Effective English speaking courses for beginners Part 2

In part 1, I have said that in order to speak English in a wide range of situations, you have to be involved in chatting with friends, buying things in shops, asking directions in the street, discussing a problem in a tutorial, consulting a supervisor, giving a seminar presentation, and so on.

I have also said that to speak effectively in English you need a variety of ‘’tools”. I will be exploring them in the forthcoming lessons and videos and suggesting ways in which you can practice and improve using them in English.

So the tools for speaking are:

Conversation is a complex activity, even in our first language, and

can cause difficulties for either speaker or listener: 

(1) As  a  speaker  you  may  not  remember  the  exact  word  or

expression  for  what  you  want  to  say.  In  this  case,  you  need  to adopt  one  of  a  set  of  communication  strategies,  which  involve finding  another  way  of  expressing  the  desired  meaning  in  a different form. 

(2) When  you  are  listening,  you  may  not  understand  -  or  hear  - the speaker, so you have to signal that there is a problem, so that the speaker and you can negotiate a way of  resolving  it  between you. We refer to this as conversational repair.

We are going to look at these two aspects of speaking.

Communication strategies

Sometimes  we  do  not  know,  or  cannot  remember,  the  precise

word we need. This can happen in our first language too, but we are  probably  more  aware  of  it  when  speaking  another  language. Here  are  five  common  strategies  for  dealing  with  this  sort  of problem:

Communication strategies in a second language   

Approximation  

Use a more general or related word; e.g. 'animal' instead of 'rabbit'

Paraphrase     

Describe the appearance or function of the word;  e.g. 'He cleaned the house with a... it ‘s the thing that sucks in air'  

Invention

Invent a word made from second language; e.g. 'picture place' instead of  'art gallery'

Mime/gesture

Demonstrate the meaning with your hands, e.g. clapping to show 'applause'

Appeal for help

Ask the other person for help: e.g. 'What do you call...?

(Ellis 1985: 184-5)

Task

Here  is  an  extract  from  a  Danish  student’s  story  about  an  accident,  based  on  a  set  of pictures:  

They  are  carrying  a  man  -  in  ahm  -  erm  -  in  a  portable  bed  -  the  one  that  the hospitals use to carry people that got an accident - and  they're taking him – ah from the road - he was on the road - ok but they have just come because - a man - has called the police - I mean the people in charge of looking after people that

have had accidents. (Bygate 1987: 46)

Think of these questions:

What was the English word he was looking for when he said portable bed?

What  did  he  mean  by  the  people  in  charge  of  looking  after  people  that  have  had accidents?

Which of the Communication Strategies was he using in both cases?

Source:

2: Tony Lynch and Kenneth Anderson, English Language Teaching Centre, University of Edinburgh 2012

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