y de televisin, entre otros. Actualmente, la mayora de los libros de texto de
ingls contienen actividades con este tipo de materiales.
El nivel de ingls entre los estudiantes normalistas no es homogneo y por consiguiente esta Gua,
igual que la de Estrategias y Recursos I..., no pretende detallar el material auditivo ni las
actividades. Es el maestro de la asignatura quien seleccionar y, en su caso, adaptar el material y
las actividades segn la situacin particular del grupo.

A travs del uso del ingls en clase, de los textos y actividades las cuales pueden ser realizadas
tanto individualmente como en grupo se pretende que los estudiantes adquieran las
competencias y sensibilidad para actuar como educadores de adolescentes.
PROPSITOS GENERALES
A travs del curso Estrategias y Recursos II. Comprensin Auditiva y Expresin Oral se espera que
los futuros profesores de educacin secundaria:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Desarrollen su competencia comunicativa al hablar en ingls.

Tomen conciencia de las estrategias que se requieren para desarrollar las habilidades referidas.
Comprendan las variaciones de la lengua (pronunciacin, registro, intencionalidad, etctera).
Desarrollen y pongan en prctica competencias didcticas como el anlisis, la seleccin, la
adaptacin y el uso de textos orales y recursos audio grficos autnticos que respondan al nivel
de ingls y a los intereses de los alumnos de secundaria.
5. Seleccionen y utilicen materiales auditivos que les permitan incrementar su dominio personal del
ingls.

Estos propsitos se alcanzarn si se abordan dos ejes interrelacionados durante todo el curso: que
los estudiantes normalistas desarrollen sus habilidades de comprensin auditiva y expresin oral en
ingls, ya que adquirir una competencia comunicativa oral les permitir aprender permanentemente
y acceder a informacin actualizada respecto a su profesin; el segundo eje es que adquieran los
conocimientos y las habilidades docentes que les permitan desarrollar en sus futuros alumnos las
habilidades de comprensin auditiva y expresin oral del idioma ingls.
El segundo propsito plantea que los estudiantes normalistas conozcan
utilizan para la comunicacin oral. Al tiempo que se les apoya en la
habilidades mencionadas en el prrafo anterior y se propicia la reflexin
de aprendizaje, tambin se atiende la capacitacin para favorecerlas
secundaria.

las estrategias que se

adquisicin de las dos
sobre su propio proceso
en los estudiantes de

El tercer propsito plantea que los estudiantes incrementen sus conocimientos respecto a los actos
comunicativos, esto es, la intencin del(los) hablante(s), independientemente de las variaciones
sociales, contextuales y las inherentes a la propia lengua.
El cuarto propsito est orientado a que los alumnos puedan analizar, seleccionar y adaptar textos
orales autnticos que respondan a las necesidades e intereses de los estudiantes de secundaria.
El quinto y ltimo propsito busca que el alumno sea capaz de reflexionar sobre su propio estilo de
aprendizaje, para que proponga actividades y materiales que le ayuden a satisfacer sus necesidades
particulares de aprendizaje.
ORGANIZACIN DE CONTENIDOS
En congruencia con los propsitos de la asignatura, se proponen tres grandes temas: el primero
est centrado en la reflexin sobre la naturaleza de los procesos involucrados en la comprensin
auditiva y en la expresin oral misma, a la vez que se analizan sus caractersticas, se valoran
dificultades y las posibilidades de superarlas. El segundo tema abarca el anlisis de los procesos de
comprensin auditiva y de expresin oral, adems de las formas en que cada sujeto las pone en
juego al estar expuesto a la lengua extranjera. Finalmente, el tercer tema favorece las competencias
didcticas del futuro maestro de lengua inglesa al incidir en su capacidad de distinguir entre
actividades comunicativas y las que no lo son, as como en sus habilidades para disear, seleccionar
y/o adaptar las que han de favorecer estas destrezas en los alumnos de la escuela secundaria.
1. La naturaleza de la lengua hablada.
Lengua oral vs. lengua escrita.
Comprensin auditiva.
- Caractersticas.
2

Dificultades.
Expresin oral.
- Caractersticas.
Simplificacin de la estructura, por ejemplo, enunciados cortos.
Elipsis.
Uso de expresiones prefabricadas.
Uso de silencios, pausas.
- Dificultades.

2. El desarrollo de las estrategias de comprensin auditiva y expresin oral.

El papel de la comprensin auditiva en la adquisicin de un idioma (input).
Estrategias de comprensin auditiva en lengua extranjera.
- Predecir el tema y el contenido de un texto.
- Activar el conocimiento previo pertinente.
- Identificar la idea o las ideas principales.
- Buscar informacin especfica.
- Adivinar significados de palabras y frases por el contexto.
- Identificar las intenciones o actitud del autor.
La expresin oral.
Estrategias productivas de la comunicacin oral.
Uso de rutinas y expresiones prefabricadas (por ejemplo, respuestas cortas, muletillas).
Administracin de recursos (por ejemplo, parafrasear, aproximar).
Negociacin de significados.
Aclaracin de malentendidos.
3. Estrategias metodolgicas para favorecer la comprensin auditiva y la expresin oral en el aula.
El continuo comunicativo.
- Fluidez vs. correccin.
- Actividades comunicativas vs. actividades no comunicativas.
- Actividades libres vs. actividades controladas.
Criterios para la seleccin, adaptacin y creacin de materiales para favorecer las habilidades
de comprensin auditiva y expresin oral en la escuela secundaria.
La importancia de los materiales autnticos.
Diseo de actividades y tareas comunicativas.

BLOQUE I
LA FUNCIN DE LA COMPRENSIN AUDITIVA EN EL
DESARROLLO DE LA COMPETENCIA COMUNICATIVA
PROPSITO
Analizar la importancia de la comprensin auditiva y desarrollarla para alcanzar un nivel ms alto de
competencia lingstica
1. La comprensin auditiva del idioma ingls
Dificultades
Rapidez en la emisin
Pronunciacin
Vocabulario desconocido
Estructuras
2. Las estrategias de comprensin auditiva
Actividades antes, durante y despus de escuchar el texto
Predecir el tema
Identificar ideas principales
Localizar informacin especfica
3

Adivinar significados por contexto

Analizar intencin o actitud del autor

BIBLIOGRAFA BSICA

Anderson Anne and Lynch Tony (1988), Listening, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 9-20.
Frankel Irene Kimbrough Victoria (1998), Gateways, Nueva York, Oxford University Press, pp.
106, 112.
Lee Linda (1998), Transitions, Nueva York, Oxford University Press, pp. 6, 7, 11-1532, 35, 38.

ACTIVIDADES SUGERIDAS
(Nota: Todas estas actividades y las de los siguientes bloques sern cien por ciento en ingls)

1. Plantear las siguientes preguntas para discutirlas en equipo y dar la opinin, en voz alta por un

miembro del mismo, al grupo en general de lo que se haya acordado:

Qu importancia tiene la comprensin auditiva para desarrollar la competencia lingstica?
Cules son las dificultades para entender el ingls hablado?
Por qu algunas personas captan mejor el contenido de un texto hablado que otras?
Qu podemos hacer para mejorar nuestra comprensin auditiva del idioma ingls?
El maestro apoya a los equipos con el vocabulario requerido para los comentarios que se van
a hacer a la clase en general y modera las participaciones (preguntas, objeciones,
comentarios, etc.) del resto de los alumnos. Asimismo, al final de las participaciones,
contribuye a construir las conclusiones de cada una de las preguntas.

2. Escuchar (todo el grupo) un fragmento de un programa de televisin aplicando las principales

estrategias de comprensin auditiva (predecir el tema y el contenido, activar el conocimiento
previo, identificar las ideas principales, buscar informacin especfica, adivinar significados de
palabras, identificar la actitud del autor, etc.) y volver a plantear las preguntas de la actividad 1
para aportar opiniones individuales de lo que se analiz.
El maestro propone la estrategia a aplicarse, controla las respuestas de los alumnos y
coopera en las posibles respuestas a las estrategias aplicadas.
Se recomienda utilizar el video con extractos de programas de televisin, noticias, etc.,
preparado para este curso. (Se debe solicitar en el Departamento de Programas y
Materiales)
3. Hacer los ejercicios de listening de las pginas 106 y 112 del libro de texto Gateways 2 (p.p. 101
y 102 del material de apoyo) para practicar la comprensin auditiva, repitiendo el ejercicio si es
necesario y comparando las respuestas en equipo para corregirlas (si es el caso) grupalmente.
(Audio en el Dpto. de Programas y Materiales)
El maestro examina los resultados y cuestiona a los participantes el por qu de sus
respuestas, para ampliar el tema y practicar al mismo tiempo la expresin oral y las
estructuras gramaticales que se manejan en este material.
De esta misma forma se pueden realizar los ejercicios de las pginas 105, 111 - 114 del
material de apoyo y con el audio de Transitions 1 (Dpto. de Programas y Materiales).
4. Escribir (individualmente) un dictado de enunciados, expresados en forma natural, basados en
temas que ya se hayan trabajado y revisar (en equipo) su comprensin y escritura. De esta
misma forma se puede practicar el dictado de textos completos, divididos en pequeas unidades
(enunciados, frases, exclamaciones, etc.).
Se recomienda primero dictar enunciados breves y en diferentes tiempos, y hacerlos cada
vez ms largos y de mayor dificultad. El material puede ser tomado de lecturas de inters
que seleccione el maestro. Ejemplos:
I am hungry. She is reading. They dont like onions. He was a student. You are going to
swim. We will work tomorrow. Etc.

5. Ver y escuchar (todo el grupo) la secuencia 1, House party, del video de Interchange Intro
(Dpto. de Programas y Materiales) para practicar la comprensin auditiva con las diferentes
estrategias aplicadas en la actividad nmero 2. Adems, el maestro puede improvisar preguntas
sobre aspectos especficos del video para ser contestadas individualmente tales como:
Qu edad tena? Cmo se llamaba? Qu contest? Por qu se molest? Por qu
estaba tan contento? Etctera.

BLOQUE II
LA IMPORTANCIA DE LA EXPRESIN ORAL EN EL
CRECIMIENTO DE LA COMPETENCIA COMUNICATIVA
PROPSITO
Analizar las complicaciones de la expresin oral para superar los obstculos y desarrollar la
competencia comunicativa
1. La falta de comunicacin continua provoca:
Inseguridad
Vergenza
Temor a la crtica
2. Las complicaciones de la expresin oral
Pronunciacin
Fluidez
Entonacin
Estructuracin
BIBLIOGRAFA BSICA

Byrne Donn, (1976), Teaching Oral English, Inglaterra, Longman Group Limited de Freitas J. F.
(1970), To Start You Talking, Hong Kong, Macmillan Education Limited.
Lee Linda (1998), Transitions, Nueva York, Oxford University Press, pp. 6, 7, 11-15, 32, 35, 38.

ACTIVIDADES SUGERIDAS
1. Plantear las siguientes preguntas para discutirlas en equipos y emitir una opinin de cada una de
ellas al grupo en general:
Por qu nos parece complicado expresarnos en ingls?
Cules son las principales consecuencias de no practicar la expresin oral?
Qu dificultades encontramos al hablar en ingls?
Qu debemos hacer para mejorar la expresin en lengua inglesa?
El maestro supervisa y apoya las discusiones de los equipos para auxiliarlos en lo que
requieran; modera las participaciones de los equipos hacia el grupo y escribe en el pizarrn
lo ms significativo de stas para construir conclusiones sobre cada una de las preguntas
planteadas.
2. Escribir en equipo cinco razones por las cuales los alumnos de secundaria temen expresarse en
ingls en el aula, para sacar conclusiones generales y tomarlas en cuenta al estar frente a grupo
y lograr paulatinamente la confianza de los estudiantes para que hablen ingls en clase. Se
deben leer las aportaciones de los equipos y compararlas para identificar y escribir en el pizarrn
las ms comunes.
El maestro auxilia en lo necesario a cada equipo y modera las participaciones de los mismos,
adems de contribuir con sus propios puntos de vista.

3. Practicar el mtodo Audiolingual en grupo, en equipos e individualmente, para lograr que se

mejore la fluidez en la emisin de frases cortas, largas y extensas. Esto se logra de manera muy
eficiente usando por ejemplo proverbios o dichos (proverbs or sayings). Las repeticiones (drills)
deben de ser en voz alta y con la mayor claridad posible. Se sugiere visitar la pgina
www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/8424/quotes.html como material de apoyo.
El maestro expresa una o dos palabras del proverbio o dicho y hace que lo repitan el grupo,
el equipo o el alumno, hasta que se logre pronunciar fluida y claramente lo expresado por el
maestro. Se contina aumentando una o varias palabras y los alumnos las repiten de la
misma forma hasta que se completa el dicho o proverbio.
4. Desarrollar una pltica seria, en equipo, sobre el conflicto de Irak, para practicar la expresin
oral y compartir puntos de vista sobre las conveniencias o inconveniencias de este problema
internacional. Al final se externa al grupo una opinin en forma de conclusin de cada equipo
sobre el tema comentado. El tema puede ser cualquier otro de inters y conocimiento para todos
los alumnos.
Todos los integrantes del equipo deben participar varias veces y auto evaluarse despus de
cada intervencin mencionando cmo se sintieron al hablar en ingls en cuanto a
pronunciacin, fluidez, entonacin y estructuras gramaticales.
El maestro asiste a los equipos con lo que requieran en cuanto a vocabulario, pronunciacin,
etc., y ordena las participaciones individuales.
5. Realizar el ejercicio de la pgina 67 del material de apoyo para practicar la expresin oral y las
estructuras gramaticales que ah se presentan.
El maestro solicita a los alumnos, que por parejas, lean en voz alta al grupo un punto del
ejercicio cada una, mientras los dems alumnos escuchan y practican la comprensin
auditiva.
Aunque este tipo de ejercicios de expresin oral son controlados, tienen mucha importancia
para lograr que los alumnos que no tienen fluidez logren poco a poco expresarse sin
tropiezos o titubeos y adems al leer dichos ejercicios se practica la comprensin de la
lectura, conjugando pues, la expresin oral, comprensin auditiva y comprensin de la
lectura.
6. Hacer en equipos el ejercicio de la pgina 106 del material de apoyo para practicar la expresin
oral y la comprensin de la lectura como segunda habilidad en accin.
El maestro supervisa las participaciones de los equipos para ayudarles en lo que requieran y
al terminar el trabajo en equipo plantea las preguntas del ejercicio para que sean
contestadas en forma individual por el alumno que a su criterio deba responderlas.
7. Hacer por equipos de tres alumnos una grabacin de tres minutos, en video o audio, acerca de
un tema seleccionado por los mismos alumnos y en el que todos participen. Posteriormente se
escuchan las grabaciones y se analiza lo que puede hacerse para mejorar la expresin oral.
El maestro hace las correcciones necesarias al analizar las grabaciones de los equipos y pide
opiniones individuales de cmo se pudiera expresar algo de mejor manera a lo hecho por los
alumnos.

BLOQUE III
EL CONOCIMIENTO DE LAS ACTIVIDADES COMUNICATIVAS
PROPSITO
Seleccionar y adaptar las actividades comunicativas que favorezcan la comprensin auditiva y la
expresin oral
1. El trabajo en el aula con las actividades comunicativas
La comunicacin continua en ingls
Instrucciones
6

Preguntas
Respuestas
Solicitudes
Comentarios
Plticas
Actividades libres
En parejas
En equipo
En grupo

2. El uso de los recursos de audio autnticos

Material de videos
Grabaciones de conversaciones entre alumnos
Fragmentos de programas de televisin
Comerciales
Fragmentos de pelculas
Noticias
Videos de libros de texto
Material de audio
Fragmentos de programas de radio
Grabaciones de plticas formales entre alumnos
Comerciales
Canciones
Audio de libros de texto
Audio de programas de aprendizaje de ingls
BIBLIOGRAFA BSICA

Anderson Anne and Lynch Tony (1988), Listening, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 3-20.
Dobson M. Julia (1974), Effective Techniques For English Conversation Groups, Newbury,
Newbury House Publishers.
Frankel Irene Kimbrough Victoria (1998), Gateways, Nueva York, Oxford University Press, pp.
106, 112.

ACTIVIDADES SUGERIDAS
1. Conformar equipos para que cada uno proponga y presente al grupo una actividad comunicativa
(en forma de clase) que podr ser adoptada por los dems para sus futuras clases en
secundaria. La actividad comunicativa debe de ser estructurada de acuerdo a la creatividad del
equipo.
El maestro organiza las participaciones de cada equipo y al final de todas stas se aceptan
crticas constructivas por parte de los dems alumnos y del profesor para enriquecer lo
desempeado por cada equipo.
2. Proponer, por equipo, temas y materiales para el aprendizaje que favorezcan la comprensin
auditiva y la expresin oral de los alumnos de secundaria, y presentarlos al grupo (en forma de
clase) para su anlisis y posible utilizacin en ese nivel educativo.
El maestro organiza las participaciones de cada equipo y al final de todas stas se aceptan
crticas constructivas por parte de los dems alumnos y del profesor para enriquecer lo
desempeado por cada equipo.
Es importante que cada alumno elabore una lista de los temas y los materiales que considere
ms valiosos para su uso en la preparacin de sus clases en secundaria.
3. Analizar y reflexionar (todo el grupo con participaciones individuales) cada clase de actividad
comunicativa y de temas y materiales presentada por los equipos, para enriquecer, por medio de
stas, la preparacin profesional de los futuros profesores de ingls.
7

El maestro modera las participaciones individuales y anota en el pizarrn lo que no se haya

comentado anteriormente y que sea significativo para la clase. Asimismo, aporta sus
conclusiones y experiencias.

4. Realizar la leccin de la pgina 209, Shopping for a jacket, del mtodo Berlitz (material escrito y
de audio en el Dpto. de Programas y Materiales) para practicar la comprensin auditiva.
El maestro corre la cinta de audio y pide que los alumnos identifiquen las ideas principales
del texto hablado y les plantea (individualmente) las siguientes preguntas:
Qu sucede? Dnde? Cundo? Quines participan?
Se puede correr la cinta dos veces para una mejor comprensin.
El maestro solicita la participacin de diferentes alumnos para una misma pregunta y al final
menciona cul es la repuesta correcta.
5. Hacer las lecciones de las pginas 212, 215 y 217 del mtodo Berlitz (material escrito y de audio
en el Dpto. de Programas y Materiales) para practicar la comprensin auditiva y la expresin oral
con diferentes estrategias como:
Correr la cinta por enunciados y escribirlos individualmente en el cuaderno; despus un
alumno escribe lo mismo en el pizarrn y el resto de la clase participa corrigiendo lo que
deba corregirse. El maestro modera las participaciones y repite la cinta si es necesario.
De esta forma se practican la comprensin auditiva, la escritura, la lectura y la expresin
oral al mismo tiempo, adems de gramtica, ortografa y puntuacin.
Correr la cinta enunciado por enunciado, para ser reproducidos oralmente por diferentes
alumnos en forma individual, cuidando la entonacin y la pronunciacin. La cinta puede
escucharse dos veces si es necesario. El maestro ayuda en lo que se requiera (vocabulario,
pronunciacin, etc.).
ORIENTACIONES DIDCTICAS
A continuacin se presentan ejemplos de situaciones y recursos que pueden utilizarse para que los
estudiantes pongan en juego y analicen las estrategias para la comprensin auditiva y la expresin
oral.
Comprensin auditiva: su papel en la adquisicin de un idioma (input).
Situaciones y recursos

Temas o contenidos

Discursos, ponencias y conferencias Estrategias para la comprensin

en lengua inglesa de diferentes auditiva en lengua extranjera.
pases.
Predecir un tema y el contenido de
un texto.
Dilogos regionales.

Fragmentos de pelculas con alguna

dificultad
para
la
comprensin
auditiva (blicas, de suspenso, de
accin, etctera).

Activar
el
pertinente.
Identificar
principales.

conocimiento
la

idea

previo
ideas

Buscar
informacin
especfica.
Adivinar significados de palabras y
frases
por
el
contexto.
Identificar
las
intenciones
o
actitudes del autor.

La expresin oral: caractersticas de las actividades orales comunicativas vs. las situaciones
mecnicas gramaticales.

Situaciones y recursos

Temas o contenidos

Cmo
pronuncio?
Grabaciones
personales.
Se entiende mi mensaje?
Anlisis de discursos personales a
travs de grabaciones de sesiones o
intervenciones en clase; se trata de
obtener registros de situaciones
reales que permitan analizar la
presencia
de
muletillas,
la
congruencia o no del discurso y el
uso adecuado de las palabras.

Estrategias
productivas
comunicacin oral.

Anlisis de situaciones reales

Administracin de recursos (por

ejemplo, parafrasear, aproximar...).

de

la

Uso de rutinas y expresiones

prefabricadas
(por
ejemplo,
respuestas cortas, muletillas).

Se pueden incluir juegos como el Negociacin de significados.

telfono descompuesto o deletrear Aclaracin de malentendidos.
palabras y repetir trabalenguas.
Por la naturaleza de la asignatura, es conveniente desarrollarla bajo la modalidad de curso taller. De
esta manera los estudiantes normalistas, a la vez que aprenden las bases tericas de la lengua
hablada y comprenden la pertinencia y formas de trabajo con alumnos de la escuela secundaria,
desarrollan sus propias estrategias de interaccin oral y disean actividades para favorecer las de
los adolescentes que aprenden ingls.
A travs de las clases de ingls, de la interaccin con sus compaeros y con el maestro y de sus
propias reflexiones, los estudiantes aprendern acerca del lenguaje oral, las habilidades
comunicativas y desarrollarn las competencias y actitudes necesarias para ser profesores de
adolescentes. Adems, esta modalidad propicia la prctica del ingls, que debe darse en todas las
asignaturas de la especialidad para que el futuro profesor adquiera la confianza que se requiere para
conducir una clase de este idioma.

1. Diversificacin de las formas de trabajo. Para que el profesor pueda llevar a cabo un trabajo

flexible y que aporte experiencias de aprendizaje a los estudiantes normalistas, es indispensable

que conozca las caractersticas del grupo. Ello le permitir adecuar y/o disear actividades con
pertinencia y eficacia.
Se recomienda seguir como enfoque bsico para la ejercitacin y el desarrollo de la
comprensin auditiva, la organizacin de las actividades en tres etapas: actividades antes,
durante y despus de escuchar el texto hablado. De esta forma el estudiante podr practicar
a su vez la expresin oral, o alguna de las otras habilidades comunicativas.
Es importante elaborar el plan de trabajo considerando las necesidades e intereses de los
alumnos, los propsitos generales sealados en esta gua y los acuerdos de la academia de
la especialidad y los directivos del plantel. En este caso particular, los maestros de las
asignaturas Ingls III, Literatura en Lengua Inglesa II, Observacin y Prctica Docente III y
Estrategias y Recursos II: Comprensin Auditiva y Expresin Oral podrn realizar un
diagnstico conjunto respecto al nivel de dominio del ingls de los alumnos; con estos
elementos se podrn elaborar los respectivos planes de trabajo; as se evitarn reiteraciones
innecesarias y se podrn programar actividades conjuntas o complementarias que sirvan
para varias asignaturas.
Se puede elegir trabajar con textos propuestos en la bibliografa o incluir otros materiales,
siempre que los alumnos tengan la posibilidad de acceder a ellos fcilmente. Tanto el
maestro como los estudiantes sugieren, seleccionan y adaptan las actividades segn se
requiera en el desarrollo del curso.
Para promover la autonoma de los alumnos, stos deben realizar tareas fuera del aula y
utilizar la biblioteca, internet, salas de auto acceso, audio cintas, videocintas y todo material
autntico que se considere pertinente. Estas tareas incentivan al estudiante a que utilice las
9

estrategias que est desarrollando. Para ello, se debe fomentar, durante todo el curso, la
reflexin respecto a los estilos de aprendizaje de cada estudiante y las estrategias que utiliza
para comunicarse oralmente en ingls.
Es conveniente examinar algunos materiales utilizados en secundaria. Los nuevos libros de
texto incluyen diferentes ejercicios de comprensin auditiva y expresin oral. Se sugiere que
el maestro titular elija dos o ms libros de texto de secundaria y que se trabaje con distintos
tipos de ejercicios.
Los adolescentes se sienten motivados cuando se trabaja con canciones en ingls o con
fragmentos de videocintas. Por ello, se propone trabajar todas las posibles tcnicas y
actividades para aprovechar las canciones y los videos en el saln de clase.

2. Planeacin y anlisis de las sesiones de prctica en la escuela secundaria. Como ya se mencion,

la asignatura Estrategias y Recursos II: Comprensin Auditiva y Expresin Oral, gira alrededor
de dos grandes ejes: el desarrollo de la competencia comunicativa, y la competencia didctica
del alumno. Por esta razn, es importante que el maestro dedique una o varias sesiones para
apoyar a sus alumnos en la preparacin y organizacin de la prctica docente que realizarn en
las jornadas de observacin y prctica en las escuelas secundarias (Observacin y Prctica
Docente III). Posteriormente ser necesario dedicar una o ms sesiones para que en el grupo se
realice la recuperacin, el anlisis y la reflexin de la experiencia vivida por los estudiantes
normalistas.
La observacin de clases a nivel secundaria que realicen los alumnos (Observacin y Prctica
Docente III) y sus reflexiones individuales y en grupo respecto a sus procesos y los de otros,
los conocimientos y habilidades que van adquiriendo, los materiales empleados y las
actividades que se realizan en el curso, los apoyarn en el desarrollo de sus habilidades
docentes.

EVALUACIN
Para valorar los avances logrados en el curso no deben dejarse de lado los dos ejes que lo
componen. En cuanto al primer eje se hacen las siguientes recomendaciones:
Disear y aplicar una entrevista, una presentacin corta, una pltica informal, entre otras, al
inicio y al final del curso.
Evaluar continuamente por medio de los recursos que el maestro considere ms adecuados y
que permitan tanto al maestro como al alumno, reflexionar sobre sus dificultades y logros.
Un recurso til puede ser el registro anecdtico.
Propiciar la coevaluacin y la autoevaluacin, apoyndose en la reflexin y en el
reconocimiento de los propios logros y deficiencias. Ello contribuye a desarrollar una actitud
crtica y reflexiva sobre las competencias logradas. Los recursos para favorecer la
autoevaluacin y la coevaluacin son variados y es conveniente diversificarlos. Entre algunos
recursos tiles para ello estn los registros escritos que hagan los estudiantes, el intercambio
de apreciaciones personales en equipos o en el grupo en general, las escalas estimativas,
etctera.
En cuanto a la evaluacin de la capacidad del estudiante para trabajar con los adolescentes el
desarrollo de las habilidades de comprensin auditiva y expresin oral (segundo eje), se propone
que el futuro maestro disee, seleccione y adapte actividades en que se pongan en prctica dichas
actividades para cada uno de los grados de secundaria y posteriormente se analicen en el grupo
para promover la coevaluacin.
Se recomienda que al iniciar el semestre el maestro acuerde con los estudiantes la forma precisa y
los criterios de evaluacin. En caso de que se requiera un examen final, se disear tomando en
cuenta las actividades que se realizaron durante el curso.

10

ANEXO 1
A continuacin se presentan ejemplos de situaciones y recursos que pueden utilizarse para que los
estudiantes pongan en juego y analicen las estrategias para la comprensin auditiva y la expresin
oral.
Comprensin auditiva: su papel en la adquisicin de un idioma (input).
Situaciones y recursos

Temas o contenidos

Discursos, ponencias y conferencias Estrategias para la comprensin

en lengua inglesa de diferentes auditiva en lengua extranjera.
pases.
Predecir un tema y el contenido de
un texto.
Dilogos regionales.

Fragmentos de pelculas con alguna

dificultad
para
la
comprensin
auditiva (blicas, de suspenso, de
accin, etctera).

Activar
el
pertinente.
Identificar
principales.

conocimiento
la

idea

previo
ideas

Buscar
informacin
especfica.
Adivinar significados de palabras y
frases
por
el
contexto.
Identificar
las
intenciones
o
actitudes del autor.

La expresin oral: caractersticas de las actividades orales comunicativas vs. las situaciones
mecnicas gramaticales.
Situaciones y recursos

Temas o contenidos

Cmo
pronuncio?
Grabaciones
personales.
Se entiende mi mensaje?
Anlisis de discursos personales a
travs de grabaciones de sesiones o
intervenciones en clase; se trata de
obtener registros de situaciones
reales que permitan analizar la
presencia
de
muletillas,
la
congruencia o no del discurso y el
uso adecuado de las palabras.

Estrategias
productivas
comunicacin oral.

Anlisis de situaciones reales

Administracin de recursos (por

ejemplo, parafrasear, aproximar...).

de

la

Uso de rutinas y expresiones

prefabricadas
(por
ejemplo,
respuestas cortas, muletillas).

Se pueden incluir juegos como el Negociacin de significados.

telfono descompuesto o deletrear Aclaracin de malentendidos.
palabras y repetir trabalenguas.

11

Anexo

Ejemplo de actividades
Ejemplo 1
About listening

Pre-reading (listening and speaking)

In small groups, talk about your own learning listening process in English:
1. Think about successful listening tasks used during your English classes.
2. Describe them and say why you think they were successful
Read the following excerpt from the book New Ways in Teaching Listening, D. Nunan and L. Miller
(1995, p. v).
Listening is assuming greater and greater importance in many foreign language contexts., which
have until relatively recently focused efforts on the development of writing skills. This growing
importance is reflected in the proliferation of commercial listening courses.
The importance of listening in a second and foreign language is admirably summarized in a recent
publication by Rost (1994):
1.

Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without
understanding input at the right level, any learning cannot simply begin.
2. Spoken language provides a mean of interaction for the learner. Because learners must interact
to achieve understanding, access to speakers of the language is essential. Moreover, learners
failure to understand the language is an impetus, not an obstacle to interaction and learning.
3. Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to attempt to understand
language as native speakers actually use it.
4. Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners attention to new forms
(vocabulary, grammar, new interaction patterns) in the language.
In short, listening is essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the development of spoken
language
proficiency.
While-reading
Match the words on the left with their meanings on the right. Write the
letters on the lines.
Input _______ A. To succeed usually after a lot of effort in doing
something.
Achieve _____ B. Makes things happen more quickly.
Impetus _____ C. Information or resources that an individual, group or
project receives.

Post-reading (listening and speaking)

In small groups discuss the following questions.
1. Why is understandable input so important?
2. Why is understanding English as native speakers actually use it
challenging?
3. Why is listening essential not only as a receptive skill but also to the
development of spoken English?

