TEFL: TEACHING SPEAKING

TEACHING SPEAKING

A PAPER

Presented To Fulfill the Requirement of the Task of Seminar on TEFL

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTIONS

A.    Background of Study

Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols. Speaking is crucial part of second language learning and teaching. However, today’s world requires that the goals of teaching speaking should improve student’s communicative skills because student can express themselves and learn how to use language.

Nowadays many teachers agree that student should learn to speak the second language by interacting to others. For this case, students should master several speaking components, such as: comprehension, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and fluency. In brief, English teacher should be creative in developing their teaching learning process to create good atmosphere, improve the students speaking skill, give attention to the speaking components’, and make the English lesson more exiting.

For this reason, the English teacher should apply appropriate method and technique of teaching speaking. In this pepper will explain how to teaching speaking for the students.

B.     Problem Formula

In this paper we are going to discuss about:

1.      What is the definition of teaching speaking?

2.      What are the goals and the technique for teaching speaking?

3.      What are the principles for designing teaching speaking technique?

4.      What is the type of speaking performance?

5.      How to developing speaking activities?

C.    Object of Study

To know about:

1.       The definition of teaching speaking.

2.      The goals and the technique for teaching speaking.

3.      The principles for designing teaching speaking technique.

4.      The type of speaking performance.

5.      Developing speaking activities.

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A.    THE DEFINITION OF TEACHING SPEAKING

Based on oxford advanced learner’s dictionary give definition that teaching is the ideas of a particular person or group, especially about politics, religion or society that are taught to other people.[1] Speaking is to talk to somebody about something to have a conversation with somebody.[2]

     So, we can conclude that teaching speaking is about training students how to integrate skills to deliver oral presentation without articulation difficulties. Learn what to look for that could signal speaking problem.

B.     GOALS AND TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING SPEAKING

The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. Learners should be able to make themselves understood, using their current proficiency to the fullest. They should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication situation.

To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors can use a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output, and communicative output.

Language input comes in the form of teacher talk, listening activities, reading passages, and the language heard and read outside of class. It gives learners the material they need to begin producing language themselves. [3]

Language input may be content oriented or form oriented.

·            Content-oriented input focuses on information, whether it is a simple weather report or an extended lecture on an academic topic. Content-oriented input may also include descriptions of learning strategies and examples of their use.

·            Form-oriented input focuses on ways of using the language: guidance from the teacher or another source on vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar (linguistic competence); appropriate things to say in specific contexts (discourse competence); expectations for rate of speech, pause length, turn-taking, and other social aspects of language use (sociolinguistic competence); and explicit instruction in phrases to use to ask for clarification and repair miscommunication (strategic competence).

In the presentation part of a lesson, an instructor combines content-oriented and form-oriented input. The amount of input that is actually provided in the target language depends on students' listening proficiency and also on the situation. For students at lower levels, or in situations where a quick explanation on a grammar topic is needed, an explanation in English may be more appropriate than one in the target language.

Structured output focuses on correct form. In structured output, students may have options for responses, but all of the options require them to use the specific form or structure that the teacher has just introduced.[4]

Structured output is designed to make learners comfortable producing specific language items recently introduced, sometimes in combination with previously learned items. Instructors often use structured output exercises as a transition between the presentation stage and the practice stage of a lesson plan. Textbook exercises also often make good structured output practice activities.

In communicative output, the learners' main purpose is to complete a task, such as obtaining information, developing a travel plan, or creating a video. To complete the task, they may use the language that the instructor has just presented, but they also may draw on any other vocabulary, grammar, and communication strategies that they know. In communicative output activities, the criterion of success is whether the learner gets the message across. Accuracy is not a consideration unless the lack of it interferes with the message. [5]

In everyday communication, spoken exchanges take place because there is some sort of information gap between the participants. Communicative output activities involve a similar real information gap. In order to complete the task, students must reduce or eliminate the information gap. In these activities, language is a tool, not an end in itself.

In a balanced activities approach, the teacher uses a variety of activities from these different categories of input and output. Learners at all proficiency levels, including beginners, benefit from this variety; it is more motivating, and it is also more likely to result in effective language learning.

C.    THE PRINCIPLES FOR DESIGNING TEACHING  SPEAKING TECHNIQUE

The principles for designing teaching speaking techniques are:[6]

1.    Use techniques that cover the spectrum of learner needs, from language-based focus on accuracy to message-based focus on interaction, meaning, and fluency

In our current zeal for interactive language teaching, we can easily slip into a pattern of providing zesty content-based, interactive activities that don’t capitalize on grammatical pointers or pronunciation tips.

2.    Provide intrinsically motivating techniques

Try to appeal to students‟ ultimate goals and interests, to their need for knowledge, for status, for achieving competence and autonomy, and for being all they can be.

3.    Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts

It is not easy to keep coming up with meaningful interaction. We all succumb to the temptation to do, say, disconnect little grammar exercise where we go around the room calling on student one by one to pick the right answer. It takes energy and creativity to device authentic context and meaningful instruction, but with the help of a storehouse of teacher resource material it can be down. Even drills can be structured to provide a sense of authenticity.

