Mingling In Teaching Speaking.docx

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MINGLING GAME FOR SPEAKING PRACTICE M. Samsuli Akbar Introduction Speaking defines as a productive skill that involves using speech to express meaning to othe people (Spratt: 2005). Burns and Joyce (1994:14) supported that speaking is an active process of negotiating meaning and using social knowledge of the situation and the topic to the other people. It means that speaking is defined as a process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, requires students to have communicative skills, so that the goal of teaching speaking should be directed to improve students’ communicative skills in order to be able to express themselves and learn how to use a language. However, many problems faced by both the teachers and the students in teaching and learning English speaking process. In teaching English speaking, many language teachers have the frustrating experience that they invest lots of energy in teaching speaking. They often feel simultaneously as if they are invisible or performing without any audience. The teacher usually feel tired because all of the interpretations and conclusions are on the teacher without any participation from the students. The students sitpassively in the classroom and only do what the teacher asks or does nothing. This problem may be happened due to to the fact that th eteachers are lack of ability to design effective interaction strategies. Providing effective interaction strategies for communication is an essential factor needed by students so that they are able to direct the dialogue with one another, comment immediately on what another speaker has just said, and disagree with or challenge another speaker’s statement. They should not have to be invited to speak or speak when there is a short silence indicating the end of someone else’s turn, interrupt one another to include an opinion or question, and finally use appropriate paralinguistic features (Counihan, 1998). Ballard in Yan-hua (2007:25) claimed that the learners need to change their leaning strategies to meet the requirements of the new academic culture. Furthermore, Lam & Wong (2000:245), in their study, they concluded that

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learners should also exhibit appropriate cooperative behaviour and peer support to compensate for the ineffective use of interaction strategies due to limited language proficiency. The problems may also come from both the proficiency and the behaviours of the students. According to Heny & Yohana (2005:195), student's inability in using spoken English caused by some reasons. They are might be partly because the nature of speaking is different from writing in which we can edit and revise what we write, or reading in which we can reread parts that we do not understand. Those problems may also exist because the students themselves are reluctant to practice English because of the flowing aspect : (1) lack of vocabulary; (2) lack of self confidence; (3) difficult to take part in discussion ; (4) uncomfortable with the groups. Such behavior very often stems from common reason: they are inattentive and not motivated. Anderman & Anderman (2003: 166) explained that students’ motivation can negatively lead to the use of avoidant and in appropriate strategies, and affect students behavior. According to them, students who engage in avoidance behavior try to avoid some perceived threats in the learning context . Allyn & Bacon (1992) listed some problems faced by the students, namely; (1) cultural problem; (2)lack of motivation; (3) lack of confidence; (4) peer pressure; and (5) lack of support such as the classroom atmoshphere and linguistic support are not provided. Furthermore, Qashoa (2006:3) said that the lack of motivation among the learners not only frustates them, but also frustates the teachers who are the cornerstone of the educational process. The existence of English in Indonesia as a foreign language becomes another steep obstacle for the teachers to enable students to use English communicatively since it is not used in real daily conversation but it is only used at certain places, e.g. at schools and certain work places. Being aware of the students problems in learning speaking, a relevant and an effective activity should be set in order to develop speaking skill of the students. In tis case, mingling techniqueis proposed to help the English teachers in teaching speaking.

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Mingling is defined as an activity in which students move around and talk to each other to get some information needed. These activities are often designed to practise question asking and answering (Yates: 2008). Related to language teaching, Mingling activity is an activity in which students stand up and walk around asking questions to match students to information they have been given on their cards or handouts. It is one of the most popular TEFL activities as it is a good excuse to get students up and moving around, and so loosens their inhibitions and wakes them up. In mingling activity, the students should wander around the classroom then mingling with their classmates by finding a partner they have not worked with, ask their questions of each other and record the answers they get. They usually carry out this mingling activities until students have had a chance to talk to some students.

