GOTOCO

how to teachspeaking

unit 8 – how to teach speaking

speaking tasks

speaking activities

how to correct speaking

contents

unit 8how to teachspeaking

in this unit:

Learn how to create activities which teach speaking

Learn how to teach students to speak while also learning how to correct speaking mistakes properly

how to teachspeaking

For this eighth unit we will review how teachers can help students learn to complete speaking activities and tasks crucial to learning a new language.

how to teachspeaking

In a previous unit, we explored phonetics and phonics as a teaching method. Here we go

into more detail on how to boost students’ oral communication.

There are some certain sounds that Chinese speakers struggle with, particularly /θ/ which

is the phonetic symbol for the ‘th’ in ‘Thursday’, ‘think’ or ‘mouth’. This sound is fairly

easy to teach and give examples of so we will look at it first.

Students must realise that some sounds cannot simply be copied but must be learnt

through learning the positioning of the lips, tongue and mouth. Think of how we would

teach someone how to play a forehand in tennis, kick a football or learn a dance

step—you must learn the technique. The tongue, lips and mouth must be positioned

correctly, stay in the right place for the right amount of time and move in the correct way.

For /θ/ the tongue should be curled up onto the top teeth and the sound is aspirated

(some air is blown out). You can give a physical demonstration as well as showing the

positioning in drawings on the board. /ð/ (‘th’ in ‘this’, ‘other’, ‘father’) is a dental fricative,

which can be taught by getting students to make a similar sound to /θ/ but while also

making a vibration in the throat. You can get the students to touch their throat while

making the noise to ensure they are doing it correctly.

Another sound that is, maybe, the most difficult is /l/ in ‘well’, ‘building’ or ‘tell’. There are

so many words in English that use it and many students in China struggle to pronounce it.

This is because ‘l’ in Chinese is always followed by a vowel sound: le, li, la, lu, lai, lou, lei.

It needs to be taught in terms of the movement of the tongue and how to control it.

Untaught it will often become a ‘w’ sound in students’ pronunciation. It is useful to get

them to pronounce a word they are comfortable with like ‘seller’ (as it has a vowel sound

after /l/) and then move onto ‘sell’, which they find hard.

pronunciation

For this sound, the tongue must go to the top of the

mouth and, instead of coming down, stay there until the

sound finishes. Difficult to learn and not easy to teach, it is

essential to learn considering how many words in English

include the /l/ sound, and how frequently it is used in the

most basic of sentences.

Pronunciation is not easy and takes a while to practise and

perfect. Some students tend to avoid spending time on it.

Remind them this is probably the first thing others will

judge their English on. When many native English speakers

first meet someone, they do not judge their language skills

on their depth of vocabulary or if they can use the past

perfect progressive, but, rather, how it sounds.

Three steps to teach sounds

Teach the basic sound, making sure the students

know where the various parts of the mouth should be

and where they should go. You can provide

examples and even draw diagrams on the board. A

mirror is very useful for students that are not quite

understanding the positioning. Do not move on until

they can do this.

Give them examples of standalone words that

contain the sound, preferably at the beginning, in the

middle and at the end of words and drill them until

they are comfortable with it.

Then the words can be put into a sentence, in a

tongue-twister fashion. We can try /θ/ as an

example: ‘On Thursday, Kathy threw thirty-three

thousand things through the theatre’.

This will really test them as they are using the words in a

context with other sounds. With single words they can fully

concentrate on the sound, but in a sentence they will also

want to say it fluently and may get tripped up. If they can

say it clearly and fluently they are doing very well indeed.

speakingSpeaking, in this unit, refers not to the repetition of new vocabulary or of pre-structured

sentences; it refers to activities that force students to use all of the language at their

command to complete an oral task.

There are three reasons why students need to complete speaking tasks

Students need to rehearse conversations they will have outside of the classroom.

