For many years the author and concept designer of SimplyConvesationsTM, Karenne Joy Sylvester, has been on the hunt for great materials to take into class to get her students talking.
Like most teachers, Karenne wants material that students find interesting and motivating and, above all, materials which effectively improve their level of communicative English.
Over the years the one skill that all her students consistently ask for is more speaking practice.
So she looked: she surfed through the 'net, downloaded, ploughed through the textbooks, purchased and photocopied from the supplementary books, read the linguistics books until she made her head spin and eventually she became a Blue Peter expert: designing materials again and again that focus on speaking skills above all else.
It wasn't easy because although so much of the research into second language acquisition (SLA) has indicated that the traditional language teaching methods aren't very effective at improving authentic communication, and even though numerous linguistics and SLA scholars have churned out teaching books and written articles and papers calling for a more task-based, contextual and natural approach to learning materials, many publishers aren't delivering.
According to Rivers in Teaching foreign language skills 1981, adults spend:
40-50% of their time listening, 25-30% speaking, 11-16% reading and 9% writing.
Yet many course books often try to create a time balance of the key skills and on top, add lexis and grammar structures.
And if you're working with a business textbook, throw in emailing and telephoning phrases, negotiating, presentations, meetings and intercultural awareness. While these goals are good, excellent even - understandable and necessary, important - doing all this leaves the teacher with about 10 - 20% of class time (if lucky) to actually spend working on their listening and speaking skills.
It simply isn't necessary to balance the amount of time spent on each skill and some skills need to be placed at higher priority in order to reflect the way we actually communicate.
Our students are mostly learning English in order to talk. Our students are learning English because they need and want to communicate with international colleagues and business partners. Providing them with mind-numbing grammar and vocabulary exercises is all well and good, but useless, unless we are also able to show them how to put this knowledge into real usable sentences.
We need to provide them with the opportunity to make the mistakes with us so that they don't look unprofessional later on.
So to make a long story short, Karenne went back to the drawing board and analyzed which of her own materials worked, which of her purchased (or downloaded) materials were successful and which just weren't.
The goal
With this information she designed SimplyConversationsTM with its principle objective: give students the chance to participate in active dialogues - ones that stimulate them, raise their fluency, increase language awareness and enhance their ability to recognize progress and encourage real feelings of success.
I've had so many teachers that just ask questions on some topics I was not interested in and I couldn't answer or participate in the class because, although I wanted to speak in English, I wasn't interested. I didn't know what to say, I had no relationship to the topic they brought in. Language student: Beatrix Weisgerber, Mercedes Bank, Stuttgart, Germany 2007.
All of the topics in SimplyConversationsTM are already part of our students' normal lives and conversations within their own language (L1).
Some of the units are defined as English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and (ESI) Special Interest and these are meant to be used only within specific fields/occupations/interests.
They use jargon, idioms and language that the student within this branch is already used to hearing - or if not, should be.
Meaningful output is as necessary to language learning as meaningful input. Merrill Swain, 1980.
Ego-based involvement as a motivating factor in language learning
Analysis of language by global monitors and dictionary makers record that the word "I" ranks anywhere from the third most commonly spoken word to the twentieth (other popular words include: the, and, of, in, that, be, a & have).
Whether 3rd, 7th or 18th, the English language is made up of approximately 750,000 words and is increasingly daily - which means the word "I" is pretty darn important.
Looking for subjects to form the SimplyConversationsTM system meant looking at what people talk about and what words they use when chatting.
While being neither psychologist nor a theoretical linguist, Karenne started doing her own action research, paying attention to her friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, strangers in random Starbucks and to be honest, herself.
She observed that human beings just love talking about themselves!
This includes the immediate world around them - how they experience and interact with it as well as the outer world, their opinions of this and their ways of perceiving current issues.
Karenne noted that people also enjoy finding out how other people think, what their general knowledge is, what they know, what they think they know, what they've experienced, what a friend of theirs is going through - anything really- as long as they feel a tangible interest in the subject or the person that is doing the talking.
As a general observation, people aren't really motivated to talk about subjects they don't know anything about or things they feel little curiousity or attraction to, especially if they cannot see the point for having the discussion. They discard words that they perceive as having no use for.
