This article, originally used on our Delta Module One course, focuses on teaching learners to take long turns and asks...
a) what learner types and in what learning contexts learners might need to develop the ability to take long turns
b) what difficulties they might experience
c) how you would teach them.
A. Learner Types and Learning Contexts
Many Ls in academic
and professional contexts need to take transactional long turns. Their audience may be
native speakers or they may be using English as an EIL. – eg
1.
Business people working
for a multinational company who might need to give presentations to colleagues
working in branches in other countries during international meetings.
Alternatively, if they work for a company with clients in other countries they
may need to present their products/services to them. This would also be true
for other professionals, such as architects, who might similarly need to
present a project proposal to overseas clients.
2.
Overseas doctors working
in an English speaking environment might need to present patient details in
case conferences with English native speaking colleagues.
3.
Any type of professional person may wish
to present a paper at an international conference – this could range from
doctors to nuclear scientists to NNESTs.
4.
In academic contexts, lecturers working in a university
where English is the medium of delivery for some or all courses – as happens in
many European universities from Maastrict to Milan – will need to prepare and
deliver lectures in English.
5.
Students are sometimes asked to
give presentations as part of their courses - starting from “Show and Tell”
sessions in primary school. This might happen in their English courses, but
would also be relevant to learners following CLIL courses, or university
students studying through the medium of English, who might be asked to give a
presentation as a tutorial assignment.
6. ELT exams such as IELTS may include
a long turn in the speaking test. This is transactional because, although the
topics may be of general interest, the focus is on the L’s ability to present a
reasoned argument based on factual information.
Ls may also need to
take interactional long turns – eg
7. Any learner, whether GP, BE or ESP,
may be involved in social interaction where anecdotes (a form of long
turn where listeners generally provide only backchannel feedback) are told.
B. Difficulties
8. Long turns, whether presentations, anecdotes or whatever, have a specific structure and identifiable genre features. For example, typical sections of a presentation will be : Introduction – Topic 1 – Topic 2 – etc – Summary and Conclusion - Questions. Variations are possible – eg questions may not be left until the end (though this is common) but invited after each topic has been discussed. The features involved in long turns in English may be culture specific and differ from those of the learner’s L1. For example, Zhang and Sang (1986, cited in Cortazzi 1984) identified two Chinese narrative patterns affecting anecdote telling, both of which differ significantly from Western models. Such differences would create difficulties for Chinese learners. Body language may also be used differently.
9. The L needs to be able to control the linguistic exponents used to signal movement through the stages of the long turn – eg in a presentation or lecture, indicating a move to subsequent topics OK, that’s all I have to say about XXX. Let’s now move on to YYY.
10. During a long turn, Ls do not have the opportunity to think of what they want to say and how to say it whilst others are talking, but must formulate each sentence while actually producing the previous one. This may create too high a level of communicative challenge, affecting both fluency and accuracy.
11. The topic of the long turn will determine the lexical fields that the speaker needs to control. Eg a marketing manager giving a presentation on sales results will need lexis describing trends (rise, fall, drop, remain stable, plummet etc). Someone trying to tell an anecdote about a difficult trip in bad weather should be able to use vocabulary expressing this related to their level – eg heavy rain at B1 level, torrential rain at B2 and a downpour at C1+. These lexical items may not be familiar to the learners leading them to give an impression of being at a lower level than they actually are.
C. How?
12. Ensure Ls have ample exposure to models which they analyse for features such as organisation, linguistic features and body language before starting to work on a presentation, anecdote or other long turn of their own. This will show any differences between the genre in English and the Ls’ own culture (difficulty 8). This model can be provided by the teacher or be a recorded/videoed example (TED Talks provides a wide range of examples and some are specifically available for classroom use, including eg lesson plans and handouts. The model can be exploited using a text-based lesson format, starting with comprehension work and leading to a focus on the genre features and/or language focus where eg the lexical items necessary can be focused on (difficulty 11) and/or a functional approach can be used to focus on necessary exponents (difficulty 9).
13. However, particularly for presentations, an effective technique is to provide two versions – on done well, the other badly. Learners discuss which they prefer and why, identifying the genre features that constitute the effective version. These may range from the organisation of the turn or the speaker’s body language (difficulty 8) to the language used (difficulties 9 and 11)
14. To help resolve difficulty 9, controlled practice can be given of the necessary linguistic items. Eg for the exponents in point 9, they could be given gapped examples where they have to provide the missing word, and/or could do substitution drills, with XXX/YYY cued by eg : the advantages / the disadvantages; our company / our competitors etc
15. Planning and rehearsal are a normal part of long turns such as presentations, but even with long turns that are usually more spontaneously produced (eg anecdotes), it can be a useful strategy to gradually develop fluency and overcome the problems in point 10. This is particularly relevant to teen and adult group courses. The approach uses the following steps: T. model and comprehension work - Silent planning - Language Input - Task Enactment (PW) - Follow up (feedback and further language input) – Partner change and Task Repetition - Feedback - and possibly further repetition. Weaker Ls who need to continue “polishing” their story can tell it again, while strong learners are given the challenge of telling a story they heard from one of their previous partners. This technique can therefore work well in mixed ability groups
References and Further Reading
Cortazzi, M. 1994. Narrative
analysis. State of the art article. Language Teaching 27: 157-170
Hayton, T. Student
presentations
Horowitz, D.
and Stein, L. Teaching
Presentation and Discussion Skills to EAP Students
