Teaching Speaking

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Teaching Speaking
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Teaching Speaking

• Issues for discussion
• Characteristics of spoken language
• Principles for designing speaking activities
• Using group work in speaking activities
• Common types of speaking activities

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What are the characteristics of spoken language?

• Speaking is a skill, just like swimming, driving
  a car, or playing ping-pong.
• Too often, in the traditional classroom, the
  learning of English has been relegated to
  linguistic knowledge only, e.g. knowledge of
  vocabulary and grammar rules, with little or no
  attention paid to practising language skill.

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How can we tell the difference between knowledge
and skill?

• According to Bygate (19874) one fundamental
  difference is that both can be understood and
  memorised, but only a skill can be imitated and
  practised.

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Characteristics of spoken language

• Spontaneity
• Time-constraint

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Characteristics of spoken language

• Spontaneity
• In most situations, people do not plan ahead of
  time what they are going to say.
• The fact that speech is spontaneous means that it
  is full of false starts, repetitions, incomplete
  sentences, and short phrases.
• Should we expect the students to produce complete
  sentences in language classroom?

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Characteristics of spoken language

• Time-constraint
• The students must be able to produce unplanned
  utterances in real time otherwise people will
  not have the patience to listen to them.
• Which of the following activities do you think
  would help to prepare students for real life
  speech in English?

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• Reading aloud (needs to be supplemented with more
  realistic activities as the level increases).
• Giving a prepared talk (may be used for advanced
  level)
• Learning a piece of text or dialogue by heart
  more realistic activities as the level
  increases).
• Interviewing someone, or being interviewed (Yes.
  It helps to prepare students for real life speech
  .)
• Doing a drill (needs to be supplemented with more
  realistic activities as the level increases) .

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• Reading aloud (needs to be supplemented with more
  realistic activities as the level increases).
• Giving a prepared talk (may be used for advanced
  level)
• Learning a piece of text or dialogue by heart
  more realistic activities as the level
  increases).
• Interviewing someone, or being interviewed (Yes.
  It helps to prepare students for real life speech
  .)
• Doing a drill (needs to be supplemented with more
  realistic activities as the level increases) .

needs to be supplemented with more realistic
activities as the level increases.
may be used for advanced level.
needs to be supplemented with more realistic
activities as the level increases.
Yes. It helps to prepare students for real life
speech.
needs to be supplemented with more realistic
activities as the level increases.
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• Also students must consider whom they are talking
  to and be able to check if they are being
  understood.
• e.g.

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• Kelly Hey Jack, hows the project coming along?
• Jack What project?
• Kelly The one you and Craig are working on.
• Jack Craig and I?
• Kelly Yeah, for the science fair.
• Jack Oh, that project. Its finished. Im so
  busy working on another project for my economics
  class that I almost forgot about it. I hope itll
  work like we want to.
• Kelly Oh, Im sure it will.

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Designing speaking tasks

• One important consideration Proficiency level of
  the students (challenging but not too difficult.)
  
• If the task is too easy or too difficult, the
  students may be demotivated.

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Common characteristics in successful speaking
tasks

• Maximum foreign talk
• Even participation
• High motivation
• Right language level

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• Maximum foreign talk
• Try to avoid students talking in the mother
  tongue, and avoid too much Teacher Talk.
• Even participation
• Try to avoid outstanding students dominating
  discussions. Try to guarantee equal opportunities
  for students of different levels.
• High motivation
• Interesting topic, and clear objective. Make sure
  that the task is in line with the students
  ability
• Right language level -

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• Right language level
• The task must be designed so that the students
  can complete the task successfully with the
  language that they have. Otherwise the task will
  become frustrating and the students are likely to
  give up or revert to the native language.

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Using group work in speaking tasks

• There are four ways of organizing classroom
  activities
• Pair work,
• Group work, and
• Individual study

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Advantages of using group work

• More opportunities. As compared with activities
  for the whole class, group work enables students
  to talk a lot because it increases the time for
  each student to practise speaking in one lesson.
• More motivation. Group work helps students avoid
  losing their face in front of a whole class, and
  thus it makes students courageous to speak.
• -

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• More authenticity. Speaking in a small group is
  more natural than speaking in a large group,
  because the latter is usually more formal and
  requires preparation.
• Different levels. Students can naturally perform
  to their abilities more readily in small groups
  than in a whole class, i.e. students of different
  levels can participate.
• More cooperation. Small group work helps students
  learn to work cooperatively and it helps develop
  interpersonal skill fostering development of
  tolerance, mutual respect and harmony.

