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Unit 9 Teaching Speaking
Issues for discussion:
1. Characteristics of spoken language
2. Principles for designing speaking
activities
3. Using group work in speaking
activities
4. Common types of speaking activities
· Speaking is a skill, just like swimming,
driving a car, or playing ping-pong.
· Too often, in the traditional classroom,
the learning of English has been
relegated to linguistic knowledge only,
e.g. knowledge of vocabulary and
grammar rules, with little or no attention
paid to practising language skill.
Aow can we tell the difference
between knowledge and skill?
· ccording to Bygate (1987:4) one
³fundamental difference is that both
can be understood and memorised, but
only a skill can be imitated and
practised´.
·
·
· In most situations, people do not plan ahead
of time what they are going to say.
· The fact that speech is spontaneous means
that it is full of false starts, repetitions,
incomplete sentences, and short phrases.
· Should we expect the students to produce
complete sentences in language classroom?
· The students must be able to produce
unplanned utterances in real time; otherwise
people will not have the patience to listen to
them.
· hich of the following activities do you
think would help to prepare students for real
life speech in English?
· eading aloud (needs to be supplemented
with more realistic activities as the level
increases).
· iving a prepared talk (may be used for
advanced level)
· earning a piece of text or dialogue by heart
more realistic activities as the level
increases).
· Interviewing someone, or being interviewed
(Yes. It helps to prepare students for real
life speech .)
· oing a drill (needs to be supplemented
with more realistic activities as the level
increases) .
· eading aloud (needs to be supplemented
with
needsmore
to berealistic activities
supplemented withas more
the level
realistic
increases).
activities as the level increases.
· iving a prepared talk (may be used for
may be used
advanced for advanced level.
level)
· earning a piece of text or dialogue by heart
needs to
more be supplemented
realistic activities with
as themore level
realistic
activities as the level increases.
increases).
· Interviewing someone, or being interviewed
(Yes.
Yes. ItIt helps
helps toto prepare
prepare students
students for
for real
real life
life speech .)
speech.
· oing a drill (needs to be supplemented
needs
with to be
more supplemented
realistic with
activities as themore
level realistic
activities as
increases) . the level increases.
· lso students must consider whom
they are talking to and be able to check
if they are being understood.
· e.g.
· ± Aey Jack, how¶s the project coming
along?
· hat project?
· ± The one you and Craig are working
on.
· Craig and I?
· ± Yeah, for the science fair.
· h, that project. It¶s finished. I¶m so
busy working on another project for my
economics class that I almost forgot about it.
I hope it¶ll work like we want to.
· ± h, I¶m sure it will.
· ne important consideration:
Proficiency level of the students
(challenging but not too difficult.)
· If the task is too easy or too difficult,
the students may be demotivated.
Common characteristics in
successful speaking tasks
·
·
· !
· "
·
Try to avoid students¶ talking in the mother tongue,
and avoid too much Teacher Talk.
·
Try to avoid outstanding students¶ dominating
discussions. Try to guarantee equal opportunities for
students of different levels.
· !
Interesting topic, and clear objective. Make sure that
the task is in line with the students¶ ability
· "
· "
The task must be designed so that the
students can complete the task
successfully with the language that they
have. therwise the task will become
frustrating and the students are likely to
give up or revert to the native language.
#$
%
· or organizing group work, please refer to
4.2 of Unit 4, on Pages 40-42.
· In 4.2 of Unit 4, four ways of organizing
classroom activities are mentioned:
& '
(
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)%'*
+*
** , -./
dvantages of using group work
·
s compared with
activities for the whole class, group work
enables students to talk a lot because it
increases the time for each student to
practise speaking in one lesson.
·
roup work helps
students avoid losing their face in front of a
whole class, and thus it makes students
courageous to speak.
· -
·
Speaking in a small
group is more natural than speaking in a
large group, because the latter is usually
more formal and requires preparation.
·
Students can naturally
perform to their abilities more readily in
small groups than in a whole class, i.e.
students of different levels can participate.
·
Small group work helps
students learn to work cooperatively and it
helps develop interpersonal skill fostering
development of tolerance, mutual respect
and harmony.
-
It is important to provide the students with a
variety of speaking activities because:
· variety of speaking activities will enable
students to cope with different situations in
reality.
· ariety helps keep motivation high.
· ariety may suit students of different
learning styles.
· There are two major purposes for
listening. ne is to get information
and the other is for social reasons.
· Since speaking is reciprocal of
listening, the same is true of
speaking.
· ccording to ittlewood, as has
been mentioned in Unit 2 (p. 18)
communicative speaking activities
can be divided into two types:
f
, and
:
Structural ctivities
Pre-C. .
Quasi-com. ctivities
unctional Com. ct.
Com. ct.
Social Interaction ct.
·
ctivity (p.101)
· ctivity B:
Use the same pictures, but cut them up,
paste them on cards, and give each student a
different picture.
irections: sk your partner what is in his/her
picture.
ore example:
Student : hat¶s in your picture?
Student B: There is __________. hat¶s in
your picture?
Student : There is __________.
· bviously the second activity includes
an information gap that the first one
does not.
· Information-gap activities can be
designed at a very elementary level, so
that communicative practice can be
done from almost the very beginning
of foreign language learning.
*
Two problems with most dialogues in
textbooks:
· 3
The natural
speech of native speakers is often phrases or
sentence fragments full of pauses, false
starts, and repetitions.
· %*
Teachers ask students to memorize
dialogues by heart.
hat can a teacher do to make a
dialogue more communicative?
Thank you!