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Date Posted: 15:43:21 07/25/03 Fri
Author: Ronaldo G.M. Rosa
Subject: Task 12

TWELFTH CLASS July 21th to 25th

Material Evaluation

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.



TASK 12


I chose to comment here an activity extrated from the book "Headway Pre-Intermediate", by John and Liz Soars. It comes in a lesson about the use of 'Second Conditional', 'might' and 'social expressions'.

The activity consists, in its first part, in asking the students to fill the gaps in four short conversations with a suitable expression from the list that appears at the side of the exercise.
Thus, there are sentences with blanks, like " _____ you're going to get married soon. ____ ! " , and, at the side, some expressions to be chosen to fill the gaps: "That's right", "Oh, what a pity", "Congratulations", "Never mind", "I hear".
Each conversation occurs about a subject: 1) about a wedding; 2) about going to get the train; 3) about an exam in school (before); 4) about an exam in school (after).
In the second part, the learners work in pairs. They listen to a tape and check their answers. They are asked to listen again and practise saying the dialogues together.

This exercise has the characteristics of "functional communicative activity", since it deals with the "ability to find language which will convey an intended meaning effectively in a specific situation" (Littlewood 1981:20).

Nevertheless, considering that this classification "is not an all-or-nothing matter, but a question of varying degree" (Littlewood 1981: 21), this exercise may be classified also as "social interaction activity", since it has its emphasis on the employment of social expressions of the everyday English, as "Never mind", "What about you?", "Just a minute", "Oh, what a pity", an so on. Littlewood states that "the competent speaker chooses language which is not only functionally effective, but is also appropriate to the social situation he is in" (Littlewood 1981:20), and this activity deals with this social adequacy of language.

The second part of the activity (listening and speaking) can also extrapolate the situations already given in the first part, to include improvised and unpredictable conversations about various subjects. This has to do with the "sharing and proccessing information" activity, described by Littlewood (1981:32-36), and with its main consequences: the range of communicative functions is further widened; this further increases the unpredictability of the interaction; there is more scope for disagreement and negotiation.



Bibliography and references

LITTLEWOOD, William. Communicative language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press, 1981. p. 16 to 42.

SOARS, John & Liz. Headway Pre-Intermediate - Student's Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press, no date. p. 100.



Ronaldo G.M. Rosa

July 2003

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