The Teaching of Speaking According to Hornby (1995: 37) teaching means giving the instruction to (a person): give a person (knowledge skill, etc). While speaking means to make use of words in an ordinary voice. So, teaching speaking is giving instruction to a person in order to communicate. In teaching speaking, many aspects have to be considered, since, according to Burns and Joyce (1999:3), its form and meaning are depend on the context in which it occurs, including the participants (the speakers) themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes of speaking. When someone speaks , he/she is both using language to carry out various social functions and choosing forms of language which relate in a relevant way to the cultural and social context. Pattison in Nunan (1989) contrasts what conventionally happens in the language class with what typically happens outside the classroom in relation to the content, reason, result, participants and means of communication. The contrasts are as follows:

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COMMUNICATION OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM Content of communication

PRACTICE IN THE CLASSROOM

Content or topic is decided by teacher, textbook, tape, etc. The meaning of what they say may not always be clear to the speakers. The content is highly predictable

Speakers express their own ideas, whises, opinions, attitudes, information, etc. They are fully aware of the meaning they wish to convey. The exact content of any speaker’s message in un predictable. Reason for communication

Learners speak in order to practice Speakers have asocial or personal speaking; because teacher tells them to; reason to speak. There is an in order to get a good mark, etc. information gap to be filled, or an area of uncertainty to be made clear. What is said is potentially interesting or useful to the participants Result of communication The EFL spoken; the teacher accepts or Speakers schieve their aims; they get corrects what is said; a mark is given, what they wanted, an information gap etc. (extrinsic motivation). is filled, a problem is solved, a dicision is reached or a social contact is made, etc. The result is of intrinsic interest or value to the participants. Partcipants in communication A large group in which not everyone is Two or more people are usually facing facing the speakers or interested in each other, paying attention and what they say; except for one person, respondingto what is said, rather than the teacher, who pays less attention to to how correctly is said. what they say then to how correctly they say it. Means of communication Language from teacher or tape is very closly adapted to to learners’ level. All speech is accurate is possible, and usually in complete sentences. Problems in communicating meaning are often deal with by translation. Learners are corrected if their speech deviates from standard forms, whether or not their meaning is clear. Teacher

Native-speakers output is not closely adjusted to foreigners’ level. Meaning is conveyed by any means at the speakers’ command: linguistic or paralinguistic (gestures, etc). Problems are dela withnegoitation and exchange of feedback between speakers. Translation is not always possible. Errors not effecting communication are

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help learners to express themselves more correctly.

largely ignored. Native speakers help foreign speakers to express themselves more clearly.

Therefore, Burns and Joyce (1999) suggest that the English teachers need to find the background data about the students’ needs and goals before teaching speaking skills. This involves gathering personal data, such as age, language background, and information about the students’ goal and needs. It also involves assessing their current level of spoken language competency and proficiency. Having analyzed the students’ need and the current level of their spoken competence, teachers needs to design teaching-learning sequences which can help and develop students’ ability to use oral language. According to Brown (2007:331-332), there are seven principles for teaching speaking skills. They are: 1. Focus on both fluency and acuuracy, depending on the objective; 2. Provide intrinsically motivating techniques; 3. Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts; 4. Provide appropriate feedback and correction; 5. Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening; 6. Give students opportunities to imitate oral communication; and 7. Encourage the development of speaking strategies. Besides, ESL teachers should provide opportunities for students to talk. It is important forn us as language teachers to be aware of how much we are talking in class so we don’t take up all the time the students could be talking. One further interesting point is that when the teacher is removed from the conversation, that learners take on divers speaking roles that are normally filled by the teacher (such as posing questions or offering clarification). Furthermore, designing classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both transactional and interactional speaking are also needed. When we talk with someone outside the classroom, we usually do so for interactional or transactional purposes. It includes both establishing and maintaining social

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relationships. Transactional speech involves communicating to get something done, including the exchange of good and/or services. From the explanation above, teaching speaking skills is a complicated task for the teachers. The most important thing is how to guide and help the students to be able to communicate well, since sometimes spoken language is easy to perform, but in some cases it is difficult (Brown, 2001: 270). In order that they can carry out the successful speaking, they have to fulfill some characteristics of successful speaking activity such as: 1. Learners talk a lot. As much as possible of the period of time allocated to the activity is in fact occupied by learners talk. This may be obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses. 2.

Participant is even. Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talk active participants. All get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly evenly distributed.

