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Activities for teaching spoken grammar

Since characteristics of spoken grammar serve important interpersonal and commu- nicative functions that help speakers deal with the interactive and real-time nature of conversation, it is critical to incorporate their instruction in communicative language class-

rooms. However, as most EFL textbooks con- tain inauthentic texts lacking many features of spoken grammar and usually do not explicitly address numerous features of spoken gram- mar (Cullen and Kuo 2007), many language teachers struggle with teaching them. Follow- ing are specific activities teachers can utilize to instruct students on ellipsis, heads and tails, fillers and backchannels, and phrasal chunks. These activities focus on raising awareness of spoken grammar, practicing spoken grammar features, utilizing authentic materials (such as videos), and using explicit instruction and dis- cussion to sensitize students to varying degrees of appropriateness in different social contexts.

Spoken English activities for ellipsis

A number of activities and games can be utilized to introduce and practice situational ellipsis.