Lecture 3

Speaking (Part 1)
Lecture plan:
1. What speaking involves
2. What FL learners need to learn to produce effective speaking
3. Different types of spoken language

1. What speaking involves

In the preceding lectures we have looked at teaching the receptive skills of reading
and listening. We will now look at speaking skills and further on at writing skills in
a little more detail.
Speaking is so much a part of daily life that we take it for granted. The average
person produces tens of thousands of words a day, although some people - like
politicians - may produce even more than that. So natural and integral is speaking
that we forget how we once struggled to achieve this ability - until we have to learn
how to do it all over again in a foreign language.
What then is involved in speaking? The first point to emphasize is that speech
production takes place in real time and is therefore essentially linear. Words follow
words, and phrases follow phrases. Likewise, at the level of utterance speech is
produced utterance-by-utterance, in response to the word-by-word and utterance-by-
utterance productions of the person we are talking to (our interlocutor). This
accidental nature of speech, whereby each utterance is dependent on a preceding
one, accounts for its spontaneity. This is not to say that speech is unplanned, only
that the planning time is severely limited. And the planning of one utterance may
overlap with the production of the previous one. These ‘real-time processing’
demands of speech production explain many of the characteristics of spoken
language, which are also determined by the purposes for speaking.
Very broadly, there are two main purposes for speaking. Speaking serves either a
transactional function, in that its primary purpose is to convey information and
facilitate the exchange of goods or services, or it serves an interpersonal function,
when its primary purpose is to establish and maintain social relations. A typical
transactional speech event might be phoning to book a table at a restaurant. A
typical interpersonal speech event might be the conversation between friends that
takes place at the restaurant.
These two basic purposes for speaking generate different types of speech events.
These, in turn, will be sequenced and structured in accordance with the kinds of
social and mental processes that they accompany. For example story-telling, which a
narrative script by nature, if to put it very simply, traditionally has a beginning,
middle, and end.
Service encounters (conversations), such as buying goods, getting information, or
requesting a service, are transactional speech events that follow a fairly predictable
script. Typically, the exchange begins with a greeting, followed by an offer,
followed by a request, and so on. For example:
- Good morning.
 - Good morning.

- What would you like? A dozen eggs, please. Anything else? ... etc.

A certain amount of variation is generally permitted. Different cultures and sub-

cultures may develop their own variants. Some service encounters in some cultures
may permit bargaining, for example.
Over time and within particular speech communities, these speech events have
evolved into specific genres. An important factor that determines the structure of a
genre is whether it is interactive or non-interactive. Multi-party speech, as in a
shopping exchange or casual conversation between friends, is jointly constructed
and interactive. Monologues, such as a television journalist’s report, a university
lecture, or when you leave a voice-mail message, are non-interactive.
A distinction also needs to be made between planned and unplanned speech.
Certain speech genres, such as public speeches and business presentations
(Monologue), are typically planned, to the point that they might be completely
scripted in advance. This means that their linguistic features will resemble or
replicate features of written language. On the other hand, a phone conversation
(Dialogue) to ask for train timetable information, while following a predictable
sequence, is normally not planned in advance: each participant has to make strategic
and spontaneous decisions on the basis of the way the discourse unfolds. This, in
turn, will affect the kind of language used.

So, people speak to maintain existing social relationships and to make new ones.
They also speak to pool and exchange information and to ease the performance of
transactions.
In order to express what they want to, speakers recall the appropriate words and
organise them into units (using vocabulary and grammar awareness). They must
also move lips, tongue and so on to form the appropriate sounds, monitor what
comes out and be prepared to correct it. In addition to all this, speakers need an
awareness of cultural conventions, which may limit what it is appropriate to say or
how something is expressed.
For native speakers this all happens exceptionally quickly, but is much slower
when operating in a new language.
As a result, even fairly high-level learners can find it difficult to participate
effectively when in unpredictable conversational settings.
2. What learners need to learn to produce effective speaking
The ability to speak fluently presupposes not only a knowledge of language
features, but also the ability to process information and language ‘on the spot’.
Here is a summary of what learners need to be able to do in order to speak
effectively in a variety of situations:
• learners need to carry out ‘routine’, predictable exchanges - for example,

when greeting someone or asking for directions

• learners need to take part in unpredictable exchanges - for example, casual
conversation

