EXPERIMENTATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR USING FUN ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP LEARNERS’ SPEAKING SKILLS IN TERMINALE

This third part is mainly devoted to the practical side of the present study

The analysis of the existing situations in Malagasy lycées through questionnaires and class observations in the second part induce us to experiment some lesson plans to find out if they were practical and efficient as far as developing learners’ speaking skill is concerned. Since the objective of the current work is to develop learners’ speaking skill in terminale, the experimentation of our lesson plans will only be carried out in terminale level. This last part is divided into two sub-parts. The first sub-part is about the experimentation of our lesson plans followed by their comments. In the second sub-part, we will give some general suggestions for teachers who face some problems when using fun activities to develop their learners’ speaking skill.

EXPERIMENTATIONS AND COMMENTS

It is worth mentioning that we have drawn five (5) lesson plans. Each of the four lesson plans we experimented lasts about one hour or (60min).Not only were these lesson plans especially designed to help teachers to develop their students’ speaking skill through the use of fun activities but they were also meant to help teachers to deal with a general review of the official syllabus as our experimentations took place during the last semester of the school year; that is, during the revision period. The lesson plans include the three stages which are the prespeaking, while-speaking and post-speaking. The experimentations were performed in the following lycées: – Lycée Moderne Ampefiloha – Lycée Andoharanofotsy – Lycée Nanisana – Lycée Ambohimangakely

 Experimentation n°1 Title

Proverbs Date : 28th May 2015 Grade : Terminale A3 School : Lycée Andoharanofotsy Duration : 60min Number of students : 76 Fun activity used : Information gap, Jokes and anecdotes. Objective : Students will be able to know some English proverbs. Material/aids : Blackboard, handout, craft Stage: Warm up (10min) Stage objective: To awake students’ brain. Technique: Wh-questions Yes/No questions Activity: Students are asked some questions about jokes and anecdotes. SPEAKING Stage: Pre-speaking (10min) Stage objective: To have students ready to study. Technique(s): Sharing jokes and anecdotes (Group work) Activity: Step 1: Silent reading of the jokes and anecdotes. Step 2: Sharing jokes and anecdotes orally. READING SPEAKING Stage: While-speaking (20min) Stage objective: Students will be able to recognize some English proverbs. Technique(s): Finding partners (Gap filling) Activity : Students are asked to find the missing part of their proverbs. WTITING SPEAKING 62 Stage: Post-speaking (15min) Stage objective: Students will be able to know the meaning of the proverbs Technique(s): Discussion Sharing meanings. (Group work) Activity: Students are asked to think and discuss about the meanings of the proverbs. SPEAKING NB: The five (05) minutes left is for the students to copy the proverbs with their meanings.

CONTENT OF THE ACTIVITY

Warm up: – Do you know what an anecdote is? -What is it? Expected answer : A short personal story of an event. -Do you like jokes? Expected answer : Yes Pre-speaking: Jokes and anecdotes (group work) Students are asked to work in groups to share jokes and anecdote. It is a group of four people. Hints: Each member of the group has one joke or one anecdote and they are asked to hide the small paper containing it to his/her group mates. The students are asked to have a silent reading of his/her joke for him to understand. Students are asked to tell their jokes one after the other to their group mates. One joke or anecdote should not exceed two minutes. Samples of jokes and anecdotes : 1-A family of mice was surprised by a big cat. Father mouse jumped and said, ‘Bow-wow!’ The cat ran away. ‘What was that, Father?’ asked Baby Mouse. ‘Well, son, that’s why it is important to learn a second language.’ 2- A man goes to the doctor and says, ‘Doctor, whenever I touch, it hurts.’ The doctor asks, ‘What do you mean?’ The man says, ‘When I touch my shoulder, it really hurts. If I touch my knee-OUCH! When I touch my forehead, it really, really hurts.’ The doctor says, ‘I know what’s wrong with you- you’ve broken your finger!’ 3-Two boys were arguing when the teacher entered the room. The teacher says, ‘Why are you arguing?’ One boy answers, ‘We found a ten dollar bill and decided to give it to whoever tells the biggest lie.’ ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves,’ said the teacher. ‘When I was your age I didn’t even know what a lie was.’ 63 The boys gave the ten dollars to the teacher.