Effective teaching methods for speaking

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Effective teaching methods for speaking

Speaking is a crucial part of foreign language learning and teaching. Giving the definition to speaking, two essential approaches could be mentioned, the bottomup and the top down approach. Explaining the bottom up view, Bygate claims that speaking is a combination of phonetic units that are explored systematically and orderly in order to create meaningful speeches. Alternatively, taking into consideration a top-down view of speaking, Eckard & Kearny, Florez and Howarth are firm in their belief that speaking is a two-way process which involves a true communication of ideas, information or feelings.[1]

Speaking as the type of speech activity relies primarily to language as the facility of communication. Language provides a communication between interlocutors because it is comprehensible for both the speaker who imparts information by coding it in the meanings of words which are selected for that purpose and the hearer who receives information decoding, i.e. deciphering given meanings and correcting them through data.

Just as the weapon mediates the labor activities of people, language means mediate the learning and communication. The system of verbal signs forms language as a mean of existence, absorption and transfer of socio-historical experience. Due to the communication through language the reflection of world in the brain of individual person always updated with reflection of other people, it happens through the exchange of thoughts, transmission of information. The system of meanings is improved and enriched during the person's lifelong time, and its focus on development - a focal point of both secondary and high education.

The tool of communication is words and their meanings. Speaking is divided into two types: dialogue and monologue. Dialogue is simple mode of oral speech; it is a conversation carried on by interlocutors discussing and solving any kind of questions. The second type of oral speech is monologue said by single person to an individual person or a group of people. The lecture of the teacher, detailed answer of the student, report, etc. are easily could be exemplified as a monologue speech. In teaching speaking both monologic and dialogic skills should be taken into consideration.

Training purpose to speaking in foreign language is formation of such speech habits which would allow to the student to use them in non-educational speech practice on the level of customary household dialogue. Realization of this purpose is connected with formation of following communicative abilities: а) to understand and to induce speaking another language statements pursuant to particular dialogue situation, speech task and communicative intention; b) to implement one's verbal and nonverbal behavior, taking into consideration of the rules of dialogue and national-cultural features of the country of under investigation language; в) to use rational receptions of taking possession of foreign language, to be improved independently in him. Ability to communicate in foreign language assumes as well to make students to form determined qualities which make the process of taking possession of language as the facility of intercultural communications the most effective. It is directly depend on a learner: - interest and positive attitude to the target language, to the culture of the given nationality; - understanding of oneself as a person belonging to determined language and cultural community, as well as universal consciousness; - understanding of importance of studying of foreign language; - need for self-education. Development of nontechnical, intelligent, cognitive abilities, mental processes underlying taking possession of speaking another language dialogue, as well as emotions, feelings of students, their readiness to dialogue, culture of dialogue in different types of group interaction are important as well. Furthermore, as soon as a teacher is a mentor and the main character in classroom, has to choose appropriate, motivating and effective tasks. Assignments as an important part of teaching process, have a great impact on students acquisition of a foreign language. The quality and relevancy of tasks could enhance the language degree of learners. There is given some underlying criteria to speaking tasks by Scott Thornbury. [2]

Primarily, productivity is considered as one of the essential one. According to S.Thornbury, speaking activity needs to be maximally language productive in order to provide the best conditions for autonomous language use.

Secondly, purposefulness is highlighted as soon as outcome should be clarified, especially the common output for the group of students. The reason is that it encourages them to work in team in order to reach one common result.

Thirdly, speaking tasks are supposed to be interactive. As S.Thornbury underlines in his book, activities should require learners to take into account the effect they are having on their audience. If not, they can hardly be said to be good preparation for real-life language use. Furthermore, he mentions that there should always be the possibility of interaction in both dialogic and monologic speaking tasks. The next main feature is related to motivating students by challenging. The task should stretch the learners so that they are forced to draw on their available communicative resources to achieve the outcome. This will help them experience the sense of achievement, even excitement, that is part of autonomous language use. However, the degree of challenge should not be too high as soon as it could be counterproductive and make learners demotivated.

