Date: 20/02/2024

Group: SH 21
Theme: Teaching Speaking Skills
Aim: to introduce students with the main ways of Teaching Speaking Skills.

Literature:
Council of Europe, Communication in the modern language classroom, by Joe Sheils, 1993
Jim Scrivener, Learning Teaching, Macmillan Books for Teachers, 2007, p. 155-163
https://studfile.net/preview/3495592/page:4/

Procedure
Task 1 Study the lecture and write down it in your copy – book in short form.
Task 2. Do the test.

Lecture.
Ways of Teaching Speaking Skills
Communication involves the use of four language skills:
 listening and speaking in oral communication
 reading and writing in written communication.
The sender of the message uses speaking or writing skills to communicate ideas, the receiver uses
listening or reading skills to interpret the massage. The skills used by the sender are productive and those
used by the receiver are receptive (or interpretive).
The use of each skills demands various components of language substance. Each skill involves the use
of specific vehicles.
Learners usually attain a much higher level of proficiency in the receptive skills than in the productive
skills. Mastering the language skills, like mastering any kind of skill, requires a considerable amount of
practice. Step by step in the teaching-learning development process the learner should become more
proficient.
When we say a person knows the language, we first of all mean he understands the language spoken
and can speak himself. Language came into life as a means of communication. It exists and is alive only
through speech. When we speak about teaching a foreign language, we first of all have in mind teaching it as
a means of communication. Speech is a bilateral process. It includes hearing and speaking. Speaking exists
in two forms: dialogue and monologue.

Developing Oral Communication Skills

Developing oral communication skills attention should be concentrated on the following main
problems:
 syllabus requirements
 language and speech
 physiological and linguistic characteristics of speech
 ways of creating situations
 prepared, unprepared and inner speech
 types of exercises.
Oral communication has 2 types: productive-speaking and receptive-listening.
The syllabus requirements for developing oral communication are as follows:
 to listen and understand the language spoken
 to carry on a conversation and to speak a foreign language within the topics and linguistic
material the syllabus sets.
Oral language is a means of testing pupils’ comprehension when they read or hear a text.
Properly used oral language ensures pupils’ progress in language learning and, consequently, arouses
their interest in the subject.
Language and Speech
Language refers to the linguistic system. It is a system of forms, which any speaker possesses. It
enables him to produce meaningful sentences.
 Speech is the activity of using a language system for communicative purposes in real situation. We
should seek methods of teaching not language so much, as communication through the language.
Mastery of language depends not only on what the language is, but also on what the language is for.
That is for communication language system of forms is taught to help the learners to develop their
philological and logical thinking on the one hand and as a means of developing communication skills, on the
other. Both of them are equally important.
To get a better understanding of what speech is, the teachers should know psychological and linguistic
characteristics of speech.