12

Ejemplo

2
About speaking

Pre-reading (reflection)
How do you feel when you have to speak in English?
Read the following excerpts from the book Success in English Teaching (P. Davies and E. Pearse,
2000, pp. 82-83).
Speaking
Speaking comes naturally to humans, but it is not as simple as it seems. For a start:
Many people do not like speaking in front of large groups of people. This is specially true in a
foreign language because we may worry about producing utterances with many errors or
oddities in them.
Recognizable pronunciation is necessary for speech to be intelligible. It is sometimes hard to
understand people with a strong regional accent in our own language, and it is hard to
interpret a non native speakers Ease eat tree jet as, Is it three yet?
Like listening, speaking takes place in real time and speakers do not usually have time to
construct their utterances carefully. In conversation, the commonest kind of speaking, we
have to do many things altogether: understand what the other person is saying, say what
you want to when we get the chance to speak, be prepared for unexpected changes of topic,
and think of something to say when there is a long pause.
While-reading (listening and speaking)
In pairs, discuss the implications this has for teaching.
There are some clear implications for teaching:
Try to create a relaxed atmosphere in your classes so that most learners are not frightened
of speaking in front of the rest of the class. And do as many speaking activities as possible in
pairs and groups, so that the learners can speak English without the rest of the class
listening.
Expose the learners as much as possible to naturally pronounced speech, and also integrate
some pronunciation exercises into your lessons. They will not learn to pronounce intelligibly,
or to develop speaking skills in general, if they do not hear enough natural speech.
Accustom the learners to combine listening and speaking in real time, in natural interaction.
Perhaps the most important opportunity for this is in the general use of English in the
classroom.
...If you want the learners to be able to converse in English, you need to make the classroom
a conversational place. If the learners do not talk naturally during the course of each lesson,
it is hardly surprising when they can speak at all after hundreds of hours and several year of
English classes.
Post-reading (reflection)
Think of your own learning process. Do you agree with this last
paragraph?
Ejemplo

3
About songs for listening
Pre-reading (listening and speaking)
In small groups, discuss how you learned English through songs and music
and answer the following questions.
13

1. Can you think of ways to use songs to teach English?

2. What do you think are the advantages of using songs in the classroom?
3. Which popular songs by well known singers do you think you could use
in a secundaria English class?

Read
the
following
text
http://grove.efl.edu/~iteslj/links/ESLlistening

adapted

from

Teaching English with songs and music

Here are some great teaching tips for songs. Reprinted by permission. Some people have asked me
for some of the activities I do with Music in class. Here are some of them:
Blanks
There are many ways blanks can be used. I give students lyrics with some blanks (specially the
parts that have to do with the subject were covering in class). They listen to song once, at the
second time they fill in the blanks as much as possible. Finally, they listen to it another time to
check if they got the blanks filled in correctly. This activity takes up to 20 minutes.
Blanks can be very helpful when teaching subjects like Simple Past. Pick up a song that has may
verbs in the past tense, blank them out and give in parenthesis the verbs in their base form. Have
the students complete the song rewriting the past tense of each verb. This will help them memorize
the past form of regular and irregular verbs (can be used with any verb tense).
Teaching ESL in a non-English speaking country is a challenge. Even advanced students sometimes
tend to go to their mother-tongue in the classroom. So I found a way to keep them in touch with
English even outside the classroom: I asked them to bring in a song they liked, a song of the
moment. I put some blanks in the lyrics and they didnt get everything after the first time they
listened to it. So I had them take the copies home and try to listen to that song anywhere possible
(in the car, CDs, anywhere) and bring it in to me the in the following week with the blanks filled in. I
also told them to try not to look for the lyrics anywhere else but try to listen to the song itself. It
worked out pretty well.
Strips of paper
Depending on the length of the song, you can cut the lyrics in strips of paper and have a contest. I
always divide my classes in two groups. So the group that gets the lyrics with less mistakes after
the second time (even after the first time, depending on the level of the class), gets a treat, or
whatever you feel like rewarding them with.
Relaxation
I usually bring in some Celtic, classic or just instrumental music on test days and put it on very low.
I noticed that when this procedure was done, students relax more and feel more comfortable during
the test.
Guided fantasy
I usually do this procedure on a first-day class, to break the ice. Nothing personal, but for this
procedure I use ENYA (who sings a little bit of folk and Celtic music). I prepare a text, very
imaginative, something that can take many different points of view, and read it out loud while the
songs being played. Students have their eyes closed and I ask them to imagine exactly what Im
reading and let their imagination flows along with the song. This is very relaxing!
If anyone needs some more suggestions, let me know.
Carlos Silva (EduHerndon@aol.com) Herndon, VA
14

This information was provided from a workshop presented by Joan Blankmann, from Northern
Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus.
While-reading (listening and speaking)
Stop and think. What factors should we take into account when we choose
a song to use in class? What can we do to adapt the listening task to our
students English level?
Share your opinions with the classmate sitting next to you.
How difficult is the song?
Some factors to note are speed (fast or slow), the clarity of the vocalization, the amount of
repetition, the vocabulary and metaphors. For a close task:
If the song has simple, repetitive lyrics, you can blank out more words; if the song is more difficult,
you will want to blank out fewer words; an idea to try: blank out only the beginning or only the end
of a phrase.
What is the proficiency level of the class?
For a close task:
If the song is for beginning level class, you will want to blank out fewer words, but if its for a more
advanced class you can blank out more words.
What kind of english lesson do the lyrics suggest?
Simple, repetitive songs often contain a recurrent grammatical pattern. More difficult songs contain
interesting vocabulary and idioms. Look for homophones, homographs and homonyms, as well as
typical fast speech pronunciation. Look for conversation and writing topics. Is there a message,
theme, or story that students can discuss, explain, debate, and write about?
Truly, Duane P. Flowers.
Purple Dolphin Language Academy 3-23-1-817 Mitsuishidai Hashimoto-city, Wakayama 648-0094,
JAPAN.
HOT LINKS, Edutainment ESL/EFL Bookstore, Email: mailto:language@gol.com.
Post-reading (reflection and planning)
1. Choose a song most teen age students like.
2. Think of how you would use it in first of secundaria class.

A listening activity
Objective: To help students understand real language by practicing with
reduced forms.
Procedure

1. As part of each lesson, choose 4 or 5 reduced forms from the listening material (songs,
conversations, stories among others) you plan to use in that class.

2. Write both the complete phrase and the reduced form on the board.
3. Repeat both the complete phrase and the reduced form.
4. Let the students repeat both the complete phrase and the reduced form.
15

5. At the end of the week have a reduced form dictation quiz: tape several phrases in their reduced

form and play the tape to the students. The students listen to the tape and try to write the
complete form of what was said.

Ejemplo

4
Listening

Pre-listening

Have students discuss about the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century.
If not referred to, ask them about the human genome.
Do you think that the head of states opinions have a direct influence in further research?
While-listening

Listen to the tape (Tony Blair and Bill Clinton).

Ask students to find differences in:
- Accent (one British, the other American).
- Are they in favor or against?
- Main ideas they express.
Students join in groups of four and listen to the tape twice.
Students discuss the main ideas.
General comprehension is checked by the whole class.
Students will listen to the tape again, now individually, and they will complete the following
exercise.

You will hear an interview with Alex Preston (The Human Genome article). Complete the
notes. You will need to write a word or a short phrase.
1. The interviewer points out to Alex Preston
that we should we be mainly worried about
2. He replies that the west doesnt care
about:
3. The main aim of the scientists is to:
4. People working in the private sector are
interested in:
5. Alex Preston feels that the possibility of
designer babies is:
6. By the time designer babies become a
reality these scientists will be:
7. Most people die from:
8. These doscoveries will only help:

16

9.

Alex
Preston,
thinking
about
the
consequences, says that people should
not:

Post-listening

Give them photocophies of Alex Prestons interview. They listen and check the answers.
Role Play. Organize a panel where some personalities talk about what they consider the most
important scientific discoveries of the 20th century are. The rest of the members of the
group are supposed to be journalists, and they ought to write a report.

Ejemplo 5
Listening
Pre-listening

Have students discuss about the most recent news. They should say:
- What happened
- How they found out, etc.
Organize the group in teams of four.
While-listening
Tell them that they are going to listen to and watch a segment of a news program.
Each team chooses an event and completes the chart with the information required.
Make a chart on the board or give them a photocopy.
What
happened?

Why did it
happen?

When did it
happen?

Where did it
happen?

Who
participated?

How did it
happen?

Post-listening

Based on the information from the chart, they prepare a presentation, trying to do it in the
way real TV news broadcasting systems do.

Give them some suggeestions like:

- The use of passive voice.

- The sequence of events organized depending on what we want to emphasize the most
(what, who, why, etcetera).
Students present it to the group.

17

Ejemplo

6
Oral expression
Preparation stage

Ask students what news program they watch or listen to.

Oral interaction activities

Tell them that they are going to organize a news program like the ones on TV.
Discuss with the group the characteristics that a good news program should have. For
example:
- Time and frequency of the program: every day, weekly, etcetera.
- The sources to get information from: radio, television, newspaper, magazines; they also
could inform about events related to their communities or about activities developed by
the members of the group. - The type of news: politics, economy, sports, science, show
business, funny or difficult issues, the world, the country, the community, etcetera.
Remind them about general characteristics of the news.
- They must include information about:
What happened.
When it happened. Where it happened. Why it happened. Who participated.
- The use of passive voice.
- The use of proper intonation, stress, expressions, vocabulary.
Watch a segment of a news program.
In teams they organize, prepare and deliver their presentation

18

MATERIAL

DE

APOYO

19

20

EXPLANATION
RESEARCH INTO LISTENING
PART 2: CONTEXT UNITS
FUNCTIONAL WRITING CONTEXTS
Postcards
You may write postcards for many different
purposes, for example:
- To tell someone about your holiday or
trip.
- To let someone know travel details.
- To tell someone your new address or
telephone number.
- To send news about friends or family.
- To ask for news of friends or family.
- To send a greeting (e.g. for a birthday
or New Year).
- To remind someone to write to you.
- To let someone know you are thinking
of them.
Keep these points in mind when writing
postcards:
Because postcards are informal and
personal, you may begin and end in
any way you like.
Because there is not much space you
usually:
o
Mention just a few things
o
Use shortened sentence forms.
1. What is listening comprehension?
1.1

Introduction

We tend to take listening for granted.

Imagine, for example, that you are about to
board a bus in a noisy city street. You
continue talking to a friend and listening to
her replies; you understand when the driver,
whose voice you have never heard before,
tells your what the fare is; you notice that a
small child on the bus has started crying; you
realize that the music that had been blaring
out of the clothes shop by the bus stop has
been switched off. All this happens-or-, more
exactly, you accomplish all this-at the same
time and without any noticeable difficulty.
We only become aware of what remarkable
feats of listening we achieve when we are in
an unfamiliar listening environment, such as
listening to a language in which we have
limited
proficiency.
Even managing
to
separate speech from non-speech sounds
seems a real achievement: the other parts of
the process which we take for granted in our
L1-dividing an unfamiliar speakers utterances

into words, identifying them. And at the same

time interpreting what the speaker meant and
then preparing an appropriate reply - now
become formidable tasks. It is hardly
surprising that people everywhere believe that
foreigners speak to fast.
Another common problem that we face as L2
learners is that, even if we have carefully
rehearsed a particular utterance and manage
to produce it to a native speaker, it may well
result in a torrent of language from the other
person. Our carefully practised request for
bread leads to an unintelligible stream (or so
it seems) of comment from the shop assistant
about
the
type,
quantity,
price,
or
unavailability.
TASK 1
We can try to overcome limited proficiency in
speaking a foreign language by rehearsing
what we intend to say. Are there any listening
situations where rehearsal would be effective?
What would be the difference between such
situations and ones where rehearsal would be
pointless?
This sort of difficulty highlights two facts
about listening. Firstly, it shows that listening
skills are as important as speaking skills; we
cannot communicate face-to-face unless the
two types of skill are developed in tandem.
Rehearsed production is useless if we are
unable to respond to the reply that it
generates from our interlocutor (i.e. the
person we are trying to talk to).
The second point about listening is that, under
many circumstances, it is a reciprocal skill, We
cannot practise listening in the same way as
we can rehearse speaking, or at least the part
of speaking that has to do with pronunciation,
because we cannot usually predict what we
will have to listen to. In this book we shall be
concerned primarily with this kind of
reciprocal listening-listening where there is at
least the opportunity for speaker and listener
to exchange roles-as opposed to the nonreciprocal or one-way listening involved in, for
example, listening to the radio.
Listening effectively involves a multiplicity of
skills. Let us construct a very simple step-bystep picture of the various elements that
might be thought to make up the process of
listening in face-to-face conversation:
21

1. The spoken signals have to be identified

from the midst of surrounding sounds.
2. The continuous stream of speech has to be
segmented into units, which have to be
recognized as known words.
3. The syntax of the utterance has to be
grasped and the speakers intended
meaning has to be understood.
4. We also have to apply our linguistic
knowledge to formulating a correct and
appropriate response to what has been
said.
TASK 2
What are the extra skills needed in listening
to the following people?
1. a recently widowed neighbour talking
about her husbands funeral
2. a five-year-old describing her birthday
party
3. an elderly relative who has become very
upset and breathless, trying to tell you
where his medicine is kept
4. an official explaining how to make an
insurance claim.

In discussing the broad distinction between

purposes of communication, Brown and Yule
(1983a) coined the terms interactional talk
and transactional talk. Interactional is used
to refer to speech that is primarily social: in
transactional
communication
the
main
purpose is to achieve a successful transfer or
exchange of information. However, the two
terms represent what is in fact a continuum,
from the social to the informative aspects of
listening. Many situations fall in between the
two extremes and will therefore require a
combination of linguistic and non-linguistic
skills. In this book we will examine the kinds
of skill that are involved in effective listening,
how they develop in native listeners, and what
we might do as teachers to facilitate this
development in native and non-native
listeners.
1.2

What is successful listening?

There are a number of different ways in which

the listener can process or fail to process
incoming speech, which could serve as a basis
for evaluating the degree of success of a
particular listening performance.

Our listening purposes may be primarily

social, as in the case of chatting to a stranger
to pass the time waiting for a train. Here, the
additional skills necessary to the social
purpose will include, for example, judging
whether the speaker is upset or angry and
then making the appropriate sympathetic
noises, whether or not we actually understand
the reasons for their mood.

First, the listener may not hear adequately

what has been said, due, for example, to
competing background noise or unfamiliarity
with the speakers accent. Under these
circumstances, the speech may have been
heard in a strictly limited sense: the listener
recognizes that he has been spoken to, but
has no idea what the message contained in
the speech was.

Alternatively, our purpose may be primarily to

extract information. We might ask the way to
a particular destination and have to
understand the directions we are then given.
In this case, we need to deploy cognitive skills
in order to relate the spoken information to
the non-linguistic environment in order to
decide, for example, how the utterance go
past the church relates to our current
physical location.

Second and this is presumably a common

problem for the foreign listener speech may
contain words or phrases that the listener can
hear adequately but is unable to understand
because of serious problems with the syntax
or semantics of the foreign language.

TASK 3
Imagine you are staying in a hotel in a city
you do not know well. You have a meeting at
an office which you were told is about five
minutes walk away. You need to ask
directions to the office. Would it be an easier
listening task to get the information by (1)
ringing the hotel reception desk, or (2) asking
a passer-by outside the hotel? Why?
22

Third, there are times when the listener is

perfectly able to hear and understand the
speaker, but may have switched off
consciously or unconsciously. For instance we
might suddenly remember that we have only
ten minutes before the banks close. In this
sort of situation it is common to find ourselves
allowing the incoming speech from our
interlocutor to flow past us as a stream of
sound which we make no attempt to process.
Fourth, there are those messages which the
listener attends to fully and from which he
tries to construct a coherent interpretation.
We might consider this last situation to be one

of maximally co-operative listening, in the

sense that the listener is both able and willing
to play his part in the reciprocal activity of
communication.
Traditionally,
listening
has
often
been
regarded, alongside reading, as a passive
language skill. We have already suggested
how it involves more than language; we also
need to challenge the view that listening is
merely passive or receptive. As we hope to
show in this book, the roles of the successful
listener have to be thought of as an active
one. Understanding is not something that
happens because of what a speaker says: the
listener has a crucial part to play in the
process, by activating various types of
knowledge, and by applying what he knows to
what he hears and trying to understand what
the speaker means.
TASK 4
English make a distinction between the
activities of hearing and listening. What is
it? Is the same distinction made in other
languages that you know?
We have already suggested that effective
listening involves a large number of
component skills, effective listeners actively
engage in the process of comprehension: they
apply the relevant internal information
available to them in order to construct their
own interpretation of what has been said.
They do not passively receive and record.
Task 5
Think about the use of the word listen in
these four situations. What are the differences
between the processes involved in each case?
1. The parents asked to baby-sitter to listen
at the childs door every fifteen minutes or
so.
2. I had to listen to his complaints about the
cost of living for the best part of an hour.
3. The Presidents spokesman has admitted
that a listening device had been placed in
the Secretary of States office.
4. The most important skill a doctor has to
learn is to be a good listener.
The teacher or researcher interested in
developing or studying listening faces a
fundamental problem: it is impossible to gain
direct access to the listening process itself. We
can never actually observe the problems the
student may experience and the skills he

uses. Did he pay attention? Was he unfamiliar

with the form of the message? Or with the
content? Did he try actively to construct an
interpretation of what was said? We are able
only to deduce what the listeners did with the
message and what they found difficult by
examining their response-whether spoken,
written, or non-verbal.
To try to overcome this basic difficulty, we can
set learners tasks that require them to
demonstrate in an observable way their
comprehension of some aspect of what has
been said. However, it is not always easy to
pinpoint the stage in the listening process that
may have resulted in a less than satisfactory
response. We can think of the three parts of
the sequence: input (the words uttered by the
speaker); the listening process (the listeners
application of various types of information
available to him), and output (the response
from the listener).
We can never be certain that a student
actually heard the input adequately, except by
trying
to
ensure
that
the
listening
environment
is
reasonably
free
from
extraneous noise and that the sound level of
the input seems satisfactory. Of course, we
have to strike a balance between, on the one
hand, maximizing the students chances of
performing adequately by providing an ideal
listening environment and, on the other,
providing practice and experience in a realistic
context.
Another aspect of this trade-off between
idealized training conditions and the need for
realistic preparation for listening outside the
classroom is the nature of the tasks we set
learners and the responses we require of
them. For native listeners, the commonest
setting for listener responses is spontaneous
conversation. So for L2 learners, too, practice
in conversational skills should be an essential
part of a language course.
But as brown and Yule (1983a) point out,
friendly casual conversations among native
speakers are relatively undemanding on the
listener. They are primarily social events. The
interlocutors often produce short stock replies
which keep the interaction going and add to
the general feeling of friendliness, but are
relatively information less. This is because the
maintaining of a friendly atmosphere, rather
than the exchange of information, is the main
reason for this kind of conversation.

23

It is important that both L1 and L3 learners

get sufficient training in the more demanding
and equally necessary skills of transactional
listening, where the focus of communication is
on the exchange of information. These skills
are unlikely to be adequately developed
through social conversational practice alone.
From observing a part of students engaged in
international talk we would not be in a
position to decide whether the occasional
uhuh and hmhm produced by one of them
was in fact evidence of full comprehension,
partial
comprehension,
or
simply
the
automatic pilot response of someone who
has, as we said earlier, switched off due to
boredom, worry, or perhaps the availability of
a
more
interesting
topic
in
another
conversation nearby.
TASK 6
In this invented dialogue, A is describing how
to make a good curry. Pay particular attention
to Bs responses.
1. Decide whether he is trying to follow and
remember what A is telling him, or
whether he is simply making polite
conversational noises.
A. Now the important thing about making
curry is the spices. They must be
fresh, not out of those horrible little
tins youve had at the back of the
cupboard for ages.
B. Uhuh.
A. Then you must fry to spices in oil,
before you add the meat.
B. In oil, oh.
A. Yes. Then you brown the meat in the
spices before you add any liquid.
B. I must remember that. Have you tried
that Indian in Elderslie Street? Its
really good.
2. What other information would you need in
order to be more certain in your
judgement of B?
All types of listening skill are valuable and
necessary if a learner is to acquire an allround ability to listen effectively in a range
of situations, to various types of input,
and for a variety of listening purposes.
There are two principal reasons for our
stressing the importance of listening that
is primarily transactional in this book.
First, for many students it seems to be the
most demanding and is therefore a skill
that needs a considerable amount of
24

practice and training. Many native

speakers have difficulty with this kind of
listening, as we shall see in 2.3 and 7.
Second, it is an area of listening which is
in danger of being overlooked in courses
for foreign learners that focus their
listening training on the sound system of
grammar of the language, or alternative
on oral practice in friendly, social
conversations.
1.3 One view of listening: the listener as
tape recorder
We have considered some of the skills
required to listen successfully and the
problems of trying to asses if the listener has
deployed them on a particular occasion. The
problem that now arises is how to decide what
kind of behaviour is the best test of
comprehension. This decision involves more
than simply considerations about assessment;
it depends on our whole conception of the
nature of listening.
We might suppose that one obvious test of
the listeners comprehension is his ability to
remember the message he has received. If he
can reproduce what was said to him, then
surely we can say both that he heard the
message and that he was paying attention to
it-two of the criteria for effective listening that
we mentioned in 1.2. But does this mean we
can be sure that the listener has understood
what
was
said?
How
is
listening
comprehension related to our ability to
remember a spoken message?
TASK 7
1. Your six-year-old niece is very good at
remembering
poems.
Does
she
understand poetry?
2. You drive a friend home and she gives you
directions on the way. The route is
complicated and you have forgotten the
details, even immediately after you reach
her house. Does this mean you did not
understand the directions?
If we were to take the ability to remember a
message as the acid test of comprehension,
we would in some ways be adopting a view of
listening in which the listener acts as a tape
recorder. This analogy suggests that, as long
as the input is sufficiently loud to be recorded
and does not exceed the length of the
available blank tape, then the message will be
recorded and stored, and can be replayed
later.

It might explain some of the differences in the

way listeners behave and in the way that
different messages are dealt with. For
example, we could explain a failure to
understand long messages by saying that our
mental recorder did not have enough blank
tape available to make the recording.
Under some less than ideal listening
conditions, our mental recorders might not be
able to make a clear recording and so the
message might get lost or distorted. If too
long a period elapses between recording and
replay, we might suppose that our tape
deteriorates and, again, the recorded message
gets degraded.
We could even conceptualize differences
between individual listeners in terms of the
tape-recorder analogy. For instance, the L2
listener could be thought of as having the
equivalent of a sub-standard cassette recorder
which
can
function
only
in
ideal
listening/recording conditions; even then the
recording will often be distorted in replay. The
adult native listener, on the other hand, might
have the equivalent of a top-quality reel-toreel machine that records sensitively and also
replays messages with high fidelity.
TASK 8
Which of the following listening phenomena
would (or would not) be explained by the
tape-recorder analogy?
1. Some singers learn to give native-like
performances of songs in languages they
do not know.
2. A university student might recall a lecture
in these terms: There was a lot of boring
stuff about syntax that I didnt get, but
she was quite interesting on how young
kids form two-word utterances.
3. A foreign student of English reports a
World Service news bulletin to a friend
who missed it: The only bit I got was
something about little danger from nuclear
fall-out in Britain at least I think they
said little danger.
The problem with the tape-recorder analogy is
that it does not capture all the relevant
features of comprehension. On occasions both
young and foreign listeners can remember
input that they do not understand; even adult
native listeners do this, although their noncomprehension may be less apparent.

More frequently, though, the opposite is true:

listeners can understand far more than they
can recall. For many types of listening, it
would be inappropriate for us to attempt to
remember everything. No native listeners
would feel they had listened inadequately to a
casual conversation if they failed to remember
what had been said to them when they were
asked to recall it some time later.
The same is true for transactional listening: if
a listener who is unfamiliar with British
electrical wiring is being instructed on how to
wire a plug, a successfully wired plug is a
more direct demonstration of his listening
comprehension than is his ability to remember
exactly what was said.
The important difference between being able
to use the information you have heard and the
ability to reproduce the message in wordperfect form is that, in order to use the
message, you normally have to interpret what
was said and relate the speech to the current
non-linguistic environment. It is true that
there are some listening circumstances which
require recall, but this usually involves the
kind of active interpretation described in 1.2,
rather than verbatim (or word-for-word)
memory. Indeed, the ability to remember
something word-for-word does not necessarily
involve any such active processing of the
input: we may not know whether a listener
who is asked to complete a memory task is
actually demonstrating any greater skill than a
trained parrot.
TASK 9
Can you think of a context in which the
listeners ability to remember a spoken
message word-perfectly is the best guide to
his listening skills?
Can you think of three situations in which the
listeners recall is less important than his
ability to use the information he has been
told?
Unlike a tape recorder or trained parrot,
listeners tend to be selective, in terms of what
they find most interesting or important or
comprehensible in any particular message.
This selective response may of course be quite
different from what the speaker intended. The
way that when listening we select, interpret,
and summarize input cannot be incorporated
within the tape-recorder analogy.

25

Any assessment of an unobservable process

such as listening is problematic and in Section
Two we consider a range of ways of allowing
listeners to demonstrate their abilities without
relying on memory exercises or even on
spoken or written production skills. At this
stage, we are less concerned with the details
of assessment procedures than with making
clear a general point about the tape-recorder
view of listening (i.e. equating the ability to
remember spoken input with the ability to
comprehend it). This, in our view, represents
an inappropriate and inadequate view of the
listening process.

tomorrow. She appeared to be sane. He

believed he had understood every word but
still had no idea what she meant. Perplexed,
he apologized and asked her to repeat what
she had said.

1.4 An alternative view of listening: the

listener as active model builder

When she was asked to repeat what she had

said, the woman turned her head slightly to
one side and pointed her right index finger
upwards, at about head height. He interpreted
her gesture as meaning Listen! After a
second or two, she repeated her comment
about the University and the prospect of rain
next day. At this point, he realized that the
sound she was directing his attention to was
that of a bell ringing in the distance. All
became clear to him.

In 1.2 we said that in order to listen

successfully we have to construct our own
coherent interpretation of any spoken
message. Both parts of this term are
important. First, it needs to be coherent both
with what we believe has just been said and
with what we already know about the
speaker, the context, and the world in
general. Second, it is an interpretation, in the
sense that it is our version of what the
speaker meant, as far as we are able to
assess that meaning.
In discussing this alternative view for what
listening involves, we have chosen to use the
term mental model (Johnson-Laird 1980) to
refer to the listeners coherent interpretation.
This emphasizes the constructive (i.e. active)
and personal nature of successful listening.
The mental model that we build as a
representation of a spoken message is the
result of our combining the new information in
what we have just heard with our previous
knowledge and experience.
The role of this previous knowledge
sometimes called background knowledge of
knowledge of the world is central to the
way we understand language, whether
through listening or reading. The term covers
a range of types of knowledge, any of which
we may need to draw on in order to reach an
adequate comprehension of what someone
has said or written. The extent to which we
may need to exploit existing information
inside our heads, when attempting to
understand what someone tells us, should
become clear if we consider a real-life
example. One of the authors was passing an
elderly female stranger in a street in the West
End of Glasgow, when she smiled at him and
said: Thats the University. Its going to rain
26

TASK 10
1. What is your first interpretation of the
womans words?
2. What would you need to know about the
speaker/the listener/the pace/the time,
etc., in order to be more certain of
building a more accurate mental model?

TASK 11
Before reading further, are you now able to
construct a fuller, more precise interpretation
of the message? If not, what elements in your
own mental model still need clarification?
You may still be mystified as to what the
woman meant. It was only be going beyond
what she had said to see what she meant,
that her interlocutor was able to reach a
satisfactory solution to his comprehension
problem. In order to construct an adequate
mental model of the intended message, he
needed to resort to the following sources of
information:
General factual knowledge
1. Sound is more audible downwind than
upwind.
2. Wind direction may affect weather
conditions.
Local factual knowledge
3. The University of Glasgow has a clock
tower with a bell.
Socio-cultural knowledge
4. Strangers in Britain frequently refer to the
weather to oil the wheels of social life.
5. A polite comment from a stranger usually
requires a response.
Knowledge of context
6. the conversation took place about half a
mile from the University of Glasgow.

7. The clock tower bell was just striking the

hour.
The example we have used was an extremely
brief and linguistically simple conversation.
Nevertheless, it was one in which an adult
native listener was initially quite unable to
comprehend
what
a
well-intentioned,
apparently friendly and clear-speaking fellow
native speaker had meant, even thought he
had identified every single word spoken to
him.
The division that this example illustrates,
between
hearing
what
is
said
and
understanding what is meant, is an extremely
important one. Both these aspects of listening
we will call them speech perception and
interpretation are essential parts of the
comprehension process. Later, in 2.2, we will
be referring to some research into L1 and L2
speech perception, but for the moment we are
concerned with the interpretative part of
listening comprehension.
Figure 1 summarizes the relationship between
the two principal sources of information we
may consult in the process of comprehension.
Widdowson (1983) refers to them as (1)
systemic or linguistic knowledge (knowledge
of phonological, syntactic, and semantic
components of the language system) and (2)
schematic or non-linguistic information, which
we will shortly discuss further. As we will see
in 2, experimental evidence suggests that we
may
not
distinguish
between
these
information sources in any clear or conscious
way. In fact, it is often difficult for us to
discriminate between what was actually said
and what we have constructed by integrating
the spoken words with our own knowledge
and experience.

The term schematic comes from the concept

of the schema, associated with the work of
the cognitive psychologist Bartlett (1932),
which has come into prominence in recent
years largely as a result of artificial
intelligence research. A schema could be
defined as a mental structure, consisting of
relevant individual knowledge, memory, and
experience, which allows us to incorporate
what we learn into what we know. We will
briefly mention one area of investigation the
notion of the script whose findings have
special
relevance
to
the
process
of
comprehension, and which we have applied in
the construction of our own listening materials
(see 7).
Script is the term coined by Schank and
Abelson (1977) to describe a set of knowledge
of probable sequences of events in familiar
situations. Like a film or theatre script, a
mental script specifies the roles played by
certain actors and the expected sequence of
their actions. Unlike the script for a film or
play, however, our mental script will not
normally specify the precise words that each
actor will use.
For instance a visiting the dentist script
would
contain
the
actors
(patient,
receptionist, dentist, nurse) and the events
(waiting, examination, treatment) that we
associate with such occasions. While those
details of the script might well be universal,
people from different countries would have
differing expectations about, say, how often
the visits take place, how long they would
have to wait, whether payment is involved,
and so on. But the basic script would probably
be similar across all cultures where dentistry
is a recognized profession.
TASK 12
Imagine you meet a fried who has just
completed a stay in hospital. When you ask
him how it went, he begins his answer with
the words Fine, except for the visiting hours.
They told me I couldnt . . .
How have you started to interpret his
comment? What sort of complaint might he be
going to make about the hours? Who do you
think he is referring to when he says they?
Who are the potential actors in your own
hospital script? What are the sources, in your
case, for your knowledge or expectations
about hospitals?
27

The idea of the mental script is a powerful

one; it offers a plausible explanation of how
the mass of memories of individual experience
might be organized into networks of
connected knowledge. But there is as yet only
limited evidence as to how such knowledge
can be triggered. Although it is highly unlikely
that human listeners/readers operate in
exactly the same way as the computer
simulations of comprehension that scripts
were originally designed for, the general view
of listening/reading as a process of modelbuilding, involving active interpretation and
the integration of incoming information with
prior knowledge and experience, seems to us
to be both plausible and fruitful.
It is certainly the most adequate explanation
yet available for the relatively complex mental
operations that listening requires us to carry
out operations that the tape recorder views
of the listener cannot cope with. (For detailed
discussion of the role of schematic knowledge
in discourse, see Cook: Discourse, in this
Scheme, and our Further Reading suggestions
at the end of the book.)