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Type of speaking tasks

• It is important to provide the students with a
  variety of speaking activities because
• A variety of speaking activities will enable
  students to cope with different situations in
  reality.
• Variety helps keep motivation high.
• Variety may suit students of different learning
  styles.

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• There are two major purposes for listening. One
  is to get information and the other is for social
  reasons.
• Since speaking is reciprocal of listening, the
  same is true of speaking.

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• According to Littlewood, communicative speaking
  activities can be divided into two types
  functional communication activities, and social
  interaction activities

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Structural ActivitiesPre-C.A.
Quasi-com. Activities
(sent. pattern drills, dialogues, etc.)
Functional Com. Act.Com.
Act. (obtaining information)
Social Interaction Act.
(role-playing, problem-solving, etc.)
Information Gap, Choices Feed-back)
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• For beginning students, pre-communicative
  activities are also necessary, which are more
  structural and allow the learner to practise the
  forms of the language. However, we should make
  speaking tasks as communicative as possible.

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Some types of speaking activities

• Information-gap activities
• Dialogues and role-plays
• Activities using pictures
• Problem-solving activities
• Other speaking activities

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Information-gap activities

• Compare 2 activities
• Activity A

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• Activity B
• Use the same pictures, but cut them up, paste
  them on cards, and give each student a different
  picture.

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• Directions Ask your partner what is in his/her
  picture.
• Fore example
• Student A Whats in your picture?
• Student B There is __________. Whats in your
  picture?
• Student A There is __________.

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• Obviously the second activity includes an
  information gap that the first one does not.
• Information-gap activities can be designed at a
  very elementary level, so that communicative
  practice can be done from almost the very
  beginning of foreign language learning.

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Dialogues and role-plays

• Two problems with most dialogues in textbooks
• Not authentic or natural. The natural speech of
  native speakers is often phrases or sentence
  fragments full of pauses, false starts, and
  repetitions.
• The way most dialogues are taught. Teachers ask
  students to memorize dialogues by heart.

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• What can a teacher do to make a dialogue more
  communicative?
• Example 1 Playing the roles in a dialogue

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Step 1. Practise the dialogue in pairs

• A What time is it?
• B Its 300. Why?
• A Oh, I need to go to the store! Do you want to
  come?
• B OK. Just a minute. I need to finish this
  first.

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Step 2. Ask a few pairs to perform the dialogue
in front of the whole class, speaking in
different moods such as happy, irritated, bored,
or in different role relationships such as parent
and a child, husband and wife, two friends, etc.

• The students may paraphrase the underlined parts
• go to the post office, go to the bank, etc.
  instead of go to the store.
• find my jacket/shoes, etc. instead of finish
  this first.

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Example 2 Using cue cards

• Card A
• You are talking to a new classmate. Begin the
  conversation with a greeting.
• 1. Greet your partner.
• 2. Ask your partner which school he/she went to
  before.
• 3. Ask your partner if he/she lives near the
  school.
• 4. Suggest you go shopping together after school.

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• Card B
• You are a new student at this school. One of your
  classmates greets you.
• 1. Greet your partner back.
• 2. Answer the question.
• 3. Answer the question.
• 4. Respond to the suggestion.

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Then students should be ready to move quickly
into less controlled types of role plays, where
only the situation and the relationship between
the two speakers are specified

• Card A
• You and your friend are going out to eat lunch.
  You need to decide where to go. You would like to
  try something different because youre tired of
  the same food. You make a suggestion.

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Notice that the outcome of this role play is not
specified in the cue cards. It only sets up a
point of disagreement.

• Card B
• You and your friend are going out to eat lunch.
  You need to decide where to go. You would like to
  go to the place where you always go, because you
  like the food. You dont agree with your friends
  suggestion.

