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- Article: Helping Adult and Young Learners to Communicate in Speaking Classes with
Confidence

- Written by Ali Derakhshan, Farahnaz Tahery, and Nasrin Mirarab

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This article, written by Ali Derakhshan, Farahnaz Tahery, and Nasrin Mirarab, aims to
provide some suggestions on how to help adult and young learners improve their speaking. Also,
some practical ways how teachers can motivate their students. Learning a foreign language is
something that is experienced or mastered differently from EFL (English as Foreign Learners)
and ESL (English as Second Language). This experience is extremely challenging for both
parties, students and teachers. But the most important role is motivation, as students through it
can improve one of the most important skills which is Speaking. This skill is one of the most
overlooked in traditional methods and some teachers do not present examples from everyday life
but they focus only on textbooks.

Based on the authors of this article, a healthy relationship between teacher and student and
student-student encourages learners and has satisfactory results in classroom and community
speaking. The role of the teacher is very important in encouraging ESL learners to participate in
various conversations and to communicate without stress and without the feeling that they can
laugh at them for any inaccurate words. Some problems that students encounter when learning a
foreign language are anxiety, low motivation, language connection when they want to express
themselves, ridicule from other students when they do not know something specific, and the
correction that teachers make from time to time. Teachers are at the center when it comes to
student motivation. They are aware that this work is very difficult but they still try to get the best
results for the students. When students are motivated then there is no room for anxiety. The
environment that surrounds them is one of the most important factors because if they are in a
supportive environment, then learning English will become easier. Also working in groups
makes them step out of their comfort zone and talk more freely about certain topics.
We often think that teachers are there to correct us and show us what is right. Is it always the
teacher's job to correct students and interrupt them whenever they are wrong?

Usually, students get depressed and lose their motivation to move on when teachers correct
them too often. If teachers were to correct only important mistakes it would be a better way than
interrupting students. This would cause them to lose the thread and become distracted. Creating
thoughts in a second language is very difficult, but if the students were interrupted then it would
become even more difficult. One method that is widely used is the traditional one. For many
years this method has been focused on reading texts in books, memorizing various dialogues, and
repetition of drills. According to various studies, it has turned out that this method makes
students feel bored in class. They are not able to express themselves freely or have the ability to
express their thoughts about situations in everyday life. What students learn most are the
grammar, vocabulary, and texts found in the books. But Autonomy is considered a very
important factor in the ability to speak. There are five types of practice; resource-based,
technology-based, learner-based, classroom, and curriculum-based.

This text also presents different ways in which Speaking can be improved. One of those ways
is visual devices. Some of these visual devices are pictures, flashcards, and graphs. These can be
used while learners make their presentations. This text also presents three very important factors
in adult proficiency L2 learning. As a start is Maturational Constraints which have to do with the
maturation of an individual. The aging process can affect the pronunciation or failure to
pronounce words. They certainly know how to pronounce well but intonation, stress and
phonological errors make them have communication problems. The second is Aural Medium
which means hearing is very important in improving speech. The third is Sociocultural Factors
which have to do with the use of language which in context is different from one culture to
another. So in order to have the most positive results, students need to know the rules of that
language.

The results of all these activities are very positive for the students. One of the results is that
learners are able to have high self-confidence and have a lot of confidence when speaking in
front of a wide audience. One of the other results is that they will be motivated and will be able
to learn faster and better. Motivation is the key to many problems that learners face in general.
Expanding their knowledge and getting out of the comfort zone is another result that makes a
huge difference.

In conclusion, this research provides many functional aspects of how we can help learners
communicate in speaking classes with confidence. Teachers often focus on traditional methods
and forget that learners need to expand their skills. To stick in language materials or textbooks
makes them fail to motivate students and as a result, will not have the desired result and success.
Teachers can use these materials presented above for languages other than English. The ideas
presented in this article give us creativity and reflection. Teachers can reflect on themselves and
wonder if students are achieving the desired success or not.