Why is speaking important?

When we talk about speaking in class it isimportant to differentiate between the kind of speaking which occurs inmechanical drills and repetition, on the one hand, and situations wherestudents use as much language as they can and where getting their messageacross is just as important as grammatical accuracy, on the other. In thisarticle it is the latter kind of speaking that we are going to look at.

There are three main reasons why it is importantto encourage students to speak as fluently as possible. In the first place,speaking activities give them a chance for rehearsal - practising the realskill of speaking as a preparation for using it outside the classroom.Secondly, when students speak using all and any language they know, it providesvaluable feedback about their language knowledge, for both them and theirteachers. How well can they perform in spontaneous conversational situations?What do they seem to know? What are they finding difficult to achieve? Lastly,good speaking activities provoke genuine student engagement where they reallyget involved with the process of language learning in class.

What is good speaking material?

Good speaking activities should have anumber of characteristics: they should engage the students by making them wantto take part. They should have some purpose which is not purely linguistic -such as solving a problem or reaching a decision. They should be designed tomaximise the range of language they will use, so they should not restrictstudents, for example, to specific grammar patterns.

What kinds of speaking activity can we use?

A popular kind of speaking activityinvolves an information gap. Students have different information and they haveto solve a problem by swapping facts to bridge the information gap betweenthem. Typical examples include situations where four students have each seenseparate pictures: by telling each other what they have seen, they are able towork out the story that the pictures tell. In another type, one student has apicture that another student has to draw only by listening to a description ofit.

Another kind of activity which provokes thekind of speaking we are considering, involves the students in conductingsurveys. These can be on any subject: they can question each other about theirdaily lives (habits, family,) or preferences (food, films, books).Questionnaires and surveys can fit into a longer teaching sequence so thatplanning the questionnaire and collating the results afterwards can be valuablelanguage-learning activities in themselves.

Discussions provide ideal opportunities forspeaking. Subjects with scope for controversy are best for discussion: roles ofmen and women, censorship, animal rights, patriotism, for example. Many peoplehave plenty to say on such topics. Some of the most enjoyable classes of allare ones when unplanned discussions suddenly arise on issues that matter to thestudents.

But most teachers will also be able toremember discussions that simply did not work, despite a seemingly good topic.This may be because it is unrealistic to expect someone to discourse fluentlyin a foreign language without any warning, formulating deeply-held opinionsquickly in front of fifteen, twenty-five or more fellow students. It is notenough, in other words, to ask students, ‘What do you think of X?’. Instead,teachers should plan the discussion sequence giving students material to reactto, and time to plan what they are going to say.

A popular way of emphasising the rehearsalaspect of speaking activities is to use simulations and role plays. This iswhere students pretend that they are in a different situation, either asthemselves or playing the role of someone quite different. We could ask them tobe guests at some party and go there as different characters. We might clearthe classroom so there is an open space for them to party in. They could, asthemselves, pretend to be at an airport trying to check in luggage, or eitheras themselves or another character take part in a television programme. In allthese cases the students are using language in order to participate in theactivity rather than the other way round! Some students find it very comfortingto use language in a simulated environment, playing the role of someone else -it allows them to experiment more freely than they ordinarily would.

When should students speak?

Many people have thought that speakingactivities should come at the end of a teaching sequence; you have taught thepresent continuous for future, for example, and now you ask students torole-play situations in which they make arrangements and invite each other:(What are you doing this evening? How about coming to a movie? etc.). There isnothing wrong with this of course, but it should not be thought that there hasto be that kind of linear relationship between a speaking activity andnon-speaking material that went before it. Indeed, students probably need quitesome time for new language to sink in before they can produce it spontaneouslyin conversation.

Speaking activities can be used at anystage. Indeed, a direct opposite of what we have just described is a kind of‘boomerang’ procedure, where students are involved in a speaking activity andit is their performance in this activity that helps the teacher to decide whatto teach next. Speaking activities are often part of longer sequences (asdiscussed above). Teachers may use speaking activities as welcome relief frommore concentrated study, or as a way of seeing how well students have beenlearning over the last few days or weeks.

What do teachers have to do?

It is vitally important to be surebeforehand what students need to know for the activity to be successful and tomake sure that they are given suitable information or provided with keylanguage.

Tell them the purpose of the task, how theyshould carry it out, how long they have got. If this is the first time theyhave used an information gap activity, for example, they must be told not tolook at each other‘s material.

Many teachers prefer to demonstrate anactivity before getting students to do it. Such demonstration clarifies theprocedures in a way that instructions sometimes do not.

How should teachers correct speaking?

When teachers are conducting drills or checkingwritten homework they often correct all the mistakes they hear or seeimmediately they hear or see them. But if they do the same when a student istrying to speak fluently, they may throw the student off balance and makefluency impossible. It will also suggest that the teacher is more concernedwith the ’how‘ than with the ’what‘ of what is said.

Of course there are times during speakingactivities when teachers may intervene gently to help out a communicationproblem (though he or she should consider how important this is and whether ornot it might disrupt the activity), but in general it is better for the teacherto listen to what the students are saying, intervene as little as possible, andthen give feedback when the activity is finished. First they should tellstudents what they liked about the activity and comment on the ideas conveyedand then go on to point out mistakes, and do some work to correct them.

Key points

Make sure that:

speaking activities really are speakingactivities and not just drill-like exercises

there is some purpose which the studentshave to achieve during the speaking activity

you give your students clear instructionsand any necessary information and language so that they can participate in theactivity

you don’t interrupt their fluency withunnecessary correction

students get feedback when the activity isfinished, looking at what they achieved and what language they should study(again).

English Teaching Professional Issue No.4 -July, 1997