Improvisation and Creativity in EFL Classroom Discourse

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

Today I finished reading From Corpus to Classroom. Language Use and Language Teaching (O’Keefe, McCarthy & Carter 2007). In my view, this is a well-written and in many ways thought-provoking book that provides a wide-ranging (largely introductory) overview of corpus-based research and its implications for foreign language learning and teaching. Since I am particularly interested in the role of improvisation and creativity in EFL classroom discourse (see Kurtz (2001) as well as the TEFLSPEAK-G series of posts on this blog), I found the following passage most interesting:

“There is a long way to go in understanding creativity in the spoken language and in exploring the applications to the classroom of such understandings, but the first steps have been taken in recognising that it has been generally underplayed within the language teaching classroom. It is something that we need to work on to bring the best out of us as learners, teachers and collaborators in the language classroom. It is a fundamental aspect of a more humanistic approach to language teaching. And it is the kind of evidence supplied by corpora of spoken language that enable these first steps to be taken.” (O’Keefe, McCarthy & Carter 2007: 197).

However, I did not find any references to research findings not published in English in this book. The more I read, the more I  became aware (once again) of the dominance of the English language in academic communication – which raises a number of fundamental questions (see, for instance, Gnutzmann 2006).

References

Gnutzmann, Claus (2006). Fighting or fostering the dominance of English in academic communication?” Fachsprache, 2006 (28), 195-207.

Kurtz, Jürgen (2001). Improvisierendes Sprechen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Eine Untersuchung zur Entwicklung spontansprachlicher Handlungskompetenz in der Zielsprache. Tübingen: Narr.

O’Keefe, Anne; McCarthy, Michael & Carter, Ronald (2007). From Corpus to Classroom. Language Use and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

British Council: Nine Videos on Developing Oral Proficiency in EFL Classroom Environments

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

Click here to watch teacher trainer John Kay discuss techniques and issues connected to teaching speaking, from building rapport to monitoring.

Form-focused and Message-oriented Communication in Secondary School EFL Classrooms

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

In the International Handbook of English Language Teaching (Cummins & Davison 2007), Nina Spada (2007: 283) states that “there is an emerging concensus in the classroom research literature that the inclusion of form-focused instruction is needed within exclusively and primarily meaning-based approaches to CLT if learners are to develop higher levels of knowledge and performance in the target language. This has been demonstrated in descriptive, experimental, and quasi-experimental studies with adult, adolescent, and child learners in different second/foreign language contexts.”

This raises a number of fundamental questions concerning the current status of EFL classroom interaction and, more specifically, the optimal mix of form-focused and message-oriented instruction in everyday secondary school EFL practice.

Up to now, there is very little empirical evidence that frontline educators in secondary schools, for instance in Germany, actually orchestrate classroom interaction in accordance with “exclusively and primarily meaning-based approaches to CLT”. On the contrary, the overall focus of instruction behind classroom doors is still very often on target language form or forms, i.e. on the weak, rather than on the strong version of the communicative approach (see Howatt 1984).

This is what the current DESI-study (German-English-Student-Assessment-International), a large-scale assessment study (n = 11,000) commissioned by the German federal board of education (including a classroom video-study), designed and implemented by an interdisciplinary consortium of applied linguists and educational researchers indicates (for a summary, see the official German DESI homepage and the corresponding Powerpoint-Presentation in English created by Günter Nold, University of Dortmund, Germany.

EFL classroom interaction in everyday practice in Germany is often far from being appropriate to stimulate and scaffold lively, meaningful and creative interaction (especially self-regulated peer-to-peer communication in English) and to systematically stretch learners’ participatory abilities in the target language, primarily because message-oriented classroom discourse is mapped onto the traditional interactional architecture of form-focused and predominantly accuracy-oriented language practice (i.e. IRF: teacher initiation, student response, teacher feedback, mainly focused on immediate error-correction).

The “procedural infrastucture of talk-in-interaction” (Schegloff 1992: 1299) which has emerged in classroom practice over many years is suggestive of a form-oriented communicative cocoon spun by teachers to protect learners from the natural complexity and unpredictability that is typical of many communicative encounters outside the classroom. In consequence, there is very little room for spontaneous, less regulated (or scripted) and less predictable communicative exchanges which are necessary to induce a communicative metamorphosis among learners – from peripheral and dependent to increasingly more central and autonomous participants. In my view, this needs to be considered more thorougly when proposing the inclusion of form-focused instruction in secondary school EFL classrooms.

