Teaching Speaking

Speaking is a varied and complex phenomenon which covers such categories as function (a
means of communication), type (one of the kinds of man's activity) and result or product of such activity which
leads to an utterance.
Thus, speaking is not only a means of activity, it is also a means of communication. It helps children to
learn about social and historic experience of mankind, because they exchange skills, habits, results of activity
embodied in material, spiritual and cultural values.
Some methodologists speak about two groups of functions: 1) social - planning and co-ordination of collective
activity, management and social control; interaction; 2) phatic - function of contact.

Others speak about three classes of functions:

1) informative-communicative (information is conveyed and received);

2) regulative-communicative (which regulates people's behaviour);
3) affective-communicative (which determines emotional spheres of human endeavour).
Some western methodologists differentiate between 1) transactional (concerned with transmitting
information) and 2) interactional (connected with the establishment and maintenance of human relationships.
But all researchers agree that all functions intertwine in real communication. It is an interactive process.
This influence can be overt, latent, direct, positive or negative. Its impact depends on the spiritual wealth of an
individual; its accomplishments, fascination, therefore a teacher must be a personality. Social function imposes
certain constraints. Communication, as we have mentioned, is stipulated by informative, regulative and affective
types of functions: it is circumscribed both in content and form. Different individuals under different conditions
will act differently. Such type of activity is called formal.
There is also informal communication, people are apt to informal contacts. Communicability, good-
naturedness, openness and cordiality are just a few prerequisites of communication.

Ancillary types of activity

These are known to include: 1) reading aloud; 2) recording; 3) translation.
Besides verbal means of communication manifested in spoken and written forms there exist non-verbal
ones: 1) paralinguistic - intonation, pausing, breathing, diction, tempo, loudness, rhythm, tone, melody; 2)
extralinguistic- a knock at the door, laughter, cry, noises 3) kinaesthetic - gestures, mime, eyes contact; 4)
proxemic - pauses, body movements, distance, i.e. spatial and temporal organization of communication.

Forms of Communication

Communication is usually realized in two forms: oral and written. Each of them has its own characteristics:

1. Oral form is characterized by: a) rich intonation patterns; b) various paralinguistic means; c) a
certain tempo (otherwise a temporal connection with a situation will be lost); d) a high degree of automacy
because tempo is based on it; e) contactivity with a collocutor; f) a specific set of speech patterns and
structures: division is the norm here; and g) a temporal linear character.

2. Written form is characterized by: a) a specific set of speech patterns peculiar to a written form; b) a greater
structural complexity; c) a thorough planning and selection of vocabulary; interior monologue; d) amplitude and
elaborateness; there is no feedback with a collocutor; e) different prosodic means, parting; word order.

Speaking as activity

Speaking is an active process. It is in speaking that we show our relation to the surrounding reality. We react to
what we are listening to, we scrutinize it, assess it and plan our comments.
1. Motivation
The basis of communicative motivation is of two types: a) the necessity to communicate, which is
intrinsic to man as a social being; b) the necessity to do a certain speech act, the necessity to but in.
2. Purposefulness - every speech act is purposeful. The speaker always pursues some aim: to convince
somebody to cause compassion, to infuriate, coax, support, etc.
3. Relation to reality: a) speaking is related to spheres of man's activity; b) it is always stimulated. If
people are placed in similar conditions, it is easier for them to understand each other.
4. Relation to communicative function of thinking.
5. Speaking and personality aspect. A person, as a social being, establishes objective-subjective relations
with other people.
6. Situational speech.
 Situational speech as activity is referential to speech acts, as their basic components of this speaking
process.
7. Phatic function of communication (the conversation is either kept going (sustained), or it is poised in
the air).
8. Heurism - unpredictability of speech acts – is viewed here as heurism of communicative tasks; subject
matter; collocutor; content and language means. Heurism is an effective anti-conning device.
5. Speaking is independent.
6. Speaking has a certain tempo.

The Technology of Teaching Speaking

Speaking is the most complex of linguistic skills, since it involves thinking of what is to be said while
saying what has been thought. In order to be able to do this words must be put at a rapid rate with a spacing
about 5 - 10 words ahead of the utterance. In addition, patterns of words must be chosen to fit the right situation
or attitude intended. All this presupposes a certain reservoir of structure and vocabulary. It also requires a great
deal of practice, since it includes: (1) pronunciation, in which the entire phonetic system comes into play, and
(2) expression, in which grammatical, lexical, and semantic systems are used simultaneously and in a regular
rhythm.
We can examine the efficiency of speech-drill techniques from the points of view of:
1) amount of learner's speaking time;
2) accuracy of his speech; what percentage of errors is made? How much incorrect speaking does the learner
hear?
3) types of response; in chorus or individually
4) contexts of speech; actions, pictures, texts; What proportion?
5) techniques of questioning; Are the techniques clear and to the point?
6) variety of speech drills;
7) techniques of correcting.
When the number of errors to be corrected is very high either the rate of presentation is too fast or the
plan has been badly graded.

