2. Unit 6 Teaching Speaking

3. Do you think speaking is very important in language learning? Warming-up Questions (Wang: 156) Do you think speaking has been paid much attention to for most middle school English teachers?

4. Some main speaking activities in class  Repeating after the teacher  Reading aloud  Learning a piece of text or dialogue by heart  Doing drills What do you think of them? (Wang: 158)

5. Main topics for this unit  Differences between spoken language and written language  Principles for teaching speaking  Designing successful speaking tasks  Types of speaking tasks  Organizing speaking tasks

6. I. Differences between spoken language and written language  in fairly simple sentence structures  in incomplete sentences  in informal, simple or common vocabulary  with broken grammar, false starts, hesitation, fillers, etc.

7.  with a high proportion of repetition or redundancy  largely unplanned organization  a low density of information  context dependent (Background knowledge is necessary to understand exactly what is being expressed.) Gu: 210 I. Differences between spoken language and written language Wang: 156-158

8. II. Principles for teaching speaking Read the part of the textbook from Page 159 to Page 160.

9. III. Designing speaking tasks Question What are the problems in getting learners to talk in the classroom?

10. What problems do we have in our oral English classes? 1. Reluctance : The learners are reluctant to speak in the classroom. What are the factors that may cause reluctance for the learners to speak?

11.  Cultural factors Learners’ prior learning experiences and the expectations created by these experiences (e.g. learners educated in large classes, learners taught in schools where speaking was simply not encouraged, etc. )

12.  Linguistic factors  Difficulties in transferring from the learners’ first language to the sounds, rhythms, and stress patterns of English  Difficulties with the native speaker pronunciation of the teacher  A lack of understanding of common grammatical patterns in English (e.g. English tenses) Low proficiency in English

13.  Psychological / affective factors Cultural shock Previous negative social or political experiences Lack of motivation Anxiety or shyness Nunan, 2001: 234-235

14. 2. Motivation : The learners have no motivation to speak in the classroom. Why are learners unmotivated?

15.  Lack of success / progress over time  Uninspired teaching  Boredom  Lack of perceived relevance of materials  Lack of knowledge about the goals of the instructional program  Lack of appropriate feedback Nunan, 2001: 233

16. What can be done? ● Make instructional goals explicit to learners ● Break learning down into sequences of achievable steps ● Link learning to the needs and interests of the learners ● Allow learners to bring their own knowledge and perspectives into the learning process ● Encourage creative language use ● Help learners to identify the strategies underlying the learning tasks they are engaged in ● Develop ways in which learners can record their own progress

17. 3. Low or uneven participation 4. Mother tongue use Ur 1996: 121-122

18.  Use group work  Base the activity on easy language  Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest  Give some instruction or training in discussion skills  Keep students speaking the target language Solutions to these problems

19. Characteristics of a successful speaking activity  Learners talk a lot.  Participation is even.  Motivation is high.  Language is of an acceptable level (Wang: 161-162)

20. IV. Types of speaking activities Please make a list of activities you often do in your oral classes.

21. Speaking activities repetition Role play Gapped dialogue Use pictures to make up stories drills games Prompted dialogue Match expressions in two columns to make a dialogue discussion Read and act Information gap Scrambled dialogue Interviews using a questionnaire Make up a dialogue in a given situation

22. Types of speaking activities (Wang: 162-164) Pre-communicative activities Communicative activities Structural activities Quasi-communicative activities Functional communicative activities Social interaction activities

23. Types of speaking activities Controlled accuracy work  Script-based role plays or simulations  Script-based conversations  From-based interviews or surveys (Davies and Pearse: 48-50)

24. Types of speaking activities (Davies and Pearse: 85-86) Free fluency work  Uncripted role plays  Problem-solving or decision-taking activities  Discussions and debate  Group projects

25. Speaking activities repetition Role play Gapped dialogue Use pictures to make up stories drills games Prompted dialogue Match expressions in two columns to make a dialogue discussion Read and act Information gap Scrambled dialogue Interviews using a questionnaire Make up a dialogue in a given situation

26. Information-gap activities Two speakers have different parts of information making up a whole. Because they have different parts of information, there is a ‘gap’ between them.  Describe and draw – completion of task  Story-telling activity Practice: Do task 4 on page 164

27. Questionnaires and Surveys To get students to conduct questionnaires and surveys. Harmer 2000; 89-90

28. SLEEP QUESTIONAIRE How many hours do you normally sleep?_______ Are you a light sleeper/heavy sleeper?______ Have you ever Talked in your sleep? Yes No Walked in your sleep? Yes No Had a nightmare? Yes No Fallen out of bed? Yes No …………………. Yes No If you answer yes, describe the experiences: Natural use of the present perfect

29. Discussions  Describing pictures  Picture differences  Things in common  Shopping list  Solving a problem Ur, 1996: 125-128 Harmer 2000: 90-91

30. Role plays Harmer 2000: 92-94 Ur 1996: 131-133 Wang 2006: 165-167

31. Homework 1.Why is group work often used in speaking activities? 2. What else should teachers do during a speaking activity?