Teaching English in the Priy Classroom | Page 50

The workbook is appropriate in providing students with practice in writing Strongly disagree 5% Disagree 24% Strongly agree 5% Agree 39% Uncertain 27% Figure 8. The respondents’ attitude concerning the chances given by the teaching material for practice in writing However, Korakovouni (2004), who carried out an evaluation of the activities which are contained in the ‘Fun Way’ series, found that these do not provide chances for real interaction. The fact that a large percentage of respondents consider such activities as appropriate indicates their lack of knowledge concerning the principles speaking activities need to be governed by. Johnson (1982) emphasises, among others, that such activities should arise as a need for interlocutors to communicate (information gap), in order to utilise, somehow, the information they have obtained (task dependency principle), while their language is judged on its communicative efficacy in relation to a specific task (correction for content), rather than on its grammatical correctness. Moreover, Nation (1989), considers that effective speaking activities are the ones which require from students to exchange information (split information), in order to achieve a purpose (outcomes), which clearly describe what each student is expected to do (roles) and ensure that all students will participate (procedures), while they contain features which make the activity more difficult, and thus more interesting, for students (challenges). The organization of the lesson in pairs or small groups is multiply beneficial for students as it not only gives them the chance to work within a relaxed and friendly environment, but also helps them to learn from each other as, according to Allwright (1984: 158), the ‘collective linguistic resources’ of the group will always be greater than those of the individual’. A final comment concerning the respondents’ answers in relation to the teaching material they use is that, as it is shown in figures 3-8, there is a considerable percentage of them (ranging from 22-32%) who feel uncertain to express an opinion. 50