What is Speaking? C.

Consultative style- refers to ordinary conversation

held at school, in meeting or conversation that leads to
Speech is the most basic means of communication result and production.
Bailey and Savage (1994) said that speaking in a second D. Casual style- is used to speak with friends, family or
language or foreign language has often been viewed as relatives, during the leisure time, while break or
the most demanding and challenging of the four skills. recreation, etc.
According to Brown (1994) a number of features of E. Intimate style- is used with people who have close
spoken language or foreign language includes reduced relationships with the speaker. By using this style those
forms such as contractions, vowel reduction, and elision; people do not need to use complete sentences with clear
slang and idioms; stress, rhythm, and intonation. articulation, they just simply use short words.
Nature of Speaking
Registers
 Speech Production
A. Frozen is also referred to as static register. Printed
Process by which spoken words are selected to be unchanging language, such as Biblical quotations, often
produced. contains archaisms.
Three Stages B. Formal is one-way participation; no interruption;
1. Conceptualization technical vocabulary or exact definitions are important;
includes presentations or introductions between strangers.
2. Formulation
C. Consultative involves two way participation.
3. Articulation Background information is provided prior knowledge is
not assumed. Back-channel behavior such as "uh huh", "I
 Self-monitoring & repair see", etc. is common. Interruptions are allowed. Usual
conversations are between teacher/student, doctor/patient,
Happens concurently with the stages of conceptualization, etc.
formulation and articulation.
D. Casual is within in group friends and acquaintances;
 Authomaticity no background information provided ellipsis and slang
common, interruptions common. This is common among
Allow speakers to focus on their attention on the aspects
friends in a social setting.
of the speaking task.
E. Intimate is non-public; intonation more important than
 Fluency
wording or grammar; private vocabulary. Also includes
Speaking Rules non-verbal messages. This is most common among family
members and close friends.
1. Don’t study grammar too much
2. Learn & Study phrases
3. Reading and Listening is not enough. Practice Austin and Searle`s speech acts
speaking what you hear.
4. Study correct materials • Speech Act Theory
5. Managing talk (Interaction, Turn-taking,
Paralinguistics) • Speech Act theory says that when we speak we are also
'acting in the world'.
Purpose of Speaking
Austin and Searle`s speech acts
 Oral communication is a two-way process between
speaker or listener (or listeners) and invloves the Utterance Act — act of saying something.
productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of
understanding (or listening with understanding). Propositional Act — referring to something or
 The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative expressing a predication about something.
efficiency.
 To help learners develop communicative efficiency in Illocutionary act — the function (assertion, warning,
speaking, instructors or teachers can use a balanced request)
activities approach that combines language input,
structured output, and communicative output.

Speech Styles & Registers Three forces

STYLES Locutionary force — linguistic form of the utterance.
A. Frozen style- is the most formal style used in formal Illocutionary force — the meaning of the utterance.
situations and ceremonies.
Perlocutionary force — the effect of a given illocutionary
B. Formal style- is used in formal speech, formal act on the hearer.
meeting, office correspondence, lesson books for school,
etc.
Segmental and Suprasegmental •Initiated by a comment concering something in the
immediate vicinity
Suprasegmental — refers to a phonological property of
more than one segment. Suprasegmental information •Both participants have knowledge of, and that the
applies to different linguistic phenomena (such as pitch, comment will elicit agreement, since agreement is face-
duration, and loudness). Suprasegmentals are often preserving and non-threatening.
regarded as the 'musical' aspects of speech.
Giving feedback (back channelling) is another important
— The term suprasegmental (referring to functions that aspect of talk as interaction and involves responding to a
are “over” vowels and consonants)was coined by conversational partner with expressions such as “That's
American structuralists in the 1940s. interesting”, "yeah”, “really”, and so on, that indicate
interest and a wish for the speaker to continue.
— In talking to a cat, or a baby, you may adopt a
particular set of suprasegmentals. Another technique to practice the use of conversation
starters and personal recounts involves giving
Suprasegmental features conversation starters which students have to respond to
by asking one or two follow-up questions.
a.Vowels and consonants are considered small segments
of the speech, which together form a syllable and make Simple activities use to practice topic management are “in
the utterance. the hot seat” and “question time”.

