2.1.4. Description and justification
This section makes a brief reference to all tasks provided. However, only those
referring to speaking activities are justified.
Task 1 (see appendix V) is a pre-listening activity with a purpose to activate
relevant schemata in the students’ brains. As it also requires students to discuss their
experiences in pairs, it gives students the chance to use spoken language to refer to
situations which they have experienced. The pictures are not there for students to
describe them but they prompt them to refer to their personal experiences. There is an
information gap which is created by the fact that each student ignores his/her partner’s
experiences and wants to learn about them. The activity is interesting to students as
they like speaking about things that happen to them.
Task 2 (see appendix V) is a pre-listening activity which helps students create
certain expectations before they listen so that they can listen with a purpose.
Task 3 (see appendix V) asks students to listen to the text in order to get the
general meaning of the text and evaluate their guesses.
Task 4 (see appendix V) focuses on the transactional elements of the listening
text.
Task 5 (see appendix V) focuses on certain conventional phrases and on the
interactional elements of the listening text.
Task 6 (see appendix V) is a role play activity which gives students the chance
to use spoken language extensively in order to solve a problem. Students work in
groups of four. There are four roles in each group and each student is delivered his/her
role card which contains all necessary information to play the role (the role cards are
provided in appendix VI). Student A is someone who wants to make hotel reservation.
Students B, C, and D are receptionists at three different hotels. The aim is that Student
A finds the cheapest hotel which can fulfill his/her requirements. To achieve this
he/she phones all three hotels in turn and asks information from the hotel
receptionists.
The activity complies with Nation’s criteria about communicative activities.
Students act according to roles which ensures that everybody will participate in the
activity. The students’ output is not controlled by the teacher who is there to provide
help only when this is required by the students. All students withhold some
information which the others lack. Student A has to reach a decision and to do this a
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