1.

The Role of English in Myanmar

In Myanmar, the role of English can be safely addressed as a foreign language, as almost everyone does not speaks and write in English in their daily life and our official and mother tongue for everyone in Myanmar is Burmese (Myanmar). Generally speaking, English is taught especially for academic purposes: to be able to handle long written assignments and to comprehend long and complex reading texts in English. However, nowadays, as many foreign companies are interested to invest their business and industries in Myanmar as they want to exploit the labor-force of Myanmar and as the growth of tourism industry is soaring up and it becomes the main business for country, people come to realize the need of oral competency in English is demanding to communicate with the tourists and employers from foreign countries. Moreover, during these days, as the interest of doing further studies in abroad is increasing among high school and university graduated students, the purposes of learning and teaching English are not merely to be able to read and write in English, but also to be able to communicate orally in English.

2. The background of the schools

In this paper, since how speaking skill should be taught in high school is emphasized, in this section, the background of school is explained: what kind of syllabus or materials and methods it is using now and whether that syllabus, which high schools are using, can fulfill students needs for learning English. In high schools, there are 5 periods of English classes per weeks and each period is 45 minutes and the emphasis of teaching English is to provide students with linguistics competencies, rather than communicative competencies. Additionally, the current syllabus that high schools are using is based on structural approach

so that materials focus more on grammar-patterns, competency in reading and writing skills, not on the speaking and listening skills. Furthermore, the current teaching method is still influenced by the behaviorism, which views language learning as the formation of habits, teachers introduce new target languages, such as sentence structures and grammar patterns, through substitution tables, controlled and guided constructions. All sentence structures and grammar patterns are taught in isolated sentences without any meaningful context. Therefore, it is found that high school students creative thinking skill is very low as they have been restricted their creativities and ability to use the language in meaningful context. Not only that, the current teaching method is very teacher-centered, that is to say, there is very few interaction between teacher and students as well as between students. Additionally, it is customary in Myanmar that majority of teachers who are teaching English in primary, secondary and high schools use only mother-tongue as medium of instruction. The main possible reason for using mother-tongue is that teachers are not proficient enough in English as they are also used to be taught by structural and habitformation approach, which focuses on the linguistic competencies. As the purposes of students learning English are now moving towards the competency in oral communication, there is an increasing demand that the current teaching materials should include teaching oral communication. Moreover, if the currents teaching materials are modified in order to fulfill the needs of the students, there should be a good training for the teachers, who are teaching in high schools, to be more proficient in oral communication in English and to be familiar with the communicative language teaching approach. In next section, the background of the students will be discussed.

3. The background of students

The average age of high school students are normally 15-16 years old. They have been learned English through form-focused, not meaning-focused, and habit-formation teaching strategies for over ten years. Therefore, these students can build grammatically correct basic sentences and write simple 100 words essays in English and comprehend short texts which include familiar words; however, they can only produce the sentences, which they have been recited through substitution drills and they cannot expressing their own utterance in real world. That is to say, they are lacking the ability of basic oral communication in English as they are not given opportunities to practice speaking skills in class. According to Common European Framework, I assume that the students reading and writing proficiency level could be B1 as it is mentioned in A Teachers Guide to the Common European Framework that students can understand texts which include mainly of high frequency everyday or job-related language, the description of events, feelings and wishes in personal letters, Students can write simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest and personal letters describing experiences and impression. However, their speaking and listening proficiency level could be A1 as it is mentioned that Students can recognize familiar words and very basic phrases concerning themselves, their family and immediate concrete surroundings when people speak slowly and clearly and Students can interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help them formulate what they are trying to say and they can ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need or very familiar topics ( A Teachers Guide to the Common European Framework) Therefore in this paper, my interest is to develop a set of materials which can fulfill the need of fluency in basic oral communication for these students and can enhance their speaking proficiency level from A1 to A2.

4. The rationale of developing this material

As I mentioned above, the demand of oral communication is greater, as there is an increasing need to communicate with foreign employers and tourist and to do further studies in English speaking countries. Moreover, I found that teaching speaking and listening skills is lacking in the current syllabus and textbooks, which means that these syllabus and textbook cannot cater the need of the students to learn English. Moreover, to my understanding, speaking and listening skills are the most basic skills as many researchers point out that people spend 45-50% of their daily life on listening speaking. Therefore, I assume that, even in the EFL context, teaching speaking and listening should be involved. However, in this paper, I just focus on teaching speaking skill. To summarize, the rationale of creating this material are: To fulfill the current need of competency in oral communication in society To support the need to cover teaching speaking skill in the current textbook

In next session, the theoretical approach for developing this material will be explained.

