25

strategies and
activities to boost your
students’ speaking skills
by Rhona Snelling
 What are
‘speaking skills’?

Speaking is one of the four language skills, sitting alongside Reading, Writing, and
Listening. It is an ‘output’ or ‘productive’ skill, because students produce an output of
sounds. It also known as an ‘active’ skill.

There are numerous sub-skills of speaking. These include:

† a command of the four language † the cognitive processes of

systems, i.e. lexis, grammar, speaking; in our first language (L1),
phonology, and discourse that entails selecting words from
an average lexicon size of 30,000
† phonology (or pronunciation), from
words and orally producing two
individual phonemes to elision to
to three words (or three to five
tone and pitch
syllables) per second (Rost, 2002)
† pragmatics, such as register,
† self-confidence, meaning the belief
formality, interaction, and turn-
in one’s own abilities.
taking
† communication strategies, such
as negotiating meaning, asking
for clarification, paraphrasing, and
substitution
† conversation skills, such as
listening attentively and actively,
and being able to comprehend
a variety of speakers (L1 English
speakers and L2 English speakers)
† non-verbal actions and behaviours,
such as body language, eye
contact, facial expressions,
miming, and gestures
† the biological processes of
speaking, such as the vocal organs
and the movement and positioning
of our tongue, teeth and lips
 7
classroom strategies
to boost speaking

1. Create opportunities for speaking

This may seem like an obvious point, but are there sufficient opportunities for your
students to meaningfully and purposefully practise their speaking skills in your classes? For
example, there are lessons dedicated to speaking within each unit of Speak Your Mind,
but the vast majority of lessons include smaller speaking activities throughout the lesson
anyway. These include inviting students to start thinking about the topic at the start of the
lesson or discussing the topic and their opinions at the end. There are structured speaking
activities, like pronunciation exercises for new vocabulary or communication strategies and
role plays.

2. Include a range of activity types

It is not only multiple opportunities that we want to create, but also a variety of activity
types. Is there a balance of fluency and accuracy activities? Are you including freer
discussion activities as well as pronunciation work? Can students prepare for freer speaking
activities through scaffolded activities that encourage ideas and provide the necessary
language before students have to produce the language? Are there opportunities for
students to practise their interaction skills and interpersonal skills by working with a new
partner or new group?

3. Discuss attitudes to speaking

We constantly observe and monitor our students in our lessons and it can be tempting to
hypothesise about their attitudes to speaking, but have you directly asked them for their
opinion? This can be done anonymously through a survey or openly in a group or class
discussion. It is useful to explain why you believe this skill is important (e.g. it activates
and consolidates new language, and it’s a life skill) and why you would like students to
participate (e.g. monitor progress). It is also important to acknowledge why it might be
undesirable for some students and to ask how you can make it more positive and enjoyable.

4. Set goals (and give rewards) for speaking

Why not discuss speaking goals with your students? These can be related to specific lessons
(e.g. I will not use my L1 in class today.), specific issues (e.g. I will practise /v/ and /w/
sounds.), short-term goals (e.g. I will take part in every class discussion this term.) or longer-
term goals (e.g. I will give a short presentation on a topic.). Committing to goals not only
encourages students to take an active and responsible role in their learning, but it provides
an objective and measurable achievement for your students. Hand in hand with goals is
rewards. Make sure you recognise and applaud each achievement, whether it was a defined
goal or a well-expressed opinion or a more reticent student volunteering an answer.
5. Provide representation of voices
Remind students of the English as Lingua Franca (ELF) environment we live in and that 80%
of English communication is between non-native speakers (Jenkins, 2000). It is important
therefore to encourage students to communicate in English (rather than any shared L1s) in
the classroom and to provide examples of non-native speaker accents. Providing examples
of L2 English speakers in your class (e.g. Speak Your Mind has a lesson on Mexican singer-
songwriter Lila Downs as well as many ‘Follow a Pro’ videos featuring non-native speakers)
offers potential role models that students can relate to.

6. Don’t forget language input

Speaking is one way of the many ways that teachers can monitor progress and
assess current competence. It is part of the evidence that learning has taken place; it
demonstrates that the input has been received, learnt or acquired, and then produced.
The input of new language must be maintained so that students have the correct language
to express themselves. If you notice there is a language deficit, then you can input this
language in a future lesson. If you notice there is a language error, then, again, you can
offer some input or feedback about this.

