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6. APPENDIXES APPENDIX I 2 COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING. PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE CINEMA IN THE CLASSROOM Yolanda López Sánchez 3 Table of contents: 1. Introduction……………………p.3 2. Theoretical section……………………p.3 3. Practical section………………………p.12 4. Conclusion……………………………..p.27 5. Bibliography………………………..p.28 4 INTRODUCTION This project is divided into two parts; on the one hand, I write a theoretical section where the starting point is related to the different methods in the teaching of languages. I have focused on the communicative part, so I mention the relevance of speaking in all those methods and a personal about the efficiency of those methods. From that point, I derive my assignment from a general outline of methods to the use of cinema as a varied and attractive tool for developing speaking in class. On the other hand, the second part of this work is the practical section where I use different movies to exemplify several types of exercises that help with the speaking skill. Finally, I include a conclusion in which I reaffirm the suggestion of cinema as an everyday material in our lessons. 5 THEORETICAL SECTION For a start, it is necessary to see the importance of the communicative part in the teaching – learning process. For this, to describe shortly the main foreign language methods over time can provide us with an outline of the evolution and changes that have taken place with the passing of time. But I do not want to summarize the different methods, I would like to highlight the importance of speaking in these methods. According to this, the Grammar Translation Method (19thcentury) did not pay attention to speaking, this method was not developed to work the communicative part. The Direct Method, whose origin took place in the 19th century, had a really distinctive basis in comparison with the Grammar Translation Method. The Direct Method was designed to work mainly listening and speaking. The Audiolingual method as its name points out, it put emphasis in listening and speaking. Moving on to the 1970s, where different methods were developed: Community Language Learning, the purpose was to develop interaction between teacher and students, there was an interest in the development of speaking skill, it consisted on being seated forming a circle and the teacher outside it, he was translating and helping students to express in L2 till they become independent. Suggestopedia refers to the importance of the right conditions for learning. The followers of this method worked with vocabulary, readings, dialogues, role –plays, drama and a variety of other typical classroom activities. The most important skill for this method was speaking. The Silent Way was another method where the spoken language was the main target. It gave emphasis to concepts such as independence, autonomy and responsibility. And the purpose is that each student must work with his own inner resources. Total Physical Response, this method consists on the idea that listening is fundamental and it is the first step in order to learn a language. The Natural Approach, Tracy Terrell, its developer believed that communicative competence was more relevant than grammar. Besides, this method suggests that communication must be carried out through everyday language situations and the teacher had a significant role because he was the responsible for providing input to the students. Notional Functional Syllabuses, it is not a method, it was an approach focused on the English language curriculum. What we find in the NFS is an inventory of units, functional units. It did not develop communicative competence in students. Communicative Language Teaching, nowadays, it is the predominant methodology, which gives importance to the communicative competence and to be able to use the 6 language in real situations. Content – Based Instruction, it consists on the learning of a language + the learning of some other content. Here, communication is important because it is the end of teaching. Task based learning, it pays attention to the learner’s actions and processes in the classroom. Communication is taken into account but it is not the main aim, its focus is on activities. Certainly, there have been many methods since the 19th century onwards and here, as far as possible I have tried to give a representative picture of how the speaking skill has been taken into account in the teaching of languages over the course of time. Accordingly to this, it can be seen that speaking is included within many of these methods. To tell the truth, there are some of them which attract my attention, for instance, The Grammar Translation Method, originated in the 19th century. It is certainly true that it is very old but nowadays, it is still used for some teachers. It’s still strange to find students who have to learn a language with this kind of activities. Mainly, because of the huge quantity of available materials and resources at the moment. The Community Language Learning, whose origin took place in the 1970s. It is curious the procedures for teaching L2, in other words, I consider this system of being seated and the teacher behind students translating the phrases very heavy and boring. I have doubts about its success