Pair Description is a fun activity that helps students improve their communicative competence. It requires one student to look at a picture given by an instructor and describe the picture to another student without saying what the actual object is. The student who is listening to the description has to draw a picture of what the other student is describing. Students have to make sure they dont look at each others picture, so the one who is describing cant look at what their partner is drawing and also be careful not to show the picture theyre describing.
By doing so, students practice speaking and listening skills that help in communication. The student who is describing is encouraged to think of different words that can describe the same object. For example, if the student has a picture of a snowman, theyre not allowed to say snow or snowballs, but three circles stacked up to describe the shape of a snowman body. If the student who is drawing cant understand, the student who is drawing would have to rephrase their words. This pushes students to think of various ways to say one thing, which trains them to expand their vocabulary and sentence structure usage.
On the other hand, the student responsible for listening to their partners description and their words into a drawing gets to practice listening skills, as well as predicting whats to come from the context. In my case, my partner was describing a snowman and I had to draw. The first thing she told me to draw was three circles, one on top of another. At first, I misunderstood her and drew one circle on top of another circle and put the third circle next to the two stacked ones. Then, as I heard more, I figured out what she was describing is a snowman. Directions like draw two sticks sticking out from the second circle helped me realize I was supposed to put stack all three circles together, and eventually figure out what the final picture should look like.
If there needs any change made to this activity, it could be adjusting the difficulty level of the pictures. That will make students describing the picture to be more descriptive, use more vocabulary than just simple shapes like circle, or adjectives like round and straight. This will also make it harder for students drawing to guess what the actual picture is, making them listen more carefully to the speaker.
20Questions
20 Questions is one of traditional speaking activities that is also played in Korea. This made it easier for me to explain the rules to other students in the group. The activity is basically a guessing game. Pair Description requires the person who knows the answer to give clues to those who dont, but this game makes those who dont know the answer to figure out the answer by asking questions to the one person that knows the answer. The person who is it thinks of a noun and writes it down on paper to prevent them from changing the answer. Then, others take turns asking questions. The it can only answer in yes or no, and the number of questions others can ask is limited to twenty.
My intention of hosting this activity was to get students used to asking questions and figuring out how yes or no questions should start. While playing the game, I was able to see students paying attention to the way other students are structuring their questions. For example, Student A asked a question what wasnt a yes or no question and Student B who noticed that pointed it out and corrected Student A. This shows that the activity was effective in letting students understand the differences between different types of questions and asking questions with purpose, which is getting the information they need.
For the next time I host the same activity, I should consider making students play in pairs instead of as a whole group like we did this time. I noticed that when it takes long for the group to guess the answer, each student receives less chance to ask questions. If the game is played in pairs, however, then one student is keep asking the question and they will have less time to think of the next question, resulting in more practice and more chance to speak.
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Anonymous
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RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 3 Reflections for Super
During this activity, two people made a pair then received the pictures handed out by the material host. Students were told not to show the picture to others, but to look at it by themselves. One explained the picture to the other in as much detail as possible. The partner listened to the description of the painting and drew it. The student who paints should have not shown the drawing to the student who explained it. After the activity, students compared the original picture with the picture drawn by the partner. Then talked about whether he or she was good at portraying it or understanding the description. Through this material students can learn how to describe things. Especially the expressions about shapes, lines, and sizes. The activity was fun. Students knew what to do, but I wish the instructor's explanation was more detailed.
Before the activity, windows were given as a example. Students were told not to use the word "window." Instead, we were asked to describe that lines across each other are inside the square. The picture I received was a ship. It was possible to describe a ship without using the word "ship." But unlike a window, it was hard to describe the details without saying that there was a "mast" or a "sail." Furthermore, It would have been better if instructor made it clear whether the person who paints can ask questions or just have to listen.
In order to remove these problems in tasks, I would like to suggest that the activity be divided into two parts. At first, let the person who paints guess what the other person has. For example, in my case, I said, "The big thing we use to catch a fish in the sea." And my partner said she has imagined a net or a ship. Then, when student made a right guess for what to draw, that pair can use straight words instead of words like that, things or the picture. It is then possible to describe the small part in detail. For example, after matching the picture with a ship, I can say "There is a mast in the middle, and the wind is blowing the sail to the right," rather than saying "There is a pole at the center and a fabric is hung." .
20 questions
This is an activity in which six people participate together.One person chooses and writes a word on paper. Then the others take turn to ask question. It is a game to figures out the word before 20 questions. The question can only be answered with yes or no. So student can learn Yes or No questions and using them properly. Also they can learn how to use expressions such as "Is it ~?," "Are they ~?" and "Does it ~?" The material was really fun, and I almost cried while participating. The instructions on the paper were quite detailed.But there are two things that I think it needs to improve.
