CALL FOR TECHNIQUE FORM

Name of Presenter : Elvina Wahyuni Permata

Branch/JOB : LB Lia Galaxy

Name of Technique : All Ears

Stages : While (Additional)

Procedures

The All Ears technique is aimed to promote a more real-life conversation to

students so that they are used to giving spontaneous and appropriate responses.
With this technique, students will also naturally show their sympathy and express
other emotions as in real communication. At first, teacher splits the class into
groups of 3-4 students and give each group a pack of playing cards to be
arranged in a stack faced down. After that, teacher informs the topic of
conversation to students and lets them prepare themselves for 2-3 minutes.
Teacher then asks the first speaker of every group to start speaking, while the
other members are supposed to listen attentively and respond appropriately.
Responders can take one card every time they respond to the speaker, so the
more they respond, the higher their score could be. However, if responders get a
joker card, they have to return all of their cards to the stack and start collecting
the cards all over again. To anticipate students from giving only short responses
such as ‘Oh, I see’ and ‘Great’, teachers may vary the minimum number of
sentences that is worth one card. Thus, the level of difficulty can be adjusted to
students’ level of proficiency. After the first speakers have done their part, the
other members take turns to be the speaker. Teacher needs to limit the time for
every speaker so that they do not run out of speaking materials and make it
boring. At the end, teacher asks students to accumulate the number shown on their
cards (not the number of their cards) as their final score. Rewards and
consequences can be given to motivate students and appreciate their effort.

Success Story

This technique has been proven successful in many classes including

intermediate, higher intermediate, and CV levels. I started using this technique as
students did not show interests in what their friends said. In general, students tend to
speak based on the scripts provided in the book or by the teacher. They practice the
conversations and focus only on how to say their sentences correctly, without any
efforts to internalize the information they get. They do not use English to communicate
but solely to get a score, and it is very obvious, especially during the assessment part.
Unfortunately, that also happened in my classes.
Students performed a conversation, but they were not engaged. They paused
when they forgot what to say. They showed the same no-facial-expression face when
responding to sad and exciting stories. Also, they did not vary their intonation to
express surprise and sympathy. Another time, one kept asking, while the other kept
answering. They were like robots, and I did not think it was right. I wanted my students
to experience using English in real communication, for the main use of a language is to
communicate. Therefore, I tried to find a way to make my students get completely
engaged in a conversation and communicate by using English, without trying to
memorize any words. Did it work? Yes.
I let my students do the All Ears technique, and, surprisingly, they not only
proved that they can communicate in English but also improved their relationship with
their friends. They enthusiastically listened and responded to their friends’ story or
statement. They also showed appropriate expressions and naturally differentiate their
intonation while responding. My students then understood better how to appreciate
their speaking partner which can be seen in the assessment. I once got a HI3 class with
low students’ proficiency. The students needed a very long time to answer every time I
asked a question, and they were not close to each other. To motivate them to speak, I
used this technique, and they spoke better than usual, although not grammatically
accurate. They also showed interests, gave comments, and asked questions to their
friends.
I still use this technique now, and it works most of the time. It works best with
advanced and cooperative students. However, I have also proven its effectiveness with
students who have lower proficiency. It livens up your class, improves your students’
relationship, and most importantly enhances your students interpersonal and speaking
skills.