Instructional Strategies for Teaching Speaking -...
Transcript of Instructional Strategies for Teaching Speaking -...
Instructional Strategies
for Teaching Speaking
ELC688 Methods I
Survey of Best Practices in TESOL
Lecturers: Carol Haddaway and Teresa Valais
E-Teacher Scholarship Program
Warm-up:
Find Someone Who
Learners: motivate, involve, focus,
create expectations, introduce topic
Teaching Speaking Handout 1: Bingo Warm-Up 2
Aim of ESL classrooms
Meaning and its Negotiation (Strategic Competence)
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Coping Strategies to Negotiate
Meaning • Repetition
“I’m sorry. Could you please repeat that”?
• Paraphrase/restate in simpler words
• Verification
“In other words, you mean ….?”
• Clarification
“Can you give an example of…..?
• Circumlocution
“Could you say that in a different way?”
• Hesitation (um, eh, well, sort of, like)
Teaching Speaking Handout 2: Conversation Topics
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Reflections and Considerations
for the Oral Skills Class
• Who are the learners?
• Why are they there?
• What do they expect to learn?
• What am I expected to teach?
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Learners
• Low level learners Build on their experience (LEA)
Share their expertise
Use realia to keep learning as concrete as possible
• Non Academic learners (BICS) Survival English
Basic communication functions with strong structural components
• Academic learners (CALP) Class participation
Discussions and presentations
Interacting with peers and professors
Asking and answering questions
Interpersonal communication
Teaching Speaking Handout 3: BICS and CALP
(Dixon & Nessel, 1983)
(Cummins, 1979)
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Why Speaking in the Target
Language (TL) Can Be Difficult
• It takes place in ‘real time’
• Speakers worry about producing utterances
with many errors or oddities in them
• Pronunciation that is not intelligible
• The effects of the Affective Principles
language ego, self-confidence, risk-taking
(Brown, 2001)
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What Makes a Good
Speaking Class
Think of at least two criteria for a good speaking class under the following headings:
• teacher
• learners
• atmosphere
• correction
• activities
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Implications for Teaching
• Create a relaxed atmosphere
Lowers the ‘affective filter’
• Pair and group work
More speaking time and lower inhibitions
• Plenty of natural speech
Integrate pronunciation work in lesson
• Combine listening and speaking in natural
interaction
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Affective Filter
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Accuracy and Fluency
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Accuracy
• Main objective is to get learners to begin producing formally correct versions of the new items
• Practice typically involves using only the new items
• Focus on pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, and sentence formation
• Errors are usually dealt with immediately
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Fluency
• The objective is for learners to use items in conversations and other communication without hesitation, even if they make mistakes.
• “The ability to link units of speech together with facility and without strain or inappropriate slowness or undue hesitation.”
• “Natural language use” Focus on ideas, meaning and its negotiation
Speaking strategies are used
Overt correction is minimized
• Errors are tolerated (Hedge, 1993, p. 275-276)
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Developing Oral Proficiency
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Hypothesis 1
• Opportunities must be provided for students
to practice using language in a range of
contexts likely to be encountered in the target
situation.
.
(adapted from Omaggio, 2001)
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Hypothesis 2
• Opportunities should be provided for students
to practice carrying out a range of
communicative functions likely to be
necessary in dealing with others in the target
situation.
(adapted from Omaggio, 2001)
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Hypothesis 3
• The development of accuracy should be
encouraged. As learners produce (speaking
and writing) language, instruction and
feedback can help facilitate the progression
of their skills toward more precise and
coherent language use.
(adapted from Omaggio, 2001)
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Hypothesis 4
• Instruction should be responsive to the
affective as well as the cognitive needs of
students. Their different personalities,
preferences, and learning styles should be
taken into account.
(adapted from Omaggio, 2001)
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Hypothesis 5
• Cultural understanding must be promoted in
various ways so that students are sensitive to
other cultures and are prepared to live more
harmoniously in the target-language
community.
(adapted from Omaggio, 2001)
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Characteristics of a Successful
Speaking Activity • Learners talk a lot
learner talk versus teacher talk/pauses
• Participation is even discussion not dominated by a minority of talkative
students
• Motivation is high learners are eager to speak
interested in topic
• Language is of an acceptable level utterances are easily comprehensible
acceptable level of accuracy
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Activities to Promote
Speaking
• Information gap activities
• Think-Pair-Share
• Role plays
• Discussions & Conversations
• Presentations
(Lyman, 1981)
Information Gap
Objectives
• To exchange information to find a solution
• To convey or request information
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Information Gap
Characteristics
• Main attention is to information
• Need to communicate to reach objective
• Learners must ‘fill the gap’
Teaching Speaking Handout 4: Information Gap Activity, Student A
Teaching Speaking Handout 5: Information Gap Activity, Student B
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Information Gap Activity
Interviews
• Promote language awareness
• Allow for comprehensible input (i+1)
• Help lower students’ affective filter
Teaching Speaking Handout 6: Information Gap Sleep Questionnaire
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The Output Hypothesis
• Learners produce language
• Output ‘pushes’ learners to undertake
complete grammatical processing
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Feedback and Error Correction
• Self Correction
Give learners the opportunity to correct
themselves, helping as necessary
• Peer Correction
If learner cannot self-correct, invite other learners
to make the correction
• Teacher Correction
If no other learner can make the correction, make
the correction yourself
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References
• Brown, H.D. (2001). Teaching by principles. Longman.
• Davies, P. & Pearse, E. (2000). Success in English teaching. Oxford University Press.
• Dixon, C.N., & Nessel, D. (2008). Using the language experience approach with English language
learners: Strategies for engaging students and developing literacy. Corwin Press.
• Farrell, T. (2006). Succeeding with English language learners. Corwin Press.
• Krashen, S. (1981). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. English Language
teaching series. London: Prentice-Hall International (UK) Ltd.
• Krashen, S. (1985) The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. Longman.
• Lazaraton, A. (2001). Teaching oral skills. In Celce-Mircia, M. (Ed.), Teaching English as a second
or foreign language 3rd ed. Heinle & Heinle.
• Lightbown, P. (2000). How languages are learned. Oxford University Press.
• Lyman, F. (1981). The responsive classroom discussion. In Anderson, A. S. (Ed.), Mainstreaming
Digest. College Park, MD: University of Maryland College of Education.
• Omaggio, H.A. (2001). Teaching language in context 3rd ed. Heinle & Heinle.
• Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and
comprehensible output in development. In Gass, S. and Madde, C. (Eds.), Input in SLA. Newbury
House.
• Swain, M. (1993). The output hypothesis: Just speaking and writing aren’t enough. In The
Canadian Modern Language Review, 50, 158-164.