Developing Language Skills
  • Speaking Skills

    • Speaking Skills

    Introduction

    Learning to speak is probably one of the most sought after parts of foreign language learning. Because people need and want to communicate, language learners are constantly motivated to improve their speaking skills. It is important for anybody who is going to teach speaking to language learners to understand what and how they are going to teach when it comes to teaching speaking skills. This unit will help you understand the knowledge that it takes to speak in a second language and provide you with basic information to understand learners’ needs and therefore teach them effectively.

    Scenario

    An American Humanitarian Service Worker in Mongolia

    A young American in his early twenties went to Mongolia as part of a humanitarian service project. His primary responsibility was to help with local development projects - whether it would be organizing events, helping with building projects, or caring for the needy. Then, he was asked to teach English speaking skills to local adults. They had studied English in Mongolian schools for several years but still couldn't speak it. He was told that he could teach his classes any way he wanted. That’s the hard part. He had never taught English before, never studied speaking, and wondered what and how he should teach.

    Think

    • What would you do if you were in his shoes?
    • Would you focus on grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, or just go in and start talking to the students?
    • What would you do if the students didn't talk back to you?
    • What would you talk about? How would you correct their mistakes?

    Objectives of this unit

    As you work through this unit, you will be able to:

    As you learn the content of this unit, you will understand what the learners are going through as they try to speak in a foreign language, and effectively identify their weaknesses and help improve their speaking skills.

    The least you should know

    The objective of developing English language learners’ speaking skills is to understand what area of speaking they need to work on to improve speaking skills. Teachers need to understand the following key points that teaching foreign spoken languages requires:

    Know what it takes to speak

    Speaking is a complex process. Speaking is also “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” (Bailey, 2005). When a person is speaking in his first language, he successfully connects appropriate words with correct pronunciation and grammar in the right context. It is because he has spent his lifetime learning and practicing speaking in his native language. On the other hand, foreign language learners find it challenging as they try to start speaking shortly after they began to learn the language. The time that has been spent in learning a foreign language is not the only challenge that stands in the way of successful speaking. There are several factors that contribute to it.

    1. Vocabulary - Knowing enough vocabulary to produce spoken language is the very first thing to watch for. Before anything else happens, learners need to know the basic vocabulary to participate in meaningful conversation. You may refer to Unit 7D for vocabulary learning strategies.
    2. Grammar - The next step is to know the grammar, which gives information on which words go where within a sentence in what forms. Further information on how to teach grammar can be found in Unit 7A.
    3. Pronunciation - No matter how many words the learners know and no matter how well they use grammar, without the knowledge of correct pronunciation (see Unit 7B), spoken language cannot be comprehensible to the listener.
    4. Context - It is also important to know what kind of language is appropriate to use in which context. Knowing when to use formal and informal language makes a big difference in successful communication. It also gives the speaker the confidence to speak.
    5. Cultural background - Having cultural background knowledge of the spoken topic is a very important thing for learners to know. Therefore cultural information should be taught in language classrooms (see Unit 1D).
    6. Body language - Understanding body language when speaking is another thing that needs to be mentioned. Although most languages may have similar facial expressions, gestures in different languages convey different meanings and may cause misunderstandings. Therefore, it is important for teachers to discuss this in their classes. For example, in English, pointing a right thumb up means 'good', while pointing it down means 'bad'. However, in Mongolian, pointing a right thumb up also means 'good,' but pointing a right pinky means 'bad'.

    Comprehension (and reflection) questions

    • What does speaking mean?
    • How does speaking in one's native language differ from speaking in another language?
    • What kind of elements does speaking involve?

    Assessing learners' speaking skills to determine what to teach

    Knowing what to teach in a speaking class can become a challenging task when teachers fail to understand what their students need and want to learn. Before beginning to teach, each teacher should conduct an informal assessment of his or her students’ language learning goals. Since you know what it takes to speak in a foreign language, it will be fairly easy to find out what areas of speaking your students need to improve. Make sure to include questions that will cover the above-mentioned areas and be specific. Some possible questions can be:

    There are several ways you can find out your students’ needs.

