How to teach speaking

  
      Are you pleased with your students' speaking capability? Do you think the progress they are making is perfectly satisfactory? If so, congratulations. If not, take your time reading this essay and try to put what you are told into practice. As far as teaching speaking is concerned, all language teachers are expected to acquire a set of highly influential and carefully planned strategies in which help students with their speaking proficiency. In theory, mostly language teachers are well aware of various proposed methods, but they cannot observe them appropriately in practice. Considering the most advantageous class activities, free discussion, idiomatic expressions, and storytelling could be included.   

       What some teachers mostly complain about is that some of students do not involve themselves in class activities. However, they are trying their best to provide them with authentic materials. The truth is these kinds of teachers have not tried to get students participating actively. One of the finest activities in which majority students take interest is free discussion. Students do enjoy having an opportunity to express their opinions about highly controversial subjects. Avoid talking about clichés, as they send students to sleep. You need to ask each and every students for their views, and by getting them challenged, make them speak as long as they can. Do not interrupt them while speaking. Accuracy must be ignored especially at the beginning levels. Correct their mistakes (vocabulary use, Grammar usage, and mispronunciation) kindly after they finished speaking.

       Another way, facilitating oral proficiency of language learners is commonly used idiomatic expressions. Conclusively, mostly learners are enthusiastic about learning them because idiomatic expressions help them sound more native. You need to exemplify in order to let them know how authentically they are used in a context. Without delay, ask students to contextualize them and correct if they use them wrongly. It is more than ok if you are able to provide the class with some films in which native speakers use these expressions in real contexts, because the process is easy to figure out when it is demonstrated visually.   

          In the end, storytelling is considered another helpful activity, addressing student's speaking ability. Moreover, it is figured to foster creative thinking and imagination. Going through it, the teacher may call a few students at the beginning of each and every session in order to tell a story which they have read in advance. In order for it to be more entertaining, amusing anecdotes is suggested. Interestingly enough, students would better be allowed to make stories of their own, as visualization would get their thinking bettered.

       To finalize, the most significant part of language teacher's job is to better student's communication faculties. Teachers are supposed to generously supply the maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by providing a rich and challenging environment that contains cooperative work, authentic materials and task, and shared knowledge. Communication skill would serve its purpose if learners express themselves without anxiety and embarrassment.

Written by: Majid Ja'fari

Dear all friends,

Having been asked about the good methods for language learning, today I have made a decision to write an article about how to improve English-speaking capability.

A lot of nice methods and techniques regarding English-speaking improvement have been proposed so far, but today I want to let you know my personal experiences and procedures I have been through.

 Fluently and accurately speaking English is a kind of dream for all language learners. I think all of us are capable of it, but it is not achieved without making efforts. Things I want to touch upon today are worth thinking and trying. Therefore, read it profoundly with an open mind, and try to do whatever you are asked to.

Annually, many people emigrate to America and Britain only for learning the international language common all around the world, English. As I am sure you know, the number one way in order for all non-native speakers to elevate their capability of English speaking is to be exposed to the environment, in the first place. In the environment, since, to survive, you are obliged to communicate with people, you will inevitably do your perfect to master the language. Despite the fact that exposure to the authentic context is the finest factor facilitating language learning, this is not an opportunity available for all. Therefore, here, we want to go through the techniques helping you be good at English-communication even at your mother country.

Attending English institutes is one of the common ways, majority of people pick. I personally do agree with it, but sometimes it does not work unfortunately. Its reasons may be the students themselves, or even the teachers. Depending upon the level students are at, teacher's methods for language teaching must differ. Teachers are highly influential in supporting or demoralizing students for learning. I personally believe the teacher's methods must be mostly based on speaking. My suggestion, if you think your teacher does not have a good method for teaching speaking, do not squander your time, energy, and money. Abandon it for a better one as immediate as possible.

In parenthesis, I should add that a good teacher is one, trying to get students stimulated to speak by having free discussions, and teaching useful expressions.  Discussions must be of student's favorites. Highly controversial and challenging issues taking place in the world, or the country in which learners have different views about are the best choices. I think language teachers must let the learners express themselves without any restrictions. It helps students be motivated in class activities and not send learners to sleep during the class time.

Although, today, learning English is a necessity for all, being busy, some people do not have enough free time to attend any classes. For that reason, self-study, now, is the best option they get through. They think by watching movies, listening to radio, and even reading different English texts, they can make substantial improvement in speaking. To some extent, some of them improve, but it is a big mistake to suppose one is able to reach fluency and accuracy by self-study at the beginning levels. Unfortunately, for not getting the results, after a short period, some get bored and quit studying.

For your better conversation improvement, first of all, you must be enough motivated and determined. Then, choose an institute to attend. Like I said, teacher, in your selection, must be of highly significance. The books you are taught are also important. I do not want to give my personal suggestion about it, but Interchange books are more common and authentic.

 Many language learners do not feel good about their accents and pronunciations. They are looking for some ways to make it sound native. Actually, there is no good or bad accent. Its acceptance by native speakers is the whole point. In order for you to speak with a natural accent, imitation of an American or British one, whichever suits you well, is obligatory. To put it simply, I mean we must pick a native speaker we are interested in his/her pronunciation, accent, and speaking manner, and then mimic them. At the beginning stages, it is sort of ridiculous, and may others poke fun at you. However, by every day practice, you will approach what you already have aimed at.

 Few hours' exposure to English class does not suffice for authentic language learning. At this stage, your main job begins. Frankly speaking, if you want your speaking capability to improve, you need to speak a lot. Here, a very typical problem arises, that is having no one to talk to out of the class. Do not make this mistake; you have yourself to talk to. Speak by yourself about whatever in which you take interest. Doing it in front of a mirror has a major impact. You just need to let the words come out of your mouth regardless of whether the sentences you produce are grammatically well formed.

 Another aspect concerning with speaking efficiency that is worth mentioning is vocabulary learning.  Memorizing words in isolation does not work. You need to learn them in context. After you learned the usage of a word, place it in context by your own sentences. It helps you both converse better and activate words.

Written by: Majid Ja'fari

If you do not know how to get your speaking skill improved, If you

are looking for an authentic method, If the methods you have tried

do not work best for you, in this post, I have translated a nice

article concerning with conversation learning. In order not to miss

it, click on ادامه مطلب 

Translated by: Majid Jafari