• learners need to know such things as when it is appropriate to speak, how

they can politely interrupt and how direct contributions should be

• learners need to monitor what they say, so that they can rephrase parts as
necessary

• learners need to be able to negotiate and manage exchanges — inviting

others to speak, asking for repetition, clarification and so on

• learners need to develop strategies to cope when they are unable to express
exactly what they want, such as paraphrasing skills

• learners need to select appropriate vocabulary and use grammar to

express and organise what they want to say. Spontaneous speech is marked by the
use of a number of common lexical phrases, especially in the performance of
certain language functions. Teachers should therefore supply a variety of phrases
for different functions such as agreeing or disagreeing, expressing surprise, shock,
or approval.

• learners need to speak with intelligible pronunciation

• Connected speech: effective speakers of English need to be able not only to

produce the individual phonemes of English (as in saying I would have gone) but
also to use fluent ‘connected speech’ (as in I’d’ve gone). In connected speech
sounds are modified (assimilation), omitted (elision), added (linking r), or
weakened through contractions and stress patterning

• Expressive devices: native speakers of English change the pitch and stress
of particular parts of utterances, vary volume and speed, and show by other
physical and non-verbal (paralinguistic) means how they are feeling (especially in
face-to-face interaction). The use of these devices contributes to the ability to
convey meanings. They allow the extra expression of emotion and intensity.

In order for learners to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to become
confident speakers in English, teachers need to provide plenty of varied
opportunities to use the language communicatively in the classroom.
3. Different types of spoken language

There are many different types of spoken language. The most basic distinction is
that between monologue and dialogue. The first form of speech (monolgue or
performance) requires one person (i.e. a lecture) and doesn’t imply any verbal
response on the part of the recipient. The second form of spoken speech (dialogue
– interpersonal/transactional) requires more than one person and it implies
interaction. Interaction produces patterns of conversation or exchange of ideas.
Some more definitions of monologue and dialogue are:

Monologue: a long utterance by one person (especially one that prevents others
from participating in the conversation)

Dialogue: a reciprocal conversation between two or more entities.

In Ukrainian secondary schools teaching speaking is aimed at practicing and

developing both monologue and dialogue speech types. When choosing teaching
strategies though it is important to be aware of the fact that each of the two speech
types is characterised by its own communicative functions, psychological and
linguistic features.

Speeches have different functions. These include being persuasive (e.g. trying to
convince the audience to vote for you), informative (e.g. speaking about the
dangers of climate change), entertaining (e.g. a best man’s speech at a wedding)
or celebratory (e.g. to introduce the winner of an award). Some speeches may have
more than one of these aims. Dialogues alone can perform the communicative
functions of enquiry/request, sharing information and exchange of ideas, etc.

Dialogue features
Psychological features of the Linguistic features of the Dialogue
Dialogue

 Motivated  Elliptical sentences (-Coffee,

please)
 Situational
 Pause fillers (well, let me
 Reciprocal (taking speaking see, ...)
turns)
 Contracted forms ( ‘d, ‘ve, ‘ll, )
 Two-way communication
(listenig↔speaking)  Stock phrases/cliches

 Addressed (Thank’s a lot / Excuse me,…)

 Emotional ( voice pitch,

intonation)

 Spontaneous (each utterance is

dependent on a preceding one)
 Monologue Features
Psychological features of the Linguistic features of the Monologue
Monologue
 Contextual  Extended utterances

 Coherence (the text makes  Primarily complex sentences

sense)
 Transitional/ connective/ linking
 Cohesion (connective devices) words (firstly, secondly, but,
etc.)
 Topic-based

 Situational ( a long extended

utterance ( micro monologue in a
dialogue)

Monologue Functional Types

The common monologue / public performance functional types taught at a
secondary school are:
 Description. Common grammar structures and tenses: there is / there are ;
Present Continuous, Present Indefinite, Past Indefinite.

 Narrative (1-st person/ 3-rd person story, report, presentation). Common

grammar structures and tenses: Past Indefinite, Past Perfect; adverbial
clauses of time, time adverbials - in the morning, then, after that, etc.

 Opinion?. Common grammar structures and tenses: complex sentences of

cause and effect.

Dialogue Functional Types

The common dialogue functional types taught at a secondary school are:
 Informal small talk. Common speech acts: greetings and partings,
apologies, compliments.