First, before starting an activity, the instructor said to exclude abstract words that were too hard to find in 20 questions such as "nervousness." But the third word was "Snow White". It is not abstract, but some problems have occurred. Question number 1 was, "Is that alive?" The answer to that question was "yes." So students identified it as person. Although students asked almost 20 questions, they could not figure out the word. So students got a hint that the answer is one of the characters. Students wondered if the character could be considered alive
The next problem arose when students are not able to concentrate properly. The first word was "Potato". The preceding question found out that the word is food. For the 12th question, students asked "Can you drink that?" The answer was "no." But for the 14th question someone asked the same question, "Isn't it a drink?" Even the next one, the 15th question, was "Is that a liquid?" Even though, everyone wrote their own notes, they did not remember the previous question.
In order to solve these problems, the material host should not participate in the activity. The instructor has to knows the words in advance. And if the word is too vague, try changing the word. Also, she or he helps student to avoid conflicts between the word and answers to other students' questions. To prevent students' concentration problems, the material host or one of the students should write the questions and answers on the board.
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Anonymous
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RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 3 Reflections for Super
This activity is to describe pictures with a partner. Firstly, we get a simple picture such as a ship, bee, a cone hat, and so on. Secondly, we explain how it looks like to our partner. Then, the partner draws as I say. During describing, the person who explains a picture cannot see the partner's drawing. We only rely on speaking and listening. After finishing, change the role and do this activity again. Lastly, check each other's drawing and picture.
This activity is useful for practicing speaking. During this activity, one of the best advantages of this activity is 'pair'. I have a lot of opportunity to speak English. If the picture is more related to the real world situation, it would be more fun. Through this activity I used vocabulary such as rectangular, pole, vertical, horizontal, and so on. If the picture is about people who are walking on the street, or some places such as house, café, or restaurant, then we can practice describing place or situation.
Thank you for preparing! It was so fun
20 Questions
In last class, we did a '20 questions' activity. It is the 'word guessing game'. Firstly, one person writes a word in the paper. Then, other students ask 20 questions to the person to figure out what the word is.
This activity is useful for improving fluency. We mostly communicate by using yes-no questions. We keep asking questions repeatedly. In addition, it helps students practice description. To guess what the word is, we try to find the characteristics of the thing, place, or person. In the process, we naturally learn how to describe the place, person, or thing. Next time, when we do this activity again, giving some expressions or sample questions would be helpful. For example, before starting a game, give some questions related to the thing, person, or place. If the word is one of the food, the questions can be about the texture, color or ingredients. In case of a person, the questions can be about gender or appearances. If the students have more information about what to ask, it could make students have a better chance to speak. One of the ways to upgrade this activity can be to narrow down the range of the word. If we have same time, 10 minutes, choosing a word from place, person, thing can take time more than expectation. Among place, person, thing, etc, choosing one part could be helpful for practice speaking in limited time.
It was so fun!! Thank you for preparing
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Anonymous
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RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 3 Reflections for Super
This week I had to present material for a class of foreigner to teach English. I chose an activity that implies a team work in pair. Each participant received a picture made of forms that they have to describe to their partner without using any direct description words (i.e. for a window it is impossible to say its a window or curtains). To describe the picture, they each have 10 minutes being placed back-to-back.
This exercise is defined for intermediate learners because descriptions skills are already difficult for beginners even more if they are not allowed to use direct description words. The activity focuses on listening the partner and speaking for the describer. Both of them must be very attentive to be the more accurate possible. The listening part is interesting because it requires from the student a form of taking note : they have to draw as soon as they understand and hear what their partner have said. The fact that they have to be back-to-back gives to the activity a little twist by making a difficulty to the understanding/listening which make it closer to a real-life context because in real life a lot of outside sounds or accents might disrupt the comprehension.
The main difficulty of this activity resides in the very geometrical vocabulary needed, some students were having troubles using terms such as semicircle or curved lines. But this difficulty was not really important considering the level of proficiency of the students of the class. So, one of the problems was that it was a very fast activity, very soon the students were done describing their picture to their partner because of their simplicity.
Since the activity is focused on listening and speaking maybe it would be more interesting for it to be more complexed and maybe more focused on a use in real life maybe by using more complexed pictures that would push the students to use verbs and adjectives.
20 questions:
20 questions is an easy activity concerning the preparation and in that it might be very interesting for real teachers to use it because they only have to explain how to play it.
The activity consists of a it (a word that can be a place, a person or a thing) that must be find by the others through yes or no questions. It is a group activity that I think is very interesting in groups of 6 like we had because the it answers the questions and that leaves 4 questions each for every student in the group. It is interesting because it is very useful in a real-life context: to understand someone who has the same proficiency as us and might have forgotten a word or who is explaining a story being able to ask those type of questions is important to help the comprehension of that story.
If the activity seems to be main focused on the speaking part because the students must ask questions to guess the it, listening is also very important because without that the same questions might be repeated. Maybe for that the instructor should orientate the game or tell in the beginning of it that the student have to be careful on that matter.
I also think that it might be interesting for the professor in the context of a real class to impose a or multiple themes because it will focused on what the class is at, for example on a chapter on the school the professor might reduce the it to this theme so the students can practise the vocabulary they learned in that very specific class. And so, maybe for the next time it would be more convenient to do like that because it seems to me that it was too difficult to find some it because they differed too much like going from potato to snow white.
