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Speaking fluency activities

One of the main requirements of modern teaching methodology is that EFL teachers should create an English speaking environment where students have real-life communication, activities, and tasks that promote oral language. This will occur when learners collaborate in small and big groups to complete a task and to achieve a goal. The ability to communicate in a second language clearly, fluently and efficiently contributes to the success of the learners in school and success in their future life. Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay considerable attention to teaching speaking, rather than leading the students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place is desired. In this regard the present article defines and describes main types of speaking activities which can be used in English classes for developing fluency. The article also presetns the analysis of those speaking activities and shows which of them are more preferable by English language teachers.

Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" [1, p. 13]. Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance.

In designing speaking activities or instructional materials for second language or foreign-language teaching, it is also important to recognize the very different functions speaking performs in daily communication and the different purposes for which the students need speaking skills.

The following speaking fluency activities make use of repetition and rehearsal and are discreet activities. It is also possible for theme-based work over several days to develop into fluency development opportunities. One of the most effective speaking activities are role plays, drama, discussion, jigsaw activities, simulations, debates etc.

In role plays activities, students are assigned roles and put into situations that they may eventually encounter outside the classroom. As role plays imitate life, the range of language functions that may be used expands considerably. Also, the role relationships among the students as they play their parts call for them to practice and develop their speaking skills and sociolinguistic competence. They have to use language that is appropriate to the situation and to the characters.

Drama refers more to informal drama as it is used in the language classroom and not on stage. The participants in the drama activities are thus learners and not actors. Drama provides an opportunity for a person to express himself through verbal expressions and gestures using his imagination and memory. Drama undoubtedly improves oral communication. As a form of communication methodology, drama provides the opportunities for the students to use language meaningfully and appropriately.

In discussion activities the students may have an aim to arrive to a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, the teacher sets the purpose of the discussion activity, so students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things. This activity fosters speaking skills, critical thinking and quick decision making. The students also learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others.

Jigsaw activities are more elaborate information gap activities that can be done with several partners. In a jigsaw activity, each partner has one or a few pieces of the "puzzle", and the partners must cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture. The puzzle piece may take one of several forms. It may be one panel from a comic strip or one photo from a set that tells a story. It may be one sentence from a written narrative. It may be a tape recording of a conversation, in which case no two partners hear exactly the same conversation.

Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For example, if a student is acting as a doctor, he can bring medical overall, special equipment and so on. Simulation activities motivate the students, increase their self-confidence, and help the students to develop fluency in a free way.

Role-playing debates are persuasive speaking events where a historical or fictitious event is used to establish the framework of the debate. Students may be asked to play the roles of particular characters or interests, or they might be allowed to be participants in a particular scene. Blending theatre with debate, these events are both fun and rewarding.

In information gap activity, students are supposed to work in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language.

The 4/3/2 technique was devised by Maurice [2, p. 29]. In this technique, learners work in pairs with one acting as the speaker and the other as listener. The speaker talks for four minutes on a topic while their partner listens. Then the pairs change with each speaker giving the same information to a new partner in three minutes, followed by a further change and a two-minute talk.

In brainstorming activity the students should produce ideas in a limited time and given topic. Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristic of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.

The best recording is a useful medical overall fluency activity involving a tape or digital recorder or the language laboratory. The learner speaks onto the tape talking about a previous experience or describing a picture or set of pictures. The learner listens to the recording noting any points where improvement could be made. Then the learner re-records the talk. This continues until the learner is contented with the recording. This technique can involve planning and encourages repetition through the setting of a quality-based goal.

In storytelling the students should briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell it to their classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking and develops students' speaking skills, especially if this activity is often used during the classes. It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have.

The story completion is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity where the students sit in a circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences. Students can add new descriptions, characters, events and so on. Such kind of activity helps the students to develop not only their speaking skills, but also teaches them to express their own opinion and develop their memory.

The reporting activity is very useful for fluency development. Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.

Students can also conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized. After making interviews, each student should present his or her study to the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class.

The ask and answer technique developed by Simcock [3, Pp. 1-7] is a follow-up to reading. The learners read a text to a high level of comprehension and then work in pairs with one learner questioning the other about the text from a list of teacher-prepared questions. The answers to these questions provide a summary of the ideas in the text. The aim of the activity is for learners to perform the asking and answering in front of the class at a high level of fluency, so each pair practises asking and answering several times before doing their class presentation.

