A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF TEACHING SPEAKING SKILLS TO SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS
Dr.Padmavathy.K
Sindhi college of commerce
HOD, Dept. of English
Kempapura, Hebbal
Bangalore-24
Padmavathy.aishu@gmail.com
Mobile No. 8867463279
Abstract
Learners of English language evaluate their success in language learning as well as the effectiveness of their English course, on the basis of their improvement in spoken language proficiency. Though oral skills have hardly been neglected in ESL courses, how best to approach the teaching of oral skills has long been problematic, partly as a consequence of the complexity of spoken interaction and difficulty of developing principled pedagogical approaches that reflect this complexity. But in most of the learning
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To draw a wide range of insightful account of the nature of second language speaking skills
2. To suggest methods that would address language learners cognitive, affective and social needs, as they work towards acquiring good speaking outcomes.
3. To invite practitioners to rethink current practices in teaching speaking skills and propose holistic approach that accounts for speaking outcomes.
4. The teaching of speaking, however, will not be complete without attention being given to developing learners’ metacognitive awareness.
5. To describe three types of speaking tasks that can help promote speaking proficiency: communication-gap tasks, discussion tasks and monologic tasks.
INTRODUCTION
Speaking is accepted by everyone as an essential language communication skill. It can facilitate language acquisition and contribute towards the academic development of second language learners. Though second language learners know speaking is important even then they avoid speaking in the target language. One of the main reasons is that, they are influenced by affective factors, such as anxiety and lack of motivation. The approach takes into account three key factors in successful language learning: Teachers, Materials and
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It foregrounds the role of learners in developing introspective awareness and control of their learning processes and plays a key role in the success of language learning. Metacognition enables learners to reflect on the process of their learning to speak a second language, as well as enabling them to manage their own performance, emotions and language development. Language learners who are metacognitivelyaware are self-directed and can better take charge of their own learning processes. An important part of speaking instruction should, therefore, be in the form of raising learners’ metacognitive awareness through introspection and guided self-directed learning.
D. TYPES OF SPEAKING TASKS
The main purpose of using speaking tasks is to provide learners with opportunities to practice their speaking so that they can achieve greater fluency. Three types of speaking tasks that make different demands on learners’ skills and linguistic knowledge are:
Communication-gap tasks
Discussion
We need to adapt our verbal communication accordingly to the different situations. Working on a learning activity it is important that the children are focused and that we deal with any distractions
“Language learning is a process of developing new resources for meaning-making, and language learners need opportunities for participation in meaningful activities and interaction supported by consciousness-raising and explicit attention to language itself in all its complexity and variability” (Schleppegrell, 2013.
racie Allen of the comedy team of Burns and Allen was once asked how one should speak French. She replied, “Well, you speak it the same way you speak English; you just use different words.” When trying to assist in instructing English language learners, they usually have many concepts and language abilities that they need to master, as do the teachers that are trying to teach them. With the incorporation of the concepts and approaches to identify and assess the issues and concerns that we have learned in our classroom instruction, such as lesson preparation, building background, and comprehensible input, we can indeed teach our future English language learners all the right moves with all the right words.
Baseline Skills: I am still a bit timid when it comes to my verbal skills, but throughout my life, these skills have been slowly developing. Verbal communication is the most common form of communication. Verbal communication is used everyday, whether it is ordering a coffee in the morning, lunch at a restaurant, or telling the store clerk what size dress I need. Ever since I was a baby, I was taught to verbally communicate. It is one of the major stepping-stones in a person’s life. Through education, I have had to strengthen my skills for interviews and speeches. For example, I have had job interviews, volunteer interviews, and interviews to get into certain education programs like honor societies. I’ve taken speech classes, where we had to give a speech every month including memoirs, informative speeches, declarative speeches, and debates. At my last dance
English Language Learners range from Newcomers learning survival English and developing foundational literacy skills to Long-Term English Learners who have had 6 years or more of their education in English yet continue have significant language gaps. These students may speak English with little or no accent and still lack the vocabulary, grammar and grade level literacy to be successful in school. English language learners may remain silent in the classroom as they adjust to a new school, environment, and culture unless he is a native language comrade to interact with. The English language learners are concerned about decoding verbal and non- verbal communication as well as understanding the social culture framework of the school. Most of the time English language learners are observing during instruction, trying to repeat words used by others, memorizing simple phrases and sentences, tired by midday or be frustrated attending long lectures unaccompanied by visual and gestures, relying on first language translation used peer translation or bilingual dictionary, as the students begin to learner they become more involved in the classroom, they can respond non-verbally to commands, statements, and questions in simple form. As their oral comprehension increases, they begin to use simple word and phrases and may use English spontaneously. They can understand short conversation on a simple topic when reading students can understand a narrative text and authentic materials, although they will be below
Oral language is the creation of messages produced with vocals, as opposed to written text or gestures. Today much of our communication is handled orally, especially for students in early years of school that are unable to read and write but must communicate with their teachers. In later years, oral language is heavily focused on in school and students are encouraged to share their opinions mid class and give presentations. This is to prepare students for situations in society and at the workplace where they must be able to communicate clearly and efficiently. Generally, students are expected to possess some level of oral language capability entering kindergarten, which teachers are then expected to build upon (Solley, 2014). Students initially build their oral language capabilities from the millions of words that they hear from their parents and home environment. With different home environments, this leads to varied levels of capabilities between students (Snow et al., 2012, p. 496). To get every stu...
