Teaching speaking skill thourgh role play to A2 level learners

Teaching speaking skill thourgh role play to A2 level learners

330 group

Abdushukurov Rustam

PLAN:
Introduction
1 What are speaking skills

• Resources to improve speaking skills at A2 level
• Role of the Teacher
• Relation between Speaking and Listening
• Teaching English students to speak at A2 level
• Conclusion

Reference

INTRODUCTION
Language is primarily speech. A very large number of languages in the world are only spoken with no writing script. Majority of languages even with writing scripts use their spoken forms more than the written ones. It is an agreed fact that language is learnt by speaking it first after a lot of listening to the sounds, words, phrases and sentences from the surroundings. Listening and speaking are the fundamental skills, and if only the foundation is firm, the edifice built on it will be durable. In mother tongue, children get a very natural opportunity of listening and speaking in their surroundings .
Thereafter, they are sent to the school to learn reading and writing skills. But, in the case of communication classroom, the available environment of the learner is mother tongue in his surroundings; therefore, the teaching learning strategy should differ greatly. Hence, there is a dire need of paradigm shift on teaching and learning speaking skill through focus deviation towards oral orientation, training the teachers, and developing suitable curriculum
1 What are speaking skills?
The ability to speak confidently and fluently is something which children will develop during their time at school, and something that will help them throughout their life.
Speaking skills are defined as the skills which allow us to communicate effectively. They give us the ability to convey information verbally and in a way that the listener can understand.
Children will learn English speaking skills as well as speaking skills in other languages, in primary and secondary school. Learning how to develop English speaking skills is so important for ESL students and EAL students too. It's one of the most important parts of language learning as speaking is how we tend to communicate in everyday life.
Speaking is an interactive process where information is shared, and if necessary, acted upon by the listener. So, it’s important to develop both speaking and listening skills in order to communicate effectively.
The four elements of speaking skills
Vocabulary: To develop our speaking skills, we first need to know the right words. Vocabulary development begins when we are infants, as we learn to describe the world around us and communicate our needs. This progresses from single words to sentences when children are 2 or 3, at which point they will normally have a vocabulary of 150-300 words .
Vocabulary development is where students understand the meanings and pronunciations of words necessary for communication. When they understand what a word means, they can check what the word or sentence means. This is so important so they can keep up a conversation. If they understand what the other person is saying and they know what vocabulary to say back, they are halfway there to communicating effectively.
Grammar: You may think that grammar is something we only need for written language. But grammar includes lots of important areas for spoken language such as an understanding of tenses and the correct way to structure sentences. Grammar helps us to convey information in a way that the listener will recognise and understand.
Pronunciation: Understanding how to correctly pronounce words is another important element of speaking skills. We learn how to pronounce words by listening to those around us, such as our parents, friends and teachers. Pronunciation varies from country to country, and even city to city!
A lot of this comes from phonemic awareness. This involves understanding the small units that make up spoken language. English can differ quite a lot compared to other languages. Some phonemes might not be in ESL students' native languages and children's minds are trained to categories phonemes in their first language, so it can become confusing . Developing this ability in English can come from playing language games and using songs and poems to reiterate rhythm and repetition. Phonics is where students start to see the relationship between the sounds of spoken language and graphemes which are the letters and spellings representing sounds in written language.
2 Resources to improve speaking skills at A2 level
We have a wealth of resources designed to support your children’s learning and improve their speaking skills.
One great idea is to hold a No Pens Day, which encourages children to communicate verbally and listen actively. This ready-to-use Power Point will introduce your class to No Pens Day and explain why it's useful.
Develop speaking and listening skills with this handy set of posters, which include helpful tips on how to have engaging conversations with others. And, for children who are struggling with speaking skills and need a little extra help, we have the KS2 Speaking and Listening Catch Up Pack, including a range of activities to bring children up to speed. Perfect for small group interventions.
What’s more, you can help children develop their speaking and listening skills through drama activities. Try out this fun improvisation activity to improve fluency and spoken language skills in a fun way.
And for more information on speaking skills, make sure to visit our Conversation Skills or Public Speaking Skills pages.
Elements of good practice in speaking:
For good English teaching, in his book, The Literate Imagination Harrison offers us a useful summary of the nature of oral English teaching. He mentions that learners need confidence and expertise in talk so that they can:
• listen to, convey and share ideas and feeling
• listen to, convey and share information
• understand, convey and share the story of their own or others
• listen to, present defend and interrogate points of view;
• consider questions, raise questions, work towards answers;
• understand accounts of processes, be able to describe and evaluate processes;
3 Role of the Teacher:
