Helping Learners

Participate in
Discussions
Emma Halliday
LSA 3: Skills
Centre Number: 10239
Word Count: 2500

1 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Contents
Introduction Page 3
Analysis Page 4
Learner Issues Page 9
Teaching Solutions Page 10
Bibliography Page 15

2 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Introduction
Communicative methodologies are based on the premise that language is
acquired through active, meaningful spoken interaction. If students are
speaking about issues with a desire to express their thoughts and
opinions, linguistic competence will follow. Thronbury states, Language
learning evolves from carrying out conversation (Thornbury & Slade,
2006). However, Ive taught conversation lessons where students were
engaged, motivated and participating in discussions but left the class
wondering if they had improved their conversation skills. Im not alone;
according to Thurell conversation courses are notoriously difficult to teach
and are often made up of a random selection of communicative activities
with no specific aims (Dornye & Thurell, 1994).

Despite the challenges, the development of speaking remains a priority

for many students and they continue to be extremely motivated by
discussion in the classroom. The scope of this assignment is to analyse
the skills and knowledge competent speakers employ to manage and
participate effectively in discussions and consider ways of developing
such skills in the classroom.

3 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Analysis

While discussions share a number of discourse features with other types

of conversational exchanges, there are a number of distinguishing
features. Dillion defines discussion as:

A talk consisting of advancing and examining different proposals over an

issue. The proposals may be understanding of facts, suggestions, opinions
or experiences, which are examined for their contribution towards
resolving an issue (Dillion, 1994).

While interactional conversations are purely phatic, discussions aim to

reach some sort of resolution. They also tend to be more structured and
formal than other types of conversation.

Topic Knowledge

The starting point for any discussion is an interest in, or a motivation to

speak about an issue. In order to express a stance on an issue and
formulate coherent arguments participants must lay claim to some
knowledge and have something to say. In some situations, speakers have
time to prepare what they will say, for example before a pre-arranged
meeting. Often however, speakers have to rely on prior world knowledge
in order to participate and they have to formulate ideas in real time.

Discourse and Cultural Knowledge

Discussions take place within a particular socio-cultural context and native

speakers are aware of what is appropriate in different situations. Speakers
are required to make choices about vocabulary, phrases, register and
style depending on the formality and discourse type of a discussion
(Brown & Levinson, 1978).

In formal discussions participants have less freedom to interact and

contribute. A discussion which takes place in a formal work meeting will
have more structured participation frameworks. Speakers have to be
aware of the appropriate time to interrupt, contribute and know how
organisational hierarchy can affect the discussion and decision making
process.

The level of disagreement also depends on the formality of the talk as well
as familiarity between participants. In British English, there is a preference
for concession rather than overt disagreement. Its common for speakers

4 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

to partially agree, before proposing an opposing opinion. Speakers hedge
their language and use intonation to avoid sounding too direct.

Avoiding negative adjective by using a negative verb with a positive

adjective.

Im not sure it was a good decision.

Reducing the strength of a statement using adverbs.

The meeting was a little unproductive.

Turning statements into questions.

Do you think you could be little more sympathetic?

5 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Skills

Agenda Management

Agenda management is the skill of initiating, developing and moving from

one topic to another. In most social situations participation is egalitarian
and people have the right to talk without adhering to a fixed schedule.
Speakers must therefore manage the agenda collaboratively. Speakers
have to be able to:

bring up a subject.
develop a topic.
bring in a new topic and extend the previous one.
switch topic close a discussion (Bygate, 1987).

Turn taking

Turn taking is the skill of knowing when to start and finish in conversation
(Nolasco & Arthur, 1987). In English there is a preference for one person
speaking at a time and avoidance of prolonged silence. The transition
from one speaker to the next should happen smoothly and without undue
hesitation. In discussions speakers must forward ideas, analyze them and
move towards a conclusion collaboratively. A good discussion should
involve everyone and people should participate fairly equally.

Turn taking involves:

Taking the turn: Accepting an invitation to speak or interrupting.

Holding the turn for an appropriate amount of time: Stopping others
from interrupting and signaling you plan to continue.
Relinquishing the turn: Inviting others to speak or signaling the end
of the turn (Wilde , 2014).

While turns can be changed through the use of formulaic phrases,

frequently changes are signaled more subtly. A drop in pitch or loudness
at the end of an utterance signals the end of a turn. Paralinguistic devices
are also used in the process of turn taking for example; hand gestures and
sitting position can keep or pass a turn. As speakers come to the end of

6 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

the turn they look up more frequently and hold the gaze another
participant as an invitation to respond.

Active Listening and Responding

A coherent discussion is composed of both speaking and active listening;

it involves speakers making reference to what has been said previously
before making their own contribution. Speakers have to remember the
contributions at various points in order to make relevant points. Good
contributors encourage others to speak by showing interest; through
follow up questions, body language and minimal responses such as mmm
uh yeah.