4.               Provide appropriate feedback and correction

In most EFL situation. Students totally dependent on the teacher for useful linguistics feedback. In ESL situation, they may get such feedback out there beyond the classroom, but even then you are in position to be of great benefit. It is important that you take advantages of your knowledge of English to inject the kinds of corrective feedback that are appropriate for the moment.

5.    Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening

Many interactive techniques that involve speaking will also of course include listening. Don’t lose out on opportunities to integrate these two skills. As you are perhaps focusing on speaking goals, listening goals may naturally coincide and the two skills can reinforce each other. Skills in producing language are often initiated through comprehension.

6.               Give students opportunities  to initiate oral communication

A good deal of typical classroom interaction is characterized by teacher initiation of language. We ask question, give directions, and provide information and students have been conditioned only to speak when spoken to. Part of oral communication competence is the ability to initiate conversation, to nominate topics, to ask questions, to control conversation and to change the subject. As you design and use speaking techniques, ask yourself if you have allowed students to initiate language.

7.               Encourage the development of speaking strategies

The concept of strategic competence is one that few beginning language students are aware of. The simply haven’t thought about developing their own personal strategies for accomplishing oral communicative purpose. Your classroom can be one in which students become aware of and have a chance to practice.

D.    TYPE OF CLASSROOM SPEAKING PERFORMANCE[7]

1.      Imitative

 (This should be limited) repetition drill, modeling is also important.

2.      Intensive

Practice a grammatical/phonological feature can be part of a pair-work where learners are going over certain form of language.

3.      Responsive

To respond to a question. How are you today? Pretty good, thanks, and you? ‟ such speech can be meaningful and authentic.

4.      Transactional (dialog)

 To convey information, such conversations could readily be part of group work activity as well as dialogs.

5.      Interpersonal (dialog)

To interact socially .These conversations are a little trickier for learners because they can involve some of these following factors: a casual register, colloquial language,

Emotionally charged language, slang, ellipsis, sarcasm, a covert “agenda‟.

6.      Extensive

Monologs (intermediate/advanced) in the form of oral reports, summaries, or short speeches. The register is more formal, deliberative and planned.

E.     DEVELOPING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

Traditional classroom speaking practice often takes the form of drills in which one person asks a question and another gives an answer. The question and the answer are structured and predictable, and often there is only one correct, predetermined answer. The purpose of asking and answering the question is to demonstrate the ability to ask and answer the question.

In contrast, the purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task, such as conveying a telephone message, obtaining information, or expressing an opinion. In real communication, participants must manage uncertainty about what the other person will say. Authentic communication involves an information gap; each participant has information that the other does not have. In addition, to achieve their purpose, participants may have to clarify their meaning or ask for confirmation of their own understanding.

To create classroom speaking activities that will develop communicative competence, instructors need to incorporate a purpose and an information gap and allow for multiple forms of expression. However, quantity alone will not necessarily produce competent speakers. Instructors need to combine structured output activities, which allow for error correction and increased accuracy, with communicative output activities that give students opportunities to practice language use more freely.

1.      Structured Output Activities

Two common kinds of structured output activities are information gap and jigsaw activities.[8] In both these types of activities, students complete a task by obtaining missing information, a feature the activities have in common with real communication. However, information gap and jigsaw activities also set up practice on specific items of language. In this respect they are more like drills than like communication.

Information Gap Activities

·       Completing the picture: The two partners have similar pictures, each with different missing details, and they cooperate to find all the missing details. In another variation, no items are missing, but similar items differ in appearance. For example, in one picture, a man walking along the street may be wearing an overcoat, while in the other the man is wearing a jacket. The features of grammar and vocabulary that are practiced are determined by the content of the pictures and the items that are missing or different. Differences in the activities depicted lead to practice of different verbs. Differences in number, size, and shape lead to adjective practice. Differing locations would probably be described with prepositional phrases.

These activities may be set up so that the partners must practice more than just grammatical and lexical features. For example, the timetable activity gains a social dimension when one partner assumes the role of a student trying to make an appointment with a partner who takes the role of a professor. Each partner has pages from an appointment book in which certain dates and times are already filled in and other times are still available for an appointment. Of course, the open times don't match exactly, so there must be some polite negotiation to arrive at a mutually convenient time for a meeting or a conference.

Jigsaw Activities

Jigsaw activities are more elaborate information gap activities that can be done with several partners. In a jigsaw activity, each partner has one or a few pieces of the "puzzle," and the partners must cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture. The puzzle piece may take one of several forms. It may be one panel from a comic strip or one photo from a set that tells a story. It may be one sentence from a written narrative. It may be a tape recording of a conversation, in which case no two partners hear exactly the same conversation.

·       In one fairly simple jigsaw activity, students work in groups of four. Each student in the group receives one panel from a comic strip. Partners may not show each other their panels. Together the four panels present this narrative: a man takes a container of ice cream from the freezer; he serves himself several scoops of ice cream; he sits in front of the TV eating his ice cream; he returns with the empty bowl to the kitchen and finds that he left the container of ice cream, now melting, on the kitchen counter. These pictures have a clear narrative line and the partners are not likely to disagree about the appropriate sequencing. You can make the task more demanding, however, by using pictures that lend themselves to alternative sequences, so that the partners have to negotiate among themselves to agree on a satisfactory sequence.

