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Learning how to fish Fostering Fluency & Independence

© 1993 Costas Gabrielatos

First published in TESOL Greece Newsletter 38, June 1993. In this version I have made a few changes in wording and layout.

Introduction

In this article I will focus on the oral communication problems of intermediate level Greek adolescent EFL learners. I will seek to identify the sources of the problems and then suggest ways of helping students to become more confident and efficient communicators.

ProblemS

My experience has shown that the majority of Greek EFL learners at intermediate level share a number of characteristics as regards their oral performance and their attitude towards it. Although they have been introduced to the main grammatical forms and their functions and possess a relatively wide (but mainly receptive) vocabulary they display the following features (Gabrielatos, 1992):

• They are reluctant to use the L2 for spontaneous interaction in the classroom (i.e. in class discussions and pair/group work).

• When they encounter any problems they tend to abandon their effort to communicate in the L2 and they resort to either the L1 or silence.

• They appeal (invariably in the L1) to the teacher to provide them with the ‘correct' lexical item or structure.

• They protest (again mostly in the L1) that they ‘can't say it'. Their reasons are usually along the lines of: ‘we haven't learned it', ‘I don't remember the word', ‘I don't know how to say it correctly'.

causes

I will now examine the sources of the characteristics/problems mentioned above.

Native Speaker ‘Expertise'

There is a common belief among EFL students that native speakers have full knowledge of their language and that their oral performance is impeccable. As a result, learners may feel intimidated by the idea that their performance will be measured against such standards of ‘perfection' (Tarone & Yule, 1989: 53-60).

Correct Answer Syndrome

A similar shared belief is that there is one (and only one) ‘correct' way of expressing a thought/idea, and that any deviation is an error (to be avoided). The learners are, consequently, very reluctant to experiment with the language, since they feel that the odds of ‘getting it right' are against them.

Negative Training

The above can be ingrained and/or reinforced by the following teaching practices/ situations:

1. The only native models presented have been either written texts read aloud (e.g. news bulletins) or scripted dialogues and interviews delivered with unnatural accuracy and/or density of information.

2. Learners have been required to produce full responses at all times. This is particularly the case in grammar lessons in which there is over-emphasis on the correct form, with no concern for the use of the structure in focus for communication.

3. The evolutionary nature of the learners' interlanguage is not acknowledged. As a preventive or remedial course of action against ‘erratic' performance the focus has been on accuracy with little/no tolerance of the learners' attempts to experiment with the new language.

4. The status of redundancy in oral production is very low. That is, strategic use of pauses, fillers, repetition, restructuring is not encouraged or even acceptable. Greek readers may remember how they were penalised in secondary school if, when examined orally in class, they hesitated or repeated words/phrases (a ‘clear' indication that they had not studied enough).

5. Exam training/preparation for the ‘interview' component of the FCE (or similar) examinations has been limited to having learners describe photographs in painstaking (and unnecessary) detail (sometimes to the extent that the message is obscured and the listener distracted (see also Tarone & Yule, 1989: 108).