and results. Except the Notional Functional Syllabuses, which dealt with the English curriculum and communicative competence was unimportant because it was not a method for teaching languages. The rest of methods included in its structure and organization how to teach language, the communicative competence. All of them gave importance to speaking. Having said that I would like to mention the Natural Approach method because it provides a lot of ideas to teach L2 such as games, small – group works, etc and its proposal are used at the moment, they are recurrent elements to teach L2, at least in the theory. By the way, the reality of the teaching – learning process can show other situations and perspectives. For instance, there may be teachers who use these activities to motivate students and to carry out a successful and dynamic classes buy there may be many other teachers who use old methods like the Grammar Translation Method or they simply explain the grammar and exercises are very monotonous. What is clear is that although the vast majority of methods emphasize speaking, our reality is that speaking 7 is not well worked in class and big percentage of students fail to speak English, at least in public schools. I understand that speaking is fundamental. It is useless to know perfectly the grammar of a language and to be unable to communicate. For this reason, I suggest cinema as a communicative approach to language teaching and learning. I consider it a valuable source of elements to work in class. Before dealing with cinema in the classroom, I would like to distinguish between two types of activities that we must to take into consideration because both of them can be used in our sessions and they help to develop the ability to communicate orally. But here, all the activities that I propose are integrated tasks, all of them depend on the movies: 1. INDEPENDENT TASKS The independent speaking tasks measure the ability to speak about topics that are familiar to you. With these tasks we are going to ask students to state and support a personal choice from a particular category, such as activities they enjoy, events, or important peoples or places. 2. INTEGRATED TASKS The integrated speaking tasks measure student’s ability to combine information from several sources in a spoken response. Students do not need any prior knowledge of the topic in order to do these tasks. I also want to include a couple of templates which must be distributed among students as a reference, as advice to know how to response and to do the exercises and definitively, how to speak correctly. 8 INDEPENDENT TASKS  Listen to/ read carefully the task and think about what you must do in your response. You can ask yourself: What is the topic of the task? What am I being asked to do? Then make a mental list of the answers to these questions. You need to: name the topic, define the topic of the listener might not know what it is, explain its importance and include details and examples.  Quickly decide on topic (in case you have to choose among several options/topics). Quickly choose a topic and start thinking about the examples and details you can include for that particular topic.  Work through your mental list of requirements in order to fulfill all of them.  Know your goal in order to be able to communicate . INTEGRATED ACTIVITIES  Read the question carefully and make sure you understand the requirements of the task.  Read/watch the passage/scene carefully and take notes  Listen carefully to the conversations/dialogues and take notes  Read and listen carefully to the question. Consider the task and what it is asking you to do. Ask yourself these questions: What is the topic I need to address? What am I being asked to do? How can I introduce my speech?  Look over your notes and plan your response. It does not consist on writing a response, and a written response would not show your natural speaking abilities. Just use your notes to refer to points made in the reading passages or in the movie. 9 BUILDING SPEAKING FLUENCY AND CINEMA So, to develop student’s ability to speak English, I propose working with these two types of tasks (Integrated speaking tasks and Independent speaking tasks). Apart from this planning, I also consider important to have into account other elements that are relevant to acquire fluency speaking English. According to this, I include some considerable points for building speaking: a) Students have to understand that fluency in speaking needs practice and unfortunately, teachers can help them giving them the opportunity of speaking in class and providing them with activities that favour speaking but it is not enough. For this reason, It is totally necessary that students practice English outside the classroom. They can practice with native speakers, with nonnative speakers but also they can practice English speaking aloud to themselves when they are alone. To do this, it is useful to think on cinema as a provider of ideas and topics to practice English alone. b) When we talk about fluency, we refer to speaking with accuracy and natural speed. There are several language features to concentrate on for building language fluency:  Pronunciation  Intonation 16 between pairs of students. The second activity deals with the search for some information and the use of email in order