Real life activities like booking a hotel or asking for directions to a train station are

both examples of activities which force students to prepare for natural

communication in the real world.

Speaking tasks enable students to get feedback on how well they are using the

language they know. Likewise, teachers are able to tell how well their students are

doing by monitoring them during speaking tasks.

Speaking tasks allow students to participate fully, engage with other students, take

part in role-playing, discussions, and even problem-solving. They can also help

motivate students to continue studying so they can express themselves more clearly.

There are four main examples of activities students can use

information gaps: two speakers have different components to a

whole story and they have to work in pairs to fill in the gaps. this is meant for

elementary or intermediate students.

discussions: students can exchange opinions or discuss spontaneous

thoughts; perfect for intermediate or upper intermediate students.

role plays: students can role play being travel agents and travellers or

guests at a party; great for intermediate or advanced students.

surveys: students speak with other students to complete surveys. these

are great for elementary-level speakers.

Organising speaking activities is one of the harder elements of teaching in China. You may be

lucky and have a really enthusiastic group, but otherwise you will have to think up activities

and methods to motivate them to speak.

There are a few ways to do this

Make sure the topics are interesting to them. Family, food and fortunes are often

great topics to use and can be expanded easily. Family could focus on marriage and

relationships or how annoying your mother-in-law is. Food is a perennial topic that

could incorporate any grammar: what people ate in the past, what someone has

eaten or usually eats, or what someone would eat if they were rich. Fortune could talk

about money or even horoscopes. Some topics go down well and some others are

slow to take off—it takes a bit of trial and error to gauge your students’ interests.

Topical issues always work but avoid ‘sensitive’ topics as they can be detrimental to

the language-learning environment.

Make sure students clearly understand instructions. Often speaking activities go wrong

because the students do not really know what to do. Make sure you make them relay

back to you the instructions and monitor to see they are doing the right thing. If they

are not, pause the activity and explain again more precisely or in simpler terms.

There are many activities which require a bit of imagination, particularly role-plays,

drama and stories but remember that not everyone has had the same liberal

education as you may have had, which includes a sprinkling of drama, creative writing

and critical thinking. It is great to encourage a more creative approach to language but

you may have to explain the activity very simply. So instead of just telling students to

make a story in the simple past about something funny or interesting, you may want

to set them clear goals with a list of verbs, adjectives or nouns they must use and a

theme for the story and the characters involved. After all, your goal is to create

activities for them to practise speaking and using the language they have learnt.

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As a teacher, correcting the mistakes students make during speaking tasks is important.

Teachers are best off watching, listening, and writing down notes of the things that are

going well during a speaking task and those things which should be corrected later. By

writing down the good, the bad, and the ugly, and then sharing it at the end of a task,

students are not constantly interrupted by remedial corrections while they are trying to

formulate sentences or conversations.

teacher involvementAs a teacher, getting involved during speaking activities is perfectly fine, so long as the

teacher does not dominate the task.

speaking task suggestionsHave students work in pairs. One person has pictures or elements arranged in a

particular way. The other student has the same pictures or elements, but they have to

arrange them based on the description provided by the other student. This is ideal for

an intermediate or elementary level class.

Have students work in pairs. They should each have similar pictures but with minor

differences. They should talk to one another to find out what those differences are

without looking at the pictures. This is also suitable for an elementary or intermediate

level class.

how teachers can correct speaking

Ensure they all contribute to class work, as often you will find there is a bossier group

member who wants to write and say everything. If you do not control this scenario,

some students will never improve speaking.

As mentioned in previous chapters writing is often neglected in oral English classes. Certainly

do not spend too much time on writing in these classes, but it is important that students make

enough notes to take home with them so they get something to review later. They will often

grumble when you tell them to write a script, but once they are used to making notes efficiently

it does not waste any time in the class and can be very productive.

