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TEFL 7
Mihaela Tănase Dogaru
Spring semester, 2017

TEACHING SPEAKING

I. Introduction. Reasons for teaching speaking.

There are three basic reasons why it is a good idea to give students speaking tasks that provoke them to use
all and any language at their command.
1. Rehearsal.
Getting students to have a free discussion gives them a chance to rehearse having discussions outside the
classroom. Having them take part in a role-play at an airport check-in desk allows them to rehearse such a
real-life event in the safety of the classroom. It is a way for students to ‘get the feel’ of what
communicating in the foreign language really feels like.
2. Feedback
Speaking tasks where students are trying to use all and any language they know provides feedback for both
teacher and students. Teachers can see how well their class is doing and what language problems they are
having. Students can also see how easy they find a particular kind of speaking and what they need to do to
improve. Speaking activities can give them enormous confidence and satisfaction, and with sensitive
teacher guidance can encourage them into further study.
3. Engagement
Good speaking activities can be highly motivating. If all students are participating fully – and if the teacher
has set up the activity properly and can give them useful feedback – they will get a lot of satisfaction from
it. Many speaking activities (role-playing, discussion, and problem-solving) are intrinsically enjoyable in
themselves.

1. Types of speaking activities

It is important to be clear about what kind of speaking we are talking.
1. First of all, there is the type of controlled language practice where students say a lot of sentences using
a particular piece of grammar or a particular function.

e.g. controlled language practice – substitution drill

He’s Living on the island Six months
We’ve Eating raw fish Two weeks
My friends have Been Drinking rain water For Several days
Mary’s Watching the sharks Almost a year
I’ve Thinking of home A fortnight

2. Second of all, there is a type of freer language practice – still under the teacher’s control – but
involving students’ choice of language (they can actually choose what and how to say)

e.g. freer language practice – discourse chain

A B
Greet B Reply. Ask A about recent activities.
Reply. Ask B about his/her recent activities Reply. Suggest meeting for a drink.
Agree. Suggest a time and place Accept the place but suggest alternative time and
give reasons.
Agree. Say farewell. Reply.

3. Thirdly, and most importantly, there is the kind of speaking activities where students are using any and
all the language at their command to perform some kind of oral task.

e.g. Free speaking activity – role-play

Role-play Card: Shopkeeper

You are tired of customers who come to return good they claim are faulty. You think that that the cause for
most breakdowns is not following instructions and carelessness. Business has been bad recently. You
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cannot afford to give money back. Try first to refuse to do anything. Demand a receipt. Blame the
customer. If this fails, offer an exchange.
Role-play Card: Customer
You recently bought a radio cassette and accidentally dropped it. Now the cassette player will not work. As
it still is under guarantee, you want to take it bake and get a refund. You do not want an exchange as you
have decided to buy a better model you have seen in another shop. Do not admit that you dropped the
machine.

The important thing when setting up a free speaking activity is that there should be a task to complete and
that the students should want to complete it. There are a number of aspects that should be taken into
account when setting up such a speaking activity. These can be viewed as conditions that a speaking
activity should meet in order to be a communicative activity:
1. There should be student-student interaction – pair-work or group-work
2. In order to provide students with a strong motivation to speak, the activity should be based on the
information-gap principle.
3. The activity should be task-based – students should always have a task to complete
4. The activity should involve both structural and functional language focus
5. There should be interactional focus, like in informal discussions, decision-making, debates, exchange
of information or role-play.