Psychological Characteristics of Speech

 Speech must be motivated.
The speaker should have inner motivation, a desire, a necessity to say sth. to someone. Motive is the
factor, which incites a person’s will to do or say sth. When we speak we want either to say sth to someone or
get information from someone about sth. important. Pupils should have a necessity, desire to express their
thoughts and feelings, to inform the hearer of sth. Interesting, important or to get information. Their speech
should be stimulated (by the teacher).
 Speech is always addressed to an interlocutor.
We don’t speak when there is no one to address the speech. Teaching oral language pupils should
address, speak to someone, to their classmates, to the class, to the teacher. They should interact.
During English lesson the pupils very often don’t know where to look while they speak, they look
either at the ceiling or out of the window, because they don’t know whom their speech is addressed to. This
point is closely connected with motivation. When we have an inner necessity to say sth, we should say it to
someone. So the teacher should suggest: “Tell the class… Ask your friend… Tell me…”
 Speech is always emotionally coloured for a speaker expresses his/her thoughts, feelings,
attitude what he/she says.
That’s why the pupils should be taught to use emotional means to express their feelings about what they say.
 Speech is always situational.
It takes place in a certain situation. There can be no speech out of situation. There can be no speech
out of situation. Situation is the integrity of circumstances in which the human beings are motivated to
develop speech activity. The main components of situations are: the speaker, the stimulus to speech and the
person to whom the speech is addressed.
Linguistic Characteristics of Speech
Oral language as compared to written language is more flexible. It is relatively free and is
characterized by some peculiarities in vocabulary and grammar. We don’t teach pupils colloquial English.
That’s why oral language taught in schools is close to written language standards and especially its
monologic forms.
Linguistic peculiarities of dialogue are as follows:
1. The use of incomplete sentences (ellipses) in response:
e.g. Where do you live? - In Yerevan. How many books do you have? – One.
2. The use of contracted forms: doesn’t. won’t, haven’t, can’t
3. The use of some abbreviations: lab, bike, math’s, fridge, comp, etc.
4. The use of conversational tags. These are the words the speaker uses when he/she wishes to speak
without saying anything: e.g of course, perhaps, surely, etc.
Prepared and Unprepared Speech
Pupils’ speech whether it is a monologue or dialogue may be of 2 kinds: prepared and unprepared.
When the pupils are given enough time to think over the content and form of his speech. it is prepared
speech. He can speak on the subject following the plan made either independently at home or in class under
the teacher’s supervision. His speech will be more or less correct and sufficiently fluent since plenty of
preliminary exercises had been done before.
When the pupil speaks without any previous preparation, his speech is unprepared and he can:
 speak on a subject suggested by the teacher
 speak on the text read (summarize or give content)
 discuss problems touched upon in the text read or heard
 help a “foreigner”, e.g. to find the way to some place.
 Prepared and unprepared speech must be developed simultaneously from the very beginning. In
junior stage prepared speech takes the lead, while in senior stage unprepared speech should prevail. The aim
of teaching is to develop the learners' unprepared speech.
Principles for Designing Speaking Techniques
1.Techniques should cover the spectrum of learner needs, from
language-based focus on accuracy to message-based focus on
interaction, meaning, and fluency 1.
When you do a jigsaw group technique, play a game, or discuss solutions to the environmental crisis,
make sure that your tasks include techniques designed to help students to perceive and use the building
blocks of language. At the same time, don't bore your students with lifeless, repetitious drills. The drills
must be as meaningful as possible.
2. Techniques should be intrinsically motivating.
Try at all times to appeal to students' ultimate goals and interests, to their need for knowledge, for
achieving competence, autonomy, and for "being all that they can be." Even in those techniques help them
to see how the activity will benefit them.
Many times students don't know why we ask them to do certain activities. So techniques should
encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts.
It is not easy to keep coming up with meaningful interaction. It takes energy and creativity to devise
authentic contexts and meaningful interaction, but with the help of quite a storehouse of teacher resource
material now it can be done. Even drills can be structured to provide a sense of authenticity.
4. Provide appropriate feedback and correction.
In most EFL situations, students are totally dependent on the teacher for useful linguistic feedback. It
is important that you take advantage of your knowledge of English to inject the kinds of corrective feedback
that are appropriate for the moment.
5. Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening.
Many interactive techniques that involve speaking will also of course include listening. Don't lose out
on opportunities to integrate these two skills. As you are perhaps focusing on speaking goals, listening goals
may naturally coincide, and the two skills can reinforce each other. Skills in producing language are often
initiated through comprehension.
6. Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication.
A good deal of typical classroom interaction is characterized by teacher initiation of language. We ask
questions, give directions, provide information, and students have been conditioned only to "speak when
spoken to." Part of oral communication competence is the ability to initiate conversations, to nominate
topics, to ask questions, to control conversations, and to change the subject. As you design and use speaking
techniques, ask yourself if you have allowed students to initiate language.
7. Encourage the development of speaking strategies.
The concept of strategic competence is one that language students must be awared of. They simply
have not thought about developing their own personal strategies for accomplishing oral communicative
purposes. Your classroom can be one in which students become aware of, and have a chance to
practice such strategies as:
 asking for clarification (What?)
 asking someone to repeat something (Huh? Excuse me?)
 using fillers (Uh, I mean, Well) in order to gain time to process
 using conversation maintenance cues (Uh huh, Right, Yeah, Okay, Hm)
 getting someone's attention (Hey, Say, So)
 using paraphrases for structures one can't produce
 appealing for assistance from the interlocutor (to get a word or phrase, for example)
 using mime and nonverbal expressions to convey the meaning.