Instructional Strategies for Teaching Speaking

1. Instructional Strategies for Teaching Speaking Zolotonosha February 24, 2012 Presented by Carol Haddaway, Sr. English Language Fellow, Ukraine U.S. Department of State

2. “Speaking in a second or foreign language has often been viewed as the most demanding of the four skills.” (Bailey and Savage in Celce-Murcia, p. 103)

3. WHY? • Because we must do it instantaneously and interactively with another person or people. • Fluent speech contains reduced forms(what do you want?) • slang (cool), idioms (hit the road running), phrasal verbs (figure out) • stress, rhythm, and intonation; • During the interaction with another speaker one must monitor and understand the other person, think of one’s contribution, produce it, monitoring its effect… (Lazarton, p.103)

4. Implications for Teaching • Create a relaxed atmosphere • Use interesting topics and stimulating activities • Expose Ls to naturally pronounced speech and integrate pronunciation into your lesson • Get Ls used to combining listening and speaking in real time, in natural interaction. • Establish English as the main classroom language (Davies , 2000, p. 82)

5. “Talking classrooms” Create a classroom culture of speaking through the general use of English in the classroom. (Scott Thornbury in Harmer, p. 123)

6. Warm-up Find Someone Who Learners: motivate, involve, focus create expectations, introduce topic

7. Oral Skills Class Who are my learners?

8. Low Level Learners • Build on their experience • Share their expertise • Use realia to keep learning as concrete as possible • S1: Have you ever been to Lviv? • S2: No I haven’t . Have you? • S1: Yes. It’s wonderful • S2: How long did you stayed? • S1: One week • S2: The buildings are beautiful, yes? • S1: Yes, and the streets….the chocolates.. • S2: Ah, have you ever been to Kyiv?

9. Non-academic learners • BICS (Basic interpersonal Communication Skills) • Social language – interpersonal interactions • Repetitive – functional language (greetings, making requests, giving directions, sharinginformation). • Evidence of mastery: good TL pronunciation, ease of TL social interactions, use of TL expressions • Used primarily, though not exclusively in oral language – listening and speaking • Takes 2-3 years to master (Jim Cummings, 1970)

10. Academic Learners • CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) • Language encountered in academic situations • Used primarily thought not exclusively in reading and writing • Not repetitive • Takes on average 7-9 years to become truly fluent • Participate in learning activities such as • Class participation • Discussions & Presentations • Interacting with peers and professors • Asking and answering questions • Interpersonal communication (Jim Cummings, 1970)

11. What makes an effective speaking class? Teacher, Learners, Atmosphere Error Correction, Activities

12. Affective Filter

13. Balance Accuracy and Fluency Is it more important to be able to speak a language with accuracy (grammatically correct) or with fluency (communicatively correct, but not always grammatically correct)?

14. Accuracy • Practice typically involves focusing only in the new language structures (e.g. comparisons) • Focus on pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, sentence formation • Errors are usually dealt with immediately

15. Accuracy example • L1: Is the Toyota bigger than the Chevy? • L2: Yes, it is. Is the Lexus cheap than…. • Teacher: Cheap…? • L2: Is the Lexus cheaper than the Chevy? • L3: No, it isn’t. Is the Lexus faster than the Toyota? • L4: Yes, it is. Is prettier the Toyota? • Teacher: Is the……..

16. Fluency • Likely to take place when speaking activities focus on meaning and its negotiation, when speaking strategies are used, and when overt correction is minimized. )

17. Speaking Activities Information Gap Think Pair Share Telling Stories

18. Information Gap

19. Information Gap Characteristics • To exchange information • Main attention is sharing information • Need to communicate to reach objective • Learners must ‘fill the gap’ to complete the activity/communication

20. Why information gap activities? • Allow for comprehensibleinput (i+1) • Input should be at the right level of difficulty to promote acquisition • Learners produce language – this output ‘pushes’ learners to undertake complete grammatical processing (M. Swain) • Help lower students’ affective filter

21. Cooperative Activity • Think • Pair • Share

22. Think-Pair-Share How: • Teacher presents a question or problem • Students are given “think/wait time” and write answers (1) • Students pair with a partner (2) • Pair share with another pair (4) • Group share their responses and ideas with another small group or with the entire class. Why: • Have time to think, plan, and rehearse, with feedback • Can practice before talking to whole group

23. Question/Problem 1 • Interaction is the key to improving EFL learners’ speaking ability. How do you promote this interaction in your classroom? 

24. Question/Problem 2 • What types of speaking activities do you normally use in your classroom? Do they serve different purposes? 

25. Question/Problem 3 • Your students are really shy and don’t say anything. How do you arouse in your learners a willingness and need or reason to speak?  

26. Numbered Heads Together

27. Question/Problem 4 • Your students say they can’t talk because they’ll make lots of mistakes. What do/can you do to help them overcome this fear?

28. Question/Problem 5 • What are effective ways to give students feedback on their performance during oral activities?

29. Feedback and Error Correction • Self – Correction • Give learners the opportunity to correct themselves, helping as necessary • Peer – Correction • If learner cannot self-correct, invite other learners to make the correction • Teacher Correction • Recast, Error or Mistake, Accuracy or Fluency focus

30. Error Treatment • Should errors be treated?What errors should be treated? • How should they be treated? • Who and When? • “There is a French widow in every bedroom.” • “The different city is another one in the another two.”

31. Story telling Groups of 3

32. A successful speaking activity • Learners talk a lot • Student (STT) vs teacher (TTT) – wait time • Participation is even • discussion not dominated by a minority of talkative students • Motivation is high • learners are eager to speak; interested in topic • Language is of an acceptable level • utterances are easily comprehensible • acceptable level of accuracy UR, 1991, p. 120

33. “Communication derives essentially from interaction” (Rivers, 1987 in Richards & Renandyn, p.208)

34. References • Brown, H.D. (2001). Teaching by Principles. Longman • Davies, P. and Pearse, E. (2000). Success in English Teaching. Oxford University Press. • Farrell, T. (2006). Succeeding with English Language Learners. Corwin Press. • Harmer, J. (2007). How to teach English. Pearson Longman. • Lazaraton, A. (2001). Teaching Oral Skills. In Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language 3rd Ed., edited by M. Celce-Mircia. Heinle & Heinle. • Richards, J.C. & Renandya, W.A. (2002). Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge. • Ur, P. (1996).. A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge.

35. Thank you!