Abstract:

Oral language is one of the most important basic competences and, at the same time, one of the most forgotten in teaching. Conversation is a natural way of interaction. However, beyond everyday speech, oral language includes different types of registers which need a specific way of learning and teaching.

In relation with this field, CEFRL highlights the need to dispose activities, tools and strategies in the classroom to develop oral competence. Thus, it establishes three types of oral activities: expression (message production for a group of listeners), interaction (alternation between speaker and listener which implies information exchange) and mediation (translation or interpretation of a message for speakers who do not understand each other).

As specialists in Language Teaching, we wonder if the actual Spanish Primary School course books follow the instructions of CEFRL and present activities which belong to the three categories mentioned.

Therefore, this paper analyses in depth the speaking activities included in Primary school course books with the aim of studying if they actually promote communication as it is defined in the CEFRL. Several Spanish language course books from 3rd and 4th years of Primary Education were selected and considered for the analysis. Oral activities were classified according to criteria proposed by experts and by the CEFRL and the official Curriculum from Valencian Community: oral expression, oral interaction and language mediation. Within each broad category, activities were also classified according to their type, such as answering questions, oral presentation, reading aloud or interviews.

On the one hand, preliminary results show that expression one-to-one activities were predominant over interaction or mediation tasks, being oral presentation in front of an audience and reading aloud the most common type of activity. On the other hand, course books did not include such a variety of oral activities as the ones suggested by the CEFRL and by the official Curriculum from Valencian Community. This study may help teachers to understand the need to diversify the oral language proposals, highlighting interaction and mediation activities.

Keywords:

Language Teaching, Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Oral Skills, Assessment, Primary Education.