Have you ever thought of taking a public speaking class in school? If you haven?t I highly suggest that you do because it will increase your ability to communicate with other human beings and just make it easier. Today, I will be talking about a couple of abilities that you can greatly improve by taking a simple introductory course in public speaking. I will be talking about the importance of a good attention getter, a clear presentation of your points, and eye contact with the audience.
The twenty-second chapter of A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking is all about informative speaking. The authors break down informative speaking into five categories; those being, gaining and sustaining audience involvement, finding ways to increase understanding, what informative speeches are about, deciding how to communicate the information, and reducing the confusion.
In public speaking I learned many types of concepts, theories and terms of communication. In concepts of publicly speaking there’s, relaxation, practice, credibility, attention getters, attire, organization, volume, emotion, audience relation, and movement. In my first speech, “The any old bag speech” I quickly learned the do’s, don’ts and concepts of my speech performance.
People live in the world of communication. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English (Moore, 1997), communication is defined as, “The activity or process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information”. The significance of communication can be found within the context of a human existing as a social being. As a human being manages his or her life in the course of the interaction between other members of the entire society, communication is inevitable. Communication occurs through the medium of a language and it is presented in two different forms which are written and spoken (Brown & Yule, 1983: 1-10). The importance of spoken performance of a language is becoming more prominent over the written performance capability. It is because the ability to speak a language reflects a person’s personality, self image, knowledge of the world, ability to reason, skill to express thoughts in real-time (Luoma, 2004: ix). These days, due to the global trend of internationalisation, the ability to communicate in English is needed as an essential skill. Whenever the international exchange happens, the use of spoken English entails. However, it is not always an easy task for people who use English as a second language to be able to speak to the level of a native speaker. They have to perfectly understand the sound system of English, have almost instant access to proper vocabulary and be able to place words together intelligibly without hesitation. Moreover, they also have to perceive what is being said to them and need to be able to respond appropriately to acquire amiable relations or to accomplish their communicative goals (Luoma, 2004: ix). Therefore, non-native English speakers encounter these barriers and they are subject to make mistakes often. In relation to this matter, this essay argues that there are socio-cultural factors as well as linguistic factors that affect non-native speakers’ communication in English. It provides analysis of several different situations when the use of spoken English has generated miscommunication problems in regards to author’s personal experience.
Being different from other species in the world, we, the human, occupy our own language and thought. We use the words that we have learnt to express what is in our mind, as well as the emotion since we learnt how to talk. In modern days, the conversation skills is more and more emphasized and it becomes one of the skills that we need to possess in order to survive. Therefore, learning how to speak and why we need to speak appropriately becomes the tasks that we need to consider in our live.
...before she introduced the new terms and vocabulary. Finally, Bruner investigated how adults use language to mediate the world for children and help them solve problems. Children learn effectively through scaffolding by adults. This technique is based on taking step by step for building knowledge. It suggests that a teacher can scaffold children learning in different ways. For example, students face difficulties in reading lessons in the first stages; therefore, the teacher has to use visual and auditory materials before she enrolls in the lesson, such as realia, pictures, and videos. This will helps the child to predict what the story is about. In addition, she has to introduce the new terms which are difficult for a child to pronounce it. These techniques and instructional strategies are most effective for teaching English as a foreign language for young learners.
To facilitate or participate in any classroom activities requires the use of oral language. Talk is significantly important because "language that is heard must be understood before the language that is read can be decoded and understood" (McCandlish, 2012, pg. 9). Specifically, Halliday (1975) categorised language into seven different functions each with its own purpose, allowing students to comprehend that language like writing has different genres and can be formal or informal, depending on the audience, context or purpose.
Before exposure to the content of this course, I was confident in my ability to communicate interpersonally. Upon my first encounter with feedback from my peers, I was surprised to find out that others did not also think this. Coming into this course, I relied heavily on only verbal communication. I was introduced to several important new skills that help me communicate with others more precisely, including paraphrasing, c...
Speaking is a natural ability given to most reluctant individuals. Since the beginning of time, it has been assumed that we have a right to speak and use words, thus we naturally begin our development of language during the early stages of live. After years of grasping and perfecting our vocabulary and language, it seems unnecessary to study the purpose of our development. Why, then, should we study “oral communication?” There are many purposes, benefits, and institutions that branch from oral communication. Of course, communication is the basis of interaction with other individuals through the use of expressions and words; however, through studying oral communication, one can take the words and expressions being used and apply them to his or her own life. After all, the most effective and useful knowledge is applied knowledge.