The traditional method of developing listening

skills getting learners to listen to a piece of
language and then to answer subsequent
comprehension questions has limitations as
a technique for developing reciprocal listening
skills, partly because it separates the skills of
listening and speaking. True, it practises both,
but at different stages of the task: speaking is
something you do after listening, rather than
while you listen.
This sort of listening task also encourages a
passive view of listening skills. Since speaking
and listening are separated, the listeners are
not allowed to interact with the input, i.e. to
indicate when there is a comprehension
problem, or to provide feedback that they
have understood the message. This is likely to
lead them to suppose that successful listening
is a purely receptive activity in which you
merely receive and record what you hear,
rather than actively attempt to integrate the
incoming information and seek clarification
when that interpretation building process
meets an obstacle.
TASK 13

As teachers, we will not serve our students

well if we underestimate the complexity of the
listening tasks they face. But by appreciating
the range of resources highlighted by
theoretical work of the schema and script type
described above which listeners can draw on
in order to listen successfully, we will be in a
better position to diagnose the causes of our
students difficulties and to offer appropriate
treatment.
1.5
The relationship between listening
and speaking
Earlier (in 1.1) we saw how a carefully
prepared L2 utterance is only a useful aid to
communication if the speaker can deal
effectively with the replies he receives. For the
L2 learner to be a proficient partner in
conversation, he needs to be skilled as both
speaker
and
listener,
However,
this
interdependence
has
not
always
been
appreciated by language teachers and course
writers, who have often separated off
listening and speaking as discrete parts of
language competence. Learners need to be
given opportunities to practise both sets of
skills and to integrate them in conversation.
(The need for integrated listening and
speaking practice is discussed in detail in
Bygate: Speaking, in this scheme.)

28

We could divide real-life listening activities

into two simple categories, where you (1)
listen without speaking, or (2) listen with the
opportunity of speaking. Which of those two
types are the following engaged in?
A. a student at a lecture
B. someone listening to a radio play
C. pupils being told how to conduct
chemistry experiment
D. Someone in lunch-time conversation
with a friend
E. a patient listening to his doctor
describing a course of treatment.
If the listener has a problem in understanding
some part of what he has heard, what
can/should he do in each case? Do the
sources of help differ in the two categories?
In which category is the responsibility for
overcoming any difficulties mainly the
listeners, and in which is it the speakers?
A necessary part of any programme to
develop listening skills are tasks that make
the relationship between success in listening
and speaking clear to the learner. We have
already suggested that effective speaking
depends on successful listening for L2
learners. In our research with teenage native
speakers, we have also found that there is a

similar relationship between the two skills.

When
we
conducted
communication
experiments in which a speaker had to
instruct a listener in drawing a diagram or in
arranging a set of objects, we found that the
most effective spoken performances came
from speakers who had previously been
listeners on a similar task. Experience as a
listener was more beneficial than practice in
the speaking role, as it seemed to highlight
the needs of the listener for clear and explicit
instructions. Many of these native speakers
failed to produce listener-friendly messages
without prior listening practice (Anderson,
Brown, and Yule 1984)

performance? What factors do you use in

forming a judgement?

As we will see in 2, children are often less

than fully effective speakers of their own
language, partly because they do not
appreciate their listeners point of view of
current state of knowledge. Moreover, young
listeners are not very good at providing the
speaker with feedback to indicate a problem in
understanding what is being said, and this
aggravates the difficulty of communication. A
pair of young children (one acting as speaker,
the other as listener) may happily continue a
communication task, even though the speaker
has given quite inadequate instructions. The
listener has accepted these without comment
or complaint. So for young native speaker,
too, there is a clear interrelationship between
listening
and
speaking

one
which
unfortunately often results in communicative
difficulties rather than success.

An effective programme to develop listening

skills has to provide a wide range of listening
situations and tasks. Practice in casual
conversational listening is one element; what
we have called non-reciprocal listening to a
text (i.e. where the listeners have no
opportunity to intervene when clarification is
needed) is another. But relying on only one,
or even both, of these and as we will see in
5, some language courses still provide no
other types of practice than these two
leaves a considerable gap in the curriculum.
In 7 we will be asking you to asses activities
in which listening and speaking are intended
to be linked, where the speaking results from
the process of following and interpreting
listening input.

We discovered similar problems among the

teenagers we recorded in our research into
success in L1 communication. In paired tasks
involving giving and following instructions for
marking a route on a map, some speakers
produced quite poor performances with vague
or inexplicit instructions. The same speakers
often seemed to perform unsatisfactorily as
listeners, too, ignoring queries or requests for
clarification from their partners. So a poor
performance from the same instruction-giver
often indicated unsuccessful listening and
speaking combined. There is a clear
interdependence
between
speaking
and
listening both within a single speaker/
listener and also between partners in a
dialogue (see Brown, Anderson, Shadbolt, and
Lynch (1987) for details of this experiment).
TASK 14
Here is an invented conversational extract:
speaker A is a five-year-old and speaker B is
his grandmother. How do you rate the boys

A: We went to the park, John, Clare, and me,

and we bounced and everything.
B: Is Clare in your class at school?
A: We bounced and bounced, then the man
said we had to get off.
B: You had to get off? Off what, dear?
A: bounced and bounced on the bouncy thing,
the castle.
If
you
have
identified
communication
problems, are they due to his ability as
speaker or as listener?

1.6
The relationship between listening
and reading
How the two comprehension skills of listening
and reading are related, in L1 and L2 use, is a
basic
question
that
researchers
have
attempted to answer. The traditional view of
the relative difficulty of the two activities for
native speakers is that listening and oral skills
are, under normal circumstances, successfully
mastered in the pre-school years, before
reading instruction begins. The reading
teacher generally concentrates on helping the
child to identify the written forms of language
letter, words, sentences, and so on. She
assumes that, if the child listened, for
example, to a simple story in his first reading
book,
he
would
have
no
difficulty
understanding it. He is assumed already to be
an effective listener; he can identify sounds
and words, he knows how the major part of
the syntax of his native language works, and
how meanings are conveyed. As a result, little
direct attention is paid in schools to the
development of listening comprehension skills.
29

However, the results of recent research

challenge this traditional vies of the
listening/reading relationship. As part of a
large-scale L1 survey of 6,000 school children,
Neville (1985) found that they performed very
consistently in cloze tests of reading and
listening comprehension. At ages 8, 11, and
13 their scores were highly correlated: good
listeners were usually good readers and poor
listeners were generally poor readers.
Interestingly, there was no evidence of a
ceiling effect: in other words, there was no
point of maximum success beyond which
pupils could not improve. For all the age
groups, there was a wide range of scores,
with smaller numbers of children performing
very poorly at each stage. This suggests that
listening is not something that we master,
once and for all, early on in life. So listening
skills may continue to develop over a much
longer period than was traditionally believed.
Even for native listeners, explicit practice to
improve listening skills would be advisable
and beneficial, both for its own sake and also
as a support to reading skill development.

are clear parallels between the problems

experienced by listeners and readers.
Markman (1977-, 1979) gave young L1
speakers of English deliberately ambiguous or
inconsistent messages, orally and in writing.
The children were often prepared to claim
they understood very ambiguous instructions,
without querying them. Similarly, they failed
to note apparently obvious inconsistencies in
short written texts. They often had problems
because they treated each statement in
isolation and did not see the texts as a
coherent whole.
Garrod (1986) has pointed out that, in both
reading and listening, processing has to take
place sequentially, i.e. we sample one word at
a time. But in order to comprehend the
message successfully, we have to analyse
whole segments of the input, such as phrases,
sentences, and paragraphs. He provides
evidence from his own experiments with adult
native readers that suggests they do indeed
build up an overall interpretation, or mental
model (see 1.2), of a text as they read.

The same close relationship between reading

and listening skills has been observed in
groups of relatively poor L1 readers receiving
remedial teaching (Carr, brown, and Vavrus
1985) and in the case of bilinguals (Favreau
and Segalowitz 1983). As far as the L2
reading/listening relationship is concerned,
the evidence is less clear-cut. Brown and
Hayes (1985) found that the relationship held
in general, but that one subgroup of the L2
learners they tested Japanese learners of
English tended to perform better at reading
than listening.

Similar results have been reported from

experiments with adult native listeners by
Cole and Jakimik (1978, 1980), who found
that mispronounced words were spotted more
quickly in continuous speech when they
occurred in contextually appropriate words. So
competent adult L1 readers and listeners do
seem to build a global interpretation of what
they read or hear, using information from
earlier in a text to interpret what they
encounter later. The use of such information
goes hand-in-hand with the application of
schematic knowledge discussed in 1.4

TASK 15

Further evidence for the general language

processing skill and the particular problem of
failure to treat a text as a meaningful whole
comes from the types of error reported by
Neville (1985) from her reading and listening
cloze test. She found that similar kinds of
error were made in both types of text and that
many mistakes seemed to stem from the
readers or listeners failure to keep the
overall content of the text in mind.

1. Can you think of possible reasons for the

relationship
between
individuals
L2
reading and listening skills being less
clear-cut in the case of adult learners?
2. What might be the particular reasons for
Japanese
learners
giving
better
performances as readers of English than
as listeners to English?
In general, researchers have discovered that
there appears to be an important general
language processing skill that influences
performances in both listening and reading.
One of the features of this general language
processing skill is the ability to monitor your
own comprehension of a message. Here there
30

TASK 16
Below are some cloze test items, with
invented responses of the sort that might be
given by a young native speaker. The correct
answer is shown in capital letter at the end of
the item; the readers response is shown in

brackets. What is the cause of error in each

case?
1. Suddenly the _____ (she) jumped up and
ran out of the room. GIRL
2. John did well at reading and _____
(books). WRITING.
3. Old Mrs Grant was very poor. She went to
the shop and looked in her purse. There
were _____ (many) coins inside. NO
4. The sea-horse swims very slowly. It
escapes from its enemies by _____
(rushing) behind rocks. HIDING.
Do you think that (or do you know whether)
adult foreign learners would make similar
errors on these items?

pattern seems to be that there is an essential

underlying skill of language processing, which
includes such elements as the ability to
consider each sentence as a complete unit and
each text as a unified thematic whole. It
appears that proficiency in using this skill is
just as important and difficult when
listening as it is when reading. Developing
effective listening skills could well lead not
only to improved listening but also to better
reading, for foreign learners as well as for
native speakers.
Whatever will be, will be!
LISTENING
1.
Listen to the predictions for the year
2025. Write A for Amys predictions and B for
Bobs predictions.

Although we know less about the L2

listening/reading relationship, the general

31

LISTENING
Strategy: Using your knowledge of grammar
1. Listen to the news report. Its about
something in the
a. past
b. present
c. future
32

2. Listen again. Write three phrases that

helped you decide.
______________________________
______________________________
______________________________
______

Strategy: Listening for specific information

3. Listen to the news report again. Answer
the questions.
In what city will the MTV Music Awards
ceremony be?
__________________________________
In what theater?
__________________________________
On what day and date?
__________________________________
How many tickets will be on sale?
__________________________________
Who will be there?
__________________________________
When will the tickets go on sale?
__________________________________

2. Pairs. Listen
answers.

again

and

write

Gregs

Where will the tickets go on sale?

__________________________________
How many tickets can one person buy?
__________________________________
How much are the tickets?
__________________________________
4. Pairs. Check your answers.
A The MTV Music Awards will be in .
LISTENING
1. Pairs. We asked Greg Sergi about his time
in key West, Florida. Listen and complete
the questions.

1. Think of a trip you took. Where did you

go? List five things you saw or did on your
trip.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

2. Pairs. Exchange lists with your partner.

Ask questions to get more information
about your partners trip.
3. Tell the class about your partners trip.
Topic:
Language:
Focus:

Lifestyles
Talking about likes and dislikes
Verb + infinitive/gerund

PRESENTATION
1. Pairs. Would you like to live and work
here?
Study they pictures and
answer the questions below.

captions,

Then

33

a) Would you enjoy living on a mountain?

Why or why not?
b) Would you like to work for the ski patrol?
Why or why not?
c) Would you mind getting only one channel
on TV?
2. Report to the class.
READ AND TAKE NOTES
1. Scan the article below and underline each
persons job.
Interesting Jobs
Aaron Chang loved to surf, but he didnt think
he could make a living doing it. When his
father gave him a camera, however, Chang
started taking photographs of people surfing.
Today, Aaron Chang is one of the best surf
photographers in the world. For his job, he
travels around the world, surfing in the best
places and taking photographs.
34

Julie Krone rode in her first horse race when

she was just 16 years old. Since then, she has
won more than 2,800 races. Krone says she
loves being a jockey even though its hard
work. On most days, she gets up before
sunrise to exercise horses and she rarely gets
home before sunset. Being a jockey is also
dangerous work. In 1993, Krone fell of her
horse during a race and got badly injured.
Nevertheless, she loves her job. Ive made
enough money so I can do what I love to do
every day, she says. Not many people can
say that.
What happened to the dinosaurs? Why did
they disappear 65 million years ago? These
are questions you should ask scientist Jack
Horner. Horners job is to find and identify
dinosaur bones. When Horner is looking for
dinosaur bones, he lives in a tent and works
from sunup to sundown. His assistants dig up
the bones and later, Horner spends hours in
his laboratory studying them. According to
Horner, Its exciting to be a dinosaur hunter,
but its also hard work.

2. Pairs. Read the article again. Look for

information to complete the chart.

INTERVIEW
3. Pairs. Would you like to have one of these
jobs?
Why or why not?
I would/wouldnt like to be a _____ because
1) _______________
2) _______________
3) _______________
Get together with another pair. Share your
partners answers to the question above.

1. Groups. What do you think these people

do at work?
Check your ideas.
Example:
A)
Do you think a hotel manager spends
a lot of time helping people?
B)
Yes, I do.
C)
Me, too.

35

2. Pairs. Study the chart above and your

partners answers. Choose a job for your
partner. Tell your partner why you chose
that job.

Language:
Focus:
infinitive;

I think youd enjoy being a _____ because

PRESENTATION

Report to the class.

1. Pairs. Study the pictures and captions.

Then answer the questions below.

Topic:

Giving opinions
its
+

adjective

gerunds as subjects

Customs

2. Report to the class.

a) Do you usually remove your shoes when
you go inside?
b) Do you say anything before you start
eating? If so, what?
c) Do you ever greet anyone with a kiss? If
so, Who?

36

PRACTICE
1. Read the questions and answer
Yes, No, or It depends.

2. Pairs. Take turns asking and answering

questions using words from the chart
below.
Example:
A)
Do you think its rude to wink at a
stranger?
B)
Yes, I do. (No, I dont think so.)

3. Groups. Group the ideas below. Then add

two of your own ideas to each group.
Smoking in a movie theater
Wearing shorts in public
Eating with your fingers
Holding hands in public
Dropping trash on the street
Blowing your nose in public

Do you think its . . .

Impolite rude important - okay - polite
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to

be on time for a business meeting?

be late for class?
wink at a stranger?
chew gum in class?
talk loudly on a bus or train?
cover your mouth when you laugh?
smoke in front of a non-smoker?
put your feet up on your desk?
kiss in public?
talk about business at dinner?

2. Listen again and check each persons

answer.
SHARE INFORMATION
1. Pairs.
Person A: Look at this page.
Person B: Turn to page.

We think
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
______ is okay.
Share your ideas with the class.
LISTENING
1. We interviewed three students about
customs in their countries. Listed and
write the questions you hear.

2. Person A: Ask your partner questions to

complete the chart.
Example:
A)
In the U.S., is it okay to put your feet
up on the furniture?
B)
Yes, it is.
A)
How about in Ecuador? Is it okay to
put your feet up there?

37

3. Person A: Now use the chart to answer

your partners questions.
4. Pairs. How are customs similar and
different in these countries? Write three
ideas.
Example:
In the U.S., its okay to put your feet up on
the furniture, but its not okay in China.

Compare answers with a partner.

2. We asked four people the question below.
Listen and take notes in the chart.

LISTENING
1. Choose a word from below to complete
each sentence.
a little
slightly
a bit

b. I think motorcycles are _____ more

dangerous than cars.
c. I think a camcorder is _____ more
complicated than a camera.
d. I think an electronic calculator is _____
easier to use than an abacus.
e. I think regular coffee tastes _____ better
than instant coffee.

a lot
much
far

Example:
A)
Would you rather have a big car or a
small car?
B)
Oh, Id much rather has a small car.
A)
Really? How come?
B)
Theyre a lot cheaper.

a. I think computers today are _____ more

important than they were 30 years ago.

3. Groups. Compare charts. Then ask each

other the question above. Report your
groups answers to the class.
INTERVIEW
1. Choose one of the questions below and
interview three classmates.
Would you rather ?
Would you prefer to ?
Would you rather
motorcycle? Why?

38

Would you rather communicate by letter o

by phone? Why?
Would you rather have a camera or a
camcorder? Why?
Would you rather play a video game or a
board game? Why?
2. Report your classmates answers to the
class.
LISTENING

have

car

or

1. We asked five people the question below.

How did they answer? Listen and check
Yes, No, or I dont know.

Listen again and compare answers with a

partner.
2. Pairs. What reasons did these people give?
Listen again and check the reasons you
hear.
Many people have running water and
heat in their houses.
Medical care is much better.

We can do things faster, like cooking

and washing clothes.
The air is a lot dirtier.
Its easier to communicate with people
far away.
Weapons are more destructive.
We dont have to grow our own food.
Our lives are more complicate.
Is technology making our lives better? Group
te reason in the chart below.

3. Groups. Add six more ideas to the chart.

Then compare ideas with the other groups
in your class.

39

TEACHING ORAL ENGLISH

1. Language learning in the classroom

The presentation stage: the teacher

as informant

The task of the language teacher

Why is it so difficult to teach a foreign
language? To a large extent, it is because we
are attempting to teach in the classroom what
is normally and perhaps best learnt
outside it.
The classroom is of course a
convenient place for imparting information but
our main concern as language teachers is to
develop the ability of our students to use the
language they are learning for the purpose of
communication. In order to develop the skills
needed for this, especially the oral ones of
understanding and speaking, we have many
obstacles to contend with: the size of the
class, the arrangement of the classroom
(which rarely favours communication), the
number of hours available for teaching the
language (which cannot all be devoted to oral
work), and perhaps even the syllabus itself,
which may discourage us from giving
adequate attention to the spoken language. It
is not easy to give effective oral practice
under these conditions, especially in large
classes. This is why it is important to have a
clear understanding and a firm grasp of the
wide range of techniques and procedures
through which the spoken language can be
practised. They are, in a sense, an attempt to
accommodate language learning to the
unfavourable environment of the classroom.
1.2 The role of the teacher
What, then, is the role of the language
teacher in the classroom? In the most general
terms he is there, as in any other classroom,
to provide the best conditions for learning.
The teacher is a means to an end: an
instrument to see that learning takes place.
As a human being, he is of course a subtle
and sensitive instrument who cannot be
satisfactorily replaced by an mechanical aid
although he may frequently require the
support of one since a machine cannot
gauge the variable needs of the learners in
the same way as a teacher can. But in
addition to this general function, or perhaps
we should way in order to implement it, the
language teacher has specific roles to play at
different stage of the learning process.
It is only by acknowledging these roles that
we can begin to see why we must vary and
adjust our techniques to suit the various
stages of the learning process.
40

At the presentation stage, the teachers main

job is to serve as a kind of informant. He
knows the language; he selects the new
material to be learnt (drawing on the
textbook, using ancillary aids etc) and
presents it in such a way as to make its
meaning as clear and as memorable as
possible. The students listen and try to
understand. They do little talking, perhaps,
though they are by no means passive (see
2.1.). At this point, then, the teacher holds
the stage, as it were. It is, unfortunately, a
role which teachers sometimes prolong unduly
in their lessons, so that the students do not
get enough time to practise the language
themselves.
1.2.2 The practice stage: the teacher as
conductor
At the practice stage, it is the turn of the
students to do most of the talking, while the
teachers main function is to provide them
with the maximum amount of practice, which
must at the same time be both meaningful
and memorable (see 5.1.). The teachers role
is now radically different from that at the
presentation stage. He does the minimum
amount of talking himself. He becomes more
like the skilful conductor of an orchestra,
drawing the music out of the performers,
giving each a chance to participate.
1.2.3 The production stage: the teacher
as guide
It is a pity that language learning in the
classroom so often stops short at the stage
above. Many teachers feel that they have
done their job well if they have presented the
new material effectively and given their
students
adequate,
though
perhaps
controlled, practice in it. All the same, no real
learning can be assumed to have taken place
until the students are able to use the
language for themselves. At any level of
attainment they need to be given regular and
frequent opportunities to use the language
freely, even if they sometimes make mistakes
as a result. It is not that mistakes do not
matter, but rather that free expression
matters much more, and the greatest mistake
the teacher can make is to hold his students
back. For it is through these opportunities to
use the language as they wish, to try to

express their own ideas, that the students

become aware that they have learnt
something
useful
to
them,
and
are
encouraged to go on learning perhaps the
most vital fact of all in keeping learning alive.
In providing the students with activities for
free expression and in discreetly watching
over them as they carry them out, the teacher
takes on the role of guide of adviser. In some
respects it is this role, where the teacher has,
as it were, to take a back seat, that is the
most difficult one to perform, requiring not
only skill and tact but often courage in the
face
of
syllabus
and
examination
requirements.
1.3 The learners
No class of learners is more than superficially
homogeneous, however skilfully it has been
formed on the basis of intellectual ability (real
or imputed) and language aptitude (or, at the
post-elementary level, language attainment).
There remain enormous differences in learning
skills, aspirations, interests, background and,
above all, personality. Can the teacher afford
to ignore these differences? Should he, in fact,
even want to? Admittedly they cannot be
taken into consideration at every moment in
the lesson, but unless teaching is viewed as a
kind of shaping process from start to finish,
these differences need not work to the
disadvantage either of the teacher or of the
class as a whole. They can in fact be made to
contribute to learning in the classroom.
However, some compromise has to be made
this is part of the accommodation of language
learning to the classroom and it was implied
in the preceding section that the most
appropriate point for this is at the
presentation stage. The teacher selects and
presents the language date which the
students are required to learn and practise. At
the start, then, there is the same diet for all
though how they actually digest it will vary
greatly from one learner to another. But at
the practice stage we must begin to take their
individual differences into account and suit
practice to the individual learner. Not all
students, for example, can answer a particular
question; not all students will want to. And
then, at the production stage, as the teachers
active intervention though not his
participation diminishes, the differences we
noted at the start can be given full rein. The
activities at this stage not only permit the
students to express themselves as individuals;
they also depend on their doing so for their
success.

1.4 The needs of the learners

The goal of teaching a foreign language has
been defined as enabling the learner to
behave in such a way that he can participate
to some degree and for certain purposes as a
member of a community other than his own.
Attention is thus drawn to the social function
of language: for this purpose the learners
need to be taught language for performing
certain specific and variable roles as language
users. Language learning defined from a more
narrowly linguistic standpoint places greater
emphasis on mastering the system of the
language. For example: acquiring the ability
to use its structures within a general
vocabulary under essentially the conditions of
normal communication among native speakers
at conversational speed. The factor of
communication is not ignored, but it is implied
that
mastery
of
the
structures
(or
grammatical patterns) of the language will be
the major goal. Language learning is thus
generally regarded as a step-by-step mastery
of the system, especially the grammatical
structures, through which is eventually
developed the ability to use language for any
purpose.
For the learners, such an approach has two
main drawbacks. In the first place, it sets
them on a seemingly never ending path
towards an ever receding horizon, in the
course of which they acquire a great deal of
language which they are never likely to need
(and which in some cases cannot easily be
used for communicative purposes: classroom
language such as I am standing up etc). This
in itself leaves the learners dissatisfied, apart
from the fact that in the drive for mastery of
the system their individual differences noted
in 1.3 are often ignored. Secondly, the
approach tends to place too much emphasis
on formal correctness as a criterion of
language use, usually neglecting the fact that
if language is to function as an instrument of
social control, it must also be appropriate to
the situation in which it is used. We cannot
deny of course that the learners will have to
master certain formal features of the
language,
especially
in
the
area
of
pronunciation and grammar (e.g. concord,
number, case, gender, word order) and it is
part of the teachers job to see that sufficient
practice is given in these areas. But they
should not be left in the situation of the
drowning man who cried out for help with the
words: I will drown and nobody shall save
me! for, after all, was he left to drown simply
because he confused shall and will or because
41

what he said was not appropriate? He had

mastered, however badly, more of the system
than he needed: a simply cry of Help! would
have been more effective!
What can we do to ensure that the students
do not end up like the drowning man, even
though we cannot be at all certain what uses
they will eventually be required to put the
language to? In the first place, the language
data the structures and vocabulary which
they are exposed to at the presentation stage
and which they subsequently practise (and
perhaps add to themselves) should be
selected for their communicative value. This
does not mean that there will be no formal
progression through the grammatical system:
only that it will be peripheral rather than
central, and items will not be taught simply
because they are there in the language.
Secondly, at all stages of learning, emphasis
must be placed on the appropriate use of
language language as it is used in
situations,
as
an
instrument
of
communication, as a means of social control.
Formal correctness (especially in the area of
pronunciation) should be left to come more
gradually. And thirdly, as we noted in 1.2.3
the students must be allowed to try out the
language for themselves through activities in
the classroom. It is this here-and-now use of
the language which gives them immediate
satisfaction and transforms it, from a remote
goal to be attained in the future, into
something real and tangible.
1.5 Language learning in the classroom
A matter which we must now consider is
whether in fact it is the job of the teacher to
attempt to regulate the learners experience
of the language for them in the form of a preselected input, a syllabus of grammatical and
vocabulary items (the diet referred to in 1.3).
However well these are selected for their
communicative value, how can we predict
what language the learners will need at
different stages of the course? Would it not be
better simply to provide them with relevant
experience of the language on a more ad hoc
basic, through talk in the form of
conversation and stories, and to provide
opportunities to practise the language thus
presented
through
activities,
which
in
themselves will create the demand for yet
more language, and so lead on to the next
stage?
On a practical level, the effectiveness of the
second approach will depend very much on
42

the skill and ingenuity of the teacher: the

advantages it gives in flexibility may be lost
unless the teacher is sufficiently resourceful in
making use of them. But to a large extent the
difference between these two approaches
depends on the nature of the syllabus and the
use it is put to. A syllabus, for example, in
which the language date is organised in the
form of dialogues is in itself an attempt to
present the students with talk in natural
contexts (see 4.2.). To the extent that it
succeeds in bringing the outside world into the
classroom, it can be a much more effective
way of giving the learners experience of new
language than the teachers own improvised
presentation, however finely this may be
suited to the learners actual needs at the
time. But more important, a piece of language
learning material such as a dialogue is a
calculated exemplification of how certain bits
of the language work: it has built into it some
of the rules which the learners need to know
in order to be able to use the language. The
teachers main concern, then, at the
presentation stage is to teach the meaning of
the dialogue so as to make the rules clear to
the learners. The material itself will show
these in action, as it were, but sometimes this
in itself may not be enough, and the teacher
may have to point a finger, through further
exemplification and perhaps also explanation.
On occasions he may even have to attempt to
codify the rules himself, though generally not
before the learners themselves have had a go
at handling them. The actual utterances in the
dialogue, or whatever piece of material is
being used, are of little further use to the
learners once they have understood the rules
that govern them. (That is why there is no
point in their learning them by heart: no
amount of sentences learnt in this way will
lead to mastery of the language.) So the
teacher moves on to other activities through
which the students have further experience of
the rules at work and learn to operate them
for themselves.
Thus. At the practice and production stages,
these two approaches converge. There
remains, perhaps, one small but significant
difference: and attempt has been made, in
the form of the rules provided through the
language data, to ensure that all the students
will have the same foundation on which to
base their activities. They may go about these
in different ways, and some will be more
successful
than
others,
because
the
presentation stage is no more than a starting
point. But it is important that they should
begin with a shared experience of language

that has been meaningfully organised as

language learning material to show how the
rules work. For, as we have noted, language is
not simply the goal: it is also the instrument
with which this goal is attained.

2. Here are three situations in which a

foreign language user might expect to find
himself:
(f) Asking the way;
(g) Taking a room in a hotel;
(h) Going through customs.

Discussion
1. What are the main characteristics of the
three stages described in 1.21.1 1.2.3?

Make a list of the basic language items he

might need in these situations.
2. Oral communication

2. We must vary and adjust our techniques

to suit the various stages of the learning
process.
(a) In the light of 1.2.1 1.2.3, say why
you think this is important.
(b) Question and answer is a common
form of oral practice. Say whether you
think it could be used at all three
stages and if so, whether it is likely to
have a different function at each
stage.
3. From your experience of teaching (or
learning)
a
foreign
language,
give
examples of classroom language (i.e.
items of language commonly taught in the
classroom which are unlikely to be of use
in everyday life).
4. Which of the following views on language
learning do you believe in?
(c) At all costs the learners must be
prevented from making mistakes.
(d) The learners should not be given
explanations or rules. They should be
asked to work these out for
themselves.
(e) Learning takes place mainly as a
result of frequent repetition.
5. What reasons are given in 1.5. for
organising
language
data
at
the
presentation stage into (for example)
dialogues? Do you agree? Give reasons.
6. Language is not simply the goal: it is also
the instrument with which this goal is
attained. What difference is there between
language learning and the learning of
other subjects.
Exercises
1. The arrangement of the classroom rarely
favours communication. Suggest ways of
arranging the classroom so as to make it
easier for students to talk to one another.
Are different arrangements likely to be
needed on various occasions?

2.1 The nature of oral communication

Oral communication is a two-way process
between speaker and listener (or listeners),
involving the productive skill of speaking and
the receptive skill of understanding (or
listening with understanding). Both speaker
and listener have a positive function to
perform: the speaker has to encode the
message to be conveyed in appropriate
language, while the listener (no less actively)
has to decode (or interpret) the message. The
message itself, in normal speech, usually
contains a great deal of information which is
redundant (i.e. it conveys more information
than the listener needs, so he is not obliged to
follow with the maximum attention. See 3.1.).
At the same time the listener is helped by
prosodic features, such as stress and
intonation, which accompany the spoken
utterance and form part of its meaning, and
also by facial and body movements. We
should also note that, in contrast to the
written language, where sentences are
carefully structured and linked together (see
10.1.), speech is characterised by incomplete
and sometimes ungrammatical utterances and
by frequent false starts and repetitions.
2.2 Pedagogical implications
2.2.1. Listening comprehension
While a higher proportion of class time is
needed to develop the ability of the students
to speak, understanding of the spoken
language cannot simply be left to take care of
itself. The consequences of its neglect quickly
show up outside the classroom, when the
learners no longer have any control over what
is
said
to
them.
In
addition,
poor
understanding often generates nervousness,
which may in turn further inhibit the ability to
speak. Clearly, it is not sufficient for the
students to hear only those models of
language which they are required to master
for the purpose of oral production. In the first
place, their ability to understand needs to be
43

considerably more extensive than their ability

to speak (in the same way as they need to be
able to read more easily than they can write).
Secondly, these learning models (e.g.
dialogues), which have been skilfully contrived
to accelerate oral production, do not always
contain a sufficiently large number of those
features of natural speech which we noted in
2.1. For example, utterances tend to be more
carefully structured and complete (simply
because they have to be written down as
texts), and the level of redundancy is
generally low. In order to be able to cope with
real-life language situations, the students
need regular and frequent training through a
programme of listening comprehension which
exposes them in the classroom to suitably
varied models of natural speech from the
earliest stages of the language course. In
short, they have actually to learn to listen,
just as they have to learn to speak.
This diagram shows how the four language
skills are related.

other hand, provide at all levels a powerful

way of stimulating and developing oral ability
without recourse to the written language.
2.2.3 Interdependence of the oral skills
in communication
Although in classroom practice it is often
necessary to concentrate at certain times on
developing one of the oral skills more than the
other, we should not lose sight of the fact that
oral communication is a two-way process
between speaker and listener. Thus, the
speaker does not always initiate: he also
responds to what he has heard (as for
example when he answers a question or
makes a comment); while the listener does
not always remain silent: he is normally
expected to make some sort of response
(which may not always be verbal as, for
example, when he carries out an instruction).
In the classroom, therefore, appropriate
provision has to be made to see that the two
oral skills are integrated through situations
which permit and encourage authentic
communication.
2.3 Intelligibility

2.2.2 Oral production

The main goal in teaching the productive skill
of speaking will be oral fluency: the ability to
express
oneself
intelligibly
(see
2.3.),
reasonably accurately and without undue
hesitation (otherwise communication may
break down because the listener loses interest
or gets impatient). To attain this goal, the
students will have to be brought from the
stage where they merely imitate a model or
respond to cues to the point where they can
use the language to express their own ideas
(processes that must to a large extent be in
simultaneous operation). Two complementary
levels of training will therefore be required:
practice in the manipulation of the fixed
elements of the language (principally the use
of grammatical patterns and lexical items),
and practice in the expression of personal
meaning. For this purpose the teacher cannot
depend solely on written texts (whose
limitations have already been noted) as a
basis for oral practice (although both
dialogues and passages may serve as valuable
starting points). Audio-visual aids, on the
44

Intelligibility is usually defined in phonological

terms (e.g. being able to make the difference
between essential sounds such as /i:/ and /i/
as they occur in the two words leave and
live). At a level of basic understanding this
aspect of intelligibility is unquestionably
important but, for the purpose of oral fluency
(the goal we acknowledged in 2.2.2.), the
term needs to be extended to include a
mastery of other areas of language. For
clearly, in order to be able to communicate
effectively, the learners need an adequate
mastery of grammar and vocabulary as well
as phonology, and over-learning in any of
these areas will sever no purpose if it
excessively slows down progress in the
others. Thus, in most language programmes
(except in teacher training) the amount of
time available for systematic speech training
is bound to be limited: it will be necessary
therefore to concentrate on essential features
such as the differences between key sounds,
weak forms, basic stress and intonation
patterns, and more importance will need to be
attached to reception of these features than
production. Similarly, in the area of grammar,
students should not be expected to master
grammatical items simply because they exist
in the language, but only those essential for
communication. In general, since students
cannot be expected to master more than a

limited amount of the code of a foreign

language, they will only attain an adequate
level of communicative ability if balanced
attention is paid to all the three areas noted
above.

natural speech. With reference to this

statement, examine five dialogues in any
textbook of your choosing. Suggest if
necessary how these dialogues could be
improved to make them sound more
natural.

