unit 10 Teaching Speaking.doc

Unit 10 Teaching SpeakingAims of this unit: 1. To know the differences between spoken and written language; 2. The characteristics of spoken language;3. The principles for teaching speaking.4. To introduce some typical types of speaking activities; 5. How to design and organize speaking activities. I. The characteristics of spoken language1. The purpose of learning speaking It is an important part of everyday interaction and most often the first impression of a person is based on his/ her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly. Learning speaking can accelerate the learning of listening, reading and writing in English.The purpose of leaning speaking are:l) To train students oral ability; 2) To foster students talent in English language and culture; 3) To foster students ability of thinking in English; 2. Two main factors affect the improvement of speaking ability 1)Surroundings; 2)Psychology 3. The characteristics of spoken language.1) Speaking is a skill that can be imitated and practicedSpeaking is a skill, just like swimming, driving a car, or playing ping-pong. Bygate (1987:4) points out one “fundamental difference is that knowledge and skill can both be understood and memorized, but only a skill can be imitated and practiced”. 2) Speech is spontaneous.Speech is spontaneous. That is, in most situations, people do not plan ahead of time what they are going to say. Bygate (1987:8) points out that teachers may be requiring their students to do more forward-thinking and planning than native speakers do in real life! 3) Speaking is time-constraint.The students must be able to produce unplanned utterances in real time, otherwise people will not have the patience to listen to them. 4. Differences between spoken and written languagesAccording to Bygate(1987), there are four common features of spoken languages:1) Using less complex syntax;2) Taking short cuts, e.g. incomplete sentences;3) Using fixed conventional phrases/ chunks.4) Using devices such as fillers, hesitation device to give time to think before speaking. TASK 2 Considering the aspects of the nature of spoken language discussed above, which of the following activities do you think would help to prepare students for real life speech in English? 1.reading aloud 2.giving a prepared talk 3.learning a piece of text or dialogue by heart 4.interviewing someone, or being interviewed 5.doing a drill Most of the above activities are very common in traditional language teaching. The only activity that would help students prepare for spontaneous speech would be the fourth one: interviewing someone or being interviewed. This is not to say that the other activities have no value; but they do not help prepare the learner for the type of speaking that is most common in everyday life. The only other activity that is realistic is the second one: giving a prepared talk, but this would usually not be required of any of the students until they were at an advanced level of English. IIPrinciples for teaching speaking1. Balancing accuracy-based with fluency-based practicesOn one hand, we need to allow time for grammar and vocabulary learningso that students have sufficient linguistic competence. One the other hand,we need to provide sufficient opportunities for students to develop fluency.2. Contextualising practiceTeachers need to identify a situation in which a target structure iscommonly used.3.Personalising practiceWe need to help students learn better by personalizing the content andcontext so that students can talk or write about their own life experiencesand their personal opinions.4.Building up confidenceIt is very important for the teacher to create a relaxed and supportiveenvironment and help them build up their confidence. Dont be afraid ofmaking mistakes.5.Maximising meaningful interactionsAs one of the main objectives of teaching speaking is to developstudents ability to initiate a topic, to ask questions, to take turns inspeaking, to change topics and to have some control over the communication, it is best practiced within small groups or in pairs. When we designspeaking practices, we need to ensure that the interaction is meaningful andparticipation is maximum.6.Helping students develop speaking strategiesSpeaking involves strategies, such as initiating a conversation, turntaking, asking for clarification, asking for repetition, getting othersattention, getting help from others, and ending a conversation, etc.7.Making the best use of classroom leaning environment to provide sufficient language input and practice for the students.In china, students have the opportunity to hear and speak the language only in the classroom. So creating an English speaking environment to maximize learning opportunity is crucial for students.III. Designing speaking tasks There are several factors to consider when designing speaking activities. Look at the Task 2 . Task 2 Think about a successful speaking activity that you have participated in as a student. What made it successful?（Let students discuss）The following characteristics are common in successful speaking tasks (adapted from Ur, 1996). 1. Maximum foreign talk One common problem in speaking activities is that students often produce one or two simple utterances in the foreign language and spend the rest of the time chatting in their native language. Another common problem is that the teacher talks too much of the time. In successful speaking tasks, the students talk a lot in the foreign language.2. Even participation Whether the task takes place among the whole class or in small groups, a successful task should encourage speaking from as many different students as possible. The task should be designed in a way so that the outspoken students do not dominate discussions. When necessary, the teacher may interfere to guarantee equal opportunities for students of different levels. 3. High motivation Students are eager to speak, when the topic is interesting or there is a clear objective that must be reached. Again great care should be taken to make sure the task is in line with the students ability to deal with the task. If the task is too easy, the students may think it is childish and thus lose interest. 4. Right language level The task must be designed so that students can complete the task successfully with the language that they have. If the students lack too much vocabulary the task will become frustrating and the students are likely to give up or revert back to the native language. IV. Types of speaking tasks It is important to give the students a variety of speaking activities so that they will be able to cope with different situations in reality. 1. Classification of speaking activitiesLittlewood (1981) summarized the speaking activities as below: Structural activitiesPre-communicative activities Quasi-communicative activities Functional communicative activitiesCommunicative activities Social interaction activities1) Controlled activities: Controlled activities mainly focus on form and accuracy.2) Semi-controlled activities.Semi-controlled activities focus more on meaning and communication.3) Communicative activities.Communicative activities allow for real information exchange, which include information gap activities, problem-solving activities, discussions, debates. Interviews, fluency- focused games, etc. 2. typical speaking activates1) Information-gap activities One excellent way to make speaking tasks communicative is to use information-gap activities, in which the students have different information and they need to obtain information from each other in order to finish a task. 2) Dialogues & role-play A couple of problems with the way most dialogues are presented in textbooks: (a) the language is not authentic or natural.(b) teach students grammar more than foster students to speak(c) dialogues are taught not practicedThe way to make dialogues more similar to real-life, yet still controlled enough so that the task is not too difficult for beginning and lower intermediate students, is to use cue cards. This way an information gap is formed because each student only sees one cue card and therefore doesnt know what the other person is going to say. (Task 4/5.on P103/166)3) Activities using pictures Appropriate pictures provide cues, prompts, situations and non-verbal aid for communication. Students from elementary level to advanced level can all benefit from using pictures in speaking activities. There are many different information-gap activities that can be designed around pictures. One common type is to use two pictures which look identical to each other at first glance, but actually have several differences. One student gets one picture and a second student gets the other picture. Their task is to discover all the differences between the two pictures without looking at each others pictures. 4) Problem solving activities This type of activity tends to be productive because there is a clear objective to be reached. There are many topics that would be interesting and relevant to the students life. Try the problem-solving task below. 5) Find someone who Directions: Stand up and walk around the room. Ask your classmates what they like to do. Once you find someone who likes something, write down his/her name in the blank next to the activity. Continue asking until you have a different name written down for each activity. The first person to fill in all the blanks is the winner. Remember, you must speak only in English! Find someone who likes to swim. _ Find someone who likes to play ping-pong. Find someone who likes to play basketball. _ Find someone who likes to play badminton. _ V. Using group work in speaking tasks 1Students should have more opportunities to practice in class.This is the strongest argument for using small group work because it