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СОВРЕМЕННОЕ ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСК
ОЕ ОБР
АЗОВАНИЕ
or long,
related to their daily life, morality, humanity,
ethics, social problems, cultural issues and so on. The
approximate topics can be:
“Is it fair that votes of peo-
ple with various levels of education, life, and cultural
background have equal weight at elections?” “People
shouldn’t marry outside their nation!”
Debates are one of the most useful activities imple-
mented by the English language lecturers to develop
the learners’ speaking skills. P. Rao defines debates
as “a discussion about a subject on which people have
different views” [16]. According to D. Krieger, a debate
is an excellent activity for language learning because it
engages students in a variety of cognitive and linguis-
tic ways [15]. Debates enhance the learners to acquire
content as well as conceptual knowledge on the top-
ics given, develop incorporating critical thinking, pub-
lic speaking, research skills, vocabulary enhancement
and so on. The topics to be explored include any of the
controversial issues going on in the society, religious
expression, peace, education, diversity, cultural differ-
ences, e.g.
“How do you define your national identity?
What are the values, beliefs and customs that make
up your national identity?” “How do you think your ge-
ographic region is unique in terms of the language, in-
cluding accent, idioms, jargon, slang, cultural values
and priorities (festivals, music, food, sport, and land-
scape)?” “What kind of social person are you in terms
of openness to newcomers, friendliness, extroversion,
economic status, prestige, concepts of time and per-
sonal space?” The lecturers encourage the learners to
think of positive and negative aspects of the given task
to prepare arguments both for and against.
Discussions or group discussions are one among
the best ways of speech presentation and it is con-
sidered as an interesting form of oral practice in the
English classroom. P. Rao defines ‘discussion’ as “the
activity in which people talk about something and tell
each other their ideas or opinions” [16]. The practice
proves that the most fruitful discussions are those that
arise spontaneously either because a learner reports
something provoking or because
a topic or a text in
the course book triggers some debate. Discussions
play a very valuable role in seminars, lecture cours-
es, studios, labs, quiz sessions and a variety of other
settings. The approximate task can be “
Work in small
groups. Choose a few nationalities that you know. First
describe them in a stereotypical fashion, and then dis-
cuss how much you experience of them fits the ste-
reotype. What is your nationality stereotype? Are you
like that? What stereotyping of your own country or
region don’t you like?” A well-planned and prepared
discussion not only encourages the learners and stim-
ulates their learning but also adds variety to the Eng-
lish classroom.
A
‘Mock Interview’, also known as a
‘Practice In-
terview’, is a simulation of an actual job interview. It
is urgent to practice such types of assignment nowa-
days because the number of job seekers has been on
increase by leaps and bounds. After completing their
education with good credentials, many of the well-ed-
ucated young people are struggling for jobs as they
have lack of oral communicative skills in the multicul-
tural environment. A mock interview gives an opportu-
nity to the job seekers to practise for the real interview
and gives proper feedback to them. Learners should
prepare for a mock interview:
bring all the materials
they need for a real interview, take notes during each
mock interview, always wear professional attire, re-
cord their responses. Options for mock interview can
be
“Mock interview with a new colleague from abroad
who has come to work in your office” “In-person mock
interview with an employer from another country”. With
the advent of mock interviews, the job aspirants have
many advantages like
answering difficult questions,
improving their communicative skills, developing inter-
view strategies and even reducing their stress before
they come across with the real or actual job interviews.
The lecturers have to train the learners in such a way
that they have to face the interview with positive atti-
tude and self-confidence.
In fact, the above- mentioned activities are excel-
lent for developing communicative skills because they
make the language lecture-room more meaningful and
authentic. They provide an opportunity for the higher
school students to achieve communicative skills and
to master the general professional competency. So,
language lecturers have to apply different approaches,
use only authentic printed materials that correspond to
the trainee’s objectives, assess speaking by language
appropriacy and accuracy, focus on different engage-
ments that make the educational process of teaching
speaking skills to higher school students in the multi-
cultural environment more interactive and promote the
target language use.
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