The Importance of Teaching the Language Skill of Speaking in Classrooms

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Introduction
Speaking is one of the four key language skills focused in the teaching of English Language in Singapore’s primary education. As specified in the English Language syllabus (2010: 46), developing a repertoire of speaking skills will “enable pupils to convey and express their thoughts and opinions with accuracy, fluency, appropriateness and succinctness”. Indeed, speaking is viewed as an essential skill in both scholastic and work arenas. However, teachers often perceive teaching speaking as less important than teaching reading and writing. In a study conducted by Goh et al (2005), only 41% of the respondents recognised the need to teach speaking at the primary level in terms of the time allocated for oral activities in the classroom. Such a shared perception among teachers will influence the manner in which speaking is taught to the pupils.

The language skill of speaking at the lower primary levels is taught implicitly through the use of big books used in the STELLAR (Strategies of English Language Learning and Reading) programme. Pupils learn to demonstrate their speaking skills as highlighted in the guidelines of the STELLAR specific units, when they predict using titles and visuals as cues, respond to teachers’ questions on the big book, use the targeted structures of language and contribute their ideas for the class dictated writing. Given the above situation that could have implications on speaking instruction, the purpose of this study is to analyse the features in an interaction between a teacher and a group of six Primary One pupils in an English Language writing lesson. The discourse organisation in terms of generic structure and discourse features of the interaction will be lucidly examined. Hence, this ana...

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...s that would have provided insights on any differences between the individual teacher-pupil interaction and the teacher-directed class interaction or group discussion as well as on the impact of individual teacher-pupil interaction on the thinking and learning progress of the pupils.

The second limitation is that the analysis of this interaction focuses only on a small group of Primary One pupils who are of low progress and their teacher. Thus, the findings may not apply fully to the interaction that takes place in a usual class of thirty pupils who are of different progress levels. Nonetheless, this analysis has shed some light into the classroom interaction in an English Language lesson. Such key insights provide scope for further investigation on teacher-directed and peer interaction in classes consisting of pupils of specific or non-specific progress levels.

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