5 Questioners
The fifth activity is questioner. Here, the questioners are the same as surveys. This activity is useful because it is pre-planned so that both questioner and
respondent have something to say to each other. 6
Simulation and role play The last activities are simulation and role-play. When the students are doing
simulations and role-plays, they need to know the situations and they need to be given sufficient information about the activities. These activities can be used to
encourage general oral fluency and to train students for specific situations. It is said that the teacher can choose the most suitable speaking activities for
every learner group. Those activities can be implemented with some modification considering the need analysis. So, the speaking classroom will not be monotonous.
f. Assessing Speaking
Brown 2004:140 cites, in productive performance, the oral or written stimulus must be specific enough to elicit output within an expected range or
performance such that scoring or rating procedures apply appropriately. It can be simply said that input factor will give influences in the output so that the brainteaser
and stimulus must be adequate for every speaking activities.
In assessing discussion games for speaking skill, Brown 2004:175 adds that as formal assessment devices, discussions and conversations with and among students
are difficult to specify and even more difficult to score. But as informal techniques to assess learners, they offer a level of authenticity and spontaneity that other
assessment techniques may not provide. Discussions may be especially appropriate
tasks through which to elicit and observe such abilities as
1 Topic nomination, maintenance, and termination;
2 Attention getting, interrupting, floor holding, control;
3 Clarifying, questioning, paraphrasing;
4 Comprehension signals nodding,”uh-huh,”’hmm,”etc.
5 Negotiating meaning;
6 Intonation patterns for pragmatic effect;
7 Kinesics, eye contact, proxemics, body language; and
8 Politeness, formality, and other sociolinguistic factors
Assessing the performance of participants through scores or checklist in which appropriate or inappropriate manifestations of any category are noted should
be carefully designed to suit the objectives of the observed discussions. Of course, discussion is an integrated task, and so it is also advisable to give some cognizance to
comprehension performance in evaluating learners.
3. Games for Language Learning
This sub chapter will discuss further about games for language learning including the nature of the games, benefit of using games EFL context and types of
games.
