IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO HELP STUDENTS TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS

INTRODUCTIONTo help students to develop speaking skills is completely necessary to

learn English. Some people think that by doing a lot of grammar exercises,

reading and writing students can improve their english. But, the truth is that the

only way they can carry a conversation in the real word is by learning speaking

skills. In this essay we will present three reason:  1- By developing speaking

skills students can improve their pronunciation, making easier to carry a

conversation, 2- teaching students to develop speaking skills will help them to

find a high-quality jobs, 3- speaking skills helps to the importance of

communicative competence students must develop because is the goal of the

classroom to deal with the complexity of the real language use.

Firstly, by developing speaking skills students can improve their

pronunciation, making easier to carry a conversation. In spanish we do not have

troubles in Reading and pronunciation. But in english, words do not are

pronounced as they are written. In contrast, to know how to pronounce them

you need to hear the words previously, or by learning some phonetics. In fact,

every English word has its own stress or intonation. The truth is, that the more

you practice using language orally, the better you are in your pronunciation,

because you will know how to pronounce them next time. In addition, to

pronounce properly will make easier to comprehend and carry a conversation

reasonably competently in the real world. an indispensable tool for “the

benchmark of successful language acquisition is almost always the

demonstration of an ability to accomplish pragmatic goals through interactive

discourse with other speakers of the language” ( Brown, 2007).

Secondly, developing English speaking skills help students to find high-

quality jobs. According to Villarroel (1997) nowadays English is acquired more

importance in our lives. If we focus on jobs, English is playing a major role in

them. For example, when a worker has the ability to understand and to speak

English, he/she could has more opportunities to achieve a high-quality job than

other worker who do not use English fluently. As a consequence, people who

do not know how to speak English, will be paid less money. Instead of that,

grammar is still the principal objective in Chilean Education. This makes that

students can dominate the theory but they do not dominate grammar structure

at the time they are speaking, because of nervous or simply they forget it.

According to Salimbene (1983) it is common to find students who know

grammar but who do not know how to use the language. If we carry it to

numbers, 1 of 5 professionals have an intermediate level in English. Besides, in

the case of people who have a high level of English, only 2 of 5 professionals

dominate it fluently when speak (Vargas, 2011).

Thirdly, we have to mention that developing speaking skills helps to the

importance of communicative competence students must develop, which is the

goal of the classroom to deal with the complexity of the real language use

(Nunan, 2002).So the speaking part has a high grade of complexity for student,

it is that why we have to help them to develop strategies to speak.

Speaking is challenging for students because they do not have many

opportunities to use the language outside the classroom. Thus as teachers, we

have to encourage and give students the opportunity to speak, either in groups

or couples with the object that they use the target language and we can identify

their mistakes and progress. here is where the interlanguage works, this internal

linguistic system that student learn in its own starts to work and appears in the

use of the student speech, but we must mention that Interlanguage can be

improved if we use a good Input, as Krashen said: “Input is one the first step on

the linguistic competence” ( Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition).

Hence, according to this we must have in mind two theories which will help us

to make students feel more comfortable in the classroom, the first one is the

delivery of a good input, that will allow students to develop their ideas in the

brain, and the second theory is Skinner’s theory “the behaviourism”, with which

we can reinforce a positive behavior that will be repeated by students, and this

repetition will become in a habit. What really matters is that students can

interact and works in groups, because language is a social skill, and as Nunan

92’ said once: “Only by studying language in its social and cultural context, we

will come to appreciate the apparent paradox of language acquisition: that it is

at once a deeply personal and social process”

As a conclusion, we can say that to help students to develop speaking skills is

the most important stage at the time you are learning a new language. Because

it gives you the tools you need to express your ideas and be more fluent in the

real world, making your speaking easier to comprehend. In that way, you can

carry on a conversation reasonably competently. Furthermore, it prepares you

to be a competitive worker, opened to more possibilities of finding new jobs and

emerge. Finally, to teach speaking skills helps to the importance of

communicative competence which is the goal of the classroom. Undoubtedly,

teaching speaking skills is the most important stage when you are learning a

new language.

- Nunan. D (2002)Book Methodology in language teaching Villarroel. M (1997)