Teaching Speaking
Many language learners regard speaking ability as the measure of knowing a language. These learners define fluency as the ability to converse with others, much more than the ability to read, write, or comprehend oral language. They regard speaking as the most important skill they can acquire, and they assess their progress in terms of their accomplishments in spoken communication.
Language learners need to recognize that speaking involves three areas of knowledge:
Mechanics (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary): Using the right words in the right order with the correct pronunciation
Functions (transaction and interaction): Knowing when clarity of message is essential (transaction/information exchange) and when precise understanding is not required (interaction/relationship building)
Social and cultural rules and norms (turn-taking, rate of speech, length of pauses between speakers, relative roles of participants): Understanding how to take into account who is speaking to whom, in what circumstances, about what, and for what reason.
In the communicative model of language teaching, instructors help their students develop this body of knowledge by providing authentic practice that prepares students for real-life communication situations. They help their students develop the ability to produce grammatically correct, logically connected sentences that are appropriate to specific contexts, and to do so using acceptable (that is, comprehensible) pronunciation.
Material for this section was drawn from “Spoken language: What it is and how to teach it” by Grace Stovall Burkart, in Modules for the professional preparation of teaching assistants in foreign languages (Grace Stovall Burkart, ed.; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Very good!
ReplyDeleteOne of the most important issues for teaching a foraing language is, how teachers can provide to their students speaking skills with this, teachers have to present to their students a big variety and interesting activities in which they tend to develop the ability to speak in the language that that they wish to learn. Therefore, is necessary that all teachers tend to create a good and comfortable environment in the classroom, in which all students feel ready to emerge into an oral production. Also, when learners tend to say something ungrammatical teachers should not correct him/her in a bad way and less in front of their classmates because he/she will feel uncomfortable and those learners will not say any word during the class, because he/she will think that their classmates will be laughing about whatever thing that he or she tends to say. Finally, for learning speaking is not necessary to use it in the classroom, we can put in practice this skill in whatever place that we are and at the same, time we can improve our fluency and speak coherently during a conversation
ReplyDeleteA way for teaching speaking is the competence among students,through this method they will be more interested in being better speakers,of course respecting the pronunciation of language.
ReplyDelete