Speaking and Writing workshop

Speaking
hello
世界
hello
明天
 Speaking Descriptors
Find the statements:

Match them to the right criteria

Match them to the correct band
 “Why do Chinese students achieve
lower in speaking?”
• Don’t develop communicative skills
• Speaking opportunities too limited
• Lack exposure to listening and speaking
• Comes down to practice, no short-cuts
 Speaking
assessment criteria
 Speaking assessment criteria
Fluency and Coherence
Lexical Resource
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Pronunciation

Look for download on website:

www.chinaielts.org
 Key terms
Fluency and Coherence
 Key terms
Fluency and Coherence
• speak at length
• organise your ideas
• signpost what you say
• discuss and justify opinions and issues
• avoid long pauses or continuous hesitation
What’s the best way to develop fluency?
• develop confidence so fluency will come
• do pre-speaking tasks that focus on vocabulary by
theme
• understand that fluency activities allow for
acquisition of language and are crucial
Speaking part 1 activity
Three replies
 Activities that promote fluency
Which is the odd one out?
group discussions e.g. ranking discussion
open-ended Q&A activities
role-plays without a script
dictation/reading aloud
hello
f

tasks and problem solving

 “My students refuse to talk–
they only give one word answers”
• empathise and encourage – students must feel safe
and secure to try
• build confidence gradually
• make it easier for students to start: provide a demo
or time to prepare
• Practise, practise, practise! No short-cuts
 Key terms
Lexical Resource
 resource
Lexical
Lexical Resource
• Range and accuracy of vocabulary
• Less common vocabulary
• Idiomatic expressions
• Collocation
• Word choice
• Paraphrasing
Less common vocabulary - movies
People Places/ Terminology
Objects
 Reflection: Vocabulary brainstorming
What’s the purpose of this activity?
• expands vocabulary as students share what they
know (they can learn from each other)
• activates vocabulary by topic
• helps memory and contextual usage
do regularly at the start of lessons
use mind maps or categories to organise
 Phrasal Verbs
Reasons for using phrasal verbs:

• Part of ‘idiomatic language’

• Easier to learn / adapt
• Easier to use in a wider variety of situations
Vocabulary/Fluency Activity
 Hot seat
• an editor
• Popcorn
• Hollywood
• IMAX
• hero
• subtitles
• special effects
 Reflection: Hot Seat
What’s the purpose of this activity?
• revises/recycles vocabulary
• generates the need to paraphrase
• changes the mood of the classroom

decide target vocabulary in themes or review of

recently learned vocabulary
 Grammar
Grammatical Range and
Accuracy
 Grammatical range and accuracy

Range of structures
Tenses linked to context
Impact of errors
 Grammar
Complex sentences
These are made up of verb phrases and/or multiple
clauses
•Just beside the station is an old stadium, which I think
must have been built in the 19th century if you look at
the architecture, but it’s still used for games and
matches.
 Grammar
Complex sentences
• Nowadays everyone has a mobile phone
• Who? What? Why?
‘Nowadays people of all ages have a mobile phone, especially
smartphones as you can do so many things with them, I
guess’
• Balance of simple and complex structures
 “Should I correct all mistakes made
when a student is speaking?”

• Fluency is arguably a priority over accuracy,

especially if developing confidence
• Teachers can still note errors and highlight or discuss
after activity to help raise awareness
 Pronunciation
sounds
word
linking stress

weak forms features chunking

intonation sentence
stress
 Pronunciation Games
‘minimal pairs’

ɔ: ɜ:
W____K W____K
Pronunciation Games
‘minimal pairs’

e ei
l__t l__te
 IELTS Speaking:
Applying
Band Descriptors
 On your paper…
Band Score
F.C.
L.R.
G.R.A.
Pron.
Overall
Candidate 1
 Official comments:

FC Generally maintains Insufficient extension

flow of speech Some hesitation
Simple speech produced
with fluency
Mechanical and always
Range of connectives at beginning

Well I think so honestly ...

As I said …
In my opinion …
 Official comments:

LR
Sufficient for general Repetitive
trends

We can relax, we can hobbies (no synonyms

enjoy… used like leisure,
Also in my case … pastimes etc)
 Official comments:

GRA Control of basic Limited range – little

sentences complexity
Errors regularly

I used to go fishing I think its good for social ...

He wants to spend a lot of
time for hobbies …
It’s depend on people …
 Official comments:

PRON
Generally clear Mispronunciation
individual words –

Marked stress and

intonation patterns

Deflation
Fishing rods
Work (walk)
Band achieved:

Band 5
Candidate 2
 Official comments:

FC
gives long, complex and very detailed
responses without any loss of coherence,
repetition or language searches
uses a wide range of discourse markers
naturally and precisely

Nowadays competition is quite big because of the unemployment

so everybody is really putting in a lot of overtime…
… for the next ten years till the economy again picks up…
 Official comments:
LR

LR
wide range of vocabulary only occasional
allows a high degree of inaccuracies or slight
precision and flexibility inappropriacies
stylistically appropriate
language

Competition is quite big

 Official comments:

GRA
a wide range of complex some examples of
structures inappropriate choice of
tense and other occasional,
majority of sentences non-systematic errors
error-free

If you do it in a community then you, Everybody is also relax

in a way, share time with people and If you would have a hobby
have the opportunity to get to know
each other better
 Official comments:

PRON
easy to understand occasional
throughout the test in mispronunciations of
spite of her accent individual phonemes
which have minimal
uses a wide range of effect on
features, such as communication
intonation and contrastive
stress, to convey
meaning
Band achieved:

Band 8
 Resources
Useful resources for
students and teachers
www.ielts.org
British Council Learn English
LearnEnglish website
Resources
Cambridge ESOL
CESOL teacher support website
British Council Teaching English

TeachingEnglish website
TeachingEnglish website
www.chinaielts.org
BBC 6 Minute English

Great for listening to

conversations about
a variety of topics
BBC Words in the News
 IELTS examiners
Recruitment
Standardised
Monitored

Opportunities for you to become involved too!

www.britishcouncil.org.cn
 Any queries?

Teacher trainer
Mark.O’Sullivan@britishcouncil.org.cn
Marketing contact
Yi.Wen@britishcouncil.org.cn
THANK YOU