Tag Archives: Speaking

Yleinen

HOW TO USE SPEAKING CRITERIA

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Criteria are hard to write and understand and that is why teachers have to practise using them with their colleagues.

There are three reasons why oral exam criteria are used:

  1. we need them in order to justify our evaluation and the grades we give
  2. the students need to know their strengths and weaknesses
  3. they make self- and peer-evaluation possible

If we tell our students that their speaking is 7 out of 10 or B-, A being the highest grade, it actually tells very little about the student’s performance and what needs to be done next. That is why more detailed criteria are used.

In many countries speaking is unfortunately not part of language evaluation and that is why teachers need to get it right from the very beginning following their national criteria.

The criteria below is a sample to demonstrate how we can use any criteria effectively. Of course, depending on the age of the students we would have to modify the criteria to match the true competence of the students.

Criteria typically follow a pattern of decreasing scale  (excellent–very bad / always–never / very clear–uncomprehensible)

How to use the sample criteria above

1 Start with the yellow column Flow of ideas to get a holistic ideas of the performance.

Having listened to the speaker use this yellow column to decide what your first impression is like.

Go down from grade 10 until you arrive at the grade (1 – 10) that corresponds to your evaluation. You can of course use grades 3, 5, 7, 9 and even half points if you feel ilke it.

Fluent / mostly fluent / some fluent moments / hesitant with only a few ideas / next to nothing said. You can naturally change your opinion at the end of the evaluation.                                                                  

2 Do the same thing with the blue columns Content / Language / Interaction / Pronunciation to get a more detailed picture of the speaker’s skills in these areas

Language: How rich is the vocabulary? How demanding and accurate are the structures? Type of mistakes?

10 No serious mistakes/ 8 some mistakes/ 6 many mistakes/ 4 very many mistakes/ 2 no proof of any structures 

N.B. Some mistakes are more serious than others: Mistakes in basic vocabulary and structures are serious. Mistakes that cause misunderstandings are serious ones.

Content: How clear and how well argued are simple and complex ideas?  

Message/Content: basic and simple ideas max 6, simple & complex ideas / opinions but no proof 7-8, complex ideas: arguments and opinions with proof /reasons 9-10 elaboration techniques: plan and expand ideas with examples, proof and reasons, back up the ideas convincingly

Scale: Clear justified complex ideas/ Clear simple ideas and some complex ones/ Simple ideas/ Very simple ideas/ Only unclear ideas                           

How active, quick and sensitive is the speaker in responding to what another speaker says or asks?

Interaction: Excellent/ very good/ rather good/ satisfactory, very limited

N.B. None of the speakers in a group is supposed to dominate or be silent. The best students draw the quiet ones into the discussion by asking them questions?

Pronunciation: How close to a native speaker pronunciation does the speaker get? How much do mistakes in pronunciation affect understanding?

Often pronunciation and interaction are part of the same evaluation column.

3 Mark your grading in each appropriate column with any symbol.

You can also write your additional comments on the same page.

The same evaluation form below shows the student clearly the level of his/her performance in various skill areas. As a result the student knows which areas need the most improvement.

By studying the requirements for a higher grade in the form the students can set another goals for themselves. Finally they need to figure out the means and strategies that will lead to improvement. All these things increase motivation even in ordinary lessons.

The symbols in the evaluation form reveal immediately how well the student did in the exam.

We have to aim at being objective in giving grades even if there is always an element of subjectivity in evaluating speaking skills.

How to practise the use of the criteria with students

No matter what the criteria is like it makes a lot of sense to open it up to your students.

  • Go through the criteria with your students and explain how it is to be understood and used.
  • Listen to a short recorded speaking test twice as an example with your students, first all through and the second time in sections.
  • Analyse the section aloud so that the students follow your analysis looking at the criteria.
  • In advanced classes the students themselves might be willing to express their opinion about the section. Some teachers write down everything that is said in the interview, for example, to make the analysis even clearer. It takes a while to write it but you can use it over and over again.
  • Finally you can either verify the advanced students’ grading or present your own with justifications.

Spending 30 to 40 minutes on dealing with the criteria like I recommend above makes it possible for the students to evaluate their own and their peers’ performances.

Knowing the criteria well is the path to success if the student is willing to take the next steps and practise hard having the aims in mind.

Yleinen

SPEAKING, teaching beginners

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The real test for the students’ speaking skills takes place in real-life situations. They are moments when the teacher or the textbook is not available. Every lesson is preparation for these moments.