In teaching speaking, the English teacher’s own role is crucial. in his book, The Practice of English Language Teaching, points out three different roles that the teacher needs to play to get students speak fluently.
Prompter: Sometimes while speaking student might get lost i.e. they are not able to say what to say next. “Sometimes, when students are involved in a role-play activity, for example, they lose the thread of what is going on, or they are ‘lost for words’ (i.e. they might still have the thread but be unable to proceed productively for lack of vocabulary).
They may not be quite sure how to proceed.” In such situation, it is very natural that the teacher wants to help the students. However, as the teacher is very keen to encourage the students to think creatively rather than have them hang on teacher’s every word, he or she does not want to take charge. Thus a teacher occasionally offers words or phrases suggesting what might come next. Interestingly, in this situation students prefer to use mother-tongue. But the teacher has to prompt him or her in monolingual groups to speak in English. When the teacher prompts, she or he needs to do it ‘sensitively and encouragingly’. Then the student will able to overcome their nervousness.
3. Feedback Provider: The teacher should give feedback in his students’ speaking activities. In this regard, the teacher must avoid over-correction. A helpful and gentle 187 correction can make the students confident and it ‘may get students out of difficult misunderstanding and hesitations’ . The methodologist argues that the students learn many things from the problems that they face while speaking. The teacher can provide them with some of the words or phrases necessary to help them negotiate a way out of their communicative impasses. The success of a teacher as a feedback provider depends on how and when feedback is given. When teachers get involved, not only to correct but also to supply alternative modes of expression to help students, they remove the need to negotiate meaning, and thus they may deny students a learning opportunity. Although in such situations teacher’s involvement may sometimes be necessary, it is unfortunate too. In Lynch’s words, “the best answer is to the question of when to intervene in learner talk is: as late as possible ”. In short, the success of the teacher’s role as a feedback provider depends on his or her tact and the appropriateness of the feedback we give in the particular speaking activities.
Speaking Activities:
Development of speaking activities requires the use of some activities which can be categorized in three most commonly used organizational forms: Whole-class teaching, Group –work and Pair work. Whole-class teaching: In a research, Richards and mentions that in whole-class teaching the teacher leads the whole-class through a learning task. Named the whole-class teaching as ‘lockstep method’ and mentions, “Lockstep is the class grouping where all the students are working with the teacher , where all the students are ‘locked into’ the same rhythm and pace, the same activity . where a teacher-controlled session is taking place
Group-work: In group work, the teacher divides the class into small groups to work together (usually four or five students in each group). “As in pair work, all the groups work at the same time”. Ur agrees that group work provides some learners with confidence and courage. “Students who are shy of speaking in front of the whole class, or to the teacher, often find it much easier to express themselves in front of a small group of their peers”. Richards and Lockhart say that group work is likely to increase the amount of student participation in the class and promote collaboration among learners. Here learners’ role is more active and the teacher cannot dominate the class.
Pair work: “In pair work, the teacher divides the whole class into pairs. Every student works with his or her partner, and all the pairs work at the same time” . Finds that this speaking activity facilitates learners’ independence. He considers pair work as an interaction similar to real-life language use. “They [learners] can face and talk directly to one another, so it is much closer to the way we [people] use language outside the classroom.
Intermediate Learners
Practicing speaking with intermediate learners can be difficult. At this stage, students are often aware of their mistakes and perceived shortcomings and might feel shy or inhibited. Much like when teaching beginner students, the goal should be on getting a message across. A communication situation is successful if all parties understand each other, not if they speak with perfect grammar and pronunciation. Help your students let go of the idea of perfection.
Encourage your students to use varied vocabulary. Instead of simple words like “good”, “bad”, or “very”, ensure that they challenge themselves and use appropriate synonyms.
Poodle uses its in-built transcription feature which transcribes and evaluates your students’ speech and supports them with their pronunciation and fluency. Take a look at our interactive transcript player for an easy speech-teaching solution.
Conclusion:
Learning to communicate effectively in a foreign language is one of the most challenging and important skills to acquire. Without speaking, learners will never make rewarding connections with natives, they won’t be able to navigate a foreign country, or study and work abroad.
We hope our speaking tips and tricks will help you plan your next speaking class. Make sure to create a supportive classroom atmosphere, use a variety of mediums and resources, and implement auto-grade features, where possible.
Easy recording options, real-life exercises, interactive captions, subtitles, auto-grading, and fun mini-lessons: Poodle makes teaching speaking a breeze. If you haven’t already, sign up for your free test account to find out all that Poodle has to offer.
Public Speaking course at Stamford has broadened a great scope for teaching speaking. Though this is a small scale study, I do believe this paper has tried to point out some important issues related with this course. Risk exists, no doubt, as a single speaking course will never be able to develop learners’ speaking skill.
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