3. Motivation is high. Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or they want to contribute to achieve a task objective. 4. Language is of an acceptable level. Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easy comprehensible to teach other and of acceptable level of language accuracy By and large, letting students interact in communicative speaking activity will be meaningful in teaching speaking skill. ESL teachers should create a classroom environment where students have real life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote oral language (kayi, 2006:1). To provide meanigful activity, communicative approach serve best for this aim. Communicative Approachin English Language Teaching In the early 70's a new approach was developed to focus more on student production based on a different theory of language acquisition. The theory behind this is that students want to communicate and that dialogues should be based on real life situations. (Steinburg, 2001) The material used should be authentic and

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meaningful. It is also believed that in order to communicate in the target language the speaker should have more than just linguistic competence but also communicative competence (Larsen-Freeman, 2001). This theory produced the approach that we know today as Communicative Language Teaching. Communicative language teaching (CLT) is generally regarded as an approach to language teaching (Richards and Rodgers 2001). As such, CLT reflects a certain model or research paradigm, or a theory (Celce-Murcia 2001). It is based on the theory that the primary function of language use is communication. Its primary goal is to develop communicative competence of the learners (Hymes 1971), or simply put, communicative ability. In other words, its goal is to make use of real-life situations that necessitate communication. Communicative competence is defined as the ability to interpret and enact appropriate social behaviors, and it requires the active involvement of the learner in the production of the target language (Canale and Swain1980; Celce-Murcia et al. 1995; Hymes 1972). Such a notion encompasses a wide range of abilities: the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary (linguistic competence); the ability to say the appropriate thing in a certain social situation (sociolinguistic competence); the ability to start, enter, contribute to, and end a conversation, and the ability to do this in a consistent and coherent manner (discourse competence); the ability to communicate effectively and repair problems caused by communication breakdowns (strategic competence). Now many linguistics and EFL teachers agree on that students learn to speak in the foreign language by “interacting”. Communicative language is considered as an effective way in teaching speaking. Communicative language teaching is based on real-life situations that require communication. By using this method in EFL classes, students will have the opportunity of communicating with each other in the target language. In brief, EFL teachers should create a classroom environment where students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote oral language. This can occur when the teacher provides communicative activities to achieve a goal or to complete a task.

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Communicative language teaching makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication. The teacher sets up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life. Unlike the audiolingual method of language teaching, which relies on repetition and drills, the communicative approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which will vary according to their reactions and responses. The real-life simulations change from day to day. Students' motivation tolearn comes from their desire to communicate in meaningful ways about meaningful topics. There are basically five characteristics that make CLT different from other approaches like Audio-Lingual Method or traditional approaches like GrammarTranslation Method(Nunan, 1991).They are as follows: 1. Taught in the target language; 2. Introduction of authentic text and materials in the lesson. An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction with other students; 3. Opportunities for learners to focus, not only on the target language, but also on the learning process itself; 4. Learner's experiences are an important part of the classroom learning situation; 5. An attempt to link learning in the classroom to authentic usage outside the classroom. Furthermore, Harmer (2001: 86) lists a taxonomy of the characteristics of communicative language learning as follow; 1. Learners learn through communicating in the target language rather than overt teaching of atomised particles of the language. 2. Authentic texts are used. 3. Activities are done for reasons of meaning rather than form. 4. Interaction is meaning focussed rather than form focussed. 5. Comprehensible communicative competence is the aim: activities are aimed at fluency rather than accuracy and by extension, over learning.

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6. Feedback given by the teacher is related to the communication information gap and not to the language point in question. That is, meaning is paramount. Language is presented subtly. 7. Learners are given opportunities to focus on the learning process as well as the language items. 8. An attempt is made to link classroom learning with language use outside the classroom. Target language is properly contextualised. 9. Communication starts immediately, rather than after long periods of grammar, vocabulary or drills. 10. Sequencing of presentation is dictated by function or need and not linguistic complexity. 11. Communicative competence is reached through trail and error – mistakes are considered a part of the learning process.

In communicative approach, the teaching must be purposeful. Students must be in a situation in their learning and activities where they need to communicate with each other in order to accomplish their task in the activity. This will also allow them to use each other as resources and learn from each other. Use will not be unlike what their situations could be in real life. In real life they will learn through practice in using the language in a purposeful way. They will also learn from their experience through interacting with other English speakers. In having freedom and unpredictability in the classroom students have the freedom to make their own choices in using the target language. Often, when traditional teachers do interactive activities they allow students to only to use specific answers, for example either affirmative or negative response to a specific statement or question. Allowing unpredictability the activity becomes more interesting and challenging and much more like real life. The activities do not have to be acting out a real life situation but can also be light and fun like a game. This could appeal to adult learners as well as young ones. There many choices the teacher can make in selecting activities for use in the classroom. Some examples of communicative activities the teacher can use:

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Communicative Activities to Promote Speaking There are some activities to promote speaking (Kayi, 2006: 2) as follows: 1. Discussion The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about anevent, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Here the teacher canform groups of students and each group works on their topic for a giventime period, and present their opinions to the class. This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how toexpress and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others. Fauziati (2002:134) states that the main aim of group discussionis to improve fluency, grammar in probably best allowed to function as anaturally communicative context. 2. Role Play and Simulation Role play has appeal for students because it allows the students to becreative and to put themselves in another person’s place for a while(Richard, 2003: 222). While simulation is very similar to role-play buthere students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment.For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, he or she can bring amicrophone to sing and so on. 3. Interviews Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practicetheir speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps thembecoming socialized. After interviews, each student can present the resultto the class. 4. Reporting In class, the students are asked to report what they find as the mostinteresting news. Students can also talk about whether they haveexperienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives beforeclass. 5. Prepared Talks A popular kind of activity is the prepared talk where a student makes apresentation on a topic. Such talks are not designed for informalspontaneous

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conversation; because they are prepared, they are more‘writing-like’ than spoken orally. However, if possible, students shouldspeak from notes rather than from a script (Harmer, 2001: 274) 6. Dialogue Dialogue is one of the media in teaching speaking. It helps the studentspractice in speech, pronunciation, intonation, stress. The primaryobjective of using dialogue is developing student’s competence(pronunciation, intonation, stress) in teaching speaking like nativespeaker. Therefore, in teaching learning uses dialogue (short and long),the students are motivated by the teachers question to reason rather thanto recollect. Dialogues is two sides communication, it means we just nothave to express something but we should have to understand what anotherpeoples said (Podo and Sulaiman, 1995: 25). 7. Information Gap. In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language. 8. Storytelling Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have. Students also can tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very beginning of each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as an opening. In this way, not only will the teacher address students’ speaking ability, but also get the attention of the class.

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9. Story Completion This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activities for which students sit in a circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on. 10. Sharing A great deal of motivating language practice can be generated by asking students to talk about themselves, to share their private store of experience with one another, providing they have a framework in which to do so. The framework, especially in the early stages, should limit the exchanges to quite simple factual information. Such exchanges constitute a natural information gap activity in which all students are able to participate. 11. Task-completion activities: student conducted surveys, interviews and searches in which students were required to use their linguistic resources to collect information.

Mingling Technique The classroom oral activities are roughly devided into two types: fluency activities and accuracy activities. If it is an accuracy activity, the focus is usually structure and the activity is controlled, for example a drill. In these activities, there is a definite, correct answer or response. It is all about the correct answer and the interaction is almost entirely student –teacher/teacher-student. It wasn’t that long ago that such activities formed the overwhelming majority of classroom oral work (the audio-lingual approach).These activities have little to do with communication. They are about form and structure. That is not to say they are useless. They still have a place in the language classroom. (Hopefully, however, a significantly smaller place than was previously the case).

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Fluency activities, on the other hand, are concerned with developing learners’ communication skills and the interaction can be student-student and student-teacher. Fluency activities frequently do not involve finding a correct answer. They focus on the process rather than the product. How you get there is more important than what you find when you get there. They are about doing the activity, not finding the correct answer. Differences between activities that focus on fluency and those that focus on accuracy can be summarized as follows:

Activities Focusing on accuracy

Activities Focusing on Fluency

a. Reflect classroom use of language

a. Reflect natural use of language

b. Focus on the formation of correct examples of language

b. Focus on achieving

c. Practice language out of context d. Practice small samples of language

d. Produce language that may not be predictable

e. Do not require meaningful communication

e. Seek to link language language use to context

c. Require meaningful use of language

f. Choice of language is controlled One of the goal of CLT is to develop fluency in language use occuring when a speaker engages in meaningful interaction and maintains comprehensible and ongoing communication despite limitations in his or her communicative competence. In this case, the use of mingling technique for some communicative activities will provide speaking fluency. Mingling is an activity in which students move around and talk to each other to get some information needed. These activities are often designed to practise question asking and answering (Yates:2008). It is one of the most popular TEFL activities as it is a good excuse to get students up and moving around, and so loosens their inhibitions and wakes them up. The assumption is that this activity is able to encourage interaction amongst students. Mingling can motivate students and give more chances to speak freely