Talk to people about themselves and they will listen for hours. Benjamin Disraeli
Self-actualization
Abraham Maslow's hierachy of needs places self-actualization at the top of our motivational needs. Humans are generally most happy, in an educational environment, when they actually learn something new, something that is useful or relevent to their lives.
And if they are able to inform and convince others about their point of view, they're pleased. They like laughing, they even like disagreeing and one more thing that's clear is that when people are passionate about a subject, they can talk for hours - and if this happens in another language (L2), they're proud.
What we communicate about
Click here to see a larger version of this diagram.
During the tests of the material one thing became abundantly clear - when students are excited and deeply involved in a conversation, they literally forget they are speaking in an L2 and are driven solely by the need to add their own feelings, opinions, hypothesis or knowledge to the common pot - no matter the difficulty or their (perceived) lack of vocabulary.
Subjects for the question sheets in SimplyConversationsTM have therefore been chosen on this simple model (hence the brand name) - engage language learners and encourage them to discuss themselves and others around them.
Eduational psychologists point to three major sources of motivation in learning:
While teachers and school systems have drawn on both of the first two sources of motivation [intrinsic & extrinsic], the third source is perhaps under-exploited in language teaching. This is the simple fact of success and the effect that this has on our view of what we do. As human beings, we generally like what we do well, and are therefore more likely to do it again, and put in more effort. Andrew Littlejohn, 2001, English Teaching Professional, Issue 19. March 2001
Throughout the three years+ of developing SimplyConversationsTM material, Karenne's students have become addicted to answering questions, especially once they realise that not only are they speaking English but speaking at length and reusing vocabulary previously learned in contextual setting.
Students get a sense of completion and possibility: they recognise they can complete the task set successfully. Students are intrinsically satisfied - they become increasingly self-aware of their progress (especially when using the Conversation ControlTM sheets) and know that the conversations they've had in class are ones they will have in the future out of the classroom environment.
Students feel a great deal of extrinsic satisfaction when the teacher compliments them on their progress - which he has followed via the Conversation Control sheets - and when their bosses note the difference in their English.
They feel proud and motivated when a client/supplier/colleague doesn't leave with either side feeling confused and when they are newly able to manage a presentation, small talk situation or negotiate a deal that might have been previously impossible.
Language acquisition is strongly facilitated by the use of the target language in interaction. In particular, the negotiation of meaning has been shown to contribute greatly to the acquisition of vocabulary. Long, 1990.
Everyone knows what attention is - it is the taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentratioin of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others. William James, Principles of Psychology 1890.
The study of learner-internal factors in SLA is primarily concerned with the question: how do learners gain competence in the target language?
Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring others which is why the holding of cards in ones hand is so important to the way that SimplyConversationsTM works.
The size of the cards was selected after taking them into class in sets of 10 and 12 and practising again and again until they reached the size that was most comfortable to hold in the hand - providing tactile comfort (neither too big nor too small) and a size one which students didn't play with too much, bend or be inclined to write on.
The font was chosen to be the most clear and easiest to read as non-distracting from the actual task as possible.
Fifteen cards per sheet was ultimately chosen in order to limit the "time" spent on conversation and in order to provide groups with a minimum of three cards each.
The units also contain a code of the lowest level possible based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages at the top of the sheets. This means that the cards can be used with higher groups as well and therefore targets the maximum number of students. It can be comfortably utilized in multi-level classrooms.
There is also a reference to the grammatical structure(s) generally prompted for on each card (students may well answer with another correct form), thus if desired, the teacher can take out higher-level questions when working with lower-level students.
Although this is not really recommended because this moves away from the idea of natural conversation/conversations which may occur when students are faced with a native/high leveled non-native speaker.
This structural reference also provides the teacher with the opportunity to select, for review purposes, specific questions across a series of different topics when needing to really concentrate on a particular grammatical structure say one (s)he notices mistakes being made with often or wishes to do more practice before an exam.
Given that the art behind the cards is in their mimicry of conversations which occur outside the classroom environment, it is completely appropriate and naturalistic to repeat questions from units which have already been presented to he same group (with some time allowance in between) we, our students are used to this occurring in their native normal speech and some welcome the opportunity to answer more correctly the second time around.
Questions that might be considered inappropriate in cross-cultural settings can be easily extracted.
Some questions carry warning symbols to pre-warn teachers that a question may provoke or disturb. They exist within the units because quite simply, this is life. There are things that provoke and annoy us and linguistically we need to be able to deal with this just as much as competently as we deal with welcomed topics.
