TEACHING SPEAKING

Reasons for teaching speaking

• Speaking activities provide rehearsal opportunities - chances to practice real-life speaking
in the safety of the classroom.
• Speaking tasks in which students try to use any or all the language they know provide
feedback for both teacher and students. Everyone can see how well they are doing: both
how successful they are, and what language problems they are experiencing.
• The more students have opportunities to activate the various elements of language they
have stored in their brains, the more automatic their use of these elements become.
As a result, students gradually become autonomous language users. This means that they
will be able to use words and phrases fluently without very much conscious thought.
While speaking, we expect our students to be able to:
• Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns
• Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second
language.
• Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting,
audience, situation, and subject matter.
• Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence.
• Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments.
• Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called
as fluency. (Nunan, 2003)
How do we teach speaking?
• Teachers must provide authentic practice that prepares students for real-life
communication situations.
• Practice speaking in class
• They must help their students develop the ability to produce grammatically correct,
logically connected sentences that are appropriate to specific contexts, and to do so
using acceptable (that is, comprehensible) pronunciation.
o Teach Vocabulary
o Teach Grammar
o Teach Pronunciation / Intonation
Equip them with everything they need to speak confidently and fluently.
 • Teachers should create a classroom environment where students have real-life
communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote oral language.
This can occur when students collaborate in groups to achieve a goal or to complete
a task.
Activities that Promote Speaking
1. Discussions
After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various
reasons. The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an
event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is
essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher.
2. Role Play
The teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and
what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David,
you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…" (Harmer, 1984)
3. Simulations
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations
different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students
can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a
student is acting as a president, he/she wears a suit and brings a microphone to
deliver his speech. Role plays and simulations have many advantages. Such
activities motivate the students and increase the self-confidence of hesitant
students.
4. Information Gap
a. Students are supposed to be working in pairs.
b. One student will have the information that other partner does not have, and
the partners will share their information.
c. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem
or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role
because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the
information the others need.
d. These activities are effective because everybody can talk extensively in the
target language.
5. Brainstorming
 a. On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending
on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective, and
learners generate ideas quickly and freely.
b. The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not
criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.
6. Storytelling
a. Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody
beforehand,
b. They may create/imagine their own stories to tell their classmates.
c. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas
in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the
characters and setting a story has to have.
7. Interviews
a. Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people.
b. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their
speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them become
socialized. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to
the class.
8. Story Completion
a. This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which
students sit in a circle.
b. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he
or she stops narrating.
c. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one
stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences.
d. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.
9. Picture Narrating
a. This activity is based on several sequential pictures.
b. Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures
by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric.
c. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures (past simple) they need
to use while narrating.
10. Reporting
 a. Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or
magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the
most interesting news.
b. Teachers can also ask their students to watch a specific program on a
specific channel. Time of the program should be given well-in-advance.
c. Then, students could be asked to report back what they have seen and
express their views concerning what was presented in the program or
cartoon film…
11. Picture Describing
a. Students describe what it is in the picture.
b. They discuss the picture with their groups.
c. Then, a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole
class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as
well as their public speaking skills.
d. It could also be used as springboard for a whole class-discussion
12. Speeches
a. Teachers can ask their students to prepare a speech about one of the
topics that were discussed in class.
b. They may also ask them to prepare a speech about a special event or
occasion. In fact, lots of students enjoy such activities as they allow them
a great deal of freedom to express their ideas and show their talents.
c. Of course, delivering the speech should be done in class
Sample Speaking Activities for First Intermediate students:
➢ Introduce yourself or your best friend
➢ Describe/Introduce countries
➢ Locating places
➢ Talking about families
➢ Interviewing / Reporting - Bring a clear picture of a person and ask students to
describe him - Using information from a table to describe a person - Choosing one
student and ask the others to describe him
➢ Acting out a dialogue
➢ Everyday English
➢ Expressing likes
➢ Pronunciation
 ➢ Describing a house
➢ Using the map to give directions
➢ Giving instructions: A food recipe
➢ talking about seasons
➢ Reasoning
➢ What a visitor can see in your city
➢ Talking about past actions
➢ Completing a story

Suggestions for Teachers

✓ Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by providing a rich
environment that contains collaborative work, authentic materials and tasks, and shared
knowledge.
✓ Try to involve as many students as possible in every speaking activity. • For this aim,
practice different ways of student participation.
✓ Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking time. Step back
and observe students.
✓ Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response.
✓ Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach that conclusion?"
in order to prompt students to speak more.
✓ Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great. It was a good job. I really
appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of your voice…"
✓ Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are speaking.
Correction should not distract student from expressing themselves.
✓ Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class; contact parents and other
people who can help.
✓ Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and see whether
they need your help while they work in groups or pairs.
✓ Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities.
✓ Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing themselves in the
target language and provide more opportunities to practice the spoken language.
OUTPUT FOR THE WEEK:

A. Create a 50-points holistic and analytic rubric for assessing a speaking

activity. You are free to choose your own speech activity. The content/criteria
of the two rubrics can be alike.
B. Develop a lesson plan for a speaking lesson. Use the 4A’s format.