This document discusses teaching speaking skills and provides examples of activities and techniques teachers can use. It covers 5 factors to consider in planning speaking lessons, such as the learner's proficiency and goals. It also describes direct and indirect teaching approaches, including controlled activities like dialog building and awareness activities, as well as fluency activities. The document emphasizes creating a comfortable environment for students to practice speaking through icebreakers, examples of which include introducing oneself and describing personality in 3 words, as well as discussing favorite foods and past emotions. Teachers should select icebreakers carefully and tie them to lesson objectives while allowing time for practice to increase student confidence and engagement.

1. Teaching Speaking

2. 5 Fundamental Factors in Planning
and Teaching Speaking
• The learner — age, proficiency, goals
• The program — the curriculum
• The topics being discussed
• The ‘two’ languages: in the task, for the task
• The activity or task that serves as the vehicle
for conversation

3. Approaches to teaching speaking
(Richards, 1990)
I. Direct methods which focused on special
features of oral interaction (turn taking,
topic management, questioning strategies
etc)
II. Indirect methods — create situations for
interactions ( group work, pair work)

4. Towards communicative competence
• According to Littlewood (Communicative Language
Teaching, Cambridge University Press, 1981), there is
a continuum of classroom activities to promote
communicative competence
Control Performing Memorised dialogues
Contextualised drills
Cued dialogues
Role play
Creativity Improvisation

5. Controlled activities
• Remember your (first) English lessons. What
kind of student were you? Were you always
ready to raise your hand to be invited to
speak in the foreign language or did you
hope the teacher didn’t see you?
• 1. Threat Reduction Activities - of getting-to-
know-you activities which promote trust as
well as articulation activities -lcebreakers

6. 2. Dialogue building
• The use of cues or prompts to build up
dialogues is a commonly-used technique.
• The cues or prompts determine the content of
what is said, and dialogue building activities
can range from being highly controlled to very
free.

7. 3. Gambits (producing an appropriate
response)
i. Language to indicate the speaker’s
agreement with what has been said
ii. Language which indicates polite
disagreement
iii. Language to indicate possible doubt
iv. Language to provide positive and negative
feedback
v. Language to encourage confirmation and
more information

8. 4. Awareness activities
• Students need to become aware of what
native speakers do in conversation if they are
themselves to achieve communicative
competence in the target language.
• The focus of the awareness activities should
target promoting the following issues:

9. • development of the ability to interpret what is
being said;
• a feeling for what is appropriate in
conversation;
• awareness of strategies used to further
conversation;
• awareness of the target culture

10. What can the teacher do to help in the
awareness activities
• Devise activities to
— Show that meaning is affected
— Help learners hear the sounds
— Point out how to make the sounds and
help learners produce them
• Provide feedback

11. Examples of Awareness activities
i. Observation tasks
- audio recordings of people talking;
- video recordings of people talking;
- conversations as they occur in real time.
ii. Sensitivity to the sound system
iii.Cross-cultural awareness

12. Fluency activities
• The communicative needs of the average
foreign student fall within a limited range of
purposes, the most important of which are:
- the maintenance and development of social
relationships;
- information exchange;
- co-operative problem-solving in English;
- expressing ideas and opinions.

13. Techniques and resources

14. Icebreakers

15. Why use icebreakers- Affective Filter
• Students need to feel com_______ in order
for learning to be effective.
• They need to know who is in the classroom
with them before they can feel sa_
• They are worried about their friends in the
classroom settings and need to be put at
ease about the process.
• They learn by doing as well as seeing and
hearing.
• lce breakers can add an emo_ component to
the learning.

16. Objectives
i. create a positive group atmosphere
ii. help students to relax
iii. break down social barriers
iv. energize & motivate
v. help students to think outside the box
vi. help students to get to know one another

17. Theoretical implications of Accuracy vs
Fluency
• Overuse of accuracy monitoring can cripple
language development — lose of confidence
through over-correction (Brumfit 1979)
• Too much emphasis on overcorrecting is
harmful — eg causes excessive monitor in the
mind - hinders the natural acquisition of
spoken skills (Ebsworth, 1998)

18. In summary
• Icebreakers can add fun and energy — and
set the tone for learning
• Must be planned carefully and conducted
appropriately
• Need to fit in the time frame
• Has to make students’ affective filter low
• Need to somehow tie with the lesson’s
objective

19. • Fluency activities on the other hand can
provide learners with a chance to recycle
language and vocabulary and help increase
confidence
• Teachers should allow time for icebreakers/
games

20. Examples of icebreakers

21. Introducing oneself
• Write your full name on a piece of paper
• Teacher will collect paper and redistribute
them
• Class walks around and look for the persons
whose names they hold
• Ask the following questions:
i. Hobbies
ii. Family
iii. Likes
• Introduce the person to the class

22. Describe yourself in 3 words
• Instructions
• Give your students some time to think and
choose three words to describe themselves
• This could be used when teaching adjectives
• Allow time for questions
• Taking times
• Listening to them patiently

23. What is your favorite food?
Instructions
• What is your favorite food?
• What food have you always wanted to try but
haven’t?
• Why do you never want to taste in your
mouth again?

24. Tears…
• Find someone for each category below:
i . Cried recently?
ii. Not felt embarrassed to cry in front of
other people?
iii. Cried longer than 3 hours?
iv. Never cried in the last 3 years?
v. Ever made yourself cry by thinking about
sad/happy events?
vi. Ever used tears to your advantage?
vii. Believed that tears can look attractive?

25. Using an appropriate theme
• We should use appropriate themes that our
students can identify with, example- joy,
sadness, love, etc.
• What are some themes that we should avoid?