Speaking Activities for the Classroom - NoblePath

To the Teacher
This is a book for teachers and students who wish to create a classroom
environment enjoyable for both students and teachers. With this idea in mind, I
am going to summarize some prefatory comments I made at the opening of a
Task-Based Learning and Curriculum Conference held at KMUTT in the year
2000.
We began with the question, “Who is the most important person in the
classroom?”, and answered, “The student is the most important person,
because the university and the teacher are there to serve the student’s need to
learn, just as the hospital is there to treat the patients, or the police to protect
the security of the citizens.”
Ironically, however, institutions can end up serving the purposes of those who
run them so an imbalance is created that downplays the rights of those to be
served. Teachers should always remember this and try to look at their classes
from the student’s point of view. In short, we need to do what the students
need and not make them do what we need. Unfortunately, until the end of the
twentieth century, classrooms in Thailand, and elsewhere throughout the world,
were teacher- dominated and teacher-centered. This is changing now, which is
why the title of my talk at the conference was, “Good Morning Class, Welcome
to the Twenty-first Century.”
Let’s look at what students of English as a foreign language need. First of all,
they need to develop the four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading and
writing, but they also need to practice in such skills in a way that makes them :
• Think independently
• Be creative
• Follow their inspiration and interest
• Learn what they want to know
• Learn how to find information
• Learn to do their own research
• Learn to report their findings
• Learn to present their ideas to others
• Learn to communicate conclusions
• Learn to take pride in their achievements
• Learn to develop personal responsibility
• And how to continue to develop said skills,
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