to be updated. The third activity is the easiest. With this activity I try to refresh some vocabulary and include some new words. But at the same time, this exercise does not require effort and it can provide a relaxed atmosphere in opposition to the other activities that require more concentration and can be more difficult for students because they have to speak. Finally, the last activity is the most difficult but it is an integrated activity. The King’s speech is the starting point for knowing themes that are intimately related to cinema and of course, to the movie itself, for instance, the awards. Students have to prepare an exposition and the aim of this activity is to gain self – confidence speaking in English. Activity 1 (Before the screening) (work in pairs) According to the following introduction, could you imagine the plot and the main theme of the film? Write circa 10 lines expressing your first impression and tell it to your mate: 1925: King George V reigns over a quarter of the world population. He has asked to his second son, the Duke of York, to pronounce the closure speech of the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley Stadium, in London. Activity 2 There is an important reference to the British Empire Exhibition. Can you look for some information about it and give me a general overview (participants, what did they celebrate?...) through e-mail? Activity 3 Write the main characteristics of the following characters: job, physical appearance, personality,.. 17 Activity 4: Choose one of the following themes and prepare a brief exposition about the topic 1. The role of Colin Firth as Bertie in The King’s Speech 2. The historical context of the movie 3. The King’s Speech won 5 BAFTA, 4 OSCAR, 1 GOLDEN AWARD. Choose one of these prizes and talk about its origin, its importance, … 4. To overcome problems in relation with the film. 5. Wembley stadium All these themes can be used to develop a debate in class, to see different opinions. Year: 2008 Director: Baz Luhrman Country: Australia Stars:Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman 18 Runtime:165min. Title: AUSTRALIA Level: Intermediate/ B1 Objectives: To understand the plot of the movie and the vast majority of dialogues, if the speech is clear and slow. To be able to communicate orally, to be able to provide concrete information about the film. To know how to express his/her personal opinion about the movie with the right vocabulary and grammar. To be able to write a summary of a movie, to write about historical and cultural aspects reflected on the film and to write about his/her general reviews. Contents: Grammatical contents  Questions with how long + take: (How long does it take to get to Australia)?  Adjectives: comparatives(He’s taller than me) and superlatives (He’s the tallest in the class) Lexical contents  Descriptions  Travel Cultural contents: To know countries and cultures where English is also the official language Development of activities: There are five activities in which three of them are focused on speaking in different situations, for instance, to promote a movie or to convince us that to travel to Australia is an exciting idea. Activities 1 and 5 are designed to work vocabulary, to enrich the lexicon. In the case of activity 5, it helps us to work one of the points of the grammatical contents: adjectives. Apart from that, students will have the opportunity of practicing a little speaking with it. 19 Activity1 Give adjectives for each character according to what you have watched in the movie. Characters Adjectives The drover Lady Ashley King George Neil Lord Ashley Nala Activity 2 Write an advert promoting the movie. Present it to your classmates. Activity 3 Work in pairs. Describe the following scene: minute 57:42. Compare your descriptions and discuss about the scene. Activity 4 Plans for a trip: Australia. After the screening, would you fancy travelling there? Present it to your mates. a) Make a list of possible activities b) Sign on a map of an area of Australia to be toured with places of interest marked. 20 Activity 5 Words to find. First, find 5 words related to the movie. Work in pairs: Once you have found the words, explain their meaning to your partner. A U S T R A L I A E K M P B E G D L E E B A I Y V O I A L G L G N I O O E N E R E I K G R D C D G O H C M S D A A S A E R E A T M W R C N G O U N R Z A C O T G O K F E X T R P O N W Y A E G E O E R I D C I T M R D W U K J A B O R I G I N E EW 21 Year: 2009 Director: Guy Ritchie Country: USA Stars: Robert Jr, Jude Law, Rachel Mcadams Runtime: 128 min. Title: SHERLOCK HOLMES Level: Intermediate /B2 Objectives: To understand the plot of the movie and the vast majority of dialogues, if the speech is clear and slow. To be able to communicate orally, to be able to provide concrete information about the film. To know how to express his/her personal opinion about the movie with the right vocabulary and grammar. To be able to write a summary of a movie, to write about historical and cultural aspects reflected on the film and to write about his/her general reviews. Contents: Grammatical contents:  Relative pronouns: who, which, that, when, where, what. 22  Modal verbs: must, have to, should, may, might, can’t, can, could, be able to Lexical contents:  Law & crime Cultural contents: To introduce students a very famous literary work, The great Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, through the film adaptation. Development of activities: There are seven activities designed to help students to speak, to improve their fluency. All of them are structured in two parts; the first one consists on writing. The aim is to develop the ability to compose an essay, to know how to organize ideas and to have accuracy in the use of language. In the second part of the activities, the interest is in speaking. Activity 1. Classify Sherlock Holmes in one of the following genres and explain why.  