1

Sérgio Acapito

Teaching speaking skills through communicative activities. A case study of Mapara

Secondary School, 9th grade.

(“Licenciatura” Degree in English language teaching)

Universidade Rovuma
Nampula
2022
 2

Sérgio Acapito

Teaching speaking through communicative activities.

A proposal to be submitted to the
Department of Letters and Social Sciences,
in partial fulfilment of the subject Conclusão
do Curso.

Lecturer: Bernabé Cachele, MA & MBA

Universidade Rovuma
Nampula
2022
 3

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................5
1. Background to the study..............................................................................................................5
1.2. Problem statement.................................................................................................................5
1.3. Research Objectives..................................................................................................................6
1.3.1. General objective...............................................................................................................6
1.3.2. Specific objectives.............................................................................................................6
1.4. Critical questions...................................................................................................................6
1.5. Hypothesis.............................................................................................................................6
1.6. Merit of the study..................................................................................................................6
1.6. Scope and Limitation............................................................................................................7
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................................................8
1. SPEAKING..................................................................................................................................8
1.1. Definitions of Speaking........................................................................................................8
1.2. Aspects of speaking skills.....................................................................................................8
1.3. Types of speaking.................................................................................................................9
2. TEACHING SPEAKING............................................................................................................9
2.1. The characteristics of successful speaking activities..........................................................10
2.2. Reasons for teaching speaking............................................................................................10
2.3. Principles of teaching speaking skills.................................................................................11
3. COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES..........................................................................................11
3.1. Types of Communicative Activities...................................................................................12
3.2. Principles for designing speaking techniques.....................................................................13
3.3. Purpose of communicative activities..................................................................................14
Structure of the work.....................................................................................................................15
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY................................................16
3.1 Research paradigm...............................................................................................................16
3.2. Research Approach.............................................................................................................16
3.3. Research Design..................................................................................................................16
3.4. Instruments..........................................................................................................................17
3.5. Target Population................................................................................................................18
Table 1: Target population............................................................................................................18
3.5.1 Sample and sampling technique........................................................................................18
 4

3.6. Data analysis techniques.....................................................................................................19

Bibliography..................................................................................................................................20
 5

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
This section summarises the preliminary elements of this paper. The focus is on the background
to this study, problem statement, objectives, critical questions, merit of the study, delimitation
and structure of the work.

1. Background to the study

The learning of English as a foreign language has become an essential process due to its
importance. The learning process of English in our country has been a topic for discussion,
especially in teenagers since most of them are motivated to learn it, and they study English
because it is a mandatory subject in high school. Therefore, it is essential that teachers look for
different ways to engage students in the learning of the target language. The use of learning
strategies in class could be a useful tool to make students become active participants and get
involved in the learning process inside and outside the classroom.
English is not only one of the most spoken languages around the world but a language that
allows people to get better opportunities in different fields. Therefore, the teaching of the English
language is essential to education.
The purpose of this study is to analyse the methodological strategies that teacher uses in the
classroom to develop speaking skills through communicative activities.
Given the results, some alternatives will be offered to solve the methodological problems in the
ability to speak the language.
1.2. Problem statement
During the teaching practice, it was found out that most of the grade 9 students at Mapara
Secondary School fail to productive speaking skills. The worst part was when the students were
before free writing tasks, assigned at the Practice as well as Production stage, in a PPP lesson;
most students deviated and proved not to be capable for them in speaking. Apart from that, the
use of this textbook has limited students to work individually, which can make the learning
process ineffective. In other words, there is no climax learning. Moreover, teacher often focuses
on writing, and therefore other skills are taught in a low percentage.

As a result of this scenario, it was decided to search for the answers to the following question:
“What do language teachers consider the main challenges of students in the speaking skills?
 6

1.3. Research Objectives

1.3.1. General objective

 Study the challenges of students in the speaking skills through communicative activities.

1.3.2. Specific objectives

 To identify resources used by the teacher interaction between the teacher and students in
speaking skill.

 Find strategic activities that can be helpful for engaging students in the English-speaking
process.
 Propose teaching strategies to improve orality in students learning in English classes.
1.4. Critical questions

 Why do most of grade 9 students face challenges in the speaking skills?

 What interaction patterns predominate in the class?

