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Date Posted: 07:04:41 07/23/03 Wed
Author: Aparecida dos Santos Silva
Subject: TASK 12

UFMG 2003-07-21

COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH
Teacher: Vera Menezes
Student: Aparecida dos Santos Silva

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.

The activity described below was copied from the textbook Language-to-go pre-intermediate and it is a complement of the lesson Green Card that covers:
Vocabulary: Immigration Grammar: present perfect with/for since

This activity is for 2 pairs of students working simultaneously.

Students A and B

1. You are a married couple.
“B” is from another country. Immigration officers are going to interview you and you have five minutes to prepare for the interview. Work together to make sure you give the same information about:
>how long B has been in the country
>how long you’ve known each other
>where you met
>your jobs
>what you do in your free time

2.Student A: Answer Student C’s questions.
Student B: Answer Student D’s questions.

3. Discuss your interviews.Do you think you gave the same answers.

Students C and D

1.You are immigration officers.
A and B are married. B is from another country and you don’t think it’s a real marriage. You are going to interview the couple and you have five minutes to prepare for the interview. Work together to prepare questions to ask them. You will ask both A and B the same questions, about:
>how long B has been in the country
>how long they’ve known each other
>where they met
>their weeding
>their jobs
>what they do in their free time

2.Student C: Ask Student A your questions. Student D: Ask Student B your questions.

3.Compare A and B’s answers. Are they telling the truth.

I extended the activity to:

The immigration officers have some time to analyse the couple’s answers and after that they will give them the veredict.


According to Littlewood the purposes of communicative activities are: a) to provide ‘whole-task practice’; b)To improve motivation; c) To allow natural learning and d) To create a context which supports learning.

He also mentions in his text that there are two types of communicative actitity, that are: Functional communication activities and Social Interacion Activities. The First one can be Sharing information with restricted cooperation or with unrestricted cooperation, Sharing and Processing information and Processing information.

The activity which I described above is , as far as I understand, is a Functional Communication Activity – Sharing information with restricted cooperation.
It seems to me that the “Sharing information with restricted cooperation” are simpler activities which involve pictures and it is more controlled.

The reason why I believe that the Green Card activity is “Sharing information with unrestricted cooperation” is because there is an information gap that students have to discover and then they will have to share and process information.

Even though the questions are controlled, they will have to communicate to get to a conclusion. For example students A and B will have to talk , to combine what they are going to say in their interviews. After the interview they will talk again and check if they gave the same information.

Students C and D parts are simpler, as they will only have to prepare the questions which the teacher gave them. When the interview ends they will have to decide, by checking the answers , whether A and B are a real couple.

I think it is a good communicative activity, as it provides a “whole-task practice”, it’s motivating, they students are communicating and thus learning in a natural way, and the activity was set within a context.

Reference:
Littlewood, W. Communicative language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.p.16 to 42.

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