Thriller  Comedy  Serial  Western  Drama Activity 2 Look at the characters below and enumerate three virtues and three faults 23 Activity 3After the screening, write a review of the movie and if you recommend it or not Activity 4 (homework) Choose one of the following pictures, they are real pictures of the actors. Look for some information, you can use internet to know more about them. Then, in class, you will work in pairs and you will introduce these persons to your mates according to the information found on internet Activity 5 You are going to watch two scenes of Sherlock Holmes, what do you think about these two scenes? What have happened? Why? Activity 6 Imagine you are a journalist. The director and actors of Sherlock Homes are promoting the film. If you would have the opportunity of interviewing them, what would you ask them? Write between 5 and 8 questions and explain why you would know those things Activity 7 Work in pairs. Imagine one of you is one of the actors of Sherlock Holmes and the other one the journalist. Represent the interview and use the questions of the previous activities. The interview must be represented twice in order to exchange roles. 24 Year: 2008 Director: Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan Country: UK Stars: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Mia Drake Runtime: 123min. Title: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE Level:C1/ Advanced Objectives: To understand long, well-organized and complex texts. To be able to follow conversations among native speakers of English. To produce well-organized, clear and detailed texts about different themes. To write clear and detailed texts about a great variety of topics depending on speaker’s interest. Contents: Grammatical contents:  Coordination (We owe no money, [and] neither do they) and subordination I: (Our hostess, once everyone had arrived, was full of good humour)  Uses of quite, rather (It was rather a mess. They will be here for quite some time).  Gradation of adverbs: (harder, more happily) and irregularities (less, better, worse, farther, most, least, best, worst, farthest, furthest (I like winter most). Lexical contents:  Personality and feelings  Values, attitudes and beliefs.  Compound adjectives Cultural contents: The idea is to offer the possibility of knowing other parts of the world where English is spoken by the vast majority of people, this is the case of India. This country was also a colony of the British Empire. So, to know some historical 25 aspects and some curiosities, a different accent too. Development of activities: I have only included two activities because one of them is a debate and I suggest a general topic from which many other themes can be extracted. The second activity is a long exercise in which I would like to work coordination and subordination with real conversations. So it can last more than one session. Activity 1Before the screening, we propose a brief debate about cinema (genres, actors, etc.) Activity 2With some dialogues of the movie, we will work some grammatical aspects. Year: 2005 Director: Roman Polanski Country: UK and France Stars: Barney Clark, Ben Kingsley, Harry Eden, Mark Strong Runtime: 130min 32  Does it make you want to see the film or not? Activity 5 Work in pairs: pick a film you have both seen and discuss all the aspects noted above. Which of the points you discuss would be worth mentioning in a review and which would be best omitted? 33 CONCLUSION In summary, with this assignment I had two aims. On the one hand, to explain that, in my opinion, it is absolutely necessary to work hard the communicative skill of our students. On the other hand, to offer cinema as one of the multiple options and one of my favorite alternatives to get fluency and a better pronunciation and intonation speaking English. It is certainly true that the use of cinema in the classroom requires a lot of work and preparation , in general, it is not an easy task. But teachers have to take into account student’s necessities and one of them, as I have already said, is the improvement and the evolution in the way students communicate and use a second language. For this reason and without any doubt, I encourage teachers to appreciate the value of cinema as a new tool for our lessons and a material which is in constant renewal. In helping learners to improve their speaking skill, teachers need to motivate them and to provide them materials suited to our society and I strongly believe that teachers have to adapt to new ways of teaching. BIBLIOGRAPHY Instituto Cervantes, www.institutocervantes.es Films: The King’s Speech, Australia, Sherlock Holmes, Slumdog Millionaire and Oliver Twist. 