1. Communicative Teaching
Theories and Methods
Presenter Wei-Lun Lu

2. Why Taiwanese Students couldn’t Speak
English well?
 Chinese education environment is heavily influenced from
Confucianism (Tuan, 2010, p.64), even though it was a notion
centuries ago.
1. Students may assume that the teacher is the only role
conveying knowledge for them and not from their peers,
leading to the consequence that if they have group work they
may not accept opinions. error correction, or tutoring from
their peers (Tuan,p.64).
2. Consequently, if students don’t trust their peers or group
members, any speaking activity used in class will be useless
because no one would like to practice in groups.
3. Ex. My elementary and junior high school experiences.
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3. Why Taiwanese Students couldn’t Learn
and Use English well?
 Teacher-Fronted Direct Lecturing (Teacher-centered
method)
1. English is traditionally characterized by “teacher-fronted direct
lecturing” (Ning, 2010, p.1), or in other words “teacher-
centered method” (Zhang, 2010, p.81).
2. Teacher-centered lecturing predominantly includes “text
explanation, vocabulary illustration, grammar instruction, and
intensive drills on language forms” (Ning, p.1).
3. According to Zhang. “Students are seen as acquiring
knowledge of language rather than communicative ability
directly and they simply passively acquire the new knowledge”
(p.81).
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4. Why Taiwanese Students couldn’t Learn
and Use English well?
 As a result, having studied English for over 10years, many
students are still found to be far from proficient in speaking
and communicating skills (Ning, p.2), due to the possible
reasons of students’ misassumption and teacher-centered
instruction mentioned above.
 Ex. frustrated in class experience in the US. /My Mom’s
Singapore observation.
 As a second language teacher, I have found that output
activities such as speaking activities are largely used in ESL
setting, it might be one of the solution for both language
teachers and students.
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5. Output process in human brains
 Traditionally, the term output has been describe as a notion
that ELL students are able to produce and use English
through speaking or writing.
 “Recently, however, output has been explored as a learning
process as well—one in which the ELL student tests second-
language understanding and learns from the feedback
received” says Anthony (2008, p.473).
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6. Three Possible Output Functions
 Three possible functions of output in the learning process:
 Noticing/Triggering Function
 Hypothesis Testing Function
 And Metalinguistic/Reflective Function
( Anthony 2008 , p 473)
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7. Three Possible Output Functions
1. Noticing/Triggering:
When learners try to produce the target language,
noticing they that they don’t know how to effectively say
or write the desired message; then the production of
output might trigger their attention and direct them to
notice something they have to modify next time or in the
future (Anthony. p. 474).
Ex. Ordering vanilla latte
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8. Three Possible Output Functions
2. Hypothesis Testing:
Language learners hypothetically test or try the target
language by producing it, and then receive correction and
confirmation from others (Anthony, p.474).
Ex1. Super Star Jay Chou interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZwjhQ0jG2o
How Jay could avoid speak English, but still can solve his communication
problems with the interviewer? Answer : Negotiation for meaning
Ex.2 Memorizing five sentences (words like opportunity)
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9. Three Possible Output Functions
3. Metalinguistic/Reflective Functions:
Metallinguistic (reflective) function, occurs when language is used to
reflect on the language that a learner produces or is produced by
others” states Anthony (p.474).
Ex. Cooperative dialog is one of the resources and examples, which can
be used to describe how the reflective function process. In the process
of dialog talking in small groups or with the teacher, students are free
to talk and reflect what is said and how it is said on any topic is selected
(Anthoy)
Ex. A Korean girl’s self-introduction video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-pxAlMJUv4
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10. How our brain processes output through
two processes
1. Access strategies
2. Production strategies
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11. How our brain processes output through
two processes
1. Access strategies
Access strategies involve searching language database,
such as vocabulary words or lexicon in our brains to find
appropriate words and forms of words to express a
particular meaning (Anthony, p.473). For instance, if a child
wants to talk about a dog, the child would need to search
through his/her lexicon to find the word dog.
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12. How our brain processes output through
two processes
2. Production strategies
Production is the other access strategy our brains use. It is used
in putting together a series of words accessed from the lexicon
to formulate a sentence or utterance (Anthony, p.473). This
requires a couple words to be accessed and to be put together in
the logical order to express the desired idea.
For example, after accessing the words dog and barked from
his/her brain lexicon, the child would use production strategy to
form the sentence “the dog barked” to tell a friend about what
he/she saw the dog doing. According to Anthony, “The
expression of this idea using the accessed vocabulary is the
output (p.473).
VanPatten (2003)
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13. How our brain processes output through
two processes
Anthony concluded that both access strategies occur almost
automatically and without much effort in a first language.