5. The theoretical approach for developing this material

It cannot be denied that the current teaching approach is comparable with the traditional approach, in which teacher teach language itself, rather than how to use language. The forms are presented in isolation, without the meaningful context and explanation of where and how to use. Therefore, what happening to the students is that, even though they know the language, they do not know how and where to use it, and even sometimes they may use language inappropriately. However, to develop this material, I have observed different approaches and theories. Among them, I assume that functional approach can provide remedial teaching for the
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students because functionalists view language as a vehicle of expression of functional meaning. (Richards, 2001, pg. 21). Therefore, it can safely say that, according to functional approach, the meaning and communication is the main focus, which means that specific forms and sentence patterns have meaning and function. Moreover, Stern (1978) claimed that the communicative competence comprises competence in both form and function of that form. Therefore, based on his claim, it makes me realize that certain functions make up of certain forms, which is so-called speech-acts, for instance, when we make request, we use specific forms, such as Would you mind.?, Could you?, rather than I request you . Moreover, Halliday also claims that Linguistics.is concerned with the description of speech acts or texts, since only through the study of language in use are all the functions of language, and therefore all components of meaning brought into focus ( Halliday, 1970).Thus, in this case of developing this material, I first choose the function, and then I consider the forms that will appear in that function. So it can say that I propose the meaning first in my material, but the form is later, in order to scaffold students to produce intended meaning accurately. Furthermore, as my material focuses on the meaning and function, I will present the target language in meaningful context, instead of isolated and meaningless context, so that, in order to provide meaningful context, the meaning-based exercises and activities, which cater the interaction between students, such as role play, information-gap and discussion. Moreover, I understand that there must be an interaction between a speaker and one or more than one listeners in order to achieve a meaningful conversation. Therefore, to teach oral communication effectively, I assume that there must be a meaningful interaction in the classroom. This assumption is actually based on the

interactionism, which is one of the theories of second language acquisition. The researchers of theory claimed that interaction can give rise to comprehensible input. This comprehensible input enhances language acquisition. Therefore, interaction can provide language acquisition.(Light Brown and Spada 1999) Through the interaction, students will negotiate the meaning; absorb the target language and produce the language while carrying out the certain tasks cooperatively. Hence, in developing this material, I put some of role-play, group discussion, and pair work problemsolving activities, which can provide the opportunity for students to interact and communicate.

6. The organization of material

When this topic of assignment has been chosen, I observed many teaching ELT materials, which are currently and internationally trendy, such as New Headway by Liz and John Soars, Fifty-Fifty by Warren Wilson and Roger Barnard, Passages and New Interchange by Jack C. Richards, Spectrum by Sharon Abrams, David P. Rein, and Donald R.H. Byrd. The observation of these materials provides the criteria for developing material for basic oral communication for high school students. Among these materials, the New Interchange by Jack C. Richards become an ideal material because it is found that, in Myanmar, most of private language schools are now using Interchange series as the main materials to teach English especially for the communicating purposes and learning and teaching English in these schools are productive. Therefore, I refer the way of organizing New Interchange to develop the material for basic oral communication for high school students. Nevertheless, the difference is that New Interchanged is an integrated, multi-skills syllabus which includes topics, communicative functions, grammar, four language skills, pronunciation and vocabulary (Richards, 1998),
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whereas the material that I am developing links functions, grammar, speaking, vocabulary and pronunciation; but, very small amount of attention is given to listening skill. That is to say, students will listen to model conversation and find out some specific information while they are listening; but, the main focus of this material is still speaking skill. The aim and objectives of the material are: Aim To develop students basic oral communication skills Objectives Students can take part in short conversation. Students will learn how to start and end the conversation in English. Students will learn intonation of wh-questions and statement and word stress. Students can introduce themselves and someone, ask and give directions and instructions in English. The material is sequenced in following way: Exercise 1. Word power Purpose To develop students vocabulary which are related to the model conversation. To make students ability to use the vocabulary in meaningful context. 2. Warm up To introduce the topic of the model conversation To give opportunity for students to discuss

and develop their imaginary.

3. Conversation

To introduce new functions and grammar points To provide model language expressions for students to practice To make students aware of some cultural difference

4. Pronunciation

To help students speak naturally To practice some phonological features, such as stress, rising and falling intonation in speech

5. Activity Pair work Group work Class activity

To provide meaningful opportunity for students to practice target language

6. Teachers guide

To suggest possible strategies to teach these two units To provide answer keys