Speaking is an extremely delicate matter to myself since I did not learn to speak English at school at all. That was back in the 1960s and early 1970s. I had a lot of passive knowledge and learnt to speak English at the age of 19 at the university. I swore to myself I would not let that happen to my students.

CLT principle: Mistakes do not matter if the message gets through. We all make mistakes, even in our mother tongue!

Language learning should be fun and enjoyable. In the old days everything was spoilt by focussing on mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. They do not really matter if the message gets through. So let the students keep on talking! And asking questions.

I will answer the following two questions in this article:

  • What steps are needed for beginners in learning to speak English?
  • Where does the learning of a foreign language take place?

Many of the ideas related to teaching speaking have already briefly been discussed under heading ‘The structure of a chapter-based lesson’, ‘Pronunciation’ and ‘CLT group work methods’. Still, Latin ‘Repetition est mater studiorum’ = ‘Repetition is the mother of studies’.

What steps are needed for complete beginners in learning to speak English?

N.B. At the beginning the pupils need a massive amount of help from the teacher. Still, it is the students that the teacher needs to make talk. Little by little the teacher speaks less and less and becomes the organizer and facilitator of learning.

1 Learning to speak English starts with words and simple phrases: The pupils say the words and phrases after the teacher and he/she shows them pictures and uses mother tongue translations if needed. The pictures and phrases with their written forms can then be left on the noticeboard for subconscious learning. Learning to write starts later on.

2 Two things are vital at this stage: the pupils learn the correct pronunciation of the words and phrases by repeating them often enough AND understand the meanings of the words and phrases. Teachers have to be aware of the snowball effect: if we pronounce words and phrases wrong, the mistakes will be made by all our students as well.

3 Learning simple phrases like ‘Good morning’ or ‘Hi, my name is …’ ‘I like apples/oranges/bananas …’ can then be practised in mini role-plays the pupils moving around the class using them in their own sentences (The aim is to move from a closed system to an open one; i.e, from a book-based system to an open one where the pupils use the words and phrases creatively in their own talk). In weak groups the Dodson method where the mother tongue is made use of might be useful.

4 When you start using a textbook, I recommend you follow my advice on how to go through the chapter in a systematic way: vocabulary, listening, checking understanding, reading the text aloud in breath groups, answering questions, moving on the pupils using sentences and ideas of their own.

5 In brief, the aim in CLT is to move from a book-based teaching to an open learning environment where the pupils/students use language produced by themselves without any worries of making mistakes. Nevertheless, it is hard for me to imagine teaching without textbooks in elementary and junior high classes due to the extra work of finding suitable materials. In senior high it is possible in many advanced groups. Additional exercises and oral tasks offer us a change to bring in authentic materials easily.

Before testing speaking skills you have to teach and allow the students to practice the skill! Therefore use pair and group work in class as much as you can.


In Finland all student teachers have to observe and train teaching for a full year in a teacher training school which are linked with universities. This is one of the secrets behind the high quality of Finnish schools and teaching.

The students start learning to speak English when the teacher shuts up – and gets them working in pairs or groups in English.

The motto introduced by Rogers sounds provocative but once you agree that it is actually true, you truly have entered the CLT realm!

Where does the learning of a foreign language take place?

I already touched upon this question in my previous article but there are some additional comments to be made. Learning a foreign language mostly takes place at school in lessons. On the other hand, it can happen at home if the student is voluntarily exposed to the language. (computer games, songs, reading books, watching films/videos/Youtube or TV programmes). Or the learner visits or stays in a country where the language is spoken.

The logic is simple: We learn to speak by speaking the new language in all possible situations. The unfortunate truth is that most students do not speak English anywhere else than at school. Sometimes not even there. As a result, they do not learn speaking unless the teacher makes it possible.

The whole process of learning to speak a foreign language starts with the idea of the students

  • speaking it without being afraid of somebody pointing out every mistake they make.
  • speaking with no fear of making a fool of yourself!
  • finding the courage to speak the target language in class or in public

We teachers need to realize that in learning English in particular, there are many other sources available than our lessons. We do it in a systematic way following our beliefs and principles but if the learners find their motivation somewhere else the learning process can actually be very fast and enjoyable. Whatever the source of motivation is encourage the students to keep it up and respond to the idea positively.

