Over the Wall of Silence

36 Over the Wall of Silence

S TRATEGY 3: C ONVERSATIONS , HERE AND NOW Let’s hone in on a specific type of learner for a moment. Students that might be classified as “low intermediate” make up the vast ma jority of first and second year university students. For our purposes, “low intermediate” means those students who have studied English for a number of years (at least six years of junior high and high school) but have never actually had a real-time conversation. They have (supposedly) memorized a lot of grammar and vocabulary, but are quite poor at expressing themselves, even in writing. In a real time verbal interaction, they are almost completely helpless. The primary goal for a communication teacher should be to “un block” these students. They have to learn to use their linguistic knowledge to express thoughts -not just comprehend written text- and do this in an interactive way. This is a huge and frightening step for students. How do we make this happen, given their aversion to risk and uncertainty? We recom mend choosing conversations on topics of the students’ daily lives as the sole focus of the class. The goal of the class is a simple task: “Have a two-way conversa tion with your partner about your real lives. This conversation is happening here and now.” Once this goal is set, all ambiguity is re moved. There are no wrong answers to real-life questions. Students know if they have a dog or not, the transport they use to come to university, or whether they like baseball. If they are asked a question on a topic, all they need to focus on is expressing that reality in the target language. In contrast, if they are given a role play in which they are supposed to be, say, a lawyer in New York, a whole range of questions marks