Section 2 Teaching Speaking

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I.Thinking

【Case Reflection】

Mr B has a speaking class for grade one students in a junior school. First, he selects a dialogue with three characters, and divides all the students into groups of three. Then he asks each student in the group to select a role to practise the dialogue. Finally, the groups act it out for the whole class.

Please identify the merits and shortcomings in the above speaking class, and make suggestions for further improvement.

II.Communication and Communicative Competence

The final goal of foreign language teaching is to foster students' communicative competence. But what is communication? What is communicative competence?

(I) Ideas behind communication

Communication includes oral communication and written communication, and both require the participation of two parties. In effective communication, the speaker or author must have an objective for communication, that is, he or she must have a need to convey or express his or her thought. At the same time, the speaker or author must possess the language competence to express himself or herself, and the listeners or readers must also possess an objective for communication and an array of language skills. Otherwise, there is no communication. (See Figure 10-1) .

Figure 10-1 Communication model

Because of the different roles that the speaker and listener play in the communication process, communication can be considered a process of explicit expression and inference. When a speaker delivers his/her message and expresses his/her intention, the listener should infer the speaker's intention and potential purpose according to the information received. When the listener's inference and the speaker's intention are identical, the communication is complete.

There are two types of communication: verbal and non-verbal communication. Research has shown that in our daily communication, the vast majority of information is transmitted through non-verbal means, such as gestures, intonation, and facial expressions.

(II) Ideas behind communicative competence

The term communicative competence was coined by D.H. Hymes in 1972.Hymes believes that linguistic knowledge and competence can be largely covered by four terms: possibility, feasibility, performance and appropriateness. On the basis of Hymes' model, M. Canale and M. Swain propose a complex communicative model, including linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. Based on Canale's theory, L. F. Bachman proposes another communicative model. It has three focuses: linguistic competence, strategic competence and psychophysiology mechanism.

In other words, communication competence is a complex concept, involving many factors, such as language, choice of words, society, culture, psychology and emotion etc. Among other things it includes:

(1) Language knowledge, that is, competence in making up sentences and texts;

(2) Cognitive competence, that is, a person's cognitive and intelligence level, as well as the ability to reflect and master world knowledge, etc.

(3) Cultural knowledge, referring to knowledge about cultures and customs;

(4) Style knowledge, referring to the ability to select words and discourse with different register to communicate in a way that is appropriate to the audience and the purpose of the communication;

(5) Other knowledge, including knowledge of non-verbal communications, such as gestures, facial expressions, etc.

(6) Emotional factors, referring to a person's social attitude, communicative motivation, personality, character and habits, etc. (Shu Dingfang, 2008: 85)

10.2.1.3 Models of developing oral communicative competence

1) The Model of language production

Proposed by Mr Levelt, the model of language production includes the following five parts:

●Knowledge: This consists of descriptive knowledge and procedural knowledge;

●Concept-forming mechanism: The speaker chooses the descriptive knowledge that is in line with his/her intentions, and organizes it to form the pre-verbal message;

●Synthesizing mechanism: The speaker selects appropriate words, grammar structures and phoneme rules to transform the pre-verbal message into a discourse plan.

●Articulating mechanism: The speaker transforms the phonetic plan into actual speech.

●Speech comprehension system: The language plan and the produced speech are processed by the speech comprehension system through the auditory system, so that mistakes can be identified.

2) Model of developing oral competence

According to Shiffin & Schneider and Anderson, an action becomes skilled when descriptive knowledge is transformed into procedural knowledge. Foreign language learners' oral competence is developed in three stages. The first stage is the “descriptive knowledge” stage. In this stage, learners are exposed to the target language and have an understanding of the skills that are needed, including grammar principles, vocabulary, phonetic knowledge, cultural knowledge and strategic knowledge. But as they still don't know how to use this knowledge, learners have to go through controlled processing to transform descriptive knowledge into procedural knowledge. In the second stage, learners practise how to apply the descriptive knowledge learnt in the first stage and transform it into procedural knowledge. Therefore, the second stage is known as the “program knowledge forming” stage. The third stage focuses on the reconstruction of the “procedural knowledge”. Learners creatively reorganize and restructure their knowledge and improve the efficiency of language use.

II.Teaching Speaking

Communication refers to oral and written communication. We will introduce written communication in the next chapter. In this chapter we will focus on oral communication.

(I) Stages of teaching speaking

In oral communication, information goes through three stages: input, central processing and production. The process of teaching speaking starts with input, then controlled output and finally ends with creative output. Some scholars divide speaking development into three stages: silent period, constructive period and strategic development period. Some classify them into yet another three components: “comprehensive mastery, productive mastery and creative application”. All these learning processes go from knowledge to competence, from mechanical to creative production.

