1.4.2. The activities
The activities are most of the times done in lockstep as the teacher believes
that students will use their mother tongue if they are asked to work in groups or pairs.
This limits the Students’ Talking Time to the minimum and also their contribution to
the discourse to that of a passive participant who can only respond to the teacher’s
questions. The students’ output is therefore strictly controlled both in terms of
language and content and is not used for communication but rather for the production
of grammatically correct sentences. (for an example of speaking activities see
appendix II, p. ii) and the display to the teacher that an amount of knowledge has been
acquired, what Bloome (1992: 106) refers to as ‘procedural display’.
The evaluation of the teaching situation according to the relevant criteria
reveals many weaknesses concerning both the content of the speaking lessons and the
teacher’s methodology and suggests a change of direction towards more
communicative activities. This is the aim of part II which follows.
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