    Interview the students

    Meeting with your students individually to find out what their learning goals are for the speaking class is the most direct and effective way. Interviews can give you a better understanding of how much your students already know because you will have a chance to hear from them directly. It also gives students a chance to open up and directly ask the teacher what they want. It is important to take good notes during interviews on each student’s individual needs, and often refer back to these notes to check whether you are meeting those needs. However, interviews can become time consuming, especially when you have a big class.

    Conduct a survey

    When you don’t have enough time to interview every student, conducting a short survey can be very helpful. In your survey you can include questions that you would have asked your students if you had interviewed them. Remember, depending on the level of your students, you want to the survey questions to range from simple to difficult.

    Have a diagnostic test

    Creating a diagnostic test that includes tasks that will require different speaking skills to complete the task can also give you a good idea of what the strengths and weaknesses of your students’ speaking skills are. Test creating can sometimes take a long time, but having your students work on a good test can be a very effective way to find out what your students’ speaking abilities are. For more information on creating tests, refer to Unit 9B.

    After utilizing one of the above assessment tools, you will be able to analyze and understand the level and needs of your students’ speaking ability. You may use more than one of the above ways to assess your students’ needs if using only one seems to give you incomplete information. These assessments should not be limited to only one time. It is valuable to constantly assess your students throughout the semester to make sure that they are improving, and also to check how well you, as a teacher, are doing.


    Comprehension (and reflection) questions

    • What are some ways to find out what your students' speaking skills are?
    • What are some other possible questions you can think of to include in your survey?

     

    Instructional activities to develop speaking skills

    Once you know what you need to focus on in your classes, the next step will be to choose appropriate tasks and activities that will help your students improve their speaking skills. The following are the most used activities for speaking development.

    Conversations and interviews

    Spoken language is mostly used in conversations in real life; therefore, holding activities that resemble real life conversations is a very effective way to develop speaking skills in learners. Conversations can happen unplanned as people run into each other on the street and start talking, while other conversations can be created according to a given prompt by the teacher. To learn more about how to teach conversation classes, refer to Unit 7D. Interviews are another type of conversation that people encounter in real life. Interviews can be somewhat planned. For instance, a person who is going to a job interview can plan to answer some common questions that may be asked, but at the same time it is still unknown what other questions will be asked by the interviewer. These kinds of activities can be used in all levels of English classrooms by adjusting the topic and expectations of the assignments.

    Information gap activities

    This kind of activity involves one person having information that the other doesn’t have. Therefore, the speaker must use English to find out the missing information. Teachers can create this kind of activity easily by taking out some of the information and giving it to the other person. Students then will be required to ask questions of each other to find the missing information. In real life, people make this kind of language by asking for directions, when going shopping, and many other ways when they need to look for more information. This kind of activity is used at all levels.

    Role-playing, scripted dialogues and drama

    Acting in one’s place and reciting a rehearsed language is another very useful activity for speaking. This can help build confidence in learners because they know that what they are saying is correct and also exactly when to say what. Some role plays can be unrehearsed as the learners act as themselves and come up with their own ideas. All levels of classes can make use of this kind of activity.

    Picture-based activities

    Pictures and graphs can become a great tool to create a good speaking activity and can be used in all levels of classrooms. There are many advantages to using this kind of activity, for the visuals will help draw the attention of the learner away from over-focusing on the structure, as well as activate background knowledge of the topic and bring a different dynamic into the classroom.

    Presentation and public speaking

    This kind of activity works more successfully in advanced levels because students usually have enough command of the foreign language to produce impromptu speech.

    Lastly, successful speaking activities should include the following four basic principles, derived from Ur (1996):

    Speaking fluency

    When talking about speaking in a foreign language, fluency is a major factor that measures speaking development. According to Fillmore (2000), fluency is “the ability to talk at length with few pauses, the ability to fill time with talk, the ability to talk in coherent, reasoned, and ‘semantically dense’ sentences, ability to have appropriate things to say in a wide range of contexts, the ability to be creative and imaginative in language use.”

    Why is speaking fluency important to develop in language learners? Brown (2007) explained that fluent as well as accurate speaking skill helps language learners to be better accepted or liked by their peers, improves the learner’s self-confidence, and motivates them to learn the target language better. Oral fluency is not only important to the language learners; it also defines the way others perceive these language learners.

