How to Foster Speaking Skills
Nafiye Cigdem Aktekin, Turkey
Nafiye Cigdem Aktekin is an assistant professor at Adana Science and Technology University. E-mail: naktekin@adanabtu.edu.tr
Menu
Background
Realistic goals
Integrate speaking with other skills
Cognitive development
Personality factors
Error correction
References
The ability to communicate in a foreign language is complicated for most Turkish students even after years of language education. Teachers are usually aware of the problem that the students face in language classes in putting to use the basic language rules they have learned. As a language skill, the importance of speaking and the learners’ speaking needs are often undervalued. Most teachers come to language classes with conscious or subconscious attitudes and interests of teaching grammar and prefer activities of mechanical type ignoring the need of ELT activities that encourage mental and sensual processing of the students. The importance of thinking and creating for language learning has been recognized for some time; however, according to Waters (2006) there is evidence that the use of such activities has not become widespread in a number of ELT situations. The reasons may vary, but today most students studying English at Turkish state schools or universities suffer from the overloaded emphasis given on linguistic competence rather than the performance. This paper, therefore, has attempted to discuss some points that the teachers should consider in order to foster their students’ speaking skills and meanwhile to show how some speaking activities can promote learners’ conception about the language, bring to light their creativity, and keep them in basic learning cycle.
There is no doubt that grammatical knowledge is a necessary and facilitative first step in learning a second language, however; as communicative language teaching proposes, our students need a model that will help them to focus their attention more on meaning rather than grammar (Chastain, 1988). In communicative approach the learner is seen as an active participant in the process of language learning in the classroom, and teachers who advocate the communicative approach are expected to come up with activities that would promote self-learning, group interaction in authentic situations and peer teaching (Sam, 1990). As Chastain (1988) notes speaking a language involves more than simply knowing the linguistic components of the message, and developing language skills requires more than grammatical comprehension and vocabulary memorization. Speaking a language involves many other factors than the grammatical competence such as strategic competence, sociolinguistic competence, and discourse competence (Canal, 1983, cited in Scarcella and Oxford, 1992). Teachers should first consider all the factors that might foster students’ speaking skills, and then devote more time to communication activities and give their students more chance to practice the language they are learning.
Most English teachers in Turkey seem to be, consciously or subconsciously, too much concerned about the grammatical comprehension. Therefore, while they are establishing the course objectives they may give too much focus on grammatical competence rather than performance. They prefer the course books with plenty of grammar instruction and exercises, and their tendency is to give students worksheets to study over the grammar, or to apply quizzes, exams to evaluate their progress in grammar. With this type of course objectives both the teachers and the students feel comfortable and content thinking that their expectations are fulfilled. However, students want to learn to speak the language after some time of language teaching, but in many language classes they do not feel that they are learning to do so. The non-existence of realistic goals, practicing speaking in isolation, lack of thought-provoking and engaging materials, ignoring personality factors in language learning, the sensitive issue of correction are the reasons that hinder students’ speaking skills.
The first reason might be the unrealistic goals or no goals at all for the speaking skill. There should be goals which should conform to the rationale for the language course, respond to students’ interests and needs, and be realistic. Expecting any student to become bilingual in a second language classroom setting is out of question, but when students are often asked to talk about the topics that are not based on their interests and experiences, or when they are given mechanical activities which lack thinking about the language and creativity, they feel frustrated and hopeless. Our course objectives most likely contain a statement about enabling students to speak, whereas speaking in most language classes is taken for granted. Topics such as finding solutions for the traffic problem in London and deciding on the best plan to solve the problem, or building a city on space and discussing the needs of the citizens are definitely out of most students’ interest and needs. Therefore, in order to foster our students’ speaking skills, we should first set specific and realistic goals both for them and for the teachers to follow.
Another reason why students feel anxious about speaking might be the classes in which they practice speaking in isolation. Chaistain (1988) notes that speaking has a definite and important place in the language learning sequence, but language teachers should not think of speaking as the only objective or as one that students can develop in isolation. All the language skills are expressions of the same language system and they are all interrelated. Therefore, practice in one can lead to higher levels of competence and increased communication potential in other three skills. ‘Communicative activities’ will be of great help in achieving to teach the language considering all the skills related. These activities refer to the techniques which are employed in the communicative method in language teaching. Examples of such activities are games, drama activities, exercises, practices and projects which make use of the language being learnt. The activities involve 'doing' things with language e.g. making choices, evaluating and bridging the information gap. The language-using activities for communication are not restricted to conversation and may involve listening, speaking, reading, writing or an integration of two or more skills. For example, university students can be asked to read a passage on the topic ‘living and studying abroad’ and get some idea about the difficulties they may encounter if they have the chance to work or study abroad. Consequently, they listen to the experiences of a student who has been abroad with ‘Work and Travel’ program, and they can interview him about the pros and cons of the program, and they might be asked to write a short informative paragraph to their friend who has not heard about the program before. Here is a hot topic of the learners’ interest and the interwoven of the skills.
