92-pages-GUIDELINES-FOR-SECONDARY-SCHOOLS-All-Streams-and-Sections

activities -and similar ones- help teachers hand over some responsibility to learners; a premise for learner
autonomy.
Short presentations and oral reports
These speaking modes might be prepared or unprepared. Learners are asked, individually or in groups, to
give an oral presentation on a specific topic (5 to 10 minutes). Learners should be encouraged to speak from
their notes. The teacher may help learners with guidelines as to how to start their talk, list facts, express
opinions, and close their talk or summarize the most important ideas of the talk. Learners should also be
equipped with appropriate strategies for dealing with peers’ questions.
Other speaking activities
Some of the activities mentioned above might be provided in the textbook, but others can be designed by
teachers themselves to respond to learners’ needs and relate these activities to the learners’ background
knowledge and learning context. Other types of communicative activities might include:
o presentation of projects;
o discussion of fact sheets;
o acting out a scene from daily life, short plays, or sketches;
o discussing or acting out a video - or audio-taped extract;
o picture-cued story telling;
o picture and/ or sound description, interpretation, and extension, and
o games.
Practical tips for teachers
Teachers are advised to take into account the following tips to make of the above mentioned speaking
activities a success:
• Prepare carefully.
• Build the speaking activity on previous learning, and provide models (in open pair work as an
example 20 ).
• Be aware of the purpose of each activity.
• Explain the purpose of the task and offer learners alternatives.
• Prepare learners for the task (e.g. vocabulary, functions, grammar, etc).
• Help learners rehearse to increase their self-assurance.
• Design activities that suit learners’ level and pace.
• Play the role of the facilitator, resource, and participant at times.
• Expect emergencies and be ready to improvise as well, etc.
• Encourage fluency and communication strategies and tolerate errors which do not affect the
meaning.
• Be positive and encourage self-evaluation.
• Encourage the use of checklists to evaluate their peers.
20 A section of these guidelines is devoted to classroom management, group work and group work activities.
19
التوجيهات التربوية وبرامج تدريس مادة اللغة الإنجليزية س ت ث ت 2007