QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY

DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

LESSON 11: Teaching Speaking

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of the lesson, the learners should be able to:
1. adopt understanding on teaching speaking;
2. describe the strategies in teaching speaking; and
3. develop a lesson plan teaching speaking.

Feeding the Mind!

Teaching English elementary students is full of challenges. What is more

challenging is teaching the language to very young learners whose command
of the first language is still very tender. A more daunting task is to enable
them to use the language orally and also in writing.

Since the English language is taught only as a subject in school, exposure

to the language for many children is very limited. The low proficiency exhibited by many
students in secondary schools and in some cases at the tertiary level may be caused by the
weak development of the language at the primary school level.

Speaking is the most important skill among the four language skills (listening speaking,
reading and writing) because according to Ur (1996) people who know a certain language
are considered speakers of the language. Zhang (2009) claims that for the majority of English
learners, speaking is the most difficult skill to master. The problem is exacerbated when the
language is only heard in the classroom and not practiced. The problem is also intensified
when there is no support for its use outside the classroom. This point of view appears to be
logical. However, there are a number of factors which can elucidate this matter. Ur (1996)
attributes the difficulties to factors such as inhibition, nothing to say, low or uneven
participation, and mother-tongue use. Rababa’h (2005) relates the difficulties in speaking
to the learners themselves, the teaching strategies, the curriculum, and the environment.
The students’ inability to communicate in English is due to the use of the first language in
classroom management (Littlewood, 1981). In such situation learners are deprived of the
opportunity to speak in English. The beginning stage of language learning is crucial as it is
the foundation of language development. If this foundation is weak, then the development
will be marred. What is taught is assumed to be learned by the pupils. However, it also
depends on how it is taught and learned.

Focus on the speaking skill

The focus on the speaking skill is to effectuate the acquisition of the English language
among elementary learners. It is imperative that this happens as the ability to speak English
nowadays is crucial for advancement in certain fields of human endeavor, especially science
and technology.

The idea of focusing on the speaking skill is to enable the learners to communicate in
English using simple structures, based on meaningful contexts.

Teaching strategies
1. Relevant and meaningful contexts for teaching new linguistics elements. The context
included pictures and objects.
2. A lot of repetition of the structures taught.
3. Comprehensible input. The linguistic elements were easy enough to be understood by
the pupils.
4. Scaffolding procedures in a lesson, beginning with controlled activities, then guided,
followed by more independent work.

VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 1
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

5. Sufficient linguistic input. The amount of new items taught was not too much nor too
little for learning in one lesson.
6. A variety of techniques to make the language comprehensible to the pupils. The
technique included the use of the children’s mother tongue, Malay.
7. Encouraging remarks when pupils made correct responses.
8. Monitoring of pupils’ work during practice activities.

7 PRINCIPLES IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING

Teaching can be difficult when the students are not speaking nor see the need to practice
speaking in English. For whatever reason, students feel inclined to speak out and express
their opinions and views. This is a challenge for teachers and one that we will focus on today.
Below are 7 key principles to teaching speaking skills and hopefully principles to follow when
teaching English. The key to these principles is to keep the student in mind when planning
your course of action and making sure the students are comfortable producing English as
an oral language.

1. Focus on both fluency and accuracy, depending on your objective

The trouble most teachers have is when having speaking based activities in class
the focus is on production, not necessarily on the accuracy of the grammar or
pronunciation. We need to remember the learner’s needs from language-based focus
on accuracy to message-based focus on interaction, meaning, and fluency. This means
when doing an activity or game, make sure you have an objective going in which
focuses on giving the students opportunities to build their speaking skills. Keep in
mind however each strategy or technique you use, make it meaningful to the student
and helpful to their development of fluency and accuracy.

2. Provide intrinsically motivating techniques

Try at all times to appeal to students’ ultimate goals and interests. As mentioned
in Listening Principles, the teacher’s job is to feed the students desire for knowledge,
status, achieving competence and autonomy in speaking. Show how the activity can
benefit them because many times the students do what they are told without knowing
the reason. If we can find ways to motivate and get the students to participate, it will
be rewarding for both sides.

3. Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts.

This is perhaps the most difficult principle to follow or even grasp in many
situations in school. With more focus and time being dedicated to test preparations
and completing the curriculum, it can be easy to just complete easy drills and mini
activities which produce scripted answers from the students. The energy and creativity
it takes to use authentic language in meaningful contexts can be difficult, but as
teachers or parents it is important to use the resources we have at our disposal.
Providing authenticity gives meaning to the lesson and having relevant and meaningful
context gives the students experience with the language they will actually use outside
of class.

