Engaging EFL Learners in Meaningful Communication Sri Suprapti English Departmen, Faculty of Letters and Arts Semarang State University This paper attempts to suggest a way to engage EFL learners in meaningful communication by encouraging them to communicate their personally-felt opinions about a given issue presented in a speaking course It has long been known that textbooks produced by major English- speaking countries mostly present EFL materials that depict western lifestyle, habit and custom which are very much different from their real lives (Bariboon, 2007) The textbooks typically present materials in the form of model dialogues followed by exercises in the form of (mini) role-plays in which EFL learners are assumed to have various projected identities with situations completely unfamiliar to them Learners are people with their own lives, aspirations, needs, worries, dreams and identities This means, as van Lier (2007) suggests that they must have something to say that is true to the self to each other and to the teacher in class that goes beyond what are offered by a textbook that lies open on the same page at the same time on every desk Thus the traditional sequence of the language lesson usually referred to as “PPP” (Present- Practice- Produce) is motivated by a textbook progression that may result in a sort of inert knowledge that cannot be displayed productively in real life situations To overcome this problem, EFL teachers can employ meaning-focused output activities in their classroom to facilitate learneroriented discursive construction and meaningful communication Keywords: EFL materials, projected identities, meaning-focused output activities, discursive construction Background Applied linguists and researchers have pointed out that EFL materials found in textbooks produced by major English-speaking countries have created identity mismatches resulting in negative impacts in the form of “resistance” caused by lack of interest and motivation in learning or “unspeakability” caused by lack of understanding of the projected identities and situations (Boriboon, 2008: 117-118) Kramsch (1999), as cited by Boriboon, is of the opinion that “learners are people with their own lives, aspirations, needs, worries, dreams and identities so that they need to be listened and respected as speakers in their own right.” Unfortunately, in EFL speaking courses, the traditional teaching practice mostly sticks to a textbook progression in the form of present- practice- produce (PPP) that does not provide learners with opportunities to create meaningful communication in their discursive construction in which they can speak using their own identities to share their lived experience and express their personally-felt opinions A textbook by Tillit and Bruder Speaking Naturally which is used in EFL speaking course at the English Department of UNNES clearly reveals such a practice in which dialogues are presented to be practiced followed by production exercises that project learners in situations unfamiliar to them like babysitting, playing golf, throwing a cocktail party, talking about good parenting, to name a few, in which they are supposed to bear made up identities like a university professor, a medical doctor, a successful executive of a large company, a parent of a collage teenager that can put learners in a situation where they find difficulties in materializing the assumed situations and identities Although imitation and mimicry are essential elements in learning a second language, Bakhtin (1981) and Rugoff (1996), as cited by van Lier (2007:47), suggest that learners must be given opportunities to appropriate new sounds and meanings and make them his or her own In doing so, an EFL teacher can make use of authentic materials in meaning-focused output activities The meaning-focused output strand involves learning through speaking and writing – using language productively (Nation, 2007:4) It can be employed if certain conditions are present: The learners write and talk about things that are largely familiar to them Their main goal is to convey their message to someone else Only a small proportion of the language they need to use is not familiar to them The learners can use communication strategies, dictionaries or previous input to make up the gaps in their productive knowledge There are plenty of opportunities to speak and write This paper attempts to present an example of how to use an authentic material that can provide EFL learners with opportunities to embark on meaningful discursive constructions in which they share their own views about something familiar to them so that they can create meaningful communication that may contribute to successful target language acquisition A creative use of a piece of literary work in meaning-focused output activities The teaching of productive skills is closely bound up with receptive skill work The two feed off each other in a number of ways When learners produce a piece of language and see how it turns out, that information is fed back into the acquisition process Output becomes input Learners can become very frustrated when they are engaged in a communication encounter while they simply not know what to say or write due to lack of the words and grammar they need to express themselves Moreover if they are not interested in a given topic we ask them to write or speak about, it is very likely that they will not work on it with the same zeal as they will when they are excited