2.4 Oral ability and motivation

3. Listening comprehension
The development of oral ability is a good
source of motivation for most learners, who
are normally much concerned to be able to
speak and understand a foreign language.
Satisfaction at being able to say a small
number of sentences after a few lessons must
be sustained by demonstrating to the students
that they can say progressively more and
more through the language as the course
continues. Practice in controlled speaking
under the teachers direction should be
matched with opportunities for free expression
(when the learner should not be discouraged
by excessive correction). Although attainment
in oral production will be affected by the size
of the class (see, however, 7.1.1.), motivation
can often be improved in large classes by
placing greater emphasis on the receptive skill
of listening. This has the additional advantage
of getting the students accustomed to
understanding the language without reference
to a written text (a problem for some students
at the post-elementary level of education, see
12.2.), as well as providing opportunities for
meaningful repetition of known material.
Discussion
1. Explain the nature of oral communication.
2. Oral communication is a two-way process
between speaker and listener. Show the
importance of this idea for oral practice in
the classroom.
3. Suggest some reasons why you think oral
proficiency in a foreign language would be
important for the average learner. Which
of these reasons would have immediate
motivational value?
Exercises
1. Examine some examples of written
language and make a list of the devices
through which the sentences are linked
together.
2. Suggest at least two different ways in
which a change of stress and intonation
pattern would affect the meaning of each
of the following:
3. In 2.2.1. it was stated that dialogues in
textbooks do not always contain a
sufficiently large number of features of

3.1 learning to understand

We have already noted (2.1.) that listening is
essentially an active process. Yet if we are
listening to our mother tongue, understanding
normally seems effortless! This is largely
because, through our experience of the
language, we are immediately able to identify
or recognise those elements in the message,
especially common sound sequences and
grammatical patterns, which signal meaning
in various ways. Because language provides
us with more meaning signals than are strictly
necessary for the purpose of understanding,
we are able to relax our attention
sometimes to the extent of being able to
understand without hearing everything that is
said. At the same time we normally have no
difficulty in selecting and retaining in our
memory important items of information. The
situation for the foreign learner, on the other
hand, is very different. In the early stages of
learning he is still mastering the basic
patterns of phonology and grammar which the
native speaker understands so effortlessly. He
has therefore to listen with much greater
attention throughout and consequently finds it
difficult both to select important items of
information from the message and to retain
them in his memory, and thus arrive at an
overall understanding of what is being said to
him. For this reason, then, learning to
understand simply cannot be left to chance.
Although there must be some provision in the
programme
for
practice
in
global
understanding because students should not
be led to expect to understand everything
they will hear in normal communication
situations proficiency in the listening skill
can only be attained through systematic
training in identification and selection.
3.2 The nature of the programme
The principal objective of the listening
comprehension programme should be to train
the students to understand, and respond
appropriately to, the kind of language they
are most likely to hear in normal use. The
majority of learners, for example, are more
likely to need to understand what is said to
45

them in survival situation (such as shops,

restaurants and hotels, see 4.2.1.) than to
follow formally delivered talks. While it is
clearly impossible to provide for the full range
of situations and speakers they may
encounter, they can at least be given in the
classroom a sufficiently broad experience of
listening to natural language so that
communication does not break down as soon
as they have to communicate with native
speakers.
The programme will also have to be varied,
since interest will be one of the main factors
that will determine the extent of the students
involvement in it. Material should be selected
on the basis of its appeal to specific groups of
learners. Thus young children are likely to be
interested in, and will therefore learn from,
stories, while adolescents will undoubtedly
enjoy pop songs. Adults, on the other hand,
may find talks and discussions more
interesting. Normally it should not be difficult
to choose material which is interesting.
Normally it should not be difficult to choose
material which is interesting and also includes
a good deal of spontaneous speech.
3.3
Guidelines
for
comprehension practice

listening

The second approach exposes the students

to the natural language for the sake of the
experience and gives them practice in
guessing the overall meaning of what they
hear. This will normally be only an occasional
activity in the early stages of the course but
should be a regular feature in the later stages.
To test the effectiveness of the programmes
and
the
progress
of
the
learners,
comprehension checks should normally be
carried out, but his should be done informally.
To some extent this is already taken care of if
listening activities are integrated with practice
in other skills, with oral production in
particular but also with reading and writing.
However, there should be a place for listening
for its own sake, without overt responses. Like
general reading, this is an activity which is
valuable in itself.
3.4. Activities and procedures
The listening comprehension scheme below
sets out the main activities which can be used
to develop the listening skill systematically
and progressively.
The students should be given practice in:
(a)

In choosing and preparing materials for

practice in listening comprehension, it is
suggested that the teacher should provide for
two parallel but complementary lines of
development. He should:
(a)
(b)

train the students systematically at the

levels of identification and selection (as
indicated in 3.1.);
prepare the students psychologically for
situations where they will not have a full
understanding of what they hear. The
systematic training they get through (a)
will of course also help them in
apprehending the general meaning of the
message.

Both kinds of activity have their own specific

learning value and correspond to the practice
and production stages of learning respectively
(see 1.2.2. and 1.2.3.). The first approach will
take the form of a series of carefully planned
and graded activities which are designed to
overcome the special difficulties the foreign
learner has in decoding. These activities
should start early on in the course and be no
less a regular feature of the lesson than
practice in oral production.
46

(b)

distinguishing between key sounds,

stress and intonation patterns (in the
context
of
sentences
and
longer
sequences). These ear-training activities
should be on a much more extensive
scale than practice in actual production
(as noted in 2.3.). Comprehension may
be checked informally e.g. by asking the
students whether two utterances are the
same or different.
Listening
to
material
(especially
dialogues or passages with a strong
dialogue element) containing patterns
and vocabulary known to the students.
This, for example, may be the main
lesson dialogue either in its original form
(but listened to after a lapse of time) or
expanded to incorporate some new
elements (e.g. new lexical items).
Ideally, dialogues and passages should
combine language items from a number
of lessons. This type of practice gives the
students the opportunity to listen to
material
that
contains
redundant
features. As they grow familiar with the
material through repetition, they will
have the experience common in the
mother tongue of being able to
anticipate what comes next in the
utterance and can thus begin to

line
of
development),
with
the
hesitations, pauses, repetitions that are
characteristic
of
normal
speech.
Comprehension may be checked from
time to time (or afterwards) through
questioning or by making true/false
statements (see 6.2.(b)(ii) ).

concentrate on selecting important items

of information. Comprehension checks
may be carried out informally by
interrupting the dialogue or passage (this
reduces the amount the students have to
retain in their memories).
(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

Listening to familiar material re-recorded

to incorporate various features of the
spoken language. For example, a basic
piece of material such as the main lesson
dialogue can be re-exploited several
times by re-recording it using different
speakers (e.g. their sex, age, accents
may be varied where the text permits
this). The speakers may also use
different tones of voice (e.g. happy, sad,
angry etc), different degrees of loudness,
and different speeds (ranging from fast
to slow with pauses, hesitations and
repetitions, as in natural language).
Dialogues may also be recorded against a
background of noise (e.g. noises in the
street
or
in
a
crowded
room).
Comprehension may be checked, for
example, by informal comparison of one
version of the dialogue with another.
Listening to fairly short sequences (e.g.
dialogues containing two or three
exchanges only, stories, anecdotes)
composed in language known to the
students so that they can concentrate on
selection (what the speakers are talking
about, the main point of a story) without
problems of retention.
Carrying out instructions and directions
which require attention and some
retention (but often no significant verbal
responses). For example, the students
may be asked to identify a person or a
place from a description which they listen
to. They may also be asked to follow
directions for getting to a place (e.g. on a
map). Their comprehension will be
judged correct if they arrive at the
correct place.
Listening to an informal description or
commentary that related to a pictorial aid
(e.g. wall picture, slide, series of pictures
or slides. A film with a simplified
commentary may also be used for this
purpose. See 12.9.). The visual context
helps the listeners to understand, aids
retention and reduces tension. The
teacher
should
give
the
talk
spontaneously (referring only to outline
notes to ensure that there is a definite

(g)

Listening to longer sequences (e.g.

playlets, stories with a high proportion of
dialogue) that are composed for the most
part in language known to the students.
The material should be divided up into
sections so that the students have the
experience of following a long sequence
but without problems of retention.
Comprehension should be checked at the
end of each section (as for (f). overall
comprehension may also be checked.

(h) Directed listening to long sequences

(playlets, stories, informal talks) which
have not been divided up into sections as
in (g). The students should be given a
number of attention pointers beforehand
(e.g. questions or true/false statements)
so that they can concentrate on these
specific items (and are therefore not
concerned with overall retention of the
material).
(i)

Listening to long sequences as in (h) but

without attention pointers. The students
are thus required to select the important
information for themselves. Material
already used for (h) may be repeated for
this
purpose
at
a
later
date.
Comprehension
should
be
checked
afterwards by questioning or by making
true/false statements.

(j)

Listening to various types of material

(e.g. dialogues, playlets, and stories
short films may also be used) which is
not composed in language adapted to the
level of the students. The purpose of this
is to accustom the students to listening
without
full
understanding.
Global
understanding of the material may be
checked and also perhaps one or two
specific points. A general discussion may
also be help afterwards so that those
students who have misunderstood or not
fully understood the material may be
gently enlightened.

(k)

Listening to material which has a high

information content (i.e. which has been
written down but would normally be
listened to) such as news bulletins,
47

(l)

announcements (as at railway stations or

air terminals). Listening may be either
directed (as in (h) above) or nondirected.

(g)
material is

Listening to native speakers talking

informally on topics familiar and of
interest to the students. This should
preferably be done live. The best type of
comprehension check for this type of
activity is to let the students ask
questions or join in the discussion at a
certain point. Alternatively, a general
discussion may be held afterwards, as for
(j) above.

3.5 Dictation

(m) Listening to recordings (since native

speakers are not likely to be available on
a sufficiently large scale) and watching
films which contain varieties of the
spoken
language
practised
under
controlled conditions in (c) above. The
students should be given some indication
beforehand of specific features to listen
out for.
(n) Listening to discussions, talks (e.g. taken
from the radio) and plays (in modern
idiom) for global understanding. The
students may be asked to take notes on
some occasions, when listening to talks
and discussions.
(o)

Listening to songs. This activity may be

introduced at any stage of the course
provided that the songs are interesting to
the learners and do not contain too many
language difficulties. The students may
of course be encouraged to select the
songs themselves for inclusion in the
listening comprehension programme (for
many of them learning to understand
songs and also to sing them may be
one of the main purposes in learning the
language). Unlike many other forms of
listening comprehension practice, songs
can not only be repeated without risk of
boredom but they also encourage active
participation (although, to be able to join
in, the students will probably need a copy
of the words). This activity thus provides
a meaningful way of combining both
receptive and productive oral skills (see
also 8.5.1.).

The following time scale for the activities in

this section is suggested:
(a) (f)
48

2-4 minutes

(h) (o)

minutes

(e.g.

the

divided up)
5-10 minutes

Listening comprehension need not involve any

overt responses on the part of the students
(in fact it has been suggested that the teacher
should only check informally to see whether
the students have understood). Dictation, on
the other hand, does: it involves the ability
not only to understand a sequence of
sentences read aloud but also to reproduce it
in writing. It is a more difficult exercise than is
generally appreciated, even when the text is
made up (as it normally should be) of patterns
and vocabulary which the students are
familiar with both in their spoken and written
forms. Admittedly, in order to allow the
students time to write, the text is divided up
into smaller units (i.e. sense groups based on
sentence, clause and phrase boundaries),
although this only adds to the artificiality of
the exercise. The problem is, then, how can
we make it more purposeful?
In the first place, we might use dictation to
focus attention on specific problems of
pronunciation. For this purpose the teacher
may dictate not a passage but a number of
sentences that contain, for example, minimal
pair distinctions (e.g. Will you buy me some
pepper when you go to the shop?/Go to the
shop and buy me some paper). In this way
the students are required to listen carefully to
complete utterances and to write them down,
taking the differences (e.g. pepper/paper) into
account. Similarly, sentences for dictation
may provide practice in distinguishing
between homophones (bored/board, see/sea
etc) which the students listen to in context:
for example, He got bored in the end and he
got on board in the end. This is basically a
test of understanding rather than spelling,
although of course the students must also
know the correct orthographic form for each
word.
Secondly, if passages are used for dictation,
they should in general not only be short but
also to a large extent contain sentences that
do not have to be broken up into units that
are meaningless when heard separately. A
sentence such as the following, for example,
cannot be satisfactorily divided up into sense
groups: The inspector sat in his office,
studying the reports on the three people who
might have stolen the colonels collection of

rare coins. It is better therefore to present it

to the students in the form of much shorter
sentences, each of which will be meaningful to
them when they hear it. For example: The
inspector sat in his office. He was studying the
reports on three people. Any one of these
might have stolen the colonels collection of
rare coins. Although the last sentence is
perhaps still too long, it would be better to
repeat it two or three times rather than divide
it up.
An authentic setting may be provided by
presenting the dictation in the form of a letter
(including the address, since this is an item
which we are often required to write down in
real life). In this form the exercise becomes
less impersonal and the texts used for this
purpose
may
include
sentence
types
(questions, commands) which are less
commonly found in other types of passage. To
add another purpose to the activity, the
students may be asked to supply the
punctuation themselves (which is normally
dictated when the exercise is used as a test).
The discussion of this afterwards must, of
course, be conducted on a common-sense
basis.
Discussion
1. Learning to understand cannot be left to
change (3.1.). Explain in your own words
the difficulties the foreign learner is likely
to have in understanding what is being
said to him.
2. Do you agree with the suggestion that
students should sometimes be given
opportunities to listen without any check
being carried out to see whether they
have understood? Give reasons.
3. What kinds of listening comprehension
material could be taken from radio
programmes?
4. Do you agree
dictation given
experience as
learner), what
dictation?

with the assessment of

in 3.5? From your own
a teacher (or language
value have you found in

Exercises
1. Suggest
some
types
of
listening
comprehension material which would be
suitable for each of the following

categories of learner: (a) children; (b)

adolescents; (c) adults.
2. Choose a main lesson dialogue from any
suitable textbook and show how it might
be re-scripted for recording along the lines
suggested in 3.4.(c).
3. With reference to 3.4. (f), prepare a set of
notes which could be used as the basis of
a commentary on the wall picture in 12.6
4. Choose five songs (pop, folk, traditional)
which would be suitable for inclusion in a
listening comprehension programme.
4. The presentation stage
4.1 The presentation of new material
In order to build up their mastery of the
language the students must continually learn
new patterns and vocabulary, and one of the
teachers tasks, as noted in 1.2.1., is to
convey the meaning of these items. The
procedures used to do this must be:
(a) economical: Because understanding is
only part of the learning process and the
teacher must not devote a disproportionate
amount of time to this stage;
(b) effective: otherwise the students will not
understand what they are later required to
practise.
Since the new items will normally be found, in
combination with previously learnt material,
within the framework of a text (a dialogue or
prose passage), the teachers main concern
should be to exploit the linguistic context thus
provided to the best advantage, at the same
time making the context of situation (what is
happening? Who is speaking? Etc) more
meaningful and more memorable through
the use of appropriate aids.
4.1.1 The selection
language material

and

grading

of

Since the amount of language which the

students can be expected to absorb in any
one lesson (or series of lessons) is limited, the
number of new items incorporated in each
text needs to be restricted. As a rule, the
dialogue or passage will be constructed to
contextualise and focus attention on one or
perhaps two structural items, together with a
number of lexical items chosen for their
appropriateness to the situation. (Colloquial
expressions and idioms may also appear as
49

ungraded items in the text. The students are

expected to learn these incidentally.) An item
is normally a single use, for example, of a
tense of some other grammatical element;
other and more difficult uses are taught later,
and are then integrated with previously taught
ones. In this way the learning of the language
progresses in a kind of spiral (rather than in a
straight line) and these key items, selected for
their communicative value, taught intensively
and then repeated in subsequent lessons in
new and varied contexts, form the basis of the
learners gradually expanding competence in
the language.
4.2 The dialogue as an instrument for
teaching the spoken language
Since the main concern in the early stages is
normally to teach the spoken language, the
type of text best suited to this purpose is
unquestionably the dialogue. It presents the
language directly in the contexts in which it is
most commonly used, and permits the
learners to practise it in the same way, thus
establishing a firm link between language and
situation. Both key structures and many
features of the spoken language are easily
accommodated within its framework (see
4.2.1.). The dialogue also permits the
students to participate actively in the lesson,
which, from the point of view of motivation, is
extremely important.
The prose passage (narrative, descriptive etc),
on the other hand, has none of these
advantages, although it may be used to good
effect from time to time for the sake of variety
(and to provide practice in reading). The
language of such texts, however, is generally
less relevant to the immediate needs of the
students. At the same time, the passage does
not permit them to participate in the lesson as
they can with the dialogue, and the teacher
has to work harder to secure their active
involvement.
4.2.1
Criteria
for
evaluating
constructing) dialogues

(and

Although
the
dialogue
form
has
the
advantages noted above, it will be less
effective as a teaching device unless it is well
constructed. The criteria below are intended
to guide the teacher in evaluating the
dialogues
to
be
found
in
textbooks.
Unsatisfactory dialogues may be modified or
replaced with ones written by the teacher
himself.
50

(a) the language should be relevant. The key

items in the dialogue on which practice
centres should be those the students need for
communication. That is, they should enable
them to express such concepts as obligation,
approval and disapproval, agreement and
disagreement, likes and dislikes, intention,
advice, warnings, etc.
(b) the language should be appropriate. The
dialogue should incorporate those forms which
are typical of the spoken language. For
example, one would expect to find, among
other things, contracted forms (cant, wont
etc); short form answers (see 6.1.1.(d));
responses with phrases (where are you going?
To the cinema rather than: Im going to the
cinema); introductory phrases (By the way,
; Of course but ) and hesitation markers
(Well, Oh, Er, ). The inclusion of such
features goes a long way towards making a
dialogue sound like real speech (rather than a
piece of written language).
(c) The situations should be realistic and
relevant. The situations used in the dialogue
should portray real people behaving in a real
world, since the learners are not likely to be
convinced by remote or abstract situations.
Although it is impossible to predict either the
situations in which the learners will find
themselves or what they might be obliged to
say in these situations, the list below indicates
those most likely to be encountered and
therefore provides relevant contexts for
practising relevant language.
Travel
Accommodation
house,
camping site
Shopping
station
Services
pub;

agency, customs;
port, airport, station;
bus, tube, train, taxi
agency;
hotel, hostel, private
grocers, chemists etc;
post-office,
petrol
restaurant,

caf,

bar,

bank, hairdressers;
shoe
repairs,
dry
cleaning;
Problem situations

lost property office

doctor, dentist;
accident,

hospital;
asking the way
(outside/inside a
Building;
long/short distances).
Social
introductions;

more complete understanding from the

outset. Since, then, this is an area where
there is some disagreement, which is also
reflected in the way course materials are
constructed, various approaches to this
problem are set out and discussed below.

time, weather;
telephoning;
cinema,
theatre, concerts;
parties, dances
(d) the structural items should be limited. The
dialogue should concentrate on presenting one
or at the most two main structures. These
must be well exemplified in the dialogue, but
should not be repeated too often, otherwise
the language will begin to sound unnatural. )
(e) the lexical items should be restricted. The
dialogue is not a suitable vehicle for teaching
a great mass of vocabulary. Items included
should be appropriate to the situation and
should not distract from the learning of key
structural items.
(f) The dialogue should not be too long. While
it is not possible to lay down any rules, clearly
a dialogue that runs on too long is likely to be
very unwieldy for teaching purposes. It would
probably have to be divided up into sections
and some of its effectiveness would thus be
lost. An optimum length for a dialogue is
perhaps 8-10 exchanges (the number of
utterances in each exchange must also be
limited, otherwise the speakers begin to
deliver monologues).
(g) The dialogue must be interesting. The
students are more likely to absorb a dialogue
that has in it some excitement or humour or
suspense. It should also involve some activity,
so that it can be dramatised, not simply said
aloud.
4.3 Presenting the
approaches contrasted

dialogue:

some

Although the dialogue is an effective device

for contextualising new items of language,
especially if it is accompanied by a visual
sequence than illustrates each utterance or
exchange, it is unlikely that its entire meaning
will be clear to the students even after they
have listened to it several times. Much will
depend on which and how many items have
been included, and how well they have been
contextualised; but in any case, if they have
to listen to the dialogue without any previous
preparation for the new language, the
students are likely to get only a general
impression of the meaning at this stage. While
some teachers are satisfied with this on the
grounds that meaning is best apprehended in
terms of wholes, others regard it as wasteful
and would prefer their students to have a

(a) The teacher first sets the scene for the

dialogue, normally in the mother tongue, and
then presents it in conjunction with a visual
sequence (e.g. pictures, filmstrip) which
illustrates each utterance or exchange. The
direct association which is thus established
between the new items of language and the
situations in which they are used, combined
with their contextualisation within the
dialogue, is a powerful way of conveying
meaning. The teacher may still need to
combine this approach with the translation (or
explanation) of occasional items.
(b) the teacher systematically anticipates the
occurrence of new items, especially structural
ones, by teaching them in isolation from the
dialogue, although contextualised by means of
appropriate visual aids. That is, the meaning
is conveyed through actions or miming, or
through pictorial aids such as picture cards,
charts, the magnet board or slides. The
magnet board, for example, can be especially
effective in creating a series of situations
which will illustrate the meaning of an item
(see, for example, 5.3.1.). For an approach
along these lines a detailed teachers guide is
desirable and a good supply of visual aids
essential. In the hands of a skilful teacher,
ingenious in the improvisation of meaningful
and relevant situations which will hold the
attention of the class, such an approach can
be extremely effective and results in the
students being able to understand the entire
dialogue when they first hear it. In this case,
however, the dialogue serves mainly to
integrate previously learnt material, so it is
not strictly an instrument of presentation.
(c) The teacher selects one or two key items
from the dialogue and presents them rapidly
beforehand along the lines indicated in (b).
This means that the students are at least
roughly aware of the meaning of key items
before they hear the dialogue and are
therefore better able to understand its
meaning as a whole. Such an approach
represents a balanced compromise between
(a) and (b) and acknowledges difficulties
which the learners have when they hear new
material for the first time. The dialogue still
remains the main instrument of presentation.
51

(d) The teacher selects key items from the

dialogue and translates them before the
dialogue is presented. This limited use of
translation (an expedient rather than a
procedure) is a quick way of smoothing out
difficulties and of putting the students in a
relaxed and therefore receptive frame of
mind. This occasional use of translation as an
expedient should not be avoided for fear of
encouraging the habit of mental translation.
This, in any case, must be assumed to be
taking place to some extent during the early
stages of learning a foreign language,
whatever procedures are used, since the
learners will naturally try to relate the
unknown the new language to the known
their mother tongue. It is important,
however, that idiomatic equivalents, not word
for word translations should be given and the
habit of dependency should not be allowed to
develop.

translation. However, any attempt to illustrate

the meaning of new language through visual
aids must be evaluated from the viewpoint of
the learner: what may be clear to the teacher,
who already knows the language, may not be
so to the learner, who is being given his first
experience of this item of language. It is not
usually sufficient to give a single illustration of
an item: normally several of these, in varied
contexts, will be needed both to build up a
complete
understanding
and
to
avoid
confusion (see 12.7.).

(e) The teacher provides an idiomatic mother

tongue
equivalent
of
the
dialogue,
accompanied by pictorial aids, immediately
before he presents the dialogue in the foreign
language, so that the students have a
complete understanding of what it is about.
Although this sets the students completely at
their ease, such an approach places too great
a dependence on translation and does not
encourage the active association of the foreign
language with the situations in which it is
normally used.

Step 1 Set the scene for the dialogue (in the

students own language): introduce the
characters and describe the setting. To some
extent the teacher may use the stage
directions given in the dialogue, as in the
example below.

(f) The teacher interrupts the dialogue to

demonstrate, translate or explain the meaning
of any difficulties. This may be done, for
example, the second time the students listen
to the dialogue. If one of the procedures
outlined in (c) to (e) is not used, some such
approach is likely to be needed, since an
interested class may not be satisfied with a
presentation that gives them only a partial
understanding of new material. If the
procedure to be followed is not implicit in the
course materials, teachers are advised to
select the one best suited to the dialogue
being taught. Where, for example, the
dialogue contains a number of new items, and
failure to understand these would definitely
prevent the learners from understanding the
dialogue as a whole, it is advisable to
illustrate the meaning of such items
beforehand, using one of the techniques
indicated. In general, the apt use of visual
material helps to establish in the minds of the
learners
a
direct
association
between
language and situation, and therefore where
possible this approach is to be preferred to
52

4.3.1. Presenting the dialogue: a basic

approach
There is clearly no one correct approach to
presenting the dialogue in the classroom. The
procedure set out below may, however, be
safely followed on most occasions (with
modifications where necessary).

Sample dialogue
Tom sees a pretty girl sitting on the beach. He
goes up to her.
Tom:
here?
Ann:
Tom:
Ann:
camera
Tom:
pictures

Hello! Do you mind if I sit down

No, of course not.
Er, my names Tom.
Mines Ann. (She notices Toms
What a marvellous camera!
Yes, and it takes marvellous
too. Do you mind if I take one

of you?
Ann:
to.
Tom:

Well, all right, if you really want

Go and stand over there, then.

Ann goes and stands near the edge of the sea.

Ann:
Tom:
sea.
Ann:
Tom:
Ann:
Tom:

Here?
Yes, thats fine. Now look out to
Ok, dont move!
(after a minute): Have you
taken it yet?
Yes, of Oh, damn!
Whats wrong?
Do you mind if I take another?

I
Forgot to put a film in the

Do no insist on the utterances

reproduced exactly word for word.

being

camera!
Step 2 (Optional) Deal with any special
difficulties if this is felt to be really essential.
The sample dialogue, for example, presents
the pattern Do you mind if ? The students
can probably get the general meaning of this
from the context. A translation should not
therefore be necessary, but the teacher may
wish to give some examples of its use before
proceeding with the dialogue.
Step 3 let the students listen to the dialogue
without looking at the text in their books.
They may be asked to listen first without
seeing the accompanying visual material or
they may be allowed to look and listen at the
same time. They should hear the dialogue two
or three times.
Step 4 At this point let the students follow the
text in their books while they listen. This will
help the weaker member of the class (and
certainly those students who become tense
when they do not have access to a written
text.)
Step 5 Ask the students to repeat the dialogue
in chorus (see 5.1.1.). This is best done by
selecting meaningful units from the dialogue
rather than isolated utterances. For example:
Do you mind if I sit down? And response: No,
of course not. The class can be divided into
two groups for this purpose. At this stage they
should not be allowed to refer to their texts.
Step 6 Repeat the dialogue, cueing the
responses of first one speaker and then the
other. Read the other part yourself. For
example, the students (without looking at
their texts) take first the part of Ann in the
sample dialogue and when they have worked
through her lines, then take the part of Tom.
Prompt the students where necessary. If there
is time, individual responses may be allowed.
Step 7 Check comprehension by asking some
easy questions. For example, after Do you
mind if I sit down here? ask: What does Tom
want to do? Then use the pattern in classroom
situations: Do you mind if I (sit next to you? /
borrow your (book)? / hold your hand?).
Illustrate, explain or translate the meaning of
any items which the students have failed to
understand.
Step 8 Ask the students to reproduce the
whole dialogue in response to pictorial cues.