How can the students learn to speak English if the teacher talks most of the time or makes them work silently on written tasks? NO WAY, MOST TASKS HAVE TO BE ORAL!

My next article deals with testing speaking and practising for the tests. Luckily the importance of speaking skills has been recognized in most countries and official speaking tests or exams with clear criteria are becoming part of the final examinations.

Communicative teaching (CLT)

TESTING SPEAKING SKILLS

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Every lesson means rehearsing for the real-life ‘test’ far in the future. Eliminate FEAR in talking!

How to get started in testing

  • It is wise to practice speaking a lot in pairs and groups before you even think about testing.
  • Practise pronunciation and reading aloud in every lesson so that the students feel confident about their pronunciation.
  • Never correct the pupils/students when they are speaking in pairs or groups unless they ask you to. If you do, they will stop talking due to fear of making mistakes and, even worse, may feel humiliated.
  • Give general feedback and comments to the whole class after the practice sessions. Use assessment for learning to find the strengths and weaknesses of the class.
  • Make progress with students with small, enjoyable, even humorous and relaxing steps. Rely on results emerging after a few months.
  • Make the students come in front of the class: in pairs or groups – each one saying something for 5 seconds at least, later on 10 – 30 seconds, a minute, five minutes – just to use English and allow them to have a note with key words or ideas. Make it always a positive experience!
  • Remember that coming in front of the whole class may be scary and it needs to be a positive experience from the very beginning.
  • Practice listening skills too since the pupils are supposed to respond to what the others say. Teach appropriate phrases of response, too.

VITAL: Eliminate fear from practice and test situations – first evaluate the pupils/students in lessons and in other situations. Then give them individual feedback to encourage them to improve in speaking. Speaking skills should be part of the evaluation and noted in giving grades.

Agree on the criteria to be used in assessment. In elementary classes it has to be very simple but in senior high/sixth form you can you the official final exam criteria. Each country has its own criteria but the European Framework is widely accepted. It has skill levels from A1, A2 B1, B2, C1 to the highest native level C2. Many employers use this scaling.

Start with self and peer evaluation in class and encourage the students to use their phones for recording at home too. Allow them to listen to themselves while evaluating themselves. The same if they are assessing other students. Evaluating oneself and others is highly motivating.

Personal teacher–pupil feedback sessions before or after a test are most valuable: ask for the student’s self-evaluation first and then give positive feedback. Encourage, look at the criteria and have gentle reference to challenges. Learning to speak a foreign language is a long process and everybody wants to improve their skills in speaking.

The time for official oral tests/evaluation comes later on. When that time comes, use good and bad examples to give the students an idea of what is required of them. The evaluation criteria has to be explained and opened up at the same time.

The real test in speaking takes place abroad. In Venice, Italy, for example.

Testing individuals

Depending on the age of the pupils (6 – 15), they

  • can send me a 30-second or a minute-long phone-recorded speech or
  • I can have a two-to-five minute face to face discussion with them (I ask them one of the 5 – 10 questions given in advance and they can practise their answers at home and finally I ask them a ‘surprise’ question on a topic we had earlier in class)
  • for senior high students I use modified final exams

Testing groups

Groups can easily be evaluated while they are discussing in class. It makes sense to tell the groups in advance that they will be evaluated in order to encourage them to practise at home to get the best possible result. However, the students need to be given some advice.

  • Do not try to dominate the discussion. Show your excellence in drawing the quiet ones into the discussion by asking them questions or comments.
  • Use phrases that indicate you agree, disagree with the speaker. Or maybe you did not get the point or want to have justifications for an argument. So: ‘I disagree with you because …’. I fully agree with you but …’ ‘I’m sorry I missed your point.’ ‘Sorry, I did not get that’ ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Can you give us an example.’ etc.
  • Fight for your space and indicate you want to say your opinion.
  • Be ready to take the group feedback constructively and the feedback your teacher gives to you personally.

Modelling a group oral for an advanced class

In this activity we model the assessment of different types of speaking activities.

  • The class is divided into groups of four. Preparation time (10 min).
  • Each group is given a task of their own.
  • Each group member will receive a number (1-4).
  • One group at a time will discuss fro 10 min (total time 40 min all groups)
  • The others will observe and assess the performance of the given number using the given criteria. Write the number of the student you observe on the handout.
  • Feedback is given in groups (1s, 2s, 3s, 4s).
  • In brief, each group carries out a different speaking activity.The other groups observe and assess the activities.

Choose your topic. The order of presentations is random.