Howatt, Anthony P. R. (1984). A History of English Language Teaching. Ox­ford: Oxford Uni­versity Press.

Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1992). “Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation.” American Journal of Sociology, 5, 1295-1345.

Spada, Nina (2007), “Communicative Language Teaching: Current Status and Future Prospects”, in: Cummins, Jim & Davison, Chris (Eds.). International Handbook of English Language Teaching. Part 1. New York: Springer: 271-288.

TEFLSPEAK-G and the Idea of Encouraging Improvised Speech in the EFL Classroom (10)

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

As described in the preceding posts, task-based improvisational enactments consist of scripted and unscripted communicative sequences: a) an opening part which functions as a scripted lead-in intended to ‘break the ice’ and to reduce speaking inhibitions, b) an unscripted middle part leaving enough space for a wide range of spontaneous ideas and interpretations, topics and improvised peer-to-peer exchanges, and c) a scripted final-part with which the improvised dialogue can be brought to an end once the participants feel that they cannot or do not want to go any further (in order to avoid embarrassment and speaking anxiety resulting from possible communicative breakdowns; this is the so-called ‘communicative emergency exit’ which is usually missing in traditional role-plays and simulations).

Each enactment is followed by teacher-guided or teacher-supported whole-class reflection. Here, the focus is not primarily on communicative problems and linguistic deficits, but on communicative success and on expanding the learners’ participatory repertoire in the target language. Explicit error correction is, of course, not neglected, but it is integrated in a way that is not threatening to the learners’ willingness to speak English. This then serves as a basis for subsequent enactments becoming increasingly more elaborate and flexible in terms of spontaneous target language use, as a number of classroom studies and scientific publications show (see, for instance, Kurtz 2001; Siebold 2004a (with DVD-/ROM video sequences), 2004b, 2006; Rossa 2007). From the teacher’s perspective, parts a) and c), i.e. the scripted communicative frame, can be and should be prepared in advance, whereas part b), the improvisational part in the middle, is unpredictable and emerges on the spot in the classroom. It is this part which requires teachers to distance themselves from what Sawyer has appositely referred to as educational “script-think” (2001: 36).

In this way, improvisation tasks seek to bring together two basic facets of authentic, natural, everyday communication in the EFL classroom: a) the predictability of socio-communicative scripts and behavioral patterns (unwritten scripts, socio-functional routines or event schemata) and b), the unpredictability of spontaneous ideas and topical shifts within a given socio-communicative framework.

All in all, improvisations are designed to bridge the (in some respects) artificial gap between acquisition and learning, direct and indirect, implicit and explicit foreign language instruction in secondary school EFL environments by providing a situated communicative infrastructure for classroom talk-in-interaction that is flexible enough to allow for systematic teacher-led instruction, mediation or support (scaffolding) as well as for more self-regulated, student-centered discovery learning, experimental target language use and, ultimately, the gradual emergence of communicative competence and performance in action-oriented, meaningful and challenging scenarios (see my previous post on Handlungsorientierung, i.e. on action-based / action-oriented foreign language learning and teaching on this blog).

For further illustration, here is another transcript of an improvisational enactment (9th grade learners of English at a secondary comprehensive school in Germany). Learners are sitting in a circle. (T = teacher; L = learner).

[...]
T: Ok, let me throw the dice now. Oops, that was an accident .. em .. I can’t see it from here. It’s behind that chair now. Yvonne .. Can you help? Can you see it?
L₁₃: Yes .. em .. it’s fifteen.
T: Right .. thank you .. Who has got fifteen? Mario? Good .. Let’s give Mario a nice round of applause… Come on everybody… Clap your hands! … Applause … Yvonne, why don’t you throw the dice now?
L₁₃: Me? Do I really have to, Herr Schneider?
T: Where’s the problem? Come on … go ahead.
L₁₃: OK. Six.
T: Who has got six? Dennis? Fine, now we can begin.
Ls: … Applause …
T: Oh yes. Sorry … right .. let’s .. em… let’s clap our hands for Dennis and .. em .. Mario. Mario and Dennis … Are you ready? .. OK, quiet please … go ahead.
L₆: Em … Just a moment please. We must find out who begins first. .. 15 seconds. We are ready .. we meet us in a youth club, OK?
T: OK you two .. so you’re in a youth club now … go ahead. And the others .. listen please!

