Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > English

Increasing Awareness and Talk Time through Free Messaging Apps

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Shampa Iftakhar:
There are several options for offering feedback to the students. As the primary goal of the Spoken Response activity is to develop fluency, it would be counterproductive to over-correct the grammar of a student’s recording, due to the demotivating effects that may occur as a result. If you feel that corrective feedback must be given, it is safer to offer corrective feedback focusing on organization, much in the way that is suggested with feedback for written work (Boramy 2010). Through experimentation with these assignments, I would suggest that a productive method is to provide two or three grammatical or word-choice corrections per two minutes of audio. In lieu of corrective feedback, feedback on content tends to work well with lower-level students. In particular, if you can discover common interests and familiar topics, and then provide feedback on content within that realm, the opportunity to develop rapport with the students is often enhanced. Likewise, it appears that offering oral feedback via an audio message helps to develop rapport with students. - See more at: http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/english-teaching-forum-volume-53-number-1#child-1880

Shampa Iftakhar:
Picture Prompt activity
The speaking portion of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) (Educational Testing Service 2014) has a picture description task, which is an easily adaptable activity that seems custom-made for smartphones and messaging apps. The fact that these messaging apps send and receive images allows students to have varied and interesting topics at their disposal. The basic activity is the same as the TOEIC task: to describe a picture in detail with a range of grammatical structures and vocabulary, while maintaining cohesion. More specifically, Question 3 of TOEIC Speaking stipulates that 30 seconds of preparation is permitted before a 45-second description must be produced (Educational Testing Service 2014). Because the Picture Prompt activity is used in a classroom setting and not as part of a rigid testing procedure, flexibility is an option. As in the Spoken Response assignment, I would suggest that students take a minute or so to make notes or brainstorm keywords relating to the task before producing a finished product of two to three minutes. The overall structure of the activity is similar to that of the Spoken Response activity in the sense that students are required to speak on a single topic for an extended period of time, with the transmission of a message being the initial focus. The major difference between a Picture Prompt and a Spoken Response assignment is that the picture-based prompt is a visual one that may not be as easily personalized. As a result, the Picture Prompt activity may appear at first glance to be more objective in nature. However, it has the potential to offer more flexibility and adaptability, depending on your context. - See more at: http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/english-teaching-forum-volume-53-number-1#child-1880

Shampa Iftakhar:
One area where the Picture Prompt activity may provide greater classroom discourse is through a small adaptation where students work in pairs or small groups in order to provide an in-depth description of the image. It is through this collaborative process that personalization and genuine communication often arise (Bygate 2005). Generally, the images used in this activity would be photos either taken by the teacher and sent to the students or taken by the students themselves. All images used would ideally be tied to the thematic properties of the syllabus and therefore act as a freer communication activity for the class (Widdowson 1990).

For an example of appropriate images that are directly associated with the syllabus, consider a unit that focuses on people’s appearance and personality, together with a unit on the relative clause. An appropriate image in this instance may be a group of people in a café or a similar setting. Images of this nature offer the opportunity to objectively describe the setting, as per the appearanceaspect, and also allow the student to speculate on other aspects of the image, such as the possible personality traits of the individuals. An alternative is to have students produce an oral story to accompany the image. A unit on the modal verbs of speculation—might, may, could, can’t, and must—would be particularly suitable as students could be asked to conjecture or tell a story. Images including a group of people in the midst of powerful or emotive expressions of body language are sound choices as prompts, as the students are able to speculate or construct a story that relates to the image quite openly while also having an opportunity to expand and include their personal twist or interpretation.

As is the case with any classroom activity, it is important for teachers to be selective and use discretion. However, if you want to allow the students to take greater control of their own learning, you can extend this activity by having them send pictures, preferably ones that they have collected themselves, to their peers for verbal description or as storytelling prompts. Taking this further step of using student-collected material as a prompt also assists in making the communicative objectives of this activity more explicit to the students. An additional step could have the students work in a group setting to co-construct a more creative, complete, and in-depth oral story in relation to the shared images; the happy by-product of this group-based task is that students negotiate and communicate in the target language throughout the planning, development, and revision of their oral recording.
- See more at: http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/english-teaching-forum-volume-53-number-1#child-1880

Shampa Iftakhar:
A suggested step-by-step summary of the Picture Prompt activity in pair or small group work follows:

    The teacher places students in pairs or small groups and sends them a photo, or selection of photos, via picture message.
    Students are given a brief period of time—two to three minutes—to brainstorm their ideas; they can use their dictionaries as required for needed vocabulary.
    Students then describe their photo(s) and record themselves doing so via their smartphones. A suggested length of time is three minutes, depending on students’ speaking ability. Students can record themselves individually, or they may co-construct a recording within their pair or group.
    Students listen to their recordings, and if they are happy with their attempt, they send it to the teacher. If they are unhappy with it, students are free to attempt it once more. The reason for only allowing one more attempt is to prevent faster-finishing students from being left without a task.
    The teacher listens to the student recordings outside of class time and offers feedback. Feedback should be based on organization and content and should not be over-corrective. Oral feedback via audio recording is preferable to written feedback.
    An optional follow-up is to have students make transcriptions of their recordings, and to edit and revise their work in line with consciousness-raising and noticing, as detailed in the Transcription, Consciousness-Raising, and Noticing activity that follows.

It is worth noting that while I have introduced Picture Prompt as an in-class activity, it can be extended to an out-of-class assignment where students find something of interest to photograph with their smartphones. With their self-selected image, they produce an oral recording that meets the two- to three-minute guideline, as detailed. The major difference with Picture Prompt as a homework assignment rather than an in-class activity is that the students must submit the photo in addition to the audio recording to the teacher.