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Factors that affect the success of role-plays
(Ur, 1996)

• Teachers enthusiasm
• Careful instructions
• Clear situation and roles
• Making sure that the students have the language
  they will need to carry out the role-play.

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Activities using pictures

• In groups of 3 or 4

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A secretary is appointed to mark a tick for each
sentence said. Check which group has got most
ticks.
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In pairs (Littlewood 1981)
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In groups of 5
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Problem-solving activities

• You are on a committee that is in charge of
  deciding what to do with a small amount of money
  that has been donated to improve your school. You
  have a list of things to do, but you only have
  enough money for 5 of the items. You must reach a
  consensus (agreement) in your group on which 5
  items you will spend the money. Here is the list

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• Repaint 3 classrooms.
• Paint lines for games on the playground.
• Install lights that automatically turn off to
  save electricity.
• Buy curtains for 8 classrooms. This will make it
  easier to see the OHP (Overhead Projector) when
  the room is darker.
• Buy sound absorption panels for 2 classrooms.
  This will make the classroom quieter so it will
  be easier to hear each other.
• Buy an air conditioner for one classroom.
• Buy 4 new basketball hoops for the playground.
• Buy 15 young trees to be planted for shade around
  the edge of the playground.
• Buy fans for 6 classrooms.
• Remodel bathroom faucets so students can wash
  their hands using hot and cold water.
• Add soap dispensers and hand dryers to bathrooms.

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• Problem solving activities require a higher level
  of language proficiency, but the difficulty
  levels can be controlled somewhat by the topic.
• In problem-solving activities, participants tend
  to become personally involved they begin to
  relate the problem as an emotional issue as well
  as an intellectual and moral one (Ur 1996).

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Other speaking activities

• Find someone who
• e.g. Stand up and walk around the room. Ask your
  classmates what they like to do. Remember, you
  must speak in English only!

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Find someone who Name
likes to swim
likes to play basketball
likes to play badminton
likes to play tennis
likes to play football
likes to play volleyball
likes to roller skate
likes to ice skate

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A model conversation can be provided.

• A Hi, Tom.
• B Hi, Sherry.
• A Im conducting a survey for our school
  newspaper. Could you tell me, do you like to
  swim?
• B Yes, I do. In fact, usually go swimming once
  or twice a week.
• A Great. Would you mind signing your name here
  for me please?
• B Sure, there you are.
• A thanks a lot. See you around.
• B See you.

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Change the story

• Step 1 Form groups of 3-5
• Step 2 The group together makes a list of about
  20 random verbs.
• e.g. go, sleep, teach, learn, jump, fall, look
  (at), hear, laugh, sing, etc.
• Step 3 Each one writes a short story, and
  underlines all the verbs in the story
• e.g.

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• Yesterday I saw a cat. She was running in the
  street. She had a fish in her mouth. A dog was
  running after the cat. The dog wanted to eat the
  fish too. Then the cat climbed up a tree. The dog
  stopped under the tree. He could not climb the
  tree. At last the cat ate the fish.

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• Step 4 Each one read his/her story, but pauses
  at every verb. The group then supplies one of the
  random verbs into that slot.
• The results can be very funny.
• A possible version may be

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• Yesterday I taught a cat. She was sleeping in the
  street. She learned a fish in her mouth. A dog
  was laughing after the cat. The dog fell to hear
  the fish too. Then the cat sang up a tree. The
  dog jumped under the tree. He could not heard the
  tree. At last the cat looked at the fish.

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Example A card game

• On the table are a set of picture cards, face
  down. No one can see the pictures. Student B
  holds one of the cards with a picture on it.
  Student A cannot see the picture, so she asks
  Student B a question.
• A What can you see?
• B I can see
• A No. You are lying. /Yes, I believe you.
• If Student A is right, he gets the card. If
  Student A is wrong, Student B gets the card. Then
  they take turns. When the game is over, the one
  who has got more cards is the winner.

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Conclusion

• The most important aspect of preparing students
  to speak in real life is to give them as many
  opportunities as possible to practise producing
  unplanned, spontaneous and meaningful speech
  under time pressure.