Scripted part of the exchange, the lead-in (on OHT):
L₁₅: “Hi [Dennis]!”
L₆: “[Mario!] What a surprise! I didn’t expect to see you here today.”
L₁₅: “Well, after last night I just had to come.”
L₆: “Why?”

Unscripted, improvised, spontaneously created, and as such unpredictable part of the exchange:
L₁₅: Well I don’t know .. em .. how I can tell you this .. em .. Meike was in the ‘Sound Garden’ (a local disco) yesterday.
L₆: Meike?
L₁₅: Yes, Meike .. you remember? Your girl-friend.
L₆: Em .. But I don’t have a girl-friend.
L₁₅: Never mind, now you have one and her name is Meike.
L₆: OK OK .. 5 seconds.. Meike .. em .. my new girl-friend. .. 10 seconds… alone. Em … Was she alone in the ‘Sound Garden’?
L₁₅: At first.
L_6: And later?
L₁₅: Later she wasn’t alone. (Outburst of laughter in class).
L₆: Yes … I understand .. em .. but what did you saw? What was she doing? Tell me.
L₁₅: Em .. well .. em .. I saw her .. em .. with Christian .. em .. and he kissed her.
L_6: HE? (pointing at the ‘real’ Christian in the classroom)
L₁₅: Yes … he.
L₆: So YOU kiss MY girl-friend? (addressing Christian to include him in the improvisation)
L₃: No, it wasn’t me, wirklich nicht [German] (honestly).

Scripted / ‘emergency’ exit (on OHT):
L15: “Well .. I can see you want to be left alone. I think I better go now.”
L6: “OK .. thanks for letting me know.”
L15: “See you then .. [take care].”
L6: “Bye.”
Ls: …. Applause …
[...]

Follow-up / classroom discussion:
T: Now before we listen to Mario and Dennis again… before we listen .. em .. to the cassette .. let me first ask you what you think about their .. em .. conversation .. 3 seconds .. Let’s collect … yes … let’s collect your first impressions .. 10 seconds .. Yes, Simone?
L₁: I think it was very funny.
T: Oh really? Can you say why?
L₁: Because Dennis play so cool .. em .. when he was angry about Christian .. em .. after Christian have kissed his girl-friend Meike.
T: Mmh .. OK.. what about the others? What do YOU think of the conversation?
L₁₃: Dennis was good but Mario not.
T: Mario wasn’t? Why not?
L₁₃: Because Mario is the best friend of Dennis .. em .. so he .. em .. I think he… em .. he must not tell Dennis about Christian and Meike.
T: You mean he shouldn’t have told him?
L₁₃: Yes .. it’s not fair. He is not a reporter.
Ls: … mumbling …
T: OK .. calm down please. We can’t go on if you all speak at the same time. Isabell .. you wanted to say something?
L₇: Hey, hör doch mal auf [German] (stop that) Tim. I want to say something!
T: Tim! Come on! Stop teasing her!
L₇: I think Mario and Dennis are good friends .. and good friends have no .. äh .. Geheimnisse [German]?
T: Secrets. (writes it on the board).
L₇: Yes .. and Mario wouldn’t be .. ehrlich [German]?
T: Honest.
L₇: Mario… he .. he wouldn’t be .. What was the word?
T: Honest. (writes it on the board)
L₇: He wouldn’t be honest if he doesn’t tell his best friend.
T: So you think that friends should always be honest to each other?
L₇: Yes.
T: Mmh .. in Isa’s opinion honesty … Ehrlichkeit .. honesty (writes it on the board) is very important .. you should always be honest to your friends .. do you all agree? .. No? … 3 seconds … Who doesn’t?
[...]

This was followed by a brief ‘focus on form‘-sequence which culminated in a contextualized target language exercise, based on L7: He wouldn’t be honest if he doesn’t tell his best friend. After that, a new improvisation sequence was initiated.

Kurtz, Jürgen (2001). Improvisierendes Sprechen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. Tübingen: Narr.

