HINT FOR WATCHING QUICKTIME VIDEOCLIPS ON THIS PAGE: It is recommended that you configure your browser preferences ("helpers" or "applications") to use an external player for QuickTime Movies (MIME type: "video/quicktime"; suffix/extension: "mov"; file type: "MooV"), rather than a browser plug-in. In this way you may switch back and forth between clips and web pages more conveniently.
Objective/ product |
In the initial stage, a customer
makes a catalogue shopping order by telephone, and the
operator at the catalogue shopping company takes the
first student's order and "fills" the order by
making a drawing that represents the items ordered. (The
student role-playing the operator may be directed to make
at least one significant mistake in filling the order to
facilitate the second stage of the activity.) The drawing
is then delivered to the customer. In the second stage, the customer telephones back to the company, complains about the order, and requests that the order be fixed.(The operator in this stage may be the same as the original operator, or may be a different person.) The operator may be directed to change or annotate the drawing to suit the customer's request. Followup: the ordering process that produced a given drawing is reconstructed. |
Materials needed |
|
Procedures for traditional classroom |
Pairwork. This activity works best
in a "telephone pairwork" format: customer and
operator are seated so they are not looking at each
other, but can hear each other. The whole class can participate in a followup activity: a drawing (annotations and all) is displayed and students are invited to state what they think was ordered and what the problem was with the order. |
Adaptations for ITV |
Since "catalogue
shopping" does not absolutely require students to
interview more than one partner, the channel can be used
to pair two "extra" students who have no
partner at their own site; these two are joined on
program through the use of split-screen or switching
shots, and carry out their interview while the remaining
students speak face-to-face and ignore the pair on
program. Problems for adaptation will crop up when there are more than two such "orphans." One possible solution is to allow multiple "orphan" pairs to work on program consecutively; the problem with this is that presumably other pairs will finish their work before the pairs on program are finished. Another possible solution is to cast the extra student(s) as "customer service quality control supervisors": the extra students eavesdrop on the pair who are on program, taking notes on the "customer's" order; when the drawing representing the order is "delivered," the supervisors, rather than the customer, critique the order. Again, as in "Who drew this?" the best alternative is to have visual presenters under learner control available at each site, so that drawings by receive-site students can easily be displayed; otherwise, drawings have to be faxed. |
Sample Clips
Student-produced visuals may be used as more than a
single-point stimulus for student speaking; in some instances,
they may be created and/or changed in the course of an activity.
In the example shown here, students work in pairs; we see one
pair (origination site to receive site) connected via the TV
channel. The student role-playing the customer
“telephones” an order for clothing to “LL
Bean.” The student role-playing "LL Bean" is
instructed to make a drawing of the filled order, making one
deliberate mistake, and then to “deliver” the order by
showing the drawing to the customer. The customer then calls
“LL Bean” again to complain about the mistake and
request an exchange or refund.
Each stage of the activity may involve a modeling or training
phase in which the teacher is more heavily involved, and an open
phase where students are on their own. Both phases are
exemplified in the clips below.
Speaking
Task: Telephone Order. Having been trained in the
language needed to carry out "telephone orders," a
student at the origination site dons headphones to take an "LL Bean" clothing
order from a receive-site student and to create a drawing
based on the order. Classroom speakers are turned down so that
other pairs of students can work independently in this open phase
of the speaking activity.
Checking:
Botched Order? This clip shows the first part of the
modeling/training phase for the portion of the activity dealing
with complaining about botched orders. The instructor, visible in
a window onscreen, asks the
receive-site "customer" to confirm his order and
directs students' attention to a possible problem with that
order.
Modeling:
Fixing the Problem. Continuing the training phase, the
instructor role-plays "LL Bean" while the receive-site
student who made the order asks to
have the shoes exchanged. Meanwhile the instructor uses white
space on the drawing to display useful phrases.