7. Give feedback on speaking

For fluency activities, you may choose to monitor a speaking activity and make a note
of any language you observed for feedback after the activity. This is because the aim
of a fluency activity is for students to speak freely and without interruption, so your
feedback would hinder the activity. The feedback after the activity could take the form of
individual feedback, e.g. a message or note with the correct language or a praise of good
language use. Alternatively, you could add the language examples (without attributing
to any speaker) on the board or screen for the whole class to either correct or notice
good language use. For accuracy activities, the correction typically occurs at the point of
utterance as the focus is on precision.
10
activities to practice
speaking in class

1. Watching videos with captions

Encourage students to watch English videos of any genre, such as songs, comedy,
interviews or film clips. Ask them to watch and listen with English captions to practise
intensive listening and reading. Then have students say the captions in the manner of the
speakers to practise controlled speaking. This will usually include useful intonation work and
new lexis, as well as more exposure to the grapheme-phoneme relationship.

2. Charades or Articulate!
These two activities focus on lexical items rather than fluent speaking. However, the very
nature of a competitive game usually encourages students to take an active role, whether
that’s calling out guesses for charades or providing descriptions and explanations for
Articulate! These activities can be carried out in groups or as a whole class.

3. Three facts
Tell students you are going to tell them three ‘facts’, but one of the facts is actually a lie.
Groups have to guess which is the lie by asking you three questions. Then they have to
make a decision about which is the lie. Then have students play the game in groups with
each student taking turns to say their three facts and to answer three questions from their
group, before confirming which fact is the lie.

4. Vanishing dialogue
Present the lines of a dialogue, for example, a conversation showing the communication
strategy of paraphrasing. Drill the dialogue with the whole class and have pairs practise
the dialogue together. Then remove (wipe from board or delete from screen) some of the
language – a word or phrase, part of a line, or a complete line – and have students repeat
the dialogue again and recall the missing language. Continue to repeat this process of
removing language and repeating the dialogue until, if possible, students can recall the
complete dialogue.

5. Information gap
In this activity, students work in pairs and each has a similar set of pre-prepared information
with Student A having one half of the information and Student B the other half. Students
ask each other questions in order to obtain the information they need from their partner.
The information could be based on real life facts or a role play between a customer wishing
to make a purchase and a seller. It can also take the form of a simple questionnaire to
find out more about their partner or to revise a topic or language area, such as free time
activities or adverbs of frequency.
6. Role plays
You could recycle a role play or a dialogue from the audio script of your coursebook or
you could provide a scenario and roles, based on your students’ needs and interests.
Ensure students have suitable language for the task and allow them time to prepare
before performing the actual role play. The semi-structured nature of role plays allows your
students to rehearse interactions in a partially spontaneous way and to gently develop
spoken confidence.

7. Never have I ever

To practise the present perfect, put students into groups and give each student five lives.
They take turns saying things they have never done, e.g. I have never ridden an elephant.
If any student has had this experience, they lose a life. Continue the game with the next
student saying their sentence, and so on. The winner is the student who has the most lives.

8. Find someone who …

Make a list of experiences or information. Have students mingle and talk to all their class
mates in an attempt to match a classmate to the experience or information. For example,
if an item on the list was find someone who takes the tram to college, then students would
ask each other how they travelled to college. This activity encourages students to speak to
a greater number of classmates than the average spoken activity and it is an effective way
for a new class to get to know each other.

9. Topic smorgasbord
Give your students the names of about 15 topics and have them select three to five
favourite topics for future lessons. You could include topics from your coursebook as well as
topics you know your students are interested in – and you could ask them to offer their own
ideas. This decision-making activity is a useful way to observe how your students interact,
the level of interest in different topics, their interpersonal skills and their general use of
language.

10. Talk for one minute

Give the class a list of topics that you have recently covered in class. Then put students into
groups and have them take turns to each talk about one of the topics for one minute. (You
can adjust the time to reflect the level of your students: less time for lower levels, more
time for higher levels.) This practises fluency but could include a subsequent feedback
stage if you monitor the activity and note errors or good language usage.
 8
activities to practice
speaking outside of class

Set speaking activities for your students outside of class, which also develop digital skills,
collaboration and confidence. For example:

1. read a text aloud and record it for controlled practice and pronunciation practice (as
well as reading practice)

2. roleplay (and record) a dialogue from the audioscript for further controlled practice

3. record a conversation with a classmate that practises a topic and/or language from
the class

4. learn a short clip from a song/movie and record or perform it, if your students enjoy
drama and music

5. send an audio message to the class through a WhatsApp group for freer practice and
to build relationships

6. phone your teacher and leave a voicemail describing your day to practice past tenses
or narrative tenses

7. make a personal video diary and send it to the teacher for freer practice and to create
a snapshot of competence at the time

8. work in a group to write and present a skit for class, if your students enjoy drama
and writing.

References
Jenkins, J. 2000. The phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford University
Press.
Rost, M. 2002. Teaching and Researching Listening 2nd edition Pearson.
Better thinking and confident
communication transforms lives

Scan to learn
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the course

SPEAK YOUR MIND helps young adults to develop

effective communication skills with a focus on speaking
English in both local and global scenarios. It provides
students with coping strategies designed to increase
their confidence in a variety of situations.