Rossa, Henning (2007). Improvisationen als interaktive Lernarrangements: Anwendung eines Konzepts zur Förderung spontansprachlicher Handlungskompetenz in der Zielsprache Englisch dargestellt auf der Grundlage eigener Unterrichtserfahrungen in einem Grundkurs der Jahrgangsstufe 11 des Gymnasiums. (2. Staatsarbeit). Available online, click to read here

Sawyer, R. Keith (2001). Creating Conversations. Improvisation in Everyday Discourse. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2001.

Siebold, Jörg (Hrsg.) (2004a). Let’s Talk: Lehrtechniken. Vom gebundenen zum freien Sprechen. Berlin: Cornelsen. [mit DVD-Videodokumentation].

Siebold, Jörg (2004b), “Interaktion und Sprachproduktion in improvisierten Schülergesprächen.” In: Deringer, Ludwig (Hrsg.). Innovative Fremdsprachendidaktik. Kolloquium zu Ehren von Wolfgang Butzkamm. Aachen British and American Studies. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 149-166.

Siebold, Jörg (2006), “Unter der Lupe: Improvisierte Gespräche in einer 6. Realschulklasse.” In: Praxis Fremdsprachenunterricht, 4, 27-32.

More to come. Stay tuned.

TEFLSPEAK-G and the Idea of Encouraging Improvised Speech in the EFL Classroom (9)

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

Why is improvised speaking important and valuable? How can it be incorporated into foreign language classroom practice in a systematic way? Focusing on English language teaching, Davies & Pearse (2000: 82-84) point out that in order to “develop the ability to participate effectively in interactions outside the classroom”, learners need to be accustomed to “combining listening and speaking in real time”, because “in natural listening-speaking situations the listeners must be able to handle [..] shifts of topic and unpredictable language in listening, and then they must be able to improvise their responses.”

In The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (Carter & Nunan 2001), Bygate (2001: 18) underlines the importance of improvisation as well, emphasizing that “improvised speech needs practice, but around some content familiarity.”

Lack of familiarity with content is of course not the only barrier to unscripted, increasingly self-regulated improvised speaking, i.e. to developing learners’ target language participatory abilities in secondary school foreign language classrooms. There is rather a whole range of potential barriers that may impede the development of spontaneous and flexible target language production in institutional settings, for instance:

• lack of creativity, flexibility and balance in the overall instructional design (focus on form versus focus on meaning; language as system versus language in use; scripted versus unscripted teaching; whole class, teacher-led discourse versus small-group, learner-led discourse; planned (largely predictable) versus unplanned (incidental, spontaneous, largely unpredictable) interaction in the target language;

• overaccomodation of teacher talk (TEFLSPEAK) combined with a forced immediacy of learner contributions in traditional IRF-sequences; textbook dependency and overuse / misuse; one-sidedness of error-treatment (because learners are viewed as deficient, and not primarily as successful communicators);

• thematic content failing to attract learners’ communicative interests (why should foreign language learners say anything, if there is nothing interesting to talk about from their perspective?);

• high level of speaking anxiety in the classroom; lack of learners’ self-confidence; lack of social cohesion inhibiting target language negotiation of meaning and lively peer-to-peer interaction;

• overemphasis of traditional PPP (presentation – practice – production) procedures; reduction of learners’ production to a disadvantageous minimum;

• overadjustment of target language production activities to test requirements and standardized test items (i.e. teaching to the test); lack of distinction between language learning versus language assessment activities and tasks – which, in my view, is a shortcoming in current empirical SLA research as well, resulting in serious problems concerning the ecological validity of some of the findings);

• uncontrolled use of the mother tongue, especially in learner-led, small group activities (see Butzkamm’s comment and his recommendations on this blog).

The “cultivation of the speaking skill”, as Rivers (1968/81: 94) put it forty years ago, takes time and patience. Next to and in combination with intercultural learning in institutional contexts, it is probably the most difficult challenge foreign language teachers are faced with in the Internet Age. Remembering what Rivers (1968/81: 246) wrote about this important aspect of learning is by no means anachronistic or inconsistent with modern foreign language education in the 21st century:

“The flowering of natural language use will come in its own time; it cannot be forced. When students begin to interact naturally, if only for a few minutes, we must be quick to recognize the change and let the natural interaction take over until its energy is spent. Being able to withdraw and leave students space and room to take over and learn through their own activity is the mark of the real teacher.”

