This document discusses techniques for developing speaking skills in English. It argues that speaking skill is the most important of the four language skills. It identifies three effective techniques: reading to build vocabulary; listening to podcasts, which improves listening and allows practice summarizing aloud; and speaking regularly, which enhances pronunciation, intonation, rhythm, and allows correcting mistakes. The document concludes that regular use of these techniques, especially reading, listening to podcasts, and speaking practice, are superior for improving English speaking ability.
This document discusses techniques for developing speaking skills in English. It argues that speaking skill is the most important of the four language skills. It identifies three effective techniques: reading to build vocabulary; listening to podcasts, which improves listening and allows practice summarizing aloud; and speaking regularly, which enhances pronunciation, intonation, rhythm, and allows correcting mistakes. The document concludes that regular use of these techniques, especially reading, listening to podcasts, and speaking practice, are superior for improving English speaking ability.
“Out of the world's approximately 7.5 billion inhabitants, 1.5 billion speak English — that's 20% of the Earth's population,” according to (Lyons). This fact expresses the great importance of English as a global language as well as being the most widely used language in the world. The English language has four skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Speaking skill, particularly, is seen according to Ur (1996, p.120), “Of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking seems intuitively the most important”. Speaking is being capable of speech, expressing or exchanging thoughts through using language. Speaking skills can be developed by following some certain techniques. Initially, speaking skills can be enhanced through reading. Reading provides learners with huge amounts of vocabulary, which subsequently improves learners’ speaking skills. By learning new vocabulary items throughout reading, learners can develop a better speaking style. Students through reading develop in both fluency and accuracy of expression in their speaking. Also, reading adds to the learners’ conversational style; where it helps them to choose the correct structures for using some items of language. As (Mart) asserts “Through reading language learners will have vocabulary knowledge which will facilitate their speaking performance and their usage of structure in the target language will develop.” To sum up, one of the profoundly useful ways to improve one’s communication skills is extensive reading. Further, using podcasts can improve one’s speaking skills. Listening to podcasts initially improves the listening skills; however, it also enhances speaking. For example, after a person listens to a podcast, he/she can record themselves summarizing the podcast. Summarizing podcasts by saying them out loud undoubtedly enhances one’s speaking skills. Also, listening to podcasts supplies the listener with new vocabulary items, which he/she can use in communicative situations. In short, listening to podcasts develops one’s vocabulary which ultimately helps developing the speaking skills. Lastly, the best way to improve speaking is to speak! Speaking, to a partner or to one’s self, definitely helps to improve many sights of speaking skills. By speaking a lot, one can improve his pronunciation, his intonation, as well as his rhythm. All the vocabulary one may get and all the grammar rules acquired by a person should be applied and practiced by speaking on daily basis. Furthermore, Speaking repeatedly allows a person to recognize his grammatical, Structural, and pronunciation mistakes. This, thus, helps a person to get a mastery over different skills in language, especially speaking. To conclude, speaking repeatedly and on daily basis inevitably leads to improvement in speaking skills. All in all, speaking skill is the most important skill in developing one’s level in the English language. Three techniques are seen to be superior to other techniques respecting the development of the speaking skills. These includes reading, in its different forms, listening to podcasts, and finally speaking on daily basis. References: Mart, Çağr. “Developing Speaking Skills through Reading.” < http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v2n6p91p>
MUTONONO, ELENA. “3 Unique Ways to Improve Your Speaking with English