2. Correction during speaking activities

Before getting on with our discussion of speaking activities, it is important to establish some rules for
correction during (free) speaking activities. It is important for teachers to correct mistakes made during
speaking activities in a different way from the mistakes made during a controlled practice activity. When
students are repeating sentences trying to get their pronunciation exactly right, then the teacher will often
correct (appropriately) every time there’s a problem. But if the same teacher did the same thing while
students were involved in a passionate discussion about whether capital punishment should be abolished,
for example, the effect might well be to destroy the conversational flow. Constant interruption from the
teacher will destroy the purpose of the speaking activity.
Many teachers watch and listen while speaking activities are taking place. They note don things that
seemed to go well and times when students couldn’t make themselves understood or made important
mistakes. When the activity has finished, the teacher either discusses the major mistakes with the class
(without mentioning the students who have made them), write them on the blackboard and asking to
students to identify and correct the mistakes, or give them individually to the students concerned.
Some teachers get very involved with their students during a speaking activity and want to join in. they
may argue forcefully in a discussion or get fascinated by a role-play and start ‘playing’ themselves. There’s
nothing wrong with the teachers getting involved, of course, provided they don’t start to dominate.
Although it is probably better to stand back so that you can watch and listen to what’s going on, students
can also appreciate teacher participation (but not too much).
Sometimes, however, teachers will have to intervene in some way if the activity is not going smoothly. If
someone in a role-play can’t think of what to say, or if a discussion begins to dry up, the teacher will have
to decide if the activity should be stopped or if careful prompting can get it going again. That’s where the
teacher may make a point in a discussion or quickly take on a role to push a role-play forward.
A mistake some teachers make is to think that, once a piece of language has been studied, a good
speaking activity will immediately stick it in the students’ minds. This is not always the case. Most teachers
will tell you that it usually takes a bit of time, a few lessons, before ‘new’ language comes out in fluency
activities. Today’ speaking activities may provoke students into using language they first learnt some time
ago.

3. Speaking activities in sequences

Speaking activities form part of a much longer sequence that includes reading or listening and, after the
activity, study work. Although we often use such activities simply to provide relief from more formal work,
they should be placed in a sequence of activities that may start with the introduction of a new piece of
language followed by controlled practice and finally by freer speaking activities. Let us examine such a
sequence of speaking activities designed for elementary level.

Surveys (elementary)
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One way of provoking conversation and opinion exchange is to get students to conduct questionnaires and
surveys. If the students plan these questionnaires themselves, the activity becomes even more useful.
In this example for elementary students, the present perfect tense has recently been introduced. The teacher
wants students to activate all their language knowledge and would expect the activity to provoke natural
use of the present perfect.
The topic is sleep – ways of sleeping, sleeping experiences, etc. First of all, the teacher talks about sleep.
Perhaps he tells a story about not being able to sleep, about a nightmare, or about someone he has seen
sleepwalking. He gets students to give him as much vocabulary related to ‘sleep’ as they can (e.g. ‘dream’,
‘nightmare’, ‘ walk in your sleep’, ‘heavy sleeper’, ‘light sleeper’). The students then work in pairs to plan
questions for their sleep questionnaire and the teacher goes round helping where necessary.
A simple student questionnaire might end up looking like this:

SLEEP QUESTIONNAIRE

 How many hours do you normally sleep? …………….

 Are you a light sleeper / heavy sleeper? ……………..
 Have you ever
YES NO
talked in your sleep
walked in your sleep
had a nightmare
fallen out of bed

If you answer yes, describe the experience(s):

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………

The students then go round the class questioning other students and noting down what they say. While they
are doing this, the teacher listens and prompts where necessary and he then gets them to tell the class of any
interesting experiences they have discovered before moving on to discussing language mistakes.
Encouraging students to get up and walk around talking to other classmates (not only the ones they are
sitting next to) has many advantages. It varies the structure of classroom periods, allows people a bit of
physical movement, and provides a welcome variety of interaction.
Students can design and use surveys and questionnaires about any topic – smoking, TV watching, feelings
and emotions, transport, musical preferences, etc. They are often a good lead-in to writing work.
4. More speaking suggestions
Match the following activities with an appropriate level:
1. Students work in pairs. One has a number of elements (e.g. pictures) arranged in a certain way. The
other student has the same elements, but loose, and has to arrange them in the same way by talking to
his partner without looking at the partner’s picture / plan. This is called ‘Describe and Arrange’.
(elementary/intermediate)
2. Students, in pairs, each have similar pictures, but with differences. Through talking to each other, they
have to ‘find the differences’ without looking at each other’s pictures. (elementary / intermediate)
3. Students make a list of the kind of things that people like or do (e.g. go jogging, brush teeth five times
a day, etc.). They have to go round the class to ‘find someone who’ does, did, likes etc. those things.
This is called a milling activity. (any level)

Find someone who:..