However, qualitative research on improvised speaking indicates that EFL teachers can do a lot more to encourage learners actively to speak freely. Improvisational enactments can help to foster flexible target language production beyond incidental classroom speaking, if they are integrated into (well-balanced) classroom practice as early as possible and, above all, on a regular basis.

Bygate, Martin (2001), “Speaking.” In: Carter, Ronald & Nunan, David (2001). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 14-20.

Davies, Paul & Pearse, Eric (2000). Success in English Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rivers, Wilga (1981). Teaching Foreign Language Skills. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press (first edition 1968).

Kurtz, Jürgen (2001). Improvisierendes Sprechen im Fremdsprachenunterricht. [Improvised Speaking in the Foreign Language Classroom]. Eine Untersuchung zur Entwicklung spontansprachlicher Handlungskompetenz in der Zielsprache. Tübingen: Narr. [also available at Google books].

TEFLSPEAK-G and the Idea of Encouraging Improvised Speech in the EFL Classroom (4)

posted by Jürgen Kurtz, Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany

When beginning learners of English as a foreign language are confronted with a challenging communicative task such as Bus Stop, how do they manage to keep the exchange going? What kinds of improvisation strategies (e.g. compensatory strategies) do they employ spontaneously? How do they negotiate meaning and coordinate turn-taking when speaking without a script? How do they help each other when target language vocabulary problems occur? How important are code-switching and code-mixing?

The following transcript documents a short dialogue between two 11-year-old German 5th grade students (after about nine months of learning English in a comprehensive school in Germany) (L = learner; T = teacher; … = pause; ? = intonation suggesting a question):

[...] 
T: All right .. Benjamin .. throw the dice now
L₁: It’s .. twelve /twölf/
T: So .. who has got number twelve … Dilek? … O.K. .. Once again Benny
L₁: Sixteen
T: Kerstin? … Very good. … Dilek and Kerstin .. go to .. em .. the bus stop and sit down please … [applause]
T: Are you ready? Let’s count … 
[Whole class] THREE .. TWO .. ONE .. ACTION …
L₁₂: Hello
L₁₆: Hello .. my name is .. Kerstin
L₁₂: Pleased to meet you .. em .. Kerstin .. I’m Dilek
L₁₆: Are you waiting /ai/ for the bus?
L₁₂: Yes .. how about some sweets?
L₁₆: Thank you…. [cue:] I’m on the way to the supermarket, you know … I’d like to buy … [begin impro:] … mmh … apples // apples .. bananas .. chocolate
L₁₂: Bananas and chocolate? … for you?
L₁₆: No .. that is for my little … brother
L₁₂: I’m driving to .. the pet shop
L₁₆: Pet shop? What is this?
L₁₂: It’s for dogs, cats … and animals .. [5 sec] .. It’s in Selby Road [reference to EFL textbook used]
L₁₆: What’s your hobby? // .. [2 sec] .. hobbies?
L₁₂: My hobbies? .. [5 sec].. Yes .. em .. swimming
L₁₆: Swimming? Is .. er … swimming difficult?
L₁₂: Sorry no idea … [end impro] … Oh .. here comes my bus .. I .. go .. nice talking to you .. bye ..
L₁₆: Good bye
T: O.K. very good … let’s stop here .. that was very good indeed .. thank you Dilek and Kerstin .. well done
[applause]

The transcript indicates that even at a very early stage of their interlanguage development, schoolchildren are able to communicate effectively. In the exemplary sequence above, they do not simply ’get a message across individually’, but interactively co-construct a target language exchange all on their own, using a number of creative, more or less convincing strategies such as, for instance, variation of intonation (rising / falling) or meaning (general / specific) or change of topic, etc. Their target language repertoire is limited, of course. Nevertheless, instruction should not be reduced to the correction of target language pronunciation and grammar errors. The focus of teaching needs to be on the tiny little ‘communicative nuclei’ that the transcript shows, for instance: ”L₁₆: Pet shop? What is this? – L₁₂: It’s for dogs, cats, and animals”.

More to come. Stay tuned.

PS.: Much of what has been published on task-based instruction is based on research carried out outside secondary school EFL classrooms. In his book Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching, Rod Ellis (2004: 336-337) points out that “… there have been few attempts to adopt this kind of teaching in institutional contexts (such as high schools) and few truly task-based courses published to date …”. The ongoing research project Improvised Speaking in Secondary School EFL Classrooms (Kurtz 1996 - …) is just one (of these attempts).