Teaching and

Assessment of the
Macroskills
Cuenza, Reymark
Abante, Nhoemei
Materials and
Resources in
Teaching
Speaking
 To teach speaking holistically and comprehensively, it is valuable
for teachers to be knowledgeable about what speaking competence
involves and how different aspects of speaking competence relate
to each other. Johnson (1996, p. 155) describes speaking as a
“combinatorial skill” that “involves doing various things at the
same time”
 Knowledge of Language and Discourse requires mastering the sound
patterns of the language (in English, this means being able to pronounce
the language intelligibly at segmental and suprasegmental levels), knowing
the grammar and vocabulary of the language (spoken structures,
grammatical features, lexis) and understanding how stretches of
connected speech (discourse, genre) are organised, so that they are
socially and pragmatically appropriate (register).
 Core Speaking Skills refers to developing the ability to process speech
quickly to increase fluency (e.g. speech rate, chunking, pausing, formulaic
language, discourse markers). It also involves being able to negotiate
speech (e.g. building on previous utterances, monitoring understanding,
repairing communication breakdown, giving feedback), as well as
managing the flow of speech as it unfolds (e.g., initiating topics, turn-
taking, signalling intentions, opening/closing conversations).
 Communication Strategies involves developing cognitive strategies to
compensate for limitations in language knowledge (e.g circumlocutionn,
paraphrasing, gestures, word coinage, approximation, avoidance),
metacognitve strategies (e.g. planning in advance what to say, thinking
consciously about how you say something), and interaction strategies (e.g.
asking for clarification/repetition, reformulating, rephrasing, and checking
comprehension).
 Comparing spoken and written language many approaches
typically used in language teaching to teach speaking have taken
little account of the features of spoken language, and have tended
instead to fall back on grammars that are essentially based on
written text. Technological advances in recording speech and the
establishment by linguists of corpora of speech utterances have led
to much greater knowledge about the similarities and differences
between these two modes of communication. It is very valuable for
language teachers to be aware of some of the main differences and
of the features that typically charactise speech, as this will allow
them to make more informed decisions about what to teach.
 Social and functional motivation anotherr useful insight for
language teachers who teach speaking relates to social and
functional motivation for speaking. The distinction has long been
made between interpersonally motivated speech and pragmatically
motivated speech (Brown and Yule, 1983). Pragmatic or
transactional talk involves exchanging information or goods and
services (e.g. seeking information about a job, calling an
ambulance) with the purpose of getting things done in daily life.
Interactional or interpersonal talk, on the other hand, is primarily
directed towards creating and maintaining social relationships (e.g.
chatting with friends or family, making small talk).
 A Teaching-Speaking Cycle Building on some of the concepts presented above. I will
now present a teaching-speaking cycle (Goh and Burns, 2012, p. 153) for planning a
holistic and sequenced series of speaking activities (Figure 2). The model aims to
highlight a number of key concepts that teachers can draw on to guide their
students:
1. Use a wide range of speech enabling skills
2. Develop fluency in expression of meaning
3. Use grammar flexibly to produce a wide range of utterances that can express
meaning precisely
4. Use appropriate vocabulary and accurate language forms relevant to their speaking
neeneed
5. Understand and use social and linguistic conventions of speech for various contexts
6. Employ appropriate oral communication and discourse strategies
7. Increase awareness of genre and genre structures
8. Increase metacognitive awareness about L2 speaking
9. Manage and self-regulate their own speaking development (Goh & Burns, 2012, pp.
151-152)
Focus learners’ attention on speaking
 This first stage is to do with raising metacognitive awareness about
speaking and has two main purposes:
 a) to encourage learners to plan for overall speaking development
learners are given prompts to encourage them to think about the
demands of speakingg and how they can prepare themselves for it.
 b) to prepare learners to approach a specific speaking task Here,
prompts focus on the speaking task that has been planned for the
teaching cycle. Learners prepare by familiarising themselves with
the outcomes of the task and considering strategies they need to
complete it.