Students must feel the need to communicate and express ideas and feelings through thought-provoking and engaging materials which are suitable to their cognitive developmental level (Cileli, 1996). Therefore, free and spontaneous speech activities require ways of stimulating students to participate in an authentic atmosphere, rather than through ready made formulas. For example, problem solving activities as a method of encouraging cognitive processing by learners will definitely stimulate active thinking by increasing students’ knowledge of the language system and their ability to use it in communication (Waters, 2006). Language must be first in the head; students must recall or recognize the information, translate and interpret, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate according to Sander’s categories of thinking (Sander, 1966, cited in Waters 2006). The activities should serve to the need of enforcing students’ cognitive development.
Personality factors might play an important role in students’ speaking performance. Individual needs for confidence and support should be met. It might not be practical, or possible to consider each student’s learning style or the brain dominance in learning, but the teacher should try to overcome their anxiety and frustration as much as possible. The materials, activities can be chosen accordingly and students’ motivation, as well as the teacher’s must be the priority. According to Nunan (1999) motivation is a key consideration in determining the preparedness of learners to communicate and it refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes toward learning the language. If applied enthusiastically, drama activities can increase the motivation since learners see themselves performing, acting and participating in class.
Lastly, as for the correction, we should keep in mind that correcting some students will dampen their enthusiasm; not correcting others will cause them to question the teacher’s capacity and course standards (Chastain, 1988). Therefore, feedback should be given at the right time and at the right dose in order not to make the students feel frustrated and anxious in speaking activities. The silent student in the classroom is one who is unwilling to appear embarrassed when mistakes are made, therefore, assure students that mistakes are part of the learning process and risk-taking is important and necessary both in classroom and natural settings. On the other hand, lack of appropriate feedback can make the students unmotivated either. They might think of their trial to communicate is totally hopeless to be corrected. Deckert (2004) found that student and teacher beliefs about error correction support a teacher-centered classroom environment. However, the notion of interlanguage suggests that language is acquired through trial and error in communicative settings. Too much correction means decreased confidence and less time for students to use the language. He proposes that teachers reduce the amount of time they talk. Positive and encouraging feedback will definitely create a supportive environment. Developing ways in which learners can record their own progress will be both motivating and interesting. Practice is required to enable the person who understands the language to be able to speak it. Speaking may not teach students language, but it helps them to activate the language they know.
In conclusion, as Nunan (1999) mentions; we should make instructional goals explicit to learners, link learning to the needs and interests of the learners, and encourage creative language use by meaningful and worthwhile activities. As teachers we should allow learners to bring their own knowledge and perspectives into the learning process and choose materials which will trigger their cognitive potential. Supportive environment can create non-anxious and risk-taking learners who taste the joy of learning to communicate in the language they are learning. As Cileli (1996) states the use of these activities leads to interactional encounters, which is the center of conversation, and students try to overcome the linguistic obstacles enthusiastically because fluent language use turns into a means while the speaking class becomes a living experience of communication.
The Internet offers vast amount of speaking activities to be used to enable students to use the language they learn as well as to reveal their creativity. Teachers can make use of these extra-curricular activities to enliven their classrooms and foster students’ speaking skills. Following is the name list of speaking activities and warm-ups, and the web addresses where more information could be obtained. These have been used in class, and highly recommended.
www.onestopenglish.com is a web address which involves lesson plans in all skills. Speaking activities are prepared by Clandfield (2002) and the activities below work well with intermediate and upper intermediate level students. Still slight adaptations can be needed according to your students’ level and interest:
- Dubbing
- Channel Hopping
- Hot Topics of 2004
- The Ark
- Amnesty
http://esl.about.com
is another web address where the teachers can find many motivating activities such as:
- Creating a New Society
Many of you might know and have used “Cambridge Skills for Fluency, Speaking 3-4”. Students enjoy being asked to perform a part of their favorite soap opera, TV series, or a film after the unit below:
- What’s on tonight?
Chaistain, K. (1988). Developing Second Language Skills. Orlando,Florida: HBJ Publishers.
Cileli, M. (1996). Cognitive Development Approach to Conversation. English Teaching Forum, 34, 219-228.
Deckert, G. (2004). The communicative approach: Addressing frequent failure. English
Teaching Forum, 42, 1, 12-17.
Nunan, D. (1999). Second Language Teaching and Learning. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.
Sam, W. Y. (1990). Drama in teaching English as a second language-A Communicative approach. The English Teacher, 19, 1-11.
Scarcella, R. C. & Oxford, R.L. (1992). The Tapestry of Language Learning. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.
Waters, A. (2006). Thinking and Language Learning. Oxford ELT Journal, 60, 319 – 327.
Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Using Mobile Technology course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the ICT - Using Technology in the Classroom – Level 1 course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the How the Motivate your Students course at Pilgrims website.
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