 Do the teachers use different methodological strategies to engage students speaking? if yes,
what are the techniques?
1.5. Hypothesis
 Maybe the teachers don’t use effective communicative activities in the ELT settings, to
practise speaking.
 Perhaps the students are not motivated in learning the English language as other students
do;
 Maybe the teachers don’t know the wide variety of communicative activities that exist for
communicative activities purposes.
1.6. Merit of the study

English language is learned in Mozambique from grade six up to grade twelve with zero progress
in speaking skills. A large group of practitioners tend to relate it with large classes. It is for this
reason that it was decided to conduct this study with the aim of analysing the influences of large
classes on the teaching of speaking skills.
 7

This study is very important for it will enable Mozambican teachers teaching in large class
contexts to adopt the techniques and the procedures that might be brought by it. Thus, improving
learning of speaking skill and improve the learning of English language as a whole. Therefore,
this study will help both the teachers and the Ministry of Education of Mozambique
significantly. Hence, studies like this represent a gain for the process of teaching and learning.

1.6. Scope and Limitation

This study tackles the speaking skills through communicative activities. The target school is
Mapara Secondary School. It is located in Nampula Province. The study was carried out with
stream A grade nine (09). It involved all the students of the class.
 8

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

1. SPEAKING
1.1. Definitions of Speaking
When speaking skills are discussed, many are likely to relate to public speaking context.
However, speaking is more than that. Speaking may cover many purposes such as daily
conversation, when talking to a boss, when asking for something, giving information.

When someone can speak a language, it means that he/she can carry on a conversation
reasonably and competently. The standard of this ability is that when the discourse goals are
successfully accomplished. Along with the conversational discourse, the oral communication
also involves pronunciation, accuracy and fluency, affective aspects, and the interaction
outcome, (BROWN, 2001).
CANALE (1980), understands speaking as a productive skill that involves using speech to
express meaning to other people. In the process of speaking, people have to pronounce words,
use intonation and use stress properly. It is because they are all connected to each other in which
the listener can get the message of the conversation.

1.2. Aspects of speaking skills

There are a number of important features in English speaking ability.
According to NUNAN (1999), fluency is natural language use occurring when a speaker conveys
the intended message in a meaningful conversation despite limitation in his or her
communicative competence. The speaker should be able to use any resources and abilities
regardless of grammatical and other mistakes. While accuracy focuses on creating correct
examples of language use, using accurate grammar and pronunciation.
Fluency is developed by creating classroom activities in which students must negotiate meaning,
use communication strategies, correct misunderstandings and work to avoid communication
breakdowns.
 9

1.3. Types of speaking

According to BROWN (2001:271-274), Intensive speaking is meant to practice phonological or
grammatical aspect of language. Usually intensive speaking is self-initiated but it can also be
performed in pair work activities to examine certain forms of language. The next type of
speaking performance is responsive speaking. In the classroom, responsive speaking can be seen
as short replies to teacher or students’ comments or questions towards the teacher. Other
examples of responsive speaking are common greetings, simple requests.

Interactive speaking is easily recognized as a dialogue. Interactive speaking consists of

transactional and interpersonal dialogues. The purpose of transactional speaking is to exchange
specific information. This type of speaking is the extended form of responsive speaking. The
other type of interactive speaking is interpersonal speaking. Interpersonal speaking is interaction
which promotes social relationship, (BROWN, 2001:271-274).

2. TEACHING SPEAKING
“Teachers get very involved with their students during a speaking activity and want to participate
in the activity themselves! They may argue forcefully in a discussion or get fascinated by a role-
play and start ‘playing’ themselves”, (HARMER 2007:132)
Sometimes, however, teachers will have to intervene in some way if the
activity is not going smoothly. If someone in a role-play cannot think of
what to say, or if a discussion begins to dry up, the teacher will have to
decide if the activity should be stopped - because the topic has run out of
steam - or if careful prompting can get it going again. That is where the
teacher may make a point in a discussion or quickly take on a role to
push a role- play forward. Prompting is often necessary but, as with
correction, teachers should do it sympathetically and sensitively.
HARMER (2007:124) says, “As with all other skills, what starts as a speaking activity may very
well lead on to writing - or the speaking activity itself may develop from a reading text, or after
listening to an audio track”.
 10

2.1. The characteristics of successful speaking activities

UR (1991:120), there are four characteristics of successful speaking activities:

(i) Learners talk a lot

As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learner
talk. This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talk or poses.
(ii) Participation is even
Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants; all get a chance to
speak, and contributions are fairly evenly distributed.