Group 1 Problem solving: You work for the Ministry of Tourism planning a holiday resort. You need to decide which facilities to have there. You can choose the place for the resort yourselves.

Group 2 Debate on the effect of tourism in your country. The argument: Tourism is good for our economy. Two of you are for the idea and two against (no matter what you really think about the matter).

Group 3 One of you is the tourist guide with his/her tourist group in a place of your choice. The guide describes the place and the tourists are making questions and comments. They also compare the place and habits to their own country/region.

Group 4 A magazine reporter is interviewing participants of the ‘Tour of Central Europe’ and their experiences in different countries. Each one of you has to say their opinion about the countries in question.

Group 5 A group of teachers are deciding where to go on a class trip with a class that all of them teach. They are also discussing what things need to be taken account of in the planning.

The criteria for group discussions are similar to the criteria we had for writing but now we have also interaction and pronunciation to be assessed.

Model text-based lesson, Reading

DEEPENING UNDERSTANDING, Part 2 and ADDITIONAL ORAL TASKS

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In the previous article I suggested some alternative ways of making questions about a text. I also gave an example how to use differentiation in ‘question – answer technique’ so that the ambitious CLT principles are applied at least among some of the students.

UNDERLINING WORDS AND PHRASES IN THE TEXT

In the ‘old’ days I used a technique ‘Find me another way of saying’ to hammer in phrases like this:

T: Look at the text and find me another way of saying:”two weeks”.
S: “A fortnight”
T: “And then another ways of saying: “I did not have enough money in my wallet.”
S: “I was short of funds on me.”

This process is very slow and could be replaced by giving the students a ready-made list of para-phrases s that would be worth remembering. These stage I have relaced the whole thing in two ways: 1) The students underline anything they find worth underlining or I give a list like in example 3 below and the students say sentences where they use the phrases.

Now we have a look at some alternative ways to enhance talking in class and check understanding of a text. For the sake of motivation it is advisable to replace ‘question -answers’ with something else every now and then.

In short, the examples below demonstrate a way how to combine reading comprehension with speaking freely on the basis of the chapter.

TRUE – FALSE -tasks

The best thing about ‘True – False’ exercises is that it makes the students think and even better if they have to justify their choice in groups orally: argue convincingly why their choice is correct.

Here are some variations for ‘True – False’ -tasks

  1. Make all statements false, one word makes it false
  2. Make all statements false, part of the statement is wrong
  3. More statements are false than true and the students have to identify the false ones and justify why they are false
  4. Add a third choice ‘Not mentioned’, this choice is really demanding, both for the students and for the writer of the statements, this version can actually be considered to be ‘Multiple-choice’

MULTIPLE CHOICE EXERCISES

‘Multiple choice’ is an excellent way to check if a text has been understood properly. It is a very common exam task which gives reliable information of the students’ reading (and listening) skills.

If time allows, just like in ‘True – False’ tasks we can

  • give students individual time to make their choices and
  • then let them discuss the choices in pairs or groups; in English of course
  • This process will teach them a lot and they will learn from each other.
  • The discussion with others is in fact more important than the correct answers.

USING MIND MAPS

Sample 1

From CLT point of view mind maps are excellent because they give hints to the students what to talk about but offer no ready-made sentences to be used. The mind map above is a real communicative task for advanced students after they have studied a chapter with similar content.

Semi-communicative mind map would have additional key words like ‘classical, pop, rock, instrumental; guitar, piano, organ, flute, saxophone; painting, theatre, films, sculpture, poetry’ etc. to get the discussion going more smoothly. The best groups would probably realize how music is used in films to arouse feelings and that song lyrics are often poems.

A mechanical version of the mind map would have both words and guiding questions on the screen. Very often I have the mechanical version visible for everybody and tell the students to ignore my guiding if they feel like it. I call it invisible differentiation since the others do not actually know how much you use the guidance given.

SAMPLE 2

Source: Weilin+Göös, Course 2 Finland

In reality it does not matter how much the students consult the original text. We allow them to do it if they need the support. The main thing is that differentiation takes place unnoticed at the level of their choice.

SAMPLE 3

Source: Weilin+Göös, Course 2 Finland

In nearly all cases where we wish the students to discuss matters in groups it is advisable to have some ideas, pictures or lists or words/phrases that stirs imagination sufficiently. It is only natutal that some students work at a mechanical level and the best ones fully communicatively. Differentiation in action without any stigma on anyone.

