Teaching to Speak

The aim of this module
To make you think about speaking as a skill
To present a variety of techniques to teach speaking
To reflect upon the ways of teaching to speak

What do you have to do in this unit?
Warming up discussions
Input reading
Exploratory and self-exploratory tasks
Micro-teaching with observation
Integrated task

Input reading 1
Warming-up discussion 1.1
Complete the grid below indicating the real world situations, in which it is necessary to speak.
Situations for
Speaking

Speaking as a skill
Speaking is a skill on oral communication consisting in sending an oral message (Bygate, M. 1987. Speaking. OUP). Speaking is an integral part of oral conversation. There are certain genres of oral conversation i.e. typical types of oral performances in typical settings with the typical and highly predictable features (genres of oral conversation can be found in R.Carter and M.McCarthy. Exploring Spoken English. CUP. 2017).

Among the genres of speaking are description (telling the details to an active listener), narration (telling the development of events to an active listener), reasoning (telling one’s train of thought to an active listener), identification (talking about one's likes and dislikes) Other genres are language-in-action (people doing things and talking), comment (opinions and angles of view), service encounters (buying and selling of goods and services), debate and argument (seeking a solution and pursuing one’s point), learning (use of language in learning) and decision-making (people working towards decision). The ability to perform these genres is a proof of the skill level. This is how the language is used in everyday life.

Exploratory task 1.1
Study the list of speaking genres, indicate real world situations where these genres can occur. Some examples have been given to you.

Exploratory task 1.2
In the process of communication a speaker performs the necessary communicative functions (information request and providing information, saying rituals of greeting and others, expressing imagery and feelings, controlling other people’s behavior). A speaker can use conventional phrases without much meaning in them (e.g. How are you?). Speakers can use plain or metaphorical language (“If you don’t obey, you’ll get in the neck!) to be more expressive.

Check your ability to perform the following functions

Exploratory task 1.3
Study your own style of oral speech. Mark the following statements as “true” or “false” as referring to yourself. Describe your communication style. Find among your peers a person with the same oral style as yourself.

Planning and producing oral speech
The process of speaking starts before the actual moment when the articulation starts. A great deal of planning in the process of speech production is done during speech hesitation pauses. Hesitation pauses occur mostly before most important parts of utterance where it is necessary to think hard of what to say (Goldman-Eisler, F. cited in Aitchison, J.2018. The Articulate Mammal. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. L. N.Y. P. 239). Speakers do not deal with one meaningful chunk of speech at a time. Instead, speakers begin planning the next meaningful clause while uttering the present one.

Oral speech is addressed to the audience. It is time-bound, spontaneous, interactive, exists in real time, is accompanied by non-verbal features, gives an opportunity to rethink and repair, employs phonetic means such as timbre (Aitchison, J.2015. The Articulate Mammal. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. L. N.Y. P. 240-251). This makes oral speech different from written language.

Exploratory task 1.4
How will you repair the following conversation making it more organized for writing? Who are the participants and what are they talking about?
(Tip: This is an interview with a fifteen year old who has given up smoking)

Oral speech produces a discourse. Oral “discourse” is a continuous stretch of spoken language acquiring its meaning in the context and understood only if we know the speakers’ reality (Nunan, D. 2017. Introducing Discourse Analysis. Penguin Books).
Discourse analysis produces distinction between interactional and transactional function of the language. The information-transferring function is called transactional. Transactional function of the language is message oriented. The purpose is to get things done. Examples are science reports, news stories, eye witness accounts to the police, a talk between a patient and a doctor etc. In all the cases it is necessary to extract the salient details, to sequence and to present them to the listener or to the audience. This function is performed for “bringing the message across” and for “getting things done”.

Other types of conversation are different. People chat with each other for pleasure. They talk feeling comfortable and friendly towards each other. This function of the language is called interactional. Interactional function of the language is listener-oriented. The purpose is to “oil the wheels of communication”. These talks are friendly dialogues (Brown, G and G.Yule.2017. Teaching the Spoken Language. CUP. P. 10-39)

Exploratory task 1.5
Match the following pieces of discourse with the types of “transactional” or “interactional” language.