(iii) Motivation is high

Learners are eager to speak: because they are interested in the topic and have something new to
say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving task objective.
(iv) Language is of an acceptable level
Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other,
and of an acceptable level of accuracy.
2.2. Reasons for teaching speaking

HARMER (2007:123) states that there are three main reasons for getting students to speak in the
classroom:

 Provide rehearsal opportunities - chances to practice real-life speaking in the safety of the
classroom;
 Students try to use any or all of the language they know, it provides feedback for both
teacher and students. Everyone can see how well they are doing: both how successful
they are, and also what language problems they are experiencing;
 The more students have opportunities to activate the various elements of language they
have stored in their brains, the more automatic their use of these elements become. As a
result, students gradually become autonomous language users. This means that they will
be able to use words and phrases fluently without very much conscious thought.
 11

2.3. Principles of teaching speaking skills

According to ANURADHA et al (2014), following are the principles of teaching speaking skills:

 Encourage students to speak right from the first day. If not, as early as possible and not to
wait till she teaches them a stock of words, phrases or sentences.
 Tolerate the students if some of them simply repeat what they say.
 If a student gives one-word answer to any question, bear it for the time being.
 Let the learners speak actively with whatever English knowledge they have.
 Propose structures/phrases/words and let the learners use it in different situation and drill
as much as possible.
 Encourage back-chaining or tail-forwarding technique to make long sentences by
combining more than ten sentences.
 Organize role play and pair-work as much as possible and supervise the learners to
correct the active ones and activate the passive ones.
 Be well prepared in advance in terms of lesson planning, activities and tasks.
 Let the learners commit errors and mistakes at the primary stage. Interruption and
correction hinder fluency and discourage the learner.

3. COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES

According to LITTLEWOOD (1982:21), “Communicative activities include any activities that

encourage and require a learner to speak with and listen to other learners, as well as with people
in the program and community”.

Communicative activities have real purposes: to find information, break down barriers, talk
about self, and learn about the culture. Even when a lesson is focused on developing reading or
writing skills, communicative activities should be integrated into the lesson.
Communicative activities are a piece of classroom work that involves students in producing,
comprehending, or interacting in the target language. Communicative activities can give some
contributions toward language learning.
 12

3.1. Types of Communicative Activities

The procedure of CLT applies communicative activities.

According to LITTLEWOOD (1982:21), Types of communicative activities are divided into two
main categories: functional communication activities and social interaction activities. Each of the
activity can be explained below:

 Functional communication activities

The main of this activity that students should use the target language they know in order to get
meaning across as effectively as possible. Success is measured fundamentally according to
whether they handle the communicative demands of the immediate situation.

LITTLEWOOD (1982), The principle underlying functional communication activities is that the
students have to overcome an information gap or solve a problem according to the situation
structured by the teacher. The nature of the classroom situation limits the range of functional
needs that can be created for students. It includes mainly the sharing and processing of
information. Examples of activities that can be categorized into functional communicative
activities are identifying pictures, discovering identical pairs, discovering missing information,
communicating pattern and picture, and discovering differences,

 Social interaction activities

One of the important aspects of the communicative skills is the ability to take account of the
social meaning as well as functional meaning of different language. This means that learners
must pay greater attention to the social context in which the interaction takes place as well as the
functional meanings that the language conveys. Furthermore, the activities are closer to the kind
of communication situation encountered outside the classroom. Here, language is not only a
functional instrument, but also a form of social behaviours.
In addition, RICHARDS, (2006:18-20), lights some important communicative activities:
“Functional communication activities require students to use their language resources to
overcome an information gap or solve a problem. Social interactional activities require the
learner to pay attention to the context and the roles of the people involved, and to attend to such
things as formal versus informal language”.
 13

 Information-Gap Activities

This refers to the fact that in real communication, people normally communicate in order to get
information they do not possess. This is known as an information gap. More authentic
communication is likely to occur in the classroom if students go beyond practice of language
forms for their own sake and use their linguistic and communicative resources in order to obtain
information. In so doing, they will draw available vocabulary, grammar, and communication
strategies to complete a task.

 Jigsaw activities

Typically, the class is divided into groups and each group has part of the information needed to
complete an activity. The class must fit the pieces together to complete the whole. In so doing,
they must use their language resources to communicate meaningfully and so take part in
meaningful communication practice.

3.2. Principles for designing speaking techniques

BROWN (2001), notes seven principles for designing speaking techniques.

