4.Teaching speaking

Speaking is a complex compound of skills, which can br subdivided into 2 big groups: motor-perceptive skills and interaction skills. The former group comprises perceiving, recalling and articulating; the latter roughly answer stucture of a speech situation, which will be presented later on. Oral speech produces a discourse. Oral disc. is a continuous stretch of spoken lang. acquiring its meaning in the context and understood only if we know the speakers’ reality. Conversational discourse has certain typical features: back-channels, fixed expressions, tags, hedges (he was... kind of... sort of), modality, and sound imitating words. These features are typical of oral disc. both of Rus. and Eng.

Teaching speaking will take place if:

~one has formed motor-perceptive skills;

~ has ensured motives;

~has presented situation;

~forestalled negative carry-overs.

One further proof of a certain skill level is the ability to perform within different genres of speaking. Among them are: description, narration, reasoning (telling one’s train of thoughts), commenting, learning, debate and argument and decision making (people working towards a decision). Within the process of communication the speaker performs the necessary communication functions (providing information, controlling other people’s behaviour, etc.)

Types of classroom speaking performance:

1. Initiative (drills) – which should be short (last for a few minutes), simple (one point at a time), snappy, with a focus on either phonology or grammar, and ultimately they should lead to communicative goals;

2. Intensive drills: mostly pair and group work where students go over certain points of the lang.;

3. Responsive (guided speech interaction);

4. Transactional (dialogues);

5. Interpersonal (carried out more for the purpose of maintaining social relations than for the transaction of facts and information);

6. Extensive (monologues) – planned or impromptu, usually presentations (presentation techniques and cues pp. 125-126 Milrood);

7. Simulation: here we include role-plays and discussions. A role-play can be more or less challenging, depending on: closeness (a plot can be very close to one’s experience or distant), realism (the circumstances can be realistic or imaginary ), personality (the characters can resemble the participants or be alien to them).

Teaching to speak is run within the same classical 3 stage framework: pre-speaking, while speaking and post-sp. Within the first stage we are mostly concerned with language preparation speaker, motivation and idea processing; while-speaking focuses on role playing, problem-solving, story-telling, or socializing – anything which has an authentic communicative purpose and does not lead to parrot-like reproduction of diff. texts. Post-speaking is concerned with making this stage part of a process; other skills but speaking should be integrated ; or there can be a consistent focus on the language.

Principles for designing speaking techniques:

1. Techniques should cover a spectrum of learner needs;

2. They should be intinsically motivating;

3. Authentic language in meaningful context;

4. Appropriate feedback and correction;

5. Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening;

6. Give students an opportunity to initiate oral communication;

7. Develop strategies (asking for clarification, asking something to repeat something, using fillers, conversation maintenance cues, getting someone’s attention, paraphrazing, using mime, non-verbal and formulated expressions.

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: useful to give the cues, from which they can speak. Types of cues in a variety of speaking tasks include cards, notes, table of data & graphs, mind – maps, plans.