However, in the second language it requires conscious attention
as they are being acquired; automaticity occurs much later
(p.473).
Therefore, in order to achieve fluent speaking, second language
learners have to do a lot of output practices such as in class
speaking activities with others to facilitate automaticity.
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14. Swimming Learning Theory
 Learning a second language, such as English is like learning
how to swim.
 If you want to learn how to swim, you have to practice
swimming skills with your arms and legs in a swimming pool
not from memorizing how to swim in a textbook.
 The same principle can be applied to English learning. If L2
learners do not use and practice their L2 skills with their
tongues, they will be far from being proficiency.
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15. Speaking Activities
Mini presentation:
It is also called prepared speech. Topics for students vary
depending on student levels. Even though an average speech is
one to three minutes, it might be frightening for presenters to
speak to the whole class, it is better to assign one or two
listeners in small group for presenters to practice their mini
presentation several times before presenters give short
speeches to the whole class (Lazaraton p.106). By doing so, it
can help students reduce their anxiety and build up their
confidence.
Ex. Questions in our textbooks
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16. Speaking Activities
Videotaping of speeches:
From self-evaluation aspect, “Students are usually surprised to
see how they appear and sound on the tape and can often come
up with their own ideas about how to improve their
performances” says Lazaraton (p.107). From peer- and teacher-
evaluation aspect, videos allow reviewers to do a more in-depth
critique at later time (Lazaration p.107).
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17. Speaking Activities
Think-Pair Share (TPS)
Think-Pair share involves three steps: students thought
individually on a given topic, take turns to exchange ideas with
their partners, and they were selected to share their partners’
ideas with the class (Ning p6 & Tuan p67).
Questions:
1. How was your weekend?
2. Talk abut your habits and interests.
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18. Speaking Activities
Role Play
When conducting a role-play, the teacher has to provide a context and
some roles for students to prepare and then perform in the class (Ding
2009 p.140).
While one group performs the other students listen. The teacher and
students may discuss the performances from different groups latter
on. “Depending on student level, role plays can be performed from
prepared scripts, created from a set of prompts and expressions, or
written using and consolidating knowledge gained form instruction or
discussion of the speech act and its various prior to the role play
themselves” described Lazaration (p.107).
Ex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ2A7DYUF9E
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19. Small Speaking Activities
Picture Description:
It is usually played by two students. One is in charge of
describing a picture; the other guesses the meaning of the
picture described.
Hand out the activity sheets to half participants.
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20. Small Speaking Activities
Rubrics
These activities can be assessed either formally or informally. If
we, as teachers, decide to assess our students formally, we will
need some formal rubrics, which provide grading standards for
both students and teachers.
Some Rubric examples will be shown in the following Integrated
Performance Assessment slides, videos, and your handouts (see
last few pages).
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21. Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA)
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22. Integrated Performance Assessment
IPA Video 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUhS6zw_C2o&feature=relmfu
IPA Video 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHhwtxEji9A&feature=relmfu
Assessment practice:
Assessing Presentation mode: the Korean Girl’s self-introduction
Assessing Interpersonal mode: Jay Chao’s video
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23. Links for designing
Assessment Units and Teaching Units
Websites:
CARLA IPA:
http://www.carla.umn.edu/assessment/vac/CreateUnit/
e_1.html
CoBaLLTE CBI:
http://www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/modules/curriculum/
index.html
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24. Obstacles We might encounter, and How
We Overcome Them?
 Shy (Ning, p.8)
 Resistance (Tuan, p.70)
 Overuse Chinese (Ning, p.9)
 Unbalance in Contribution (Jiang p.138 )
 What else we might encounter here in Daxing and how to
overcome them if we want to try some output activities in
the class?
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25. Video Links Used in the Workshop
Jay Chou’s interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZwjhQ0jG2o
A Korean girl’s self-introduction video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-pxAlMJUv4
The Annenberg Foundation:
http://www.learner.org/resources/series185.html?pop=yes&pid=2003#
IPA Video 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUhS6zw_C2o&feature=relmfu
IPA Video 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHhwtxEji9A&feature=relmfu
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26. References
 Tuan, L. T. (2010). Infusing Cooperative Learning into an EFL
Classroom. English Language Teaching, Vol.3, No.2, p 64-76
 Zhang, Y. (2010). Cooperative Language Learning and
Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. Journal of
Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 81-83
 Ning, H. (2010). Adapting Cooperative Learning in Teriary
ELT. ELT Journal, doi:10.1093/elt/ccqo21, p 1-11
 Anthony, A. R. B. (2008). Output Strategies for English-
Language Learniers: Theory to Practice. The Reading Teacher,
61(6), p.472-482
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