COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES
By: Mohammad Ashuri
Children like playing and moving as stated by Mattias (Sadtono (Ed.),1997), and also listening to stories. In teaching English for children teacher should be creative in developing material communicatively to make the instructional process interesting. There are a number of methods/techniques how to develop materials communicatively. Nevertheless, the succeed of the English instruction will one hundred percent depend on the teacher’s effort in creating the techniques in order to be interested in the instructional practice in the classroom.
Here are some hints to develop materials communicatively as suggested by Musthafa (2000) as follows:
1.Games
Games are familiar method by which elementary school teachers create a setting for second language acquisition. In addition to context, games also provide motivation and a sense of play that brain research and teacher experience indicate can enhance motivation (David Cross, 1992), learning and memory. In playing games students’ attention is on the massage, not on the language. They can acquire language unconsciously. But we can also choose or invent games for introducing and practicing the language. Students will need in natural contexts for communicative purposes. We can also develop and use games that are themselves communicative rather than heavily drill oriented.
Games can also provide a structured setting for the practice of common social and conversation-starting formulas for which there is not sufficient opportunity in the everyday classroom. Such as guessing games is an example of conversation-starting.
Games are enjoyable says Lee (1984). The essence of many games lies in out-stripping, in friendly fashion, someone else’s performance, or in bettering one’s own, as in the world of sport. The goal is visible and stimulating: outdoing others, and improving on oneself, are by and large enjoyable pursuits. Enjoyable also is the active co-operation with one’s fellow.
2.Songs, Rhymes, Finger Plays
Other powerful vehicles for linking language with action include songs, rhymes, and finger plays that involved large-and-small-motor physical actions. When the students sing or recite, they automatically assume command of the prosodic features (rhythm, stress, rhyme) of the language (David Cross, 1992). Many songs and rhymes for young children are designed to incorporate actions, and the finger play is a rhyme built entirely around the use of the hand and the fingers to enter into the performance of a rhyme. In an elementary school foreign language classroom action-oriented songs and rhymes, especially those with humorous actions, become favourites of the children, who want to recite or sing them again and again.
3.Language-Experience Activities
Another strategy for creating context is the use of language-experience activities that involve children in concrete experience surrounded by language. That is, doing things with words. We can choose a group activity as an organizing principle that context to all of language that is practiced. The link between language and action enhances the impact of the language itself and encourages its retention in long-term memory.
4.Props and Concrete Materials
Another important factor in creating context for communication is the use of props and concrete materials. Children throughout the elementary school years continue to learn best from concrete situations. The more frequently the manipulation of actual objects can accompany language use, especially objects representing the cultures being taught, the greater the impact of the language itself.
5.Dialogs
Dialogs—the hallmark of the audiolingual method—have value in the elementary school because they provide a structure for a series of utterances that combine to develop a situation, an idea, or an experience. When they are carefully constructed and chosen, dialogs can provide an outlet for children’s natural love of dramatization and role play. A dialog can prepare students for conversations and situations that will later be part of a story or fairy tale in the curriculum. The dialog can also develop as a means of re-creating a story that the children loved when we read it or when they saw it in a filmstrip or a movie.
The following guidelines will assist us in the choice or creation of a dialog:
a.It should be short, including short utterances for the children to say.
b.It should feature natural use of language that is not restricted by artificially imposed grammatical limitations.
c.It should be open to many variations so that it can be recast to serve as the basis for future dialogs in other settings.
d.It should be flexible so that children can shape it according to their own creativity and senses of humour.
e.It should incorporate a large proportion of previously learned vocabulary and functions so that children are not overwhelmed by the quantity of new language to be learned.
6.Role Play
Role play moves a step beyond the dialog and places students in a situation in which they are called on to cope with the unexpected or with a new setting , using the material they have memorized through dialogs and other classroom activities. For example, after working with a dialog drawn from a shopping situation, students of English might be called on to develop a role play in which they go into an ”international shopping mall” to buy an item that represents new vocabulary or a new challenge. Perhaps they look for their favourite American brand of breakfast cereal at the food store, or the clerk has only sizes that are too large or too small in the clothing store. They then work together in a group to develop an unscripted conversation around the new situation.
7.Small-group or Pair Work
Another very powerful context for communication in the classroom involves the use of small-group or pair activities. Students can work together to solve a problem or develop a response to a situation on a map, to choose an appropriate gift for parent, to identify another member of their class, and so on. As they share the information orally, the children solve the problem and also practice the language involved. In a pair or small-group setting of three to four children, they might work with a “jigsaw”; each child has a certain amount of information that—when combined with the rest of the groups—will lead to completion of an assignment.
