6 Observe the situation you record and make notes about it as soon as you
can. Many important aspects of a situation are lost in a recording. Even if
your learners will work from the recording alone, you still need notes to
maximize your own understanding of what went on. Your observation notes
can also be the basis for a written introduction to the spoken text your learners
are to work with.
7 Observe other similar situations. This can give you an idea of the
typicality of your data and also help you to understand it better. For example,
if you record a tutorial in a particular institution, observing other tutorials
will give you a more informed perspective on the language you have
recorded.
8 Talk to insiders about your data. This tip particularly applies if you are
working with language with which you yourself are unfamiliar: for example,
a specialized technical presentation or written report. Subject specialists can
help you to understand the communicative purposes which underlie the
language, and perhaps suggest other related situations that you could record.
9 Consider setting up a situation. If you want more general examples of
spontaneous spoken interaction, you can obtain these by putting speakers
together and asking them to carry out a task; for example, ask about each
other’s families, remember and then report back. Some well-known modern
coursebooks use exactly this technique. It’s a good way of getting
spontaneous data under fairly controlled conditions. You could also ask
speakers to carry out some of the tasks in your learners’ coursebook;
learners may be very interested to compare their performance with that of
the speakers you record.
10 Consider using broadcast sources. There are some situations that you will
never be able to record, for reasons of practicality and confidentiality:
doctor-patient interviews for example. TV or film dramatizations of these
events do have at least some language features in common with the ‘real
thing’, and could be exploited in teaching. You will, of course, need to
check copyright regulations before using broadcast material in teaching.
11 Transcribe your recording. You will probably find this quite difficult the
first time you do it, and you will need to listen to the recording several times.
But it’s an essential step if you are going to exploit the data you have
collected. Try and get down all the words of each speaker, including
hesitations, false starts, ums and ahs, etc.22 Exploiting authentic written texts
The term ‘authentic’ can, of course, be controversial. Here we use it in its
simplest sense, to refer to texts originally produced for a purpose other than
language learning. Many teachers choose to work with such texts; they can help
to give learners a general wide exposure, or they may be needed as a response to
LANGUAGE WORK IN THE CLASSROOM 41