Diane Larsen-Freeman

124 Communicative Language Teaching Communicative Language Teaching 125
lary words. T hey then dis cuss what language form s arc appropriate in
dea ling wirh on e's bos s. ' For example: th e reacher explains, 'w hat if yOll
know that yo ur boss doesn't think that th e vaca tion po licy will change,
but yo u think it wi ll. Ho w will you sta te your predict ion? Yo u ar c more
likely to say so mething like ' I think the vacation policy might chan ge,'
than 'T he vacation policy will cha nge.'
'What if, however,' the teac her says, 'it is your co lleagu e with whom you
disagree and you arc certain that you arc right. H ow will you express you r
predictio n then?' One student offer s, 'I know tha t th e vacation policy w ill
change.' Another student says, 'I a m sure that the vaca tion policy wi ll
change.' A third student says simply, 'The vacatio n policy will change.'
The class is almost over. The teacher uses t he last few minutes to give
the homework assignment. The stud ents arc to listen to th e debate
between two political candidates on the radio or w atch it on television
that night. Th ey ar c th en to write (in English) their prediction of who they
think will win th e election and why t hey think so. They will read these to
their classm ates at the sta rt of the next class.
T he other stu dent s try to predic t what they think will happen in the second
picture. T he first st udent te lls them wheth er they a rc co rrect or not.
H e th en sho ws them the seco nd picture and as ks them to predic t what the
third picture will look like. After the entire series of pictures has been
shown , the gro up gets a new strip story and th ey change rol es, giving th e
first student an opportunity to work with a partner in making pr edictions.
For th e final activit y of the class, the students are to ld that wiII do a role
play.The teacher tells them that they are to be di vided into groups of fou r.
They arc to imagine that they are all employees of the same company. O ne
ofth em is the others' boss. They arc havi ng a meeting to discuss what wi ll
possibl y occur a s a result of their compan y merging w ith a nother company.
Befor e they begin , they di scuss some possibilities to get her. They
dec ide that they ca n talk ab o ur to pics such as whet her or not so me of the
people in their company will lose their jobs, wh eth er o r not they will ha ve
to mov e, wheth er or not certain policies will change, wh ether or nor th ey
will earn more mo ney. ' Remem ber,' remind s the teacher, 'that on e of yOll
in eac h gro up is the boss. You sho uld th ink about th is relatio nship if, for
example, he or she ma kes a pred iction that yo u don't agree with.'
Fo r fifteen m inutes th e st udents perform th eir ro le play. The reacher
moves fro m group to gro up to a nswer qu estion s an d offer any advice o n
whar th e groups can disc uss. After it's over, the st ude nts have an opporrunity
to pose any q uestions. In this way, they elicit some relevan t voca bu-
THINKING ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE
As we have seen before, there ar e im portant principles underly ing the
behavior we have observed. Let us no w investigate these by co mpiling
o ur two lists: our observa tions and the underlying principles.
Observations
1 The teacher distributes a
hando ut that has a copy of a
sports column fro m a recent
newspaper.
2 The teacher tells th e students to
unde rline the repo rter 's
pre dict ions and to say which
on es they think the reporter
feels most certa in of a nd which
he feels lcnsr ccrra in of.
3 T he teacher gives the students
the dir ect ion s for the act ivity in
the ta rget language.
Principles
Whenever possible, 'a uthentic
Ianguaget-c-language as it is used
in a real co ntext-sho uld be
int rod uced.
Being a ble to figure out the
speaker's or writer's intentio ns is
part of being cor umunicatively
co mpete nt.
The target language is a vehicle for
classroom communication, nor
just th e object of st udy.