Teaching speaking

Speaking means the ability to express ideas orally to satisfy communicative needs and intentions. The aim is to pass information and to get the massage across.

Two forms of speaking: monologue and dialogue. As in real life dialogue speech prevails, so in the teaching process we should pay more attention to it. BUT we should remember that each dialogue contains elements of monologue speech.

Characteristics of speaking:

Accuracy involves the correct use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Accuracy activities are aimed at developing accuracy of speaking, correct usage of the language to convey the meaning.

Fluency – the ability to speak without stopping when speaking spontaneously regardless linguistic resources pupils have and mistakes they make. Fluency activities: paraphrase, ask for clarification, use of specific expression (never mind, I guess, let me see, …)

Three stages of teaching speaking:

1) the teacher presents the pattern dialogue orally and the pupils repeat it or change it somehow, add some information

2) a) deductive approach: pupils learn the dialogue by heart

b) inductive approach: pupils learn by heart only some expression from the dialogue

3) creative stage: pupils make up their own dialogues

As our speech is situational, so we need to provide situations to our pupils, so to say to provide a stimulus for them to speak. A situation is a set of conditions. It should be real life. It can be created visually or verbally. For more advanced learners situation should be more problematic.

Components of the communicative situation:

1) speaker; 2) addressee, 3) subject

TYPES of speaking activities:

1) controlled activities: material is provided by the teacher; the aim is to practice accurate use of vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar: repetition of phrases/sentences prompted by pictures or schemes;

2) guided or semi-guided activities: to improve pupils’ language + to give them an opportunity to express ideas using language they learned before: sentence completion;

3) creative / free / communicative activities: specific language focus is less relevant; to provide creative practice for predicted language items or for general fluency; pupils should their own opinions/ideas, so the task of the teacher to encourage them to do so creating comfortable atmosphere, giving interesting and problematic tasks: problem solving. Activities: making up dialogues/conversations (has real communicative purpose; about what pupils are interested in), debates (controversial topics; for more advanced level), discussions (pair/group work; to convince each other; argumentation), reports, role plays, simulations, presentations, information gap/exchange (to share information with your partner), problem solving, picture description …

All the activities should be process-based not product-based; the whole class should be involved in them – to limit time per pupil. The teacher doesn’t interrupt the pupil to correct mistakes, he analyses mistakes typical for all the pupils afterwards, gives his feedback, concentrates mainly on positive things.

As all the skills we teach are integrated, so the teacher also asks the pupils to read or to listen to something and then asks follow up questions.