Friday, July 15, 2005

TAB or 'WHY DON'T MY STUDENTS SPEAK ENGLISH?'

TAB or 'WHY DON'T MY STUDENTS SPEAK ENGLISH?'
David Spencer and David Vaughan consider reasons why students are reluctant to speak, and propose positive solutions.

When one of the authors of this article was doing his initial teacher training course he was warned about the problem of TAB amongst teenagers. What was it, he wondered. Some kind of illness? Almost.

TAB means Task Avoidance Behaviour. Underneath the euphemistic jargon, lies the fact that, when working in pairs or small groups, teenagers notoriously play about, chatter in their own language, make paper planes, or do anything but what they are supposed to be doing: speaking the target language.

Unfortunately, TAB often has a strong and lasting effect on many teachers.They may try to do one or two oral activities with their class, see a number of their students chatting in their own language about plans for next weekend, and so decide bitterly to abandon oral work forever.

This is not being fair to our students; no English course is complete without writing or grammar. Speaking is another essential strand of the language which cannot simply be omitted. We should not let a minority in the class deny the rest of the class the chance to speak.

Let us firstly analyse the reasons why some students avoid getting involved in speaking activities. We can then consider positive steps to limit those reasons. Although we can never realistically expect all students to speak in English all the time, we can make pair and groupwork in English a more productive and rewarding experience.

Why teenage students are reluctant to speak Age-related factorsIt is easy to forget, being adults and having successfully learnt English, that speaking English can be quite an embarrassing and threatening experience when you are a teenager. Why use foreign sounds to ask your best friend what she did last weekend ? Apart from anything else, the students have probably already discussed these things when they met each other at the school gates on Monday morning.

It is frustrating to be unable to express yourself clearly because you cannot remember vocabulary, how to pronounce words or how to form a particular tense. Add this to the natural shyness of, say, a thirteen-year old, who is still forming his or her own concept of him/herself in the mother-tongue and it is obvious why some students will find it easier to play around than speak English, especially if the topic of conversation is personal.

If the topic is a 'world' topic (e.g. ecology) as opposed to a personal topic it is possible that students have not yet formed an opinion. Silence might be less an act of rebellion than a genuine response to the question! We can try to encourage students with the fact that one day they might need English to get a job but, obviously, long-term motivation is usually irrelevant for young students.

Peer pressure adds to the problem. Two students may want to work on a task but if the third student wants to 'hijack' the activity, the other two will be easily persuaded. Nobody wants to look like the 'teacher's pet'; the more the teacher angrily insists, 'In English!' the less likely it is that students of this age will take notice.

Task-related factors
Pairwork and groupwork are types of interaction that students rarely experience in other subjects at school. In many subjects students might never be asked to formulate or express their own opinions on topics; speaking might be discouraged or even forbidden by other teachers. Suddenly, in our classes, students are asked to get together and chat and some students will interpret this freedom as a licence for bad behaviour.

We, as teachers, need to train our students gradually to work first in pairs and then in progressively larger groups, moving slowly from very controlled to freer activities.

Students quickly lose interest when there is no clear purpose to an activity, no tangible task to realize or only artificial reasons to communicate with one another. Sometimes clear purposes are given but activities don't work since the instructions from the teacher are not 100% clear.

If students do not know what language to use, once they are working independently from the teacher, the chances of success are minimal. Some tasks may even demand a level of cohesion and coherence that the students are still developing in their own language.

Getting the basics right! Designing and selecting speaking activitiesThere is not one particular type of activity that will always work, but we believe that a good speaking activity will display the following qualities.

Task-based
Activities that work well tend to include a task with a clear, achievable end product. A task such as 'Find out about your partner's likes and dislikes' is not very well defined in terms of length (how many questions to ask) or purpose (why they are finding out about their partner's likes and dislikes). Say instead, 'Find five things you have in common' and the task immediately becomes more achievable, there is a reason to exchange information and a quantified goal.

Controlled Information gap tasks define the context and limit the task. It is easy for students to measure their success.

Relevant to the students' lives
It is important for students to see a link between activities and their own lives - whether school, town, family or interests. By drawing on their experience, the students are not at a loss for something to say.

Setting up speaking activities
Activities, however good they are, often go wrong when students are not sure what they are supposed to be doing, in what order, or how to record their findings. With a group of adults, this may result in mild bewilderment and some resourceful attempts to rectify the matter, but with a class of teenagers the outcome may be total chaos. Writing instructions clearly on the OHT, board or slips of paper is the most effective way of anticipating problems at this stage.
When activities need a series of instructions, group them into stages rather than give all the instructions simultaneously. It is often a good idea to demonstrate activities, particularly with young learners. The cue to start the activity should only be given when each student knows what to do.
With adult students it is common practice to explain the objectives of activities at the setting-up stage. There is no reason why this should not be done with teenage students. Excessive emphasis on 'games for games' sake' can be short-sighted. Adolescent students, like any others, need to make visible, quantifiable progress.

During a speaking activityMonitoring is one of the most efficient ways of reducing TAB, since students realise that the teacher is checking their work. Monitoring teenage students also gives the teacher the opportunity to offer all-important individual encouragement, and to help students with specific difficulties. It is clearly impossible to monitor every student in the course of one activity but individual attention can be given over a series of activities and lessons.

If it is clear that the whole class is having problems during an activity, the teacher should not be afraid to stop the activity, and set it up again.
At the feedback stageStudents should receive feedback on how they tackled the activity. There is a danger in showing interest only in the language aspect of the activity and not the information that they communicate. During feedback ask the students how well they thought they performed, what they found difficult and what they enjoyed.

By asking them to evaluate critically we are encouraging a sense of responsibility that might lead to more active participation in class.
The move towards successful oral pairwork is neither fast nor easy. However, once students do become familiar with the dynamics and aims of pairwork, groupwork and freer activities, they are more likely to be productive. The problem of long term motivation is countered by tasks with immediate goals, which also provide enjoyment and interest.

Finally - a mathematical point. Divide 50 minutes by 25. Even if students don't work well in pairs and groups, they will probably speak for more than the 2 minutes spoken by 25 students in a 50 minute class who never do pair or group work!

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