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COLEGIO DE STA. ANA DE VICTORIAS, INC.

Osmeña Ave., Victorias City, Negros Occidental

Lesson 5: TEACHING SPEAKING

INTRODUCTION

Of the four skills speaking is considered the most basic and the most important. A
person who knows a language is referred to as a speaker of that language. Being able to
express himself/herself in the target language gives one an edge over others who simply cannot
think of anything to say.

Learning to speak is more than knowing the rules of grammar. One must know what to
say about something, how to say it, to whom, where, and when to say it. The key word is
appropriateness. Speaking requires a lot of real-time exposure to varied situations for
functioning effectively in society.

It is therefore necessary to provide meaningful classroom activities that develop learners’

ability to express themselves through speech

At the end of the lesson the student should be able to:

● Describe the nature of the oral communication process

● Identify barriers to effective communication and suggest ways to remedy them
● Use different strategies based on the principles of oral interaction skills in English

LEARNING INPUTS

A. The Nature of the Oral Communication Process

Communication involves the use of the verbal and non-verbal media. For a speech act to take
place, there are four important elements needed

1. The sender or source

2. A message
3. A receiver
4. A response or feedback

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THE

PROCESS OF ORAL COMMUNICATION

● The
sender
or
source is the speaker or communicator and the medium used to send the message
comes in all forms such as story, poem, music, etc.
● The receiver reacts or respond to the message by means of feedback.
● An important variable that could affect communication is NOISE.

Psychological noise is usually in the sender and / or the receiver of the message. It
affects how the sender expresses his message and how the receiver reacts to it.

Physical noise affects the intelligibility and clarity of the message. A talking audience,
background stereo music, the whirring of the ceiling fan, and other sounds in the
surrounding are examples of physical noise.

Tell whether each of the following is psychological noise or physical noise

1. Loud talking and laughter of children in the corridor.

2. A feeling of resentment towards the other person
3. The blaring stereo music
4. Lack of interest on the part of the receiver
5. The tooting of horns of passing vehicles
Give other examples of physical and psychological noise.

B. Barriers to Effective Communication

The goal of the communication process is to get the message across. If the message is not
understood and responded to as intended, communication has not taken place.

Some of the factors that cause communication breakdown are language-related as

follows:

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● Mispronunciations. For example, if the word “ship” is pronounced as “sheep” that

would change the meaning of the message. “Look at the ship”

● Lack of awareness of the pronunciation of a given word in the different varieties of

English. For example, in Australian English “Today” is [todai] A person used to American
English would take it to mean “to die” instead of “today”

● Different meanings attached to a word. Denotative meaning is the dictionary meaning

of a word while connotative meaning is the personal meaning attached to a word.

● Psychological factors. Our reactions to a message maybe conditioned by our opinion

of and feelings for the sender of the message. Moreover, the way we word our
messages and the way we respond are affected by our feelings during the interactions.

● Delivery of the message. The volume of one’s voice and his rate of speaking could
have an effect on the intelligibility and clarity of the message.

● Situation or setting. Physical noise, the size of the room, and the size if the audience
could impede communication

C. Successful Oral Fluency Practice

Imagine or recall a successful speaking activity in the classroom that you have participated in as
student. What are the characteristics of this activity that make you judge it as successful?

Characteristics of a Successful Speaking Activity

● More leaner talk. As much as possible a big part of the period allotted to the activity is in
fact occupied by learner talk.
● Even participation. Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative
participants. All get a chance to speak and participate in the discussion
● High motivation. Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic
and have something new to say about it.
● Acceptable language. Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant,
easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy
Problems with Speaking Activities

1. Inhibition. Unlike reading, writing and listening, speaking requires some degree of real
time exposure to an audience. Learners are often inhibited to speak in a foreign
language, worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply
shy of the attention their speech attracts.

2. Nothing to say. Learners often complain that they cannot think of anything to say

3. Low or uneven participation. Only one participant can talk at a time. If he or she is to
be heard, and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little talking
time. This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while
others speak very little or not at all.
4. Mother-tongue use. Most learners tend to use the native language because it is easier,
and it feels more natural.

What a teacher can do to help solve the problems:

● Use group work. This increases the amount of learner talk in a limited period of time
and also lowers learner inhibitions.

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● Base the activity on easy language. In general, the level of language needed for
discussion should be lower than that used in intensive language learning activities. It
should be easily recalled and produced by learners so that they can speak fluently with
the minimum of hesitation. It is a good idea to teach or review essential vocabulary
before the activity starts.

● Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest. On the whole the
clearer the purpose of the discussion, the more motivated participants will be

● Give some instruction or training in discussion skills. Clear instruction on how to go

about the activity should be given the class. To facilitate group interaction and to ensure
that everyone contributes to the discussion, a chairperson for each group should be
appointed.

● Keep students speaking the target language. A monitor for each group may be
appointed to remind the group participants to speak English.

D. Oral Communication Strategies

Students are given sufficient opportunities to develop fluency in the language through
varied oral communication strategies which include the following:

1. Discussion Activities
Discussion activities can take different forms depending on what is discussed and the
objective of the discussion. Not only do they provide meaningful practice in the language
but they also develop negotiation skills.

Describing pictures.

● each group should have a picture which can be seen by everybody

● they have two minutes to say as many sentences as they can to describe it
● a secretary marks a tick on a piece of paper representing each sentence.
● At the end of two minutes, groups report how many ticks they have.
● They then repeat the exercise with the second picture, trying to get more ticks
than the first time

Picture differences

● students are in pairs

● each has a different picture (either A or B)
● Without showing the other his picture, a student tries to find out the difference
between the two pictures.
● For example, he says “The girl in your picture is short and fat, but the one in my
picture is tall and thin.”

Things in common
● Students sit in pairs, choosing someone they do not know very well as their
partner
● They converse to find out things that they have in common.
● At the end, they share their findings with the whole class

Problem-solving activity

● Students are presented with a situation which poses a problem to which they
meet to find a solution
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Consensus-seeking activity

● Students are given an important issue for discussion

● They first state their own views and stand on the issue
● Then they try to convince each other to arrive at just one stand on the matter

Moral dilemma issues

● Students are presented with a situation where they have to make a decision
based on their principles and values

Humanistic activities

● These are usually “getting -to -know” each other better activities with a dual
purpose: Linguistic and affective
● Linguistic gives practice on a grammar point/problem
● Affective aims to establish a warm, supportive, non-threatening climate in the
classroom

2. Language Games

Language games are generally experiential, inviting students’ attention to take part in or
to witness language behavior and attitude.

● Relaying and carrying out instructions

⮚ Students give each other instructions. The success of this activity
depends on the correct giving and interpreting of instructions

● Story Construction game

⮚ This game is based on the principle of information gap.
⮚ The students are divided into groups and each group is given one picture
to study.
⮚ The groups are then disbanded and one student per group is placed with
representatives from the other groups to form a new team
⮚ They describe the picture they saw in their previous groups to come up
with a story

● Strip Story
⮚ the story is summarized by the teacher and written down on a piece of
paper
⮚ the summary is then cut up into strips with one sentence per strip
⮚ the strips are distributed to the members of the group, one strip per
student
⮚ the students are instructed to memorize the sentence on their strips,
share it with the group and together reconstruct the story. It is a
negotiation that takes place during the task that students use free
spontaneous talk.

3. Student-Centered Interaction Modes

● Dyadic or Pair work – here the students are asked to pair off and interact with
each other as they carry out the task assigned to them

● Small group discussion (SGD) – here the students are divided into groups and
work as a group on a given task. The smaller the size of the group the better. The
ideal size is 5 or 8 members to a group

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● Role play and Related Techniques

This refers to all sorts of activities where learners imagine themselves in a
situation where they play the role of someone else, and use language
appropriate to the new context.

⮚ Dialogue
A. Look, it’s stopped raining!
B. So it has! Do you want to go out?
A. . I’ve got a lot of shopping to do

⮚ Plays – these are an expansion of the dialogue technique where a class

learns and performs a play. Rehearsals and other preparations may be
time consuming but the results can contribute a great deal to learning and
to the learners’ confidence

⮚ Simulations – the individual participants speak and react as themselves,

but the group role, situation and task they are given is an imaginary one

⮚ Role Play – Students are given a situation plus a problem task, as in

simulations, but they are also allotted individual roles, written out on
cards.

For Example:

Factors that contribute to the success of a role are:

⮚ Making sure that the language demanded is well within the learners’ capacity
⮚ Participants’ enthusiasm
⮚ Careful and clear presentation and instruction
A preliminary demonstration or rehearsal by you together with a student volunteer can
be very useful.

POINTERS TO REMEMBER

Here are some criteria for judging the success of a speaking activity:

1. Learners talk a lot

2. Participation is even
3. Motivation is high
4. Language is of an acceptable level

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