Analysing teacher talk in remote stories

1) Choose a short personal story or anecdote that you could tell the class and prepare to tell it as a remote story (see the transcript of one I used with an upper-intermediate group below) Identify up to ten chunks of language that you would expect to use in your telling.  For the story below I used the following; I’d just finished work, a twenty pound note, wearing pyjamas, have you got any change?, not allowed on, a stripy shirt, by a hospital

2) Tell the class the topic (in this case something that happened on a bus) and that you’re going to dictate some chunks of language from the story. As you’re dictating encourage the learners to look at each others’ work while they’re writing (if they're in the same space as each other), so that they can help each other with understanding and spellings. Make the process as interactive as possible by stopping mid chunk (or even mid word) where possible and taking suggestions as to how it might continue.

 Eg.  T: I’d just finished…what comes next?

SS: lunch

T: No

SS: work

T: Yes. I’d just finished work

 Or…

 T: wearing p..

SS: wearing pants

T: No, wearing pyj…                                          

SS: pyjamas  etc…..

3) When you’ve finished dictating, ask the learners to work together (in breakout rooms if in lockdown mode) and try to orally reconstruct what the story might be, using as many of the chunks as possible.

4) Bring everyone back together and invite one or two people to say what they think the story could be in plenary.

 5) Now tell the original story to the class. Don’t worry about making sure that you use all of the dictated chunks of language. It’s more important that the story is told in a way that it is natural for you. Press the record function on Zoom as you start telling the story and stop recording when you finish, so it can be easily played back to the class for further analysis.

 6) Ask the class to retell the story in small groups.

 7) Screen share or audio share the recording that you made earlier, stopping immediately after any noteworthy language comes up and asking learners to identify what has just been said. This can then be written up on Zoom's virtual background or on a mini whiteboard if one is available. With a more reflective class the learners could take control of this process themselves with you joining in only  to provide further support or correction at the end.

Transcript of the story as told by Nick

OK, so.. em, this happened to me..a couple of months ago. I used to work at a university in Plymouth called Marjon University and I’d just finished work and I had to get a bus to the station to get home and I went over to the bus stop and the bus stop is by a hospital and I was really tired. I’d had a busy day and I was just thinking, ‘I want to get home’ and I only had a twenty pound note, and in England it’s often really hard to get change on buses – I don’t know if it’s like that in Austria? You get on a bus, you know, with a twenty pound note, and the driver might say, ‘I’m sorry I’ve got no change’ and you have to go round all the other people on the bus and see if you can get some change. Anyway I was kind of dreading getting on this bus ‘Cos I thought, ‘Oh, he’s not going to give me any change’ Anyway I got on and I said to the driver ‘Oh I’m sorry I’ve only got twenty pounds, a twenty pound note. Have you got any change?’ And the driver said ‘Yes, I have got some change but you’re not allowed on the bus. And I said ‘What?’ He said ‘I’m sorry, you’re not allowed on the bus’ I’ve had problems with this before. You’re not allowed on the bus’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I’m not going to let anyone on the bus who’s wearing pyjamas!’

‘What?! I’m not wearing pyjamas!’ I was wearing a black, actually I was wearing that black coat that I arrived in, sort of mac, and underneath I was wearing a stripy shirt and I said ‘Well, I’m not wearing pyjamas!’ and I took my coat off and said, ‘Look, look it’s just a shirt!’ and he said ‘Oh, OK that’s fine you can get on’ and I said, ‘But why..why aren’t you..what’s the issue with pyjamas anyway? What’s the problem? And as I said, this was by a hospital and apparently this had happened lots of times that people had discharged themselves from the hospital so people in their beds had quickly sort of escaped from the hospital and jumped on a bus, so he’d been told very strictly not to let anyone on if they were wearing pyjamas. 

 Notes This activity can be usefully followed up by asking learners to tell their own stories related to the theme (bus stories in this case) but it’s important to make the most of the richness of language data that can come out of even a short recording like this, by not moving too quickly into language production. As the teacher of a particular class you are the best person to be able to pitch the level of such a story so that it is comprehensible yet challenging for the group, and contains language worth noticing for them.