b.Common suprasegmental features are the stress, tone Mastering the art of talk as interaction is difficult and may
and duration in the syllable or word for a continuous not be a priority for all learners. However, students who
speech sequence. Sometimes even harmony and do need such skills and find them lacking report that they
nasalization are also included under this category. sometimes feel awkward and at a loss of words when they
find themselves in situations that require talk for
c. Suprasegmental or prosodic features are often used in interaction.They feel difficulty in presenting a good
the context of speech to make it more meaningful and image of themselves and sometimes avoid situations that
effective. call for this kind of talk.
d.Without suprasegmental features imposed on the Talk as transaction refers to situations where the focus is
segmental features, a continuous speech can also convey on what is said or done. The message and making oneself
meaning often loses the effectiveness of the message understood clearly and accurately is the central focus,
being conveyed. rather than the participants and how they interact socially
with each other.
Segmental — Segmental language are the vowels and the
consonants which combine to produce syllables, words In such action, talk is associated with other activities. For
and sentences. In phonetics, the smallest perceptible example, students may be engaged in hands-on activities
segment is a phoneme. Segmental phonemes of sign (eg, in a science lesson to explore concepts associated
formally called “cheremer” are visual movement of with floating and sinking. In this type of spoken language
hands, face and body. students and teachers usually focus on meaning or on
talking their way to understanding (Jones 1996:14)
Types of Speech Delivery
Talk as transaction is more easily planned since current
Extemporaneous - delivered with preparation time from
communicative materials are a rich resource of group
a few minutes to half-an-hour.
activities, information-gap activities and role plays that
Impromptu - a speech that a person delivers without can provide a source for practicing how to use talk for
preparation. sharing and obtaining information as well as for carrying
out real-world transactions.
Manuscript - a written text read to an audience from a
paper script or teleprompter.

Memorized - focus on reciting written content from

memory to an audience.
These activities include ranking activities, values
TEACHING TALK AS INTERACTION clarification activities, brainstorming, and simulations.
Group discussion activities can be initiated by having
Talk as interaction is perhaps the most difficult skill to students work in groups to prepare a short list of
teach since interactional talk is a very complex as well as controversial statements for others to think about.
subtle phenomena that takes place under the control of
"unspoken" rules. Group sex change statements and discuss them.

The best taught thought providing examples embedded in Role-play activities are another familiar technique for
naturalistic dialogs that can serve to model features such practicing real world transactions and typically involve
as opening and closing conversations, making small the following sequence of activities:
talk, recounting personal incidents and experiences,
Preparing: reviewing vocabulary, real world knowledge
and reacting to what others say.
related to the content and context of the roleplay (e.g.
The rules for making "small talk" returning a faulty item to a store).
Modeling and eliciting: demonstrating the stages that are Ss can hear a recording of a parallel task being done (so
typically involved in the transaction, eliciting suggestions long as this does not give away the solution to the
for how each stage can be carried out, and teaching the problem).
functional language need for each stage.
If the task is based on a text, Ss read a part of it.
Practicing and reviewing: students are assigned roles and
practice a roleplay using cue cards or realia to provide The task cycle
language and other support.
Task
However an issue that arises in relation to practicing talk
as transaction using different kinds of communicative The task is done by Ss (in pairs or groups) and gives Ss a
tasks, is the level of linguistic accuracy that students chance to use whatever language they already have to
achieve when carrying out these tasks. express themselves and say whatever they want to say.
This may be in response to reading a text or hearing
Despite these optimistic claims others have reported that a recording.
communication tasks often develop fluency at the
expense of accuracy.Higgs and Clifford(1982,78), for T walks round and monitors, encouraging in a supportive
example, reporting experience with foreign language way everyone's attempt at communication in the target
teaching programs in the US, observed: language.