Repair Strategies

The spontaneous nature of discussions means that even proficient

speakers have to regularly check that people are following. If there is a
breakdown in communication, the speaker may have to repeat or
rephrase the message and the listener may have to ask for clarification or
extension.

Fluency

Longer turns are more common in discussions than many other exchanges
and so an expert speaker must be able to speak with a logical flow, with
little planning or rehearsing. Proficient speakers can produce a huge range
of formulaic expressions. Wood argues that these chunks are cognitively
stored and retrieved by speakers as if they were single words (Wood,
2006). As speakers do not have to monitor their choice of words
individually or think about rules of grammar for individual utterances such
phrases contribute significantly to oral fluency (Bygate, 1987). Examples
of formulaic sequences:

Feature of Agenda Turn taking Repair

Discussions Management
Formulaic Would you Could I say I didnt
Sequence like to start? something? catch
Lets agree What do that.
to disagree. you think? Im not
Lets leave May I following.
this for interrupt?
another
time.

7 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Learner Issues
I. Cultural Knowledge

When teaching B1/ B2 business groups in Poland, I found students would

give their opinions in a way which sounded extremely direct.

For example to disagree students would say things like:

Youre wrong about that.

Thats not true.
I dont agree.

In contrast to English, Polish tolerates forceful expressions or personal

views and feelings (Achard, 2004). The narrow intonation range of Polish
in comparison to English compounds the problem. It makes students
sound too direct and in some situations rude. Talking to colleagues this
can also be an also an issue with German and Russian students. The
ability to recognise opinions being expressed tactfully is essential for
students working in business context.

II. Fluency

Once students reach B1 level they usually have knowledge of formulaic

phrases for different functions in discussions. However, Ive found that
while students are enthusiastic to study more complex or idiomatic
expressions, they tend to stick to familiar phrases in freer discussion
activities. For example, after covering ways to ask for repetition using
expressions like:

8 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

 I didnt catch that.
Pardon
Say, that again.

Students simply go back to using What? or just ask for repetition in L1.

This could be because in freer activities they are focused on getting their
message across and can do this with basic phrases. The more students
use new phrases the more likely they are to store them in long term
memory and be able to retrieve them effectively. Its therefore essential
to encourage learners to use and re-use new chunks of language.

III. Turn taking

When teaching conversation classes in the UK, I found that there was
often unequal participation among students in discussions. Some students
are naturally quieter in discussion in both L1 and English; it can be a result
of speaking ability, stronger students being able to hold longer turns.

In addition turn taking conventions are culturally dependent. In Japanese it

is considered extremely rude to interrupt at all, whereas there is a much
greater tolerance in Arabic for people speaking at the same time (Wilde ,
2014). Ive found in multi lingual classes some students find it difficult to
take their turn while other students talk over other speakers.

IV. Agenda Management

Students often have trouble opening and closing discussions appropriately.

Usually the strongest students begin discussions with no preamble or
there is silence as no student wants to begin the discussion. From
observing conversation classes in my school here in Egypt, Ive noticed it
is usually the teacher that ends a discussion, typically in order to move
onto the next activity. This means it is the teacher rather than students
controlling the pace of discussions and students dont get explicit practice
starting and ending conversations effectively.

V. Active Listening and Responding

When teaching advanced exam students in the UK, I found learners would
take, hold and end their turn using a variety of appropriate exponents but

9 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

the overall discussion lacked coherence. Students made their own points
without referring effectively to their partners ideas or contributions. For
example, they didnt show how their contribution related to what had
been said; ask for clarification or extension of each others ideas.

VI. Paralinguistic features

In Libya, the gesture below shows the speaker wants to hold the floor and
it deters others from interrupting. The same gesture in the UK/ North
America would be interpreted as overly aggressive. Most models students
use for analysis of discussions are in the listening text of course books and
therefore they dont see the visual
elements that make up native speaker
conversations. Ive found Libyan learners
are unaware of how their body language
could be misconstrued in other cultures.

Teaching Suggestions
Aim: Focus on the ways native speakers
hedge their language and use intonation to remain polite.

Procedure: Write a statement on the board: I wasnt very keen on Freds

ideas.

Elicit from the class another way of saying the same thing. Students
usually come up with more direct versions of the same phrase. Teacher
writes them on the board.

E.g: I didnt like Freds ideas.

Teacher elicits that the first one is less direct and more polite than the
other. Give students a set of polite opinions and students try identify the
speakers real opinion.

Do you think you could be on time? Be on time.

It was a bit long. It was long.
I didnt think it was completely relevant. It wasnt relevant.

Highlight the grammatical ways speakers have hedged their language.

Give students a list of direct statements and they translate into more
tactful language. The teacher models and drills the sentences highlighting
intonation patterns.

10 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Comment: This controlled practice activity is useful in helping students
recognise speakers real opinions when being expressed diplomatically.
This is essential for students who use English in professional situations or
students who live in the UK and are thrown by British politeness.