Conversation Lesson

Directing conversation practice is probably the most demanding of all language teaching activities. It
is also one of the most rewarding.
Students cannot be expected to leap suddenly to original and creative communication. The teacher has
to lead them step by step, gradually reducing controls over what they say and how they say.
Although the subject and form of the student's narrative are rather narrow, the teacher can, within the
limits, come up with a wide range of possible statements that express actual (real-life) situations. The teacher's
evaluation of the situation will increase the students' self-confidence and encourage them to solve the problems
of their own.
The student would like to express himself in English but is afraid to deviate from the safety of the
sentences he has practised and the words he memorized. In this case the teacher has to prod him gently and help
the student by pointing out that with the words and structures the student already knows. This will enable the
student to seek other ways of putting the words and phrases together to express his thought. Using inferences
will lead the student to a build-up of novel speech situations.
When the teacher helps the student work out the meaning of a word or structure, he encourages him to
guess meaning through the process of deduction - a vital survival skill in English conversation in and beyond
the classroom doors.
Questions and answers, as we have seen, are major elements in natural conversation, the backbone of
directed conversation sessions. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to vary and enliven the question-and-
answer format.
Many EFL/ESL textbooks leave the impression that "long" answers are used frequently in English,
since students are often encouraged to give long answers for drill purposes. However, English speakers, like
speakers of all other languages, have a natural tendency to use short answers.
When someone asks a question, the interlocutor often replies with more than one statement, for
example:
-What did you do yesterday?
-I went on a picnic with some friends. We drove to a place thirty miles south of here. I hadn't been
there before, and I was surprised to see so many pine and fir-trees.
Since there is much of a common occurrence in normal conversation, we should give all the students
practice in responding to questions in this manner.
 As for the kinds of question-answer sequences, they may be divided into four major types:
1) question - single statement answer;
2) question - multiple statement answer;
3) question deduced from answer;
4) multiple questions drawn from a single statement.
When someone asks a question, he often receives just a single statement in reply. Very often this
statement results in unprofitable "yes" or "no" answers. The teacher should encourage his pupils to proceed
from short answers to longer ones that give some indication of natural conversational English.
The multiple statement reply is a favourite technique used by many teachers. The teacher specifies
exactly how many statements he wants as a response to a question. The student may answer the question with
one statement, add two more that are factual and related to the first one.
A useful variation is to give students a factual reply and have them deduce the question or questions
that would have produced such a reply.
As was mentioned elsewhere, EFL/ESL students spend more of their time answering questions
than asking them. This is why such techniques as deducing questions from answers or working with multiple
questions from a single statement are recommended in guided conversation practice. These exercises correct the
imbalance in students' syntactic repertoire and promote facility in question formation - a much needed skill in all
conversation.
Another major ingredient in all conversation is comments. We continually make comments when we
converse - either in the form of simple remarks (It looks like it's going to rain) or in the form of rejoinders
(You're right). But although comments are such an important part of conversation, one rarely sees special
techniques used to help students develop facility in commenting in English, with the result that a statement
intended to encourage conversation is often followed by a distressing silence.

Dialogues

A short conversation between two people presented as a language model - the dialogue - often receives
top billing in the manipulative phase of language learning. As a result, students spend much time repeating
dialogues for pronunciation and memorization practice, or for grammar drills on selected lines. But when we
come to the dialogue in the communicative phase of language teaching, its glamour seems to vanish.
When students are ready to use language more creatively dialogues could be turned into stepping
stones to free communication. The following procedures can help students develop fluency in English

Observation Games

1. Point-and-Say
This is the simplest of the observation games. Simply divide the group into two teams, and touch or
hold up an object the name of which has been taught. Members of each team take their turn in naming the object
by pointing and saying: "That's a (an) ..." If someone should fail to name the object correctly, his opposite
number on the other team can make a point by naming the object.
2. Kim's Game
This is probably the best-known type of observation game. Take half a dozen or more objects the names
of which have been taught. Place them on the table, or on the floor, and cover them with a cloth. Remove the
cloth for about half a minute and let both teams have a look at the objects. Members of each team alternately

4. The Here-and-There Game

(This is really a variation of the above game).

5. Charades
A charade is an episode in the game in which a word is guessed by the onlookers after the word itself,
and each syllable of it in turn, have been suggested by acting a little play.
take their turn in naming an object.

7. Name the Picture

8. Guessing Games

9. Let's Tell a Story

10. Question-and-Answer Game

Use pictures of the conversational wall-picture type. Place the picture in such a way that the group can see
the detail. Use names of items in the picture as call-words. When you call out one of these names it is the
signal for a member of the questioning team to ask his opposite number a question on it.

11. The Information Desk

Collect all sorts of timetables, programs, posters, printed invitations, letters, notices, and lists of rules
and regulations. Post up some of them on the blackboard or on the wall, and put the rest of the material on
the table next to it. It is a good idea to begin by posting each document separately, questioning the class on it
in order to practise the whole variety of questions possible; then ask the class to question you on it. If you
have a map on your information desk, learners can also ask directions about it.

During the early stages of conversation practice, the teacher is bound to maintain a fairly controlled situation
in which the pupils interact within the constraints imposed by their limited knowledge of the language.
During later stages the constraints are gradually removed until they are eliminated altogether, and the student
enters the realm of real communication.

Communicative competence entails not solely grammatical and lexical accuracy, but also a knowledge of
socio-cultural rules or appropriateness, discourse norms, and strategies ensuring that the communication is
understood at least by majority of learners.