34 APPENDIX II 35 RESEARCH PROJECT: SPEAKING SKILL IN TEXTBOOKS Yolanda López Sánchez 36 INDEX 1. Introduction 2. Literature review 3. Methods 4. Results 5. Discussion 6. Conclusions – Practicum III References Appendices 37 1. INTRODUCTION The purpose of this research project is to discuss and review the speaking skill in textbooks. How it is organized and how it helps to the development of the communicative competence in our students. Besides, to signal some proposals that can be interesting in the speaking skill and which differ from the organization in books. The last part is dedicated to the conclusion and I make a reference to the Practicum III and the implementation of the research project during the Practicum. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW In reference to the theoretical approach, I have wanted to provide a general overview of the second language acquisition and specifically, the communicative competence. There is a huge quantity of references in relation to the acquisition of languages, so this is a very extensive and complex topic. Here, I present some ideas in order to give a theoretical background to this study. The field of second language acquisition (SLA) research investigates how people acquire proficiency in a language that is not their mother tongue. It does not matter if we refer to a learner of Chinese at the University, or someone becoming fluent in a third language in their thirties or forties or if we refer to a child that acquire a language after moving to a new country, all these cases are cases of second language acquisition. The field of SLA address the issue of proficiency or communicative competence. Although knowledge of a language’s grammar allows us to distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, to have a successful communication is much more than that. The learner or student has to be able to use the language in an appropriate way according to the situation or the context. 38 Within language competence, we have to distinguish between the Organizational competence and the Pragmatic competence. In the organizational competence, we find a grammatical competence in which elements such as vocabulary, syntax, morphology and phonology are included. A textual competence is also included in the organizational competence. Here, cohesion and rhetorical organization are considered. In the pragmatic competence, we find the illocutionary competence where the functional abilities are found and the sociolinguistic competence includes elements such as dialect, cultural references and register. Organizational competence Grammatical competence Textual competence Grammatical competence vocabulary Textual competence Cohesion Syntax Rhetorical organization Morphology Phonology Pragmatic competence Illocutionary competence Sociolinguistic competence COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE LANGUAGE COMPETENCE STRATEGIC COMPETENCE 39 Illocutionary competence Functional abilities Sociolinguistic competence Dialect Cultural references Register Now, I am going to consider each of the major subparts of the schema.  Grammatical competence is related to the components of the grammar: phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and semantics.  Textual competence: it involves knowledge of wellformedness above the sentence level, including the rules that string sentences together to make a well – formed text in spoken and written language  Illocutionary competence: it refers to the ability to comprehend a speaker’s intent, and to produce a variety of sentence types to convey a particular intent in various circumstances. This is completely necessary in the acquisition of a second language.  Sociolinguistic competence: In order to be competent in a second language learners have to take into account the style of language, the dialects and the culture. Learners have to be able to produce and comprehend language according to these aspects. Another relevant point in reference to the communicative competence is its performance. It is important the linguistic knowledge but also the actual language use in particular situations. Linguistic performance clearly involves the interaction of a number of cognitive systems and has much in common with other skills. A significant point for the study of how skills develop involves the distinction between controlled and automatic processing. When acquiring a new skill, we begin by having to dedicate a lot of attention to controlled processing to the activity. Once we become proficient, the activity becomes automatic. So, we need to shift processing 40 from controlled to automatic because, as humans, we have a fixed processing capacity. We are not able to process everything at once. This is of great value to second language acquisition because we can understand the variable performance of L2. When learners are focusing on the form of the L2 utterance, they are able to produce accurately. However, when there are extra demands, such as trying to communicate a complex thought or carry on a conversation in a noisy room, errors are probable. This means that learners has a mental representation of the form in question but can find difficulties or problems speaking under specific conditions. So, as it can be seen the communicative competence is compounded by many elements and all of them are interrelated