TEACHING SPEAKING
proficiency to the fullest.
Introduction
Speech is the most basic means of
communication. “Speaking in a
second language or foreign language
has often been viewed as the most
demanding and challenging of the
four skills.” (Bailey and Savage,1994).
What specifically makes speaking in a
second language or foreign language
difficult .
According to Brown(1994) a number
of features of spoken language
includes reduced forms such as :
contractions, vowel reduction, and
elision; slang and idioms; stress,
rhythm, and intonation. Students
who are not exposed to reduced
speech will always retain their full
forms and it will become a
disadvantage as a speaker of a
second language. Speaking is an
activity requiring the integration of
many subsystems.
The Goal of Teaching
The goal of teaching speaking skills is
communicative efficiency. Learners
should be able to make themselves
understood, using their current
They should try to avoid confusion in
the message due to faulty
pronunciation, grammar, or
vocabulary, and to observe the social
and cultural rules that apply in each
communication.
To help students develop
communicative efficiency in speaking,
instructors can use a balanced
activities approach that combines
language input, structured output,
and communicative output.
THE NATURE OF SPEAKING
Oral communication is a two-way
process between speaker and listener
(or Listeners) and involves the
productive skill of speaking and
receptive skill of understanding( or
listening with understanding). Both
speaker and listener have a positive
function to perform. Ain simple
terms, the speaker has to encode the
message he wishes to convey in
appropriate language, while listener
(no less actively) has to decode( or
interpret) the message.

