Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. Speaking is more than to form grammatically correct sentences; it rather covers broad areas of mechanics, functions, pragmatics and social interaction. Therefore, any foreign language teaching methodology used in the classroom throughout the history has always sought to develop ways to improve the competency of learners in these areas.
In contemporary methodologies the emphasis in speaking is fluency rather than accuracy. In a typical classification the speaking activities in a foreign language classroom usually falls into one of these categories: Awareness raising activities, Controlled activities and Autonomous activities. There are also some speaking strategies that can be implemented to encourage the unmotivated students to produce speaking.
Contents 1. Learning Objectives 2. What is Speaking? Historical Background 4. Classroom Practice 5. The Types of Classroom Practice Activities 6. The Motivation of the Learners 7. A Sample Lesson Plan 8. References 9. When we talk of a person who knows a language, we usually tend to mean that that person is able to produce meaningful sentences in that language; in other words s he can speak that language.
Thus the claim that S he knows English usually includes the statement that S he can speak English. The teaching of a second or foreign language therefore, one way or other covers the teaching of speaking skills. It is safe to assume that many learners starting to learn a foreign language usually seek an improved competency in their productive skills; namely writing and speaking.
These learners assess their progress in the target language in terms of their ability to speak fluently in communication. As common sense and research suggests, speaking is more than to form grammatically correct sentences and then to pronounce them. A well-known example of such a grammatically correct, however semantically ill-formed sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" was composed by Chomsky in Language teachers then need to recognize that speaking involves more than mechanics.
In the following section, taking a look at the varying emphasis of objectives of language teaching approaches in history will give us a better understanding on the topic. Historical Background At present, developing fluency not just the accuracy has become a major objective in language teaching methodology Brown, However, the emphasis on the communicative value of language teaching is not actually new. Depending on these general aims of language teaching, the objectives of the teaching have been emphasized to varying degrees.
The emphasis of the language teaching has changed along with the role of languages in society. In classical Rome for example, people learned Greek for purposes varying from social communication to transmission of literary and intellectual thought.
There is another parallel between the Middle Ages and the Age of Reason. However, in the Middle Ages and the Age of Reason, the language teaching objectives shifted towards written and analytical skills. Therefore, teaching speaking skills in these periods were not needed to be emphasized as much as they were done in the Classical, Renaissance and Modern ages.
From s to s, Grammar-Translation method was one of the most eminent language teaching methods. In this method, the language practices were usually in written forms and listening and speaking skills were seen as the apex of language ability Lowe, Therefore, the teaching of speaking skills in this method was not a relevant issue. On the other hand, the Direct Method which became prevalent in s took speaking and listening as the most important skills.
The medium of instruction was a strict use of the target language. These phrases had structures of grammar disguised in them. Vocabulary was learned either incidentally, as part of the phrases being taught, or via lists grouped under types of situation Lowe, The need to supply the Army with fluent speakers of major European and Asian languages led the training of personnel with an innovative and ground-breaking language teaching program. Since the conventional language methodologies of the time were not sufficient to train proficient speakers of any language, a new approach was needed.
Thus the government commissioned 55 major American universities to prepare a special program in The Army Specialized Training Program ASTP , which was established in , aimed to train the students to achieve conversational proficiency in a variety of foreign languages.
This program gained a surprisingly high success during the war years. In this method, the speaking skills were promoted through listening and repeating as foreseen in the behavioral psychology. The repetition activities were believed to achieve automation of speaking skills and language was accepted as a continuum of hierarchically formed structures from easy to more complex Morley, According to Chomsky, language is not a matter of habit formation.
After Chomsky, the structural language teaching methodologies based on explanation, repetition, memorization, drills and production lost their popularity. Regarding this, the speaking skills are taught through meaning based dialogues, group works and language activities as authentic as possible. Fluency is more important than grammatical accuracy. In this approach, the importance of speaking is not by itself but rather its potential in providing comprehensible input Krashen, , p.
According to Krashen , the fluency in speaking is not achieved through speaking drills but rather by understanding the input in listening and reading. In other words, speaking is the result of comprehension level, not its cause. The role of speaking in acquisition is an indirect role of its contribution to comprehension.
There are also a number of other scholars who have different perspectives than Krashen about the role of teaching speaking on language acquisition. Today, comprehensible input and social interaction including negotiation of meaning are considered to be the most essential two factors in second language acquisition Faltis, , p. Therefore, in any language teaching program making learners achieve their communicative goals in effective and interactional English speaking situations and making them gain speaking skills are principal goals.