USING PLOT PICTURES

Source: SIIE 7 WSOY, Finland

This is an example of how to replace questions made by the teacher with students explaining about the chapter. The topis is hobbies but in my opinion the CLT trick is not to ask the students to memorize and reproduce the content of the chapter, which is what the weakest students do by looking at the text since they are not at the level of making sentences of their own yet.

The trick is to ask the students to make up stories of their own on the basis of the pictures. And the ideas can be completely imaginary and different from the chapter content.

Once the students are allowed to produce stories of their own they really seem to enjoy the freedom and become very motivated to talk in class.

USING PICTURES TO ENHANCE SPEAKING

See my article on ‘Lexical approach to learning languages’. This picture, for example is linked with teaching grammar orally.

It is essential to realize that all language skills are interlinked and variety in classes can be reached by combining the skills.

Source: SIIE 7, WSOY Finland

Assuming the textbook chapter was about New York and Manhattan, the student make up a story of their own on the basis of these pictures.

ADDITIONAL TYPES OF ORAL EXERCISES

Now we have finally reached the last part of our text-based lesson: oral exercises which can be the ones in the study books or modified versions of them or any exercises that the teacher has found in other sources.

The types of tasks below are the juicy bits of our lessons. They bring joy and excitement into the class and are related to real life situations.

Having done with a chapter of two in the textbook these exercises hammer in orally what we were trying to learn. They work even with weak students if we provide them with supportive materials. And you can link them to any of the language skill areas we have in mind.

These exercises can be linked to

  • some new or old grammatical point, such as ‘explaining a process using the present passive voice’, ‘looking at photos and doing comparisons’ or interviewing others (Have you ever …? Has your mum often …?
  • a pre-task for the next lesson, such as ‘Find someone who’ -game where the answer is Yes or No and a certain grammatical point is repeated in a variety of ways
  • functions of language, such as ‘asking for directions’, ‘requesting politely’ or ‘giving a speech’
  • real-life situations, such as ‘at a hotel’, ‘at the airport’, ‘at a restaurant’ or ‘at the doctor’s’
  • a role play, such as ‘reporter – film star’, ‘politicians making a decision’ or ‘travel guide – tourists’
  • co-operative learning, an elaborative group work where the students move on to another group teaching others what they learnt in the previous group
  • work stations – technique, group work where the students move from one table to another and each table has a different task for them
  • task-based and inquiry-based learning, both are student-centered approaches where to focus is directed to finding information or answers to a problematic question, students use the foreign language in a natural way and it does not feel like a language lesson at all

These oral exercise types will be dealt with in other articles.

Model text-based lesson

DEEPENING UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENTIATION, Part 1

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Answering questions about a text is not a true CLT activity because the answers can be found in the text. Communivative use of language requires that the language is produced by the students themselves.

Still, ‘question – answer’ approach can be very useful. For some students it is as far as they can get – but I have witnessed a lot of miracles among students. They stop worrying about mistakes and throw in words and make a real effort to get their message through.

Let’s move on in our list of ‘Things to do in class’. I will first expand the ‘question-answer’ technique and show at the end of the article how to replace it, at least occasionally, with differentiation tasks.

  1. The students have studied the chapter at home in advance
  2. We have checked homework exercises
  3. We have worked orally on the new words of the next chapter
  4. We have listened to the chapter and checked understanding of the text
  5. We have read the text or a part of it aloud
  6. NOW we have to deepen our understanding of the text, and use differentiation
  7. Doing oral activities, written exercises or underlining text in class
  1. First of all, up to this point there have been many stages where the teacher has been the organizer and initiator of class activities. In my opinion this is the way it should be: time is saved, the students are active and the teacher is as much as possible in the role of a CLT teacher, an organizer and facilitator of learning
  2. Linguists sometimes call this kind of text-based lesson ‘a closed system’ because the students are tied to the texts. However, in CLT activities we aim at using ‘an open system’ which ideally means that the students use language and ideas of their own.
  3. In my logic this is the only way that makes sense because I do not want to throw my students into water until I know they can swim. In other words, the students must master the vocabulary, structures, phrases and some basic ideas about a new topic before they are able and can be allowed to talk freely.
  4. One thing we teachers need to realize is that we do not make the questions about the text because we need information. No, since we already know the answers. This realization leads to the idea that we should use question – answer or any other approach as a way towards free talking. Asking questions from one student at a time does not make sense here. Everyone should be made talk and be active.
  5. After reading the text aloud the students can be permitted to talk about the text freely. But can they all do it? The answer is NO, not all. So what are we teachers supposed to do? Use differentiation; i.e. every one of the students chooses one of the 3 tasks and works with others who took the same level task.
  6. If you want to make the questions on the text yourself (since you have no time for differentiation) you can
  • A) usually we simply ask the questions and they are not visible, BUT now have the questions on the screen and read them from there (serving auditive and visual learners, developing reading and listening at the same time)
  • B) the funny option: ask all the students to answer the questions aloud at the same time (sounds crazy but 100 % activity level) You, poker-faced!
  • C) ask the students to work in pairs, (50 % of the class is active), the best option

