Speaking is the skill that the Ss will be judged upon most in real-life situations. It is an important part of everyday interaction and most often the first impression of a person is based on his/ her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly. Speaking is a skill, just like riding a bike, swimming, or playing the musical instruments.
When two people are engaged in talking to each other, they are doing so for good reasons.
(1) They want to say something. (They feel the need to speak.)
(2) They have some communicative purpose. (To charm the listeners; to give some information; to express their feeling; to agree or complain…)
(3) They select from their language store. (Speakers have an infinite capacity to create new sentences the language they think is appropriate for this purpose.)
(4) They want to listen to ‘something’.
(5) They are interested in the communicative purpose of what is being said.
(6) They process a variety of language.
(1) Maximum foreign talk: Ss talk a lot in the target language.
(2) Even participation: all get a chance to speak.
(3) High motivation: interesting topics, clear objectives, difficult level of the tasks
(4) Right/Acceptable language level: Make sure that Ss can complete the task successfully with the language they have.
There is a gap between the speaker and the listener in the information they possess, and the conversation helps to close that gap so that both have the same information. In the classroom we will want to create the same kind of information gap if we are to encourage real communication.
(1) Information-gap activities
(2) Dialogues and role-plays/simulation
(3) Activities using pictures
(4) Problem-solving activities
(5) Find someone who …
(6) Change the story
(7) Human Scrabble
(8) Conduct a debate
(9) Questionnaires/Interview
(1) Give Ss practice with both accuracy and fluency. Accuracy is the extent to which Ss’ speech matches what people actually say when they use the target language. Fluency is the extent to which speakers use the language quickly and confidently, with few hesitations or unnatural pauses, false starts, word searches, etc. Please balance accuracy-based with fluency-based practices.
(2) Provide opportunities for Ss to talk by group/pair work. Don’t take up all the time the Ss could be talking. Pair work and group work activities can be used to increase the amount of time that learners get to speak in the target language during lessons.
(3) Personalize the content of speaking activities whenever possible. Personalization is the process of making activities match the learners’ own circumstances, interests and goals.
(4) Build up confidence. Teachers must provide students with fluency-building practice and realize that making mistakes is a natural part of learning a new language.
(5) Maximize meaningful interactions. By asking for clarification, repetition, or explanations during conversations, learners get the people they are speaking with to address them with language at a level they can learn from and understand.
(1) Paraphrase
- Approximation: e.g. pipe for waterpipe
- Word coinage: e. g. airball for balloon
- Circumlocution: e.g. She is, uh, smoking something. I don’t know what’s its name.
(2) Borrowing
- Literal translation: e.g. “He invites him to drink.” for “They toast one another.”
- Language switch: e.g. tirtil for caterpillar
(3) Appeal for assistance; learner asks for the correct term
(4) Mime: the learner uses nonverbal strategies in place of a lexical item of action;
(5) Avoidance
- Topic avoidance: the learner simply tries not to talk about concepts for which the target language item or structure is not known;
- Message abandonment: the learner begins to talk about a concept but is unable to continue and stops in mid-utterance.
(1) Prompter: When the Ss lost in saying, the teacher can help them by offering discrete suggestions;
(2) Participant: Teachers should be good animators when asking Ss to produce language. However, they have to be careful that they do not participate too much, thus dominating the speaking and drawing all the attention to themselves;
(3) Feedback provider: helpful and gentle correction may get students out of difficult misunderstandings and hesitations. But when Ss are in the middle of a speaking activity, over-correction may inhibit them and take the communicativeness out of the activity.
Bailey, K. M. Practical English language teaching: speaking [M]. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2013.
Carter, R. & D. Nunan. The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001:17-20.
Harmer, J. The practice of English language teaching (3rd ed.) [M]. Pearson Education & World Affairs Press, 2003: 269-281.
Lewis, M. & Hill, J. Practical techniques for language teaching [M]. Beijing: FLTRP & Cengage Learning, 2009: 60-68 &111-115.
Nunan, D. Practical English language teaching [M]. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2013: 47-66.
Q1: How to design a speaking task successfully?
Q2: Why should we teach pronunciation in the speaking teaching?
Q3: Why should we teach speaking strategies? What are those strategies?
Q4: In order to limit teacher talk, how could a teacher do in speaking class?
