Teaching language as oral communication: Everyday life performance in foreign language instruction

Abstract

The present essay reports an investigation in oral communication across the curriculum. In this case, the researcher recommends performance‐based communication instruction within foreign language classes. This study demonstrates how a procedure rooted in oral communication called Everyday Life Performance might serve as a useful tool for other fields of instruction such as foreign language teaching. Everyday Life Performance, or ELP, is a method for performing naturally occurring conversation in which on‐stage actors recreate scenes from everyday life. The results of this project reveal that by rehearsing Everyday Life Performance in a foreign language students are shown to reduce errors in the categories of pronunciation, grammar, and fluency. The results also suggest that Everyday Life Performance helps rapidly train the eyes, ears, and tongues of beginning Spanish language students, bringing them closer to the level of more advanced students. Finally, the paper discusses implications of Everyday Life Performance for oral communication across the curriculum programs.

Keywords:

• Everyday Life Performance
• communication across the curriculum
• Spanish
• foreign language
• language teaching
• error correction