Ingredients for Successful Communicative Tasks by Steven Tait,
M.Ed. TESOL Most of us recognize that communicative activities
are great opportunities for learning. But what goes in to making
a communicative activity a success? The truth is, the success of
communicative pair and group work activities is almost always
determined by the work the teacher does before the students
begin the activity itself. This includes both what is done by
the teacher before the class starts and what is done in class to
set up the task. Before looking at the role of the teacher, it
might be worth clarifying what is meant by "communicative
activities". These are fluency-based activities. While such
activities may involve students practicing a particular
grammatical form, they are likely to do more than this. The key
element is that the activity is based around a realistic
situation. This could be anything from an encounter in a
department store, to a group of friends discussing holiday
plans. Within this kind of context, the stude