What the host didnt precise in the explanations but was naturally done was the use from the person who picked it of indications or hint maybe that should be regulate in the next explanations. I think that the cooperation between the students who are trying to guess it should be encouraged by the teacher so they can agree on what proposition they want to make to the it.
It was a very fun activity that increase complicity and good relationship in the classroom and in between students because it leaves space for jokes and side talks which is very important for learning in general.
Thank you for preparing that material! I had a lot of fun!
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Anonymous
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RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 3 Reflections for Super
Our group members are divided to the pairs and we received two pictures by the host. The pictures should be not shown to the partner and the drawing also must not be shown to the other partner. A student who received a picture gave the partner with a specific description of the picture, and the partner drew it on the paper. The picture was not complicated, but we could only explain it in its approximate words and in its indirect and descriptive language because it was impossible to make any specific mention of it. Therefore, we had to explain the size of the circle or the location of the line and make a choice of very specific English words. When I had to explain words that I couldnt remember, I conveyed my message through analogy. Then I could compare the picture and explain my intentions about the wrong thing, and see why it wasnt delivered well. In the order of drawing, I listened carefully to the partners words and found the correct answer, by asking again about the explanations I didnt understand.
The material was clear and this practice helped me develop my speaking skill because I found out my English speakings problem when we revised the wrong parts of drawing.
20 questions
The rule of 20 questions is within 20 questions, we have to guess what person, place, or thing the it is thinking of. We played this game with six students. One person is selected as it to begin 20 questions. Other players take turns and ask yes or no questions to figure out what the chosen answer is. After each guess, the it must keep track of the number of guesses that are used until it reaches the limit of 20. Once 20 questions are used up, players may not ask any more questions.
I enjoyed this game because it is familiar game with Korean students. Also, our group members helped my grammar and use of English when I ask a question to the questioner.
I think that this practice has two problems. First of all, we couldnt practice English with diverse uses. We did just make questions which is simple, short and not descriptive. So, we didnt try to make concrete use of English. The questioner just answered a questions with yes or no. Secondly, the scope of the answer to the question was so wide and specific that it was difficult to find out with 20 questions and the yes or no answer was not enough to be inferred.
To revise the first problem, I think that the questioner(who selected it) should give one hint to the students per five questions. The questioner just keeps repeating yes or no. Therefore, she cannot practice speaking English and students cannot feel that their messages are fully understood. Also, they cant practice communicative English. So, the questioner should not simply repeat it, but should encourage students to specify the question and allow them to speak concrete English. Furthermore, we can revise second problem with the narrow down its range. when we first set it, we have to narrow it down and make a guess. The purpose of the game is to practice speaking and listening in English, we should be able to ask many specific questions without asking abstract questions first.
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Anonymous
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RE: Teaching Listening and Speaking (Spring 2019) - Week 3 Reflections for Super
Overall, the instruction of your activity was so clear, so it was easier to understand and immediately start working on the activity. Moreover, students could get the immediate feedback and questions from the peer students. This was because of the fact that this activity involved face-to-face interaction with the peer students. Those feedback and questions from peer students were helpful for speakers to modify their language. The speakers kept on comparing and constrasting what they described and what was actually drawn. By going through the stage, students were able to reflect on their language and think about what would be better way to give a clearer explanation to their peers.
Some pictures were difficult to be described and other pictures were easier. For example, A group finished describing the given pictures earlier than other groups did. The finished group was a little bit surprised to see that other groups pictures were more difficult than what they drew. The picture that group described was mostly made of simple shapes, so it was easier for them to explain. What I want to say is that it would be better to make difficulty of all the pictures equal.
I think giving vocabulary lists on shapes and giving it to students can also be a good thing. It can let the students acquire new vocabulary ltem through focusing on forms. If the students were provided with some vocabulary list, its more likely that students are gonna use the provided items. Whenever students feel that they need better words when describing, they can refer on the vocabulary lists and acquire the vocabulary items on the list.
2. Twenty Questions
This activity helped students to actively interact with the peer students, and this activity could function as a ice-breaker to students. We could know each students personality and interest through questioning and knowing what the answers were. This activity was nice to strengthen student-student rapport in the class, which can be helpful for students educational achievement. I think as a teacher, we can use this activity in the class to form rapport among the students and make students get motivated within well-maintained student-student relationship.
Johnson(1987) stated that student-student relationship is crucial element for academic achievement of the students. It is stated that how they have relationship with peer students can affect their educational aspiration. The way students utilize their ability is improved by supportive and acceptive relationship with the peer students. This shows that well-maintained student-student relationship in the class can also be important for L2 students language development. Therefore, teachers should introduce interactive activities like this to class. This was the opportunity for me to see how students can get to know each other while doing activity together.
Because of this, the activity twenty questions was nice activity to be introduced to ESL class. However, there are some points that would be good if added. Firstly, established rules would be needed. I thought that rule was not clearly established because the people in the group was curious if they can give the hint or not. Secondly, selecting the answer within limited category would be better. It was too difficult to guess the answer without a category. The people who guessed the answer came up with so many incorrect answers that the activity became loose.
Johnson, David. (1981). Student-Student Interaction: The Neglected Variable In Education. Educational Researcher. 10. 5-10.