and are necessary in order to be competent speaking a language. Once I have given a broad overview of the elements that intervene in the communicative competence, I would like to signal if they are present in the speaking sections of the textbooks that teachers use and consequently, these textbooks present the suitable elements in order to develop the speaking skill. First of all, the organizational competence, within this competence we find the grammatical competence where vocabulary, syntax, morphology and phonology are developed. It is true that many of these aspects are presented in other section of the textbooks. We usually find the speaking section in the last part of the lesson, so vocabulary and grammar have already been learnt by students. But it is also true that textbooks do not pay much attention to phonology, a really important aspect in the acquisition of a language. There is a very low percentage of textbooks where pronunciation is worked and this is directly and undoubtedly related to the speaking skill. The other competence within the organization one is the textual competence. Along the different lessons of textbooks, teachers and students can observe that linkers and all the elements that help to make a written text or an oral discourse cohesive are introduced. In this sense, textbooks consider this part of the textual competence but referring to the rhetorical organization, it is important to mention that this aspect is not found in textbooks designed for students of E.S.O. or Bachillerato. I have only found this point in those dedicated to prepare official exams such TOEFL tests. I consider this is not well organized because not only advanced students need to know how to organize a written or oral text, this is an aspect that must be learnt from almost the beginning of the language learning. 41 Considering the pragmatic competence, I have to mention the illocutionary competence. As I have already said, it has to do with the ability to produce several types of sentences according to the circumstances and to the aims. It is not the same to say: Are you cold? Could I close the window?, Why on earth is the window open?. Students have to learn to be able to communicate, to express in different ways and till the moment, students are not able to do this and textbooks do not contribute to work the functional abilities. The last part of the pragmatic competence and of the language competence refers to several aspects: dialect, register and cultural references. Are they present in the textbooks that our students use? No. There are few cultural references and we always find the same: Halloween, Christmas, some famous people and that is all. With regards to register and dialect, they are not taken into account. We do not see textbooks with a speaking section or other section in which dialects are introduced or different registers. This global panorama of some of the theoretical aspects that surrounds the communicative competence shows us that textbooks do not contribute to get the principles and ideas presented in the theoretical approach in order to be competent in a language. Textbooks do not deal with many aspects that are completely necessary to develop the communicative skill such as pronunciation, dialects, register, etc. Descriptions Odd-oneout Give advice Dictation Askanswer questions in pairs Debate Generate examples. Read aloud Elicit ideas /answers Discuss advantages/ disadvantages Lesson 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 Lesson 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 Lesson 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 Lesson 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 Lesson 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 Lesson 6 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 Lesson 7 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Lesson 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Lesson 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Questionnaires Questions Yes No More or less 1. ¿Qué importancia tiene para ti la destreza de speaking? 68 estudiantes 2 - 2. ¿Ves la sección de speaking de tu libro apropiada para tu nivel? 50 20 - 3. ¿Crees que el libro propone material suficiente y real para desarrollar la destreza de speaking? 27 36 7 4. ¿Consideras que las actividades del libro en la sección de speaking se repiten en los libros de los diferentes cursos? 31 23 16 5. Si ves las actividades repetitivas, ¿piensas que te permiten avanzar en tu capacidad comunicativa? 28 33 9 6. ¿Te parecen las actividades de speaking densas o monótonas? 49 17 4 7. ¿Realizas todas las actividades de speaking? 32 31 6 8. ¿Revisas en casa / academia las actividades de speaking del libro de texto para practicar? 15 52 3 9. Comentarios o propuestas sobre la destreza de speaking en los libros de texto.  Son muy mejorables.  Más horas de speaking.  Más material audiovisual.  Intercambios con otros países.  Sección de speaking más extensa.  Apenas se hace speaking y es la parte más importante.  Ejercicios más entretenidos.  Más ejercicios de diálogo.  Hay poco speaking.  Los ejercicios deberían ser más complejos.  Hacer conversaciones orales.  Exposiciones en clase.  