The first principle is that the teacher should use techniques that cover the spectrum of learner
needs from language-based focus on accuracy to message based focus on interaction, meaning,
and fluency.
The second principle is that the teacher should provide motivating techniques which can
encourage the students’ motivation to learn English intrinsically.
Third, the teacher should encourage the students to use the authentic language during the
speaking activities so that the activities will be meaningful for them.
Fourth, when the students make some mistakes during the activities the teacher should give
appropriate feedback and correction so that they will not make the same mistakes in the
following activities.
Fifth, the teacher should integrate listening activities during the speaking activities because
speaking and listening are assimilated. Sixth, the teacher should also give the students some
 14

opportunities to initiate oral communication by asking questions or engaging them in a

conversation.
The last, the teacher should encourage the students’ speaking strategy development of speaking
strategies because usually the students are not aware of developing their own personal strategies
for accomplishing oral communicative purposes.
3.3. Purpose of communicative activities
According to LITTLEWOOD (1982:17), four purposes of communicative activities are:

a) To provide whole-task practice

Learning something involves not only practice in the part skill so called whole-task practice.
This means, in foreign language learning, that teachers provide learners with various kinds of
communicative activities, organized in order to suit the ability level of the learners.

b) To improve motivation

The learners’ final objective in learning language is to participate in communication with others.
Their motivation to learn is more likely to be maintained if their classroom learning can help
them to accomplish this objective with increasing success.

c) To allow natural learning

Many aspects of language learning take place through natural process, which operate when pupil
is involved in using the language to communicate. If this so, communicative activities either
inside or outside the classroom are needed in the learning process.

d) To create a context which supports learning

Communicative activities can create an environment that supports an individual in his efforts to
learn. It is because the activity provides opportunities for positive personal relationships to develop
among students and between students and the teacher.

In many of communicative activities the teacher creates an atmosphere and sets an activity in
motion. However, it is the learners themselves who take account of conducting the interaction.
For many students, this responsibility will be unfamiliar at first. Providing an undirected activity
suddenly may create difficulties which could weaken their confidence, (LITTLEWOOD, 1982).
 15

Structure of the work

Chapter I: introduction, where the background to the study, problem statement, objectives,
critical questions, merit of the study and scope and Limitation are the focus.
Chapter II: a literature review, where the main concepts and theories regarding the teaching of
speaking skills through communicative activities, are presented and discussed.
Chapter III: Research design and Methodology, where the main methodological assumptions are
described; a statement of results and discussion, where the data are presented and results are
discussed. And also, the data needs, types and sources and population, sampling procedure and
data collection.
Chapter IV: data presentation, analysis and discussion. It is where the data collected from the
field will be presented in a meticulous way and will be analyzed as well.
Chapter V: Proposal, implementation and recommendation.
 16

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

In this section, we bring the methodology of the study: Research paradigm, research design,
approach, population and sample, procedures and data analysis techniques, which were used to
achieve the objectives.

3.1 Research paradigm

Research paradigm is a set of ways of viewing the world from a general perspective so that the
reality can be understood and studied. The interpretative paradigm was adopted because it
advocates that the researcher should build the ideas as he/she studies the problem and at the end
of it he/she will come to a conclusion basing on the reality faced. In this specific research, the
aim is to understand how teachers and students interact in large class, the process of teaching and
learning in this kind of environment.

3.2. Research Approach

The research approach used was qualitative. Qualitative research approach was adopted as the
appropriate for this study because the purpose of the research was to get relevant information
about the teaching and learning process in large class.

THOMPSON (2009:9), dwells that ‘’Qualitative research is an inquiry process of understanding

based on distinct and methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or a human
problem. The researcher based on documents study, observations, interview, holistic picture,
reports detailed views of informants and conducts the study in natural setting’’. The relevance of
this method to this research lies on attempting to get in-depth opinions, attitudes, behaviour and
experiences from participants.

3.3. Research Design

The design of this research is case study. It focuses on the understanding of the behaviour of a
certain group. Case study was chosen as a research design because the nature of the problem
raised demands a data collection in the field in a way that the information collected reflects the
reality.
 17

3.4. Instruments

The research used two different instruments for data collection, namely: Observation and
interview. The researcher observed the classes to examine how students write compositions in
English composition and what teaching writing strategies the teachers use.

a) Interview

CRESWELL (2012:21), defines interview as ‘’ a face-to face conversation between a researcher

and a participant involving a transfer of information to the interviewer’’ Interviews provide an
opportunity for clarification of questions to the respondents. That is good, because the
respondents provide accurate data to the researcher.

