Teaching Speaking

Pre-Speaking
 Pre-Speaking
Example:
- Ask students
“which household chores do you often do after schools”
& Elicit some related-topic vocabulary from students
- Give students time to brainstorm and fill in their table first
- Elicit some structure to help students express the ideas
Pre-Speaking - Practice
Pre-Speaking - Practice
• Ask students to look at the list of habits. Describe some of the words
by teacher’s action and then ask students guess
• Ask students to look through the list again, put a tick next to the
habits they think are good one. Then give students 2 minutes to
brainstorm the reasons
• Elicit some structures to help students expressed their ideas
Common types of speaking tasks
Information gap activities
Discussion activities
Dialogue making activities
Information gap activities
One student has to talk to a partner in order to:
. fill in missing information (in a schedule or a time-table for example)
. draw a picture (describe and draw)
. put things in the right order (describe and arrange)
. find similarities between pictures
Information gap activities
Suggested steps:
Information gap activities
Step 1: Role allocation - Tell your students what role (A or B) they will
take in the information gap
Information gap activities
Step 2: Preparation time
. give students time to prepare the language items they need for each
task
. group As together and Bs together to prepare (optional)
Information gap activities
Step 3: Information gap
. regroup students into AB AB
. after grouping, tell them exactly what we need to do
E.g.
- As ask your questions, Bs answer them. Then Bs ask, As answer
- As tell Bs one thing in the picture. Bs tell As if it is the same or different to your
picture. If it’s different, circle it. Then Bs tell As one thing in your picture. Find 4
differences between your pictures. Don’t look at the other ‘s picture.
Information gap activities
Step 3: Information gap
Information gap activities
• Step 4: Checking the answers
• Step 5: Giving feedback
Discussion activities
- set a goal or outcome
- use small group instead of whole class discussion
- keep it short: certain period of time for discussion(<10 minutes)
- allow students to stop soon if they run out of ideas
- allow students to participate in their own way
Discussion activities
- Do topical follow-up:
have students report to the class on the outcome of their acting
- Do linguistic follow-up:
Feedback on grammar and pronunciation problems
Dialogue-making activities
- set a goal or outcome
- give students time to prepare
- be present as a source, not a monitor: stay in communication mode to
answer students questions. Do not correct their pronunciation or
grammar unless they specifically ask about it
- allow student to work at their own level
- do not expect all students to contribute equally or to use all the
grammar points that you have taught
- do linguistic follow-up
Practical notes in conducting speaking
tasks
1. Use plenty of group and pair work
2. Run the class in English
3. teacher’s role: a prompter or a participant?
. a prompter: offer suggestions
. a participant: may participate but not too much
4. Make activities as spontaneous as possible
5. Use guided activities when necessary
6. Use task-based activities