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Skeleton grammar in the oral matura exam Monika Cichmińska
Unpacking grammar A detailed analysis of the new oral matura exam reveals that the grammar skeleton is limited to a short list of the grammatical structures the students need to know. These are:
Monika Cichmińska A graduate of Łodź University where she did her PhD in linguistics. She works at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, in Katedra Filologii Angielskiej. She is also Director of Studies in the school of languages English Perfect in Olsztyn.
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e will never know all the reasons why some students do not feel comfortable speaking English in an oral exam – they may be generally shy and not very talkative, they may think they have nothing interesting to say, or they may feel/know that their English is not good enough. Or simply, their English is not good enough, indeed. Whatever the reason, our task as their language teacher is to give them the necessary confidence to walk into the exam room and pass the oral exam. The students must feel that this is a task which is achievable, even when preparation time is limited. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how to do just that – with special reference to grammar. Arguably, the process of preparing students for any exam should consist of a number of stages: first, we need to look behind the exam tasks and unpack what the examiners really expect from the candidates, both in terms of the language skills and the structure of the task. Then we need to decide what kind of basic linguistic knowledge is necessary – or, in other words, what the minimum grammar skeleton is sufficient to pass the given exam. Finally, we need to decide what kind of training programme the students will benefit from within the time that they have.
Task 1 – present simple, present continuous, past simple, modal verbs, asking questions (depending on the task) Task 2 – present simple, present continuous, past simple, there is/there are Task 3 – present simple, expressing opinions and giving reasons Preparing your students for the new oral matura does not seem a difficult task, it seems. However, the real difficulty is not the students knowing these structures, it is the students being able to use the structures in genuinely stressful exam situations.
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Making choices We need to decide on the pace – if we have only 8 months to prepare the students for the exam, it is likely we will manage to cover only the minimal grammar syllabus (like the one above). If we have more time, we need to make sure that this minimal syllabus is given enough attention, and only then should we proceed with other grammatical structures. Although the skeleton grammar syllabus outlined above may seem quite limited, my experience is that it still needs quite a bit of time to be implemented and practised. This is what I would like to focus on below and offer a few guidelines which I hope will make this kind of training effective. Grammar in communication Our students often seem to believe that grammar is all about knowing the right forms and being able to use them in written exercises which do not require a lot of reflection, and speaking is something different, something that somehow takes care of itself. However, they need to be shown that there is no speaking or writing without grammar, that grammar is the tool which makes it possible to express different messages depending on the structure used. Always make sure that the students know what to use a given structure for. Also, always ask the students: “Which task may require the given structure?” - for example, present continuous – for describing pictures in task 2.
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hear such dialogues (everywhere people meet, probably!) and then – where in the oral exam they might have to produce a similar dialogue. After the students complete the dialogue with the right form of the verbs, they practice it in pairs. Then ask them to produce a similar dialogue, starting with have you ever…. TIP: To prepare for task 2, ask the students to bring their own pictures for the next class and describe them to each other. Volunteers may also show them to the whole class and they may answer questions about their pictures. It is also a good idea to have a set of questions, as in exercise 2b below, which the students might ask each other about the pictures.
TIP: When you practise a dialogue, always establish a context: decide who the people are, when they are speaking, what the relationship is etc., to make the understanding of the grammatical structure easier. In the dialogue below the students should establish that it is two people talking about their earlier experiences. Ask the students when in real life they would typically
Source: Gateway 2, p.49, Macmillan 2012.
Source: Gateway 2, p.50, Macmillan 2012.
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Don’t hurry up with free practice Some students often think that the only way to prepare for the oral exam is to do an endless number of exam tasks. To some extent they are right, of course – on the other hand, however, some of them may not be quite ready for open speaking practice yet. With weaker or/and less confident students, there needs to be a lot of time for controlled and semi-controlled speaking activities, before they are given the exam tasks. However, we may point out to the students that every time they talk about past experiences, they prepare for question 3 in task 2, every time they practise present continuous, they prepare for describing pictures in task 2, and so on. TIP: Exposure to a new structure and using it in controlled or semi-controlled activities gives the students time for the new structure to sink in. In the sequence below, the students first listen to a dialogue and then fill it in with the missing words. In exercise 5 they practise the dialogue in pairs. Then, to give them more practice, they can be asked to change a few details in the dialogue, e.g. names of places, times, etc. In exercise 7 below one of the students needs to come up with a situation similar to the one in the dialogue, while the other asks the dialogue questions. In the next lessons the students may practice the dialogue again, this time with different partners. The more times the same material is repeated and practiced, the more likely it will be for the students to behave automatically in similar communicative situations.
Source: Gateway 2, p.24, Macmillan 2012.
Time to collect your thoughts Speaking activities may seem difficult for those students who often get stuck and are lost for words. It may be a good idea to allow them some time to rehearse what they are going to say. However, do not allow the students to write down full sentences in Polish and then translate them into English, as this is a routine they may fall into easily and find it difficult later to wean off. The point here is to allow the students to think about and write down a few ideas (those may be in Polish), and also some English words or phrases which they might use. TIP: When you do task 1, you may start with giving the students some time to think about the four prompts: what they need to do – should they describe something, ask a question, give advice? – and how they should go about it. They can also discuss it in pairs in Polish. In the task below the students will have to discuss not only how to describe the following aspects of a film festival, but also how to persuade a friend to go with them. Then they might think about how to express these messages in English.