Therefore, the process of building communication competence is both staged and developmental. Through the different stages of the process, students can gradually transform their knowledge into skills, from practice in a controlled condition to a free condition, and eventually be able to clearly and freely express their own emotions and opinions in English, thus achieving better English oral communicative competence.

(II) Goals of teaching speaking

As mentioned above, the development of oral communicative competence should be approached step-by-step. Therefore, the goals of teaching speaking are different at different development stages. The National Curriculum Standards establishes detailed requirements for each level. The basic requirements for levels 1 to 4 are for students to be able to grasp basic speaking skills, conduct simple dialogues, describe their own experience, etc. The requirements for level 5 are for students to express their own ideas and points of view, take part in discussions, converse in dialogues according to the context, and act in short plays. At level 8, the requirements are for students to be able to express personal intentions and emotions with the appropriate intonation, tone and rhythm; discuss and establish projects according to learning goals; make a three-minute speech with preparation; and effectively express their own emotions in daily life.

Oral expression is a productive skill, not only requiring accuracy but also fluency. Non-verbal language skills also influence communication. But among the teaching goals, appropriateness is the most important, and appropriateness itself includes accuracy. Therefore, accuracy, fluency and appropriateness are equally important.

(III) Principles of teaching speaking

The principles of teaching speaking is a theoretical basis without which oral teaching will lose direction. Teaching speaking includes the following five principles:

1) Balance of fluency and accuracy

Oral expression is a productive skill. It requires fluency, accuracy and appropriateness. Developing fluency is the priority in teaching speaking, followed by accuracy and appropriateness. Teachers should design practices that imitate real-life situations to encourage students to use language freely.

2) Activities centred on language meaning

The motivation behind language activity in everyday life is not the language itself, but the content of language, i.e. the information people want to express and exchange. Language activities without information exchange lack relevance and students will lose interest in these activities very quickly. In the process of teaching speaking, teachers should focus students' attention on language meaning, and not the use of language form. Therefore, in order to keep students engaged in speaking activities, teachers should focus on language meaning.

3) Information-gap

Well-organized activities are often effective in encouraging students to speak up in class. But the key reason is not in the form of the teaching but in the underlying information gap. However, an information gap itself will not lead to dialogue; dialogue happens because of the context and the need for information. Therefore, when teachers design speaking tasks, they should efficiently employ information gap and individual differences to design various challenging and attractive speaking activities in order to help students improve their oral communicative competence.

4) Contextualized practice

One objective in teaching speaking is for the student to speak appropriately in different contexts. However, Chinese students often lack the opportunity to practise speaking in a real life context. To attend to this, teachers can set up a context for students to practise the target language structure according to different teaching content. These contexts should relate to the students' experience and interests, such as, lifestyle, the environment, learning habits etc., and help students to experience realistic contexts and further motivate them to speak.

5) Developing speaking strategies

When people have difficulties communicating with each other, speakers and listeners often apply communication strategies to make themselves better understood. Communicative strategies include asking for explanation, confirmation, paraphrase, approximation, coinage, circumlocution, borrowing, language switching, gesturing, mime, avoidance and so on. Teachers can promote the development of these strategies in class in order to improve their students' communicative competence.

(IV) Content of teaching speaking

This includes five components: language form, language content, functions, culture and strategies.

1.Language form

Language form involves tones and intonation, vocabulary, grammar and their application. Tones and intonation include intonation knowledge and pronunciation skills, such as, syllable stress, weak forms, liaison, aspiration, reduced form, group meaning, pause etc. Vocabulary and grammar mainly refer to the ability to use vocabulary and grammar knowledge in oral communicative tasks. Language form teaching requires language accuracy, fluency and variety.

2.Language content

This includes broad background knowledge and experience, which students draw on so that they can make meaningful, sensible, logical expressions.

3.Function

Communicative activities are the application of language functions. Students have to grasp a variety of communicative functions, such as, greeting, apologizing, extending invitations, making suggestions, expressing gratitude, gathering information, soliciting suggestions, etc.

4.Cultural knowledge

Appropriateness in communication requires students to grasp cultural knowledge, including general cultural principles and communication principles between different cultures. Culture influences language mainly on the structure of word meaning and on the organizational structure of discourse.

5.Strategies

Non-verbal communicative competence requires students to grasp appropriate strategies. The strategies mainly refer to communication strategies and conversation techniques, which involve initiating, maintaining, changing and ending a conversation, as well as getting attention, offering understanding, interrupting, avoiding, decoding, paraphrasing, clearing misunderstanding, asking for help, etc. Conversation techniques also include different pre-sequence techniques, such as, pre-invitation, pre-request, pre-announcement, etc.