    The key to developing speaking fluency is for learners to use the language through effective activities that have been recommended above. Remember, the key to speaking successfully is to speak, speak and speak. Speaking fluently is a skill that requires time, practice and persistent work from learners. Therefore, it is important for teachers to help the learners realize these facts and stay motivated.

    Video examples

    Reflection and Responses

    As you view this video clip, think about each of the following questions.

    Write your reflections in the box provided. Then, click on the button by each box to see what other people have said after viewing and reflecting on this video clip. (Coming Soon.)

    Where to go to learn more

    Connections to other units in this program

    Here are some other units in this program that relate to topics we have addressed in this unit.

    Online and other electronic resources

    http://www.eslgold.com/speaking/teaching_speaking.html - conversation questions for ESL/EFL classroom

    http://www.eslcafe.com/idea/index.cgi?Speaking - Dave’s ESL Cafe, ideas for various speaking activities

    http://www.eslgo.com/resources/sa.html - various speaking activities

    http://www.eslflow.com/debateanddiscussionlessons.html - debates and conversation topic ideas

    http://www.eslflow.com/roleplaysdramatheatregames.html - role-plays and drama ideas

    http://iteslj.org/links/TESL/Lessons/Role_Plays/ - ideas for role-play topics

    http://www.dailyesl.com/ - conversation starters

    http://www.eslflow.com/picturelessonsandteachingideas.html - ideas for pictures-based activities


    Print and paper-based resources

    Here are some published books that have proven to be helpful resources for teaching speaking skills.

    Kathleen M. Bailey and Lance Savage. New Ways in Teaching Speaking. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc, 1994. “This book provides wide varieties of activities that are organized under the following four parts with 14 subsections: Fluency, Accuracy, Pronunciation and Suprasegmental Phonemes. Some of the subsections include teaching ideas using dialogues and role plays, games for speaking, using audiovisual aids and group work.” ISBN 0-939791-54-4


     

    Scott Thornbury. How to Teach Speaking. Longman, 2005. "How to Teach Speaking talks about many components that are required for speaking in another language and how it is different from speaking in one's first language. It also suggests activities that will help develop speaking such as dialogues, drama, jokes, outside-class speaking and using live listening. Lastly, it provides information on assessing speaking."
    ISBN 978-0-582-85359-1



    Keith Folse. The Art of Teaching Speaking. University of Michigan Press, 2006. “What elements make a speaking activity successful? Which tasks or activities really help build speaking fluency? What does the research show regarding speaking activities? What mistakes do ESL teachers often make in speaking activity design? In this highly accessible and practical resource, Keith S. Folse provides a wealth of information to help ESL/EFL teachers design and use speaking tasks that will improve students’ speaking fluency.”
    ISBN 0-472-03165-1

     

    Kathleen M. Bailey. Practical English Language Teaching: Speaking. McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005. This book introduces teachers to the key aspects of teaching speaking methodology through giving in-depth information on teaching speaking in beginning, intermediate and advanced levels. Readers are offered reflection questions and action tasks throughout this book to apply their understanding of the ideas. It also includes further suggestions for books, articles and websites for additional information.
    ISBN 0-07-310310-1

    Keith Folse. Talk a Lot: Communication Activities for Speaking Fluency. University of Michigan Press, 1993. ISBN 0472082450 This book contains exercises that require learners speak based on the knowledge that they already have and build on that knowledge and improve their speaking fluency. ISBN 0472082450

     

    Keith S. Folse. Targeting Listening and Speaking. University of Michigan Press, 2003. This is a book that is specifically designed for developing speaking and listening skills through carefully designed activities under six themes such as food, animals and pets, free time and hobbies, and travel. There is a companion website that goes with this book where teachers can find additional sources for testing. ISBN 047208898X




    If you have suggestions for other resources (books, websites, etc.), please send them to TLYSK@byu.edu


    Additional References

    Coming Soon.

    This content is provided to you freely by EdTech Books.

    Access it online or download it at https://edtechbooks.org/btrtesol/speaking_skills_.