Step 9 Give the students practice in reading

aloud from the text.
Step 10 Divide the students into small groups
so that they can practise the dialogue on their
own and prepare to act it out.
4.4. Presenting the prose passage
It was noted in 4.2. that, in the early stages
of the course, the language used in narrative
and descriptive passages is in general less
likely to be relevant to the immediate needs
of the learners and, at the same time, their
active involvement in the lesson will be more
difficult to secure. This will not be the case, of
course, if the passage contains plenty of
dialogue (for example, to story of Tom and
Ann could be presented in this way. In this
case, the main difference between the
dialogue and the passage would lie in the use
of reporting structures such as he said, she
asked etc). As a rule, however, the prose text
is a continuous sequence of sentences which
have been carefully sequenced and linked
together to convey the writers total meaning.
It is meant to be complete in itself, and
normally it is meant to be read (and re-read if
necessary) silently rather than to be read
aloud and listened to.
However, give the teachers concern to teach
the spoken forms of the language in the early
stages of the course, procedures have to be
evolved whereby such passages (if they are a
regular feature of the textbook) can be
exploited for oral work. This is not too difficult
at the practice stage (see 6.2.). The main
difficulty lies in the actual presentation of such
passages in the classroom. It is much less
easy to lay down a basic approach, as for the
dialogue: a great deal depends on the actual
type of passage. A passage which tells a
story, for example, can be read aloud and
listened to, but one that is tightly organised
and contains a great deal of information is
perhaps best read silently by the students
first. If the passage is going to be read aloud,
there might be a case for presenting one or
two of the structural items in it beforehand
(because in listening to a passage of
continuous prose the students are not helped
by the kind of give and take to be found in a
dialogue, where one speaker reacts to
another); whereas if the students are to be
allowed to read it through silently under less
pressure than when they are obliged to follow
a continuous flow of speech they may be let
53

to guess the meaning of these items from the

context (which is part of the normal reading
process). Pictorial aids, combined with
appropriate miming of actions by the teacher,
will also play an important part in conveying
the
meaning
of
many
narrative
and
descriptive passages. The text below, for
example, which has been chosen to illustrate
possible procedures for presentation, refers to
a number of actions whose meaning could be
conveyed through mime alone.
Sample passage
By midday the sun was so strong that Jim
could not go any further. There were no trees
near the path, so he took shelter under a big
rock. After drinking the rest of his water, he
took off his shirt and rolled it up into a pillow.
Then he lay down on the ground and went to
sleep. He was so tired that he did not wake up
until the evening. He was just about to jump
up when he felt something moving near his
feet. He looked down. A long, black snake was
just about to crawl across his legs! Jim was so
afraid that he could not move. The snake
began to crawl across his legs. It hesitated for
a moment, then crawled on and vanished
under the rock. Jim jumped to his feet and
pausing only to pick up his shirt, ran of down
the path.
The main events of the passage could be
shown in about six pictures. Two of these are
given below:

affected. The following steps might then be

used to present the passage.
Step 1 Tell the story in an informal style,
using items from the passage, but not
deliberately using any of the structures. This
permits the students to listen with a greater
degree of ease than if they had to listen to the
text read formally to them. It also permits the
speaker to accompany the telling of the story
with appropriate mime (actions, gestures and
facial expressions). Appropriate tones of voice
(fear, relief) should also accompany the telling
of the story.
Note: This approach is suited to a passage
that has a strong story line. For more factual
passages the teacher might simply say a few
words by way of introduction to the topic.
Step 2 (Optional) Deal with any special
difficulties if this is felt to be really necessary.
This is probably not needed in the case of the
sample passage.
Step 3 Read the passage to the students, who
should listen with books closed.
Step 4 Let the students read the text silently.
Set an appropriate time limit (say 3-4
minutes) which will encourage them to read
with concentration but not too hastily. Stress
that they should try to guess the meaning of
any difficult items.
Step 5 read the passage again, this time
elucidating any difficulties. Involve the
students by asking them to give their ideas.
For example, someone may ask the meaning
of crawl, but even if the word is not known to
the students, they can guest he meaning from
the context. Comprehension of certain points
may be checked by questioning. For example:
Did Jim actually have a pillow with him? How
did he make one?

The main structural item in the passage,

which occurs three times, is clauses of result
(e.g. The sun was so strong that ). These
need not be presented beforehand because,
even if the students fail to understand their
precise meaning at the start, their overall
understanding of the passage will not be
54

Step 6 Repeat Step 3 or Step 4. Step 3 places

greater emphasis on listening comprehension
(the passage by now should contain a high
proportion of redundant elements). Step 4
stresses silent reading ability. The reading,
however, should now be done more rapidly
(say, in about half the time of the previous
one).
Step 7 Give the students selective practice in
reading aloud. For example, students may be
called upon to read a sentence after the
teacher. One or two students may be asked to
read a short sequence of two or three

sentences but not more (because generally

they are not interested in hearing one another
read aloud).

1
2
3

(d)
Rewrite if necessary
dialogues analysed above.

Discussion
1. With particular reference to 4.3. (a) and
(b), say whether you think the dialogue
should be used mainly to present new
language or to integrate language items
previously learnt. Give reasons for your
point of view. Say whether you think the
prose passage should be used in the same
way.
2. What reasons are given for preferring
dialogues to prose passages in the early
stage (of a general course). Do you agree
with these?
3. To what extent do you think translation
should be used at the presentation stage?
What are some possible advantages and
disadvantages?
4. To what extent is it more important to
give practice in silent reading than in
reading aloud when presenting the prose
passage?
5. Which of these points of views do you
agree with? Give reasons.
(a) Translation should be used where
necessary as a way of smoothing out the
difficulties of the learners at the
presentation stage.
(b) The learners should not be allowed to
see the text when the dialogue is being
first presented.
(c) Meaning is best apprehended in terms
of wholes rather than built up step by
step.
Exercises
1. With reference to the criteria given in
4.21.:
(a) Take each summary statement (e.g.
the language should be relevant) and
explain it in your own words.
(b) Evaluate the sample dialogue given in
4.3.1.
(c) Evaluate any three dialogues from a
textbook (or textbooks) of your own
choosing. In order to compare the
dialogues, you may find it helpful to set
your analysis out as follows:
Criteria
(a) (b)

Dialogue

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

any

of

the

2. With reference to the passage in 4.4. say

which of the following would be useful in
conveying meaning:
(a) pictorial aids;
(b) mime;
(c) exemplification
(e.g.
through
classroom example);
(d) explanation (including rules);
(e) translation
3. Draw (or specify the pictorial content of):
(a) a picture strip to accompany the
dialogue in 4.3.1.
(b) pictures for paragraphs 2 and 3 of the
passage in 4.4.
4. Any attempt to illustrate the meaning of
new language through visual aids must be
evaluated from the viewpoint of the
learner. Examine the visual material in any
textbook of your own choosing from this
point of view.
5. The Practice stage (1):
The use of drills
5.1 The needs of the learners
After new items have been presented in
meaningful contexts (Chapter 4) and some
imitation and repetition carried out (see
4.31.), the students must be given ample
opportunity to practise these items for
themselves. That is to say, they need:
(a) practice As far as possible they should be
given practice without reference to the text.
For example, their attention should not be
focused on questions in their textbook or
sentences that have to be completed or
converted.
(b) Oral practice As far as possible they
should be given practice without reference to
the text. For example, their attention should
not be focused on questions in their textbook
or sentences that have to be competed or
converted.
(c) Guided oral practice This is needed to
build up the confidence of the learners in
using the new items by ensuring that they

(g)
55

have something to say and can say it without

too much hesitation.
(d) Meaningful oral practice Because drills are
guided, this does not mean that they have to
be mechanical. The learners should at all
times understand and pay attention to what
they are required to say, and their utterances
should not only be correct (as far as possible:
mistakes are not dangerous but they slow up
the lesson at this stage) but appropriate to
the situation. Practice must therefore take
place in a context.
(e) Extensive oral practice The teachers task
is to see that the learners get sufficient
practice not, at this stage, to do the talking
himself.
Does the solution, especially with large
classes, lie partly or mainly in some form of
choral practice? This technique is discussed
first, since it is commonly used in many
classrooms.
5.1.1 Chorus work
As its name implies, this technique requires a
number of students to speak in unison. The
whole class may be asked to do this together,
if it is not too large, or else it may be divided
up from this purpose into a number of units,
each of which usually relates to the way the
students are already divided into rows. The
students in each choral unit must know when
to speak: the teacher may point or give a
brief instruction (e.g. Now Chorus 1 etc).
They must know what to say: this usually
involves repeating something after the
teacher or modifying sentences in a fixed way.
They must speak together: for this purpose
the teacher normally controls the rhythm of
the sentences by beating time. Clearly, for
success even at this superficial level, material
for repetition or modification must be carefully
selected: they sentences cannot be too long
or too complicated, or have a rhythm which
makes it difficult to say them in unison.
At the presentation stage, it is convenient to
get the students to repeat parts of the
dialogue in chorus. It gives them some
practice in speaking, if only through imitation,
and they often derive some comfort from
being allowed to speak in chorus before they
are asked to speak as individuals. Provided
the teacher moves among the students and
listens carefully, he can detect the grosser
errors. At the practice stage too, some
56

repetition, especially of model sentences, will

be required. But what other forms of practice
can be given through chorus work? The
answer seems to be drills: controlled practice
which permits the students to perform only in
a fixed way. Chorus work, then, seems to be a
natural associate of the mechanical drills
discussed in 5.2. if these are an effective way
of giving oral practice, it will be logical to use
choral techniques for doing this on an
extensive scale.
5.1.1.1 The ripple technique
The value of chorus work as a repetition
procedure is not being questioned. But can
the teacher really hear when the students
make mistakes? If up to ten students begin
speaking simultaneously, how can he hear
which ones are speaking correctly? An
alternative approach is to build up the chorus
gradually. The teacher asks one student to
speak: then with a circular movement of his
hand includes perhaps two more; and then
expands the chorus still further by bringing in
two or three more students. By building up
the chorus step by step, the teacher is better
able to listen to what is said on each occasion
the chorus is expanded, and thus detect
mistakes. And the students themselves are
kept more alert since they do not know at
what point they will be called upon to speak.
5.2 Mechanical drills
It may seem superfluous to describe drills as
mechanical. Surely that is what all drills are: a
form of linguistic discipline, requiring the
learners to perform correctly in the language
regardless of whether they understand what
they are saying? Certainly the students can
get extensive practice in this way, and
generally they can speak without too much
intervention on the part of the teacher. They
can produce almost effortlessly an endless
stream of correct sentences, and this must
seem attractive to the teacher with a large
number of students in his class. It is at least
one step forward from mere imitation, and
less discouraging than responses that are full
of mistakes.
And perhaps it would be wrong to assume that
the students gain nothing from a form of
practice that rules out all possibility of error.
It is possible that in this way they gain some
confidence and fluency at the level of
pronunciation. But it is extremely doubtful
whether mechanical procedures (such as the
substitution table) have any real learning

value: it is a common experience for students

to repeat dozens of sentences of a certain
type and yet be unable to produce the same
type of sentence for themselves. These
procedures seem to leave the learners where
they started off: at the level of repetition.

5.2.1. Substitution drills

The material to be practised is presented to

the students in written form (see 5.1.(b)).
Only correct sentences can be formed from
the table (provided the students follow the
convention whereby singulars are separated
from plurals. The table could in fact have been
made a little more challenging by mixing up
the singular and plural nouns in the subject
slot).

In the oral drill, the substitution of nouns in

the subject slot could be cued by picture
cards, as an alternative to actually providing
them with the words. The drill itself could also
be progressively varied as follows:

The same pattern could be practised through

an oral substitution drill, using call words as
prompts.

T:
S:

Teacher:
has been
Students:
has been
Teacher:
Students:
has been

The dictionary you asked for

lost.
BORROW
The dictionary you asked for

Both types of practice are completely

mechanical. Could anything be done to make
it less so? With the substitution table, the
students could be asked to perform operations
other than that of merely forming sentences
by ringing the changes. For example, they
could use the material in the table to form
exchanges along these lines:

S2:

T:
S:

T:
S:

stolen. Use LOSE

The dictionary you asked for

borrowed (etc).

S1:

The substitution table, as shown in the

example below, is the most condensed form of
this type of drill.

Where are the maps I asked

for?
Im afraid theyve been mislaid.

Or to form complex sentences along these

lines: Im afraid the dictionary you wanted
hasnt been borrowed. Its been stolen.

The photographs he wanted have

stolen. BORROW
The photographs he wanted have
borrowed.
ATLAS
The atlas he wanted has
borrowed.
ASK FOR.
The atlas he asked for has
borrowed
(etc).

been
been
been
been

Although in this way the learners have to pay

more attention to the form of what they are
saying, the drill still remains inherently
mechanical. The sentences are practised out
of context, and the students do not have to
pay any attention to meaning.
5.2.2
drills

Transformation

(or

Conversion)

Transformation drills are used to practise

changes, for example, from affirmative to
interrogative or negative; from one pronoun
form to another, and from active to passive
(etc). the teacher starts with a model
sentence:
T:
S:
T:
S:
T:

I get up early every morning.

Use TOM.
Tom gets up early every morning.
I have a bath.
He has a bath.
I have breakfast at about seven-thirty.
57

S:
he has breakfast at about seven-thirty
(etc).
Although the structural areas for which this
type of drill is commonly used undoubtedly
require a great deal of practice, it is unlikely
that the students will master them in this

There are, however, certain situations in real

life in which we do actually transform or
convert what people say: for example when
we report what someone has said. One way,
then, of
making such
practice more
meaningful is by getting the students to
report the utterances to one another. For
example:
T:
I, going to a party this evening.
S1 (to S2): Did you heart that?
Hes going to a party!
T:
Im going to buy a new shirt for the
party.
S2 (to S3): Just imagine! Hes going to buy a
new shirt!
At a later stage many aspects of indirect
speech can be realistically practised in this
way. Chain reporting (i.e. one student
speaking to another round or across the class)
adds to the interest. But drills of this kind
proceed of course at a much slower pace.
5.2.3 Conclusion
There are many more types of mechanical
drill. Indeed they are a common feature of
many textbooks. Question and answer
practice
is
often
carried
out
quite
mechanically, as, for example, when students
are required to reply to questions such as Did
you (stay at home last night? / watch TV? / go
to bed early? etc) using a fixed type of
response (e.g. Yes, I did). Conditioned
responses to questions are a degree worse
than the drills above (we normally ask
questions in order to find something out). But
if we left the drill open (Answer these
questions honestly!) the sequence would no
58

way. There are, clearly, alternative ways of

practising these structural items: for example,
by using picture strips. The sentences can
then
be
elicited
without
recourse
to
transformation.

longer be predictable. If the student replies

no to the first question, the rest of the drill
collapses. In this case we can no longer focus
his attention on a particular type of response,
as above. But it is much more likely that we
shall succeed in getting him to pay attention
to the meaning of what he is saying.
5.3 Meaningful practice
We have seen that mechanical drills are
capable of giving extensive practice (because
most of them can be done in chorus) and
rapid practice (because once the students
have grasped the form of the drill, their
responses can often be prompted by the
teacher saying just one word). But they are
not meaningful. It looks as if there is a conflict
between two of the needs listed in 5.1 and
perhaps this conflict cannot be fully resolved
so long as the class is taught as a single unit.
And since at this stage the teacher will often
wish to teach all the students together, let us
for the moment concentrate on making
practice more meaningful, regardless of
whether it goes at a slower pace. To some
extent we should also be less concerned about
the
students
always
making
correct
responses. The classroom is a more flexible
place than the language laboratory: drills can
be modified, alternative responses can be
called for and mistakes can be corrected.
5.3.1. Using visual aids
A set of flashcards like the one below is a
useful piece of equipment for the teacher, but
since items are depicted in isolation, not in
situations, they are really only visual prompts,
and normally only make practice a little more
memorable.

They can, however, be used to yield a limited

amount of meaningful practice. For example,
if the students are asked to make true
statements in connection with them: A (piano)
costs more than a (guitar). It is easier (to ride
a bike) than to (drive a car). In the area of
personal choice, the students can be asked to
express preferences: Id rather have (a motor
boat) than (a plane) etc. This kind of practice
is possible because the pictures are linked
(and arranged in a particular way. See 12.7).
Wall pictures or scenes created on the
magnetboard (or flannelgraph), on the other
hand, depict situations which are compete in
themselves and therefore provide a context
for meaningful practice. Moreover, they can
be used to provide guided practice at all levels
of language learning. For example, with
reference to the picture of the room on page
38, at an elementary level the teacher can
give the students practice (and at a fairly
rapid rate) in the pattern: Theres a
(bookcase)
(near)
the
(door).
Having
established the pattern, he needs only to
point to relevant items to elicit sentences of
the same type, or he can allow the students to
suggest their own. If he is using a
magnetboard (see 12.4.) he can, by removing
certain items (clock, TV set etc), give the
students meaningful practice in past tense
forms (for example: There was (a clock) on
the (bookcase). John was watching TV etc). At
a more advanced level, he can give practice in
patterns such as If + Past Perfect/would have
+ past participle. For example:

T: Mr Jones was standing outside the door of

the sitting room. He didnt go in. If he had
gone in, he would have seen his wife cleaning
the window.
(The students repeat the last sentence)
Teacher points to boy watching TV.
S1: if he had gone into the room, he would
have seen his son watching TV.
Teacher points to girl doing her homework.
S2: if he had gone into the room, he would
have seen his daughter doing her homework
(etc).
5.3.1.1 A special technique
One way of making practice even more
meaningful on certain occasions is not to show
the picture to the whole class. For example, if
the students have not seen the picture in
5.3.1. but have been given some idea of
what is represented they can ask real
questions (i.e. requests for information): for
example, Is there (a TV) (in the room)? Is
there (a clock) (on the bookcase)? Etc. Either
the teacher, or two or three students selected
for this purpose, answer the questions.
For this type of practice even quite small
pictures (e.g. cutouts from magazines,
photos) can be used. Nor need practice be
restricted to question forms. The students
can, for example, make assertions (e.g. I
think theres a bookcase on the TV set), which
those who can actually see the picture accept
or reject (Yes, youre quite right. There is or
Sorry, youre wrong. There isnt a clock on the
TV set).
5.3.2 Phasing out the cues
We have already seen (in 5.3.1.) how the
teacher can gradually leave the students free
to choose the content of their sentences
within a visual context once the pattern has
been established. The same procedure may be
used with verbal prompts. The drill below,
which practises the item would rather, shows
how the teacher can progressively reduce his
control over what the students say.
T:
S1:
T:
S2:
T:

Would you like to go to the cinema?

Use: ID RATHER PARK.
Id rather go to the park.
Would you like to play tennis this
afternoon?
FOOTBALL
Id rather play football.
WATCH-TV / LISTEN-RADIO
59

S3:
S4:
T:
S5:
S6:

(indicates two students to ask and

answer the question)
Would you like to watch TV?
Id rather listen to the radio.
PLAY CARDS (indicates two students)
Would you like to play cards?
Id rather have a sleep.

In practice, the teacher might wish to retain

control over the drill rather longer, but he can
quickly reach a point where the students both
ask and answer questions (in response to
callwords) and in due course allow the
students to make up their own questions and
answers, so that they say, within the limits of
the pattern, what they want to.

S3:
T:

The same situation could be used to practise

question tags. For example in this case the
students make assertions such as I suppose
youve bought some chairs, havent you? Or: I
imagine you havent bought any pictures yet,
have you?
Some situations can be set up with just a
single sentence, as in the drill below, which
practises Conditional sentences of the type If
+ Simple Present / modal verb.
T:

5.3.3 Open-ended responses

Many patterns can be practised by giving only
part of a sentence of a clause and letting the
students suggest various ways of completing
it. Although this type of practice is not
contextualised, the students are required to
give answers which are both correct and
appropriate. The drill below practises have as
an action verb.
T:
S1:
S2:
S3:
T:
S4:
S5:
S6:
T:
S7:
S8:
S9:

John was hungry, so he had a

sandwich.
Now suggest other possibilities.
, so perhaps he had some biscuits.
, so maybe he had some bread and
cheese.
, so he had some chocolate.
Mary was thirsty
, so she maybe had a cup of tea.
, so she perhaps had a glass of
water.
, so she had a glass of beer.
Tom was dirty,
, so he perhaps had a bath.
, so he maybe had a shower.
, so he had a wash (etc).

5.3.4 Imaginary situations

For this type of practice the teacher outlines a
situation. For example: Im furnishing it very
slowly. The students are then asked to form
questions of their own but using a particular
pattern (e.g. the Present Perfect with yet
would be suitable for the situation above).
T:
Now I want you to ask me questions.
For example: Have you bought a table yet?
S1:
Have you bought a bed yet?
T:
Yes, of course Ive bought a bed.
S2:
Have you bought a TV set yet?
T:
No, I havent.
60

Have you bought a fridge yet?

Yes, Ive just bought one.

S1:
S2:
S3:
(etc).

I hear that George wants to have a

meeting tomorrow. If he rings me, Ill
say Im busy. Now make your excuses.
If he asks me, Ill say Im not free.
If he rings me, Ill say Im not well.
If he asks me, Ill say its too soon

In the last drill of this kind which we shall look

at, the students responses are in fact
completely controlled. Its meaning for them
lies not so much in what they say but in how
they say it, and in the fact that they talk to
one another. In each case the situation
involves gossiping about another person.
T:

Listen. Mary eats a lot.

She eats too much!
I wish she wouldnt eat
so much!
(The students repeat these sentences until
they can say them with correct stress and
intonation.)
T:
JOHN
DRINK
(indicates
three
students to speak)
S1:
John drinks a lot.
S2:
He drinks too much!
S3:
I wish he wouldnt drink so much!
T:
ANN SMOKE (indicates three
students to speak)
S4:
Ann smokes a lot.
S5:
She smokes too much!
S6:
I wish she wouldnt smoke so much!
(etc).
5.3.5 Practising concepts
We noted in 4.2.1 (a) that the key items in
the dialogue should be especially those
needed to express such concepts as
obligation,
approval
an
disapproval,
agreement
and
disagreement,
advice,
warnings etc. Clearly a great deal of guided
practice will be needed in these areas to

reinforce what the students have been

exposed to through the dialogue. Such
practice could easily become mechanical: it
must therefore be combined with procedures
already indicated (e.g. the appropriate use of
visual aids and imaginary situations). In the
drill below, for example, contradictions are
practised with reference to the picture in
5.3.1.
T:
Johns reading a book.
S1:
No, he isnt. Hes watching television.
T:
Marys watching television.
S2:
No, she isnt. Shes doing her
homework.
T:
Their mothers sweeping the floor.
S3:
No, she isnt. Shes cleaning the
window(etc)
It should be noticed that the drill in fact
practises a single tense form (the Present
Continuous) but what makes it meaningful for
the students is the framework of assertion and
contradiction. There is also no reason why
such drills should not be further livened up by
teaching the students to use such expressions
as Dont be silly! Or Dont talk nonsense!
In the next drill, suggestions (with Lets , )
and objections (with But we havent got )
are practised.
T:
S1:
S2:
S3:
T:
S4:
S5:
S6:

Lets make some sandwiches.

But we havent got any butter!
But we havent got any cheese!
But we havent got any bread!
Lets make a salad, then.
But we havent got any lettuce!
but we havent got any tomatoes!
But we havent got any oil. (etc)

Again, the situation must be set up before the

drill is begun. A pictorial aid would also be
useful: for example, a chart showing different
foods, from which the students can select
appropriate items. An important thing to
notice about these drills is that they can be
done at different levels. For example, the
suggestion might take the form: Why dont we
? and the objection: Well, we cant can we?
Weve run out of
Various responses are possible in the drill
below, which practises intention (Im going to
) and objection (But you cant , can you?).
The drill also practises relationships between
verb and noun (e.g. drive car / ride bike
etc). The items referred to are those
illustrated in the picture set in 5.3.1.

T:
Im going to buy a car.
S1:
But you cant drive, can you?
T:
BIKE
S2:
Im going to buy a bike.
S3:
But you cant ride, can you?
(The teacher points to two more students,
who choose their own items.)
S4:
Im going to buy a piano.
S5:
But you cant play, can you? (etc).
Alternative responses, at different levels of
difficulty, would be: But do you know how to
play? / You do know how to play, dont you? /
I didnt know you knew how to play. / I didnt
know you could play.
5.3.6 Expressing relationships
An effective way of making the students think
about what they are saying in a drill is to
focus their attention on the meaning
relationships that exist between different
elements such as sentences, clauses, phrases
and words. In the drill below, for example, the
students are invited to draw inferences from
statements made by the teacher. (The drill
also practises must to express strong
probability.)
T:
S1:
T:
S2:
T:
S3:
T:
S4:

Ive been working all day.

You must be tired!
I havent eaten a thing since breakfast.
You must be hungry!
I havent had anything to drink either.
You must be thirsty!
And now Im going to a party.
You must be mad!

In the drill above, the students stage

consequences (except in the last example). In
the drill below, they suggest reasons.
T:
I just couldnt lift the box.
S1:
I suppose it was too heavy.
T:
I couldnt get anything to eat in the
cafe.
S2:
I suppose you were too late.
S3:
Perhaps you were too early.
T:
I feel very tired today.
S4:
Perhaps you didnt go to bed early
enough last night (etc.)
Perhaps the chief value of this type of practice
is that it can be used to develop the students
awareness
of
underlying
grammatical
relationships by getting them to perform such
operations as definition (Whats (an artist)?
Oh, hes a man who (paints pictures) and
paraphrase, as in the drill below.
61

T:
The box was so heavy I just couldnt
lift it.
S1:
Oh, it was too heavy for you to lift,
was it?
T:
The questions were so difficult I just
couldnt answer them.
S2:
Oh, they were too difficult for you to
answer, were they?
5.3.7 Implications
There is clearly more than one way of making
practice meaningful for the students. Although
these have been discussed under different
headings, it is possible to combine these
various procedures to great effect. For
example, concepts can and generally should
be practised in conjunction with pictorial
aids or one of the other procedures. But, in
the absence of context, it is very easy to
revert to mechanical practice. This is true of
the last example in 5.3.6. for, although it is
true to life in the sense that we often do
paraphrase (by way of comment) what
someone says to us, it is in fact little more
than a variant of the transformational type
drill discussed in 5.2.2. Clearly, the teacher
has to be constantly on the look out to ensure
the procedure he has chosen does in fact
make practice meaningful.
Discussion
1. It has been suggested that each form of
practice may have its part to play in the
learning process. What justification, if
any, can you see for practising drills of the
types illustrated in 5.2.1. and 5.2.2.? On
what occasions would you yourself wish to
use them in the classroom?

4. What are the essentials of good choral

practice? Would you use this technique? If
so, when.
Exercises
1. Examine any textbook of your own
choosing to see what use is made of drills
of the type illustrated in 5.2.1. and 5.2.2.
2. Find three pictures (e.g. cutouts from
magazines) for use along the lines
suggested in 5.3.1.1. Say what use you
would actually make of them.
3. Suggest other language items that could
be practised in conjunction with the four
pairs of picture prompts in 5.3.1.
4. Suggest other patterns (at different levels
of language attainment) which could be
practised in conjunction with the picture in
5.3.1.
5. Here is an example of an exclamatory
pattern that can be practised as part of an
exchange:
A: John got into the bath with his watch
on.
B: How silly of him!
Work out a drill containing at least five
more similar exchanges. Suggest suitable
picture prompts and callwords for use with
the drill.
6. With reference to section 5.3.2, select any
suitable pattern for practice in a drill as
illustrated in this section. Set out the drill
in such a way that the teacher can
gradually phase out the cues.

2. What are some of the devices that the

teacher can use in order to reduce his
control over the utterances the students
are asked to produce?

6. The practice stage (2):

The use of texts

3. Which of these points of view do you

agree with? Give reasons.
(a) If the students speak in chorus, the
teacher cannot hear if they make
mistakes.
(b) Oral practice should as far as possible
be carried out without the students
referring to a written text (e.g. questions
in their book).
(c) It is not important if students
sometimes make mistakes. These can be
corrected.

So far we have not considered the possibility

of using the text (the dialogue or prose
passage) as a vehicle for giving the students
guided oral practice. However, we are now in
a position to appreciate both its advantages
and disadvantages.

62

6.1 The text as context

Its strength lies in the fact that it offers a

ready-made context for practice. Indeed it
would be strange if the teacher did not make
further use of it after he had worked so hard
to make the students understand it at the
presentation stage. Its weakness lies in the

fact that it is not immediately accessible to

the learners as a context for practice like, for
example, a wall chart or an imaginary
situation. It is a sequence of sentences,
printed on a page or recorded on a tape,
which the students are likely to have only
partially in their memories. And, as we have
already noted, we cannot give effective oral
practice if the students have to keep referring
to their textbooks. Yet at the same time we
would obviously wish to avoid placing a strain
on their memories. For a student may well be
able to understand the text; he may be able
to use the language items in it and yet be
unable to recall a certain detail needed, for
example, to answer a question.
How then can we best help the students? In
the first place of course, if the dialogue or
passage is a long one, it can be divided up
into meaningful sections. Practice can then be
made to centre on one section at a time (after
the students have been given the chance to
refresh their memories e.g. by listening to the
tape or reading it through). Alternatively, we
may use visual material to remind the
students of certain parts of the text, thus
drawing on an association between language
and image which was established at the
presentation stage. By using expedients of
this kind, we can with care eliminate much of
the fumbling for responses which often results
from practice bases on a written text.
6.1.1 Question and answer as a practice
technique
Question and answer is one of the commonest
and perhaps most overworked ways of
giving language practice in the classroom. It is
also one of the most misused. Certain basic
points in connection with it therefore need to
be made clear.
(a)
It is only one of many ways of giving
practice (whether oral or written). We have
already seen some of the alternatives in the
preceding section (see, in particular, the drills
in 5.3.5. and 5.3.6. which do not involve the
use of question and answer). Visual aids too
enable us to elicit responses from the
students in whatever form we want. This
makes it possible to get closer to a more
natural use of language in the classroom: we
do not spend all our time in real life asking
and answering questions.
(b)
Questions must be as realistic as
possible. It has already been pointed out (in
5.3.1.1.) that questions are normally requests

for information of some kind: the person who

asks a question expects to be told something
he did not know. Many of the questions asked
in the classroom are so obvious that they
would be treated with scorn in real life (Is Mrs
Brown cleaning the window? Well, of course
she is! You can see for yourself, cant you?) or
else the students know that the teacher
knows the answer already.
(c)
Questions based on a text must not be
worded in language which is more difficult
than the text itself, or call for answers which
are more difficult. Thus with reference to the
sample dialogue (reproduced in 6.3.) a
question such as: Did Ann mind if Tom sat
down? Would probably be too difficult for the
students to answer at this level. It can,
however, be easily re-phrased: Tom wanted
to sit down. Did Ann mind? Similarly, the
answer to the question: Why did Ann remark:
What a marvellous camera! May seem obvious
to the teacher: Because it was probably a very
good one. The students, however, may have
established the connection of ideas if at all
only at the level of their mother tongue. On
the other hand, if the question is presented as
follows: Tom probably had a very good
camera. How do we know this? The students
are not only helped towards the answer but
are given a chance to use the language in the
text meaningfully: Because Ann said: What a
marvellous camera! Clearly, therefore, both
questions and possible answers must be
worked out beforehand.
(d) The different ways of both asking and
answering questions must be taken into
account. The principal ways of asking
questions are as follows:
(1) Wh-questions e.g. Who did Tom see
on the beach? Where did he sit down?
(2) Questions formed with an auxiliary
e.g. Did Tom see a girl on the beach?
Was she pretty?
(3) Tag questions e.g. Tom saw a girl on
the beach, didnt he? She was pretty,
wasnt she?
(4) Alternative type questions e.g. Was
the girl pretty or ugly?
The actual choice of question form is likely to
be influenced by a number of considerations.
For example, how much do we want to help
the students towards the answer at any given
point of practice? Type 1 appears to do this
less than the others, so the teacher will
probably decide to ask a number of easy
questions first to hep familiarise the students
63

with the content of the text (see 6.2.) before

asking questions of the first type. In this case
the question forms may be varied: e.g. Tom
saw a girl on the beach, didnt he? Was she
pretty or ugly? Did he sit down next to her?
Etc.
Another consideration is whether any type of
question seems to offer the possibility of more
meaningful practice (as noted in (b) above).
Type 1, for example, which requires the
students
to
provide
some
information
themselves from the text which is not
contained in the question, appears to be more
meaningful than the others. Also Type 3,
which
only
calls
for
agreement
or
disagreement, would appear to be more true
to life than Type 2.
But we must also take into account what kind
of answer we want to elicit from the students,
The first type of question may be answered
either with a sentence or a phase. For
example: Who did Tom see on the beach?
Answered in the same way. Was she pretty or
ugly? She was pretty or: Pretty. It should be
noticed that both types of answer are in fact
equally correct and therefore require
practice at some stage. It is a mistake on the
teachers part always to ask for a complete
answer: In fact, if the teacher is particularly
concerned to elicit, for example, He saw a girl
rather than a girl (perhaps because he wants
to get the students to use the paste tense of
see), he should probably use a different type
of prompt. For example, he may make a false
statement: Tom saw a man on the beach. This
will result in a contradiction: No, he didnt. He
saw a girl.
Types 2 and 3 can be answered in a variety of
ways:
Did Tom see
a girl on the
beach?
Tom saw a
girl on the
beach, didnt
he?

