Teaching Speaking: Factors, Definition & Contexts

Teaching Speaking: Factors and Definition

• Student motivation, language proficiency, knowledge of the topic, the student's mother tongue, the teacher's motivation, and textbooks impact speaking development.
• Speaking involves constructing and communicating meaning through verbal and non-verbal symbols across various contexts, according to Chaney (2018).

Language Use and Contexts examples

• Language forms and functions involve verbal exchanges in specific contexts.
• Example: when someone is at the door the sister might be in the bath.
• Example: when it's cold Wife may tell her husband and the husband may respond let's go home

Meaning/Functions

• Speaking allows for expressing feelings/opinions, describing people/places/objects/habits, giving advice, agreeing/disagreeing, issuing warnings, and apologizing.

Contexts

• Speaking occurs in formal and informal settings, as well as at work, in meetings, at the doctor's office, at school, and in malls.

Characteristics of The Spoken Word

• Spoken language is spontaneous, lacking pre-planning in most situations.
• It includes false starts, repetitions, incomplete sentences, and short phrases.
• Spoken language is produced under time constraints, requiring students to generate unplanned utterances in real time.
• Speakers need to think of their audience and make sure that they are correctly interpreting the message.

Characteristics of Good Speakers

• Good speakers produce English speech sounds and sound patterns effectively.
• Effective speakers use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns, and the rhythm of the second language.
• Good speakers select appropriate words and sentences.
• Good speakers organize thoughts in meaningful and logical sequences.
• Skilled speakers use language to express meanings, values, and judgements.
• Proficient speakers use language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, demonstrating fluency (Nunan, 2003).

Issues in ESL Speaking Education

• Traditional ESL classes often teach speaking through drills, memorization of dialogues, or oral responses to teacher questions.
• Characteristics of spoken language and the qualities of a good speaker are frequently overlooked.

Designing Speaking Activities

• Speaking activities should be designed with meaning/function, context, and materials in mind.

Characteristics of Effective Speaking Activities

• Effective speaking activities consider the purpose, participants (roles), audience, and setting (where and when).

Providing Speaking Practice

• Teachers must facilitate speaking practice in the classroom.
• Teachers should provide authentic practice that prepares students for real-life situations.
• Teachers should create classroom environments that foster real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks promoting oral language.
• Group collaboration is key.

Qualities of Successful Speaking Activities

• Speaking activities should maximize foreign language use, minimizing the use of the mother tongue and teacher talk.
• Even participation is important.
• The topic should be appropriate for all skill levels to guarantee equal opportunities for all students, including the avoidance of outstanding students dominating discussions.
• Pair and group work should be promoted, as well as specific roles for students, and time limits on each student's participation should be put in place.
• High motivation is key.
• The activities should have interesting topics as well as a sense of purpose.
• The language level should be fitting for the language students' language level, and they should be able to complete the activity using the foreign language's language.

Fluency vs. Accuracy

• It is important to watch supporting videos and answer questions to encourage fluency and precision.

Activities to Build Fluency and Confidence

• Learners repeating sentences, engaging in casual conversation, considering hints and tips, and learners working in pairs and agreeing on their list of best five films.
• Learners preparing a monolgue about their hobbies and giving a whole class speech
• Learners remembering a useful list of bits of language they can use

Group Work in Speaking Tasks

• Group work increases speaking practice time, enables students to talk more.
• Group work can also help students by lessening their fear of an audience, making students more courageous when it comes to speaking.
• Small groups create a more natural speaking setting, reduce formality and requirements for preparation.
• Students of different levels can participate and perform more effectively in smaller groups.
• Students can work cooperatively, develop interpersonal skills, and foster tolerance, mutual respect, and harmony.
• Collaboration and Feedback is facilitated.

Types of Speaking Activities

• Speaking activities are purposed either to get some form of information, or serve a social need.
• Functional Communication activities (to get information) and Social Interaction activities (for social reasons)

More Types of Activities

• Pre-communicative activities are more structural and focus teaching linguistic/grammatical features.
• Communicative activities include social interaction activities (role-playing, simulations, problem-solving) which are necessary for beginner students to practice the forms of the language.
• Make speaking activites as communicative as possible.

Speaking Activities

• Discussions can be conducted after a lesson, which allows the students to conclude what has been taught and share ideas.
• The purpose of the discussion should be set by the teacher.
• The teacher should give all the learners information such as who they are.
• Sims are very similar to role-plays, however students can bring class items to class to make their act more realistic.
• Role plays and sims have many advantages, which such activities motivating the students and boosting them.
• Information Gap Activities involve students working in pairs, each having distinct information to share to solve problems.

Speaking Activities Example

• Students summarize tales or stories.
• Students create and imagine own stories to other students.
• Students use storytelling to foster creative thinking, using formats of beginning, development, and ending.
• Students learn about telling characters and settings of stories.
• Students learn to conduct interviews on selected topics.
• Interviews with different individuals, will give the students the ability to build up speaking skills and socializing skills.

Story Completion

• Class activity involves students sitting in a circle, and they make a story with a beginning, middle and end.
• To start activity, the teacher will start the story.
• Each student will continue the activity until student have added 4-10 sentences
• The students can add more characters, events and descriptions.
• Picture Narrating uses sequential pictures, as students use that a template.
• During picture narrating students must pay attention to criteria to be met with the material.
• The rubric includes what each student has to narrate.
• Speeches are another skill, and are a great way to build up speaking skills.
• Students can prepare speeches about certain topics from other students, or even special events, to help their presentation skills.

Suggestions For Teachers

• Teachers should maximize chances of students speaking the language to practice their speaking skills, as well as encourage a safe working environment with authentic resources.
• Teachers should try to get all the students to attempt all of the activities.
• Give students useful information, such as vocabulary and notes.
• The more time the student speaks, the better.
• Teachers should try to create an atmosphere of communication, by moving around the classroom
• Comment on the positive signs, when there are questions/responses/interaction between each other.
• To encourage students eliciting questions is important, such as "what do you mean".
• Try not to correct questions, especially if they are speaking. Correction can come later.
• Diagnose the student's problems, and try to help.