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
•


Participant

Feedback-provider
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

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
speaking?
 If teachers interrupt students constantly for
correcting mistakes they will destroy the
purpose of the speaking activity and take the
communicativeness out of the activity.
 In short, the general principle of watching
and listening so that teachers can give
feedback later is usually much more
appropriate.
Problems with speaking
activities

Inhibition

Nothing to say

Low or uneven participation

Mother-tongue use
Problems with speaking
activities

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
stimulate interest

Give some instruction or training in
discussion skills

Keep students speaking the target
language
Solutions to speaking
problems

Use group work
•
increases the amount of learners’ talking
time.


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

Survey

Discussion

Role-play
Speaking activities

Information gap

questionnaires & survey
•
First, teacher asks Sts to look at the grip.
Think of what questions they could ask
about.