Teaching Oral Skills

Dr. Luiscel Teofi E. Cabico

 Speech is the most basic means of human communication.
* Speaking in a “second or foreign language” has often viewed as the most
demanding of the four skills.
 What specifically makes speaking in a second or
foreign language difficult? (Brown, 1994)

 fluent speech contains reduced forms, such as contractions, vowel reduction, and elision, so that learners who
are not exposed to or who do not get sufficient practice with reduced speech will retain their rather formal-
sounding full forms

 use of slang and idioms in speech: Without facility in using these ubiquitous features of spoken language,
learners are apt to sound bookish

 Students must also acquire the stress, rhythm, and intonation of English, a complicated task for many

 English is that it is almost always accomplished via interaction with at least one other speaker

 We had not been prepared for spontaneous communication and cannot cope with all of its simultaneous
demands
 Oral skills have not always figured so centrally in
second and foreign language pedagogy…
 In classes that utilize comprehension-based approaches to language teaching, listening skills
are stressed before speaking

 Even in production-based approach such as the Silent Way, student is carefully controlled for
structure and content

 And while audiolingualism stressed oral skills (evidenced by the amount of time spent in the
language laboratory practicing drills), speech production was tightly controlled in order to
reinforce correct habit formation of linguistic rules.

 But with the advent of the theory of communicative competence (Hymes, 1972) and the
practice of communicative language teaching, the teaching of oral communication skills as a
contextualized sociocultural activity has become the focal point in many ESL classrooms.
 The Oral Skills Class

How to structure and what to teach in an oral skills class?

1. Who are the students?

2. Why are they there?
3. What do they expect to learn?
4. What am I expected to teach?
 The Oral Class (continuation)

One basic consideration is the level of the students and their perceived needs.
 Level may be determined by a placement test administered by the institution of by a diagnostic test.
(perhaps a four-point scale from “poor” to “excellent) of their overall speaking ability, confidence in speaking English, their
pronunciation, social conversation, and listening ability.

 Low level adults, the teacher may need to find L1 speakers to help him or her get information on student experiences,
educational background, and needs.
 The Oral Class (continuation)

One basic consideration is the level of the students and their perceived needs.
 Academic learners will need to practice with different sorts of activities ( e.g. authentic practice in class participation, taking part in
discussions, interacting with peers, and asking and answering questions )

 Nowadays, oral skills classes at all levels are often structured around functional uses of language. ( nonacademic context,
i.e.,basic greetings, talking on the telephone, interacting with school personnel, shopping, and the like.)

 With academic adults, practice in activities such as leading and taking part in discussions and giving oral reports is
needed to be done
 The Oral Class (continuation)

 In more informal conversational courses, the content can be structured around speech acts, which are
actions such as greeting and apologizing that are encoded in language in “routinized” forms (e.g. “hi” and
“hello” for greeting , sorry for “apologizing”)
 ACTIVITIES
There are many ways to promote oral skills in the ESL/EFL classroom.

 Discussions
 Speeches
 Role Plays
 Conversations
 Audiotaped oral dialogue journals
 Other accuracy-based
 DISCUSSIONS
 The most commonly used activity in the oral skills class
 Typically, the students are introduced to a topic via reading, a listening passage, or a videotape and
are then asked to get into pairs or groups to discuss a related topic in order to come up with a
solution, response, or the like.
 Teachers must take care in planning and setting up a discussion activity
 First, planned (versus random) grouping or pairing of students may be necessary to ensure a
successful discussion outcome
 Second, students need to be reminded that each person should have a specific responsibility
 Finally, students need to be clear about what they are to discuss, why they are discussing it, and
what outcome is expected.
 SPEECHES
 Another common activity in the oral skills class is the prepared speech.

 Topics for speeches will vary depending on the level of the student and the focus of the class, but
in any case, students should be given some leeway in determining the content of their talk.

 Speeches can be frightening for the speaker and, after a while, boring for listeners, so it is a good
idea to assign the listeners some responsibilities during the speeches.
 ROLE PLAYS
 Particularly suitable for practicing the sociocultural variations in speech acts, such as complimenting,
complaining, and the like.
 Depending on student level, role plays can be performed from prepared scripts, created form a set
of prompts and expressions, or written using and consolidating knowledge gained from instruction
or discussion of the speech act and its variations prior to the role play themselves.
 Olshtain and Cohen (1991) recommend several steps for teaching speech acts:
1. Diagnostic assessment is useful for determining what students already know about the act in question
2. A model dialogues, presented aurally and/or un writing, serves language input, after which the class is encouraged to evaluate
the situation so as to understand the factors that affect the linguistic choices made in the dialogue
3. Students can listen to and practice prototypical phrases used in the speech act, and then perform a role play (after considering
appropriate information about the participants and their ages, genders, relationship, etc.) as a final practice
 CONVERSATIONS
 One of the more recent trends in oral skills pedagogy is the emphasis on having students analyze
and evaluate the language that they or others produce
 It is not adequate to have students produce lots of language; they must become more
metalinguistically aware of the many features of language in order to become competent speakers
and interlocutors in English.

 The teacher can highlight several interesting sections in each student transcript and then ask the
students to analyze the interaction and determine why the teacher pointed them out as interesting.

 In variation of the conversation assignment, learners are required to tape-record an interview with
native speakers on a topic with their choice and then report the results to the class.
 AUDIOTAPED ORAL DIALOGUE JOURNALS
 Like written journals, which are used extensively in writing classes, the oral dialogue journal has
much to offer both the teacher and the students in the oral skills classroom.

 Ordinarily, the student gives an audiocassette tape to the teacher, who starts the oral journal on
the tape by giving some directions for the assignment and perhaps suggesting a topic, such as Tell
me about your first day in the United States be sure to remind students to speak
extemporaneously and explain why; some students will want to write their entries and read them,
or turn the tape recorder on and off so that they can sound “perfect.”

 In a small class, it not unrealistic for the teacher to listen to all the tapes on a regular basis.
 OTHER ACCURACY-BASED ACTIVITIES
 Brown (1994) recommends that if drills are to be used, they should be short, simple, and snappy,
they should lead to more authentic communication activities.

 Another early course activity is a structured interview in which students talk to their classmates
using an interview form which requires the use of wh-and/or yes-no questions.
 ASSESSMENT
 The oral skills teacher may be required to make decisions about two kinds of oral assessment.
> evaluation of classroom performance
>input given to students, whether it be visual (e.g., a picture for description), aural (e.g., a
directive to “tell me about the most exciting day you have had”), or interactive (e.g., questions in an
interview), be consistent for all examinees.

 The oral skills teacher may be confronted is preparing students to take- interpreting results from-
large scale oral examinations, successful performance on which has become increasingly common as
a requirement for admission to universities, as a minimum standard for teaching assistantships, and
as a qualification for various types of employment.