However the teacher/institution has full autonomy - if (s)he doesn't like the question (s)he can remove it ahead of time and (s)he misses something and a student doesn't want to deal with the question, they will generally simply choose not to answer and move on to the next card anyway.
Actually students love doing this! The other day one of my mature students (60+) had a question about music preference and she turned the card over with a "I don't like music" (ya, really) and moved on to the next card with a smirk. I just smiled back, heck - she answered the next q' with zero structural faults and I was proud of her gumption! KJS
It is often a delicate decision as to how to provide learners with feedback on their errors when their attention is primarily focused on the content of what they are saying rather than on the way they are saying it. There is support for the view that maintaining a focus on form is good for learners in the long run. Scott Thornbury, How to Teach Speaking, Longman Pearson Education Limited, 2005.
A very important part of the methodology behind the SimplyConversationsTM systemis that the teacher isprovided with a Conversation ControlTM sheet in order to record and review errors, new vocabulary and pronunciation issues.
Another Conversation Control sheet is also provided so students can keep their own records and become good meta-cognitive learners. Current research shows that feedback affects self-efficacy and self-regulation and is important to motivation.
Both of sheets are highly effective in personalizing the class to students' actual needs and are designed to help to track progress and create conscious learning.
Self-monitoring of progress provides reliable feedback and that rewards enhance self-efficacy when linked with students accomplishments. This conveys to students that they have made progress. As students improve, they learn which actions result in postive outcomes (successes, teacher praise, high grades). Such information guides future actions. Anticipation of desirable outcomes motivate students to persist. Schunk, 1983
The following factors are listed as important principles in learning: comprehension precedes production, production emerges (i.e. learners are not forced to respond, [and] activities which promote subconscious acquisition rather than conscious learning are central. Krashen&Terrel, 1983.
The post-task activity, the SimplyQuestsTM, are an extension of the SimplyConversationsTM units and are designed to:
* re-use vocabulary presented in the main task (the conversation)
* continue the experience of contextual learning
* provide more opportunities to re-use the language structures in realistic situations and subconsciously compare against those reviewed in the main task
* release the teacher of constant preparation/get the students sharing the workload
Although the concept was created out of Karenne's desire to get her students more directly involved in their own homework, the idea can be linked to a learning system, Lernen durch Lehren (learning through teaching) developed by Jean Pol Martin.
Each quest contains between eight and twelve (sometimes more) opportunities for the students to research a specific unit topic or field of interest and then to report back - orally or with written text or both.
They are asked to research in the language of their choice and are provided with a list of useful website addresses. They questions are interesting and dynamic - they are designed to stimulate their curiousity levels and provide an inspiring menu of how to carry out their detective work.
Investigating subjects first in one's own language mimics much of the students' daily tasks within their workplaces. Generally, over time, they make the "right" decision to do their searches in English (it's actually quicker) but they have to have the choice right from the start.
There is also no clear indication of how they should present the information. This is another decision which is meant to taken by the learner in order to remove psychological pressure (a major filter) and the potential for failure.
Students should always be thanked and praised - whether they spend 5 minutes or two hours on a subject. If they don't do it by the deadline requested by the trainer, they can be asked to do it by another deadline without creating too much fuss. (They are adults after all).
As time goes by and especially when there are one or two apple polishers(!) in class, students enthusiastically turn in the quests - very quickly they come to understand it heir intrinsic and extrinsic properties and recognize the satisfaction they feel at doing a good job. When they work in teams or get into a competitive environment, they come up with ever more creative and dynamic materials, utilizing and accessing software and hardware, all instruments they have access to.
They also remember what they've previously looked into in the quests and often without prompting, when the subject comes up again in the news or media, they report to the class in English with an update - creating further opportunities for speaking practice.
Which is, let me tell you as a fellow teacher, just so dang rewarding. Recently my students have made presentations to me on derivatives and futures - the history of this type of trading; the molecular structure of chocolate; the marketing theory of the long tail; explained the calendar and the original date for the New Year... the list goes on, I've seen powerpoint presentations, complex drawings - had them standing up shaking with nervousness in the first 3 minutes and watched them relax as they've gained confidence in their ability to get through it then felt shocked at just how great their English has become. Man, it's so much fun - a real adventure into their knowledge! KJS
SimplyConversations(TM) 
