This document provides guidance for teachers on how to incorporate more speaking activities into their English language lessons. It discusses the importance of speaking skills for students and outlines challenges to teaching speaking in some contexts. It then provides many examples of speaking activities teachers can use, including discussions of pronunciation, contractions, monologues, dialogues, and exam preparation. The document emphasizes creating opportunities for free speaking practice to help students feel comfortable communicating in English.

1. Speak to Me!
Phil Holland
September 1, 2013
IP Exhibition, Met Hotel
phil.holland44@gmail.com

2. “Speak to me!”

4. • Please tell us who you are
• the ages or stages of the students you teach
• in what setting or settings you teach them
• and what has brought you here today to invest
in self-improvement

6. “traditional”

11. First things first
• The primacy of speaking, the skill that matters
most
• In Greece, the skill that often lags behind the
others.

12. Greek challenges
• The cult of ‘the material’
• The dominance of grammar
• The climate of exams

13. • To speak
effectively, grammar, vocabulary, register, pron
unciation, and of course listening ability must
come together seamlessly and almost
automatically.

14. • Then and now
• Your students are ready to speak
• Are you?

15. Getting students to speak in class
• Speaking time: do the math
• Now, redo the math
– Choral work
– Pair and group work

16. Speaking across the curriculum

17. Glossophobia
• Overcoming the fear factor
• The King’s Speech

18. Monologues:
• Presentations, storytelling, speeches, giving
directions, instructions, or our opinions,
narrating a sequence of events
Dialogues
• listening and rapid strategic response

19. Monologues:
• ‘the art of invention’
• ‘the art of arrangement’

20. “Conference maketh a ready man.”
-- Francis Bacon

21. • Teaching speaking is a way of enabling
students to own English for themselves. Their
ultimate goal in acquiring the language should
be for them to find their own voice in
it, literally. Every class you teach should help
them down that path.

22. What is the right age to speaking activities?
• Younger learners
• Teenagers
• Adults

23. Speech vs. writing
• Speech is oral and aural. It is phonetic. It’s all about how we
make air vibrate, and how those vibrations are decoded by
listeners.
• Speech has intonation! Emphasis, color, pauses, so much
may be conveyed by tone of voice and other strictly oral
features.
• Speaking is accompanied (in person) by non-linguistic
features such as facial expression and body language.
• Speech often employs a less formal register. Spoken English
uses more Germanic phrasal verbs vs. their single-word
Latin-French equivalents, for example.

24. • Spoken English uses far more contractions than written English.
• Speech is less tightly structured than writing – more ‘ands’ and
‘buts’, for example, more hesitations and changes of direction.
• Speech has no punctuation, no paragraphs, no visible shape or end.
The shape is supplied by ‘discourse markers’ and other spoken
signposts.
• Speech includes many more questions and other linguistic features
characteristic of interaction.
• Speakers adjust their speech in response to what their interlocutors
say back to them or in response to their facial expressions and body
language.

25. Contractions
• Don’t you agree? Isn’t what I’m saying making sense.
Hadn’t you thought of that before? Maybe you
should’ve been teaching more contractions all along.
By now you’ve caught on to the fact that I’m using a
contraction for every verb I’m saying. Or maybe you
hadn’t even noticed. You wouldn’t’ve noticed if you
were used to hearing everyday English. So, you
ask, what’s the problem? And if there is a
problem, what are we gonna do about it?
• Of course, I can take it one step further. Doncha ‘gree?
Hadn’tja thoughta that before? I dunno, maybe you
shoulda been teachin’ more contractions…

26. • Translation
• Correction

27. Pronunciation
• If George VI could do it…

29. Sample pronunciation activities
• s/z
•
• a small child; a heavy smoker; a basic requirement; a large increase;
• a close friend; close the door; use a spoon; user-friendly; what’s the use?
•
• silent letters
•
• an honest man; a great honor; farm-raised salmon; an ancient castle;
• fasten your seat belts; a double-edged sword
•
• the ‘sh’
•
• You should have no trouble with it.
• I was shocked to see him there.
• Which Michigan exam are you taking, the lower or the proficiency?
• Are you anxious about it?
• Do you collect seashells?
• Did you hurt your shoulder?
• She married a soldier, a sergeant, in fact.

30. • ‘ui’
• You should eat at least one piece of fruit every day.
• He bought a new suit for the interview.
• “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
•
• “oo”
• What a good book!
• You’re stepping on my foot, you fool.
• Don’t look now, but he’s coming back.
• Oh no, the tub has overflowed and flooded the floor!
•
• “uh”
• What country is she from?
• Above all, be on time.
• I plan to study multimedia in London.
• It takes courage to start your own company under current conditions.
• That’s the one I wanted, because it was the only color I liked.
•
• short “i” vs. “ee”
• I’ve been living in this house in the village since I was six years old.
• It’s time to leave for the airport.
• At Christmastime we decorate a ship.
• I’m in the video business.

31. Enhanced speaking for exams
“Sure, why not? Everybody wants to be famous
now. You get much money, everybody is talking for
you, they see you on the street and they know you.
I would like to be a famous football player and play
for PAOK.”
vs.
“Famous? Yes, but on my own terms. Fame is
great, we all want our share of glory, to earn a lot of
money, to be recognized on the street, but not at
the expense of…”

32. Some exam resources
• ESOL (Cambridge) FCE speaking ‘actual test’ videos:
• https://www.teachers.cambridgeesol.org/ts/teachingresources/resourced
etails?resId=7186
• http://www.splendid-speaking.com/products/task_sheets/latest_task.pdf
• The MSU exam website has useful sets of sample exam speaking prompts
and videos:
• http://www.msu-exams.gr/misc/celc_oral.pdf
• http://www.msu-
exams.gr/swift.jsp?CMRCode=17A953GS3&CMCCode=3031
• http://www.msu-exams.gr/misc/celp_oral.pdf
• http://www.msu-exams.gr/swift.jsp?CMCCode=3005&extLang=
• But the essence of preparation is simply comfort and skill in speaking,
which comes with free practice.

33. Discourse markers and handy phrases to
connect and contrast…
• Actually,
• In fact,
• As a matter of fact,
• Well,
• For one thing,…. and for another,….
• On (the) one hand,… (but) on the other,…
•
• Let me say first of all that…
• The first thing I want to say is that…
• I want to add that…
• Let me point out that…
• I want to stress the fact that…

34. (a few more)
• Formerly…but now
• In the past…but now
• Whereas…
• Instead of…
• Although…
• In spite of the fact that…
• Despite…
• Contrary to what you might expect,
• In contrast to…

35. Expressing opinion
• I think that...
• I believe that…
• I strongly/ firmly believe that…
• It is my belief that…
• Personally, I feel that…
• In my opinion,…
• In my view,…
• To my way of thinking,…
• As I see it,…
• The way I see it,…
• As far as I can see,…
• I would argue that...
• I am of the opinion that…
• I agree with those who think that…
• I support the view that…
• I have come to the conclusion that…