Transcription, Consciousness-Raising, and Noticing activity
The two previous activities stand on their own as pedagogically sound initiatives; however, a twist I like to incorporate is to combine transcribing with consciousness-raising and noticing. Having students listen to the audio recordings they produced for the Spoken Response or Picture Prompt assignment and then make transcriptions moves the primary focus from speaking skills onto listening, noticing, and consciousness-raising. When students transcribe their audio recordings, they create a written text, with which they are able to switch hats and transition into the realm of consciousness-raising and noticing; these are effectively aspects of self-monitoring (Schmidt 2001; Thornbury 2005; Ellis 2008). This transition also draws attention onto reading skills and a more explicit focus on form.

The primary intention of noticing is to raise the awareness of students in respect to their own spoken production and have them monitor areas for improvement. Utilizing noticing also allows the fluency–accuracy continuum to be partially balanced, as per Ellis’s (2008) suggestion. It is worth stating that noticing is effectively performed as a review activity where students access the recordings that they have produced previously, either from another class or from an earlier part of the current class. In this instance, the activity utilizes the messaging app and smartphone as a personal listening device rather than a recording device, which posits that students may also require a pair of headphones for personal use. Students dictate their recorded speech and perform the noticing activities on the transcription they have created, thereby engaging in a student-controlled and -maintained form of delayed corrective feedback.

Depending on the objectives and direction of your classes, it may be beneficial to give further guidance to your students with respect to the areas where they should be paying extra attention. The main premise of noticing is a focus on grammatical accuracy. For example, the first Spoken Response prompt I listed—“How was your vacation?”—covered the thematic area of vacation combined with “–ed” and “–ing” adjectives. Therefore, the focus for the noticing activity when the students inspect their written transcriptions would explicitly be the usage of “–ed” and “–ing” adjectives. However, if the students notice any other errors, they are free to suggest corrections. The second prompt I listed—“What is the most memorable thing you have done?”—covers present perfect plus the superlative, allowing the students to explicitly focus their attention on these aspects.

In addition to grammatical accuracy, however, other areas of accuracy may be the primary focus of your students. For instance, lexical selection may be a core issue in your class or for specific students. If this is the case, you may suggest that students pay attention to the correct word choice during the noticing activities. Likewise, if your class has paid attention to intonation or connected speech, students have the opportunity to focus on these aspects in their recorded production. One way to implement this focus is to have students note the stress or intonation contours of their utterances from their audio recordings. For example, they can notice whether they are successfully using a rising intonation when listing items present in a Picture Prompt recording. The important thing here is to set goals and tasks that are aligned to the class syllabus (Widdowson 1990).
- See more at: http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/english-teaching-forum-volume-53-number-1#child-1880

Shampa Iftakhar:
Conclusion
The activities outlined above are relatively simple to set up and appear to provide motivation to the language learner, along with introducing and developing the notion of learner autonomy. If our students are aware that they need not be in the classroom in order to practice their English, then that is a step along the path to language proficiency.

Spoken assignments through free messaging apps may not be the answer for every teacher and learner. As is the case with all learning situations, the teacher must make a judgment about the suitability of an activity. While I suggest that audio assignments are motivating and assist with building autonomy, they may also have the opposite effect if the particular teaching context does not offer equality or inclusivity. In the context of Korea, it is rare to encounter a student without a smartphone that has unlimited data transfer capabilities, or an iPod Touch with a wi-fi connection. However, in other contexts this is likely not to be the norm. It is a serious issue in need of consideration, although there are ways of getting around the challenge with the use of an ordinary mobile phone.

A typical mobile phone still has voice recording capabilities, and many have the capability to receive a photo as a message. Therefore, students will still have the opportunity to record their audio assignments, as in the Spoken Response and Picture Prompt activities, and to receive a photograph, as in the Picture Prompt. They will also have the opportunity to perform transcription and noticing exercises. The major caveat would be not requiring students to return their responses to you, as the costs involved could lead to a demotivating association with English education.

Bearing this in mind, however, language learners often wish to improve their spoken proficiency ahead of the other skills. They may not be aware, though, that they can revise their speaking in similar ways as they are trained to revise their writing. Therefore, if your classroom context permits you to attempt spoken assignments of this nature, then you have the ability to offer your students one of the keys to language development in a fun and friendly manner. At the end of the day, the more motivation and opportunity we can offer our students to communicate in English outside the classroom, the more we have succeeded in facilitating their aspirations of developing their English proficiency.

References
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Bygate, M. 2005. Structuring learning within the flux of communication: A role for constructive repetition in oral language pedagogy. In New dimensions in the teaching of oral communication, ed. J. A. Foley, 70–90. Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre.

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Educational Testing Service. 2014. Test content. TOEIC. www.ets.org/toeic/speaking_writing/about/content
Ellis, R. 2008. The study of second language acquisition. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Schmidt, R. 2001. Attention. In Cognition and second language instruction, ed. P. Robinson, 3–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thornbury, S. 2005. Uncovering grammar: How to help grammar emerge. Oxford: Macmillan Education.
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Yap, J. 2012. Taiwan Mobile revamps messaging app to fend off rivals. ZDNet. www.zdnet.com/taiwan-mobile-revamps-messaging-app-to-fend-off-rivals-700...
Yeung, K. 2013. WhatsApp processed a whopping (record) 18 billion messages on the last day of 2012. The Next Web. thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/02/whatsapp-processed-record-18-billion-messages-on-last-day-of-2012
- See more at: http://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/english-teaching-forum-volume-53-number-1#child-1880

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