How to teach reading?

What Kind of Speaking should students do? Speaking as controlled language practice Study  Speaking as free language practice Activate... • During speaking activities in controlled la

What Kind of Speaking should students do?

 Speaking as controlled language practice (Study)

 Speaking as free language

practice (Activate)

What Kind of Speaking should students do?

 Speaking as controlled practice

• Repetition – whole class

• Question & Answer exchange – pair work or

whole class

• Combination of repetition and sentence making

– class work

• Sentence making – solo work or whole class

→ practice a specific bit of language

→ focus on accuracy

→ used in the Practice stage

What Kind of Speaking should students do?

 Speaking as free practice

• Information gap – group work

• Survey – group work

• Discussion – group work

• Role play – pair work or group work

→ perform some kinds of oral task

→ focus on fluency

→ used in the Production stage

Why encourage students to

do speaking tasks?

 Rehearsal

• give students a chance to rehearse having

discussion outside the classroom

The roles of the teacher

 Participant

The roles of the teacher

 Prompter

• Teacher can help students and the activity

to progress by offering discrete

suggestions

• Students won’t feel frustrated when coming

to a dead end of language or ideas if

teacher’s help doesn’t disrupt the

discussion or force them out of role

The roles of the teacher

 Participant

• Teacher’s participation in discussion or

role-plays

 help the activity long by prompting covertly,

introducing new information

 ensure continuing student engagement and

generally maintain a creative atmosphere.

• Teacher participate too much → students

lose opportunities for speaking

The roles of the teacher

 Feedback-provider

• Teacher should avoid over-correction.

• Helpful and gentle correction may get

students out of misunderstandings and hesitations

How should teachers correct

speaking?

• During speaking activities in controlled

language practice, teachers often correct every time there is a problem to achieve

accuracy

• During speaking activities in free language

practice, teachers cannot do the same

thing because the ultimate purpose here is

to achieve fluency Thus, teachers should:

How should teachers correct

speaking?

 Watch and listen while speaking activities are

taking place.

 note down good points as well as shortcomings.

 ask students point out their own mistakes and if they can correct the mistakes by themselves

when the activity has finished.

 write down the mistakes on the board or give the

mistakes individually to the students concerned.

 avoid singling students out for particular criticism.

How should teachers correct

Problems with speaking

Problems with speaking

activities

 Inhibition

• Learners find it difficult to say things in a

foreign language in the classroom:

 worried about making mistakes

 fearful of criticism or losing face

 simply shy of the attention that their speech

attracts

Problems with speaking

activities

 Nothing to say

• Learners often complain that they cannot

think of anything to say Usually, they have

no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be

speaking

 Low or uneven participation

• In a large group, learners have very little

talking time because of some dominant

learner’s talks

Problems with speaking

activities

 Mother-tongue use

• Learners tend to use mother tongue if they

are grouped with others who having the

same language because they find it easier and more natural to speak their mother

tongue than a foreign language

• Teachers then would find it difficult to get

learners keep to the target language

Solutions to speaking

problems

 Use group work

 Base the activity on easy language

 Make a careful choice of topic and task to

Solutions to speaking

problems

 Use group work

• increases the amount of learners’ talking

time

• lowers learners’ inhibitions.

• learners may slip into their mother tongue

in their talk

• teachers cannot supervise all learners’

speech

Solutions to speaking

problems

 Base the activity on easy language

• The level of language needed for

discussion should be easier → the

participants find it easy to recall or produce the language → speak fluently

• It would be good if essential vocabulary is

pre-taught and reviewed before the activity starts

Solutions to speaking

problems

 Give some instruction or training in

discussion skills

• Learners should be given clear instruction,

told what to do, and assigned roles in a

discussion

 Keep students speaking the target

language

• Teacher might appoint a monitor to remind

the participants to use the target language,

or she/he has to do it herself/himself

Solutions to speaking

problems

 Make a careful choice of topic and task

to stimulate interest

• Teachers should select interesting topic

and task for learners to discuss or perform

• If the purpose of the discussion is clear, the

participants will be more motivated

Speaking activities

 Information gap

• Definition: an information gap activity is

an activity where learners are missing the information they need to complete a task and need to talk to each other to find it

Speaking activities

• Purpose: Information gap activities are

useful for various reasons

 They provide an opportunity for extended

speaking practice, they represent real

communication, motivation can be high and they require sub- skill such as clarifying

meaning and re- phrasing.

 Typical types of information gap activities

you may find include, describe and draw, spot the difference, jigsaw readings and

speaking, and spit dictations.

Speaking activities

 Survey

• One of the easiest & most interesting forms

of communicate activity is for Sts to tell

each about their own lives, interest,

experiences…

• One way is getting Sts to conduct

questionnaires & survey

• First, teacher asks Sts to look at the grip

Think of what questions they could ask

about

Speaking activities

 Discussion

• Prepare the students: Give students

input (both topical information and

language forms) so that they will have something to say and the language

with which to say it

Speaking activities

• Offer choices: Let students suggest

the topic for discussion or choose

from several options Discussion

does not always have to be about

serious issues

Speaking activities

• Purpose:

• The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas

about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups

• The discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that

students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things

• The speaking should be equally divided among group

members.

• This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision

making, and students learn how to express and justify

themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others.

• Lastly, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is,

the students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so on.

Speaking activities

 Role-play

• Role play activities are those where Sts

are asked to imagine that they are

different situations and act accordingly

• A role: they pretend to be a different

person.

• A situation: they pretend to be doing sth

different.