It has been reiterated that the main purpose of language is communication. No matter how the students master the language structure, if they do not know how to use it, the intention of achieving better communication will be in vain.
In view of this, the teacher must be creative to enable the students to use the second language.
These are ten suggested “Communicative Workouts”.
1. Operations/transformations – enable learners to focus on semantic-grammatical features which are necessary when aiming at accuracy in language use. Example – elements of language are added, deleted, substituted, recorded or combined.
2. Warm-ups – add an element of enjoyment and involvement. Examples – games, songs, physical activities and puzzles.
3. Information – centered tasks – enables learners to the language naturally while being fully engrossed in fact-gathering activities. Examples – share and tell in the classrooms, gathering outside, treasure hunts outside, interviews with peers and others.
4. Theater games – stimulate reality within the classroom situation. Example – role playing, story-telling, enacting.
5. Mediations /Interventions – enable learners to experience bridging information gaps while using the target language. Example – interacting with another or other based on incomplete information.
6. – 7. Group dynamics and experimental tasks – group activities which create opportunities for share personal feelings and emotions among learners. Example – small group of pairs
7. Problem solving tasks – involve learners in making decisions about issues. Example – small group discusses political or local issues pose a concrete problem, make recommendations and arrived at policy statement.
8. Transferring and reconstituting information – emphasized cognitive of language. Example – following language stimulus, transferring information from tests to a graphic display such as chart, visual display such as cartoon or photograph.
9. Skill-getting strategies – enables learners to develop specific skill areas in the target language. Example – previewing material before reading it using the S Q 3 R-survey.
Through the aforementioned communicative workouts, the language teacher can be able to make language learning successful and meaningful to the second language learners.
By: Mario G. Basilio | Limay National High School | Limay, Bataan
