Techniques for Teaching Speaking Skills
Techniques for Teaching Speaking
In 1979, language acquisition theorist and professor Dr. Jim Cummins developed the terms BICS and CALP. These terms refer to Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency. For beginning ELLs, the focus is on the first set of skills, or BICS. This entails ELLs developing enough fluency in English to comprehend what is being said so that they can respond. Comprehension comes before the ability to produce language, which is why ESL teachers of newcomers might pose a question only to see a complete lack of response among their students. Stephen Krashen referred to this time as “the silent period.” Also known as pre-production, this silent period might last anywhere from several weeks to a year. During this time, instructors must immerse their students in diverse language experiences and provide many cues to support comprehension.
In Hayriye Kayi’s “Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking in a Second Language,” from the Internet TESL Journal, the author states that interaction, even at this beginning level, is the key to learning. The question is, how does interaction look in a classroom in which people are in their silent periods, unable to produce language?
Typical strategies include listening to fluent English, building receptive vocabulary through repetition and schema building, using gestures to show comprehension, and choral reading. Students might read structured dialogues or practice short phrases or sentences repeatedly for fluency. As they build listening comprehension and vocabulary, students can move onto lessons that demand slightly higher levels of interaction, centered on skills such as:
- using common social greetings
- engaging in community-building activities such as describing schedules and pastimes
- discussing current events or pop culture
- expressing an opinion
- explaining why they did something
Incorporating English Vocabulary in Speaking
ESL teachers can build the vocabulary of ELLs through motivating activities. Direct vocabulary instruction has its place – particularly when students must master grade-level content – but authentic instruction is more meaningful to students. Some best practices for building listening and speaking vocabulary include:
- having short, targeted discussions about interesting themes
- sharing images or objects that spark conversation
- watching short videos on art, music, dance, science or other relevant themes
- reciting rhymes, jokes, and poetry
- using music, rhythm, songs, tongue twisters, or a mnemonic device that reinforces the meanings of challenging words
- playing games such as charades that pair an action or gesture with a vocabulary word
Incorporating English Grammar in Speaking
The most powerful tool ESL teachers have for teaching correct grammar during speaking activities is their own English fluency. Modeling correct sentence structure and grammar gives students ample opportunity to hear and rehearse the target language. If more advanced speakers or native speakers are integrated into the classroom, instructors should use their language abilities as models as well.
An issue arises when ELLs and even fluent speakers have grammatical errors in their spoken language. Educators debate the value of corrective feedback in the context of speaking English, particularly for beginning ELLs. This issue has been discussed extensively by linguist Stephen Krashen, who opines, “Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding.”
In essence, by over-correcting students’ pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar during speaking, teachers increase students’ affective filters. Krashen uses this term to describe how students under pressure to produce correct language cannot fully engage in conversation.
One method ESL teachers employ in situations such as these is to note repeated errors and design mini-lessons around them after the discussion has ended. Rather than single out which student made what error, ESL instructors model and reinforce correct usage.
Incorporating English Pronunciation in Speaking
Listening to fluent English in a variety of contexts (teacher presentation, native English speaker presentation, recorded dialogues, songs, comprehensible video clips) is one of the best tools for teaching pronunciation. Kate Dobson, writing in TESOL Connections, points out that accent reduction is a separate issue from pronunciation. She argues that instructors and students should focus on intelligibility. Rather than isolating sounds, students need interaction and practice so that they can make themselves understood.
In writing for the TESOL Blog, bilingual educator Sandra Rogers outlines best practices for increasing intelligibility:
- Clap out syllables in longer words.
- Practice stressing the correct syllable when speaking.
- Use visual aids such as phonetic spelling, accents over stressed syllables, and color-coding of vowels sounds
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