Chews chewing gum
Likes to have very hot baths Reads more than one book a week
Has been to Italy Can recite the alphabet in under 10 seconds
Owns a pet with 4 legs Is wearing something purple
Has played this game before Has got a driving licence
4. Students think of five famous people. They have to decide on the perfect gift for each person. (any
level)
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5. Students in groups look at five different photos. They have to decide which one should win a
photographic prize. The groups then have to agree with each other to come to a final decision.
(intermediate / advanced)
6. Students role-play a formal / business social occasion where they meet a number of people and
introduce themselves. (elementary / any level)
7. Students give a talk on a given topic and / or person. (advanced)
8. Students conduct a ‘balloon debate’ where only on person can stay in the balloon and they have to
make their case as to why they should be the one.
9. Students are presented with a ‘moral dilemma’ – e.g. a student is caught cheating in an important
exam. Given the student’s circumstances, which of five possible courses of action should be followed?
Groups reach a consensus. (intermediate / advanced)

We agreed that speaking should be integrated into a larger sequence of activities. This sequence could
contain introduction of new language, controlled practice, and free speaking activities that help students
activate and use the new language to communicate ideas in a real life situation. On the other hand, the
sequence of activities could contain a reading / listening text that forms the basis for creative use of
language.

Read the story below and devise both preparing-speaking activities and follow-up speaking activities:
IMPORTANT THINGS
by Barbara L. Greenberg
For years the children whimpered and tugged. ‘Tell us, tell us.’
You promised to tell the children some other time, later, when they were old enough.
Now the children stand eye to eye with you and show you their teeth. ‘Tell us’.
‘Tell you what?’ you ask, ingenuous.
‘Tell us The Important Things.’
You tell your children there are six continents and five oceans, or vice versa.
You tell your children the little you know about sex. Your children tell you there are better words for what
you choose to call The Married Embrace.
You tell your children to be true to themselves. They say they are true to themselves. You tell them they’re
lying, you always know when they’re lying. They tell you you’re crazy. You tell them to mind their
manners. They think you mean it as a joke; they laugh.
There are tears in your eyes. You tell the children the dawn will follow the dark, the tide will come in, the
grass will be renewed, every dog will have its day. You tell them the Story of the Littlest Soldier whose
right arm, which he sacrificed while fighting for a noble cause, grew back again.
You say that if there were no Evil we wouldn’t have the satisfaction of choosing The Good. And if there
were no pain, you say, we’d never know our greatest joy, relief from pain.
You offer to bake a cake for the children, a fudge cake with chocolate frosting, their favourite.
‘Tell us’, say the children.
You say to your children, ‘I am going to die’.
‘When?’
‘Someday.’
‘Oh.’
You tell your children that they, too, are going to die. They already knew it.
You can’t think of anything else to tell the children. You say you’re sorry. You are sorry. But the children
have had enough of your excuses.
‘A promise is a promise’, say the children.
They’ll give you one more chance to tell them of your own accord. If you don’t, they’ll have to resort to
torture.

A. Preparing Speaking
What should parents tell their children, and when? In groups think about a child’s life from the age of five
years up to 15 years old. Together, decide on a list of the most important things that parents should tell their
children in those years. Consider these and your own:
Death (of people and animals)
Facts of life
Religious beliefs
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Facts about the planet and the universe

Rules of behaviour (don’t lie, don’t talk to strangers…)

B. Follow-up
1. What is your first impression of the story? Compare your own impression with the other students’ in
your group.
2. If the children keep asking to be told about the important things, and the parent can never find an
answer that satisfies them, what point do you think the story is making? Do any of the following
statements satisfy you? In a small group, discuss your ideas.
There are no answers to the important questions in life.
Differences between people will always separate them.
One generation will never be content with another generation’s knowledge.
There are no important things in the end: you just go on living.
3. Think about your own life. What did your parents try to impress upon you? What lessons have you
learnt from you own experiences? Write a few notes under each heading and then exchange ideas with
others in the class.
Things I’ve learnt by experience Things my parents tried to teach me

4. Writing advice. Imagine you are giving advice to a younger person. Complete these sentences, so that
you are giving your own opinions.
The important thing to remember about education is ……
One of the most important things about a job is ….
In relationships, what’s important is …..

Look at the following speaking activity and try to see if it meets all the conditions to be a communicative
activity:
1. The students are put into groups
2. In each group each of the students is given one of the following cards and instructed not to show it to
anyone else:
a. A girl kissed lips of stone
b. Had driven her to do it
c. And her safety was the thing
d. More attractive than a king
e. Of living life alone
f. On the back of Cosmopolitan
g. That made a dull cold statue
h. To advertise a perfume. Fear
3. The groups are told that they must reassemble the poem – it is a one-stanza poem. Students can read
the lines aloud, but they may not show them to anyone else.
4. The groups are told that they must decide on a title for the poem.