Name: Hyeonseong Shin

Date: October 27, 2015

Title: Fundamental Characteristics of Spoken Language
Context: TESOL Conversation Methodologies
Description of Artifact:
I obtained this artifact from TESOL Conversation Methodologies. This artifact is
basically the summary of some parts of the textbook. Because my instructor, Reza Bahrami,
wanted me to be aware of fundamental features of spoken language, he gave me this artifact.
This artifact includes some spoken language features that make conversation sound natural; for
example,

Prefabricated chunks (e.g. see you later, set the table)

Discourse Markers

Backchannel Devices (e.g. uh-huh)

Ellipsis (e.g. sound great!)

Vagueness Expression (e.g. sort of, kind of, stuff, something like that)

New ideas, information, or awareness from this artifact:

I think that it is important to be aware of the features of real conversation and spoken
language, in particular, in learning conversation. This is because classroom activities should as
far as possible mirror the real world and use real world or authentic sources as the basis for
classroom learning (Richards, 2006). When students learn the authentic conversation in learning
environment, they will be able to communicate successfully with others in real world. It is one of
the keys to increase their fluency. For example, the vagueness expressions (e.g. kind of, stuff, or
thing) are used frequently in speaking situation. If the teacher teaches them, not only will

students not be confused when they hear those expressions in real conversation, but also their
speaking sounds natural when they use those expressions during their conversation.
Reflection on how this will impact your approach to teaching and learning:
This artifact has influenced so much on my idea about how to teach conversation and
speaking. Before I obtained this artifact, I concerned how I could teach speaking following the
CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) whose goal is to develop fluency in language use
(Larsen-Freeman and Anderson, 2011). However, when I got this artifact, I finally figured out
how I should teach conversation and speaking. In my future class, in order to make the
conversation natural and realistic, I will try to teach and to give some ideas about spoken
language features. For example, when students are doing role-play, I will ask them to put these
features in the dialog. Also, if I teach the designed conversation from the textbook, I will edit and
put some spoken language features in the conversation so that students would notice and would
be aware the features naturally.

References
Richards, J. (2006). Classroom Activities in Communicative Language Teaching. In
Communicative Language Teaching Today. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Larsen-Freeman, D., & Anderson, M. (2011). In Techniques and principles in Language
Teaching. New York, N.Y., USA: Oxford University Press.