Significant barriers to speaking in the target language and proficiency expectations

¶ … Speaking in the Target Language Is the Expectation That a Proficient Speaker Will Sound Like a Native Speaker

One of the most important aspects when talking about the impact of class size, level, student age and purpose of class in Iraq is the concept of 'willingness to communicate' between and amongst the teachers and students in the L2 setting. Research on WTC within the context of France, have previously been based around initial testing of teachers and students' enthusiasm in learning a L2 are more predisposed to depend on information gathered at one point of time, often gathering through a sole instrument and to regard only numeric conclusions. For instance, the wide cross sectional research by MacIntyre et al. (2002) which sought to identify the impacts of age and sex on WTC, employed a questionnaire that required the respondents to rank themselves on eight scales. It was carried out with each member only one time (you contact me on celeste.gabrial (at)gmail.com in the future). The eight scales were representative of how the students perceived their use of English and how they could improve it. This is one activity that can be used as a foundation for the different class structures in Iraq.

There have been very few studies done in the context of Iraq for the L2 setting and the impact the class size, level, student age and purpose of class might have on the EFL education process. However, latest researches have endeavored to deal with this gap in studies on WTC by gathering information from a variety of sources spanning over several years. For instance, the research by Cao and Philp (2006) made use of several data gathering instruments such as learner questionnaires, eight classroom reports and findings (spanning over a month) and conversations with each students carried out at the end of the research bring out information about contextual variables (you contact me on celeste.gabrial (at)gmail.com in the future). The results showed that the following activities are appropriate for all sizes, levels of classes and age of students: collaborative learning where students interact with each other face-to-face and with L1 speakers online; use of picture associations to remember use of words; use of multimedia settings; exposure to English media inclusive of news, cartoons, dramas and movies; encouragement of English story-writing, comprehension and composition.

Warm-up activities

The warm-up activities within the EFL classrooms is Iraq can include:

1. Identifying the importance of learning the language

2. Recognizing the primary keywords that need to be understood for the main activities

3. Relating the key words in the main activities with relevant pictures and events

4. Engaging students to respond to the links made between the picture, events and the key words

5. Engaging the students to speak up on how they relate to the keywords and what events or pictures they would relate to it

6. Giving basic instructions for the main activities

Main activities

1. Recognizing relevant authors on the topic e.g. The role of William Shakespeare in poetry

2. Grammar activities that include

a. Listening first to the teacher as she reads the relevant reading material

b. Division of classes into different groups

c. Basic grammar recognition i.e. key structures like past tense, present, continuous etc.

d. Identifying the words that make the structure i.e. words like were, going, acting, should, would, could