Moreover, while learners should be challenged, they also need to feel confident that, when meeting those challenges and attempting autonomous language use, they can do so without too much risk. The classroom should provide the right conditions for experimentation, including a supportive classroom dynamic and a non-judgmental attitude to error on the part of the teacher.

The last pivotal feature is considered to be an authenticity of tasks. As Monti (2004) mentioned that during learning how to community effectively by using the materials, students will feel that their learning is immediately relevant .In and out of the classroom they will be able to practice with each other.[3]

In order to explore classroom speaking activities effective in improving students' communicative competence, teachers need to incorporate a purpose and an information gap and allow for multiple forms of expression. However, there is a doubt that only quantity is enough to produce competent speakers. It seems that tutors should combine structured output activities, which enables learners to correct their mistakes and increase accuracy, with communicative output activitiesthat give learners opportunities to practice language use more freely. Jeremy Harmer gives the range of activities that could be used in improving speaking skills of students. They are following:

• competition - photography competition, for example where students are shown 4 finalist pictures and must decide the winner

• role-play - set up a dramatic situation and assign roles for students to play (crime - suspect, police officer, lawyer, concerned parent)

• portrait interview - show a portrait - Arnolfini Marriage by Jan van Eyck - place students in groups and have them compile a list of questions to ask the others in the portrait …. Jigsaw - and have people answer these questions in their new group

• discussion - give discussion topics ahead of time, place students in small buzz groups to explore and gather ideas, give statements for students to complete - Boys don't like shopping.

• information-gap activities - two speakers have different bits of information and they can only complete the whole picture by sharing that information because there is a `gap' between them eg. Describe and Draw - sit back to back, one person describes the other draws (and is not allowed to ask questions) …. Progress to asking of questions! Compare results.

• find the differences - students look at similar pictures to one another and they describe their pictures and try to find 5 differences.

• telling stories - story reconstruction (show pictures out of order and have students reconstruct in order), place objects on a table and have students invent a story, retell a story they read in a newspaper, tell a story about their family vacation, a scar, a goal

• favourite objects - students bring in an object and talk about its importance

• meeting and greeting - role-play an occasion where they must meet people and introduce themselves

• surveys - design a questionnaire and interview one another (sleeping habits, siblings, climbed a mountain) - good for get-to-know you activity

• famous people - decide on which famous person, alive or dead, that they would like to invite for dinner, what they would talk about and what food they would give to them

• student presentations - oral presentations

• moral dilemmas - present students with a moral dilemma and they must come to group consensus to come to a decision (student gets caught cheating on an exam - ignore the incident or exposing the student publicly or come up with 3 other solutions and decide on 1 course of action)[4]

According to the given information above, these can be concluded: 1. Speaking as the type of speech activity relies primarily to language as the facility of communication. 2. Speaking is based on the recognition of meanings of lexical units of language. 3. Oral speech is divided into two types: dialogue and monologue. 5. For informal conversation (dialogue) the retorts are characteristic which are exchanged by speaking, repetitions of phrases and separate words for interlocutor, questions, additions, explanatories, use of hints, clear only by speaking, diverse auxiliary words and interjections. 6. Monologic speech has a big composite complexity, requires completeness of the idea, more strict observance of grammatical rules, strict logic and sequence at account of what wants to say by one's monologue. Also, speaking is a complex process and it should be taught by assignments that meet the criteria as productivity, purposefulness, interactivity, challenge, safety and authenticity. Classroom speaking tasks should contain activities oriented in developing both monologic and dialogic skills.

References

speech lexical language exercise

1. Bygate, Martin.2000.Teaching and Researching Speaking. London: Longman.

2. Thornbury, Scott. 2005. How to teach speaking. LongmanHarmer,

3. Monti, M. (2004). Workplace instructional development with authentic materials. In Fieldnotes for ABLE staff, 2004 edition. Harrisburg, PA: Adult Basic and Literacy Education

4. Jeremy.2007.How to Teach English: 2^nd edition. Pearson ELT.

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