Conversational discourse has certain typical features (Carter, R., and M. McCarthy, 1995. Language as Discourse: Perspectives for Language Teaching. London:Longman): back-channels (Uhum), binomials (Hit or miss), discourse markers (well… I mean…), ellipsis (Think so. Seen my glasses anywhere? Want another drink? Know where to go? ), fixed expressions (A good time was had by all), fronting (To this man I dedicated…).

Other features are heads (That chap, he is…), hedges (He was… kind of …sort of), tags (She is nice. She is), tail (She is nice. Clare), modality (He could, probably…), vague language (Can you get me a sandwich or something?).
Conversational discourse uses sound imitating words e.g. The door went "bang", The flames went "Whoosh!" etc.
English conversational discourse often uses “understatement”, i.e. putting ideas in a milder form.

Exploratory task 1.6
In the space provided write the devices of the conversational discourse found

Speaking as a skill depends much on the communication strategies (decisions on how to achieve the communicative goal). The list of communication strategies includes: approximation, paraphrase, word-coinage, negotiation of meaning, time-creating devices (hmm), elliptical language, body-language, mime, changing the subject (Mc.Donough, S. 1995. Strategy and Skill in Learning a Foreign Language. London. Bialystock, E. 2220. Communication Strategies. Oxford: Blackwell).

Exploratory task 1.7
Analyze the following conversation: (A man, woman and child are having dinner in a South Philadelphia diner). Answer “questions for analysis in the right column”

In order to be successful in oral communication, one needs communication skills. Essential among them are “social skills” or skills in co-operating with people. Social skills are also known as co-operative skills i.e. an ability to communicate effectively in a clear and laconic way.

Look at the picture on the left and give your partner commands to enable him/her to draw the same picture without seeing it. You are allowed to use the words such as “a straight line’, “a curve”, “on top”, “down the middle” etc.
Exploratory task 1.14

Generally speaking there are three major principles (guiding rules) of teaching to speak. Teaching to speak is done through motivated speaking for meaning. Teaching to speak is done through speaking for information. Teaching to speak is done through speaking for interaction. (Littlewood, W. 1981. Communicative Language Teaching: an Introduction. CUP).
Input reading 2
Teaching to speak

Communicative exercises in teaching to speak are organized as information transfer (extracting certain pieces of information from a non-verbal form e.g. a table, a graph, a map etc). Another type of exercises is information gap (information is conveyed from the person who possesses it to the one who lacks it). Information gap can take the form of a jigsaw (each learner has only some information, which is part of the whole and is to be brought together by means of oral communication) (Johnson, K. 2012. Five principles in a "communicative exercise type". Communicative Syllabus Design and Methodology. Prentice Hall. P. 163-175).

Communicative techniques can be isolated as shown below:

Communicative games have a task, rules, participants, competition, winners (examples of communicative games can be found in Hadfield, J. 2017. Advanced Communicative Games. Nelson. Wright, A., M. Betteridge and M. Buckby. 2014. Games for Language Learning. CUP). Games can be classified as follows:
Information gap games (the winner is the first who compiles together all the necessary information from other participants)
Matching, contrasting and comparing games (fitting, exchanging, collating, spotting differences)
Sequencing games (the winner is the first who does the correct sequencing),
Guessing games (the winner is the first who does the correct guess, e.g. "Who am I?", wearing a sticky label on one's forehead and asking questions about oneself)
Community games (popular past-time games like “crosswords”, “dominos” or “bingo” with a language focus in mind),
Attention games (the winner is the one who is most attentive in performing the tasks),
Memory games (the winner is the one whose memory works best),
General knowledge games (the winner is the best one at general knowledge quizzes
Board games (a game organized between couples or groups of partners with a playing board, e.g. a grid and dice with a task in each box of the grid and the order of tasks determined by casting the dice)

