Chapter I. The importance of language teaching

Particularly language teachers have to focus on different activities that make 
the classroom more interactive and promote target language use. In fact, information 
gap activities are excellent activities because they provide an opportunity for the 
learners to ask each other questions and give answers to the questions that are asked. 
Hence these activities make the language classroom more meaningful and authentic. 
Role Plays ‘Role plays’ are activities adopted by the language teachers when they 
want to vary the kinds of the spoken situation experienced in the English classroom.
Through role plays, learners get opportunities and revise their understanding 
and perspective by enhancing their thoughts and feelings of certain characters in the 
given situation. Ur says, “Role play are used to refer to all sorts of activities where 
learners imagine themselves in a situation outside the classroom, sometimes playing 
the role of someone other than themselves, and using the language appropriate to 
this new context”. Through role play activities, learners develop their problem-
solving and decision-making skills that lead them to gain more experience in 
cooperative learning and independent learning. 
Moreover, in describing reactions, perceptions and emotions, a foreign 
language or second language is used where the learners get an opportunity to practise 
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"The Role of Role-Playing Games in Language Education" edited by Katalin Radics & Ágnes Petőfi 
,2014 ,p-88 . 

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their interpretations and oral skills. Role plays also give empathy because they aim 
at examining the others’ feelings, ideas and points of view. While speaking about 
the advantages of a role play, Doff rightly says, “Role play gives a chance to use 
language in new contexts and for new topics, because they are ‘acting out’ a 
situation. Role play encourages students to use natural expressions and intonation, 
as well as gesture”. Role plays in classrooms are drama like activities that take 
various forms like simulation and role cards. Therefore, role plays are effective 
techniques to animate the teaching and learning atmosphere, arouse the interests of 
learners and make the language acquisition impressive. Role plays are implemented 
by English language teachers to take the most advantage of it in improving the 
language teaching of the learners.
Thus, incorporating role plays into the English classroom adds variety, a 
change of pace and opportunities for a lot of language production and a lot of fun. 
Talking Circles ‘Talking Circles’ is another strategy to promote learners’ language 
teaching . Talking circles create safe environment through confidence where learners 
are given opportunities to share their points of view with their peers using the target 
language without fear of judgment or criticism. These activities are of immense use 
when the learners are feeling, sharing, considering moral or ethical issues.
These activities are effective strategies for real life solving problems and 
reaching group consensus. Here the main concern of the teachers is to encourage the 
learners to share their views and opinions in talking circles. Another type of 
enhancing the learners’ language teaching in the English language classrooms is 
storytelling based on activities where these activities function as clear tools toward 
learner autonomy. These storytelling activities take many forms such as guess the 
lie, insert the word and so on. So the teachers have to encourage the learners to 
narrate the stories, may be short or long, related to their daily life, morality, 
humanity, ethics, social problems, and so on
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"Using Drama to Teach Personal Social Health Education (PSHE) in Primary Schools" by Patrice 
Baldwin and Peter Clements ,2012 ,p-52 . 

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Debates’ are one of the most useful activities implemented by the English 
language teachers to develop the learners’ language teaching . According to Collins 
English Dictionary, “A debate is a discussion about a subject on which people have 
different views”. According to Vocabulalry.com Dictionary, “A debate is a kind of 
respectful, well-reasoned argument over opposing points of view, although tensions 
can run high and voices can be raised”. It further says, “A debate is a discussion in 
which reasons are advanced for and against some proposition or proposal”. It is a 
fact that both pros and cons of a topic are discussed in detail in any debate.
Through debates, the learners acquire mastery over the content and conceptual 
knowledge while using the English language in a meaningful way. These debating 
activities enhance critical thinking and public language teaching , promote 
collaborative and autonomous learning, emphasize research skills, and promote 
positive thinking as well as assessment. Nesbitt asserts, "Debate is an important 
educational tool for learning analytic thinking skills and for forcing self-conscious 
reflection on the validity of one's ideas". Davidson further states, "With practice, 
many students show obvious progress in their ability to express and defend ideas in 
debate and they often quickly recognize the flaws in each other's arguments». 
Debates are one of the interactive public speaking activities that require a greater 
degree of organization.
Debates are generally held with a range from most common to highly 
structured ones with two or more participants in English classrooms. Learners can 
develop critical thinking throughout the debate activities. According to Yamashiro, 
“Debate is a method of performance assessment which taps many of the instructional 
goals of the language classroom”. Debates are used in the English classrooms as a 
tool to make language learners practise the skills of English language in real-life 
situations. According to Krieger, “Debate is an excellent activity for language 
learning because it engages students in a variety of cognitive and linguistic ways. In 
addition to providing meaningful listening, speaking and writing practice, debate is 
also highly effective for developing argumentation skills for persuasive speech and 
writing”

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Debates enhance the learners to acquire content as well as conceptual 
knowledge on the topics given. The topics that are to be explored include religious 
expression, cultural differences, peace education and diversity. The language 
teachers can include any of the controversial issues going on in the society. The 
teachers should encourage the learners to think of both positive and negative aspects 
of the given task to prepare arguments both for and against the topic. In this regard, 
Stroller states, “The preparation and participation in debate addresses the issue of 
opposing viewpoints and helps create ‘positive tension
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’”.
The teachers should not keep the classroom silent during the debate session, 
but they have to keep the classrooms always active, lively and noisy. Debbie 
Newman says, “We need a “noisy classroom” to advocate active roles for students 
through debating and similar communicative roles”. During these debate activities, 
the teachers have to act as facilitators whereas the learners collaborate and share 
ideas in groups in order to prepare arguments for and against the given topic. As 
these debates enhance the learners’ critical thinking and promote the learners in 
understanding the material of any subject, the English language teachers can 
continue the debate activities in their classrooms in order to increase learners’ 
engagement with the given material.
While using debates in the English language classroom contexts, there are 
many advantages for both the teachers and the learners as they develop incorporating 
critical thinking, public language teaching , research skills, reading skills such as 
skimming and scanning, the language skills listening, speaking, reading and writing, 
academic writing skills, vocabulary enhancement and so on. Discussions or Group 
Discussions ‘Discussions’ or ‘Group Discussions’ are one among the best ways of 
speech presentation and it is considered as an interesting form of oral practice in the 
English classroom. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, the definition 
of 'discussion' is, "The activity in which people talk about something and tell each 
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"Role-Play Simulation Exercises in Cultural Competence Training" edited by Yan Guo and Jennifer 
Ragsdale-Lowe, 2016, p-22

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other their ideas or opinions". In this context, Harmer says, “This can provide some 
of enjoyable and productive speaking in language classroom” 
According to Thornbury, “Many teachers would agree that the best 
discussions in class are those that arise spontaneously either because of something 
personal that a learner reports or because of a topic or a text in the course book 
triggers some debate”. Discussions play a very valuable role in seminars, lecture 
courses, studios, labs, quiz sessions and a variety of other settings. A well-planned 
and well-prepared discussion not only encourages the learners and stimulate their 
learning but also adds variety to the English classroom. Hence, the responsibility of 
the English language teachers is to encourage the students to prepare plans for the 
discussion such as establishing goals, the expectations from the students that they 
have to accomplish, clarifying and summarizing some key points during the 
discussion, developing a questioning strategy and choreographing group dynamics 
by involving the whole class.
Here the teachers have to divide the whole class into smaller groups where the 
learners have to deal with the same or different problems or questions. During this 
session, the teachers have to move around the class to check the progress of the 
students in preparing them for the discussions and give proper guidance and answer 
their questions whenever they need help by being themselves remaining neutral. 
Once the small groups complete the task of preparing notes for the discussion, the 
duty of the teacher is to reassemble the class and invite all the small groups to report 
and invite a healthy discussion on the reports. This skill improves the learners' 
speaking as well as reasoning and problem-solving skills.
The English language teachers should always encourage the learners to have 
healthy group discussions in their classrooms as they enhance the learners' 
proficiency and communication skills also. Mock Interviews In the present global 
market, getting opportunities has already become a nightmare for many of the job 
aspirants. The situation is clear today that there are very few jobs and the number of 
job seekers has been on increase by leaps and bounds. In this scenario, getting a right 
job for the qualifications has become a daydream. After completing their education 

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with good credentials, many of the well-educated young people are struggling for 
jobs as they have lack of oral communication skills. 
They struggle a lot at the interview stages and finally they remain jobless and 
blame the current education system. To overcome these problems, ‘Mock 
Interviews’ seem to be a good solution for them. A ‘Mock Interview’, also known 
as a ‘Practice Interview’, is a simulation of an actual job interview. It gives an 
opportunity to the job seekers to practise for the real interview and gives proper 
feedback to them. It is just like a practice interview held with a professional career 
counsellor. With the advent of mock interviews, the job aspirants have many 
advantages like answering difficult questions, improving their communication skills, 
developing interview strategies and even reducing their stress before they face the 
real or actual job interviews
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.
The main technique used in these mock interviews is that the questions are 
asked using the semi-structured method of interview rather than asking using the 
regular formal structured questions from the list that have been prepared in advance. 
These questions are asked depending on their qualifications and the jobs that they 
have applied for. So it is the duty of the counsellor to train them to be successful in 
the real interview and give proper training to them until they hit the winning pole. 
After giving a proper training for the interview, some consultancies arrange 
interviews by inviting the subject experts of the interview board to arrange for the 
real sample interviews. With the advantage of these mock interviews, the candidates’ 
confidence levels boost a lot and there is a possibility for them to perform well in 
the real interviews.
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"Role-Play Simulation Exercises in Cultural Competence Training" edited by Yan Guo and Jennifer 
Ragsdale-Lowe, 2016, p-22

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