 Inquiry. (one-way/two-way). Common speech acts: asking for and sharing

information; Who? What? Where? When? questions.

 Agreement. Common speech acts: requests ↔ agreement/refusal,

invitations↔ agreement/refusal, proposals ↔ agreement/refusal.
  Discussion: Sharing information/Exchange of ideas/debate. Common
speech acts: expressing agreement /disagreement, approval/disapproval,
doubt, convincing arguments.

Literature:
1. Lectures 3
2. Scott Thornburry. How to Teach Speaking. Longman Publising. – 184p.
3. Teaching Listening and Speaking. From Theory to Practice. Jack C.
Richards. – Cambridge
University Press. 2008. – 48p.
4. Watkins P. Learning to Teach English. Second Edition. – Delta
Publishing, Surrey. – 2014. – 168 p.

LECTURE 4
Speaking (Part 2)
Lecture plan:
1. Teaching different speech types.
 Dialogue (interactional, transactional)

 Monologue ( performance)

2. Classic speaking activities

Oral skills have hardly been neglected in EFL/ESL courses, though how best to
approach the teaching of oral skills has long been the focus of methodological
debate. Teachers and textbooks make use of a variety of approaches, ranging from
direct approaches focusing on specific features of oral interaction (e.g., turn-
taking, topic management, and questioning strategies) to indirect approaches that
create conditions for oral interaction through group work, task work, and other
strategies (Richards, 1990).
In designing speaking activities or instructional materials for second language or
foreign-language teaching, it is necessary to recognize the very different functions
speaking performs in daily communication and the different purposes for which
our students need speaking skills.
In the previous lecture we considered the two main purposes for speaking –
interactional and transactional (Brown and Yule (1983)) and the corresponding
speech types they generate for: talk as interaction, talk as transaction ( Dialogue
speech types); talk as performance (Monologue speech type).
Each of these speech types is quite distinct in terms of form and function and
requires different teaching approaches.
Talk as interaction
Talk as interaction refers to what we normally mean by “conversation” and
describes interaction that serves a primarily social function. When people meet,
they exchange greetings, engage in small talk, recount recent experiences, and so
on, because they wish to be friendly and to establish a comfortable zone of
interaction with others.
Talk as interaction is best taught by providing examples embedded in
naturalistic dialogs that model features such as opening and closing conversations,
making small talk, and reacting to what others say and so on. One rule for making
small talk is to initiate interactions with a comment concerning something that both
participants have knowledge of. The comment should elicit agreement, since
agreement is face-preserving and non-threatening. Hence, safe topics, such as the
weather, traffic, and so on, must be chosen. Students can initially be given models
such as the following to practice (see PP Presentation):
A: Nice weather today.
B: Yes, it is.
A: I hope the weather is nice for the weekend.
B: Me, too.
A: The buses to school are always so crowded.
B: Yes, they are.
Later, students can be given situations in which small talk might be appropriate
(e.g., meeting someone at a movie, running into a friend in the cafeteria, or waiting
at a bus stop). They can then be asked to think of small talk topic comments and
responses.

The conversation is highly interactive and is in a collaborative conversational

style. Examples of these kinds of talk are:
■ Chatting to an adjacent passenger during a plane flight.
■ Chatting to a school friend over coffee.
■ A student chatting to his or her professor while waiting for an elevator.
■ Telling a friend about an amusing weekend experience, and hearing him or
her recount a similar experience he or she once had.
Some of the skills involved in using talk as interaction involve knowing how
to do the following things:
■ Opening and closing conversations
■ Choosing topics
■ Making small-talk
■ Joking
■ Recounting personal incidents and experiences
■ Turn-taking (реплікування)
■ Using adjacency pairs.* (діалогічна єдність)
■ Interrupting
■ Reacting to others
■ Using an appropriate style of speaking

Adjacency pairs: A sequence of two related utterances by two different speakers.