Classroom Practice The desired outcome of any activity in a foreign language classroom is usually achieved through the effective construction of the teacher. Asking them to lay out their background knowledge on the topic. For example, if the topic of the lesson is purchasing a plane ticket to go abroad, students can be asked to guess the content of a possible conversation taking in a travel agency.
For example, if the teacher wants the students to make a dialogue with their partners on a given topic, s he can make a similar dialogue with a student as a first step. To check whether the task is understood clearly by the students, they can be asked to repeat the process. This can be done in English or Turkish depending on the level of the students. In addition, students should be given all the necessary role cards, pictures, listening and reading texts, etc.
Teacher intervenes whenever required. In this stage, a feedback on the content of the activity rather than the grammatical accuracy would be more appropriate. Informing students what they have achieved is better than saying them what they have failed.
Such a feedback would contribute to their inner motivation, sense of achievement and self-confidence. This would also have a positive contribution to low affective filter which is considered to be an essential condition in language acquisition by Krashen We can summarize the above mentioned instructional stages in Figure 1.
Introduction and The explanation possession of the required knowledge by the Putting forth the learners details of the task The Observation of the Activity by the Teacher Giving The Follow up Feedback Activity Figure 1. For example, while driving a car, we pay attention to the road without noticing until a rabbit appears in front of us. We immediately notice it away from the other details on the road. Just like that, a learner learning a new word can see it in many different places, because s he is now noticing it.
We cannot talk about a real noticing without understanding. Understanding is noticing a general rule or system and comprehending the relation of the subparts between each other and how these parts interact. To be an example of such awareness activities, we are here presenting a part from Neville J.
Grant and C. In this activity, the learner performs an awareness practice on the likely problems of communication in daily life conversations and s he practices the required language to overcome these communication challenges. Here, the likely difference between the real daily conversations and course book conversations can be emphasized. The course book conversations usually do not reveal features of pausing, repetition, reflection that usually help better understanding in daily life conversations.
For example, the following excerpts taken from J. The learners can be asked to state their opinions why these two versions differ and how the course book version of the dialogue can be changed to make it more authentic.
There are points however that should be taken into consideration. This background activation is more essential especially in hard topics. For example, if the learners are supposed to hear a speech on a comparison of hybrid engine cars with traditional benzine cars, they would be asked to carry out a brainstorm session to find the already possessed vocabulary on the topic.
In this way, a useful vocabulary activity and an awareness raising can be done simultaneously. Are they friends, relatives, colleagues, etc.? What is their purpose? The above like questions would help the teachers to find out the general comprehension of the learners.
The determination general understanding is a prerequisite for developing detailed activities on the topic. Such activities can be filling out a table, answering multiple choice questions, sentence completion, matching, etc. In this stage, the text can be listened or watched a few times until the learners can answer the majority of the questions with ease.
Such examples revealing the culture of the target language would raise cultural awareness. For example thanksgiving, street musicians, employer- employee relations, the status of women in the society, methods of saving money, etc.
Comparing and contrasting the mother tongue culture and the target language culture could be a useful discussion topic. For example, the intensity of the words in written and spoken languages is different.
The intensity of the words mean the rate of the content words in the text. In spoken language, the intensity is less than the written language. Controlled Activities Making learners to become fluent speakers, controlled practice helps them to learn the control of speaking skills. Drill and chants, in this case involve practicing that control. In a drill type exercise the learner is given words, phrases and even whole utterances to mechanically repeat and imitate so that s he is supposed to notice and use the piece of useful language supposed to be produced automatically in everyday conversations.
In such an activity taken from Thornbury , students first listen to a recording of a conversation in which a number of useful formulaic expressions are embedded. After the teacher ensures the content of the conversation is comprehended well, the recording is played again, but this time the teacher pauses the recordings at strategic points and the students repeat the already heard chunk in chorus.
Then, a few individuals repeat the same key phrases until a certain degree of confidence in producing these phrases are achieved. A list of such expressions can be given from Thornbury Download Free PPT. Download Free PDF. Some New Techniques for Teaching Speaking. Ayten Ouf. A short summary of this paper. All rights reserved. Notting Hill College Task Two: What is meant by "Teaching Speaking"?
Mention at least four points… Notting Hill College Nunan, Write the reasons on a newspaper sheet. Why Learners Do Not Speak? Fluency Notting Hill College Stages for Speaking 11 Activities. Task Four: In 3 mins.
Instructors create activities that imitate real world language use.
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