[ELTWeekly Volume 7, Issue 3 | January 19, 2015 | ISSN 0975-3036]
Cambridge University Press team says, “Getting learners to talk in English is one of the most difficult challenges facing the teacher. One of the major reasons for this is that speaking – unlike listening, reading and writing – can only normally take place directly in interaction with an audience, in real time: so if you express yourself badly, hesitate, make mistakes – such failings are immediately exposed to the listener(s). Many learners feel uncomfortable and stressed in such a situation, even within a supportive classroom, and often prefer to keep quiet or use their mother tongue.
It has been suggested that we should not push students to speak, but let them work through a ‘silent period’. I don’t agree: I think that speaking is important, and promotes language learning in general. So I’ll be looking for ways to get students to speak in English, even at the earliest stages, with minimum stress and maximum success and enjoyment. In this webinar we’ll discuss the problems, and suggest some practical ideas as to how we might get such reluctant students to speak in English and feel good about doing so”.