With information gap and jigsaw activities, instructors need to be conscious of the language demands they place on their students. If an activity calls for language your students have not already practiced, you can brainstorm with them when setting up the activity to preview the language they will need, eliciting what they already know and supplementing what they are able to produce themselves.

Structured output activities can form an effective bridge between instructor modeling and communicative output because they are partly authentic and partly artificial. Like authentic communication, they feature information gaps that must be bridged for successful completion of the task. However, where authentic communication allows speakers to use all of the language they know, structured output activities lead students to practice specific features of language and to practice only in brief sentences, not in extended discourse. Also, structured output situations are contrived and more like games than real communication, and the participants' social roles are irrelevant to the performance of the activity. This structure controls the number of variables that students must deal with when they are first exposed to new material. As they become comfortable, they can move on to true communicative output activities.

2.      Communicative Output Activities

Communicative output activities allow students to practice using all of the language they know in situations that resemble real settings. In these activities, students must work together to develop a plan, resolve a problem, or complete a task. The most common types of communicative output activity are role plays and discussions.[9]

Role plays

In role plays, students are assigned roles and put into situations that they may eventually encounter outside the classroom. Because role plays imitate life, the range of language functions that may be used expands considerably. Also, the role relationships among the students as they play their parts call for them to practice and develop their sociolinguistic competence. They have to use language that is appropriate to the situation and to the characters.

Students usually find role playing enjoyable, but students who lack self-confidence or have lower proficiency levels may find them intimidating at first. To succeed with role plays:

·            Prepare carefully: Introduce the activity by describing the situation and making sure that all of the students understand it

·            Set a goal or outcome: Be sure the students understand what the product of the role play should be, whether a plan, a schedule, a group opinion, or some other product

·            Use role cards: Give each student a card that describes the person or role to be played. For lower-level students, the cards can include words or expressions that that person might use.

·            Brainstorm: Before you start the role play, have students brainstorm as a class to predict what vocabulary, grammar, and idiomatic expressions they might use.

·            Keep groups small: Less-confident students will feel more able to participate if they do not have to compete with many voices.

·            Give students time to prepare: Let them work individually to outline their ideas and the language they will need to express them.

·            Be present as a resource, not a monitor: Stay in communicative mode to answer students' questions. Do not correct their pronunciation or grammar unless they specifically ask you about it.

·            Allow students to work at their own levels: Each student has individual language skills, an individual approach to working in groups, and a specific role to play in the activity. Do not expect all students to contribute equally to the discussion, or to use every grammar point you have taught.

·            Do topical follow-up: Have students report to the class on the outcome of their role plays.

·            Do linguistic follow-up: After the role play is over, give feedback on grammar or pronunciation problems you have heard. This can wait until another class period when you plan to review pronunciation or grammar anyway.

Discussions

Like role plays, succeed when the instructor prepares students first, and then gets out of the way. To succeed with discussions:

·         Prepare the students: Give them input (both topical information and language forms) so that they will have something to say and the language with which to say it.

·         Offer choices: Let students suggest the topic for discussion or choose from several options. Discussion does not always have to be about serious issues. Students are likely to be more motivated to participate if the topic is television programs, plans for a vacation, or news about mutual friends. Weighty topics like how to combat pollution are not as engaging and place heavy demands on students' linguistic competence.

·         Set a goal or outcome: This can be a group product, such as a letter to the editor, or individual reports on the views of others in the group.

·         Use small groups instead of whole-class discussion: Large groups can make participation difficult.

·         Keep it short: Give students a defined period of time, not more than 8-10 minutes, for discussion. Allow them to stop sooner if they run out of things to say.

·         Allow students to participate in their own way: Not every student will feel comfortable talking about every topic. Do not expect all of them to contribute equally to the conversation.

·         Do topical follow-up: Have students report to the class on the results of their discussion.

·         Do linguistic follow-up: After the discussion is over, give feedback on grammar or pronunciation problems you have heard. This can wait until another class period when you plan to review pronunciation or grammar anyway.

Through well-prepared communicative output activities such as role plays and discussions, you can encourage students to experiment and innovate with the language, and create a supportive atmosphere that allows them to make mistakes without fear of embarrassment. This will contribute to their self-confidence as speakers and to their motivation to learn more.

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols. Speaking is crucial part of second language learning and teaching.

Teaching speaking is about training students how to integrate skills to deliver oral presentation without articulation difficulties. Learn what to look for that could signal speaking problem.

To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors can use a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output, and communicative output.

The principles for designing teaching speaking techniques are : Focus on fluency and accuracy (depending on objective), Use intrinsically motivating techniques, Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful context, Provide appropriate feedback and correction, Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening, Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication, Encourage the development of speaking strategies.

As a teacher, we must develop the speaking activities in our class. There are two developing in speaking activities: Structured Output Activities and Communicative Output Activities. The most common types of communicative output activity are role plays and discussions and common kinds of structured output activities are information gap and jigsaw activities.

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