No se trabaja lo suficiente, hacen falta más horas y que el libro permita un avance respecto a la comunicación. Interviews Teachers’ interviews: What do you think about the low level of English and moreover, spoken English in Spain? Give your opinion. Teacher 1  Concept of English and other languages: people think that languages are not studied, you know or you don’t know a language. That is all.  There are no subtitles on TV, movies, series, etc. If we had subtitles, people would learn English or other languages easily.  I do not think that our low level in English is conditioned by cultural aspects but what I believe is that there is an idea of “españolizar” the world. Spanish is spoken by millions of people and it is believed that we do not need to know more languages, so there is also a lack of culture. Teacher 2  Languages and specifically, English, have not received attention.  Input is very important in the learning of a language and students are not exposed to input.  It is needed to dedicate more time to languages. There are only three hours, this time is very superficial to expose students to the language. Spain (3h) us USA /other European countries (5h)  It is also an important element to memorize words.  It is believed that we do not need English.  There must be an emphasis in the necessity of expressing / communicating in English. Teacher 3  Speaking has not been worked.  No bilingual society like in other countries (TV, series, movies, etc)  I do not think this is a cultural aspect. Now, we are aware of the importance of languages but this is a long process.  There are many students in classes so the teaching is more difficult and some skills cannot be worked properly. Teacher 4  There are only 3 hours of English during the week.  The use of the book, there are no changes in the way of teaching.  Lack of culture.  Students do not study, they are not participative in class and they are not very motivated. Teacher 5  English has not been studied. Some years ago people studied French and there is not a long tradition with English. Students’ interview Interesado/a en los idiomas ¿Con qué frecuencia hablas inglés fuera de clase? Cuando tienes que hablar inglés en clase, te da vergüenza, timidez,… ¿Qué es lo que condiciona que ante una situación en la que tengas que hablar en inglés te paralices? ¿A crees que se debe que en España tengamos un nivel tan bajo en inglés? Estudiante 1 Sí Casi ninguna Otro sentimiento/pensamiento. Cree que debería ser normal hablar inglés. Un poco todo aunque sobre todo la pronunciación. A la falta de educación en ello en una escuela pública desde jóvenes, además del poco nivel exigido. Estudiante 2 Sí Nunca Vergüenza Gramática, vocabulario A nuestra falta de práctica oral. Estudiante 3 Sí Pocas veces, casi ninguna Vergüenza Pronunciación A que el profesorado no tiene nivel para enseñar. Estudiante 4 Sí Poca frecuencia Otro sentimiento/ pensamiento Vocabulario A que hasta ahora no lo exigían para estudiar en la universidad. 55 4. DISCUSSIONS In the previous point I have tried to show the different data collection through tables. But apart from that, I consider relevant to support these tables with an analysis and commentaries. My first comment is for the content analysis, I examined the speaking section of the two books and as it can be seen on the tables, it is shocking the lack of variety and the number of activities developed in the speaking section. And there is no evolution from the first year of Bachillerato to the second year, we do not find an increase in the number of activities and in their complexity. Both courses present similar speaking sections and this similarity does not contribute to a better use of the language. It is a very static part of the lessons in both textbooks and in several senses such as no evolution, repetitive and monotonous activities. According to this, these tables do not speak positively about the organization and selection of exercises. It is impossible to think on the improvement of fluency and accuracy in students with this kind of activities. It is observed that on the one hand, there are no many speaking activities. The figures are very low, which is a negative aspect because with so few exercises it is strange to improve students’ fluency, they need practice. And the only thing presented with this number of tasks is the existence of the speaking skill and a little practice of some grammatical contents belonging to the unit. On the other hand, it can also be observed that the sort of activities found in the books deal with the work in pairs, discussion, take turns. This sort of activities share that students work is not very interactive because they always speak before one person if they are doing the exercises by pairs. I strongly believe that this is a negative way of developing the speaking skill because students are usually seat with friends. This has implications because they take advantage of that in order to give short answers, Yes/ no answers or if the teacher is not paying attention, they speak in Spanish. So time is wasted and students do not advance in the acquisition of fluency and accuracy. At the same time, this point is reinforced by the fact that activities are always the same, in other words, students have to do the same activity over and over again, consequently, motivation is not arisen and activities seem very boring to students. The final result is a complete lack of interest in the task, in the lesson and finally, in the language. Students do not see that they can improve their dominion of the language with this type of materials. 