Teaching Speaking Effectively Robyn O’Loghlin

1. Teaching SpeakingEffectivelyRobyn O’Loghlin

2. Like all good ESL classes, we begin with... Find Someone Who….

3. What makes a good speaker? • Someone who expresses their meaning precisely? • Someone who speaks clearly and persuasively? • Someone who uses accurate grammar? • Someone who pronounces syllables, words and sentences clearly and accurately? • Someone who can fix breakdowns in communication and keep conversations going? • Someone who can communicate what they want to say? • All of these?

4. What makes a good speaker?IELTS, Cambridge Proficiency Exams • IELTS: Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, Pronunciation • FCE: Grammar and Vocabulary, Discourse Management, Pronunciation, Interactive Communication

5. What makes a good speaker?Communicative Competence(Hymes; Canale and Swain) • Grammatical Competence - knowledge of grammar • Discourse Competence - ability to use language in interaction and communication (turn-taking, initiation) • Sociolinguistic Competence - ability to use socially and culturally appropriate conventions of speaking (polite phrases) • Strategic Competence - ability to use language strategically to achieve communication goals (getting what you want)

6. Linguistic Aspects • Grammatical range and accuracy • Appropriate vocabulary • Pronunciation - phonemes (individual sounds), word stress, sentence stress, intonation • Coherence - Textual discourse markers (After that, then, In the end)

7. Pragmatic Aspects • Sociolinguistic Competence - • Formality and politeness - when to use “Thank you very much” and “Thanks a lot mate” • Discourse Competence • Eye contact, Body language, Responding Short/long conversations (eg at the supermarket- short in Australia) • Strategic Competence • Being able to communicate for certain purposes, in order to achieve certain goals

8. Did we speak well? Why? • Linguistic Aspects • We had the necessary grammar • We had suitable vocabulary • We knew how to pronounce individual sounds, we had appropriate word and sentence stress, and intonation to convey precise meaning

9. Pragmatic Aspects • Sociolinguistic competence • We knew the level of politeness needed for the situation and could use appropriate terms • Interactional Competence - • We knew how to use appropriate cultural conventions - making eye-contact but not staring; smiling; nodding • Strategic competence • We could repair any communication breakdown • Do we need to explicitely teach pragmatic concepts?

10. Developing Discourse Competence “English is like tennis, Japanese is like lawn bowls” Teaching students the format: • Answer • Add • Ask can empower them

11. A Pre-Intermediate lesson that worked....Speaking skills: Grammar, Vocabulary, Pronunciation,Eye contact, Confidence 1. Brainstorm vocab connected to cities (bus, traffic, train station, pollution) 2. Teach key grammar with examples - there are too manycars, there is too much traffic, there aren’t enough buses 3. Ask learners to prepare a 2-3 minute speech on their city or on the city they now live in (for homework). Give them three points to cover: what/where is the city, good points, bad points 4. Teach key discourse markers and or openings/closings (Good morning everybody….. That’s it, thank you very much) (I’d like to talk about…. Now I’ll tell you about…. Finally I’m going to talk about…. ) • Learners present to the class. Ask other learners to listen for gist- would they like to live in this city? Why? Why not? Discuss after each speech. 6. Give students feedback

12. Why did it work? • Vocabulary • Grammar • Accessible structure • Clear task • Learner autonomy • Motivating • Challenging

13. What speaking lesson have you taught that worked well recently?

14. Good ideas….. • Answer/ Add/ Ask • Speaking homework • Mini-presentations • Counters • Share your good ideas!

15. Learner Language – It’s Officially OK • Learner Language is known as Interlanguage - the systematic knowledge of an L2 which is independent of both the learner’s language and the target language language - the “in-between” language at any particular stage of development • What is the difference between mistakes and errors? How should we correct errors? What errors should we correct?

16. Learners learn what they are ready to learn, not what they are taught • Learners with different language backgrounds appear to follow a similar path of language development • The development of some patterns follows similar sequences in areas such as negatives, relative clauses, and word order rules • The rate at which acquisition takes place varies • There is also evidence that instruction has some influence(We’re not wasting our time!)

17. The Nature of Spoken Grammar • Corpus research suggests that spoken grammar and written grammar have distinct differences • Spoken language tends to • be assembled step by step • relate to a shared context • consider interpersonal factors • have a lower lexical density • use shorter phrases • use vague language items

18. Some differences in spoken grammar • Use of head nouns:“That guy, the one on the left, did you see him looking at you?” • Use of ellipses: “Why aren’t you working? Got a day off?” • Use of informal conjunctions and linkers - as, so, cos, though: “The film was pretty good. It was really long though”. • Use of vague markers which soften and allow room for negotiation with the other party: sort of, I mean, you know, and everything, and things, or something (NNS - and so on) • Are these important aspects to teach? At what level and how could you teach them?

19. Textbook Failure (Cullen and Kuo, 2007)) • Differences between spoken and written grammar have been analysed through corpus analysis, then ESL text books examined • Textbooks managed to pick up some features of spoken grammar, mostly language conventions • They failed to address other aspects - Eg use of head nouns occurs twice as often as “ought to” in corpus data, yet this is rarely taught • These aspects are hard to teach

20. Similarities with L1 • Every spoken language has some differences with the written language form • NNS bring to their study of English an awareness of, and competency in managing, this difference • The forms and features through which this difference is realised vary between languages, therefore may need to be explicitly taught

21. Talk Types ( Yule and Brown 1983; Richards) • Talk as Interaction • social relationships are most important • Talk as Transaction • the message is most important • Talk as Performance • the presentation is most important

22. What can we improve? Sometimes.... • We forget to pre-teach grammar and vocab • We do not raise students’ awareness of spoken language forms • We assume that students understand spoken language conventions • We expect that students know and feel happy being around each other

23. We don’t know how to focus on difficult aspects of spoken grammar, so we dont • We forget to give positive feedback • We hesitate or forget to give negative (“constructive”) feedback • We forget mistakes are necessary • We assume everyone is comfortable in speaking like us

24. Sometimes we have unrealistic expectations • “We put a room full of strangers into a circle and expect them to act as friends before they even know or trust each other. We expect them to be well versed in the dynamics of group processes such as turn talking, interrupting, active listening, etc. We expect them to know how to deal with the more vocal members and draw out the more timid or self-conscious ones. They are expected to know how to conduct themselves as a cohesive entity with no previous experience at self-direction in the classroom. Too often we give them topics that are too hot to handle - topics that require a great deal of personal disclosure.” - Bassano and Christison

25. What can we improve? • Choose one speaking activity that didn’t go so well. How could you improve it?

26. Teaching Speaking Effectively • Remember it’s more than just grammar, pronunciation and vocab • Don’t forget grammar, pronunciation and vocab • Remember it’s complex • Remember to give feedback • Really listen

27. Top Tips… Students need to… • Talk a lot • Talk to different audiences – use pair-work, group-work, whole-class work, speaking homework • Talk in different styles – facilitate discussions, role-plays, short presentations, long presentations, prepared debates, spontaneous debates, story-telling, interviews, simulation exercises, one-minute speeches • Talk on different topics – personal, abstract, business, academic • Talk about what they are interested in • Talk about what the people they encounter will be interested in • Use relevant vocabulary – teach and practice it • Use relevant grammar – teach and practice it • Use relevant phrases, signposts, linking markers, interjections – teach and practice them • Be heard – listen to them!