TEACHING SPEAKING

            In Oxford Student’s  Dictionary Of Current English the definition of speaking is to express or communicate opinions, feelings, ideas, etc, by or as talking and it involves the activities in the part of the speaker as psychological, physiological (articular) and physical (acoustic) stages. While another expert, Theodore Huebner said .Language is essentially

speech, and speech is basically communication by sounds.  And according to him, speaking is a skill used by someone in daily life communication whether at school or outside. The skill is acquired by much repetition; it primarily a neuromuscular and not an intellectual process. It consists of competence in sending and receiving messages.

            What is meant by teaching speaking? Hayriye Kayi, (2006) said teaching speaking  is to teach English language learners to: (1) produce the English speech sounds and sounds patterns, (2) use words and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second language, (3) Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting, audience, situation and subject matter. (4) Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence. (5) Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments. (6) Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called fluency.

            Learners need to know how speakers differ from one another and how particular circumstances call for different forms of speech. They can learn how speaking styles affect listeners. Thus, the rate at which they speak, the volume and the precision of pronunciation may differ substantially from one situation to another. It is useful for students to know that speech should differ in formality, such as when speaking to a judge, a teacher, a parent or a playmate. They may also benefit from learning about the differences among various dialects. The subjects in the curriculum and examples from the media may provide occasions for different forms of speech. Oral presentations can be derived from poems, stories, newspaper and magazine articles, as well as scientific reports. Dramatic acting and watching skits and plays may provide the richest opportunity to see how character and circumstance affect speech.

            Most students assume that learning a foreign language just by learning how to spell it, and because they come to class after mastering the first language or second language which they do easily, they assume control of a foreign language would be easy too. As a result, they want to study results appear quickly, that wanted to show other people, including parents that they can speak English. If the motivation was to remain there, they should be given the opportunity to speak English as quickly and as much as possible so that they feel they are progressing and able to meet their expectations, so avoid the disappointment.

            It is very important for students to begin his first lesson with a few words of English to take home. For example, by teaching students basic concepts such as numbers, colors, etc. That could be the basis for subsequent activities. The first lesson is often focused on learning simple greetings and introductions. Pupils can also be named the UK even if they want them to keep using his own name. Teach students some of the songs or rhymes will also give the impression that they learn English quickly.

            But sometimes the students won’t talk, maybe ‘cause there are so shy, there are including advanced students or have such high levels of anxiety over speaking that they will not speak in class. This is not only true for beginners, but also for some students who are fairly advanced in their listening, reading and writing abilities. Perhaps they are anxious because teacher in the past have been critical of their English. Whatever the reason, when faced with quiet anxious students, the problem for the conversation teacher is how to get them to open up, to talk.

            So, how can teachers get such students to talk? Before anything else, as teacher, we need to gain the trust of students. To gain trust, the students need to know that we are on their side. They need to know that we do not expect them to speak perfect English, and that we realize it takes time and effort for them to learn to converse in English.

                Now, how can we as teacher reducing speaking fears? We must provide opportunities to practice speaking before increasingly larger groups. Children, adolescents and adults sometimes fear the challenge of sustained, formal speaking before large groups. Teachers can help reduce unrealistic fears by pointing out how common they are among people and what to do about them. They can also help to reduce such fears by maintaining a friendly atmosphere in the class and providing opportunities for students to practice alone or with one other student and then before increasingly larger groups. Thus, students can practice speaking in front of their peers who face the same situation. Students can practice presenting information, answering questions and holding group discussions. Frequent classroom presentations and discussions enable teachers to diagnose and remedy problems.

            Students can benefit from learning by setting themselves presentation goals and assessing their own progress. Observing proficient speakers can help students to set such goals. Practicing oral presentation in these ways can lessen students’ anxieties while, at the same time, helping them to learn the subject matter of the lesson. Students are less likely to be fearful and anxious and more likely to do well if they are well prepared. Preparedness can be enhanced by in-depth mastery of the subject matter, appropriate organization and rehearsing the presentation.

            Many linguistics and English as second language (ESL) teachers agree on that students learn to speak in the second language by "interacting". Communicative language teaching and collaborative learning serve best for this aim. Communicative language teaching is based on real life situations that require communication. By using this method in ESL classes, students will have the opportunity of communicating with each other in the target language. In brief, ESL teachers should create a classroom environment where students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful tasks that promote oral language. This can occur when students collaborate in groups to achieve a goal or to complete a task.

            There are many activities to promote speaking. As Hayriye Kayi (2006) inferred from many linguistics on her article in the internet on Teaching English as A Second Language (TESL) Journal, there are thirteen activities to promote speaking. I’m a prospective teacher expects this article useful to all and hopefully become a reference of friends who read. Which are thirteen activities to promote speaking :

a. Discussion

After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons. The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things.

b. Role Play

Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and." (Harmer, 1984)

c. Simulations

Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on.

d. Information Gap

In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need.

e. Brain Storming

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristic of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.

f. Storytelling

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have.

g. Interviews

Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class.

h. Story Completion

For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences. Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.

i. Reporting

Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.

j. Playing Cards

In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a topic. For instance: diamonds represent earning money, hearts represent love and relationships, spades represent an unforgettable memory, and card represent best teacher. Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will write 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For example: if the topic "diamonds: earning money" is selected, here are some possible questions: .Is money important in your life? Why? or What is the easiest way of earning money? or What do you think about lottery?. Etc. However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that students are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or no students get little practice in spoken language production. Rather, students ask open-ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences.

k. Picture Narrating

This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.

l. Picture Describing

For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills.

m. Find the Differences

For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures.