By Panos Perdiclones
Oral exams are a part of every official language assessment.
In an effort to boost students’ confidence and ensure top-notch performance, teachers commonly teach students tricks to “impress” the examiner.
No need to impress
A fluent speaker does not really need to “impress” anyone. The more we seek to convince our students that they need to impress an oral examiner, the more stress we put on them and the more unnatural they end up sounding.
Oftentimes, teachers introduce set phrases such as
“I subscribe to the belief that”
“It is my firm belief that”
They also advise their students to always begin whatever they say with one of them when being interviewed in oral exams.
These expressions may be effective in an official debate or discussion, but they sound really odd in other situations and actually produce the opposite result: students think they have to start every single answer using a particular expression; as a result, in a series of questions posed by the examiner, this pattern becomes repetitive and they come across as being rather robotic and really very odd!
So, instead, teaching them ways of sounding natural and phrases that they can use when acknowledging an opinion, interrupting politely and fillers and time gaining devices such as “well”, “so”, “right”, “anyway”, will definitely make them more effective speakers both for exams and face-to face communication.
It is not only a matter of teaching, however.
Speaking as much English as possible in class also proves vital as students are “forced” to use spoken language forms and experiment freely in a friendly and supportive environment, especially if they live in a country where English is not spoken as a first or second language.
They already know
It is quite evident nowadays that the unprecedented rise of technology helps younger learners become more aware of everyday talk and what they need to use when speaking.
My younger Greek students – ages 8 to 12 – already use discourse markers (especially “well“), mainly because of their exposure to authentic materials from YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and other similar online platforms or sites. This shows not only how helpful this input is for their language skills but also another significant aspect: they notice.
They might be watching a video game walkthrough, an interview of a famous person or even how to apply make-up effectively. But still, they notice these subtle language patterns and manage to incorporate them into their output quite effectively. In this case, laying emphasis on discourse markers will further strengthen their proper use, making their use become a second nature to our learners.
Let them choose
It makes sense then that bringing authentic materials to class is key in teaching them how to become natural speakers.
Find out their interests will definitely bring what they follow at home, in class (with due caution, of course, regarding age and permitted content for their age). Vlogs, videos and other similar sources can assist in both focusing on the content of the material and on noticing language patterns in the speakers’ speech and use of language per se.
The focus may vary, depending on the aim of a course and the age of the students – teaching a businessman how to present, negotiate or persuade is certainly very different from a teenager chatting to other youngsters during an online game.
Creating a fun presentation for instagram or TikTok, for instance, could be one of the main aims of a lesson which will result in higher levels of motivation and turn learning into a fun process based on what students really enjoy.
After all, we all want our students to become as fluent as possible rather than condemn them to using a style of speech that will cause them to be judged as odd, bookish, or even affected by the average L1 user or their L1 peers, so it is really worth the effort.
Images are Royalty free from Canva.com
The Cambridge CELTA 