Yes.
Yes, he did.
He did, yes.
Yes, he saw a girl on the
beach.
Yes, he did see a girl on the
beach.
Yes, he did. He saw a girl
on the beach.

While in the early stages at any rate we

should probably wish the students to use the
short form answer with the auxiliary verb
(yes, he did), since this is an important
idiomatic feature of spoken English which they
need to master, the students should not be
led to believe that these questions can be
64

answered in only one way. The teacher

himself, for example, should make a point of
using a variety of answers when he is
answering questions.
This brings us to the final and obvious point:
the teacher himself should not ask all the
questions. The students must be given
practice in this too. We may identify the
following stages of practice:
(a)
(b)
(c)

the teacher asks a question and the

student answers it;
the teacher cues the question. The
student then asks the question and
the teacher answers it;
the teacher uses cues to get some
students to ask questions and others
to answer them.

We have seen (in 5.3.1. and 5.3.2.) how the

teacher can progressively reduce his control
over the drill and phase himself out by
means of appropriate cues. In the next
section, these procedures are applied to
guided oral practice based on a prose text.
6.2 Using the prose passage for oral
practice
In this section examples are given of two
ways of exploiting the prose passage. The
sample passage from 4.4. is reproduced below
for ease of reference.
Sample passage
By midday the sun was so strong that Jim
could not go any further. There were no trees
near the path, so he took shelter under a big
rock. After drinking the rest of his water, he
took off his shirt and rolled it up into a pillow.
Then he lay down on the ground and went to
sleep. He was so tired that he did not wake up
until the evening. He was just about to jump
up when he felt something moving near his
feet. He looked down. A long black snake was
just about to crawl across his legs! Jim was so
afraid that he could not move. The snake
began to crawl across his legs. It hesitated for
a moment, then crawled on and vanished
under the rock. Jim jumped to his feet and
pausing only to pick up his shirt, ran of down
the path.
(a) Question and answer practice The
following steps are illustrated in detail for the
first paragraph. The teacher might choose to
exploit one paragraph at a time in this way, or
take the passage as a whole but treat it in

less detail. Appropriate visual aids (pictures,

blackboard sketches however rough) are
desirable.
Step 1 Familiarise the students with the test
by asking questions (Type (2) (4) ). Provide
additional help where necessary (see worked
example below).
Step 2 Ask wh-type questions, still providing
additional help where necessary.
Step 3 Ask the same questions. Do not help
the students to the same extent towards the
answers.
Step 4 Use prompts to get the students to ask
you questions.
Step 5 Use prompts to get the students to ask
one another questions.
Step 6 Let the students ask and answer
questions without the help of prompts.
Sample question and answer practice
Step1 Teacher

Student

Was the weather hot

or could?

Hot.

So Jim took shelter

under a big rock,
didnt he?

Yes, he did.

Why? Werent there

any tress near the
path?

No, there werent.

I see. And did he have

any water with him?

Yes.

And did he drink it?

Yes, he did.

After that Jim wanted

to sleep. He had a
pillow with him, didnt
he?
Did he use his shirt as
a pillow, then?
Thats right. He rolled
it up into a pillow. And
then he went to sleep,
didnt he?
Jim was walking along
a path (in the
country). Why did he
stop?
Where did he take
shelter?

No, of course not!

Yes.

Because it was hot.

Under a big rock

Jim took shelter under a rock near the

Nearly right.

Other possible examples for the sample text:

Jim slept for some time/Jim felt something
moving/Jim
was
afraid/The
snake
hesitated/Jim picked something up.
(ii) The students are asked to say whether a
statement is true or false (within the context
of the passage). If it is false, they are asked
to give the correct version. This again
generally has to be built up with the help of
more than one student.
T:
I want you to tell me if this statement
is true of false. Listen. Jim stopped because it
was hot . (indicates student)
S1:
Its true.
T:
Do you agree,?
S2:
Yes. Its correct.
T:
All right. Here is the next statement.
Jim drank some of his water.
S3:
True.
T:
What do you think,?
S4:
No, its false. He drank all his water.
T:
What do you think,?
S5:
Yes.
T:
Why?
S6:
Because it says in the passage: he
drank the rest of his water.
T:
Quite right. (etc.)

Yes, he did.

Step2
S5:
path.
T:

S6:
Jim took shelter under a big rock near
the path.
This would be a sufficiently complete answer,
but there is no reason why it should not be
expanded still further to include reasons:
because it was hot or: because there were
no trees nearby. This may in turn lead to
revision of the first statement, so that the
final answer might run: Jim took shelter under
a big rock because there were no trees near
the path.

Other possible examples: Jim took off his

because he was hot/Jim slept for a
time/Jim woke up because the snake
crawling across his legs/Jim left his
behind.

shirt
long
was
shirt

(iii) the students are asked to continue a

statement: that is, say what happened next.
T:
Tell me what happened after this. Jim
took off his shirt. What did he do then?...
(indicates student)
S1:
he went to sleep.
T:
True, he went to sleep. But what did
he do before that?
S2:
He lay down.
S3:
He rolled his shirt up into a pillow.
65

T:
Quite right. Now, , repeat the
sentences.
S4:
Jim took off his shirt and rolled it up
into a pillow.
T:
Good. Now, can anyone go on?
S5:
He lay down and went to sleep.
T:
Now all the sentences,
S6:
Jim took off his shirt and rolled it up
into a pillow. He lay down and went to sleep.
T:
Use then to begin the second
sentence.
S7:
Jim took off his shirt and rolled it up
into a pillow. Then he lay down and went to
sleep. (etc.)
(iv) The students are asked to explain the
point of a given statement.
T:
Give me reasons for these statements.
Jim could not go any further. Why not?
S1:
Because he was tired.
T:
Yes, he was probably tired. Any other
reason?
S2:
yes, it was hot.
T:
Yes. But what time was it?
S3:
Midday. It was very hot.
T:
Do you agree, ?
S4:
Yes.
T:
Why? What does it say in the passage?
S5:
The sun was strong.
T:
Good. Can anyone remember the exact
words?
S6: Yes. The sun was so strong that Jim
(etc)
(v) the students are asked to say whether a
statement is important within the context of
the passage: that is, to evaluate its
importance.
T:
is this statement important? Does it
affect the story in any way? There were no
tees near the road (indicates student)
S1:
Yes, its important.
T:
What do you thing,?
S2:
I agree.
T:
Why?
S2:
Well, because there were no trees, Jim
took shelter under a big rock.
T:
Quite right. Why was that important?
S3:
Well, there was a snake under the rock
(etc.)
This last exercise is a more difficult one than
the preceding ones, and should normally be
done after the others, by which time the
students should be very familiar with the text.
6.3 Using the dialogue for oral practice
66

It has already been pointed out that in the

early stages the language used in the dialogue
is usually more relevant to the needs of the
learners. Its immediate usability was indicated
at the presentation stage, where it was
suggested that the students should be asked
to repeat the dialogue, reproduce it and finally
dramatise it (see 4.3.1. Steps 6, 8 and 10).
All of these forms of practice, when applied to
the dialogue, provide meaningful activities.
Because the language of the dialogue can be
used directly by the students, we shall not be
concerned with the kind of oral practice
illustrated in the previous section (although
many of these operations can be performed
on the dialogue too). Rather, we shall look for
ways in which we can get the students to
practise selected items from the dialogue on a
more authentic communicative basis. First,
however, let us see what useful items of
language can be extracted from the sample
dialogue, which is reproduced below.
Sample dialogue
Tom: Hello! Do you mind if I sit down here?
Ann: No, of course not.
Tom: Er, my names Tom.
Ann: Mines Ann. (She notices Toms
camera) What a marvellous camera!
Tom: Yes, and it takes marvellous pictures
too Do you mind if I take one of you?
Ann: Well, all right, if you really want to.
Tom: Go and stand over there, then.
Ann goes and stands by the edge of
the sea.
Ann: Here?
Tom: Yes, thats fine. Know look out to sea.
OK, dont move!
Ann (after a minute): Have you taken it yet?
Tom: Yes, of Oh, damn!
Ann: Whats wrong?
Tom: do you mind if I take another? I forgot
to put a film in the camera!
Useful
items,
together
with
their
communicative functions are set out below:
Structural item
(a) Do you mind if?
No, of course not
Well, all right, if you
Really want to
(b) My names Tom
Mines Ann
(c) What a marvellous camera!
(d) Oh, damn!
Whats wrong?
I forgot to

Function
Asking for permission
Granting permission
Granting permission
(but without enthusiasm)
Self-introductions
Admiration
Annoyance
Enquiry
Explanation

In devising guided practice for these items we

shall need to:
(i)
take into account their relative
importance (a), for example, was the main
item around which the dialogue was
constructed. More attention will therefore
need to be paid to it. (b), on the other hand,
although not unimportant, is relatively
elementary and the students are probably
already familiar with it.
(ii) find ways of expanding and extending the
items, so that the students learn and practice
not only these pieces of language but also
other associated items. (This is why the
analysis in terms of function is valuable.) for
example, with (a) we should probably want to
keep to request form unchanged (although at
some stage of the practice we may wish to
vary it with May I?), but extend the range of
responses to include, for example: Not in the
least/Go right ahead/Why should I? and
refusals: Well, yes, I do actually/Id much
rather you didnt. For (c) it would probably be
sufficient if we kept the pattern constant, but
introduced other adjectives to express both
admiration: super/fabulous and the converse:
rotten/ awful. Useful variations are also
possible for (d): Brother!/Hell!/Damn! As
expressions
of
annoyance
and
Whats
up?/Whats
the
matter?
as
interested
enquiries.
Clearly we must be careful not to overload the
students at this stage by introducing too many
variations
(but
they
can
be
given
opportunities to hear the teacher use them.
See
the
practice
scheme
below).
Nevertheless, we must be on the look-out for
ways of extending the students command of
the language (both productive and receptive)
in this way, since we cannot expect all the
items to turn up dutifully in the dialogue. At
best, these provide us with a framework for
expanding their competence in the language.
(iii) devise appropriate contexts for practising
these items systematically. Stock classroom
situations such as Do you mind if I borrow
your 8pen)/share your book? etc, may provide
us with a starting point but there is nothing
memorable about them. In particular, we
must see what use can be made of pictorial
aids and imaginary situations. Both these

techniques can be used to involve the

students in guided role-playing (an activity
which will be further developed at the
production stage. See 7.3.2 and 8.6.).
The following scheme has been worked out in
detail for the main structural item Do you
mind if I? together with the responses. Both
(c) and (d) could be practised along similar
lines. Introductions (i.e. (b)), given their
interpersonal function, could be practised
briskly round the class and left at that.
Step 1
Concrete classroom situation
(a) The teacher makes requests: do you mind
if I (borrow your watch/borrow your pen/have
a look at that ring youre wearing/open the
window for a while/hold your hand?)(working
from a prepared list) and the students make
appropriate responses within an agreed range.
For example: No, of course not (= willing
agreement); Well, all right, if you really want
to (= reluctant agreement) and Id rather you
didnt (= refusal). Thus, even at this stage,
the students are allowed some measure of
choice.
(b) The students make requests (to a large
extent those from (a) may be repeated) and
the teacher makes appropriate responses. At
this stage he may extend the range of
responses to include, for example: Sure, go
right ahead/Why should I?/No, I dont mind in
the least/Well, if you must/Yes, I do mind etc.
In this way the students built up their
understanding of the alternative response
forms.
(c) Some students are chosen to make
request and other to respond to them. They
should be given a short time to think of these
beforehand. The teacher may help by
outlining imaginary situation. For example:
Your friend has a new and powerful motor
bike. Make an appropriate request. e.g. do
you mind if I have a look at it/have a ride
on it/try it out/just sit on your bike? Etc.
Step 2 Controlled role-playing
The context for this is provided by a set of 4-6
pictures as in the example below (see 7.1.2.
for further discussion of these).

67

An agreed-on exchange can then be used with

each picture in turn. For example:
A:
I dont want to play tennis. Do you
mind if we go swimming instead?
B:
Well, all right, if you really want to.
Notice that the pattern has been slightly
modified (/ has been changed to we) It may
be further modified to practise:
A: Do you mind if we dont play tennis this
afternoon?
B:
of course I dont.
Appropriate responses should then be agreed
on with the class. These may differ slightly
from Step 1 (for example, Go right ahead
cannot be used with these situations).
(a) The teacher plays the part of the first
speaker (=A), referring to the pictures either
in order or at random, and selected students
make responses.
(b) The students take it in turns to play the
part of A and the teacher makes appropriate
responses (using perhaps a greater variety as
in (b) of Step 1). The pictures should be taken
in order.
(c) The students are divided into pair (see
7.1.1.) to practise these exchanges on their
own.
Step 3 Free choice role-playing
At this stage the students practise request
forms within the context of a picture, like the
one below, which permits them to choose the
content of their utterances.
68

TO START YOU TALKING

PREFACE
On aims and Method
Aims
This book is designed to develop fluency in
speech. It is not a course book but each unit
presents three dialogues with drills designed
to practise the pronunciation and structural
items frequent in everyday speech. The units
are based on topics which often arise in
sustained talking.
The first aim of this book is to start students
talking along guided lines on subjects of
general interest, either amongst themselves,
or in a more formal classroom situation. The
difficulty
of
conducting
a
satisfactory
conversation class with intermediate or
advanced students has been felt by most
teachers experienced in this field. The reason
appears to be twofold: finding a suitable
subject for conversation, and devising an
effective means of conducting the lesson. Dull
subjects invariably fail to elicit from the class
much verbal response and the teacher finds it
hard
to
motivate
the
students
into
participation. Conversely, a good subject can
lead to an excessive response which the
teacher is not able to control. A free exchange
of ideas and a discussion may ensue but the
primary aim of the lesson, which should be to
teach the students to express themselves
correctly in spoken English, may be totally
ignored. Clearly, the choice of a suitable
subject for oral practice in the classroom is
imperative. Use has been made in this book of
the topics listed in the regulations for the
Cambridge Lower Certificate Conversation
test. This does not imply, however, that the
book is limited to students preparing for this
examination.
It
is
intended
for
any
intermediate or advanced learner of English in
need of spoken English practice. In general,
the book is designed to give aural-oral
practice in spoken English the approach
which it is hoped teachers and students will
employ when using the units.
A second aim is to provide the student with
information about these topics, with particular
reference to Britain. The British background
has been chosen since it provides an
opportunity for students from different
countries to make comparisons with their own
institutions. Much of this background is
provided through illustrations as well as the
topics of the dialogues themselves. The

information contained in the dialogues should

be regarded as a stepping stone to further
discussion on the subject, whether in more
genera terms or in relation to the students
own country. The language used in the
dialogues has been graded to suit this level
with an emphasis on items frequent in
everyday speech.
A third aim is to give listening and speaking
practice in English structure and phonology.
Each dialogue is followed by a set of drills
designed
to
practise
some
of
the
pronunciation and structural items found in
the dialogue.
An attempt has been made to extend
information about the topic by using in these
drills items that relate to the subject. In this
way, the drills give the student oral practice in
basic English structures, help him with the
basic sounds and tunes of English, and extend
the information given in the dialogue on a
given subject. These strictly controlled oral
drills are frequently followed by a free
response stage which enables the learner to
practise the language items in a wider
context.
A fourth aim is to encourage the learner to
express his views on the more controversial
aspects of the subject. For this purpose a
section entitled A Topic for Discussion has
been included at the end of each dialogue.
Each dialogue contains a final section entitled
Written work to give the student an
opportunity to express himself in writing. An
effort has been made to render these sections
an
exercise
in
speech-based
writing.
Students are not expected to produce literary
prose in their replies. But rather straight
forward everyday speech in writing.
Method
This book is intended to give practice in
spoken English with attention paid to reading
and writing only in so far as these serve to
consolidate the oral practice provided. It is
therefore an aural-oral approach that is called
for in the classroom, while students working
alone should bear in mind that it is oral work
which procedures the best results.
A list of suggestions on how to use the various
parts of these units has been drawn up to
provide information to the student and a guide
for the teacher. Both are of course free and
69

indeed encouraged to experiment with

different techniques within the general
suggestions which follow.

(i) The teacher asks the students to listen

carefully while he reads the model structure/s
at least twice in a loud, clear voice.

The dialogues

(ii) He then reads the given examples of the

drill. These usually consist of making modellike sentences with certain cues. There should
be a clear demonstration by the teacher of
what the students are expected to do during
the active phase of the drill. At this stage the
students listen but do not speak.

(i) Some preliminary thought and discussion

can be generated by using the illustrations.
The purpose of these is to arouse interest and
to bring into action language which is
associated with the topic to be introduced.
(ii) Ideally, each dialogue should be listened
to twice with the book shut. The first reading
can be at normal conversational speed, the
second at below-normal speed. The listening
stage is a fundamental part of the procedure,
because only be becoming acoustically aware
of the sounds and tunes of English can the
learner obtain an adequate grasp of the
language. To help those students working
individually who require a more detailed guide
to pronunciation and intonation, a tape
recording featuring the dialogues and drills is
available.
(iii) The questions which appear at the end of
each dialogue are to be used for testing
comprehension after the reading aloud. The
numerals in the dialogues relate to the
Listening comprehension questions which
follow.
(iv) When the listening and speaking stage
have been completed, the dialogue should be
read silently.
(v) Finally, the dialogue should be read aloud
with particular attention paid to stress and
intonation.
The drills
These are for the most part structural or
phonological drills. The language items chosen
for drilling are derived from the preceding
dialogue, and structural items have been
selected for their frequency of usage in
everyday English.
Detailed instructions on how to use the drills
are given throughout the book. These rubrics
instruct the student on how to use the drills
when he is revising, working with fellow
students, or working on his own. The drills
should be done orally and were originally
designed for class use. It is hoped that
teachers will present the structural drills in
class-with books shut-in roughly this way:
70

(iii) The teacher then invites individual

students, or groups of students, or the whole
class in chorus, the respond to the cues given
by the teacher and to procede in the way he
has exemplified.
(iv) Reinforcement i.e., repetition of the
correct response by the teacher and final
repetition by the student is very important if
fluency of utterance is to be achieved.
As with the dialogues, the teacher may vary
his approach according to his own needs, and
is not expected to adopt the exact wording
given in the instructions. Once introduced
and explained by the teacher, a drill item can
be repeated by individual students until
fluency in utterance has been reached.
Students working in groups should avoid
constant reference to the page and will find
that by providing instructions and cues in
turn, the procedure outlined above can largely
be adopted. Those who are working alone can
use a card to cover up either answers or cuewords when these are not to be used, and
thus, by providing question and/or response
orally themselves, con practise each drill in
full. If more guidance is required, the drills
may be worked with the assistance of the prerecorded tape.
Topics for discussions
In general, each of these passages presents a
controversial topic related to the dialogue
preceding it. The aim is to give the student an
opportunity to apply the language learnt to a
new situation. The emphasis here should be
on free discussion rather than on linguistic
detail, and no attempt has been made to
grade the language.
A number of the passage take the form of
imaginary letters to The Times, and the
authors are of course ficticious.

Written work
The exercises in these sections serve
sometimes to consolidate and sometimes to
expand in writing the language which has
been drilled orally. The short passages and
dialogues required as answers will provide a
useful basis for further oral practice and
discussion. These exercises are intended to
encourage answers expressed in colloquial
English, with its abbreviated forms and
everyday expressions.
Order of presentation
Although the units may be used in any order,
it should be noted that each dialogue and its
component exercises should be completed
before passing on to the next. Each of the
thirty dialogues and the related exercises is
designed to present enough material for at
least on hours fluency practice.
Stress and Intonation Marks
Many of the drills require a distinction to be
made between falling and rising tunes. Where
this occurs they have been indicated by
superior marks before the last stressed
syllable in the sentence. For example:Falling tune: The school leaving age will
raised
to sixteen, wont it?
Rising tune: Is the Eleven Plus exam still com
pulsory?
These marks indicate where the tone should
change and the direction the voice should take
and continue to take.
Pitch, and tones other than those referred to
above, have been ignored for the sake of
extreme simplification. It is hoped, however,
that students, especially those working on
their own, will find these marks helpful.
Vertical stress marks indicate stress with
neutral tone only.
For example:- Ingredients
Traditional
Particularly
For a thorough practice in intonation patterns
students should consult, English Intonation
Practice, by Roger Kingdon (Longmans Green
& Co. Ltd., 1965).
I am very grateful for the patience with which
Derek Lawford read through the dialogues and
drills; for the invaluable research of my

students who sat for the Royal Society of Arts

Certificate in the Teaching of English as a
Foreign or Second Language in June 1969;
and especially for T.S. Creeds and David
Leechs constant encouragement and help.
J.F. de Freitas
UNIT ONE:
Talking about education
Dialogue 1: Education in England
John is talking to Martin about education in
England. John is English, Martin comes from
overseas.
John:
And you know of course that in
Britain all children have to go to school from
the age of five to fifteen (i) (ii). Its the law.
Martin: Yes. I believe the school-leaving age
will be raised to sixteen very soon, wont it?
John:
Well, we hope it will. But its all
a matter of finance. You see, education here is
not only compulsory but free for everyone. It
costs the government millions of pounds a
year to educate the young.
Martin: Do all parents send their children to
State schools?
John:
Nearly all of them do, yes. If
youre very well off you may prefer to send
your children to an independent school, but
the fees are high and not many parents can
afford them (iii). Besides, most State schools
are very good indeed.
Listening Comprehension
(i) At what age does a child have to go to
school?
(ii) Whats the school-leaving age today?
(iii) Why do you think most parents send their
children to State schools?
Drill 1: Verb Questions with a Rising Tune
(I)
(a) The following is a model of a verb question
with a rising tune ():
In Britain, do all children have to go to school
from the age of five to fitteen?
Use the same tune and ask someone whether
in Britain all children have to:
1. be educated at home.
(No, they dont.)
2. go to school from the age
of five to ten only.
(No, they dont.)
3. go to school from the age
of four to sixteen.
(No, they dont.)
4. go to school from the age
of five to fifteen.
(Yes,
they do.)
71

And what about in your country? Begin:

In my country .

to help you, but you should do these again

yourself for practice.

(b) Here is another model of a verb question

with a rising tune:
Do nearly all British parents send their
children to State schools?

Cue-worlds
1. Well of/prefer
If youre well off
you may prefer to send your children to
an independent
school.

Use the same tune and ask someone whether:

1. only a few British parents send their
children to State schools.
(No, they
dont.)

2. rich/wish
If youre rich
you may wish to send your children to
an independent
school.

2. all British parents send their children to

State schools.
(No, they
dont.)

3. traditional/decide If youre traditional

you may decide to send your children
to
independent school.

3. few British parents send their children to

State schools.
(No, they
dont.)
4. Nearly all British parents
children to State schools.
they do.)

send their
(Yes,

an

Now continue in the same way.

4. old-fashioned/want
5. Royalty/have
6. snobbish/choose
7. ambitious/like
Drill 3: Tag Questions with a Falling Tune

And what about in your country? Begin:

In my country..
(c) And here is a third model of a verb
question with a rising tune:
Are the fees high at independent
schools?
Use the same tune and ask someone whether
the fees are:
1. low at independent schools.
(No, they arent.)
2. very low at independent schools.
(No, they
arent.)
3. quite low at independent schools.
(No, they
arent.)
4. High at independent schools.
(Yes,
they are.)
And what about in your country? Begin:
In my country ..

Here is a model question with a falling tune

():
The school-leaving age will be raised
to sixteen, wont it?
When said with a falling tune sentences like
the above are not real questions but ask for
your agreement.
Repeat the following statements and add a tag
with a falling tune (). The fist three have
been completed to help you but you should do
these again yourself for practice.
1. The school-leaving age will be raised to
sixteen.
The school-leaving age will be raised to
sixteen, wont it?
2. Ill have to stay at school till Im sixteen.
Ill have to stay at school till Im sixteen,
wont I?
3. Youll have to stay at school till youre
sixteen.
Youll have to stay at school till youre sixteen,
wont you?

Drill 2: INF YOURE .. YOU MAY ..

The following is a model sentence:
If youre well off you may prefer to
send your children to an independent school.
Now make sentences like the above model
and use the cue-words given in the list below.
The first three answers have been given in full
72

Now continue in the same way.

4. Hell have to stay at school till hes sixteen.
5. Shell have to stay at school till shes
sixteen.
6. Well have to stay at school till were
sixteen.
7. Youll all have to stay at school till youre
sixteen.

8. Theyll have to stay at school till theyre

sixteen.
9. Ill have to practise if I want to learn
English.
10. Youll have to practise if you want to learn
English.
11. Hell have to practise if he wants to learn
English.
12. Shell have to practise if she wants to
learn English.
13. Well have to practise if we want to learn
English.
14. Youll have to practise if you want to learn
English.
15. Theyll have to practise if they want to
learn English.
16. Itll be hard work.

no child
every child
not every child
all children
not all children
some children

She had pleaded not guilty to the charge of

neglect on the grounds that she was herself a
qualified teacher capable of education her own
children up to the standard required by the
local authority. The charge was dismissed and
Mrs. Cartwright is to be allowed to keep her
three children at home.
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) The Court was wrong to dismiss the
case.
(ii) Mrs Cartwright was a selfish
mother.
(iii)
School-life
is
essential
to
education.
(iv) School education is quite useless.
(v) Parents are the worlds worst
teachers.

3
have

the law
the custom
not the law
not the
custom

A. Dyou have to pay school fees?

B. Education is (4) for (5)
free
partially free
4

everyone
some
no one
5

everyone
anyone

not free

A Topic for Discussion

Mother of Three Wins Case
Mrs Joan Cartwright of 36, Perryman Lane,
Borehamwood, Herts., a window and mother
of three, aged ten, eight and six respectively,
has won a case against the L.E.A. who had
prosecuted her for failure to place her children
at school.

has

A. Nearly all children go to State schools in

England.
B. In my country (6) children go to (7)

some
most
all
no

state schools
private schools
religious schools
special schools

When you have completed the dialogue, read

it a few times for spoken English practice.
II.
Here is a summary of what Martin told his
friend John about education in his country.
Read it carefully and then write the
conversation as if you had overheard it.
In Martins country only primary education is
free and compulsory. Secondary education is
optional and parents have to pay fees. The
school leaving age may be raised to twelve in
the near future. The State schools are good
and the fees are not very high. Rich parents
send their children either to state schools or
to expensive private boarding-schools.

Written Work
Dialogue 2: Primary Schooling in England
I. Dialogue Building
The following dialogue is compete. Complete
it, from your own point of view, choosing your
words from the tables below.
A. In Britain every child has to go to school
from the age of five to fifteen. Its the law.
What about in your country?
B. In my country (a) (2) to go to school
from the age of to its (3)

John is talking to Martin about his primary

schooling.
Martin: Did you go to a State primary school?
John: Yes, I did. I went to a nursery school
first, at the age of four (i), but this was purely
voluntary. There was a good kindergarten in
our neighbourhood so my parents decided to
send me there for a year.
73

Martin: Can you still remember it?

John: Yes, I have faint, but very pleasant
memories if it (ii). It was a delightful place,
full of fun and games. As in most nursery
schools, work if you can call it that
consisted of story-telling, drawing, singing
and dancing.
Martin: You probably dont remember but you
must have missed It when you left you
know, when you went to the Infants School at
the age of five.
John: I suppose I must have, but you know,
right up to the age of seven school life was
very pleasant (iii). It was only later in the
Junior School that we began to have more
formal lessons and even worry about exams.
Martin: Really? Did you have to do exams at
that age?
John: Yes, we used to the. We had to take
an exam at the age of eleven called the
Eleven Plus to see what kind of secondary
school we would get into. But this exam is
slowly disappearing nowadays.

Do children have to work hard in the

nursery school?

Listening comprehension

Use the same tune and ask

the Eleven Plus exam is:
1. Still compulsory.
2. slowly disappearing.
is.)
3. rather unpopular.
4. disliked by most parents.

(i) At what age did John first go to school?

(ii) How do we know he liked it?
(iii) Did he have to do exams in the Infants
School?
Drill 1: Verb Questions with a Rising Tune
(II)
(a) The following is a model of a verb question
with a rising tune ():
In Britain, do all children go to
nursery school?
Use the tune and ask someone whether in
Britain:
1. all children go to nursery school.
(No, they
dont.)
2. most children go to nursery school.
(No, they
dont.)
3. children have to go to nursery school.
(No, they
dont.)
4. some children go to nursery school.
(Yes,
they do.)
And what about in your country? Begin:
In my country ..
(b) The following is another model of a verb
question with a rising tune:
74

Use the same tune and ask someone whether

children:
1. have to work hard in the nursery school.
(No, they dont.)
2. have to do exams in the nursery school.
(No, they dont.)
3. mostly play in the nursery school.
(Yes, they do.)
4. learn to sign and dance in the nursery
school.
(Yes, they do.)
And what about in your country? Begin:
In my country ..
(c) Here is a third model of a verb question
with a rising tune:
Is the Eleven Plus exam still
compulsory?
someone whether
(No, it isnt.)
(Yes,

it

(Yes, it is.)
(Yes, it is.)

And what about in your country? Begin:

In my country ..
Drill
2:
MUST
HAVE
+
(Conclusion about the Past)

Participle

The following is a model statement and

conclusion:
A. I was always first in class when I was at
school.
B. You must have been very clever!
Now make conclusions like the model (B)
about the following statements. Use most
have with the cue-words provided. The correct
answers to the first three have been given in
order to help you, but you should do these
again yourself for practice.
Statement
Conclusion
1. I was always first in class when
I was at school.
[cue-words: been very clever]
You must have/been
very clever!
2. They sent all their children to
private schools.
[cue-words: been very rich]

They must have/been

very rich!
3. My brother won a scholarship
to Eton.
[cue-words: been very hard]
He must have/worked
very hard!

And now you answer the same questions.

1. Did you go to a State primary school?
(Yes, I did.)
OR
(No, I didnt.)
(continue as before)
A Topic for Discussion

Now continue in the same way.

4. He failed all his exams.
[cue-words: been very unlucky]
5. She passed all her exams.
[cue-words: worked very hard]
6. I had many friends at school.
[cue-words: been very popular]
7. I was very good at maths.
[cue-words: liked it]
8. I was excellent at games.
[cue-words: liked them]
9. I spent a year in France as a child.
[cue-words: learned French well]
10. I was very tired yesterday.
[cue-words: worked too hard]
Expansion
Make your own statements about the past and
ask someone to make conclusions about the.
Like this:
1.
A. I had dinner at the London
Hilton last night.
B. You must have spent a lot of money!
2. A. I went for a long walk in the rain this
morning.
B. You must have got very wet!
Drill 3: Verb Questions with a Rising Tune
(III)
Here are some examples from the dialogue:
(a)
Did you go to a State primary school?
(b)
Can you still remember it?
(c)
Did you have to do exams at that
age?
Use the same rising tune and ask someone
whether:
1. he went to a State primary school.
2. he went to a nursery school.
3. he had to do exams, when he was a child.
4. he enjoyed his early school days.
5. he worked very hard in the primary
school.
6. he did his Eleven Plus Examination.
7. he passed his Eleven Plus Examination.
8. he can remember any funny incident that
happened to him when he was at school.
9. he was good at games.
10. he was good at any subject.