Different views of speaking in
language teaching
A review of some of the views of the
current issues in teaching oral
communication can help provide
some perspective to the more
practical considerations of designing
speaking lessons.
1. CONVERSATIONAL DISCOURSE
The benchmark of successful
language acquisition is almost
always the demonstration of
an ability to accomplish
pragmatic goals through
interactive discourse with
other speakers of the language.
2. TEACHING PRONUNCIATION
There has been some
controversy over the role of
pronunciation work in a
communicative, interactive
course of study. Because the
overwhelming majority of adult
learners will never acquire an
accent-free command of a
foreign language, should a
language program that
emphasizes whole language,
meaningful contexts, and
automaticity of production
focus on these tiny
phonological details of
language? The answer is “yes,”
but in a different way from
what was perceived to be
essential; a couple of decades
ago.
3. ACCURACY AND FLUENCY
An issuethat pervades all of
language performance centers
on the distinction between
accuracy and fluency. It is clear
that fluency and accuracy are
both important goals to pursue
in Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT). While fluency
may in many communicative
language courses be an
essential goal in language
teaching, accuracy is achieved
to some extent by allowing
students to focus on the
elements of phonology,
grammar, and discourse in
their spoken output.
The fluency/accuracy issue
often boils down to the extent
to which our techniques should
be message oriented ( or
teaching language use) as
opposed to language oriented (
also known as teaching
 language usage). Current
approaches to language
teaching lean strongly toward
message orientation with
language usage offering a
supporting role.
4. AFFECTIVE FACTORS
One of the major obstacles
learners have to overcome in
learning to speak is the anxiety
generated over the risks of
blurting things out that are
wrong, stupid or
incomprehensible. Our job as
teachers is to provide the kind
of warm, embracing climate
that encourages students to
speak, however halting or
broken their attempts may be.
5. THE INTERACTION EFFECT
The greatest difficulty that
learners encounter in attempts
to speak is not the municipality
of sounds, words, phrases, and
discourse forms that
characterize any language, but
rather the interactive nature
of most communication.
Conversations are collaborative
as participants engage in a
process of negotiation of
meaning. So, for the learner,
the matter of what you say is
often eclipsed by conventions
of how to say things, when we
speak, and other discourse
constraints.
DavidNunan (1991) notes a
further complication in
interactive discourse; what he
calls the interlocutor effect, or
the difficulty of a speaking task
as gauged by the skills of one’s
interlocutor. In other words,
one learner’s performance is
always colored by that of the
person (interlocutor) he or she
is talking with.
1. Native Language
If the teacher is familiar
with the sound system of a
learner’s active language,
(s) he will be better able to
diagnose student student
dificculties. Many L1 to L2
carryovers can be overcome
through a foused awareness
and effort on the learner’s
part.
2. Age
Children under the age of
puberty generally stand an
excellent chance of
“sounding like a native” if
they have continued
exposre in authentic
 contexts. Beond the age of
puberty, while adults will
almost surely maintain a
“foreign accent” there is no
particular advantage
attributed to age.
3. Exposure
It is difficult to define
exposure. One can actually
live in a foreign country for
some time but not take
advantage of being “with
the people”. Research
seems to support the notion
that the quality and
intensity of exposure are
more important than mere
length of time.
4. Innate Phonetic ability
Often referred to as having
an “ear” for language, some
people manifests a phonetic
coding ability that others do
not. In many cases, if a
person has had exposure to
a foreign language as a
child. This “knack” is
present whether the early
language is remembered or
not. Others are simply more
attuned to phonetic
discriminations. Strategies-
based instructions,
however, has proven that
some elements of learning
are a matter of an
awareness of your own
limitations combined with
conscious focus on doing
something to compensate
for those limitations.
5. Identity and language ego
Another influence is one’s
attitude toward speakers of
the target language and the
extent to which the
language ego identifies with
those speakers. Learners
need to be reminded of the
importance
6. Motivation and concern for
good pronunciation
Some learners are not
particularly concerned
about their pronunciation,
while others are. The ectent
to which learners’ intrinsic
motivation propels them
toward improvement will be
perhaps the strongest
influence of all six of the
factors in this list. If that
motivation and concern are
high, then the necessary
effort will be expended in
pursuit of goals.
PROBLEMS THAT
LANGUAGE LEARNERS FACE
DURING SPEAKING
Douglas Brown (2000) 4. Performance variables
identified eight factors that
can make speaking difficult.
1. Clustering
Fluent speech is phrasal,
not word by word.
Learners can organize
their output both
cognitively and
physically (in breath
groups) through such
clustering.
5. Colloquial language
2. Redundancy
The speaker has an
opportunity to make
meaning clearer through
the redundancy of
language. Learners can
capitalize on this feature
of spoken language.
3. Reduced forms 6. Rate of Delivery
Contractions, elisions,
reduced vowels, etc., all
form special problems in
teaching spoken English.
Students who don’t learn
colloquial contractions
can sometimes develop
a stilted, bookish quality
of speaking that in turn
stigmatizes them.
One of the advantages of
spoken language is that
the process of thinking
as you speak allows you
to manifest a certain
number of performance
hesitations, pauses,
backtracking, and
corrections. Learners can
be taught how to pause
and hesitate.
Make sure your students
are reasonably well
acquainted with the
words, idioms, and
phrases of colloquial
language and those they
get practice in producing
these forms.
Another salient
characteristic of fluency
is rate of delivery. One of
the language teacher’s
tasks in teaching spoken
English is to help
learners achieve an
acceptable speed along
 with other attributes of
fluency.
7. Stress, rhythm and
intonation
This is the most
important characteristic
of English pronunciation.
The stress-timed rhythm
of spoken English and its
intonation patterns
convey important
messages.
SPEAKING TASKS FOR COMMUNICATIVE OUTCOMES
Type of Performance Task/Response
Imitative Speaking
Intensive Speaking
8. Interaction
Learning to produce
waves of language in
vacuum---without
interlocutors----would
rob speaking skill of its
richest component: the
creativity of
conversational
negotiation.
 Student simply parrots
back (imitate) a word of
phrase or possibly a
sentence.
 Tasks:
-word repetition
-pronunciation drills
(stress, intonation)
 One step beyond imitative
speaking to include any
speaking performance
that is designed to
practice some
phonological or
grammatical aspect of
language
 TASKS
-Directed response
-read-aloud
 -sentence/dialogue
completion tasks
-oral questionnaires
-picture-cued tasks
Responsive Speaking  Short replies to teacher-
or- student- initaiated
questions or comments ( a
good deal of student
speech in the classroom is
responsive); replies do not
extend into dialogues;
such speech can be
meaningful and authentic.
 Tasks
- Question and answer
- Eliciting instructions
and directions
- Paraphrasing a story or
a dialogue
Interactive Speaking - Transactional Dialogue-
- Transactional carried out for the
(dialogue) purpose of convying or
- Interpersonal exchanging specific
(dialogue) information involves
relatively long
stretches of interactive
discourse
- Interpersonal dialogue-
carried out of the
purpose of maintaining
social relationships
- Tasks:
- Interviews
- Role play
- Discussions (arriving at
a consensus, problem-
solving)
 - Games
- Conversations
- Information gap
activity
- Telling longer stories
- Extended explanations
Extensive Speaking (monologue) - Usually for
intermediate to
advanced levels; tasks
involve complex,
relatively lengthy
stretches of discourse;
extended monologues
can be planned or
impromptu
- Tasks:
- Oral reports
- Summaries
- Short speeches
- Picture-cued
storytelling
- Retelling a story or a
news event