Run this typical “information-gap” activity and reflect on the procedure. Student A is given the plan of an apartment. Student B has a blank sheet. Student A is to describe the plan of the apartment to student B without showing the sketch to him. Student B can ask comprehension-check questions. After the students have finished the task, the drawings are compared.
Exploratory task 2.1

Run the “jig-saw” activity to practice speaking. Student A has a text, which is the beginning of the text for student B. The two texts complement each other. Without showing the texts to each the learners ask each other “Yes-No” questions (comprehension-check questions are allowed too e.g. “Do you mean to say that …?) and pool the whole information together. Reflect on the procedure.
Exploratory task 2.2

Simulation activities are replicating reality for language study purposes. Simulation can take the form of role-play and problem solving. Role-plays can be based on roles and scenarios (Porter Ladousse, G. 1987. Role Play. OUP). Discussions are usually based on problems and opinions (Ur, P. 2011. Discussions that Work. CUP).
Simulation activities

Role-play can be described with at least four features: closeness (a plot can be very close to one's own experience or distant), situation (a situation can be very typical for every day or unlikely), realism (the circumstances can be realistic or imaginary), personality (the characters of the role-play can resemble the participants themselves or be alien to them) (After Byrne, D. 2016. Teaching Oral English. Longman. P. 117-118)

Role-play can be controlled (the participants are responsible for the language they use), semi-controlled (participants are partly expected to use the prescribed language), free (participants are responsible for the message not for the prescribed language, small-scale (lasting for a lesson or less) and large-scale (lasting for more than a lesson or perhaps for the whole term).

The task is done in a group of three. This role-play has a “hidden agenda”, i.e. the participants communicate in order to achieve a goal, which they never make explicit. Two participants act out a role-play according to the role-cards. The third participant is an observer and is to infer the “hidden agenda” from the overheard conversation (this participant should not see the role-cards!)
Exploratory task 2.3

Discussion is a simulation of reality for study purposes with problem-raising task, co-operating or challenging viewpoints of participants, polarization of opinions, decision making and problem resolution.
Discussion can be organized as pyramid discussion. It means that a problem task is given to pairs of students. Once a pair has solved the problem, two pairs are put together to compare answers and to agree a joint solution to the problem. Then larger groups continue to discuss the problem and to work out a single solution. Finally a single variant for the whole of the class is worked out (Jordan, R. 1990. "Pyramid discussion. ELTJ 44/1. P. 48).

Match the ways to set up a problem for discussion with the topics for discussion
SAQ 2.1

Students comment on the following proverbs and sayings that have the word “love”. After the activity the evaluation form is completed (1- no, 2 – in a way, 3 – yes)
Exploratory task 2.4

Exploratory task 2.5
The participants choose from the first three cards. They read the opinions, comment on them, debate with each other and go to the next card as prompted. At the end the participants discover whether they know American law on wearing seat belts in the cars or not

Evaluation form
Presentation
Presentation is a structured individual or group talk made for the audience. Presentation is done in the following stages: introducing the subject and the team, performing the scenario of the presentation, receiving feedback. There are certain presentation techniques to keep the audience interested during the performance

Exploratory task 2.6
Choose the subject of your own presentation and give examples of how you are going to keep the audience interested
It is often useful to give the learners the cues, from which they can speak. Types of cues in a variety of speaking tasks include cards, notes, table of data and graphs, mind-maps, plans.

Exploratory task 2.7
Speak from the following cues and say which cue you liked most of all and why.
Cue 1
Cue 2
Cue 3

Cue 4
Cue 5

Exploratory task 2.8
Consider the following techniques to develop social skills in learners and say what social skills can be developed with their help:
Taking part in oral communication is not guaranteed against cognitive problems. There are ways of resolving the difficulties that the learners can experience during the speaking tasks

Exploratory task 2.9
Match the learner difficulties and the “remedies” for them

Exploratory task 2.10
Refer the following tasks to either pre-speaking, while-speaking or post-speaking activities. (The learners are shown a photo, on which a man is ready to jump down from the roof of a high-rising building)

Framework for the description of the activity: