Being Ben - A Keep Talking Activity

 I have mentioned in other posts (Assessing Speaking) the activity called, "Being Ben". I squeezed in a quick explanation, but I think its importance in how I develop spontaneous speaking means it deserves a post of its own.

Ben was in Year 8 or Year 9 when he invented it. Going by his LinkedIn profile (he is now a business analyst and cricketer) this must have been in about 2002. He said to me, "Sir, I can't think up what to say and say it in Spanish. If you tell me what to say, I can say it."

So that's what we did. We worked in pairs. One partner said short chunks in English. The other had to say it in Spanish. It had to be an answer that extended and developed, not separate isolated sentences. The rule was that if the pupil "Being Ben" couldn't say it, it wasn't their fault, it was their partner's fault for trying to make them say something they couldn't.

I mean answers that happen in short chunks but which take the idea on:

Me gusta el deporte... sobre todo si puedo jugar en un equipo... por ejemplo juego al criquet para Fakenham... pero no me gusta la educación física en el instituto... porque tengo que jugar al rugby... y odio el rugby... Prefiero el criquet. Jugaba al criquet el fin de semana pasado. No ganamos pero me encanta jugar.

You will notice that each chunk tends to start with a conjunction - pupils get very good at this from the conjunctions dice game.

So firstly, it was useful for getting pupils to successfully practise saying lots of Spanish. Ben was right. If you remove the cognitive load of having to think up what to say, then you can be much more successful in speaking Spanish. In fact it turned out that doing the Spanish was the easy part of the equation.

So secondly, it turned out to be a way of practising much harder skills of pitching the content. Thinking up what to say, and then what to say next. Making it coherent and convincing. Pitching it so that you are using Spanish you do know. Pitching it so that you hit the required level of sophistication.

The activity works well at all stages of learning. You can do it with a Keep Talking sheet in front of you. If you do the activity with a series of different partners, then it works very well. Because each partner will be challenging you to say something different. And you get to hone your version of what you ask your partners to say. As you work with more partners, you can be less and less dependent on the sheet. The early 2000s was just when Speed Dating was hitting the UK, so we called this Speed Spanish.

As learners make progress, it is also important to use the activity without the sheet. This is where the job of pitching the answer really comes in. And it has an important role in pupils' awareness of their own repertoire - how all their language fits together and how the language works.

I also use it at A Level, rebranded as Simultaneous Translation. When your sixth formers seem unable to speak Spanish or start making basic errors, it may be that the cognitive load of thinking what to say as well as how to say it, is too much at this point. And both sides of the equation need practising separately. And in fact it turns out that thinking up what to say is the difficult part. So thanks, Ben, for making this clear all those years ago. Your invention has helped me and many pupils. You should add it to your CV!