Differentiation in ‘question-answer technique’

I assume just about all teachers use ‘question – answer technique’ but I hope not in the traditional manner. In Finland we used to have student streaming up to the mid 1980s, i.e. dividing the students into three proficiency levels with different goals. When the system was abolished, we only had mixed-ability classes and teachers were obliged to use differentiation in their lessons. Nevertheless, I kept the idea of three levels of streaming when I was trying to differentiate my teaching in class. But I let the students choose the level and change it as they pleased.

This is what I started to do in the mid-1980s at this stage of the lesson.

I gave three options to my students, they choose one task and find other who chose the same task and start working according to my instructions on the screen or in a handout.

They were completely free to choose A, B or C, even make a mixture of them if they wanted. They were only limited by time, 10 – 15 minutes.

Holiday resorts appeal to people everywhere, Shangri La close to Muscat, Oman.

For example, having dealt with the basics with a text (not here) the students would choose A, B or C. If you have a weak class, you may tell them to start with A and move to B and C if they have time.

A Look at the text about the summer holiday trip of the Hills, work in pairs and answer the questions orally taking turns.

When did the Hills start their holiday? (Lines 1 – 3) How did they get to Greece? (Lines 4 – 7) What kind of plans did they have for the holiday? (Lines 8 – 13) etc. Simple questions for beginners and weak students, answers can be found in the text, if encouraged the students can give answers in their own words. Why- and How do we know that -questions make the task a bit more demanding. Who, when, where, how, what … like, whose -questions are the easy ones since you can answer

B Look at the text about the summer holiday trip of the Hills, work in pairs and explain in your own words what happened in their holiday. You can make up things that are not mentioned in the text at all. Your story does not have to be true. Here are some key words: holiday, plan, London, train, flight, airport, hotel

C If you are not very interested in the Hill family’s holiday, explain about the best holiday trip your family has made. The foundation for the free talk is laid at the beginning of the lesson and the best students can easily do C.

The teacher remains in the background and does not interfere with the tasks unless the students ask him/her something. Neither do we correct any of the mistakes publicly even if we hear them. If we start doing that, the students become hesitant and finally stop talking in the fear of making a fool of themselves. The students do not make mistakes on purpose and besides, we can take notes on the mistakes and come back to them later on without pointing at any individuals.

You may think “Well, sounds reasonable enough but I do not have time to write the instructions.” But believe me, it only takes a few minutes and it is all worth the trouble when you see the smiles on the students faces. Besides, you can ask good students to take turns making up similar exercises for you. You will be surprised!

If you never or rarely get beyond the ‘traditional ‘questions – answers’ stage, you do not give your students a chance to speak freely, which is one of our final aims in CLT classes.

The next article deals with alternative ways of checking the level of understanding the text and how to turn the focus to talking in class.

Communicative teaching (CLT)

SPEAKING

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I never learnt to speak English at school. I swore to myself early in my teaching career I would never allow this to happen to my students.

Basically learning to speak a foreign language boils down to four things: There has to be a lot of INPUT, ORAL PRACTICE, REPETITION and TIME.

There is no excuse for teachers, if their students dare not speak English when they leave school.

If the use of the target language is not activated orally with quality materials and methods, if it is not done over and over again and if there is not enough time for it, learning is not possible or it is desperately slow. And still, it seems everybody wants to learn to speak English.

Three possible ways to learn to speak a foreign language

  1. It is taught and learnt in a systematic manner, like we do it in CLT lessons at school.
  2. It is learnt intuitively in an authentic environment over a long period of time, very much like we learn our mother tongue.
  3. It is partially learnt at school and activated in free time by talking to English-speaking people or playing interactive games headsets on, for example.

