I. Information Gap (in pairs)
One important communication strategy is the ability to describe things in detail.
In the following activity, be sure to give the clearest description of the pictures possible.
Please give special attention to the placement and number of objects. Make sure that the information you give is correct.
If you don't know the English word for the object, describe what it's used for or what it looks like.
Use ONLY English.
Partner A:
(use this photo)
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- Use English to describe the picture to your partner - DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PARTNER'S PICTURE.
- Listen to your partner's description and draw the picture your partner describes. DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PARTNER'S PICTURE.
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Partner B:
(use this photo)
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- Listen to your partner's description and draw the picture your partner describes. DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PARTNER'S PICTURE.
- Use English to describe the picture to your partner - DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PARTNER'S PICTURE.
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2. Discussion (in pairs)
- With a partner, take turns describing a time you had fun learning English. Provide as much information as possible. Explain why it was fun for you.
If you (or your partner) doesn't understand something, use a new communication strategy such as approximation, circumlocution, or miming
to solve the communication problem.
- Remember what your partner told you, then change partners. Tell your partner's information to your new partner.
- Switch again and tell the last story you heard. This should be your partner's first story. Again use good strategies to help you tell the story and listen. You should hear your story from the third person you talk to. See how it is the same or different.
3. Asking for clarification (in pairs)
In this activity, you will need to ask someone to repeat a word or phrase that was unclear to get
the message. This skill is very important to practice and use when communicating. Often, when
listening to someone speaking, we don't hear something clearly and need to ask for the speaker
to repeat something. Often, learners of English as a second language either don't understand what
is being asked for, or think they have made a mistake and don't continue, or repeat unnecessary
information. Therefore, the end result is a breakdown of communication. Look at the example below:
A: I went to see a movie last night.
B: Oh, yeah? What'd you see?
A: Oh, I saw the new movie with /nikIs kad/.
B: Uh, with who?
A: Uh, I went with my friend- my classmate.
B: No, I mean who was the actor in the movie?
Here speaker A is talking about a movie he saw and speaker B misunderstands the actor's name and asks
for clarification. Speaker A misunderstands A's request for clarification and the communication breaks
down. This happens very often. A question asked in response to an unclear message will ask for very
specific information, and will be a very short directed question, for example:
Notice that the questions are for a specific piece of information that is preceded by the
last part of the sentence that was understood by the listener.
In groups of 4, practice this skill. Write three sentences with a lot of information,
including who, what, where, and when. Next take turns reading your sentences and as you read,
purposely make one of the pieces of information unclear. For example, say "My friends and I
went hiking on Yangmingshan last wehbuddey." Someone in the group should ask, "Last what?"
and your reply, "last Wednesday." Or, chose another part of the sentence to make unclear,
for example:"My friends and I went hilongim on Yangmingshan last Wednesday."
And one in your group should ask,"Went what?" and you reply,"went hiking."
4. Vocabulary Learning Activity
Learning new vocabulary is often a problem. In this exercise, you will use mnemonics
to learn new vocabulary words. Mnemonics is the use of a trick or an association to remember
something. For each word, choose a picture or a sound or another word in Chinese or Taiwanese
that sounds the same - to help you remember the word. For example, Chinese uses many pictures
turned into words called pictograms to help describe words. In Chinese, the word mountain,
looks like a mountain. In English, however, words do not have this quality, but you can draw a
picture or think of a picture or sound when you are learning a new word to help you remember.
Use mnemonics to learn these words. Take 5 minutes to learn these words, then quiz your
neighbor and discuss how you learned them:
a fight.
a low wall that divides a space.
a thin line of smoke
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the cutting open of live animals
not well made, shaky.
to interfere without right
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