4 Students can make a list of the things they do in their daily life, such as washing their

face, brushing their teeth, exercising, eating, etc. They can then go around the class

and find other students who do the same thing they do. Another version of this is to

have students write down the things they enjoy doing such as watching television or

reading books. The task remains the same. This is suitable for all ability levels.

Students can work in small groups and review a number of photographs. It is up to the

group to deliberate on which photo should win an award and why. This is suited to an

intermediate or advanced level class.

Students can be presented with a workplace dispute. They then have to provide four

possible courses of action the workplace employees/employer could follow. The

students would have to work together to achieve a group decision. This is suitable for

an intermediate or advanced level class.

As a teacher, correcting the mistakes students make during speaking tasks is important.

Teachers are best off watching, listening, and writing down notes of the things that are

going well during a speaking task and those things which should be corrected later. By

writing down the good, the bad, and the ugly, and then sharing it at the end of a task,

students are not constantly interrupted by remedial corrections while they are trying to

formulate sentences or conversations.

teacher involvementAs a teacher, getting involved during speaking activities is perfectly fine, so long as the

teacher does not dominate the task.

speaking task suggestionsHave students work in pairs. One person has pictures or elements arranged in a

particular way. The other student has the same pictures or elements, but they have to

arrange them based on the description provided by the other student. This is ideal for

an intermediate or elementary level class.

Have students work in pairs. They should each have similar pictures but with minor

differences. They should talk to one another to find out what those differences are

without looking at the pictures. This is also suitable for an elementary or intermediate

level class.

Students can make a list of the things they do in their daily life, such as washing their

face, brushing their teeth, exercising, eating, etc. They can then go around the class

and find other students who do the same thing they do. Another version of this is to

have students write down the things they enjoy doing such as watching television or

reading books. The task remains the same. This is suitable for all ability levels.

Students can work in small groups and review a number of photographs. It is up to the

group to deliberate on which photo should win an award and why. This is suited to an

intermediate or advanced level class.

Students can be presented with a workplace dispute. They then have to provide four

possible courses of action the workplace employees/employer could follow. The

students would have to work together to achieve a group decision. This is suitable for

an intermediate or advanced level class.

Some additional activities that work well and can be used frequently in China

Taboo: this game can be adapted to your class’s level. You can make cards yourself with a

key word they must describe without saying it or three other related words also on the card.

Memory game: you can give students a basic sentence such as ‘I went to

the____________ and I bought a/an/some _____________.’ The first student will make a

sentence and then fill the gaps with a place or type of shop and something they bought

there. The second student will repeat the first sentence and add his or her own. It continues

in this fashion getting harder as more students add sentences. The game is great for

improving fluency through repetition, while memorising new vocabulary.

Guess the word: make paper slips with vocabulary on them and hand them out to the

class. They can either describe the word or make a sentence using the word which they

then say out loud omitting the word. The rest of the class guesses what the word is.

20 questions: choose an object/animal/person etc and students have 20 questions to

guess what or who it is, but they can only use closed questions.

Lying games: can be adapted for many games, but the basic concept is to persuade

people you are telling the truth when you are not. Sometimes students are not very good at

this so you might want to give them lies they need to expand on.

E.g.

1. You worked for a theme park before

2. You used to live with a celebrity

3. Something interesting but true about you or that happened to you

The other students try to distinguish the lies from the truth.

Sentence builder: students pick out nouns, verbs, adjectives and any other element of

language needing practice and make strange sentences out of them. This can be quite

funny depending on the choice of words, and adding gerunds, infinitives and adverbs can

make the game harder.

Speaking activities give students the opportunity to rehearse. They also give teachers the chance to provide feedback which can motivate students

Speaking tasks can involve teachers, so long as they are not dominating the conversation

Different speaking tasks can help students learn how to communicate in daily conversations they will face in the real world

summary

worksheetunit 8

Describe the three reasons for teaching speaking tasks.

Describe different types of speaking activities students might use.

Explain the three basic reasons why speaking tasks are beneficial for students.