Key Issues in Developing Speaking Skills

The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second or foreign language learners. Learners consequently often evaluate their success in language learning as well as the effectiveness of their English course on the basis of how well they feel they have improved in their spoken language proficiency. Oral skills have hardly been neglected in EFL/ESL courses (witness the huge number of conversation and other speaking course books in the market) 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, questioning strategies ) to indirect approaches which create conditions for oral interaction through group work, task work and other strategies .

One of main concern of the most language teachers is how to help language learners to develop satisfying language proficiency. In this regard, speaking proficiency has received the greatest attention among both the language teachers as well as the language learners. This is because speaking is a crucial part of the language learning process. The major goal of teaching speaking skill is communicative efficiency. Language learners should be able to make themselves understood by using their current proficiency. They should try to avoid confusion in the message because of the faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. In the same line, a common characteristic of many language classes is a heavy focus on the language system. Vocabulary and grammar seem to gain far more attention than the skills needed to use this vocabulary and grammar. To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors can use activities that combine language input and communicative output. To this end, the present paper tries to take a closer look at the type of activities that language teachers can utilize to promote speaking proficiency. Accordingly, effective instructors can teach students speaking strategies by using minimal responses, recognizing scripts, and language to talk about language. These instructors help students learn to speak so that the students can use speaking to learn.

the mastery of speaking in English is a priority to any one who wants to learn the language. speaking is considered the main way to evaluate a student whether he is a good language user or not.

Hello-Teen Society

The paper deals with one of the many challenges teachers face in the EFL/ESL classroom. The study emphasizes on the idea that students must not only to speak but to make progress in their speaking skill in a credible way. The suggestions provided in student books or other resource materials may not always fit the needs of the teachers in their quest of finding activities better suited to meet their objectives. If teachers cannot find suitable activities they must adapt existing ones or create new activities. This paper looks at how a set of topic cards for speaking was created to help the students meet certain objectives. The design of these cards developed through such considerations as incorporation of new vocabulary, exchange of ideas, individual pacing and provision of a variety of topics. How the activity addresses the growth of student's confidence is also discussed in the present short communication.

2020

This report describes the action research project I engaged in as part of my practicum as a trainee teacher during my master’s degree in teaching English in primary education. My objective was to gain understanding of the benefits of speaking tasks in the learning process and find out in what ways oral pair work fosters children’s participation in the classroom. This study also served to show how teachers can plan activities in order to promote oral interaction in a student-centred approach. The research took place in a state primary school belonging to a school cluster near Cascais, Portugal. The class referred to in my study was a year 4 class composed of 27 students who had English for the first time in their year 3. There were 10 girls and 17 boys with ages between 9 and 10. This class had English twice a week in the afternoon and the lessons had the length of one hour. My research was implemented from late-September to mid-December. The research tools used for data collection w...

International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 2013

The purposes of this research were: 1) to study and compare speaking skills of Grade 11 students using three communicative activities, and 2) to study the students' attitude towards teaching English speaking skills using the three communicative activities. The sample group consisted of 49 students at a secondary school in Udon Thani, Thailand, classified by high, medium, and low according to their abilities of English speaking proficiency level. The design of the research were mixed method design. The quantitative data came from the speaking test and the students' attitude towards teaching English speaking. The qualitative data were drawn from a Learning Log, a semi-structured interview and a Teacher Journal. A one group pretest-posttest design was also employed. The research instruments were 8 lesson plans, an English speaking ability test, and an attitude questionnaire. Percentage, mean, standard deviation and t-test for dependent samples were employed to analyze data quantitatively. The research findings were as follows: 1. The students' English speaking abilities after using the three communicative activities were significantly higher than before their use. (Pretest = 60.80; Posttest = 85.63). 2. The students' attitude towards teaching English speaking skills using the three communicative activities were rated as good (Χ =4.50) Index Terms-English speaking skills, three communicative activities, attitude.