4. Provide appropriate feedback and correction.

In most ESL situations, students are dependent on the teacher for feedback in all
aspects of the language. It is your responsibility to provide accurate and useful
feedback to the student to help them learn and grow. Keep in mind the language focus
but also remember that learning English is not a linear path and the knowledge and
understanding of different aspects of the language are necessary to improve. When
giving feedback, make sure it is comprehensible to the student and allows them to
analyze and fix their mistakes.

VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 2
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

5. Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening.

It may seem common knowledge, but the techniques used to teach speaking also
involve aspects of listening. Don’t lose out on opportunities to integrate these two
skills. As you are focusing on speaking goals, listening goals may coincide naturally
and the two skills can reinforce each other. Skills in producing language are often
initiated through comprehension so assisting students in their listening skills will go
a long way to helping them understand speaking.

6. Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication.

A good deal of typical classroom interaction is initiated by the teacher. We ask
questions, give directions, and provide information while the students are conditioned
to only “speak when spoken to.” Part of oral communication competence is the ability
to initiate conversations, to introduce new topic discussions, ask questions, control a
conversation, and change the subject. As you are lesson planning and creating
speaking activities, ask yourself if you have allowed the students to initiate language.

Encourage the development of speaking strategies.

Students are allowed to learn from the teacher and are assessed based on their
performance in tests and other performance-based evaluations, however the growth and
development of different English skills is unknown. Most of the time, the students are able
to digest the knowledge but not develop their own personal strategies for accomplishing oral
communication. Your classroom is designed to help students become aware of and have a
chance to practice such strategies as:
• asking for clarification (what?)
• asking someone to repeat something (huh? excuse me?)
• using filers (uh, i mean, well) in order to gain time to process
• using conversation maintenance cues (uh-huh, right, yeah, okay, hmm)
• getting someone’s attention (hey, say.., so..)
• using paraphrases for structures one can’t produce
• appealing for assistance from the interlocutor (to get a word or phrase, for example)
• using formulaic expressions (at the survival stage) (how much does___ cost? How
do you get to the ____?)
• using mime and nonverbal expressions to convey meaning

SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

1. Guess Who/20 Questions

Some of you may still remember the board game “Can You Guess Who?” and for those
who don’t, you are missing out. This guessing game’s purpose was for two sides to ask
questions to help find a selected character from a board. The questions would be similar
to “Does you person have a hat? Yellow hair? Is it a boy?” Questions would require “yes”
or “no” answers and eventually with the correct questions, you can find out who the secret
person is. This type of activity can be used in a classroom where the teacher can have the
students guess an item or object from the story to help with comprehension. A variation
of the game can be similar to 20 questions where the students have a set number of
questions they can ask. Switching the activity and have the students think of something
and having the teacher guess can be useful too. The students would then be required to
recall information and give accurate information to allow the teacher to complete the task.

2. Tongue Twisters
A fun activity for my debate classes to improve students’ pronunciation is by having
them practice tongue twisters. The goal is to get the students speaking with proper
pronunciation. A tongue twister like: “red leather, yellow feather”. Having them practice
speaking with tongue twisters gets them to think more about the twist than the speaking.
VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 3
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

Some things you can do with tongue twisters includes having the students practice
speaking them, speaking quickly, slowly, all together, etc. Even students who seem
uninterested get involved to try and “beat the teacher” in saying the tongue twister faster.

3. Advertisement
This activity is applicable for intermediate students or grades 4-6. This activity can
help the visual and hands on learners. Similar to a presentation, the students will be
expected to create an item and advertise it to the rest of the class. With a little less
structure and organization required with a presentation, the students can have fun
creating a brand-new product and try selling it. A warm-up exercise may be to discuss
the types of appeals people rely on when buying items, but this activity can be used to get
students to just talk about something they are interested in and put effort in making on
a poster board or cut outs. The advertisement activity can be tiered depending on the
class. It could be made simple or organized depending on the level of the students. Most
likely, the students won’t realize it is a presentation if the teacher advertise the activity
well.

4. Balloon Debate
This activity is used with more advanced students like grades 5 and 6 because they
are more knowledgeable and better speakers, able to effectively express their ideas and
understand the purpose of their speeches. However, this can work too with students being
introduced to speaking classes or even having to discuss characters in a story. The
scenario is this: a select number of students in the class (around 4) are in a hot air
balloon, but there is a whole and the balloon is destined to crash. The 4 people need to
explain why they are more important than the others and should stay while 1 member
should be thrown out of the balloon. The four people in the balloon are not themselves.
They are acting as famous people (or characters from a story). They have to act like that
person and explain to the audience (other members of the class) why they deserve to stay
and 1 other member should leave. This activity leaves out personal grudges and requires
the students to fully demonstrate their understanding of the person they chose. Each
person gives their speech and then the audience chooses who gets kicked out of the
balloon. Then, a second round occurs with the remaining 3 people and again they must
persuade the audience to stay. This process continues until there is only 1 person
remaining.

