ELTWeekly Issue#22, Article: Developing Good Speaking Skills

Developing Good Speaking Skills

By Prof (Dr) Shefali Bakshi

The aim of spoken English is to enable students to communicate in the target language. It is important to: (i) expose the learners to maximum use of language. (ii) help them to see how language functions in different situations.(iii) help them to internalize the rules of grammar. Speech like writing, being a productive skill must follow enough receptive experience through listening or reading. There are four basic types of activity, which can be organized by teachers: 1- Controlled activities: To give students confidence and support. 2- Awareness activities: To increase sensitivity in students to what they             at are aiming. 3- Fluency activities: To give students the practice they need to use English for Communication. 4- Feedback tasks: To allow students to reflect on their own performance so that they become aware of areas in which they have to improve. Art of Speaking, that is, Ability to talk is a social advantage and a step towards advancement.

Success favours those who can speak and write well. Oral and Written communication should be considered essential in every field of activity. Speaking should offer numerous opportunities such as: Questions & Answers, Discussions, Dialogues, Role Plays, Language Games, etc. Being able to speak English well is becoming an increasingly important part of everyday living. Fluency in speech demands a great deal of practice, which is best done in life-like situations. Materials of teaching Speaking skills could be Speech Drills for Vowel & Consonant sound, Pronunciation Exercises, Role Play, Speech Practice Tasks, Functions, Different Actual Situations for usage etc. Learning how to speak takes time and effort. It is best done as part of a course, as well as paying specific attention to the skills and strategies of oral interaction, along with pronunciation on the one hand and on listening on the other. Lets take an example from ACE series of Orient Blackswan.

An activity of daily day-to-day life is taken, where students enact the following first in a controlled way as the dialogues are given and then a semi controlled activity where the situation is described and then the situation 3, where the students themselves decide the appropriacy of the dialogue. This can be followed by a home assignment where different groups give different situations to each other and ask them to weave the conversation around it. The teacher guides and facilitates the discourse to a suitable end.

Prof (Dr) Shefali Bakshi is the Deputy Director at Amity School of Languages. She has done a Project on “A Study of Verbal Interaction in Waiting for Godot” for the M.A. degree and has ompleted her PhD thesis on “A Study of Verbal Interaction in the plays of Samuel Beckett” for the Degree of Ph.D. at University of Lucknow, India. She has conducted over 75 workshops on ELT in various parts of India for school teachers and principals.