Problem–solving activity stimulates real life situations and requires active student involvement. Interactive problem-solving tasks which learners undertake in small groups can facilitate language acquisition.

Interactive games help and encourage many learners to sustain their interest and work. The learners want to take part and in order to do so must understand what others are saying or have written, and they must speak or write in order to express their own point of view or give information. The aim of dedication of what the line ups represent. Games are meaningful and useful language in real contexts. Games can be used to give practice in all language skills and be used practice many types of communication.

Rehearsed talks involve learners using the pyramid procedure of preparing a talk individually, rehearsing it with a partner, practising it in a small group, and then presenting it to the whole class.

In playing cards activity the students should form groups of four or five. Each student in a group chooses a card. Then, each student writes 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. The teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that students are not allowed to prepare "yes-no" questions, because by saying "yes" or" no", the students get little practice in spoken language production. Rather, students ask open-ended questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences.

The picture narrating activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.

Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss the picture in their groups, and then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills.

For find the difference activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures, for example, picture of girls playing in the garden and another picture of boys playing on a field. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in presented pictures.

In newspaper talks activity each learner has to choose a short and interesting article from English language newspaper to present it to the class. The learner must not read the article aloud to the class but should describe the main points of the article. The class should then ask the presenter questions.

Nowadays many researchers, educators and EFL teachers agree that learners improve their speaking by "interacting". Communicative language teaching based on real-life situations as well as collaborative learning serve best to reach this goal. By using this method, learners will have the essential opportunity of communicating in the target language. One of the main requirements is that EFL teachers should create an English speaking environment where students have real-life communication, activities, and tasks that promote oral language. This will occur when learners collaborate in small and big groups to complete a task and to achieve a goal.

When creating or choosing activities which focus on students' speaking, teachers can choose activities relative to different types output and their purposes:

  • Structured output focuses on using a correct form, usually something specific that has been worked on in The purpose it to develop comfort with certain forms or structures.
  • Communicative output focuses less on form and more on the completion of a task that includes using specific language. The purpose is for the students to get their meaning across; accuracy not as big of a

When developing activities, lessons or tasks around speaking, teachers should also be aware of the 3 areas of knowledge that speaking encompasses. Each area should receive attention, though not necessarily all at once. It is advisable to inform the students of these areas, so they are aware of the purpose of the activities.

  • Mechanics: This area involves the different pieces that make up speaking including pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and word
  • Functions: This area describes the uses of speaking whether for transaction or interaction, and when precise understanding is or is not
  • Social/Cultural rules and norms: This area involves the more subtle cultural value inherent in the language’s culture, such as turn taking, roles of participants, social norms, etiquette and social register etc.

We fınd the analysis of listed activities to be of interest for checking what activities the teachers prefer more for speaking skills development.

The following chart shows the results of survey conducted among the English language teachers in schools of Kaskelen.

 

The present diagram shows a percentage ratio of the activities directed on speaking skills development which are preffered by English language teachers. It can be seen that such activities as discussion, debates (10,2 %), drama (10,1 %) and role–plays (9,9 %) can be considered as the most effective in fluency development, while jigsaw activities (8,3 %) are not used so frequently for this purpose because it is usually replaced by information gap activity. Such activities as information gap, inreviews, problem solving, storeytelling, brainstorming, reporting and simulations are also used by English langusge teachers, as they help to foster speaking skills and overcome anxiety, which can hamper the learning process.

Over half of the teachers said that they always try to include these in their lessons, so that the learning process of would be more productive and effective.

In conclusion it is worth noting that teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability to communicate in a second language clearly, fluently and efficiently contributes to the success of the learner in school and success in his/her future life. Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay considerable attention to teaching speaking, rather than leading the students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place is desired. With this aim, various speaking activities such as those listed above can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic communicative skills necessary for life. These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and interesting for them.

 

References:

  1. Chaney L., Burk T. L. Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8. – Allyn and Bacon, Order 
  2. Processing, PO Box 11071, Des Moi es, IA 50336-1071, 1998. – p.
  3. .Maurice The fluency workshop //TESOL Newsletter. – 1983. – Т. 17. – №. 4. – p. 29.
  4. Simcock Developing Productive Vocabulary Using the "Ask and Answer" 1993. – Т. 15. – №. 2. – Pp. 1-7.

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