Aim: To make students aware of how speakers react and respond to what
has been said previously and how coherence is developed in a discussion.

To focus students on the use of body language in a discussion.

Procedure: Students draw this picture:

2
4

11 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

 3
5

Each circle represents a speaker in a discussion (BBC, 2015). Students

watch the discussion and listen for the utterances. See (appendix 1.) As
they listen students write 2 numbers. The first number represents who
spoke and the second number represents whose point was being referred
to.

Comment: For advanced/proficiency learners these authentic discussions

are excellent models of educated academic discourse, where speakers
effectively reference what has been said by other speakers. Another
advantage of using video is students can focus on paralinguistic features
(Nolasco & Arthur, 1987). In these discussions hand gestures are used to
show whose points are being addressed.

Aim: Focus on turn taking and managing equal participation in a

discussion.

To encourage students practise new formulaic expressions.

Procedure: Distribute the same number of coins/tokens to every student

in a group. Set up a discussion activity. Each time a student contributes,
they give away one of their coins. By the end of the discussion everyone
in the group should have given away all their coins.

Comment: This activity makes students think about their own and others
contributions to a discussion; it forces reticent students to contribute and
stops dominant students controlling the discussion. The teacher can also
pre-teach exponents for interruption and students use them as they make
their points and hand over their coin.

This activity can encourage students to use new functional language.

Students have slips of paper with target phrases. For example, phrases for
giving/ asking for opinions. As students use the target language in the
discussion, they hand in that slip of paper.

12 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Aim: Focus on opening and closing discussions.

Technique: Give students some exponents to open discussions at the

start of the course and encourage them to get into the habit of using them
to begin discussion activities. When doing freer discussion work, I give
students a minute to close their discussion by tapping on the board once
to indicate they have a minute to finish their talk and tapping again as a
signal to stop speaking.

Comment: This technique encourages students to take responsibility for

the agenda management of their own discussions rather than relying on
the teacher. Ive found that after a couple of discussions where students
have to be reminded to open appropriately, they get quickly get into good
habits. After a few lessons phrases to close or change topic can be
introduced.

Lets agree to disagree on this.

I think were generally agreed.
We can continue this later.
Lets move on.

Aim: Focus students on the language they actually use in discussions and
encourage self-reflection.

Procedure: After a focus on suggesting and responding to suggestions,

set up a problem solving task. For example, students can choose a
suitable candidate for a job. Ask students to record their discussion.

Give students a feedback sheet and ask them to listen to a section of their
discussion and fill in the table logging the frequency/ type of participant
contributions.

Name Moves Frequency

Suggesting an idea
Reacting to an idea II
Inviting ideas I

13 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Comment: Nowadays most students bring recording devices to the
classroom and are easily able to share recordings between themselves.
Recorded feedback gives students concrete information on areas they
need to improve (Nolasco & Arthur, 1987). Recordings can be used to
focus students on a whole range of speaking sub skills, accuracy and
areas of pronunciation.

Bibliography
Achard, M. (2004). Cognative Linguistics, Second Language Aquisition and
Foriegn Language Teaching. Walter de Gruyter.

BBC. (2015, 07 15). You Tube. Retrieved 08 2015, 30, from

https://www.youtube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=WnXpzraMWik

Brown, L., & Levinson, S. (1978). Universals in Language Usage: politeness

phenomina. In Goody.

Bygate, M. (1987). Speaking. Oxford University Press.

14 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

Dillion, D. J. (1994). Using Discussion in the Classroom. Open University Press.

Dornye, Z., & Thurell, S. (1994). Teaching Conversation Skills Intensively . ELTJ.

Nolasco, R., & Arthur, L. (1987). Conversation. Oxford.

Thornbury, S., & Slade, D. (2006). Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy.

Cambridge University Press.

Wilde , J. (2014). Is it my turn yet? ETP.

Wood, D. (2006). Uses and Functions of Formulaic Sequences in Second

Language Speech: an exploration of the foundation of fluency. The
Canadian Modern Language Review, 13-33.

Appendix 1

Listen for the phrases in column one. In column two write the number of
the person who said phrase. In the final column, write whose comment
was being referred to.

Phrase Speaker To whom

You picked up on the 1 5

15 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

word swarm Im gonna
pick up on the word
virus.

The point you made 5 1

about nervousness.
Do you honestly see 2 5
Jeremy Corbyn as a
prime minister?
People dont think in 5 1234
terms of left and right
outside of people like
us.
I know you love 1 5
policies
I agree completely with 4 3
Tom
Shaffik youre an 1 3
observer on these
issues, what do you
think?
How old is Corbyn? 3 1245
Mark is right 2 4
But the point you 5 2
make about young
people is important.
Will he win? Do you 5 4
think hell win?

16 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions

17 Helping Learners Particpate in Discussions