ELT Methodology

Teaching Speaking

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Instructor: Dr. Hanita Hassan

Ehsan Ataei 1-9

Saeid Farid 10-15

Vijaya Govind 21-27

Mehrnoosh Jebelli 28-34

Somaye Mirzababaie 16-20

Speaking Group Feb,2011

Teaching Listening and Speaking

From Theory to Practice (Speaking part)

Jack C. Richards

First published 2008

Teaching Speaking (TS)

Speaking is the most important skill among other

skills

Learner’s judgments and self-evaluation is based

on their speaking

It is a tough job for teachers to engage student to

speak, because there are some barriers and

affective filters

You can write or read or learn grammar or listen

individually but you can not speak with your self

so teaching speaking needs more consideration

Approaches in TS

• Teachers and textbooks make use of a variety of

Approaches, ranging from Direct Approaches focusing on specific features of oral Interaction

(e.g., Turn-taking, Topic management, and questioning strategies) to Indirect Approaches that create conditions for oral interaction through Group

Work, Task work, and other strategies (Richards, 1990).

We will discuss over task based approach in oral communication in an academic setting in India as an example later.

Features of Spoken Discourse

•Composed of idea units (conjoined short phrases and

clauses)

•May be planned (e.g., a lecture) or unplanned (e.g.,

a conversation)

•Employs more vague or common words than

written language

•Contains slips and errors reflecting online

processing

•Involves reciprocity (i.e., interactions are jointly

constructed)(A relation of mutual dependence, action or

influence)

•Shows variation (e.g., between formal and casual

speech),

•reflecting speaker roles, speaking purpose, and the

context

Conversational routines

• Fixed expressions, or “routines,” that often has

specific functions

• There are routines for beginnings and endings of

conversations, for leading into topics, and for moving

away from one topic to another.

Let me think about it.

I‟ll be with you in a minute.

It doesn‟t matter.

Pawley and Syder (1983) suggest that native speakers

have a repertoire of

thousands of routines like these, that their use in

appropriate situations creates

conversational discourse that sounds natural and

native-like, and that they have to be learned and used

as fixed expressions.

Styles of speaking

Style of speaking is appropriate to the particular circumstances.

Different styles of speaking reflect the roles, age, sex, and status of participants in interactions and also reflect the Expression of politeness. I guess it must be quite late now?

You wouldn’t have the time, would you?

Lexical, phonological, and grammatical changes may be involved in producing a Suitable style of speaking, as the following alternatives illustrate: Have you seen the boss? / Have you seen the manager? (lexical)

Whachadoin? / What are you doing? (phonological)

Functions of speaking

Interactional functions deal with social relations

Transactional functions deal with exchange of information

Three-part version of

Brown and Yule’s framework

Talk as interaction

Talk as transaction

Talk as performance

It is in the form of conversation related to social function like Greetings, engage in small talk, recount.

Main Features

• Has a primarily social function

• Reflects role relationships

• Reflects speaker‟s identity

• May be formal or casual and Reflects degrees of politeness

• Uses conversational register

• Focus on participants and their social needs

• Interactive, requiring two-way participation

Talk as interaction

• Opening and closing conversations

Open dialogs to practice feedback responses

• Choosing topic, Making small-talk

• Recounting personal incidents and experiences

• Turn-taking, Reacting to others

• Classroom group discussions and problem-solving activities

• A class activity during which students design a poster

• Discussing sightseeing plans with a hotel clerk or tour guide

• Making a telephone call to obtain flight information

• Asking someone for directions on the street

• Buying something in a shop or Ordering food from a menu

in a restaurant

skills involved (talk as interaction)

Include greetings, small talk, compliments, personal recounts, and narratives

focus is on what is said or done.

Communication is more important than fluency or accuracy.

Talk as transaction

Talking as transaction

First type

giving and receiving information (asking someone for directions describing how to use

something–sharing opinions and ideas–discussing plans)

Accuracy may not be a priority, as long as

information is successfully communicated or

understood.

