By:
Itzel Paniagüa Ochoa
Karina C. Valdez Arámburo
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Introduction
We´ll analyze our
conversation to identify issues on our pronunciation or structure of the
speech, in order to look for strategies to help us improve spoken convention.
Itzel: -“Let´s start, I was reading and I found that it was important, you know, audiolinguism,
because nowadays we can see that we are communicating more, the right thing, the best way
to communicate is through speaking, yes, but we need to cover all the other
skills, I don´t know what do you think? What do you have research about
audiolinguism?”
Karina: -“well, what I thought that to begin with, we
should before, …mmh, starting [g1] by saying where the method come from, what I found [g2] that this method was from the
Army, they needed after[g3] the 2nd war, because the U.S. thought that they need to have
English proficiency, when they send soldier outside they have to know how to
communicate in a better way, so they have to make like a method, that was all
the same for everybody, you see, that way they took the model of the behaviorism
psychology to, to form this method, and to give a kind of a structure, you
know, the schools and institutes where they were sending people to learn the
language, so…
Itzel: …-Oh, yes...
Karina: …-Something good came from II world war, right?”
Itzel: -“Yes, I read about that and I thought It was very important they, that they [g4] were not looking for “profiency” right? They were just looking for teams [g5] on English and they have prepared the soldiers so they could
understand very well. I read about, I don´t know if I´m wrong, but I read that
they were from different nationalities so they have to learn English.”
Karina: -“Well, maybe not at “disinguinim”
but I don´t know, as far as I know, at the “lingualism” [g6] method what really, really focuses on accuracy, I
mean, since it´s all relayed on drills and repetitions, and learning phrases…
Itzel: -…a lot of
drillings...
Karina: -all kind of collocations and things like that,
so, you had to “pronunciate”[g7] in a[g8] accurate way, the more perfect that you can
because “audiolinguism” do not allow[g9] , does not allow, errors…
Itzel: -…mistakes...
Karina: -…or mistakes, no, they do not allowed them.”
Itzel: -“That´s what I read yesterday and I
thought it was very important, I learnt that we have to be like “er” before this, not that they tired the Ss, but they have
to reinforce to be accurate, they have to practice more, they have to, I don´t know,
be more exact,[g10] when they are pronouncing, so they can be understood, but also we don´t
have to forget other skills, listening is really good, speaking is really good,
they are the first skills on they
faced, we acquired those skills naturally, but we must not forget the
other ones, what do you think? About writing and reading”
Karina: -“Sure, I totally agree with you, because ah, [g11] I also use aulinguism a lot, I like drillings, I like dialogues, but
absolutely, we cannot delay on that, I mean, they must be part of the lesson,
of course, because they need to learn how to say specific phrases that are
always together like collocations, you know, Ss have to learn collocations, because that´s the better
way to be better understood, if they are in another country, but they also need to be
prepared to face any other conversation, or any other dialogue, because if all
that you teach is a dialogue, it´s only a pattern, what are they going to do if
they got into a restaurant and
they[g12] ask for example, taking [g13] the order in a different way, they won´t know what to say, so that´s why
they need to[g14] not only use dialogues by memorization, but to learn the meaning of
what they are using, of their vocabulary that they are going to use, that they
are going to face, so, I think as you said[g15] , I agree with you that we can use dialogues, they are really good, we
can use drills, they help to
the Ss to get fluency, they help them to get,[g16] well, or we can observe their correct pronunciation, but they also need to
make a content activity, for example where they are using the vocabulary, in a,
in a, [g17] meaning, in a meaning objective activity, what do you say?”
Itzel: -“Well, I, I
cannot change this activity to the discourse analysis topics. [g18] I was reading very deeply about the language
awareness, awareness, I
found this much being,
I don´t know, teach to Ss,[g19] right? They, they
have to be aware of the language, as you said already, you were saying they go
to a restaurant, they need to be aware of what they are… to, to eat, because if you only drilled, how much is for that? Or
I wanna hamburger, and they
for “eat” wanna a hamburger, they want something else, but they don´t
know how to express it, you know, I think the language used in context, are also, the perfect way to
start a conversation, not only drilling or a abuse, I don´t know what you think about that”.
Karina: -“Yeah, exactly, that´s right, also something that is, [g20] …ah…, like a not so, [g21] something that I don´t like much about audio-lingual or “audiolinguasim” [g22] is that they focus a lot on pronunciation, and I know that we should
correct them, but, how can I say this, when you correct a child, you have to be
carefully, [g23] you have to be really, really careful [g24] because you have to do it in a [g25] way, not to hurt their feelings, not to expose them, not to point [g26] the error so much, I mean, they are learning, they have to make
mistakes, they are trying, you say
the, I don´t know, the phrase or the word in the correct way, but they
can continue the conversation, sometimes if you keep on correcting and
correcting, you can interrupt a dialogue, you can interrupt a kind of a role, I mean, a
role-play activity, [g27] so, in that moment, correction is not the best option, and
“audiolinguism” focuses on correction a lot, so that´s something I don´t like.”