Provide input and/or guide planning
 Speaking in a second language can create a great deal of anxiety
for language learners, and so it is very important that teachers
provide support for the speaking task, giving learners time for
planning what to say and how to say it. The purposes of this
preparation stage include:
• introducing or teaching new language
• enabling learners to reorganise their developing linguistic
knowledge
• activating existing linguistic knowledge
• recycling specific language items, and easing processing load
• pushing learners to interpret tasks in more demanding ways
Conduct speaking tasks
 The purpose of this stage is to provide learners with a context
where they can practise speaking through a communicative task.
The task should encourage the learners to express meaning with
whatever linguistic knowledge, skills and strategies they have. In
other words, this stage of the cycle encourages learners to develop
fluency of expression without having to pay too much attention to
accuracy of form. This stages should be less demanding for the
learners because of the teacher-guided or individual pre-task
planning that has taken place in Stage 2.
Focus on language/skills/strategies
 Stage 4 of the cycle is aimed at creating opportunities for learners
to improve language accuracy, as well as to enhance their
effective use of skills and strategies. In this stage, the teacher
draws learners’ attention to selected parts of the fluency task they
have completed that need attention. The parts could include
language features such as pronunciation, grammar and text
structures, as well as vocabulary
Repeat speaking tasks
 At this stage, learners carry out the speaking task(s) from Stage 3
again. The difference between Stage 3 and Stage 5 is that learners
have now had a chance to analyse and practise selected language
items or skills during Stage 4. Therefore, they are able to apply
this knowledge to enhance their performance. Repetitions could
be carried out by:
1. Repeating parts of the original task
2. Repeating the entire task
3. Having students change groups or partners
4. Introducing a new task similar to the one learners have just done
(e.g. instead of
instructions about making your favourite food, learners could give
instructions about a topic of their own choice, so that they rehearse a
procedure genre again).
Direct learners’ reflection on learning
 Stage 6 encourages learners to self-regulate their learning through
monitoring and evaluating what they have learnt from the
preceding stages. Reflection can be done individually, in pairs, or
even in small groups. Individual and group reflection often has a
cathartic effect on learners who may be feeling stressed and
anxious, and think that they are the only ones feeling that way.
Learners’ reflection should be guided by different types of
metacognitive knowledge, and can focus on one or more of the
following points:
•demands of the speaking tasks which they have become aware of
• the strategies that are useful to meet the demands of the task
• their informal assessment of their capabilities and performance
• areas of their performance that show improvement
• areas to be further improved
• plans for improving specific areas
Facilitate feedback on learning
 In this final stage of the Teaching Speaking Cycle, the teacher
provides learners with feedback on their performance in earlier
stages of the cycle, for example:
•comments or grades on an individual learner’s skills and
performance from observation sheets used during the speaking task
• exchange of written individual learner reflections and comments on
each other’s progress and achievements
•consolidated comments from the teacher based on written
reflections from the class
• written comments in learners’ journals
• comments and informal assessment in learner blogs
Conclusion
 For teachers, what is relevant about the cycle is that it assists
them to focus systematically on planning each component, and to
develop appropriate tasks and materials for learners at different
stages of learning. It also takes into account activities that engage
learners at the cognitive and affective levels. In other words, it
emphasises the following aspects:
1. The teaching of speaking should foreground the respective roles
played by the teacher, the learner and the materials.
2. The main aim of speaking tasks is to help students develop the
fluency of expert speakers where meaning is communicated with few
hesitations and in a manner that is appropriate for the social purpose
of the message. This is achieved through
-the use of accurate language and discourse routines,
- appropriate speech enabling skills, and
- effective communication strategies.
3. Learners’ speaking performance can be enhanced through pre-task
planning and task repetition, as these activities can reduce cognitive
load during speech processing.
4. Learning involves noticing key information and storing it in long
term memory. Activities that focus learners’ attention on language,
skills and strategies are therefore an important part of teaching
speaking.
5. Activities that help learners develop metacognitive knowledge and
self-regulation of their speaking and learning processes are also
needed to address affective and other cognitive demands of learning
to speak a second language.
THANK YOU!😊