Designing speaking activities

H.D. BROWN’S PRINCIPLES FOR

TEACHING SPEAKING SKILLSBY: TUMANA, WJ

Principle #1: Focus on both Fluency & Accuracy

depending on your

objective

“Make sure your tasks have a linguistic (language-based)

objective, and seize the

opportunity to help students to perceive

and use the building blocks of

language”.

Principle #2: Provide

Intrinsically Motivating techniques

“Appeal to students’ ultimate goals

and interests, to their need of

knowledge, for status, forachieving competence

and autonomy . . help them to see how the

activitywill benefit them”

Principle #3: Encourage the use of Authentic Language

in meaningful

contexts

“It takes energy and creativity to

devise authentic contexts and

meaningful interaction, but with the

help of a storehouse of teacher

resource materials,it can be done”

Principle #4: Provide Appropriate Feedback

and correction

“It is important that you take advantage of

your knowledge of English to inject

The kinds of corrective feedback’

That are appropriate for the moment”

Principle #5:

Capitalize on the

Natural Link between speaking

and listening

“The two skills can reinforce each

other.Skills in producing

language areoften initiated

through comprehension”

Principle #6: Give students Opportunity to Initiate

oral communicati

on

“Part of oral communicationcompetence is the ability to initiateconversations, to nominate topics,

to ask questions, to controlconversations, and to change

the subject”

Principle #7: Encourage the Development of Speaking Strategies

Speaking Strategies asking for clarification (what?) asking someone to repeat something

(pardon me?) using fillers (uh, I mean) to get time to

process using conversation maintenance cues (uh-

huh, right, yeah, OK, Hmm) getting someone’s attention (hey, say, so) paraphrasing for structures one can’t

produce appealing for assistance from the

interlocutor using formulaic expressions using mime and non-verbal expressions

How to design a speaking activity?

1. The speaking activity should be in authentic texts. In an authentic activity, students experience how the language is used in daily life. It helps students learn more meaningfully and purposefully. It also maximizes the development of learners’ communicative competence.

2. Collaborative learning is encouraged in a speaking activity. There are two benefits. First, sometimes students will feel too shy and nervous to speak out in front of the whole class. When students work in pairs or in groups, they will be more relaxed so that they can practice speaking better. Second, collaborative learning helps students learn “extra knowledge”

3. A speaking activity is an

output process. Students must get enough input so that they can speak. So before a speaking activity, the teacher has to make sure that students are FULLY prepared. Have students learned the vocabulary? Have students mastered the grammar?  And during the activity, the teacher should act as a facilitator to help students communicate.

Developing Classroom Speaking Activities

Apply in the Classroom• The use of role play activities to develop your

speaking class:1. Talk as interaction

- chatting to an adjacent passenger during a plan flight- chatting to a friend over lunch time

2. Talk as transaction- making a telephone all to obtain flight information- ask someone for directions on street

3. Talk as performance- giving a class report about a school trip- giving a speech of welcome

Resource:• www.Slideshare.net