Itzel: -“I agree
totally with you about that, I don´t like correcting Ss in a rude way,
“audiolinguism” corrects them, if they don’t, as you said, they don´t
communicate well, but anyway, we are learning here, I also as a teacher I have
learnt a lot about personal
method, and I make a combination of them because I don’t get married
with one of them, I don´t know if you know what I mean?, but the thing is, that
“audiolinguism” is as you mentioned, but I think it´s maybe, I don´t know, left aside that
the correction, you know, I want to use it in a proper way, but pronunciation
accuracy, well not in correct rude to the Ss, I don´t like that, I don´t like
at all…
Karina: -… We don´t have to be mean, right?...
Itzel: -…Yeah, and
think approaches and method are theories to know them, we have to make like a
mix of them, you know, you
know nowadays we have a lot of things to use, like, I don´t know,
technology, we can make them listen to real language, you know, and I don´t know, to real sounds, I
use videos, like a lot using videos, and I like to show them the real
language…”
8:20
…Ss have different needs
and expectations, and variety of activities is the key, using variety of
methods to achieve different objectives in a course-year, developing all skills…
Karina´s Report:
Encountered Language Problems:
I see I keep doing many mistakes, some are
the same as last recording, so I need to practice before presenting
something. Last time I made a list of
points to mention, this time I did the same, but both were very brief, not even
a summary, just mentioning a word to develop after reading, even I had errors,
I think they helped me a lot to refresh my mind.
Another thing that would help me is to
speak slower to have some time to think on what to say, I speak fast, and some
phrases are uncompleted, I need to slow down to finish an idea, to avoid saying
words instead of others more appropriated for that context, to avoid saying
words that mean nothing in that moment.
What I keep doing well, is recap to say
something better when I just notice about something wrong.
The context was informal, we greet and
started talking about the theme, we feel the level of formality was
appropriated. We didn´t stated the
objective or the topic in a clear context, we just run to talk about it. We didn´t use any technique to make
interaction more interesting. The
strategy would be to repeat dialogues before present it.
We identified some pronunciation issues
that came to disturb the peace of the conversation, we will go back on
pronunciation strategies, expose ourselves to authentic English as much as
possible, look in the mirror to see how the sound is physically produced using
the mouth, tongue and lips or exaggerate the sound.
We didn´t have much communication issues,
since even we interrupted each other sometimes, we respectful, giving the word
to the other, making an invitation to proceed, there were very few
misunderstandings, we were listening carefully.
We had neither interactional issues, no
“mapping” nor meaning problems while interacting, since we were aware if the
utterances were used in the proper context.
Conclusion:
Once we
identify language as a vehicle where people transmit information including thoughts,
ideas, emotions and feelings, we will notice its communicative function.
The way we select word by word into a
sentence to give a certain meaning is an art, like collecting flowers from a
colorful garden; each bouquet sends a message, quite different if selecting certain
ones. We are use to do so, we have
communicated every day of our lives, if we are concrete and clear the message
deliver would be successful, if the answer it´s not what we expect, then we
must be sending the wrong message, something apart of what we want, either
selecting the wrong words, word order, pronunciation, intonation, context, body
language, and some other mistakes. Therefore,
training, practice, preparation and analysis is part of the process of making
our words understandable.
Having
this conversation with Itzel was good and productive, because analyzing
ourselves in a friendly environment was not threaten at all, she was willing to
work, willing to recognize our errors, she showed understanding of the theme,
even she was under pressure, the conversation had fluency, I had to stop it and
cut it at half because it was floating extra time, we were really engaged in
the theme, sharing our experiences with the method, explaining the syllabus,
the origin, and also convening into the same conclusion of the audiolingualism,
we both like and use it, but we understand that we need to mix it with other
methods in the lesson to have variety and to reach different Ss needs and
expectations.
It think it´s very applause to have a
subject where we have the opportunity to analyze our speech, even in our mother
tongue, we can always learn new ways to engage Ss, to present a topic, to help
Ss learn something by asking questions instead of saying a speech, and for
that, first we must have a decent understanding of the language we are planning
to teach, we are not native speakers, there´s more to learn, it was not a
surprise to encounter issues, we know there´s work to do, and we are happy to
see our errors.
Itzel´s Report:
Here at the conversation I personally, I
use fillers a lot of them, I think in loud voice a lot! Telling non sense
phrases, I don’t connect ideas sometimes, but we can understand because the topic is not hidden from us, in
some cases both of us miss the subject of what we’re referring to, and this is
a problem in communication a strong one because we miss the string of the
conversation, we use a lot mmm or and
repeat words, I’ve repeated a phrase many times, is ok to do, it but not too
many times, we can miss others attention and we as communicators have to catch
Ss attention.
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