Working Papers
in Language Education and Research
http://eliworkingpapers.org/DESIGNING EFFECTIVE
SPEAKING ACTIVITIES FOR THE
CLASSROOM
Richard O’Loughlin
ISSN 2187-4972

Corresponding author:richard-o@kanda.kuis.ac.jp
Publication date: February, 2013

To cite this article
O’Loughlin, R. (2013). Designing effective speaking activities for theclassroom. Working Papers in Language Education and Research, 1(1), 60 - 70.

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Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  DESIGNING EFFECTIVE SPEAKING ACTIVITIES FOR THE CLASSROOM
Richard O’Loughlin
Kanda University of International Studies
ABSTRACTThis paper discusses a workshop given in Phnom Penh at theCamTESOL Conference on English Language Teaching, 2012. The
content of the presentation focused on how best to adapt and use
authentic written materials as input for speaking activities, using
Nation’s (2007) four strands as a theoretical framework. These speaking
activities not only provide learners with plenty of comprehensible input,
as well as opportunities for meaning-focused output, but they are also
designed to provide learners with favourable conditions for vocabulary
learning. Participants in the workshop were provided with information
on useful principles for the adaptation of texts, as well as handouts ofthese activities as used in a university Media English course.

1. INTRODUCTION
The second-year students in the English Department at Kanda University ofInternational Studies take three courses within the English Language Institute (ELI).
These courses are Advanced Writing, Advanced Reading, and Media English, and eachcourse meets for two 90-minute periods a week. Each teacher of a Media English course
is given the responsibility of setting the goals and objectives for the class. The goals forthis Media English class were:60

Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  1. To provide instruction and practice in effective vocabulary learning strategies,

using the General Service List (West, 1953) (GSL) and the Academic Word List(Coxhead, 2000) (AWL) to guide vocabulary selection.
2. To improve the speaking skills of its course members through the use of carefully

designed activities, as well as presentations, based on current issues in the media.
3. To improve course members’ reading and writing skills on a specific issue

through the use of an Issue Log (Watson, 2004).
4. To improve course members’ speaking fluency.

These goals reflect the fact that the two other second-year courses within the ELI at thislevel are devoted to reading and writing.
Teachers of Media English are given a large degree of independence in creating
their curriculum and designing class materials. These courses should be based on
research and sound theoretical principles. The four strands (Nation, 2007) is one
theoretical framework that can be easily used and applied by teachers in the design ofEnglish language courses.

2. THE FOUR STRANDS
Nation (2007, p.2) suggests that four strands of learning should be present in awell-balanced, principled language course: meaning-focused input, meaning-focusedoutput, language-focused learning and fluency development. The underlying principles ofthe four strands are taken from research on language acquisition and the four strands
provide teachers with a commonsense framework which they can use when planning theirlessons and courses.

61Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  The meaning-focused input strand involves learners reading or listening to large
quantities of input, in which no more than one in every 50 running words is unknown. It
is called ‘meaning-focused’ as the learners main focus should be on understanding,enjoying, or gaining new knowledge through the reading or listening material. The
meaning-focused output strand is where learners use language productively, throughspeaking and writing. Once again, the communication of meaning is of primaryimportance and learners should have plenty of opportunities to speak and write about
things which they are relatively familiar with. The language-focused learning strand
involves the deliberate learning of language features, such as pronunciation, grammar,vocabulary, and discourse. This strand includes activities such as learning vocabulary
from word cards, intensive reading and pronunciation practice. In the fluency
development strand learners are required to focus on the message, and use known
language, in order to reach a higher than usual level of performance. One of the fourskills of reading, listening, writing and speaking can be the focus of an activity within
this strand, and typical activities include speed reading, ten-minute writing, and the 4/3/2
speaking activity.

3. VOCABULARY SELECTION

The material used for the Media English course is taken from a variety ofmedia sources on the Internet, such as newspapers, magazines, YouTube, blogs, and soon. While there are many strong arguments for the use of carefully selected authentic
materials in class without modification, the vocabulary burden of these texts needs to be62

Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  taken into consideration, especially as many of the students in this Media English course
do not have knowledge of the first 2000 words in English. As mentioned earlier, one of
the conditions for the meaning-focused input strand to be present is that at least 98% of
the vocabulary is known to the learners. However, this condition is almost never satisfied
with texts taken from media sources. For example, on average 80.3% of the vocabulary innewspaper articles is from the GSL, 3.9% of the vocabulary comes from the 570 wordfamilies in the AWL, and the remaining 15.7% are words which fall outside of these twolists (Nation, 2001, p. 17) and can be classified as low-frequency vocabulary. This is far
below the optimal 98% coverage for students within this Media English course.
Nation (2008) argues that learners should focus on learning the first 2000 wordfamilies of English, which he calls ‘high-frequency’ vocabulary, for the following
reasons: (1) high frequency words appear often in texts so learners will have manyopportunities to meet this vocabulary, (2) this vocabulary occurs frequently in a variety oftexts, such as academic texts, conversation, and newspapers, (3) the large majority ofrunning words in any given text will be made up of high-frequency vocabulary, and (4)learning the 2000 high-frequency words is a manageable goal for learners who study
English over the course of three to five years (p.13). Nation goes on to suggest thatlearners who wish to carry on with academic study should aim to learn the word families
in the AWL as these words appear in academic and newspaper text at a higher frequency
than the third 1000 words in English (2008, p.14).
Words outside of either the first 2000 word families or the AWL lists areclassified as ‘low-frequency’ vocabulary. Nation suggests that these low-frequency words
do not deserve classroom time as there are more than 100,000 words in this category,63

Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  which means the task of teaching them all is impossible (2008, p. 62). Furthermore, thislow-frequency vocabulary occurs infrequently in texts, and it may be months, or in somecases years, before learners meet a particular word again.
As classroom time is limited, teachers need to make principled decisions on how
to best to deal with low-frequency vocabulary within the classroom. Nation (2004)
provides a useful summary of the options available to teachers for dealing with lowfrequency items in intensive reading. His suggestions, and accompanying justifications,apply the principle that ‘words should earn attention through the frequency of their use’(p.27) and include:

1. Replacing the word in the text before giving the text to the learners.
2. Putting it in a glossary to make the text more self-contained.
3. Quickly giving the meaning.
4. Doing nothing about the word.
5. Helping the learners use context to guess.
6. Helping the learners use a dictionary.
7. Breaking the word into parts and explaining the meaning.

(Nation, 2004, p. 27)

If teachers do give attention to a low-frequency item in class, then this time should beused as an opportunity to introduce, and provide practice in using, vocabulary strategies
so that learners have options in dealing with low-frequency vocabulary when they areoutside of the classroom and without teacher support. In the above list, vocabularystrategies are addressed in the fifth, sixth, and seventh options. This paper focuses on the64Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  first option, which involves the simplification of authentic media texts through thereplacement of low-frequency vocabulary.

4. THE PROCESS OF SIMPLIFICATIONThe website Compleat Lexical Tutor (www.lextutor.ca) contains the computer
program VocabProfile (Cobb, 2009), which can be used to analyze the vocabulary ofwritten texts and assist teachers in selecting which vocabulary needs to be replaced.
VocabProfile compares the written text against the GSL, as well as the AWL, andprovides information on which word families are present from each of these two lists.
Once the low-frequency vocabulary is identified, it is then possible to replace these words
with vocabulary already known by the learner, or which will be of more benefit. Anexample of this would be replacing a low-frequency word such as gradient with sloping
line (Nation & Gu, 2010, p. 74). The removal of a word takes away the opportunity forthe learner to meet this item so it should only be done with low frequency vocabulary.
It is important to note that there are some words outside of the GSL and AWL
which are useful for learners and that frequency should not be the only guiding principle
in the selection of words to replace. Nation (2004, p.28) suggests that teachers should ask
themselves ‘Will this word be useful in comprehending tomorrow’s text?’ when they are
considering whether or not to give a word classroom attention. For example, there arewords such as whiteboard, textbook, classroom, and homework, which fall outside of thetwo lists yet are obviously useful for learners in the future. A minor weakness of the GSL
is its age, and this is reflected by the fact that words such as television, email, online, and65

Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  computer are not present in the list. Clearly these words are of immediate benefit tolearners and should be given classroom attention.

5. A SAMPLE ACTIVITY
The article McDonald’s ‘extremely unhappy’ with San Francisco happy meal ban(“McDonald’s ‘extremely disappointed’,” 2010) was adapted and simplified for use
within the Media English class through the use of VocabProfile. After analyzing the text
with this program twelve words from the GSL and AWL were identified as being ofparticular use for the learners. These items included words from the GSL (right,responsibility, vote, health, meal), the AWL (legislation, authorities, reaction, affect,stressful), and some low-frequency vocabulary (spokeswoman, ban), as they wereconsidered to be of benefit for learners.
The simple role-play activity called Say it! (Nation, 2001, p.137) was used as a
post-reading activity (see Appendix). In this activity, learners first read a short text,
typically from a newspaper, and work together in order to understand it well. In thisparticular class, a number of post-reading questions, as well as an information transfer
activity (Palmer, 1982), were completed prior to undertaking the Say it! activity. Learners
are put into small groups of three or four people, and given a grid which contains ninesquares. The columns of the grid are labelled A, B, C while the rows are numbered. Eachsquare contains a separate role-play task based on the point of view of one of the people
featured in the article, such as, ‘You are the single parent of two young children. What
responsibilities do you have as a single parent?’ In order to do the activity, the firstlearner provides the second learner in the group with a square reference, such as B3, andthe second learner performs that task. Upon completion, the second learner chooses a66

Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  different square reference for the third learner in the group, who must then perform thatparticular task. The third learner chooses a grid reference for the first learner, and so on.
The same speaking task from a particular square may be repeated by different learners, as
the answers largely depend on the individual learner’s understanding and interpretation of
the written text, which means there is no one specific answer.
The Say it! activity is useful for a number of pedagogical reasons. Not only doesit provide speaking practice, and the opportunity to use vocabulary productively, it also
creates the necessary conditions for vocabulary learning, namely noticing, retrieval, andgenerative use (Nation, 2001, pp.63-71). The target vocabulary is bolded in the activity inorder to promote noticing and negotiation between learners. Further, the target words inthe speaking grid are required by learners when performing the task, which alsoencourages noticing. The activity also provides opportunities for retrieval, especially if
the written input is not referred to by learners during the speaking activity (Joe, 1998). If
learners can retrieve vocabulary from the written input for productive use during the roleplay, this will help strengthen the form and meaning connection. Finally, the use of arole-play activity provides opportunities for generative use, which is when learners use
the words in ways which differ from how the words are met in the text. At its best,generative use involves the reconceptualisation of the meaning of a word (Nation, 2008,p. 54). The use of role-play is seen as one way to encourage generative use, along withretelling activities (Joe, 1998).

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Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  6. CONCLUSION

The main theme of this paper has been to highlight how authentic materials may beused in language classrooms through the process of simplification in order to meet thenecessary conditions for meaning-focused input within the four strands framework. Thispaper provides some reasons for the use of simplification as well as a number of options
available to teachers in dealing with low-frequency vocabulary in the classroom. Finally,it shows that teachers can create favourable conditions for vocabulary learning within theclassroom through the careful design of speaking activities.

7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper is based on a workshop given at the CamTESOL Conference on English
Language Teaching, 2012, and was supported by funding from the Research Institute ofLanguage Studies and Language Education at Kanda University of International Studies.

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Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  8. REFERENCES
McDonald’s ‘extremely disappointed’ with happy meal ban. (2010). The Australian.
Retrieved November 10, 2010, fromhttp://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/mcdonalds-extremely-disappointedwith-san-francisco-happy-meal-ban/story-e6frg6so-1225947650116
Cobb, T. (2009). Web VocabProfile (Version: VP English v.3). Retrieved 2nd October,
2012, from http://www.lextutor.ca/vp
Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238.
Joe, A. (1998). What effects do text-based tasks promoting generation have on incidentallanguage acquisition? Applied Linguistics, 19 (3), 357-377.
Nation, I.S.P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Nation, I.S.P. (2004). Vocabulary learning and intensive reading. EA Journal, 21 (2), 2029.
Nation, I.S.P. (2006). How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening? TheCanadian Modern Language Review, 63 (1), 59-82.
Nation, I.S.P. (2007). The four strands. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching,
1(1), 2-13.
Nation, I.S.P. (2008). Teaching vocabulary: strategies and techniques. Boston: Heinle.
Nation, P. & Gu, P.Y. (2010). Focus on vocabulary. Port Melbourne: Macmillan
Education Australia.

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Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  60	  -­‐	  70	  Palmer, D. (1982). Information transfer for listening and reading. English Teaching
Forum, 20 (1), 29-33.
Watson, J. (2004). Issue logs. In J. Bamford & R.R. Day (Eds.), Extensive reading
activities for teaching language (pp. 37-39). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
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West, M. (1953). A General Service List of English Words. London: Longman, Green &Co.

Appendix

Media	  English:	  Say	  it!	  	  A1BYou	  are	  a	  young	  child.	  
Explain	  why	  you	  like	  happy	  meals.	  

CYou	  are	  the	  single	  parent	  of	  You	  are	  the	  CEO	  of	  two	  young	  children.	  What	  McDonald’s.	  What	  responsibilities	  do	  you	  have	  as	   was	  your	  immediate	  a	  single	  parent?
reaction	  to	  the	  ban?
2 You	  are	  a	  member	  of	  the	  You	  are	  Danya	  Proud	  and	  You	  are	  Scott	  Rodrick.	  
San	  Francisco	  Board	  of	   spokeswoman	  for	  McDonald’s.	  
Explain	  how	  this	  Supervisors.	  Why	  did	  you	  Do	  you	  really	  believe	  that	  decision	  will	  affect	  vote	  in	  favour	  of	  the	  ban?
McDonald’s	  food	  is	  healthy	  your	  McDonald’s	  and	  wholesome?	  Why/why	  franchisesnot?
3 You	  are	  Danya	  Proud.	  Is	  it	   You	  are	  Eric	  Mar.	  Why	  do	  you	   You	  are	  Scott	  Rodrick.	  
stressful	  working	  as	  a	  believe	  it	  was	  a	  fantastic	  Why	  were	  you	  so	  spokeswoman	  for	  a	  big	  victory	  for	  children’s	  health?
disappointed	  with	  the	  company	  such	  as	  decision	  to	  ban	  happy	  McDonald’s?	  Why?
meals?

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