However, according to GRAY (2009:16), ‘’an interview is a procedure designed to obtain

information from a person’s oral response to oral inquiries’’. The interviews were conducted only
with the teachers. It is better for them, since they wanted to portray issues in a technical and
detailed way. The researcher used semi-structured interview to better probe the respondents’
answers for clarification and additional information.

According to BURGESS (1984:1), semi-structured interview is a qualitative research method

that combines a pre-determined set of open questions (questions that prompt discussion) with the
opportunity for the interviewer to explore particular themes or responses further. A semi-
structured interview has been referred to as a ‘conversation with a purpose’.

b) Observation
DEWALT & DEWALT (2002:92), highlight that the goal for design a research using participant
observation as a method is to develop a holistic understanding of the phenomena under the study.
That is, as objective and accurate as possible, it gives the limitations of the method. They go
even further as to suggest that participant observation may be used as a way to increase the
validity of the study, as observations may help the researcher to have a better understanding of
the context and phenomenon under study.

The researcher used structured observation in which we sat at the back of the classroom and
made detailed notes. The most purpose to conduct the observation was to see how teachers
handle students write compositions in English composition, and see different approaches that
teachers used to involve students to writing with in the classroom for language communication.
 18

The researcher decided to use structured observation because of the observation schedule,
knowing that the schedule was exactly to minimize, possibly eliminate, the variations that had to
be arisen from data based on individual perceptions of events and situations during the
observation period.

3.5. Target Population

The very precise target groups are grade 9 students and the teachers of English teaching this
level, morning shift, at Mapara Secondary school. The students’ age group varied from 14 to 20
years old. (See the table below).

Table 1: Target population

Students Teachers
Streams grade 9 Male Female Male Female Total number
A 35 50 85
B 27 44 71
C 44 45 3 0 89
D 50 46 96
Total 164 206 341
Source: primary

3.5.1 Sample and sampling technique

The research involves 50 participants selected randomly from the target population. CRESSWEL
(1988:50), believes that this way of selecting the sample randomly makes the research findings
consistent and valid. Being so, 48 were students and 2 were teachers. Among the students, 20
were male and 28 were female. So, the 2 teachers involved in this research have a Licenciatura
degree. The students were taken from different streams A, B,and D, they were aged between 14
and 20 years old.

Table 2: The sample

Students Teachers
Grade Stream Total
Male Female Male Female

A 1 ------
 19

10 11
B 5 10 1 ------
D 5 7 ------ ------
Total A, B, & D 20 28 2 50

Source: Primary
3.6. Data analysis techniques

Data analysis advocates that the researcher must collect and organize data to come to a
conclusion. For data analysis, two techniques were chosen to be used, Categorization and
interpretation. Categorization implies organize the data collected in terms of common themes,
and Interpretation implies that the data should be explained and elucidated. These two techniques
were chosen because since the problem raised has three specific objectives, and there was a need
of having quality information on those three points, the best way of doing so was to organize the
results in categories to facilitate the reading of the results.
 20

Bibliography
BAILEY, K. M. and Savage, L. 1994. New Ways in Teaching Speaking. Alexandria, VA:
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
BURNS, A. 2010. Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching: A Guide for
Practitioners. New York: Routledge.
BROWN, H. D. 2001. Teaching by Principles; an Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy
(2nd Ed.). New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
CANALE, M. et al. 1980. Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language
Teaching and Testing. Applied Linguistics.
CRESWELL, J. (2014). Designing Research: Qualitative Methods. In J. W. Creswell.
COHEN, Louis et al. (2007). Research methods in education. 6th ed. New York: Routledge.
FOLSE, Keith. S. 1993. Talk A Lot: Communication Activities for Speaking Fluency. Michigan:
The University of Michigan Press.
HARMER, J. 2007. The Practice of English Language Teaching. (4th Ed.). Essex: Pearson
Education Ltd.
KLIPPEL, F. 1984. Keep Talking: Communicative Fluency Activities for Language Teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Larsen-Freeman, Diane. 2000. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
NUNAN, D. 1991. Language Teaching Methodology. London: Prentice Hall International.
RICHARDS, J. 2006. Communicative Language Teaching Today. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
UR, P. (1991). A course in language teaching-practice and theory. New York. Cambridge
University Press.