Masaryk university, brno faculty of education

Evaluation of the activity 
The activity could be divided into several stages concerning the development of fluency skills. 
During the pairwork, the aim was fulfilled among all the students, as everybody expressed some 
idea and this idea was backed by relevant arguments. On the other hand, during the work in 
larger groups, the aim fulfilment was partly in danger, because the conversations were led only 
by the stronger and more talkative students. The weaker and shier students tried to avoid 
discussing and had to be encouraged to actively participate and contribute with their ideas. 
Students used a wide range of vocabulary and grammar structures to provide their ideas, 
arguments and counterarguments. A big advantages for weaker students was the repeating 

---

41 
character of the activity, further stages of the activity, they could use the utterances and ideas 
which had already been used before. This resulted in safer speaking environment even for the 
weaker students and better conditions for development of speaking fluency skills. 
As far as speaking self-confidence and motivation are concerned, the aims can also be 
considered to be fulfilled. It is believed that providing arguments and reacting on other people‘s 
arguments leads to growth of students‘ self-cofidence regarding speaking skills. Furthermore, 
even weaker students had an opportunity to improve their self-confidence, as they were allowed 
to use or paraphrase other opinions without inventing anything new. This can be seen as one of 
the ways how to improve speaking self-confidence as well. Students seemed to be motivated 
during the activity, which might have been caused by the fact that they were advocating their 
own ideas and were thus personally involved in the activity. There had been a motivation drop 
during the later stages of the activity, resulting from the fact that some of the students had been 
advocating ideas which were not their own and they did not share the same opinion. 
After this activity, students had activated vocabulary related to travelling and had been given 
an opportunity to practise giving opinions and negotiating.
The overall atmosphere in the lesson was rather friendly and productive, despite the fact that at 
the end, students were not able to reach agreement. The structure of the activity was seen as 
something new for the students and they seemed to be enjoying it.
5.3.7 Round Table