In programs that have as curricular goals an early T helps Ss to formulate what they want to say, but will not
emphasis on unstructured communication activities - intervene to correct errors of form.
minimising, or excluding entirely, considerations of The emphasis is on spontaneous, exploratory talk and
grammatical accuracy - it is possible in a fairly short time confidence building, within the privacy of the small
to provide students with a relatively large vocabulary and group.
a high degree of fluency. These same data suggest that the
premature immersion of a student into an unstructured or Success in achieving the goals of the tasks help Ss
"free" conversational setting before certain linguistic motivation.
structures are more or less in place is not done without
cost.
There appear to be a real danger of leading students too
rapidly into the creative aspects of language use, in that if Planning
successful communication is encouraged and rewarded Planning prepares for the next stage where Ss are
for its own sake,the effect seems to be one of rewarding at asked to report briefly to the whole class how
the same time the incorrect strategies seized upon in they did the task and what the outcome was.
attempting to deal with the communication strategies
presented. • Ss draft and rehearse what they want to say or
write.
-By reducing the complexity of the task ,e.g. by • T goes round to advise students on language,
familiarizing students with the demands of the activity by suggesting phrases and helping Ss to pollsh and
showing them a similar activity on video or as a dialog correct their language. If the reports are in
writing, T can encourage pour editing and use of
-By giving time to plan the task dictionaries.
• The emphasis is on clarity, organization, and
-By repeated performance of the task accuracy, as appropriate for a public presentation.
Willis(1966)suggests using a cycle of activities with task- • Individual students often take this chance to ask
work using a sequence of activities in a lesson. These questions about specific language items.
create interaction mediated by a task and then build
language awareness and language development around Report
task performance. She proposes the following sequence of
activities: • T asks some pairs to report briefly to the whole
class so everyone can compare findings, or begin
Pre task activities a survey. (N.B: There must be purpose for others
* T stands for teacher and Ss stands for student to listen). Sometimes only one or two groups
report in full others comment and add extra
Introduction to topic and task points. The class may take notes.

T helps Ss to understand the theme and objectives of the • T chairs, comments on the content of their
task, for example, brainstorming ideas with the class, reports, rephrases perhaps, but gives no overt
using pictures, mime or personal experience to introduce public correction
the topic

Ss may do a pre task, for example, topic-based odd-word-

out games. T may highlight useful words and phrases, but
would not pre-teach new structures.

Ss can be given preparation time to think about how to do

the task.
 Language focus 1. Verbal communication — is the transmission of
information through spoken words or written
Analysis
language.
• T sets some language focussed tasks, based on
the texts student read or on the transcripts of they • Oral communication, or spoken communication,
recordings they heard. Examples include the includes telephone calls, face-to-face interactions,
following: video conferencing, etc.

 Find words and phrases related top the topic or • Written communication is primarily used to
text. convey information in a permanent manner.
 Read the transcript, find words ending in "s" and Examples of written communication include
say what the s means. emails, text messaging, electronic medical
records, reports etc.
 Find all the words in the simple past form. Say
which refer to past time and which do not. 2. Non-Verbal Communication

 Underline and classify the questions in the It provides a way to convey emotion and information
transcript. without using words. It can give the listener
• T starts Ss off, then students continue, often in additional information, sometimes contradicting the
pairs. spoken message.

• T goes round to help; Ss can ask individual • Facial expressions / gestures

questions body language / posture
eye contact
• In plenary, then reviews the analysis, possibly
writing relevant language up on the board in list shrugging
form: Ss may make notes. pointing

Students then work jointly on planning their own texts, 3. Visual Communication
which are then presented to the dass.
Visual communication delivers messages through
Feez and Joyce's approach to text-based instruction visual cues such as illustrations, videos, charts and
provides a good model of how talk as performance can be diagrams. Visual communication can be an effective
taught (1998,v). This approach involves:
tool, especially when it is difficult to relay messages
• teaching explicitly about the structures and through words.
grammatical features of spoken and written texts

• linking spoken and written texts to the cultural

context of their use Speech Formats

• designing units of work which focus on Talk as Interaction This refers to what we normally
developing skills in relation to whole texts mean by “conversation “and describes interaction
which serves as primarily social function. When
• providing students with guided practice as they
develop language skills for meaningful people meet, they exchange greetings,engage in small
communication through whole texts. talk and chitchat,recount recent experiences and soon
because they wish to be friendly and to establish a
Modes of Communication comfort zone of interaction with others.
Communication is the process of sending and Brown and Yule (1983)
receiving messages to share skills, knowledge and
attitudes. The focus is more on the speakers and how they wish
to present themselves to each other than on the
Effective communication between patient and message, either casual or more formal depending on
provider requires a two-way dialogue where each the circumstances and their nature.
party respects the other. Both parties will be able to:

 exchange information
 speak and listen without interruption
 express opinions
 ask questions for clarity

There are three modes of communication: verbal, non-

verbal and visual.