Comparative analysis of oral communication: a reflection    

                                    

This piece of work made me reflect a great deal on how I approach oral communication in my classes. I often used traditional activities, such as role-plays, which were simply based on some grammatical aspect that I had been working on in class. I gave very little importance to pre-communicative activities and, more worrying of all, whether the activities would be of any interest to the students. I realise now that for a communicative activity to be successful there must be groundwork done beforehand, and that they should be functional and meaningful and, above all, motivating for the students. I also learned that the importance of working on motor-skills and interactive skills. I feel the activity I proposed for this assignment included many of these elements. Although I have not had the opportunity to put it into practice I feel it would be very successful and productive in the classroom.

The activity commenced with showing various short sketches of British comedy that exposed teenage problems, very up-to-date and engaging. It then included a quiz show on typical teenage matters and progressed into the students elaborating role-plays on teenage conflicts. There were activities planned on intonation and other conversation elements such as gap-fillers. The idea was for the class to put together all of their role-plays and produce a whole play. The play would then be presented to other classes of the school. The activity includes many of the elements necessary for effective oral communication, I was very proud of the work.