The second utterance is always a response to the first. For example, complain -
apologize, compliment - accept, invite - decline.
Second language learners need a wide range of topics at their disposal in order
to manage talk as interaction. Initially, learners may depend on familiar topics to
get by. However, they also need practice in introducing new topics, utterances into
conversation to move beyond this stage and to be able to keep the conversation
going. (PP Presentation)

Talk as transaction
Talk as transaction refers to situations where the focus is on what is said or
done. The message and making oneself understood clearly and accurately is the
central focus, rather than the participants and how they interact socially with each
other. In such transactions,

Examples of talk as transaction are:

■ Classroom group discussions and problem-solving activities
■ Discussing sightseeing plans with a hotel clerk or tour guide
■ Making a telephone call to obtain flight information
■ Asking someone for directions on the street
■ Buying something in a shop
■ Ordering food from a menu in a restaurant

Some of the skills involved in using talk for transactions are:

■ Explaining a need or intention
■ Describing something
■ Asking questions
■ Asking for clarification
■ Confirming information
■ Justifying an opinion
■ Making suggestions
■ Clarifying understanding
■ Making comparisons
■ Agreeing and disagreeing

Common prompts for teaching dialogue: Model Dialogue, Open Dialogue,

Deleted / Gapped Dialogue, Question Sheets, PowerPoint Captions, Substitution
Tables, Menu Cards, Route Maps. (PP Presentation slides)

Teaching talk as performance

Teaching talk as performance requires a different teaching strategy.
Initially, talk as performance needs to be prepared for and scaffolded in much the
same way as written text, and many of the teaching strategies used to make
understandings of written text accessible can be applied to the formal uses of
spoken language. Jones (1996:17)
This approach involves providing examples or models of speeches, oral presen-
tations, stories, etc., through video or audio recordings or written examples. These
are then analyzed, or “deconstructed,” to understand how such texts work and what
their linguistic and other organizational features are. Questions such as the
following guide this process:
■ What is the speaker’s purpose?
■ Who is the audience?
■ What kind of information does the audience expect?
■ How does the talk begin, develop, and end? What moves or stages are
involved?
■ Is any special language used?

Students then work jointly on planning their own texts, which are then presented to
the class.
Common prompts for teaching performance/monologue: model monologue
(written or recorded), head sentences/sentence stems, useful phrases, a plan in a
form of guiding questions, pictures, photos.
Different speaking activities such as conversations (interactional dialogue),
group discussions (transactional dialogues), and performances (monologues) make
different types of demands on learners. They require different kinds and levels of
preparation and support, and different criteria must be used to assess how well
students carry them out.
2. Classic speaking activities
Sentence stems
Dictate the beginning of five or six sentences. The learners must write what they
hear and complete the sentences for themselves. For example:
The teacher dictates:
In the future I hope to...
My perfect job would be...
After the lesson, I...
The learners complete the sentence stems appropriately, for example: ‘In the future
I hope to travel around the world.’ The teacher then puts the learners into groups
to discuss the ways in which they have completed the sentences and to ask each
other questions about what they have written: ‘What countries would you like to go
to?’ and so on. The teacher listens to the discussion and later gives feedback.
Role play
Set up a role play. For example:
There is a proposal to build a new chemical factory in a town. Some residents
think this is a good idea because there is currently high unemployment. Some
residents think this is a bad idea because they are concerned about the risks of
pollution.
Each student is given a card with their role described. For example, there are two
representatives from the company, concerned parents, a doctor, unemployed
workers and so on. The learners are given time to prepare what they want to say
and then they perform the role play. The teacher monitors and only becomes
involved if communication breaks down. Feedback is given after the role play.
A distinction should be made though between role-plays, simulations and dramas.
The former involve the adoption of another ‘person’, as when students pretend to
be an employer interviewing a job applicant or celebrities mingling at a party.
Information about their roles can be supplied in the form of individualized role-
cards, as in the example above.
In a simulation, on the other hand, students ‘play’ themselves in a simulated
situation: they might be stuck in a lift or phoning to arrange an outing, for
example. Drama is the more general term, encompassing both role-play and
simulation, as well as other types of activities, such as play-reading, recitation, and
improvisation.
Moving discussion/ moving circles / onion rings
The teacher organises the room so that there are two concentric circles. The
learners sit or stand facing each other. The teacher writes three topics on the board
such: Blood sports should be banned. Why I love my country. Tourism is nearly
always a bad thing.
The learners work in pairs (with the person they are facing) and must choose one
of the topics which they then discuss for three minutes. The teacher then stops the
activity and writes two or three more topics on the board. All the learners in the
outer circle move around one place and with their new partner decide on which
topic they want to talk about — and again they have three minutes in which to do
so. The activity continues until all the learners in the outer circle have spoken to all
the learners in the inner circle. If there is the odd number of students in the
classroom each person will act as an active listener in turn. The teacher then
conducts a feedback session, including some correction of errors.
Survey
Set up a mingling activity whereby learners briefly interview other members of the
class. They could find out information such as what people had for breakfast, how
they travel to school or favourite pastimes. After the survey, results can be reported
back.
Alibi
Set up a situation such as this one: The institution you work in was broken into last
night between the hours of 8.00 and midnight and the police are investigating.
Members of the class are suspects. Nominate two learners to leave the room for a
few minutes - their task is to provide an alibi for each other by agreeing the details
of where they went and what they did last night. One learner re-enters the room
and is quizzed by the rest of the class. When this has finished the second ‘suspect’
re-enters and is similarly interviewed. If their stories coincide, they are innocent, if
not...
Telling stories
Ask learners to prepare stories in small groups. These could be based on a
particular genre (a ghost story, for example), or set of vocabulary, or some
pictures. Allow time for the learners to prepare, and then ask them to tell their
stories to other learners.
Managing a conversation
Teach and practise expressions such as:
So, do you mean that...?
I didn’t understand the last thing you said.
Could you speak a little slower, please? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
Sorry, you go first.
This enables learners to manage conversations more effectively.
Moral dilemmas
Set up some moral dilemma type situations and ask learners to discuss them. For
example:
Your company is bidding for an important government contract, winning it will
secure jobs and even create some new ones. A very important government official
suggests that you pay $100,000 directly to her to help win the contract. What
would you do?
Solving problems
Set up a problem-solving activity, for example, a survival game in which learners
must work together to develop a survival strategy.
For example:
Ask learners to imagine that the light aircraft they have been travelling in has been
forced to make an emergency landing. There are items in the plane that they can
take and they must put them in order of usefulness. The items include such things
as water, a box of matches, a gun and so on. The learners think for a couple of
minutes about what they think is important and then work in groups to discuss their
strategy and the potential value of each item. The teacher monitors the activity and
later invites each group to report on their decisions before conducting feedback.
Information gaps
Set up an activity in which each learner has some information, but not all the
information required.
For example, the learners plan a trip to New York and each member of the group
has different information about places to stay. They must share their information
so that together they can decide on the most suitable accommodation.

