Comment:
This is another interesting group interaction in which students are asked to organize an Exercise Week in the school as part of a Part B Sports Communication elective. They have to discuss what kinds of activities they would like to include for the event. Overall, this is a very natural and relaxed interaction between the group members, with little or no use of formulaic language / phrases, and little need to refer to written notes. The students appear to be very engaged in the task.
Lucy (Girl on the left)
Lucy takes a bit of time to warm up at the beginning of the interaction, but responds more over time. She has occasional pronunciation problems and sometimes does not speak clearly enough. Her intonation is problematic at times, but she makes up for this with good body language. She demonstrates attentive listening and a strong appearance of engagement, with nodding and smiles. Lucy does not use sophisticated vocabulary or complex language patterns. She makes some grammatical errors, but they do not prevent her groupmates from understanding her. When introducing ideas, she makes simple statements and does not provide any elaboration. However, her ideas are always timely and relevant and she has effective turn-taking skills. Overall, her performance is enhanced by her positive body language, a desire to engage, and her energetic insertion of suggestions at several points.
April (Girl in the middle)
April's articulation is very clear with few pronunciation problems and a natural delivery; her pace may be slightly slow and her speech over-articulated, but her pronunciation / delivery are level 6. She maintains good posture and eye contact with the other students, and tries to lead the discussion and follow up on ideas, although sometimes she interrupts another group member before the point has been completed. She makes some grammatical errors, but they are not significant enough to impede communication. April is able to express disagreement with others and provide good points of her own. However, her input is overall at a very simple level and the vocabulary and grammatical range is limited.
Eva (Girl on the right)
Eva pronounces most sounds clearly and almost all words accurately, although her intonation is a little flat. She demonstrates more initiative at the beginning of the discussion and takes up the leading role, although she appears to be referring to notes at this stage. She is able to stimulate the other students to talk and ask questions to sustain the conversation, although she appears less engaged in the interaction as the discussion goes on. This task has limited creative potential, but Eva manages to use a fairly wide range of vocabulary and appropriate language patterns. However, as the discussion progresses, she seems to have fewer ideas of her own, and overuses some expressions such as "It's ok?"
Overall, the students in this video seem to enjoy the discussion. Students at this level should be capable of using more complex ideas and organizations. In order to push them to a higher level, the teacher could manipulate the task to encourage the more proficient students to do more. For instance, the teacher may ask students to discuss how they would deal with unexpected events, as using "what if" questions would force them to extend their use of language and give them some extra challenge. |
