Biting the bullet: getting the best out of speaking practice in languages tutorials

1
Biting the bullet getting the best out of
speaking practice in languages tutorials

• Helga Adams and Margaret Nicolson
• The Open University
• h.l.adams_at_open.ac.uk

2
Focus of enquiry

• Case studies of 6 beginners students of French,
  German, Spanish.
• Under what conditions do students feel best
  enabled to exploit speaking practice
  opportunities, progressing their skills in the
  language and shaping their identity as successful
  language learners?
• Tutorial attendance/ communication of tutorial
  content, tasks rationale and tasks
  management/pair and group work/physical response
  tasks/personal information/opting out or adapting
  tasks

3
Educational context (1)

• Distance learning
• Independent study with support of personal tutor
• Infrequent face to face tutorials, largely for
  the purpose of speaking practice. Not compulsory
• Changing population

4
Educational context (2)

• Diversity
• Students background age, educational and social
  background, cultural and ethnic provenance,
  disability, competence and confidence levels.
• Equal opportunities and meeting your needs
  policies
• Student expectations/ new hierarchies of needs
• Older pedagogic models losing relevance
• Need for greater methodological discrimination

5
Research influences (1)

• Pennycook critical moments
• Holliday et al(2004) Language shock Hall (1995)
  acculturation
• MacIntyre and Gardner(1994) Horwitz and
  Young(1991), Daly(1991) anxiety and
  communication apprehension
• Hall (1990),Blommaert (2005) identity moveable
  and context dependent
• Bhabas third space(1990) which should allow for
  individuals to redefine themselves in relation to
  the new, other meanings they encounter (Fougere,
  200313)
• Stratton (2005) Pre-understandings
• Van Lier(2008163) agency Is not something
  that learners possessbut is situated in a
  particular context
• Pellegrino (20052) social and psychological
  factors can inhibit spontaneous use of the
  second language

6
Research influences(2) Paying critical attention
to practice

• Commitment to continual critical evaluation in
  practice (Blommaert, 2005)
• Rejection of too rigid a belief in the
  application of a particular methodology
  (Howard,1996)
• Kumaravadivelu (2003, 2006) post-method pedagogy-
  stresses teacher autonomy and principled
  pragmatism rather than the theory of pedagogy
• Need for alignment between pedagogy and
  socio-cultural influences (Guangwei, 2002)
• Developing a practioner theory which is
  concerned with judgement and understanding
  (Usher and Bryant, 1987)

7
Tutorial attendance(1)

• Opportunity for spontaneous speaking practice
• Rona I needed the oral experience I knew that I
  was weak on hearing comprehension and speaking
• Hugh You can learn a lot in just a short amount
  of time. It gives you the experience.of speaking
  with other people. It helped me with confidence.
• Janet The motivation was the practice, the
  speaking.
• Don I have not missed any. I value them. Just
  the desire to actually nail it
• Rosemary..the experience was such that I didnt
  want to repeat itI didnt feel comfortable and
  that put me off to be honest. Yeah, I mean I had
  always gone to tutorials with my other OU courses
  and you know I always enjoyed them. I thought it
  was something I particularly wanted to do , that
  face to face tutorial, but when I went, cos I
  hadnt been to the first couple, I felt it was a
  small band of united people so I didnt feel
  particularly welcomed.
• Ian I appear normal to most peoplebut I do have
  great difficulty negotiating tight places with
  obstacles like desks and people to deal with. I
  did almost come a cropper once when my left leg
  got trapped under my right when turning

8
Tutorial attendance (2)

• Acculturation
• familarity with format and practices
• familiarity with people(including the teacher)-gt
  sense of security Pellegrino, 2005)
• Critical moments for Rosemary and Ian
• For a sense of validation and safety to be
  fostered, students have to feel welcome
  (Pellegrino, 2005)
• Ian unable to exert agency

9
Communication of tutorial content, task rationale
and execution (1)

• Janet Yes definitely .. .it is to make you
  prepare more and you will know what to expect
  when you go into that tutorial what language you
  would expect to know, especially the topics you
  would want to learn. Then it will give you a
  chance before you went along.
• Rona I think in retrospect it is very important
  .. I am not a person who easily thinks on her
  feet . I am quite good if I can prepare things. I
  am always thinking , oh, if I had had the chance
  to think about that whereas you know in the
  tutorial I hadnt been given the opportunity
• Ian The tutor sent you an e-mail ..so you had a
  fair idea of what you were going into I think it
  made you less frightened
• Preparing oneself for interaction with other
  speakers in order to improve ones prediction of
  success in interactionelevates ones internal
  sense of security (Pellegrino, 2005)