Effects of Boarding School

The effect on a family of sending a child away
to boarding school can be very disturbing.
One mother recalled: It was like a limb gone
cold. I couldnt bear to look in the nursery
the rocking horse. I felt ghastly and had to
keep myself busy. When he came back at
half-term he just said: Good afternoon,
Mother It was quite awful.
But not every experience is so unhappy. The
way a childs relationship with his mother and
father changes depends on the type of
boarding school. They range from traditional
and austere institutions to small, cosy
boarding houses run on informal, friendly
lines.
State boarding schools and some of the
smaller independent schools adopt a different
style from the traditional public schools. The
children board later and are therefore not so
divorced from their families. They have more
access to home and their parents play a
greater part in the life of the school.
One boarder at a State school commented:
No, it hasnt affected me at all. When I go
home I feel just the same as I did before. A
boy at a made a great difference. I respect
my parents more, and am more independent
of them and they respect me and treat me as
an adult.
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) State boarding schools should be available
for all children.
(ii) There ought to be no boarding schools,
either State owned or independent.
(iii) Some children would be happier at
boarding school than at home.
(iv) Most parents would send their children to
boarding school, if they could.
(v) Youll send your own children to boarding
school.

75

Written Work
I. Dialogue Building

Dialogue 3: Secondary
Education in England

The
following
dialogue
is
incomplete.
Complete it from your own point of view,
choosing your words from the table below.
A.
I went to a State primary school.
B.
.

John and Martin continue their discussion

about the English education system.

So did I.
I did too.
I went to

a private boarding-school.
a private school.

I studied

at home.

I didnt.

A. I can still remember it. Can you?

B.
No,

not really.

Yes,

vividly.
vaguely.
just.

A. Did you enjoy it? I did.

B.
Yes,

No,

I did too.
I loved it.
it was fun!
I didnt.
I hated it.
it was boring!

A. I suppose you had to do exams too.

B.
Yes,

No,

I did.
worse luck!
lots of them.
I didnt.
certainly not.
thanks!

When you have completed the dialogue, read

it a few times for spoken English practice.
II.
Dyou approve of boarding-school?
Write a few lines explaining why you approve
OR disapprove of boarding-schools for
children from the age of seven onwards.

76

and

Higher

Martin: There are four main types of

secondary school, arent there(i)?
John: Yes, Most of the brighter children go to
a grammar school, some go to a technical
school, and the majority go to a secondary
modern.
And
then
there
are
the
comprehensive schools which cater for all
levels of academic ability(ii). These are
becoming more and more important.
Martin: I must say I find your education
system rather complicated, and to make
matters worse, you call your private schools
public schools(iii)!
John: Yes, I suppose it is all rather
confusing. But, like so many other things in
Britain, our educational system is deeply
rooted in tradition and yet its changing all the
time.
Martin: Really? In what ways is it changing?
John: Well, in nearly every way. For
instance, theres a very strong movement now
towards comprehensive schools, where all
children go for their secondary education no
matter what their ability or background(ii).
There are already many of these schools, and
many children are no longer tested by
examination at the age of eleven to be placed
in schools according to academic ability. And
then again, public schools will probably
become part of the State system some day.
Martin: But wont the wealthy always be in a
privileged position? Theyll always be able to
send their children to the best private schools
in the country.
John: Not necessarily. If independent schools
join the State system and we do away with
the idea of grammar schools for the clever
and secondary modern schools for the less
bright, then every child should have an equal
opportunity to do well and go on to higher
education(iv).
Martin: At the present time very few go on to
university, dont they?
John: Only about six per cent, Im afraid(v).
But the numbers are increasing all the time.
For six hundred years England had only two
universities, Oxford and Cambridge. Today,
there are more than forty, including the seven
new ones built in recent years(v).
Martin: Are they catering for some of the
needs of the modern world?
John: Trying to. Some of them are strong in
technological and scientific studies. Theyre
trying to do away with excessive specialisation

and introducing
interest(iv).

subjects

of

contemporary

Listening Comprehension
(i) How many types of secondary school are
there in England?
(ii) in what ways are comprehensives different
from the other types of secondary school?
(iii) What is a public school?
(iv)What might happen if independent schools
join the State system?
(v) How many universities are there in
England? What percentage go to university?
(iv) What sort of subjects have some
universities introduced?
Drill 1: Verb Questions with a Rising Tune
(IV)

(c) And here is a third model of a verb

question with a rising tune:
Is it about six per cent who go to
university?
Use the same tune and ask someone whether:
1. its half who go to university.
(No, it isnt.)
2. its nine per cent who go to university.
(No, it isnt.)
3. its one per cent who go to university.
(No, it isnt.)
4. Its about six per cent who go to university.
(Yes, it is.)
And what about in your country? Begin:
In my country ..
Drill 2: NO MATTER WHAT

(a) The following is a model of a verb question

with a rising tune:
Are there four main types of
secondary school?
Use the same tune and ask someone whether:
1. there is only one main type of secondary
school.
(No, there isnt.)
2. there are countless types of secondary
school.
(No, there arent.)
3. There are two types of secondary school.
(No, there arent.)
4. There are four main types of secondary
school.
(Yes, there are.)
And what about in your country? Begin:
In my country ..
(b) Here is another model of a verb question
with a rising tune:
Do all clever children go to a
grammar school?
Use the same tune and ask someone whether:
1. all clever children go to a grammar school.
(No, they dont.)
2. all children go to the same school.
(No, they dont.)
3. all children go to a secondary modern
school.
(No, they dont.)
4. most clever children go to a grammar
school.
(Yes, they do.)

The following is a model sentence:

All children should have an equal
educational opportunity no matter what their
ability.
Make sentences like the model above using
the expression no matter what and the cuewords given. The first three answers have
been given in full to help you, but you should
do these again yourself for practice.
Cue-words
1. an equal educational opportunity/ability
All children should have an equal educational
opportunity no matter what their ability.
2. a good education/background
All children should have a good education no
matter what their background.
3. a good upbringing/social class
All children should have a good up-bringing no
matter what their social class.
Now continue in the same way.
4. an equal chance/intelligence
5. moral instruction/religion
6. free time/duties
7. good food/age
8. a happy home life/school life
9. a general education/personal abilities

And what about in your country? Begin:

In my country ..

10. good teachers/school

77

Drill 3: Practice in English Sounds the

Sound /ae/ and /e/
Read each phrase aloud a few times.
1. The sound /ae/ as in CAT
BAD
MAT
PAT
the mat
THAT
on the
mat

a bad cat
a bad cat on the mat
dont pat the bad cat on
dont pat that bad cat

4. To make matter worse, you call your

private schools public schools.
(c)
the sound /e/
1. Like so many things in Britain our
educational system is changing.
2. Yes, our system of secondary education is
complex.
3. Children shouldnt be tested at eleven.
4. The very wealthy can send their children
to independent schools.
5. The universities want to avoid excessive
specialisation.
6. Theyve
introduced
subjects
of
contemporary interest.

2. The sound /e/ as in END

MEN
SAID
MET

in the end the men

in the end the men said
in the end the men said

FRIEND

in the end the men said

theyd
met
theyd
met a friend
3. The sound /ae/ and /e/ contrasted
BAD
that is!
PAT
patting their
MAN
who led

BED

What a bad bed

PET

Children

MEN

pets.
He was the man
the

battle.
LATTER
letter or a

LETTER

men

SAD
very sad.
HAD
head for

to

Did you send a

telegram?

latter.
GAS
be

like

The

GUESS I guess that smell must

SAID

gas.
She said she felt

HEAD

He had a good

A letter to The Times from Lieutenant-colonel

David Mackenzie-Smith
Sir,- We hear a great deal nowadays about
students revolutions, sit-ins, boycotts and
other forms of what I can only call
irresponsible behaviour.
These young people, whose education is being
paid for by the ordinary tax-payer, should be
made to get on with their studies and
examinations and leave protest to others.
Yours faithfully,
David
Mackenzie-Smith
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) Students should study and leave politics to
others.
(ii) University examinations should be done
away with.
(iii) Students should run their own colleges.
(iv) Education should not be for a career but
to broaden the mind.
(v) Universities should be free of the State.
Written Work

figures.
4. The two sounds in context.
(a) the sound /ae/
1. The brighter children go to grammar
schools.
2. All children should have an equal
educational opportunity.
3. All children should have an equal
educational opportunity no matter what
their ability or background.
78

A topic for discussion

Student Protest

I. Dialogue Building
The following dialogue is incomplete. Compete
it from your own point of view, choosing your
words from the tables below.
A.
Would you have gone to a Public
School if youd had the chance?
B.
..
No, I wouldnt.
Yes, I World.
A.
B.

Why?
Because I ..

dont like
like

co-educational schools.
boarding schools.
single sex schools.
State schools.
tradition.
to be privileged.

A.
Dyou think we
independent schools?
B.
..

ought

to

have

No, I dont.
Yes, I do.
A.
B.

Why?
Because I ..
believe in
dont
believe in

variety.
freedom of choice.
privilege.
tradition.
snobbery.

When you have completed the dialogue, read

it a few times for spoken English practice.
II. An interview with Colonel Mackenzie-Smith
Youve been asked to interview Colonel
Mackenzie-Smith (see A Topic for Discussion).
Your first question is:
Interviewer: What dyou think of student
demonstrations, Colonel?
Colonel:
They
ought
to
be
forbidden. These young hooligans should be
punished.
Ask the Colonel some more questions and
imagine what is answers might be.
UNIT TWO: Talking about Careers
Dialogue 1: Studying for a Career in
England
Every year thousands of overseas students
arrive in England to take up their studies in
this country. Some come to learn or improve
their knowledge of the language, others to
train for a career(i).
In this dialogue Sidney, a student from Africa,
is telling John, an English friend, why he come
to study architecture in England.
John: What did you say you were going to
take up as a career?

Sidney:
Architecture.
Actually,
Ive
already started. I began my studies at the
Bartlett School of Architecture last October.
John: What are you going to do when you
finish?
Sidney:
Oh, I shall go back home and
practise there(ii). Theres a great deal of
scope for architects in my country and a lot of
useful work to be done building schools,
hospitals, homes for the people.
John:
Will you need English in your
job?
Sidney:
Itll be useful in many ways
because theres a lot about architecture
written in English and besides many
professional people in my country use English
as a second language. When you attend
international conferences English is often the
official language (iii). Yes, I think Ive done
well to brush up my English.
John: what made you decide to take up
architecture as a career?
Sidney:
well, I was good at maths and
art at school and I think I had a certain feeling
for design. My teachers encouraged me and
said I had a bent for architecture. I suppose
my personal qualities made me choose
architecture, and not law, for instance.
John: But why have you chosen England for
your studies, why not some other country?
Sidney:
Ah well, there are lots of
reasons. But Im not sorry because youve got
some of the best schools of architecture in the
world(iv).
Listening Comprehension
(i) What do overseas students come to
England for?
(ii) What is Sidney going to do when he
finishes his studies in England?
(iii) Why is Sidney pleased he has brushed up
his English?
(iv) What does he say about British schools of
architecture?
Drill 1: TO TAKE UP AS A CAREER
(a) The following is a model question and
answer:
A.
What are you going to take up as a
ca`reer?
B.
Im going to take up architecture as a
career.
Use the same structure as the model (B) and
say that youre going to take up the following
as a career:
1. architecture
11. commerce
79

2. law
3. dentistry
4. economics
5. medicine
6. engineering
7. politics
8. teaching
9. accountancy
10. banking

12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

dancing
secretarial work
social work
child care
town planning
broadcasting
beauty culture
bricklaying
watch and clock
making

3.

first three have been completed to help you,

but you should do these again for practice.
Cue-words
1. legal studies/last October
A. When are you going to start your legal
studies?
B. Ive already started them. I started them
last October.

Now ask each other what each of you is going

to take up as a career. Like this:
A.
What are you going to take up as a
career?
B.
Im going to take up as a career.

2. medical studies/last year

A. When are you going to start your `medical
studies?
B. Ive already started them. I started them
last year.

(b) Here is another model question and

answer:
A.
What would you like to take up as a
ca`reer?
B.
Id like to take up acting as a career.

3. English studies/a month ago

A. When are you going to start your nglish
studies?
B. Ive already started them. I started them a
month ago.

Use the same structure as the model (B) and

say that youd like to take up the following as
a career:
1.
acting
11. physiotherapy
2.
chemistry
12. mechanics
3.
business
13. writing
4.
hairdressing
14. veterinary science
5.
journalism
15. hotel management
6.
librarianship
16. sport
7.
music
17. domestic science
8.
nursing
18. tailoring
9.
photography
19. dressmaking
10. physical education
20. surveying

Now continue in the same way.

4. business studies/in January
5. professional studies/last term
6. commercial studies/in the spring term
7. banking studies/in the autumn
8. architectural studies/in September
9. social studies/a year ago
10. musical studies/a while ago

Now ask each other what each of you would

like to take up as a career. Like this:
A.
What would you like to take up as a
ca`reer?
B.
Id like to take up as a career.
Drill 2: tense Practice
Im going to start next year.
Ive already started
I started last year.
The following is a model question and answer:
A.
When are you going to start your
`history studies?
B.
Ive already started them. I started
them last month.
Make questions and answers like the above
model and use the cue-words provided. The
80

11. nursing studies/at the beginning of the

year
12. secretarial studies/yesterday
Drill 3: TO BE GOOD AT - Weak and
Strong Forms of AT
Note that at is pronouneed /aet/ when it
appears at the end of a phrase and elsewhere
it is most often pronounced /et/.
The following is a model question and answer:
A.
When you were at /et/ school what
were you `good at /aet/?
B.
I was good at /et/ maths but not at
/et/ games.
Say that when he was a t school he was
good at one of the following subjects but not
at the other. The first three sentences have
been given in full to help you, but you should
do these again yourself for practice.

Cue-words
1. maths/games
When he was at
/et/ school he was good at /et/ maths but not
at /et/ games.
2. art/English When he was at /et/ school he
was good at /et/ art but not at /et/ English.
3. French/German
When he was at /et/
school he was good at /et/ French but not at
/et/ German.
Now continue in the same way.
4. sports/literature
5. tennis/football
6. swimming/running
7. music/languages
8. biology/history
9. science/art
10. chemistry/language
11. writing/drawing
12. spelling/arithmetic
Now ask each other what each of you was
good at when you were at school. Like this:
A.
What were you good at /aet/ when you
were at /et/ `school?
B.
I was good at /et/ but no at /et/

Written work
Dialogue Building
Imagine that you, B, are talking to a friend, A.
Fill in what you would say so as to produce a
complete dialogue.
A.
What are you going to take up as a
career?
B.

A.
When are you going to start your
studies?
B.

A.
What were you good at when you were
at school?
B.
.
A.
I wasnt good at anything, really, but I
had a certain feeling for drawing and design.
B.
..
A.
I took up architecture.
B.
.
A.
No, I havent finished yet. Ive another
two years to go.
B.
.
A.
Oh, I hope to find a job somewhere.
When you have completed the dialogue, read
it a few times for spoken English practice.
Dialogue 2: Career Opportunities

A topic for discussion

Choosing a Career
Nowadays most young people are encouraged
to choose their own careers according to their
personal abilities and interests. This concern
for the vocational aspect of a career is all very
well, but young people are often poor judges
of their own abilities and need guidance in the
choice of a career. In the old days sons
followed their fathers trade or profession and
took up the occupation that best suited the
interest of the family and possibly of society
too. Total freedom in the choice of a career is
often a burden to the individual and a danger
to society.
What are the writers views on total freedom
in the choice of a career?
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) Young people should be free to choose any
career.
(ii) They should be guided in the choice of a
career by their teachers and parents.
(iii) You should choose your career according
to your vocation.
(iv) You should have a change of career at
least once in a lifetime.

John is taking to Disney

opportunities in England.

about

career

Sidney:
What
sort
of
career
opportunities are there for young people in
England?
John: Quite a lot nowadays. If you have the
ability and the will to study, career
opportunities are good(i). More and more
young people are going in for special training
in the trades and the professions and taking
up a career seriously.
Sidney:
But what sort of facilities are
they given?
John: If
theyve
got
the
necessary
qualifications they can apply to a college,
school or institute and if theyre accepted
theyll probably get a government grant to
cover their fees and maintenance.
Sidney:
I find that quite a lot of young
people fail to take up a career because theyre
not sure what they want to do and what
career opportunities there are (ii).
John: Yes, thats true. But usually your
personal qualities show up at school, dont
they? Teachers should guide and encourage
the young to take up the careers for which
theyre best suited. There are many booklets
with information about the choice of
81

careers(iii).
Young
people
should
be
encouraged to read these carefully, shouldnt
they?
Sidney:
Yes, they should. I was very
lucky because I was given a lot of 20
encouragement and information when I was
at school.
Listening Comprehension
(i) Is it necessary to have the will to study if
you want to take up a career?
(ii) Why do some young people fail to take up
a career?
(iii) Where can you find information about the
choice of careers?
Drill 1: ID RATHER GO IN FOR THAN
The following is a model question and answer:
A.
Which would you rather go in for,
advertising or journalism?
B.
Oh, Id rather go in for advertising
than journalism as a career.
Answer the following questions as in the
model (B). A full answer has been given for
the first question, but you should answer this
again yourself for practice.
1.
Which would you rather go in for,
advertising or journalism?
Oh, Id rather go in for journalism than
advertising as a career.
Now continue in the same way. Which would
you rather go in for:
2.
archaeology or window display?
3.
sales management or geology?
4.
naval architecture or photography?
5.
mathematics or midwifery?
6.
interior decoration or insurance?
7.
chiropody or bookselling?
8.
mining or printing?
9.
physics or the tea trade?
10.
the Merchant Navy or the Army?
11.
forestry or pharmacy?
12.
domestic work or civil aviation?
13.
atomic energy or brewing?
14.
business or building?
15.
the cinema or the theatre?
16.
scientific research of the police
service?
17.
the Post office or prison service?
18.
the Air Force or the Navy?
19.
dancing or singing?
20.
writing or weightlifting?
Now ask each other similar questions using
any careers your wish.

82

Drill 2: SHOULD + Passive of Command

Verbs
Make sentences from this table, like this:
Young people should be advised to red a lot.
to cose a career.
to read a lot.
to work hard.
encouraged
to write clearly.
Young
to study hard.
people
told
to be independent.
should
to be tolerant.
be
advised
to be helpful.

to be sensible.
Now ask each other questions
the same
to from
concentrate.
table.
Example:
A.
What should young people be told to
do?
Possible answer:
B.
They should be told to concentrate.
Drill 3: Wh Questions with a Falling
Tune
The following is a model of a question with a
falling tune:
What sort of career opportunities are
there in `your country?
Ask questions like the above model and use
the cue-words given in the list below. The first
three have been given in full to help you but
you should do these again yourself for
practice.
Cue-words
1. career opportunities
What sort
of career opportunities are there in `your
country?
2. educational facilities
educational facilities are
country?

What
there

sort
of
in `your

3. educational grants What sort of educational

grants are there in `your country?
Now continue in the same way.
4. scholarships
5. schools of medicine
6. schools of architecture
7. teacher training colleges
8. technical colleges
9. universities
10. institutes of education
11. drama schools
12. university courses

Now ask each other the same questions and

give suitable answers.
Example:
A.
What sort of universities are there in
`your country?
Possible answer:
B.
We have two national universities.
They offer courses in the arts and sciences.

B.
.
A.
Oh, because I like writing and current
affairs.
B.
.
When you have completed the dialogue, read
it a few times for spoken English practice.
Dialogue 3: careers for Women

A topic for Discussion

The Needs of Society
This is the age of technological change, the
disappearance of class distinctions and
educational opportunities for everyone. Many
old-fashioned ideas about what our children
ought to do in life are no longer justifiable.
Apart from the traditional academic careers in
science, medicine, law, and the arts, we also
need skilled technicians, technologists, and
businessmen. We need to modernise our
industries and give impetus to trade. Young
people should be encouraged to see the value
of all trades, crafts, and professions and to
look upon the career they have chosen with
interest and pride.
What does the writer say are the needs of
society?
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) Some careers are more important than
others.
(ii) The needs of society should guide you in
the choice of a career.
(iii) There will be many new careers in the
twenty-first century.
Written Work
Dialogue Building
The following dialogue is incomplete. Imagine
that you, B, are talking to a friend. Fill in what
you would say so as to produce a complete
dialogue.
A.
What sort of career opportunities are
there in your country?
B.
.
A.
In England, career opportunities are
quite good nowadays.
B.
.
A.
Well, yes, if theyve got the necessary
qualifications. What about in your country?
B.
.
A.
Which career would you rather go in
for, law or medicine?
B.
.
A.
I think Id rather go in for something
like journalist.

Although today there are few fields of activity

in which women play no part, there are
certain careers in which women are
particularly important.
Sidney and John are talking about career
opportunities for women in their respective
countries.
John: What sort of jobs are open to women
in your country?
Sidney:
Practically all jobs are open to
women nowadays. They can go in for any
career but some jobs are of special interest to
them.
John:
Such as what?
Sidney:
Well, a job as a nurse or as a
teacher, for instance. Librarianship is popular,
so is hairdressing and journalism(i). But of
course there are so many others: acting,
dancing, child care, midwifery, social work,
medicine and so on(i).
John: Do women get paid the same as men?
Is there equal pay for equal work?
Sidney:
Not in every casa, yet(ii). But
its going to happen in the future.
John: In England we find women in nearly all
walks of life, including the army, the Civil
Service, politics and sport. We have
thousands of career girls, but weve never had
a woman General or a woman prime
Minister(iii)!
Sidney:
Nor have we, but the time will
come, Im sure.
John: When it does, theyre welcome to it.
Fancy wanting to be Prime Minister! Its a
thankless job!
Listening Comprehension
(i) What sort of jobs are of special interest to
women?
(ii) Do women get paid the same as men in
every case?
(iii) Has there ever been a woman General or
a woman Prime Minister in England?
Drill 1: A JOB AS A
The following is a model dialogue showing the
use of the phase a job as a :
83

A.
Some jobs are of special interest to
women.
B.
Such as what?
A.
A job as a nurse, for instance.
Say that a job as the following is of special
interest to women:
1.
nurse
11. beautician
2.
teacher
12.
air
stewardess (an)
3.
dancer
13. milliner
4.
librarian
14. telephonist
5.
hairdresser
15. physiotherapist
6.
journalist
16. model
7.
child care officer
17. florist
8.
midwife
18. au-pair (an)
9.
social worker 19. interior decorator
10.
doctor
20. dress designer
Now say that in your country a job as a(n)
is of special interest to women. Begin:
In my country .
Drill 2: HAVE YOU EVER HAD ?
The following is a model question:
Have you ever had a woman Prime Minister in
your country?
Use the same tune and structure as in the
above model and ask each other whether
youve ever had a woman in your country.
The first three have been completed in full to
help you but you should do them again for
practice.
1. Prime Minister
A. Have you ever
had a woman Prime Minister in your country?
B. Yes, we have. OR
No, we havent.

12. boxer
Continue to ask each other similar questions
using other occupations, like this:
Have you ever had a woman engineer
in your country?
Drill 3: NOWADAYS WE FIND WOMEN IN
NEARLY ALL
The following is a model sentence:
Nowadays we find women in nearly all
walks of life.
Say that nowadays we find women in nearly
all:
1. walks of life.
11.
business
concerns.
2. fields of activity. 12. firms.
3. professions.
13. universities.
4. careers.
14. sports.
5. jobs.
15.
academic
circles.
6. occupations.
16.
political
circles.
7. trades.
17. professional
circles.
8. industries.
18. apprenticeships.
9. public services.
10. government departments.
The following is a model question:
In your country do you find women in
nearly all walks of life?
Now ask each other questions like the above
model and use the cue-worlds given. The first
two questions have been written out in full to
help you and you should ask these for practice
before continuing with the remainder.

2. President
A. Have you ever had a
woman President in your country?
B. Yes, we have. OR
No, we havent.

Cue-words

3. General
A. Have you ever had a
woman General in your country?
B. Yes, we have. OR
No, we havent.

2. professions In your country do you find

women in nearly all professions?

Now continue in the same way.

4. chief Justice
5. judge
6. Foreign Minister
7. Chancellor of the Exchequer
8. Chief of Police
9. weight-lifter
10. footballer
11. bus-driver
84

1. fields of activity
In your country do you
find women in nearly all fields of activity?

A Topic for Discussion

A Womans Place is in the Home
A letter to The Times from Miss Jun Christie
Sir, - I wonder whether our grandmothers
realised what they were doing when they
fought so hard for emancipation two
generations ago. They may have won a moral
victory but in reality women are less free
today than they were sixty years ago.

All careers are open to women nowadays and

they have equal rights to men in nearly all
walks of life, but as a result of this
emancipation they are rarely free to do the
one thing in life which women most desire,
that is, to give their undivided attention to the
home and the family. I suggest that the
career girl is basically a frustrated housewife.
It would be revealing to carry out a worldwide investigation to find out whether this is
so.
Yours faithfully,
June Christie (Miss)
(a career girl)
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) A womans place is in the home.
(ii) Career girls can combine professional work
with domesticity.
(iii) Career girls make good wives.
Written Work
Dialogue Building
The following dialogue is incomplete. Imagine
that you, B, are talking to a friend. Fill in what
you would say so as to produce a complete
dialogue.
A.
What sort of jobs are open to women
in your country?
B.
..
A.
Nowadays in England we find women
in nearly all walks of life.
B.

A.
Oh, yes. I think certain jobs are of
special interest to them.
B.

A.
Well, nursing for example.
B.

A.
No, we havent. But weve had a
Woman Cabinet Minister of course.
B.
..
A.
No, I dont think weve had that either.
What about in your country? What other sorts
of jobs do you find them in?
B.
.
A.
Thats interesting. The time will come
when well have women in all walks of life,
even in space exploration, no doubt!
When you have competed the dialogue, read
it a few times for spoken English practice.
UNIT THREE: Talking about Travel
Dialogue 1: Dyou like Travelling?

Travel has become a world-wide activity.

Never before have people travelled so much
to so many different parts of the world. This
constant movement happens both inside and
outside national frontiers. With new modes of
fast comfortable transport more and more
people are tempted to leave their own
environment and seek pleasure, knowledge,
work and adventure in places far away from
their home. With greater affluence and leisure
has come the urge to travel and see places.
People travel for many reasons but perhaps
the most common is travelling for pleasure.
Jack:
Dyou like travelling?
Jill:
I like travelling for pleasure, to get to
places when Im on holiday, for instance. But I
dont like travelling to work queuing for
buses and standing in tubes in the rush
hour(i)!
Jack: Or getting stuck in traffic jams when
youre driving(ii)!
Jill:
Exactly.
Jack: I used to like hitch-hiking best when I
was a student. Its a very cheap and effective
way of seeing a country, if youve got the time
and energy.
Jill:
I used to enjoy motoring and staying
at cheap inns, or even camping out in the
summer. A pleasant change from city life, I
used to think(iii).
Jack: I think now I like travelling by air best.
I like getting to different places fast. I enjoy
sensing the sudden changes in social
atmosphere and climate(iv). Dont you?
Jill:
No, I like feeling the ground under my
feet. Travelling by rail and road are my
favourite ways of travelling. I quite enjoy
travelling by sea, too, but no one will tempt
me into a plane, thank you very much!
Listening Comprehension
(i) What might you have to do when travelling
to work in London?
(ii) What could happen when youre driving in
a busy city?
(iii) What does Jill consider to be a pleasant
change from city life?
(iv) Why does Jack enjoy travelling by air
best?
Drill 1:
Part 1:

LIKE +_ING
LIKE+TO+INFINITIVE
Dyou

like
enjoy

travelling?

Answer the following questions (rising tune)

based on the above pattern, using the cue85

words provided. The correct answers to the

first two have been given in order to help you,
but you should answer these again yourself
for practice.
1. Dyou like travelling?
[cue-words: for pleasure]
I like travelling
for pleasure.
2. Dyou enjoy camping?
[cue-words: in the summer] I enjoy camping
in the summer.
Now continue in the same way.
3. Dyou like flying?
[cue-words: by jet]
4. Dyou enjoy driving?
[cue-words: on good roads]
5. Dyou like sailing?
[cue-words: with a good crew]
6. Dyou enjoy hitch-hiking?
[cue-words: with a friend]
Now answer the same questions again but this
time without the cue-words. You may answer
in the affirmative or negative, like this:
Dyou like travelling?
Yes,
I
like
travelling with friends.
OR No, I dont like travelling at all.
Part 2:

Dyou
like

travelling to
travel

.?

Ask each other whether each of you likes

travelling to travel in the following ways:
By air, by jet, by plane; by sea, by boat; by
road, by car, by coach, by bus, by rail, by
train, by underground, by tube.
Drill 2: I SED TO LIKE ING BEST.
The following is a model statement and
response:
A.
I like travelling by car best.
B.
So do I, but I used to like cycling best.
Respond to the following statements as in the
model (B) above and use the cue-words
provided. The correct responses to the first
three have been given in order to help you,
but you should do these again yourself for
practice.
1. I like travelling by air best.
[cue-words: hiking]
So do I, but I
used to like hiking best.
2. I like travelling by sea best.
86

[cue-words: motoring]
used to like motoring best.

So do I, but I

3. I like travelling by train best.

[cue-words: by car] So do I, but I used to
like travelling by car best.
Now continue in the same way.
4. I like travelling by jet best.
[cue-words: by ordinary aircraft]
5. I like travelling by tube best.
[cue-words: by bus]
6. I like travelling by road best.
[cue-words: by rail]
And now respond to the same statements as
follows:
(i) if you agree with the statement, say: So do
I.
(ii) if you dont agree with the statement, say:
I dont. I like ing.
(iii) if you used to like some other type of
travel best, say: I used to like ing best.
A Topic for Discussion
Down with Travelling!
A humorous view of modern travel
Travel is the name of a modern disease
which became rampant some years ago and is
still spreading. The diseases is carried by a
germ called prosperity. Its symptoms are
easily recognizable. The patient grows restless
in the early spring and starts rushing about
from one travel agent to another collecting
useless information about places he does not
intend to visit. Then he or she will do a round
of tailors, summer sales, and sports shops,
spending three and a half times as much as
he or she can afford; and finally, in August
the patient will board a plane, train, coach or
car and proceed to foreign parts along with
thousands of fellow-sufferers, not because he
is interested in or attracted by the place he is
bound for, nor because he can afford to go,
but simply because he cannot afford not to.
The disease is highly infectious and nowadays
you catch Foreign Travel rather as you caught
influenza in the twenties, only more so!
(adapted from How to Unite Nations by
Georges Mikes]
What dyou think of the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) Holiday travel is a sort of disease.
(ii) Is Jill keen to travel round the world by
air?
(iii) How can you tell that Jill is an English
girl?

Drill 1: IF ID (Conditionals)
The following is a model question and answer:
A.
What would you do if time and money
were no `object?
B.
If time and money were no object, Id
travel round the world.
Answer the following questions as in the
model (B) above and use the cue-words
provided. The first two answers have been
given in full to help you, but you should do
these again for practice.
1. Where would you go if you were
rich and had a lot of leisure?
[cue-words: go on a world-wide
cruise]
If I were rich and had a lot of leisure Id go on
a world-wide cruise.
2. Where would you go if you had
a `choice?
[cue-words: go on a world tour]
If I had a choice Id go on a world tour.
Now continue in the same way.
3. What would you do if you won a fortune?
[cue-words: take a trip round the world]
4. What would you do if you won the pools?
[cue-words: fly round the world by jet]
5. Where would you go if you wanted to be
adventurous?
[cue-words: sail across the Atlantic]
Expansion 1
Now answer the same questions again but this
time without the cue-worlds. Use your own
words within the same structure: If I Id

Use the cue-words to make sentences which

are like the above model and are similar in
meaning to the statements given. The
responses to the first two have been given to
help you, but you should do these again
yourself for practice.
1. John travelled by sea to the U.S.A.
[cue-words: went on a voyage]
He went a voyage to the
U.S.A.
2. Mary travelled by land to the Far East.
[cue-words: went on a journey]
She went on a journey to the Far East.
Now continue in the same way.
3. Peter travelled by land and sea to the
Channel Island and back.
[cue-words: went on a trip]
4. My sister travelled by sea to and around
the Mediterranean.
[cue-words: went on a cruise]
5. Mr and Mrs Shaw travelled by car to and
around the continent.
[cue-words: went on a tour]
6. John and I travelled by coach to Cambridge
and back.
[cue-words: went on an excursion]
Expansion 1
Now change the statements in the same way,
this time without reference to the cue-words.
Like this:
1.

