Disfluencies and Fillers
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Skills: Level: Class Size: |
Speaking and listening Any 6 or more players |
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Objective
Disfluencies and fillers is an activity that can help learners to become more aware of their "ums", "ahs" and other language oddities when they speak.
Although we cannot eliminate fillers and disfluencies in normal speech, this activity can also help a learner become more mindful of sentences that are cut off, or phrases that are restarted or repeated. This efl/esl activity is adapted from speechcraft, a public speaking activity.
See Also: Speechcraft
Instructions
1. Divide the class into small groups with three or more students, and have members of each group alternate between the roles of "counter" and "timer".
2. Ask your students to brainstorm speaking topics for their groups. The topics should be interesting and can relate to anything from work, to travel, to history and so on. Once topics have been chosen, ask the students to practice speaking for 1 minute without using the fillers "um", "ah" or "er" on any of the chosen topics.
2. In the second round, the group alternates between "counter" and "timer". The timer must time each speaker for 1 minute. The "catcher" should silently count how many times the "um", "ah" or "er" filler was used. The average filler for each group is reported back to the teacher when all the groups have spoken. Work out the class average based upon this result.
5. In third round, players lose points for every "um", "er" and "ah" filler used.