[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 6 | February 15, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]
Implications for teaching
Three core issues need to be addressed in planning speaking activities for an English class. The first is to determine what kinds of speaking skills the class will focus on. Is it all three of the genres described in the preceding posts, or will some receive greater attention than others?
Informal needs analysis is the starting point here. Procedures for determining needs include observation of learners carrying out different kinds of communicative tasks, questionnaires, interviews, and diagnostic testing (e.g., Tsang and Wong 2002). The second issue is to identify teaching strategies to “teach” (i.e., provide opportunities for learners to acquire) each kind of talk.
Teaching talk as interaction
Talk as interaction is perhaps the most difficult skill to teach since interactional talk is a very complex and subtle phenomenon that takes place under the control of unspoken rules. In my experience, these are best taught by providing examples embedded in naturalistic dialogs that model features such as opening and closing conversations, making small talk, recounting personal incidents and experiences, and reacting to what others say.