56 Many people think that one of the roles of teachers is to prepare creative, motivating and interesting activities in order to involve students and to get better results. I agree with that but not entirely. I am convinced that there are many teachers who prepare new and funny materials, they spend a lot of time designing or adapting exercises but at the same time, I think that there are also many teachers who do not prepare new materials for several reasons such as lack of time, they prefer following the book, etc. Furthermore, in our education system textbooks are an important part in everyday classes. Many teachers follow textbooks in a strict way and in general terms, they are a guide for teachers. Taking into account these considerations, it would be of great value that publishing houses or textbooks include a higher number of exercises in the speaking section. They have to be included and a different design of activities in which an extensive repertoire of tasks could be found in order to help students to improve the skill and at the same time, to fulfill the objectives and aims established in the law (Aragonese Curriculum). So as I have already explained and can be seen on the tables, speaking sections in textbooks do not contribute to the improvement and development of the speaking skill in our students. Following the same idea but taking into consideration students’ opinion, on the tables we can see that the vast majority of students think that the speaking skill is important. And a good number of students coincide in the idea that the activities in textbooks are not varied and they do not allow to advance in the language. Their answers give a coherent opinion in relation to the textbook, in other words, I see that the great part of the class say that the activities are repeated year after year and as a consequence, they also answer that they do not evolve in the learning of the language. Furthermore, question nine asks for suggestions and although there are many students who do not give an answer, those who provide suggestions give options according to their previous opinions. In this sense, I consider this questionnaire very relevant because boys and girls have answered seriously and they have provided some new ideas for improving the speaking part of books and these ideas let us to see they are not really satisfied with the orientation given to this skill in books. I think my aim has been addressed. Not only that but also, this survey has implications for the research because the results coincide with 57 the analysis of the textbooks and students are the addressee of textbooks, so, their opinion is important and helpful in order to do changes in the speaking sections. The next point is the comment on teachers’ interviews. They are not very long as I explained in a previous part of the project. So to point out some main ideas in which all teachers have the same opinion. All of them think that English has not been studied and the speaking skill has not been worked and it is not worked. They mean that we have not a long tradition in the learning of languages and in concrete, English. It has received little attention. Another common point is the clear necessity of more hours. Other countries in Europe or USA dedicate more time to the learning of languages and this is clearly reflected on the results. Almost all teacher put emphasis on the importance of input, on being exposed to the language in order to improve the acquisition of the language. From these ideas we infer that we do not speak English because we have not studied it properly and we follow with the same dynamic. They do not consider a cultural element, in other words, they do not think that we are worse than other countries learning languages and I agree with that. But there is a mixture of many elements that influence in the acquisition of a language like input, hours of study, interest, etc. And relating teachers’ ideas with the topic of the research I want to say that they consider the way of studying it as one of the main conditioning and in this aspect, textbooks are included because we follow them and we use them in the organization of lessons. And they do not give a considerable importance to speaking. They always present the same pattern in the organization of activities, there is no innovation and there is no a focus on students’ necessities. The last point has to do with some questions made to a few students. From these questions I have wanted to point out on the table the fact that students are interested in languages, they give importance to them and they consider them necessary nowadays. According to their opinions, it can be said that students are aware of the elements that condition a good communication. In this sense, they think everything is important (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.) and they signal an important lack of practice and the little attention given to English and to speaking. All of this coincides with teachers’ view, my own point of view and in fact, considering everything corroborates the poor consideration to the work of the speaking skill, mainly, in the textbooks.