李藝

The article Developing Successful Conversation Groups which is written by Sharron K. Bassano and Mary A. Christison illustrate a normal phenomenon， that in second language classroom， when students are assigned to participate in speaking activity， some of them may remain embarrassing silence towards the topic. Some students are too shy to participate while others may have high self-esteem and carry the talk all the time during class speaking activity. The article points out a suggestion that speaking activity in language classroom need to systematically break down student stereotypes of classroom procedure and allow them to begin interacting democratically and independently. In terms of grasping an idea of how to make a successful rapport building activity in second language class， besides offering students the chance to talk in class to share their personal information， another important point of involving students into class conversation is self-motivated interaction.

How to motivate students to talk and practice their speaking skills in regular English classes？ How to facilitate students to build up their own self-motivated interaction？ Harmer（chapter 20） illustrates a fact that some ESL students are often reluctant to speak because they are shy and are not predisposed to expressing themselves in front of other people. One thing should be concerned： the significance of creating a warm， supportive environment for ESL students to learn.

When making lesson plans， involve self-motivated interaction activities into a warm learning environment is necessary. How to create a positive classroom climate？ It seems the key factor is the quality of the relationships. How much everyone trusts and supports each other is clearly important in ensuring a successful classroom environment. For L2 learners， a non-threatening welcoming classroom environment will remove their anxious feeling， and therefore building rapport among students is extremely important. ESL classroom is diverse， and have conversation about each others background and similarities can build trust and acceptance in the classroom. Small group work and team work will help in developing a very cohesive environment. In the Lesson Plan designed below， Give Me More Than Five activity asks students to discover as many things they have in common with other students. By doing this activity in small group （four students）， shy L2 learners have chances to speak and interact with others. teacher facilitate students to show respect to their group mates and bring praise and positive reinforcement into whole class group conversation by asking different small group to share their talking.endprint

Involving self-motivated interaction activities into lesson plan will also help to build a supportive classroom environment. For instance， building rapport activity for students in speaking class signals trust and a willingness to interact with each other. Ice-breaker is a good way for students to get to know each other. Jigsaw game can be used to motivate students to move and mingle and put them into different groups by encouraging them to ask questions for each other. By doing such ‘getting to know you activity， they start to establish rapport. When doing this activity， teacher keeps reminding them to show respect and have smile on their face， which signals their enthusiasm and interest to each other， and therefore make the group conversation more comfortable. the role of teacher is crucial to organize interactive activities by making sure all the students understand exactly what they are supposed to do. Having them into small group first then making whole class talking is the goal of classroom conversation. Then by having small group conversation， and jogging down relative words on color paper， students are involved on the process of preparing talk for further speaking activity.

Lesson plan can be designed and involved with the idea of stimulating self-motivated interaction among students. Students are the center roles in speaking class. Find out what students really need is important and should be informed by an understanding of what is students best interest. For first and second class， students are barely know each other， and rapport building activity are necessary， and it will also benefit their learn in the future by building trust and warm learning environment. Since planning a lesson is not the same as scripting a lesson， teacher needs to prepare for potential problems and to plan possible solutions to deal with them. The following lesson plan is designed to meet the assumption of motivating interaction among students to make meaningful and relevant class conversation， as well as some strategies that would make classroom more active and friendly.

Lesson Plan on Conversation or Discussion- Rapport Building activity

Target ESL Learners：

Intermediate learners：

（a）Learners are able to understand and speak conversational and academic English with decreasing hesitancy and difficulty.

（b）Learners are developing reading comprehension and writing skills in English.

（c）Learners English literacy skills allow them to demonstrate academic knowledge in content areas with assistance.endprint

Objectives：

Developing trust among students by doing rapport-building activities.

Encourage students interaction and cooperation during conversation and discussion activities.

Create warm and friendly classroom environment that foster an environment where students feel comfortable talking with each other in ESL classroom.

Create positive and meaningful relationships among students and therefore getting the whole class talking.

Materials：

Pictures obtained from Saveur magazine from November， 2011.

Color paper

Handout for activity two： Give Me More Than Five

Time：

Estimated time： 12 minutes.

Follow-up：

In this class， students would find their group and have their completed picture. For next class， they will be asked to create a commercial about the content of the picture by remaining the same group. They are required to share their thoughts and ideas with group mates and get ready to share their commercial to the whole class.

【Reference】

[1]Bassano，S.& Christison，M.A.（1987）.Developing successful conversation groups.In M.Long & J.C.Richards（Eds.）， Methodology in TESOL：A book of readings（pp. 201-207）.New York： Newbury House.

[2]Harmer，J.（2007）.The practice of English language teaching （4th ed.）. Essex，England： Pearson Education.endprint