Second type

obtaining goods or services (checking into a hotel or ordering food in a restaurant)

Focus on message not the participants.

skills involved in using talk for transactions

Explaining a need or intention.

Not dependent on grammatical accuracy • Information-gap activities

• Role plays

• Group discussions

Teaching talk as transaction Talk as transaction is more easily planned since current communicative materials

are a rich resource of group activities, information-gap activities, and role

plays

Role-play activities are another familiar technique for practicing real-world transactions and typically involve the following steps:

Preparing

Modeling and eliciting

Practicing and reviewing

a role play using cue cards or realia to provide language and other

support.

Talk as performance public talk transmits information before an audience, such as

• classroom presentations

• public announcements

• speeches

welcome speech given by a university president:

“Good morning. It’s not my intention to deliver the customary state of the university address. There’s good reason for that.

It is in the form of monolog rather than dialog,

often follows a recognizable format (e.g., a speech of welcome.

Examples of talk as performance

• Giving a class report about a school trip

• Conducting a class debate

• Giving a speech of welcome

• Making a sales presentation

• Giving a lecture

The main features of talk as performance • A focus on both message and audience • Predictable organization and sequencing

• Importance of both form and accuracy

• Language is more like written language Often in monolog form

skills involved in using talk as performance

• Using an appropriate format

• Presenting information in an appropriate sequence

• Maintaining audience engagement

• Using correct pronunciation and grammar

• Creating an effect on the audience

• Using appropriate vocabulary

• Using an appropriate opening and closing

Note : Some students are more comfortable with talk as interaction than as performance and vice versa

Features of performances An audience

Speaker creates a “product”

A single speaker

produces longer stretches of discourse

Recognizable “scripts”

e.g., welcome speech, business presentation, class talk

Accuracy of language

speech is monitored for accuracy

Language more formal

more like written language

Teaching talk as performance

Use model speeches, presentations, and other model texts

Examine discourse and grammatical features

Ss construct and practice parallel texts

Implications for teaching Three core issues need to be addressed in planning speaking activities for an English class.

The first is to determine what kinds of speaking skills the class will focus on.

The second issue is to identifying teaching strategies to “teach” (i.e., provide opportunities

for learners to acquire) each kind of talk.

The third issue involved in planning speaking activities is determining the expected level of performance on a speaking task and the criteria that will be used to assess student performance

Goals for a successful speaking lesson/course

o Activities address specific aspects of oral skills

o e.g., talk as interaction, transaction, or performance

o Sufficient language and other supports for tasks

o Balance of accuracy and fluency activities

o Modeling for speaking activities

o Activities are suitable for students of different proficiency

levels o Ss have sample talking time o Ss participate actively in lessons o Grammar and pronunciation errors are addressed

appropriately

o Activities have take-away value

o A progression from controlled practice to freer practice

o Opportunities for personalization

o Ss experience success

o The pleasure factor

Teaching Oral communication skills by Mojibor Rahman

A task based approach based on Indirect approaches

Students : engineering and technology students at

Indian institute.

Students Target : less proficient students

Students goal: to be master in language Oral

communication covers formal presentations to

participation in teams and meetings

Setting :academic experience in teaching communication

According to Halliday oral communication defined

as sociological encounter ,in oral communication

exchange of meaning happens and some realities are

created .

Communication is a dynamic interactive process that

involves the effective transmission of facts, ideas,

thoughts, feelings and values.

It is not passive and does not just happen; It is

dynamic because it involves a variety of forces and

activities interacting over time.

it includes some steps called process, besides during these steps some changes happen in the relation and interaction between people.

