Information collection & exchange

 Fluency 
n the communicative approach, flue
I
b

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to communicate their own ideas, opinions and wishes. They are fully aware of the meaning they wish to 
the 
xact language they need to communicate. As a result your students will not always be accurate in their use 
ck on the message, rather than interrupting to correct pronunciation or grammar. This is not to say 
at errors should not be corrected, but interactive speaking activities is not the place to do so. You should, 
owever, keep notes of persistent problems and set aside time to deal with them later. 
econd, the activities you present should promote fluency. You want to find ways of stimulating your 
tudents so that they want to speak, and this wanting to speak overcomes their inhibitions about expressing 
1. Write on the board a list of 20-30 personalities. Ask students to select from the list six people they 
es, again calling on students to explain their reasons for the ranking. 
[Adapted from Friederike Klippel. Keep Talking. Cambridge University Press, 1984.] 
 Co
A c
language learning experiences in pre-service training probably brought the same thought home to you. You 
el foolish because you are not in control, the way you are in your native language, and are reduced to a 
convey, but the exact content of their message is unpredictable, and you, the teacher, cannot give them 
e
of the language, but this is not important, so long as the speakers are able to be understood. This emphasis 
on fluency implies two things. 
First, your error correction policy should reflect this emphasis. Particularly in speaking, it is important that 
you should encourage the risk takers. This is often a simple process of listening to what is said and giving 
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themselves in English. 
"Famous Personalities" is an activity that can be adapted to beginning, intermediate, or advanced levels. It 
requires your students to have opinions and wishes and to express them. The steps in the activity are as 
follows: 
would like to invite to give a talk. Students write their choices in order on a piece of paper. All the papers 
are collected. 
2. Go through the papers and mark on the board the number of "invitations" each personality on the list 
has received. Make a final list of the six people the class would like to invite. During this process, call on 
students to explain their choices. 
3. Rank the six invite
4. You could also add the step of dividing the class into groups to come up with questions they would like 
to ask their invitees. If you are teaching advanced students, you could then ask them to choose 
personalities from the list and to role play these personalities by answering the questions prepared by the 
rest of the class. 
Note: The list of names you give to the students is obviously dependent on the cultural background and age 
group of your students. It will be up to you to draw up a list of personalities your students really would like to 
talk to.