by a topic of great interest to them To overcome this, Harmer (2003, 252-3) offers some ways summarized as follows: Supply key language: before assigning learners to take part in a spoken or written activity, the teacher may check their knowledge or key vocabulary, and help them with phrases or questions that will be helpful for the task Plan activities in advance: because of the time-lag between the learners meeting new language and their ability to use it fluently, the teacher needs to plan production activities that will provoke the use of language which they have had a chance to absorb it at an earlier stage Choose interesting topics by finding out what their favorite topics are through interviews and questionnaires – or by using our common sense Create interest in the topics by talking about the topic and communicating enthusiasm We can provide them with time to prepare what they might say or write and give them opportunities to come up with opinions about the topic Activate schemata by providing supporting information needed to help learners get engaged in the activities with enthusiasm This paper describes the use of a poem entitled “Life” by Mother Teresa presented below: Life is a challenge, meet it Life is a duty, complete it Life is a game, play it Life is costly, care for it Life is wealth, keep it Life is mystery, know it Life is love, enjoy it Life is a promise, fulfill it Life is sorrow, overcome it Life is a song, sing it Life is a struggle, accept it Life is a tragedy, confront it Life is an opportunity, benefit from it Life is beauty, admire it Life is bliss, taste it Life is dream, realize it Life is an adventure, dare it Life is luck, make it Life is too precious, not destroy it Life is life, fight for it (Taken from: Forum, vol 41, No.3 July 2003) After the necessary routines like greeting the class and check their attendance, the teacher (T) can begin the lesson by telling the students (Ss) that they are going to learn about life as seen by a very well-known philanthropist, Mother Teresa who once won a Nobel Prize for international peace T tells Ss that later they are supposed to share their own view about life based on the poem Suggested teaching-learning activities First, T can read the poem aloud for the students (Ss) and ask them to listen carefully After that distribute a copy of the poem to Ss and ask them to learn it by heart T checks whether Ss come across some unfamiliar vocabulary items in the poem (e.g costly, bliss) and discuss them by providing illustrations to help SS arrive at the meaning by intelligent guessing without looking up the meaning using their dictionary T conducts teacher-guided classical talk by asking questions dealing with Ss‟s background knowledge about Mother Teresa Below is a list of questions, which is by no means exhaustive: What you know about Mother Teresa? What was her nationality? When did she win the Nobel Prize for international peace? Why was she awarded the prize? How old was she when she left her country and went to India? In what city in India did she devote the rest of her life to the sick and homeless people of India? How long had she dedicated her life for them before she passed away? When did she pass away and where was she buried? T, then, leads Ss to get engaged in appreciation task that deals with the psychological and aesthetic impact of the poem as well the writer‟s biography This activity is aimed at exploring Ss‟s personal impression and their emotional response to both the message of the poem and the life of Mother Teresa Listed below are questions that can be used to explore this aspect: If you are to say something about Mother Teresa what would that be? What you admire most in her? Do you think she lived a happy life? Why? If life is challenge, how can we meet it? If life is a game, how should we play it? Why is life costly? What causes sorrow in life? How can we overcome sorrow? When is life a tragedy? 10 What are we supposed to when faced with tragedy? 11 In what things can you see beauty in life? 12 What will you to realize your dreams? 13 In what sense is life an adventure? 14 Do you agree that life is too precious? Give reasons 15 From the poem what can you learn about Mother Teresa concerning her view about life? 16 If you are to choose between wealth and love, which one you treasure more? Why? 17 Do you think Mother Teresa wrote the poem based on her own „lived experience’ or not? Can you provide some proofs? Next, T asks Ss to choose their favorite line from the poem and write down their elaborated personal opinion about it to be presented orally in class later They may work individually or preferably in pairs or groups of three depending on the number of Ss Working in pairs or groups provides Ss with opportunities to practice their communicative skills in socially acceptable ways Pairs or groups consist of Ss having the same favorite line of the poem This activity can be assigned as homework Then comes the time for Ss to present their personal opinion orally in class This activity provides student-student interaction in which they take turns presenting and sharing their personal view about life while the rest serves as the audience who are supposed to ask questions, support or argue with the speaker The allotted time for the presentation is between to minutes Integrating Language Skills T may then assign Ss one of the following projects or ask them to choose a project to complete individually or in groups of three or