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and to share ideas in improving their speaking skill and to show their ability. Most important, the students will really enjoy the activity. Once they get going, the teacher do not need to have to prod them. A party atmosphere takes over as students move around trying out their new found language skills. So, their motivation will arise since in the mingling activity the academic activities provide a nature of academic task and amount of autonomy of the student (Anderman: 2003). Besides that, it also fosters a truly communicative and student-centered approach to learning. In mingling activity, the students should wander around the classroom then mingling with their classmates by finding a partner they have not worked with, ask their questions of each other and record the answers they get. They usually carry out this mingling activities until students have had a chance to talk to some students. Mingling activities require students to tell each other what they really think about a given topic. By answering a questionnaire or asking and answering questions on cards, the students get the opportunity to say what they really think about something, to discuss a topic in depth and to express their emotions. The teacher may need to pre-teach certain vocabulary items and/or a specific structure, but once the activity begins, it is up to the students to express themselves. Case (2008) lists 15 variations of mingling techniques to play “Find Someone Who” games in which students stand up and walk around asking questions to match people to information they have been given, is one of the most popular TEFL games as it is a good excuse to get students up and moving around, and so loosens their inhibitions and wakes them up. It can be difficult to organize, though, especially making sure that everyone is equally involved and that everyone finishes at more or less the same time. By using the variations below, the teacher can both avoid those problems and keep the game new for the students each time you use it: 1. I’m unique Students have to find out something that is true only of themselves in the class, e.g. an ability only they have (“can”). They go round asking the same question

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(e.g. “Have you eaten crocodile?”) until they have asked everyone. If at any time they find out that it is also true of someone else, they should quickly think of another thing and start again. 2. I’m the same too In this case, students stand up and try to find people who have things in common with them, e.g. the same number of sisters. As in most of these variations, it is important that they change partner after just one question. This is good for auxiliary verbs practice (So do I etc.). 3. I’m the same too Two In this slight variation on I’m the Same Too, students can’t move onto another partner until they have found one thing they have in common with the person they are talking to. Every time they change partners they have to ask different questions- they can’t get one point for “We are both Spanish” each time! 4. I’m the same too Three In this case, students have to find things that they have in common with the other students with a different short answer each time, one “So do I”, one “So am I”, one “So can I” etc. 5. Guess and find Before students stand up and start asking questions, they have predict what will be true, e.g. how many people each of the statements on their worksheet something is true for (“_____________ people can play the guitar” or “5 people can _______________”) 6. Find what I’ve written Each student writes one or more true statements about themselves on slips of paper. The slips of paper are then taken in and distributed so that people have statements about others. Students stand up and race to find the people who wrote those things (or anyone else the same thing is true for).

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7. The snowball game This is a variation on “Find what I’ve written”. When students have written their true sentences, they screw them up into balls and when the teacher says start throwing them around like snowballs, including pick up other people’s “snowballs” and throw them. After one minute, students pick up snowballs close to them and go around trying to find who each statement is true for. 8. Find the question find someone who In this variation of Find What I’ve Written, students only write a very short and vague piece of information about themselves, e.g. “three” or “London”. Students then have to guess what the question might be for the piece of information they receive, e.g. “How many sisters do you have?” and go around asking that question or change to other questions until they find the right answer. The people answering shouldn’t say whether they wrote that or not, but just ask the question they are asked. 9. Shouting find someone who Any of the variations can be played this way, which just involves giving them an activity where they have to speak to everyone in the class but not letting them stand up. 10. Shout or stand find someone who If you have a class which is reluctant to speak loudly or to stand up, give them the choice of deciding which is the lesser of two evils by telling them they have to speak to everyone but not telling them how. Most classes will start by speaking to their partner, speaking slightly louder to someone further away etc. until they are standing up without any protests. 11. Say hello wave goodbye Like introducing “So do I”, this variation adds both more language and more fun. Students have to do the Find Someone Who activity whilst pretending they are at a cocktail party or similar and starting and ending each conversation with suitable language.

