Talking People - Speaking - Textual Awareness

Speaking - Textual Awareness - Oral Texts

Strategies for Oral Practice:
Developing Textual Awareness & Communicative Strategies
By Talking People 2007

Developing Textual Awareness & Communicative Strategies
Textual Structure	Examples
Breaking the ice Finding your place in the setting, acknowledging people's existence	Hello. Shall we take a seat? I'm .../So, am I candidate A?
Getting started... intro to activity, introducing the topic (not your opinion! First things first!)	I'm going to SPEAK about ...(monologues) Tomorrow is Peter's birthday. We need to get him a present. I would like to get him a book. (dialogues with a practical aim) Lately I've been hearing a lot about changes in the levels at Language Schools. Have you heard about it? (dialogues analysing topics) Later, your point. You can start asking others, I mean.
Turn-taking (for dialogues only)	Turn-taking & accompanying the one using his/her turn with comments - remember: balanced dialogues! Little comments to accompany people: Oh, I see./Yes, I understand/ Oh, yes, I love that. / That's annoying / Sure / Oh well... (caritas varias)
Moving on and changing subjects	We're running out of time and we need to deal with another issue. What...? (actual=real, applicable to the reality in class) / I need to leave in five minutes. Could we talk about...? (pretend, you roleplay) Another approach: somebody's repeating him/herself and somebody hasn't spoken yet so you help out: OK, then, I think that's clear. (to the silent person) What do you think? OK, then. Can we agree on that? + (explain what)
Recapitulating	A summary repeating the main points briefly. (You can also check you got it right.) This brings us back to the intro, in a different way, acknowledging the previous discussion. So, we'll be getting some clothes for Peter, then. We'll meet next Friday afternoon to go shopping and you will call Mary to ask her if she wants to share expenses with us. Is that right? So there are more sides to this topic than I could think of! It's been an interesting discussion!
Signalling the end	Signal the end. So that's it. / That's about it. If you haven't spoken much, use the end to make up a story with one sentence!: OK, then, I've got to rush. My mum's waiting for me to go shopping.

Tips for dialogues at Oral Exams: defending your position doesn't mean prevailing, or fighting to prevail. It means EXPLAINING your point of view. You should also LISTEN to the other people, and "accompany" them with little signals that you are following. Proceed to reach a consensus ONLY AFTER you are all aware of each other's positions (ie you understand them). Practice timing yourselves in class, in small groups, to get the feeling of how long developing a couple of ideas takes in all, in turn-taking, and how long reaching a consensus takes in all. Imagine different Speaking Tasks (or "problems") and be creative in finding consensus (solutions). If you don't understand someone's English, relax and apply the listening comprehension strategy I call The Skeleton of Meaning. It goes without saying you can also as them to repeat or ask specific questions to get a specific word you need to reconstruct their message. Use your knowledge of the world and your info about the activity to do so. Teachers giving you the exam cannot talk to you. If you have language problems, use strategies with your partners. Teachers take notes of the good things, too, not only of your mistakes. And anyway, sometimes the mistakes are not too relevant, when they consider the whole. (But they copy everything they can because they need evidence to consider later on your mark.)

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