10.2.2.5 Models of teaching speaking

There are two major models in teaching speaking: the PPP teaching model and the task-based teaching model.

1) PPP teaching model

The PPP model is the model of presentation-practice-production. The teaching process progresses from controlled to free practice, from mechanical to communicative production, from accuracy to fluency. The teaching goals at each stage are simple to implement and easy to check.

●Presentation

There are two objectives in this stage. One is to establish form, meaning and function; the other is to lead into the topic and activate schema in preparation for practice. The main content includes grammar, structure, function, communication skills, etc. There are many ways of presenting the content, such as through examples, explanation, demonstration, role-plays, with help of pictures, cartoons, movie segments, etc.

●Practice

In the practice stage, controlled and half-controlled activities can be employed. Teachers should give ample opportunities for students to practise their new knowledge as much as they can to improve their accuracy of language use. Common activities include information gap, dialogues, timeline cards, dialogues with cue cards, finding someone who, speaking with pictorial prompts, putting pictures in order, etc.

●Production

This stage introduces communicative and creative activities in order to apply the knowledge in new contexts and solve new problems. Activities in this stage include role-plays, interviews, debating, discussion, retelling, etc.

2) Task-based model

This model follows the process of Pre-task, While-task and Post-task, that is, the PWP model. The goal of completing the tasks is the starting point of the teaching, and the learning of linguistic knowledge and skills happens in this process of completing the tasks. When teachers design tasks, they should pay attention to the function of information transfer, the characteristics of the communication and the authenticity of the task. Task completion is the most important goal, and the evaluation of students is based on the outcome. Each stage of the process is detailed below:

●Pre-task

The main objective of Pre-task is to prepare students and equip them with language knowledge such as, phonetics, vocabulary and drills, and general background knowledge related to the topic. Such preparation will give students enough information input, so that they possess sufficient speaking materials and have a solid foundation for the practice.

●While-task

At this stage, students are divided into groups. They can actively finish tasks with the teacher's help and instructions. In this process, students select information and absorb background knowledge which will help them build their own bank of materials for speaking. During the process of completing the task, students discuss in groups and help each other. In this way, they will develop learner autonomy, deepen their interests and build their creativity.

●Post-task

In this stage, teachers should conclude the tasks and comment on the results. Firstly, teachers should affirm and encourage the students and give positive feedback. They should also point out the mistakes and offers ways to improve. Teachers do not need to go into the details of every mistake, but instead sum up the common mistakes made by students. Teachers should offer conclusions on the target language that can be used in the tasks and help the students to grasp the oral expressions, so that when the students are in a similar context in the future, they will be able to communicate accurately and appropriately.

(VI) Activities in teaching speaking

1.Activities in teaching speaking

Speaking teaching activities should include three levels: controlled or mechanical activities, semi-controlled or semi-mechanical activities and open or creative activities. Controlled or mechanical activities mainly refer to language training activities. Semi-controlled or semi-mechanical activities and open or creative activities mainly refer to the activities that activate the functional awareness and communication activities. Details of the oral teaching activities are as follows:

Table 10-3 Types of Speaking Activities and Examples

2.Multimedia activities

The design of context in teaching speaking is very important, and multimedia offers an effective way of creating contexts. Teachers can design the context of the dialogue and organize communication activities with the help of pictures, cartoons and movie clips. In addition, they can use movies as a topic for discussion, story retelling, predicting the development, scene imagination, cultural comparisons, role-plays, drama adaptation, writing original drama, movie reflection, etc.

III.Chapter Summary

This chapter mainly discussed the teaching models and organization principles of teaching skills in elementary and middle schools. Listening and speaking are not only two major learning goals, but also the outermost layer of language knowledge. In Section 1, we discussed the content related to teaching listening and speaking. The section helped us to gain a fundamental understanding and the overall picture so that we can improve the efficiency of teaching speaking. In Section 2, we discussed the role of listening in language skills and the content of teaching English listening. We discussed and analysed in detail the content of listening comprehension, key features of listening in daily life, and listening comprehension models. In the listening process, we focused on teaching content. In teaching listening, we covered teaching content, methods and activities. We believe this part will provide teachers with a reliable theoretical basis for teaching listening.

The vibrancy of language lies in its authenticity and communicative functions. Therefore, fostering and developing language skills are the key point and ultimate motivation for elementary and middle school English teaching. Studying this chapter can help us realize that language teaching should be rooted in the reality of our everyday lives.