Communication is an interactive process

Effective oral communication Be Confident in Academic ,professional and personal

environments

eye contact

body language

style

understanding the audience

adapting to the audience

active and reflexive listening

politeness

precision

conciseness

A task is a „work plan‟; that is, it takes the form of materials for researching or teaching language. The general perception among language teachers and educators that task-based teaching is mainly directed at improving students‟ abilities to use the target language rather than at enabling them to acquire new linguistic skills (Samuda, 2000)

Task four criteria

1. meaning

2.a goal which needs to be worked towards

3. the activity is outcome-evaluated

4. A real-world relationship

Task based approach

Widdowson argues that „exercise‟ and „task‟ differ

with regard to the kind of meaning, goal, and outcome

they are directed towards. An exercise is premised on

the need to develop linguistic skills as a prerequisite

for the learning of communicative abilities, while a

task is based on the assumption that linguistic abilities

are developed through communicative activity

Willis (1996: 35–6)

Identifies eight purposes for Task-based language

teaching

1. to give learners confidence in trying out whatever

language they know;

2. to give learners experience of spontaneous interaction

3. to develop learners‟ confidence that they can achieve

communicative go

4. to give learners chances for negotiating turns to speak

5. to engage learners in using language purposefully

and cooperatively

6. to make learners participate in a complete

interaction, not just one-off sentences;

7. to give learners chances to try out communication

strategies;(communicative effectiveness )

8. to give learners the chance to benefit from noticing

how others express similar

meanings;(L2 acquisition)

Balance between Communicative tasks and other tasks

Communicative tasks

promoting students' confidence

Improve students‟ communicative abilities

provide opportunities for trying out communication strategies

But

Fail the development in linguistic skills

Oral Communication Skills Skills Offered to prepare the students to take more advance level prepares the students to use the language in the real-life situations (academic, social or professional situations)

1. The nature, purpose and characteristics of good

conversation

2. Phonological forms to use in speech

3. Developing conversation skills with a sense of

stress, intonation and meaning

4. Use of question tags

5. Starting, maintaining and finishing conversations

6. Standard conversational exchange

7. Spoken language idioms

8. Effective listening and attention to others

9. Gestures and body language

10. Do‟s and Don‟ts in conversation

11. Telephonic conversation

12. Functions of English in conversation: introductions,

greetings, clarifications,

explanations, interruptions, opinions,

13. Agreement and disagreement, complaints, apologies

14. Participating in informal discussions and situations

15. Using information to make some decision, i.e., making

social arrangements

with friends

16. Reproducing information in some form (question/answer,

summarizing, oral

reporting, etc.)

Core Activities ( Show strengths and weaknesses of the students )

• Individual oral presentations

• Practice in class participation

• Discussion skills(informal discussion)

•Oral presentations: In between the discussion/debate

activity, the students are asked to prepare a topic

assigned to them and present in the class. This activity

is less emphasized because we have a full-fledged

course in Oral Presentation Skills. Students make

formal oral presentations. Each presentation is followed

by a question/answer period, and concluded by the

teacher‟s comment.

In class participation (Role-play): For this activity, the

students are asked to make group of three to five

students. In the beginning The teacher listens the

performances of the students and comments on the

individual performances. He points out the errors of the

individual students. At the end of the semester, students

are assessed using these tasks

Discussion/debate: This core activity runs every week. The

students are engaged in a formal/informal discussion/debate

activity on an assigned topic. This activity is completely

student-led, i.e., students play all the roles (conductor,

observer, group presenter, and participating members).It is

more appropriate to call this activity a "discussion/debate"

activity because it includes both group discussions and

debates, including a little bit of oral presentation.

Conclusion

activity in speaking divided to

interactions, transactions, or performances

Always Consider

•Model of activities

•Divided activity stages

•Needed language support

•Needed resources

•Needed learning arrangements

•Expected level of performance

•Time and ways of feedback

•task-based approach in teaching oral communication has

much potential, but it has a long way to go.

•majority of the Students understand the tasks and found the

experience to be rewarding, interesting, and educationally

beneficial.

•Students involved in the task because the tasks were giving

the feeling of real life situation

• Their final performances were much improved(70 percent

students scored grade „A‟)

•Problems in carrying out these tasks: Sometimes it went out

of control from the hand of students or from the hand of the

teacher.

• Lack of curriculum emphasis on speaking skills

• Teachers 'limited English proficiency

• Class conditions do not favor oral activities

• Limited opportunities outside of class to practice

• Examination system does not emphasize oral skills

Reasons for poor speaking skills