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Date Posted: 09:39:02 07/25/03 Fri
Author: Igor AL Silva
Subject: 12th Task

According to Littlewood (1981:39), functional communication activities place learners in a situation where they need to use language for a well-defined communicative purpose.

Examine one textbook and choose a good communicative activity. Describe it and then classify that activity according to the types presented by Littlewood.


I examined the seventh lesson of the book “Teamwork 2”, which is recommended to students in the 3rd semester of a basic level. This lesson is called “Party time!”, and as the very name indicates, it deals with parties, holidays, celebrations, dates, making invitations and replying invitations.

The first activity asks the students to look at some dates that people in Britain celebrate and asks the students to point out those which they also celebrate. Then, students are asked to match those dates with some pictures and representations.

The second activity is in pair, and students are supposed to ask and answer questions, such as: “when did you last go to a party?” and “what are the ingredients of a good party?”

The third activity is a listening: “Martin is organizing a Halloween party. He is telephoning two friends, Cathy and Robert, to invite them.” First, students should listen and answer some questions, such as: “where is the party?”, “when is it?”, “Is Robert going to the party?” Then, students are supposed to identify when somebody makes an invitation and when somebody replies to an invitation.

The fourth activity is in pair. A student is supposed to invite his/her partner to some places, such as: cinema, stadium, concert and park.

The fifth activity stimulates students to do a role play. There is an invitation card, and they are supposed to invent a conversation upon this.

The sixth activity asks students to say how they can make invitation and how they can reply to an invitation, accepting it or not.

And the last activity asks the students to list what they believe to be important so as to have a fabulous party, concerning music, clothes, food and decoration.

It is important to remark that the first lesson seems to be incoherent with the other ones presented but it fits quite well with the rest of the lesson. However, I decided to present those activities which would involve one single class. Therefore, it is interesting to realize that all the activities are very related to the communicative approach, since students are required to speak, communicate and develop their knowledge regarding the subject (party/celebration) all the time, improving vocabulary and cultural points. Moreover, I think that the sixth lesson, even though it is not the last one, is a great one because it concludes the whole lesson and gets to the main target: the students are invited to learn almost “by themselves”, by recognizing and developing how to make invitation and replying to them, and by recognizing and developing structures important to this kind of situation.

According to Littlewood, many activities of this lesson can be priory classified as “pooling information to solve a problem or reach a decision”, mainly activities 2, 4 and 5, since it is expected that they interact with one another and get involved in the situation. Furthermore, on a broader perspective, those are “Social Interactional Activities”, as “the activities stimulate the demands that will arise outside the classroom, where learners will likewise need to use language to solve immediate communication problems”(Littlewood, p.39).




References:

LITTLEWOOD, W. Communicative Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. p. 16 to 42.

SPENCER, David; VAUGHAN, David. Teamwork 2. Oxford: Heinemann, 1996. p. 43-45.

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