If we have a look at these three ways, we realize that Option 2 is not possible for many of us and the success of Option 3 is too random and dependent on the efforts of the individual.

The only option left is Option 1 and if the majority of students are not given a chance to learn to speak English, for example, at school, they will not learn it properly at all. Unfortunately this is exactly what happened to me and this is why I am writing these articles.

The only language I learnt to speak at school was German even if we never had any speaking tests and studied the language only for 2,5 years. We had six lessons a week, spent two lof them in a language laboratory working on a variety of exercises. And I can still speak German even if I have not studied it since 1973.

The vital lesson I learnt from my German teacher was simple: allow the students to talk between themselves with the language they master and have faith in them learning the spoken language.

Use it or lose it! How can the students learn to speak English if the teacher talks most of the time or makes them work silently on written tasks? NO WAY, spoken language is learnt by speaking a lot.

In this article i will answer the following three questions:

  • How does one learn to speak a foreign language?
  • What is the best method in teaching the students to speak a foreign language?
  • What modern techniques enhancing speaking skills are there to bring variation to foreign language lessons?

Many of the ideas related to teaching speaking have already been discussed under heading ‘The structure of a textbook-based lesson’, ‘Pronunciation’ and ‘Modern CLT group work methods’. Still, Latin ‘Repetition est mater studiorum’ = ‘Repetition is the mother of studies’.

The students start learning to speak English when the teacher stops talking – and gets them working in pairs or groups in English.

How does one learn to speak a foreign language?

  • by being exposed to the language not only at school but elsewhere too
  • by taking the trouble of learning words, phrases and expressions
  • by listening to others speak the language trying to understand the messages
  • by learning pronunciation by imitating native level speakers
  • by gradually internalizing grammar and social functions of the language

In short, by listening, practising and speaking a lot.

There is no one-way street in language learning. We are different and learn languages in different ways using our senses in our own style.

What all effective language learning methods share is the idea of doing a lot of things with the language. What really goes on in our brains in that process is still a bit of a mystery. Still, practice does it!

We learn to speak ...

  • by being brave and by enjoying speaking the target language with other students
  • by not being afraid that we are laughed at even if we do not always get our message through or if our pronunciation is not perfect
  • by not being afraid of making mistakes
  • by challenging ourselves and taking linguistic risks in new situations
  • by making utterances of our own and learning from others
The Tower of London, a must among London tourist attractions.

What is the best method in teaching the students to speak a foreign language?

The answer depends on the proficiency level of the students and the teacher is the best judge in choosing the method. Provided the teacher is aware of all the possibilities and can apply them well.

Any method that maximizes the time the students use the language and speak in class is good. The most popular approach these days is ‘Communicative Language Learning’ (= CLT) and most of the ideas presented in my articles are based on CLT principles. Speaking can be part of just about anything we do in class, even in learning vocabulary and cultural matters.

In CLT lessons we favour student-centred methods, principles and activities. In practice it means pair and group work in English and the teacher’s job is to organize and facilitate the tasks and assignments so that the teacher remains in the background and it is the students who talk.

If the students speak English 70 – 80 % of the time in lessons, things start happening. I have explained in detail how to do it in my articles under the horizontal main menu heading ‘THE STRUCTURE OF A TEXTBOOK-BASED LESSON’. The articles demonstrate how a teacher can easily turn teacher-oriented lessons to student-oriented ones.

What modern techniques enhancing speaking skills are there to bring variation to foreign language lessons?

First of all, it is vital in language lessons that the students do not always stay with the same people. In addition to regular changing of the composition or pairs and groups, there are methods such as station work, co-operative learning, task- based learning (TBL) and inquiry-based learning (IBL) which bring a lot of variation to the lessons.

All of the techniques have been explained in more detail with examples under heading ‘Modern CLT group methods’. In these lessons English often becomes a tool that is used to find information or solve problems. Learning to speak English becomes an enjoyable BYPRODUCT!

How can the students learn to speak English if the teacher talks most of the time or makes them work silently on written tasks? NO WAY, MOST TASKS HAVE TO BE ORAL!

My next articles in this unit deal with the following questions:

SpeakingSpeaking, teaching beginners
Testing speaking skills
How to use speaking criteria in evaluation
N.B. The topic is touched upon in most articles

Luckily the importance of speaking skills has been recognized in most countries and official speaking tests or exams with clear criteria are becoming part of the final examinations.