10
Communication of tutorial content, task rationale
and execution (2)

• Ian we got the e-mail listing what was going to
  take place. but then you find you are playing
  sort of, as I say, games and things, that involve
  getting up, moving around and a lot of activity ,
  and then some of these activities are actually
  very very taxing if you are still very vague
  about what you are doing, like learning a
  language, in fact I found it quite a shock.. I
  just couldnt take it. I didnt realise it was
  going to be like that.all the information
  you could get beforehand would be very useful
  actually youd be forearmed and at least get to
  the stage where you could actually cope with
  that.
• Hughif we were doing group work I would think,
  oh, this would help me with my confidence, this
  with speaking to others. It might be important
  for someone who is not aware of those things.
• Rosemary I dont think it was very important
  I was aware of how people are taught nowadays
  
• 
  
  

11
Pair and group work (1)

• Mixed competence and confidence
  levels/behavioural factors
• Ian If someone you are paired with is
  exceptionally good that can be embarrassing that
  they are doing all the work and you are doing
  nothing, and at other times you may be paired
  with someone who is really much worseyou are
  sitting there, or youve got the answer or the
  person says something in French and you dont
  know what they have said.there are lots of
  issues around that
• Rosemarythe girl I was sitting next to was
  very quiet and shy so we just sort of muttered a
  few things and then we just didnt do anything.
  In the second groupingthe person I was talking
  to was a lot more fluent and tended to jump in
  when I was trying to think of a word and I felt
  like saying Stop doing thatsome people just seem
  to be in the spotlight all the time and Im not
  being allowed to
• Rona it is a tremendous effort I can see the
  theory behind it but Im not sure you always got
  the results that you wanted.

12
Pair and group work (2)

• Preparation
• Preparing work at home
• Working on vocabulary and structures in class
  before more open ended group/pair tasks -gt
  building confidence
• Encouragement to say I havent done this yet or
  I am no good at this sort of thing in order to
  lower others expectations of the learners
  performance thus reducing the risk of
  condemnation for inadequate peformance
  (Pellegrino, 2005)

13
Physical movements in tasks

• Getting up, moving around, catching objects,
  circulating or miming.
• Challenges
• Eye and hand co-ordination
• Motor difficulties
• Shyness/embarrassment (acting and moving about in
  front of other people)

14
Personal information

• Rosemary I tend to make things up, things I need
  to learn. So If I am a bit rusty on family
  members Ill make up that Ive got about fifteen
  brothers and sisters to get my practice. Ill
  describe another town other than mine to make me
  think more about language I need to be using, so
  I dont use my proper antecedents as it were.
  Its just something I have developed myself.I
  like to stretch my vocabulary , my language, and
  secondly I dont really like giving out a lot of
  personal information to people I dont know
• Hugh You cant really say my wife and I .but
  I feel that you cant really be honest about
  reality.
• Janet They were saying I wasnt really happy
  about doing that, giving the information out I
  felt uncomfortable. I could have cringed. I
  felt really uncomfortable for them.

15
Opting out and adapting tasks

• Ian it would have been wonderful if someone had
  said you dont have to do this, you can do it in
  a different way .If it was said in French at
  the time, maybe I didnt notice.
• Rosemary it would give you the confidence of
  trying something cos if somebody says have a go
  and you find that perhaps you can do something
  different that would give you confidence
• Don If people feel pressured too much thenif
  they feel they are not coping, or not allowed the
  flexibility to deal with the course in their own
  way, then I suppose if its to the extreme level
  they may may actually opt out altogether.
• Rona I was just pleased if I could get through
  it
• Hugh We didnt have to do anything. we didnt
  feel comfortable with doing, so for instance, if
  we were asked to speak in front of the whole
  tutorial we would have been fine if we had said
  look, I dont feel confident with that and then
  the tutor would come and give us help with this
  personally
• Janet would students feel worse for attending if
  they had attention draw drawn to their special
  needs?

16
Main findings

• Benefits of research interview the listener may
  offer the participant a mechanism for reflection,
  greater self-awareness, finding a voice.and
  venting repressed emotions (Colbourne and Sque,
  2005)
• Reflection enabled students to come to a more
  in-depth understanding of the options available
  to them
• Identity issues Individual student identity,
  teaching group identity, teacher identity.
• Agency
• Realisation of the third space? critical
  moments, problems of integration, anxiety,
  discomfort

17
Implications for teacher development

• Post method pedagogy must be sensitive to a
  particular group of teachers teaching a
  particular group of students pursuing a
  particular set of goals within a particular
  institutional context embedded in a particular
  socio-cultural milieu Kumaravadivelu(2006)
• .helping teachers to develop the knowledge and
  skills, attitude and autonomy necessary to
  construct their own context-sensitive theory of
  practice (ibid)
• Development of personal theories by interpreting
  and applying professional theories in practical
  situations while they are on the job (Pennycook
  )