Let’s look at an example: From the Harry Potter story, character analysis on the
teachers at Hogwarts. The four participants in the balloon will represent: Dumbeldore,
Trelawney, Snape, and Hagrid. The eacher will explain why they should stay in the balloon
while also saying why the others should go. The audience votes….and Trelawney is kicked
out. Dumbeldore, Snape, and Hagrid then give another round of speeches to explain why
they should stay and the others should be kicked out. Dumbledore may say something
virtuous and explain that he is the headmaster and should live. Hagrid may say that
Snape is evil and working for You-Know-Who (SPOILERS!). The activity can be fun and
helps the students and audience recall facts and information. If a person gives false
information, it could backfire as the audience gets to vote on who is most convincing.
Things to consider when completing this activity is time limited speeches, cycling out
audience with participants, and setting limits on who the participants can choose to be
(living versus dead, fiction versus real, etc.)

5. Charades
This activity and the next are not exactly speaking activities, but instead are activities
related to speaking and helping students become better speakers. A fun game of charades
can get any student out of their seat and act silly in front of their classmates. The goal of
the exercise is to get students more actively involved but also to focus on how hand
signals, body language, and eye contact can help them express ideas and words without
the use of speaking. For many students, they will think an action they are doing is
VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 4
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

universal; everyone knows that action as X. However, the performer would be wise to
identify the audience and see they are not following, thus requiring the performer to
change the action and try something different. I typically choose simple things for the
lower-level students where they are required to act out 3 things: occupation/animal,
place, thing. This activity can work with all age groups and with the proper preparation
on which items you chose; the class could have the most fun in a speaking class without
having to speak. Another form of this is pictionary, where a student would draw on the
board the key words and the other students would have to guess. This does not relate to
any key English skill, but it is a fun activity to have with a class who may need a little
excitement.

6. Note Taking
The least favorite idea, almost no one enjoys note taking; especially note taking in
class where the notes are being recorded. For all ages, note taking exercises can sap all
the life out of the classroom and create mindless zombies. While I was a debater, my
coaches did a fun little activity with me to improve my note taking during the debates.
Remember, the key to note taking is to create a short hand you are familiar with and can
use to take notes of things you hear and read. From this simple concept, when I teach
note taking, I teach my students symbols to use which could be easier to write than other
ideas or words. With note taking, it is not important that students follow one way of taking
notes, but that they are more comfortable taking notes more effectively and quicker than
before. The activity is this: Get a deck of playing cards and shuffle so there is no way a
student can count which cards are coming up next. You will read the card to the student
and have them write down the cards they hear and, in the order, they appear, getting
faster as you near the end of the deck (or selected number of cards). This activity is a good
starter to note taking as it allows the students to see how effective note taking can be.
Typically, lower-level students will fall behind and try writing out the whole phrase: Jack
of Diamonds. Other students have been known to write J and the symbol♦. The advanced
students will probably write JD. Getting students to understand why note taking is
important can make teaching the topic much easier.

Remember!
Upload your output in the online platform that we use in this class.

ENRICHMENT ACTIVITY
I can do this!

Develop a detailed lesson plan on any topic in speaking.

You will be assessed based on this rubric:

Criteria Rating
Completion 10 pts 7 pts 4 pts 0 10.0
of Task All of the Most but not all 50% of the Did not
questions from of the questions questions from submit the
the instructions from the the instructions worksheet.
have been instructions have been
answered. have been answered.
answered.
Total points 10.0

VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 5
 QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY
DIFFUN CAMPUS
Diffun, 3401 Quirino

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

REFERENCES

Pakula, Heini . 2019. Teaching speaking.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331455317_Teaching_speaking
Susi Fitria 2013. Speaking Activities In Young Learners Classroom: The Implementation
Of Project-Based Learning Approach.
https://media.neliti.com/media/publications/192434-EN-speaking-activitiesin-
young-learners-cl.pdf
Speaking Activities. http://www.readingpioneers.com/speaking-activities/
Teaching Speaking: 7 Principles To English Speaking.
http://www.readingpioneers.com/teaching-speaking-7-principles-to-
englishspeaking/
Tunku Mohani Tunku Mohtar, Charanjit Kaur a/p Swaran Singh, Nadiah Yan Abdullah
Mazyani and Mat January 2015. Developing the Speaking Skill among ESL
Elementary Learners
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297088608_Developing_speaking_s
kills_among_ESL_elementary_learners

VISION MISSION
The leading center for academic and technological excellence Develop competent and morally upright professionals and generate
and prime catalyst for a progressive and sustainable Quirino appropriate knowledge and technologies to meet the needs of Quirino
Province and Southern Cagayan Valley. Province and Southern Cagayan Valley.

“Molding Minds, Shaping Future”

Page | 6