Today, as never before, the teacher has access to an extremely wide array of materials claiming to foster language development. The language in this context can mean anything from oral language learning to appraisal skills for English literature.

This paper, however, will deal specifically with the acquisition of oral language and can be applied either to a first or second language learning context.

As teachers, we will have a personal expectation of the level of competence to be achieved by our students. Our expectations may decrease or increase according to the responses of our students over a period of time.