TEACHING SPEAKING

Speaking is a very important skill, because of this we have to give them activities to develop the ability to express themselves through speech. Besides, we have to motivate them starting with activities developing this skill from the very beginning.

Children expect to learn quickly and can feel disappointed if there are not immediate results. For this reason, we should provide them many opportunities to speak English as soon as possible. In controlled and guided activities our goal can be that pupils produce correct language. We should correct their mistakes when they are produced, but if we establish situations in which free communication is encouraged, we should not correct their mistakes. In this case, we can write down what they should be corrected and we will do it later. Besides, if children ask you if something is correct or incorrect, we can answer them.

At the beginning, the teacher has to make controlled and guide practice, since children do not know using a language appropriately and we must help them in many ways. Therefore, children will start learning formulaic language. It means that they will start learning chunks (listen and repeat the same sentences to remember it) of language and this helps them at least. In this case, drawing can also be useful for presenting language.

As I said before we have to start with controlled and guide practice. Controlled practice and presentation are closely linked. Children should start practicing the language that has just been introduced. In these practices, they had better not to make many mistakes. In these activities children have to start asking similar question and they can do it in pairs. Drawings and puppets can be useful too. In the case of guide practice, it is usually done in pairs or groups. They can make some questions about the same topic and answer it. For instance they can use some images and make question about it and the others answer it.

We cannot forget dialogues and role play. In speaking both are very important. Dialogues are a stage between guided and free practice. Controlled dialogues can turn into free practice progressively. First of all, the dialogue is presented by the teacher. After listening to the dialogues, then some pupils could practice it with the teacher. Finally, children will work in pairs. Role play is another way of presenting dialogues and it is connect with real life situations. The improvisation is involved in role plays, because of this, pupils are given situations but they can decide which words they are going to use. We can control some role plays and others just give some directions and children could interact in a free way. It is really important that before starting the role play, children have to know the dialogues. There are some advantages of dialogues and role plays: questions and answer are controlled; communication is encouraged; intonation, stress, facial expressions, etc. are worked; language is practiced in a particular situation.

When children have practiced all these kinds of activities, then they can access to free activities. The difference of this activity is choice, since pupils can say what they want and also they can choose the way to say it. Free activities present some features: They are not highly controlled by the teacher; genuine communication is encourage, these types of activities connect the work in the classroom with real life situations; attention is focused on the message instead of on the language; in these activities fluency is more important that accuracy; a game element is usually related to these activities; there is usually an information gap.

There are many speaking activities that are classified from tightly controlled to freer activities. These are Look, listen and repeat (the teacher show a picture and tells the pupils the word, the pupils repeat it); Listen and participate (this is often used when children are listening to a story. Pupils are encouraged to repeat some words or sentences); Reading aloud (Like bingo, children have to read words aloud); Memory games (children will develop memory, concentration, etc.); dramatization (children can act out a situation, a dialogue or a story. This activity can be connected to others); Rhymes, action rhymes, songs, chants, tongue twister (chunks of language are learnt. These activities are usually linked to movement, actions and imitation); Retelling a story (Pupils have to retell a story that the teacher has previously told them or they have read); Using flash cards, etc.

In short, speaking is necessary in education, it is a very important skill in children lives, since they must learn to communicate with others in an appropriate way. They must understand others and be understood. Therefore, we have to give them the necessary tools and present activities that help them to improve this skill. We have to motivate and help them when they need it in an adequate context.