four Make posters that illustrate their favorite line of the poem Read one book containing a biography of a well-known public figure and prepare a written report about what you think admirable and inspiring about the person Use the Internet or library resources to find more information about Mother Teresa Write a report for classroom oral presentation Discussion The assigned talk shares the features of talk as interaction and talk as performance (Richards, 2008: 22, 27-28) It can be classified as talk as interaction since it reflects speaker‟s own voice in which each learner expresses their own feelings and opinions about a given topic It falls within the category of talk as performance in the sense that it is in the form of monolog (classroom presentations), and is closer to written language than conversational language In the assignment in which Ss are to work collaboratively in making a poster that illustrates their favorite line of the poem, they are engaged in talk as transaction where the language used is associated with other activities (language accompanying action) The main features of talk as transaction are: (1) it has a primarily information focus, (2) the main focus in on the message and not the participants, (3) participants employ communication strategies to make themselves understood, (4) there may be negotiation and digression, and (5) linguistic accuracy is not always important (Richards, 2008: 28) The choice of the poem is not without a hidden agenda Late teenage learners need to begin thinking reflectively and seriously about life they have to live The message of the poem is clear As long as we live we should have proper, positive attitude and response to life in order to survive, prosper and flourish The moral teaching of the poem speaks vividly that we must live our life with passion, with undefeatable fighting spirit when faced with sorrow and tragedy Concerning the group work and the writing activity, we can refer to Little (2007) who claims that the key to successful implementation of the principle of the target language use lies in the effective use of group work and the appropriate use of writing Group work is essential because it is only by working in small groups that learners can engage in intensive use of the target language Harmer (2003: 117) points out that group work promotes learners autonomy that allows them to make their own decisions in group without being told what to by the teacher Group work also encourages broader skills of cooperation and negotiation which is lacking when each of them works individually This dialogic dynamic is characteristic not only of naturalistic language acquisition but also of exploratory, interpretative techniques that characterize constructivist pedagogy Vygotsky‟s notion of a zone of proximal development (ZPD) captures essential features of both situations Vygotsky defined ZPD as: The distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peer (Johnson, 2004:105-110) The definition assumes that learning is the result of doing, acknowledges the role of expertise in guiding the learning process and identifies autonomy in the sense of being able to things for oneself (independent problem solving) By applying collaborative principles, it can be assumed that language produced interactively will gradually become part of the individual learner‟s internalized mental resources Writing can be used to produce various kinds of written texts as the output of group projects Moreover, what is written down can be used to support speaking – at the same time speaking helps to generate what is written down The use of writing facilitates focus on linguistic form: as has been observed, there is an important sense in which literacy is metalinguistic activity As a follow-up activity, based on their favorite line of the poem, groups are asked to create illustration in the form of drawings that can be posted on the wall magazine Concluding Remarks What has just been presented above can be used as a variety in teaching spoken communication that must not invariably follow what is presented in a textbook I have found out in my own speaking class last year that my students got very excited in the whole activities and saw the topic about life meaningful to them as they could gain a more comprehensive insight about it and acquired a much more positive attitude towards the life they have to live References Bariboon, Phaisit 2008 Learners‟ Discursive Voices in Role Play, Dialogic Means of Meaning Construction and Their Implications for Innovative Pedagogies Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 2/2, 117-136 Ceban, Galina 2003 Passion for Life! English Teaching Forum, 41/3, 46 Harmer, Jeremy 2003 The Practice of English Language Teaching.(3rd ed.) Essex: Pearson Education Limited Johnson, Marysia 2004 A Philosophy of Second Language Acquisition New Haven: Yale University Press Little, David 2007 Language Learner Autonomy: Some Fundamental Considerations Revisited Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1/1, 14-28 Nation, Paul 2007 The Four Stands Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1/1, 2-13 Richards, Jack C 2008 Teaching Listening and Speaking Singapore: Cambridge University Press Tillit, Bruce, Bruder M.N 1985 Speaking Naturally: Communication Skills in American English New York: Cambridge University Press Van Lier, Leo 2007 Action-based Teaching, Autonomy and Identity Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1/1, 46-63