Stages in a Speaking Lesson

What is the role of the language teacher in the classroom? In the frist
place, like any other teacher, the task of the language teacher is to
create the best conditions for learning. In a sense, the teacher is a
means to an end an instrument to see that the learning takes place.
But in addition to this general function, a teacher plays specific roles
in different stages of the learning process.

The Presentation Stage

This is also known as the pre-activity phrase of the lesson where the
teacher introduces something new to be learned. At this stage of a
speaking lesson, the teacher’s, main task is to serve as a kind of
informant. As the teacher, you know the language; you select the
new material to be learned and you present this in such a way that
the meaning of the new language is as clear as memorable as
possible. The students listen and try to understand. Although they
are probably saying very little at this stage, except when invited to
join in, they are by no means passive. Always so much so that the
students do not get enough time to practice the language
themselves.

The Practice Stage

At the practice stage it is the students’ turn to do most of the talking,
while your main task is to devise and provide the maximum amount
of practice, which must at the same time be meaningful, authentic,
and memorable. This stage is also called the While (or Main) Activity
or the Speaking Activity stage. Your role then as teacher is radically
different from that at the presentation. You do the minimum amount
of taking yourself. You are like the skillful conductor of an orchestra,
giving each of the performers a chance to participate and monitoring
their performance to see that it is satisfactory.

The Production Stage

It is a pity that language learning often stops short at the practice
stage or does not go regularly beyond it. Many teachers feels that
they have done their job if they have presented the new material
well and have given their students adequate---through usually
controlled--- practice in it. No real learning should be assumed to
have taken place until the students are able to use the language for
themselves; provision to use language must be made part of the
lesson. At any level of attainment, the students need to be given
regular and frequent opportunities to use language freely, even if
they sometimes make mistakes as a result. This is not to say that
Mistakes are unimportant, but rather that free expression is more
important, and it is a great mistake to deprive students of this
opportunity.
It is through these opportunities to use language as they wish that
the students become aware that they have learned something useful
to them personally and are encouraged to go on learning. Thus, in
providing the students with activities for free expression and in
discreetly watching over them as they carry them out, you as
teacher, take on the role of manager, guide, or adviser.

Although the sequence describes above---presentation- Practice---

 Production ----- is a well-tired approach to language learning and
is known to be effective in average (i.e., non-privileged) classroom
conditions; it should not, however, be interpreted too literally. These
stages are not recipes for organizing all our lessons. In the first place,
the actual “shape” of a lesson will depend on several factors, such as
the amount of time needed for each stage. Activities at the
production stage can vary a great deal in length. Also, stages tend to
overlap and run into one another; for example, some practice may
part of the presentation stage.