John travelled by sea

He..
(continue as before)

to

the

U.S.A.

Expansion 2
Expansion 2
Ask each other where each of you would go if:
1.
time and money were no object.
2.
you were rich and had a lot of leisure.
3.
you had a choice.
4.
you won a fortune.
5.
you won the pools.
6.
you wanted to be adventurous.
Drill 2: TO GO ON A

He went on

a journey
a voyage
a trip
a cruise
a tour
an excursion

The following is a model sentence:

He went on a voyage to Australia.

WOULD YOU LIKE followed by TO +

infinitive (Questions with a rising tune)
The following is a model question with a rising
tune:
Would you like to go on a trip to
Scotland?
Ask each other whether you would like:
1.
to go on a journey to ..
2.
to go on a voyage to ..
3.
to go on a trip to ..
4.
to go on a cruise to ..
5.
to go on a tour to ..
6.
to go on an excursion to ..
And now ask each other WHERE you would
like:
1.
to go on a journey.
87

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

to
to
to
to
to

go
go
go
go
go

on
on
on
on
on

Complete the following question using the

words in the table.
Wouldnt you get bored cruising round
the world.

a voyage.
a trip.
a cruise.
a tour.
an excursion.

Drill 3: Weak Forms of TO, OF, AT, FOR

and THE
1. TO pronounced /te/
Answer the following questions with words
selected from the tables.
(a)
Where would you like to /te/ travel?

Id like

to travel
/te/

to

/te/

the Caribbean.
the U.S.A.
the U.S.S.R.
Scandinavia.

(b)
Where would you like to /te/ settle
down?
in London.
Id like
To settle down
at home.
/te//ev/
abroad.
2. OF pronounced
in Britain
Answer question (a) and complete
(b) with
words selected from the tables.
(a)
How would you like to travel?
By

(b)

jet,
yacht, sea,
train,

car,

of course!
/ev/

England has

Some of
/ev/

the
the
the
the

loveliest
prettiest
most beautiful
most famous

scenery in the
world.

3. AT pronounced /et/
Complete the following sentences with words
selected from the tables.
(a)
Id like to go on a world-wide cruise

Calling at
/et/

(b)

all the exciting ports of the East.

Tokyo.
Singapore.
Hong Kong.

Id be content

to settle

at /et/ home.
at /et/ last.
at /et/ long last.

4. FOR pronounced /fe/

88

for
/fe/

so long?
so many months?
so long a period?

5. THE pronounced / /
(a) Make sentences which
selected from the table.

in the

summer
spring
sinter
Caribbean
West

include

in the

words

autumn
east
Alps
Andes
end

(b) Read the following phrases a few times for

spoken English practice.
All the / / most exciting ports of the / / East.
The / / loveliest scenery in the / / world.
A Topic for Discussion
Travelling Abroad
A letter to The Times from Mrs Isabel DigbyJones.
Sir, -The idea that if you go abroad for your
holidays youll invariably find better weather,
tastier food and more entertainment than
youll find in Britain is one of the great myths
of the time.
I used to spend all my holidays in
Britain until my eldest daughter persuaded me
to go abroad instead for the sake of sunshine
and a change. Well, I suppose I did get a
change, even if not always a welcome one,
but as for climate, food and entertainment,
well, I think home is best.
Yours faithfully,
Isabel Digby-Jones
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) The young prefer to travel abroad.
(ii) Having a holiday means having a change.
(iv) Everyone likes his own national food and
climate best.
Written Work
Write a short letter to a friend saying where
and how you like to spend your holidays.
Begin:
Dear -,
You ask me where and how I like to
spend my holidays. Well,

Dialogue 3: The Modern Craze for Travel

Jack and Jill are talking about the modern
craze for travel.
Jill:
Why dyou think people travel so much
nowadays? Whats this modern craze for
travel all about? The travel agencies are doing
a roaring trade.
Jack: Well, you know, people travel for all
sorts of reasons. Travelling for pleasure is
only one of them. People travel on business,
to get to work, for adventure, even for
education(iii). Travel is supposed to broaden
the mind, you know. Theres more leisure and
money about, so travel has become available
to many people (i) (ii).
Jill:
In the old days, I suppose, people
travelled very little because travel was so slow
and difficult(iv). It used to take a fortnight to
travel from London to Edinburgh by coach.
Now you can travel many times round the
world in that time!
Jack: And travel to the Moon and back in a
week!
Jill:
I know, isnt it amazing! And to think
that the next generation will take it all for
granted(v).
Jack: Think of what Columbus and his
contemporaries would have thought. Crossing
the Atlantic seemed miraculous to them.
Distances have dwindled to nothing in this
space age of ours. Travelling to far away
places has become a common activity.
Jill:
Yes, but travelling on this planet is
quite enough for me. You wont ever catch me
travelling to the Moon in one of those spaceships, thank you very much!
Listening Comprehension
(i) Why are travel agencies doing so well
nowadays?
(ii) Why is travel now available to many
people?
(iii) Do people travel only for pleasure?
(iv) Why did people travel less in the old
days?
(v) Will the next generation be astonished at
travelling to the Moon?
Drill 1: Why do People Travel?
(a) The following is a model sentence:
People travel for pleasure because
they want a touring holiday.
Say that people travel for pleasure because
they want:
1.
a touring holiday.
2.
a cruising holiday.

3.
a sight-seeing holiday.
4.
an all-in holiday.
5.
a change.
6.
some relaxation.
7.
some peace and quiet.
8.
to get away from it all.
9.
to escape.
10.
to see different places.
Can you think of any other reasons?
(b) here is another model sentence:
Some people travel on business
because
they
need
to
meet
other
businessmen.
Say that some people travel on business
because they need:
1.
to meet other businessmen.
2.
to visit factories.
3.
to attend meetings.
4.
to exchange ideas.
5.
to discuss projects.
6.
to do business deals.
Can you think of any other reasons?
(c) And here is a third model sentence:
Some people travel for the sake of
education because they want to broaden their
minds.
Say that some people travel for the sake of
education because they want:
1.
to broaden their minds.
2.
to learn about other people.
3.
to learn about other cultures.
4.
to visit famous places.
5.
to learn about the past.
6.
to learn foreign languages and
customs.
Can you think of any other reasons?
(d) Here is a fourth model sentence:
Some people travel for the sake of
adventure because they like excitement.
Say that some people travel for the sake of
adventure because they like:
1.
excitement.
2.
danger.
3.
novelty.
4.
endurance.
5.
exploring.
Can you think of any other reasons?
Drill 2: IF HED
(Conditionals)

HED

HAVE

Note that in spoken English, we use the

contracted forms, as in the following model
sentence:
89

If hed thought of it, hed have been

amazed.
Respond to the following statements as in the
model and use the cue-words provided. The
correct responses to the first three have been
given in order to help you, but you should do
these again yourself for practice.

2. HAS pronounced /hez/

Make sentences from this table and read them
a few times for spoken English practice.
has
/hez/

Travel

become

3. HAVE pronounced /hev/

Response
1. Think of what Columbus would
have thought of space travel.
[cue-words: amazed]
If hed thought of it hed have
been amazed.
2. Think of what our ancestors
would have thought of the
modern motor-car.
[cue-words: incredulous]
If theyd thought of it theyd have been
incredulous.
3. Think of what a medieval
knight would have thought of a
modern tank.
[cue-words: impressed]
If hed thought of it hed have
impressed.

been

Now continue in the same way.

4. Think of what the Romans would have
thought of modern aeroplanes.
[cue-words: astounded]
5. Think of what Queen Victoria would have
thought of women pilots.
[cue-words: shocked]
6. Think of what primeval man would have
thought of modern transport.
[cue-words: dumbfounded]
Now you think of similar sentences using your
own words and ideas and ask one another for
responses.
Drill 3: Weak forms of the verbs ARE, HAS
HAVE and CAN.
1. ARE pronounced /e/
Make sentences from this table and read them
a few times for spoken English practice.

The
travel
agencies

90

are
/e/

doing

A roaring trade.
Good business.
Big business.
Very well.
Extremely well.

available.
cheap.
comfortable.
fast.
popular.
safe.

Make sentences from this table and read them

a few times for spoken English practice.

Think of
what
Columbus

would

have
/hev/

thought.
felt.
sensed.
experienced.
said.

4. CAN pronounced /ken/

Make sentences from this table and read them
a few times for spoken English practice.

Now

I
you
he
we
they

Can
/ken/

travel
fly
cruise
motor
sail
hitch-hike

round the
world.

A Topic for Discussion

Space Travel
A letter to The Times from Thomas Allbright
Sir,- Billions are spent, mostly by the U.S.A.
and the U.S.S.R., on space research and
space travel. The planets will undoubtedly be
conquered one day and travelling in space will
become a reality.
In the mean time, what about the starving
millions, the poor and the deprived, the needs
of the developing countries, and the social
evils existing in the world?
Mans adventurous spirit will always lead him
to fresh ventures, but in a needy world one
cannot help wondering whether the effort is
justified. We must learn to get our priorities
right.
Your faithfully,
Thomas Allbright
(social worker)
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.

(i) Space travel should be postponed till all

world problems have been solved.
(ii) Conquering space will bring many benefits
to mankind.
(iii) The vast sums of money spent on space
research should be used for other purposes.
[If so, which?]
(iv) The space programme has become a
question of national prestige.
Written Work
Write a paragraph giving some of the reasons
why people travel. Begin like this:
People travel for many reasons
UNIT FOUR: Talking about Food
Dialogue 1: Food Shortage
Most of us live in parts of the world where
food is plentiful and where few people have to
struggle in order to get enough to eat. We
forget that a large proportion of the worlds
population is still underfed and that not
everywhere is food easily available.
Anne and John Woodrow are talking about this
very subject.
John: Dyou realise that while we have at
least two good meals a day, in some parts of
the world there are thousands of people
starving(i)?
Anne: I know, its quite shocking the way we
take food for granted. And were so wasteful,
too! I get very upset when I see people
wasting good food, dont you(ii)?
John: Yes, I suppose I do. But people are
wasteful because food is plentiful and because
most of us can afford to eat far too much,
more than is good for us! And think of all the
food we import from abroad! We should
produce more of our own food, cut down on
imports and help needy countries more(iv).
John: Yes, but weve imported food in
exchange
for
industrial
products
for
generations now. Its become part of our
economic system.
Anne: Well, its time we changed the system.
John: Well always have to import some
food. What we ought to do is to develop the
new industries further the motorcar
industry, aircraft and electronics and (v)
Anne: And produce more of our own food,
then we shouldnt have depend so much on
exports, should we(vi)?
John: I wonder whether the economists
would agree with you, Anne.

Drill 1: SHOULD and OUGHT TO with

Questions Tags
(a) Make sentences from the following table
and read them a few times for spoken English
practice. Note the falling tune.
Should
W
e
Ought to

Produce more food,

`shouldnt we?
Develop the new
industries,
Cut down on imports, `oughtnt we?
Help needy countries,

Note that in spoken English Should and ought

to usually have the same meaning.
Here are two model questions taken from the
table:
We should produce more food,
`shouldnt we?
We ought to produce more food,
`oughtnt we?
Use the same structures and falling tune and
say that we should or ought to:
1.
produce more food.
2.
develop the new industries.
3.
cut down on imports.
4.
help needy countries.
5.
remember the starving thousands.
6.
contribute to Oxfam.
7.
Avoid wasting good food.
8.
avoid eating too much.
9.
eat a balanced diet.
10.
take many vitamins.
11.
eat a bit of everything.
12.
eat to live not live to eat.
(b) Here are two model questions (rising tune)
and answers.
Should we produce more food?
Yes, we should.
OR
No, we shouldnt.
Ought we to produce more food?
Yes, we ought to.
OR
No, we oughtnt to.
Use the same structures and rising tune and
ask each other whether we should or ought
to:
1.
produce more food.
2.
develop the new industries.
(continue as before)

91

Drill 2: Food Imports

(a) Here is a model sentence:
Think of all the food we import from abroad!
Using the same structure and tune, make
sentences like the model with the cue-words
given in the list below. The first three have
been given in full to help you, but you should
do these again yourself for practice.
1. dairy products
Think of all the
dairy products we import from a`broad!
2. fruit Think of all the fruit we import from
a`broad!
3. vegetables Think of all the vegetables we
import from a`broad!
Now continue in the same way.
4. wines
5. spirits
6. spices
7. cereals
8. sugar
9. rice
10. tea
11. coffee
12. frozen foods
(b) Here is a model question (rising tune) and
answer:
Does Britain import food from a
broad? Yes, it does.
Using the same structure and tune, ask
someone whether Britain imports the following
from abroad:
1.
Dairy products7. cereals
2.
fruit
8. sugar
3.
vegetables
9. rice
4.
wines
10. tea
5.
spirits
11. coffee
6.
spices
12. frozen foods
Now ask each other the same questions about
each of your countries. Like this:
A.
Does your country import dairy
products from abroad?
B.
Yes, it does. OR No, it doesnt.

FOOD talking about food

DO
Yes, I suppose I do.
TOO
Yes, I suppose I do, too.
TWO Yes, I suppose I do have two meals a
day.
2. The sound /u:/ -further practice
(a)
where
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

Most of us live in parts of the world

food is plentiful.
We have at least two meals a day.
And were so wasteful, too!
Do you have two meals a day?
Yes, I suppose I Do.

3. The sound /u/ as in GOOD

GOOD
good food
SHOULD
Yes,
SHOULDNT We should
shouldnt we?
WOULD
Yes,
WOULDNT
We
we?

we should.
have good food,
we would.
wouldnt,

would

4. The sound /u/ -further practice

(a)
Good food shouldnt be wasted,
should it?
(b)
We shouldnt waste good food,
should we?
(c)
We wouldnt waste good food if we
were hungry, would we?
(d)
Wed eat good food if we were hungry,
wouldnt we?
(e)
Anne Woodrow wouldnt waste good
food, would she?
5. The sounds /u:/ and /u/ contrasted
FOOL FULL The worlds full of fools, isnt
it?
POOL PULL He had to be pulled out of the
pool.
WHOD HOOD
Whod wear a hood
nowadays?
COOED COULD
The
pigeons
cooed
whenever they could.
A Topic for Discussion
The Struggle for Food

(continue as before)
Drill 3: practice in English Sounds the
Sounds /u:/ and /u/
Read each phase aloud a few times:
1. The sound /u:/ as in FOOD
92

Vast sections of the words population still

have to struggle in order to get enough food
to eat. This struggle is likely to continue for
decades even though in some parts of the
world having enough to eat is taken for
granted. The worlds population has increased
so much and so quickly that improvements in

food supply have been quite inadequate to

meet the growing demands.
However, food can be produced wherever
anything grows. There is no reason why, with
the scientific knowledge available, man should
not be able to produce enough food for three
times the worlds population. Its all a
question of world co-operation and the
willingness of governments to devise plans on
a world scale to apply science to develop the
natural resources of the world.
What dyou think about the following points of
view? Give your reasons.
(i) Rich countries should help to feed poorer
countries.
(ii) We must not allow the word to become
over-populated.
(iii) Modern science will find ways of providing
enough food for a growing world population.
Written Work
General Questions
Give full answers to these questions.
1. Dyou come from a country where food is
plentiful and must people get enough to
eat?
2. Dyou think there is any justification for
wasting good food?
3. Dyou agree that most people eat far more
than is good for them?
4. Britain has to import some food in order to
feed its population. What is the position in
your country?
5. `Waste Not Want Not is an English
proverb. What exactly does it mean and
do you have a similar proverb in your
language?
Dialogue 2: English Cooking
Cooking varies from country to country even
though the basic ingredients may be very
much the same. Every country has its own
national dishes some of which may be world
famous. Traditional English dishes, like roast
beef and Yorkshire pudding and fish and
chips, are quite well known abroad.
Here Anne Woodrow and her au pair
girl from Italy, Renata, are talking about food
generally and English food in particular.
Anne: Dyou miss your home cooking a lot or
are you getting used to our English food,
Renata?
Renata:
Oh, there are quite a lot of
dishes I miss very much indeed(i). You see,
our food is much more spicy than yours. But I

must say English food is much better than I

thought it was going to be.
Anne: Really? What are your favourite
English dishes?
Renata:
Well, first of all I think the
quality of your food is excellent(ii). Your dairy
products are so fresh and your meat is usually
so tender(iii). And theres so much to choose
from in the shops.
Anne: Yes, but what English dishes dyou
particularly like? Or dont you like any of
them?
Renata:
Well, Im a little tired of your
fish and chips, and roast beef and Yorkshire
pudding is only good when properly cooked at
home. I dont like the way you cook your
vegetables either, and
Anne: So you dont really like any of our
food, do you?
Renata:
Oh, no, I didnt say that.
Anne: Well?
Renata:
Im very fond of the steak and
kidney pudding you make, and I like your
apple pies and (iv)
Anne: Its very nice of your to say so!
Renata:
And I think your cooked
breakfasts are simply marvellous(v). Nothing
like them where I come from.
Listening Comprehension
(i) Does Renata miss her home food?
(ii) What does she say about the quality of
English food)
(iii) Why does she like English meat?
(iv) What are her favourite English dishes?
(v) What do you think is her favourite meal in
England?
Drill 1: TO BE USED TO and TO GET USED
TO
Make questions and
following model table:
Are you used to
Are you getting
used to

answers

English food?
fish and chips?
bacon and eggs?
drinking tea?
washing up?
having a cooked
breakfast?

from

the

Yes, I am.
No, Im not.

Use the same structure and tune and ask

someone whether he/she is getting used to
OR is used to.
1.
English food.
2.
fish and chips.
3.
bacon and eggs.
4.
drinking tea.
5.
washing up.
93

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
eats.
15.
eats.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

having a cooked breakfast.

roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
English eating habits.
eating out.
helping with the washing up.
helping with the shopping.
having milk with tea.
frozen foods.
watching television while he or she
listening to the radio while he or she
having only one big meal a day.
smoking while he or she eats.
drinking beer with meals.
drinking wine with meals.
eating in the kitchen.

Now ask each other similar questions with

your own words.
Drill 2: MUCH THAN (Comparatives)

much

better
nicer
cheaper
more expensive
more spicy

than

The following is a model question and answer:

A.
Are
potatoes
cheaper
than
mushrooms?
B.
Yes, potatoes are much cheaper than
mushrooms.
Respond to the following questions as in the
model (B). The answers to the first two
questions have been given to help you, but
you should answer these again yourself for
practice.

8.
Is French food tastier than English
food?
9.
Are French recipes better known than
English recipes?
10.
Are vegetables better for you than
sweets and chocolates?
11.
Are vitamins more important than
people thought?
12.
Are certain foods healthier than
others?
13.
Are certain foods more expensive than
others?
14.
Do we eat more than we need?
15.
Do we eat more starch than is good for
us?
Ask each other similar questions and respond
to them positively as before. Like this:
A.
Do you eat more than I do?
B.
Yes, I eat much more than you do.
Drill 3: Word Stress Practice
Read each phrase aloud a few times to
practise English word stress.
1. First syllable stress
COOKING
VARIES
COUNTRY
YORKSHIRE
PUDDING
NATIONAL ITALY
GENERALLY SPICY
FAVOURITE
PRODUCTS
EXCELLENT
PROPERLY

Cooking varies from

country to country.
Roast
beef
and
Yorkshire pudding is
an English national
dish.
In
Italy
food
is
generally spicy.
Whats your favourite
dish?
Products of excellent
quality.
Tender and properly
cooked.
Fresh vegetables.
Simply marvellous!

Answer
1. Is Indian food more spice than
English food?
Yes, Indian food is much more spicy than
English food.

VEGETABLES
SIMPLY
MARVELLOUS

2. Is English food better than some

People think?
Yes, English food is much better than some
people think.

INGREDIENTS The basic ingredients may be

the same.
TRADITIONAL Traditional dishes.
PARTICULARLY
What
English
dishes
dyou particularly like?
INDEED
Very much indeed.

Now continue in the same way.

3.
Is bread cheaper than meat?
4.
Is orange juice nicer than water?
5.
Is fruit dearer than rice?
6.
Is fresh food better than tinned food?
7.
Are English breakfasts bigger than
Continental breakfasts?
94

2. Second syllable stress

3. Emphatic stress
(a)

Oh no, I didnt say that!

Oh no, I couldnt do that!
Oh no, I dont mean that!

(b)

(c)

Its very nice of you to say so.

Its very good of you to think so.
Its very kind of you to do so.
Nothing like them where I come from.
Nothing like that where she comes

from.
Nothing like this where they come

What dyou think about the following points

view? Give your reasons.
(i) As a nation the British are not very good
catering.
(ii)
On
the
whole,
English
food
uninteresting.
(iii) Its always difficult to get used to food
other countries.

of
at
is
in

from.
Written Work
A Topic for Discussion
As Other See us
The rule seems to be that as a nation we are
not very good at catering. Why, asked an
American, is the staff so overworked and
short-tempered in most of your restaurants?
They make you feel that youd be doing them
a favour by moving on. A group of European
teachers who had stayed in nearly twenty
hotels in different parts of Britain, talked to
me about their adventures. Why was it almost
impossible to get a glass of water at the table
without being made to feel a nuisance; why
did the cheese dish always look so sparse and
mouldy? Was butter still rationed, they asked
me. Was there a shortage of fruit this year?
in no hotel had they been offered fresh fruit
as a dessert. Why were all the vegetables
served in dishes half full of grey water? Was It
considered degrading to serve food? So many
of the serving staff seemed resentful it was
as if they had been conscripted to the job. An
Italian psychiatrist explained very patiently to
me that it was obvious that as a nation we
had a taboo about food; anything connected
with it was an activity which we somehow
considered indecent!
Foreign visitors liked our teas, however,
especially in Scotland. They relished our
breakfasts and fish and chips eaten out of
newspaper. Perhaps the nicest tribute came
from a young Swiss girl: The food, she said,
I have already forgotten, but your beautiful
countryside never!
[Based on an article from the
Guardian.]
Comprehension question:
1.
What did the following say about food
and catering in Britain?
(a)
The American
(b)
The European teachers
(c)
The Italian psychiatrist
(d)
The Swiss girl
2.
What did foreign visitors like about
English food?

I. Make a list of comments you have heard

people making about food and catering in
your country. Then write a short account
entitled As Others See us describing the
views of foreigners on food in your country.
Begin:
Most foreigners seem to think that in
my country
II. General Questions
Give full answers to these questions:
1. Which dishes do you most miss when
youre away from home?
2. What are your views, if any, on English
food?
3. Can you describe a typical English
breakfast?
4. Say something about one of your national
dishes. What does it consist of and how is
it made?
Dialogue 3: Frozen Foods
Labour-saving devices and frozen foods have
helped to ease the housewifes tasks. She
spends much less time preparing meals
because so much food can be bought
prepared and ready to eat. Cooking for the
family need no longer be a full-time
occupation(i).
Anne: Dyou think we make too much use of
tinned and frozen foods in England? The
supermarkets are full of them, arent they?
Perhaps thats why our food isnt very tasty.
Renata:
But some frozen foods are
excellent, arent they? And think of all the
work wed have to do in the kitchen if it
werent for the gadgets and the frozen foods!
Anne: Yes, thats true! But you spend much
more time cooking and preparing meals in
your country than we do in England, dont
you?
Renata:
Yes, I suppose we do. You
make less fuss about food than we do. We
have two big meals a day, lunch and dinner,
and spend a lot of time preparing them. You
95

have one big meal a day, apart from

breakfast, and spend less time preparing it(ii).
Anne: Yes, but were just as fond of good
food as you are(iii).
Renata:
You certainly dont show it!
Anne: We do fuss about meals sometimes,
and remember, we like to eat out on special
occasions(iv). London is full of foreign
restaurants where you can get all he exotic
dishes of the world(v). You must come out
with us one evening, Renata.
Renata:
Thank you very much, Id love
to. Thats what I like about London. Theres
always so much to see and do.
Listening Comprehension
(i) What effects have labour-saving devices
and frozen and tinned foods had on the
housewife?
(ii) Do the English bother much about food,
according to Renata?
(iii) Are the English fond of good food,
according to Anne?
(iv) What does Anne like to do on special
occasions?
(v) Whats London full of?
Drill 1: WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF ?
Make questions
following tables.

and

answers

from

the

A.
What would happen if
we didnt have frozen `foods?
it werent for frozen `foods?
B.
If we didnt have frozen foods
wed have more work to do in the kitchen.
If it werent for frozen foods
we wouldnt have so much leisure time.
Use the same structures and tune and ask
each other what would happen if
(a)
we didnt have: or
(b)
it werent for:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
96

frozen foods.
labour-saving devices.
gas or electric cookers.
restaurants.
modern methods of food production.
refrigerators.
the canning industry.
the fishing industry.
fishmongers.
butchers and bakers.
greengrocers.
agriculture.
the food industry.

14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

poultry farms.
dairy farms.
cattle farms.
sheep farms.
herbs and spices.
fruit and vegetables.
modern means of transport.

Drill 2: Question Tags

We normally use negative tags with positive
statements. These are not real questions but
ask for your agreement and are usually said
with a falling tune. Repeat the following
statements and add the appropriate tags (with
a falling tune) to make them into questions
which ask for agreement. The first seven have
been completed to help you, but you should
do these again yourself for practice.
1. London is full of foreign restaurants.
London is full of foreign restaurants, snt it?
2. Theres so much to see in London.
Theres so much to see in London, snt there?
3. The supermarkets are full of frozen foods.
The supermarkets are full of frozen foods,
`arent they?
4. Some frozen foods are excellent.
Some frozen foods are excellent, `arent they?
5. You spend a lot of time preparing food.
You spend a lot of time preparing food, `dont
you?
6. You make less fuss about food than we do.
You make less fuss about food than we do,
`dont you?
7. We like to eat out on special occasions.
We like to eat out on special occasions, `dont
we?
Now continue in the same way.
8. English food in plain.
9. Indian food is spicy.
10. Its pleasant to eat out sometimes.
11. Theres plenty of food in the shops.
12. Theres enough food for everyone.
13. Theres a lot of rice grown in India.
14. Vegetables are good for you.
15. Proteins and fats are necessary for good
health.
16. Vitamins are found in food.
17. You need to have a balanced diet.
18. You eat in order to live.
19. We all like good food.
20. We all have to eat.
21. We all like to eat out sometimes.
22. We enjoy eating out.

Drill 3: Practice in English Sounds the

Sounds /s/,/z/ and /iz/
Read each phrase aloud a few times.
1. Plurals
(a)
plural ending with the sound /s/
TASKS
household tasks
GADGETS
household gadgets
LOTS
lots of modern
SUPERMARKETS
supermarkets
(b)
plural ending with the sound /z/
FOODS
supermarkets full of frozen
foods
MEALS
two good meals a day
OCCASIONS We like to eat out on special
occasions
RESTAURANTS*
Londons full of foreign
restaurants.
(c)
plural ending with the sound /iz/
DEVICES
labour-saving devices
DISHES
exotic foreign dishes
Do you like washing up
the dishes?
2. Other words from the dialogue with the
sound /s/
USE
We make too much use of frozen
foods.
PERHAPS
perhaps thats why
THATS perhaps thats why we make too much
use
FUSS
We make a lot of fuss.
LESS We make less fuss about food than
you do.
HOUSEWIFES
TASKS
a housewifes tasks
YES
yes,
a
housewifes
tasks
CERTAINLY
certainly, a housewifes
tasks
3. Other words from the dialogue with the
sound /z/
FROZEN
frozen foods
SOMETIMES We sometimes eat frozen
foods.
ALWAYS
Some people always eat
frozen foods.
SUPPOSE
I suppose some people
always eat frozen foods.
EASE Frozen foods have helped to ease the
housewifes chores.
THERES
Theres always so much to see
in London.
ISNT
Theres always so much to see
in London isnt there?

BECAUSE
I like London because theres
always so much to see, isnt there?
4. Sentence practice: the sounds /s/,/z/ and
/iz/
1.
Labour-saving /s/ devices /siz/ and
frozen /z/ foods /z/ have helped to ease /z/
the housewifes /s/ tasks /s/.
2.
She spends /z/ less /s/ time preparing
meals /z/.
3.
The supermarkets /s/ time preparing
meals /z/.
4.
Perhaps /s/ thats /s/ why it isnt /z/
tasty /s/.
5.
Frozen /z/ foods /z/ and gadgets /s/
help the housewife /s/.
6.
Yes /s/, thats /s/ true.
7.
You fuss /s/ more over meals /z/.
8.
Yes /s/, I suppose /z/ we do.
9.
You make less /s/ fuss /s/ over meals
/z/ than we do.
10.
Yes /s/, we certainly /s/ do.
11.
We do fuss /s/ over meals /z/
sometimes /z/.
12.
We go to good restaurants /z/ on
special occasions /z/.
13.
We sometimes /z/ go to good
restaurants /z/ to try exotic dishes /iz/.
14.
Thats /s/ what I like about London.
15.
Theres /z/ always /z/ so /s/ much to
see /s/ and do.
A Topic for Discussion
Eating Habits
Eating habits change from generation to
generation. Before scientists learned about
vitamins and other constituents of food, such
as proteins and carbohydrates, people
believed in eating large quantities of food and
were not concerned so much about a balanced
diet. A hearty eighteenth century meal could
consist of as many as twenty courses and
would probably knock out many of us today!
The Romans were famous for their bounteous
feasts and insatiable appetities.
In the year 2001 peoples eating habits may
be just as surprising but in a very different
sort of way. With a world-wide growth in
population, food production will become
exclusively mechanical and scientific. There
may well be an end to food as we know it
today. Meals, as we know them may become
a thing of the past. Food constituents and
vitamins may be taken in the form of
capsules, tablets and pills. The thought of
these highly artificial food constituents
replacing present day foods may not be very
97

relishing, but they may be the answer to food

shortage and world famine.
Dyou think:
(i) you could eat a ten-course meal? (describe
it)
(ii) there are other ways, apart from the ones
mentioned above, of solving the worlds food
shortage problem? (describe them)
Written Work
I. Dialogue Building
The following dialogue is complete. Imagine
that your, B, are talking to a friend and
complete it. Select your first two responses
from the tables.
A.
I much prefer fresh fruit to tinned
food.
B.
So do I.
I do too.
I dont.
Most people do.
A.
Dyou import a lot of fruit from abroad
in your country?
B.
Yes, we do.
No, we dont.
Quite a lot.
All the fruit we cant grow ourselves.
A.
What sort of fruits do you grow in your
country?
B.

A.
Whats your favourite?
B.

A.
A like peaches best, too.
II. General Questions
Give full answers to these questions.
1.
How many domestic labour-saving
devices can you think of?
2.
Whats the difference between frozen
foods and tinned foods?
3.
Do housewives spend a lot of time
preparing meals in your country?

98