Leaving the Room: An Introduction to Theme-Based Oral English
Stewart Wachs Associate Professor

"A traveler in a foreign land best learns the names of people and places, how to express ideas, ways to carry on a conversation by moving around in the culture, participating as fully as he can, making mistakes, saying things half right, blushing, then being encouraged by a friendly native speaker to try again. He`ll pick up the details of grammar and usage as he goes along. What he must not do is hold back from the teeming flow of life, must not sit in his hotel room and drill himself on all possible gaffes before entering the street. He`d never leave the room." --Mike Rose1)
The paralysis of which Rose warns, an enmeshing obsession with getting things right, is the standard product of far too many English classrooms here in Japan. Leaving the room --if not in body, then just as vitally, in heart and mind-- is the functional goal of theme-based oral English, a kind of content-based instruction in which students use English (instead of merely drilling) to learn more about themselves, their classmates, and people who live in English-speaking societies. In the theme-based classroom, students tend to get so involved in a topic that they are apt to forget where they are and don`t even notice when the school bell begins to ring.
The first principle of the theme-based method is simply to always work with a theme. What is meant by theme is a topic or subject ripe with potential for discussion, which English activities can revolve around and exploit for its language potential. Most traditional lessons are bereft of such content, moving instead through functions and situations with little or no cohesiveness, and all too often, scant relevance to students` real lives. In drill-based classes, even those based on so-called communicative practice, most continuity, if any, is based on tenses, structures, or vocabulary. By contrast, in a theme-based program of lessons, such linguistic concerns operate far less conspicuously. Students focus on meaning instead, and while improved accuracy remains a goal, it takes a back seat to fluency, a crucial developmental skill which has hitherto been largely ignored. Error is encouraged as a valuable sign of fresh effort, of straining against the limits of one`s knowledge --in short, as a sign of possible growth.
In the Japanese university, where oral English classes normally meet once a week, a thematic unit might run for two or three lessons --long enough to explore the topic but brief enough to guarantee that interest will not flag. Students` interest, and with it motivation, increases in direct proportion to the relevance of the activities presented,2) and when their own ideas and feelings are courted, when their experiences, opinions, and knowledge are valued as the essential glue of the whole course syllabus, their participation in the course is virtually assured. A sample unit might clarify how such student input works as an element of content.
One unit I teach to university juniors is based on the theme of "marriage". Even the calling of the class roll, which begins the lesson, is tied into the theme: Five short items are written on the blackboard:
_________ got married to _________ _________ got marriaged to _________ (with a line drawn though it to indicate that it is a mistake) _________ married _________ _________ will marry _________ _________ is married to _________
When students` names are called, instead of responding with "Here," they reply by completing aloud one of the four correct items, noting as well the commonplace error in the second. Kaori may tell us that her sister married a doctor; Ken may predict that Kaori will marry one, too. The variations are endless, and students are encouraged to speak from their own lives (or, if they wish, from their imaginations or senses of humor) and to listen carefully to one another, for the teacher may ask them to report what someone has said. This brief activity, which uses only a few moments more than a typical, meaningless roll call, can teach a new word, the use of a verb, structure, or pronunciation. It is also useful for forging a sense of the class as a distinct community; other activities, which divide the class into smaller groups, are aided by those few which glue the whole together.
Following roll call is a major fluency activity intended to stimulate students` critical thinking. It starts them exchanging opinions on marriage "from the outside in" (by first talking about people outside their society), easing their transition toward a more personal discussion to be held later on with partners they may not know well. The lesson begins with a 12-minute video mini-documentary about the "Moscow Connection" marriage bureau, an agency which links women who want to leave Russia with British men who are seeking wives. The video includes some startling scenes which students always interpret in a fascinating variety of ways. One of the would-be British husbands, for example, is seen bossily ordering his Russian bride (