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Source: Gateway 2, p.57, Macmillan 2012.
Source: Gateway 2, p.28, Macmillan 2012.
TIP: When you practise task 3 visual stimuli, tell the students to use the time to prepare (they have one minute for this in the exam) and write down two schemas: I choose picture… because… and I don’t choose picture(s) … because… , and complete them. When the students start thinking they have nothing to say, these schemas may give them the opening lines they need to kick off.
Use all available opportunities Every time your students speak, they work towards their success in oral matura. If possible, think about a speaking activity for every lesson, even when you focus on grammar, reading or writing. It is a good idea to practice grammar in speaking as a warmer activity , at the beginning of every class, or as an energizer, for example after a test.
Think about the how, not only about the what Controlled practice also means using model answers. We all do it, but it is important not just to make the students repeat the model with some minor changes, but also to make the students think about how they are going to express themselves in order to complete the task.
TIP: A simple grammar drill takes a minute to prepare. On the board write down, in one column, a list of verbs, e.g. swim, eat, be, drive, meet. Then ask the students to work in pairs and come up with a collocation for every word, e.g. swim in the warm sea, eat raw fish, drive a sports car, etc. Write one or two phrases for each verb. Then ask the students how to find out about people’s experiences – someone will surely come up with Have you ever…? You also write it down and you have a ready-made grammar revision activity written down for the students to refer to. The students may now ask each other the questions and enjoy their own ideas written on the board. The same routine can be used with most grammatical structures – and with the students’ own ideas.
TIP: Before you show the students a model answer, first analyse the task at hand: ” what exactly do I have to say and how do I go about it? What grammatical structures and what lexical items do I need?” When you analyse the model answer, pay a close attention to how it is structured, how it could be done differently, or how it could be improved.
TIP: Use every opportunity to practise speaking, not only when you focus on speaking, especially if it is controlled practice. The exercise below comes from a writing lesson, but it can be used as a lead-in , with the students asking and answering the questions in pairs.
Source: Gateway 2, p.25, Macmillan 2012.
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Twice is better than once So far we have been amplifying the merits of using a carefully chosen handful of key grammar structures as a skeleton for successful speaking, particularly in stressful exam conditions. But the idea of such a ‘skeleton’ or scaffolding could well be extended to doing the task as such, by means of deliberate task repetition. The philosophy behind it is best described by Scott Thornbury in his great volume ‘Uncovering Grammar’ (Macmillan 2005):
it again – ask them to retell the same story, to a different partner this time, and then to ask each other additional questions.
“Learners have one-track minds; when they are focused on meaning, they find it difficult to focus on form. And yet, unless they focus on form, there is a danger that their capacity to restructure will close down. The great challenge of teaching, then, is to set up activities which are essentially meaning-focused, but within which a focus on form can be engineered.” Why would repeating a task solve this problem? The thing is, when the students talk about something for the first time, they focus so much on telling the story, on their emotions, on what they want to say, that they do not pay attention to how they are saying it. Studies show, however, that when the students tell the same story the second time, they focus a lot more on the how – that is, the language they are using: they monitor themselves more closely and are able to correct some of their own errors. As a result, their story may be a bit less fluent, but it is also more coherent and has fewer errors. The same principle can be applied with every speaking activity, whether it is to practice a dialogue or an exam task 1. TIP: To practice talking about the past (task 1 and 2) think about an experience they students might have had, e.g. their first memory from school, their best/worst holiday, their most/ least favourite family occasion, or the last party they attended, as in the example below. Write a series of detailed questions about it. In the class, tell the students to sit and listen to your questions, and imagine the answers, trying to visualize them. You may ask them to close their eyes. Then give them a minute to think about their stories and tell them to each other. You will notice that they will be able to give longer and more detailed answers than usual. Alternatively, you can write the questions on the board and show them to the students after they finish listening to you, to help them structure their story. However, the most important part is to do
Source: Gateway 2, p.102, Macmillan 2012.
Train the examiners We often focus on the students practicing the role of an examiner, but, especially in task 1, it is equally important to prepare them for the role of the examiner. It is the only task in the oral matura which is supposed to resemble a natural, spontaneous conversation, so the examiner cannot be a passive side. The students need to know that the examiners will ask them for clarification or repetition, they may want more examples or more arguments. They may also disagree with them – generally, behave as people do in natural discourse, but in exam situations this kind of disruption may seem difficult to the weaker students. TIP: Working with task 1, divide the students into two groups: examinees and examiners. Give each group suitable role cards and ask them to work on their role in the exam. Let them discuss what they need to do in pairs and prepare some prompts, or even full sentences. Remind them that the examinee can also ask questions, ask for clarification or more details. Tell the examiners to be particularly meticulous and do everything the task requires . Next time you do task 1, tell the students to swap roles. Once the students practice both roles a few times, they will be better prepared for unexpected questions and responses from real examiners!
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Source: Gateway 2, p.106, Macmillan 2012.
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One of the most important ingredients of preparing students for exams is to make them confident that they are well prepared, they know what is expected of them in the exam, and that they can do it. If the time we have in class is limited, we need to have a clear plan of how to do that – and what the necessary basic building blocks we need to focus on. Skeleton grammar is one of those blocks which build up the foundation for the students’ productive skills. When the skeleton is in place, well practiced and established, it becomes the springboard for the students’ success.
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