Keep talking
The class is divided into teams. Each learner is given a different topic and must try
to speak for 60 seconds on that topic without excessive hesitation. If they are
successful, they score a point for their team. If they only manage to speak for a part
of the time, a member of the other team has to speak for the remainder of the time
to score a point.
Ask me my questions
Learners each write three questions that they themselves would like to answer
about their lives. They then give the questions to another learner, who uses them as
a basis of an interview.
It is worth mentioning that in all of the activities described above, speaking
combines with other skills, principally listening. In the previous section we looked
at how preparation time can be beneficial to learners. Some of these activities, such
as Sentence stem and Alibi have preparation time built into them and in other cases
it can be added. As well as allowing preparation time, repeating tasks can also be
very beneficial. Research suggests that repeating the same task with different
partners can also help to improve the accuracy, fluency and complexity of the
language used. Many of these activities would lend themselves to this, with
learners doing essentially the same task with different partners.
Some learners respond particularly well to activities in which they can express
their own thoughts, ideas and feelings. Sentence stems, Moral dilemmas and Ask
me my questions and information gap type activities can be easily personalised,
where learners discuss information that is true for them (their favourite movies,
pastimes and so on). On the other hand, some learners may find expressing
personal opinions challenging or embarassing and may prefer activities of the role
play type, where they only express the opinions of the character they take on.
Several of the activities described above are very flexible and can be easily
adjusted for level. For example, if learners are to construct a story, the teacher can
easily adjust the amount of support that is offered through doing such things as
pre-teaching relevant vocabulary, useful phrases or giving a model story from
which the structure can be copied. Role plays can be adjusted for level through the
choice of scenario and the amount of support that is given before learners act it out.

Literature:
1. Lectures 3, 4
2. Scott Thornburry. How to Teach Speaking. Longman Publising. – 184p.
3. Teaching Listening and Speaking. From Theory to Practice. Jack C. Richards. –
Cambridge
University Press. 2008. – 48p.
4. Watkins P. Learning to Teach English. Second Edition. – Delta Publishing,
Surrey. – 2014. –
168 p.