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Four
Strategies for Increasing Oral Production in the EFL Classroom
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Two factors present themselves in a discussion
of oral production in Syrian university EFL classrooms. The first is that students are
incompetent in the oral skill. The second is a positive factor: Students have a real
desire to speak English more effectively, not only in the language classroom but also in
out-of-class situations.
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Many Syrian university students suffer from
mother-tongue interference. This interference seems deeply rooted, making them translate
in their minds what they want to say. The result is a speech variety that does not sound
English and leads to frustration even on the part of the speakers. Some students choose to
give up and remain silent.
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Silence, however, does not always mean lack of
interest. I have seen students listen, read, and write when asked. They show their
comprehension of whatever oral production they hear by their facial expressions. They
smile or frown, nod their heads in agreement, or shake them in disagreement. And they
laugh heartily when they hear a joke. Yet they are reluctant to make a single spontaneous
utterance in English.
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To deal with this situation, I have used the
following strategies:
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After greeting the students, I announce that I
am going to whisper a message into the ear of the student sitting nearest to me. Students
should pass on the message orally from mouth to ear till it gets to the last student, who
then writes what he has heard on the board. Sometimes the message gets wholly or partially
distorted. When I write the original version next to the received one, students burst out
in laughter. Once the original message was: "Marry in haste and repent at
leisure." The message that emerged at the end was: "Marry in haste and repeatwith
pleasure ." When I put the two messages side by side, my students were
hysterical. The activity made them ready to plunge into hard work. In addition, they had
some practice in vocabulary and spelling.
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Writing a word on the board, I ask students to
reflect on it and say whatever comes to their minds, with one condition: Everyone must say
something different in a complete sentence. There is a prize for the student who says the
best sentence (as determined by vote). Once I gave a group of medical students the word
"patient" to respond to. One response was: "A doctor should be patient when
dealing with a difficult patient." Another was: "Patients are often victims of
their own environment." A third was: "One patient's doctor might become another
doctor's patient." To come up with quick, original responses, students have to listen
carefully. They do not have the time to translate and are forced to think in English.
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I present a dilemma to the class to respond to.
It may be a real-life situation, or imaginary. For instance, a successful surgeon asks his
wife, also a well-known pediatrician, to close her clinic and stay at home to bring up her
young children. What should she do? In responding to such dilemmas, students get so
involved that they forget they are using a foreign language.
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I place an attractive, present-like parcel on
the table, declare that something "valuable" is inside, and tell students to ask
questions to discover what it is. Their questions should have only "yes" or
"no" answers, with no repetition of questions allowed. The student who guesses
correctly gets the parcel. To get students to ask many questions, it is better to choose
an object that is hard to guess. Once I put a baby's pacifier in the parcel. The allotted
time was over before any student had the right answer. When I opened the parcel, the class
roared with laughter.
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The overall aim of these strategies is to
encourage students to talk and use the language spontaneously. I have found them very
useful in creating a relaxed non-threatening atmosphere conducive to learning. They
provide the sort of involvement necessary for genuine interaction in an EFL classroom
situation.
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Sada A.
Daoud has been teaching at the E.S.P. Centre, University of Damascus, since 1988.
She previously taught in secondary schools in Tartous and at Tishreen University, Latakia.
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