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12. Don’t say goodbye In this variation on Say Hello Wave Goodbye, all the students are given roleplay cards with their Find Someone Who tasks on, but some people’s tasks only say “Keep your partner speaking for as long as possible”. Anyone who starts speaking to that person then has the additional challenge of politely ending the conversation so that they can move onto speak to someone else. 13. You’ll never find someone who In this variation, students set each other Find Someone Who tasks. This can either be something they think is not true of anyone in the class, or something they know is true but they think is difficult to guess who. 14. You’ll never guess who In the gossipy version, people have to try to find the answers to as many of their questions as they can whilst speaking to the minimum number of people. They do this by passing on all the information they have found so far, including things they don’t need to know but they found out because they know someone else was looking for it. You can also get them to trade pieces of information. 15. If you tell me who In this variation on You’ll Never Guess Who, students exchange information so they can find the information on their role cards as quickly as possible, but only giving people information they need if they can trade it for different information they are looking for. However, Mingling techniques can also be exploited in many other comunicative activity types, such us; interview, question and aswer, commentresponse, sharing, task completion, even information gap activities.

Procedure of Mingling Technique Before mingling technique starts, The teacher may need to pre-teach certain items, such as; vocabulary, certain expressions, or specific structure,

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etc.Besides, it is necessary to give a good model to the students related to what they are going to do.But, once the activity begins, it is up to the students to express themselves. The following is a simple example of mingling activity that can be used with low level class to provide practice the expression of like and dislike; 1. As a model, ask some students questions expressing like and dislike, such as; “do you you like ........ (watching TV)?”, “ Why?”, etc... 2. Devide the students into pairs. As pre-speaking mingling, ask the pairs to ask question expressing like and dislike one another. 3. Before distributing the worksheet (appendix 1), Tell the students that they will have a mingling activity to complet the task on the worksheet. Give clear instructions about what they should do. If it is necessary, demonstrate the mingle as a model for the students. 4. Distributing the worksheet and donate some times to the students to comprehend the task on the worksheet. 5. Ask the students to mingle around the class to complete the task for allocated time. 6. Ask some students to report what they have got to the class

Conclusion Teachers of English offten face problems of having passive students who show no willingness to speak in class, or students who seem not being interested enough to speak, or students who seem interested but find it difficult to express themselves.Many causes of the problems have been discussed. Most recent studies have shown that students can learn better when they are given the chance to practise a variety of activities that lead them smoothly from one idea to another. For this case, the use of mingling technique may help the teacher to facilitate the learners in learning speaking skills. Mingling Technique is one of the most popular TEFL activities as it is a good excuse to get students up and moving around, and so loosens their inhibitions and wakes them up. It's effective because it just about ensures a high

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level of student participation. this activity is able to encourage interaction amongst students, motivates students and give more chances to speak freely and to share ideas in improving their speaking skill and to show their ability. Most important, the students will really enjoy the activity.It also lowers inhibition levels, encourages student centered correction and frees the teacher to observe and field questions from students. The possible variations are endless. It can be used as an icebreaker, for drills, or as an iniator of free conversation

Appendix 1. Ask your friends a question using: “Do you like..................?”, and “Why do you like it?”

Activity

Watching football match Playing badminton Watching cinema

Someone who likes this

Why?

Someone who dislikes this

Why?

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References Brown, D. 1994. Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to languagepedagogy. NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Brown, G. and G. Yule. 1983. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Canale, M. & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches tosecond language teaching testing. Applied linguistics, I: 1-47. Case. A. 2008. 15 variations on Find Someone Who and Mingling Games, (online), (www.tefl.net/alexcase/) Celce-Murcia, M., Dörnyei, Z., & Thurrell, S. (1995). Communicative competence: A Pedagogically Motivated Model with Content Specifications. Issues in AppliedLinguistics, 6(2), 5-35. Celce-Murcia, M. & Olshtain, E. (2000). Discourse and context in language teaching.New York: Cambridge University Press. Celce-Murcia. M. 2001. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (3rd ed). USA: Heinle&Heinle. Harmer, J. 1984. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London: Longman. Larsen-Freeman, Diane. 2000. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford UniversityPress. Nunan, D.,1989. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Nunan, D., 2003. Practical English Language Teaching. NY:McGraw-Hill. Richards, Jack & Nunan, David. 1990. Second Language Teacher Education. Cambridge Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. (Eds.), Language and Communication,2-27. London: Longman. Richards, J., C., Lockhart, C. 1999. Reflective Teaching in Second LanguageClassroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. 2008. Developing Classroom Speaking Activities, (online), (www.professorjackrichards.com/). Yates, 2008. Communicative Language Teaching, (online), (http://miguelbengoa.com/elt/2008/09/25/).