Развитие речевой компетенции на уроках английского языка
учебно-методический материал по английскому языку по теме

What are the challenges when teaching speaking? What difficulties do teachers face while developing speaking skills? There are a lot of reasons that make students unwilling to speak. Some of the students are rather shy, others are afraid of making mistakes. Some students are suffering from lack of vocabulary while others don’t attempt to speak because the tasks that are assigned to them are not achievable and relevant. We often get frustrated because of the fact that students prefer to be passive when we expect them to be active. In a typical classroom environment it is quite common to have students who are highly motivated, semi-motivated and unmotivated. Sometimes even motivated ones become passive because the activities they have to do don’t enthuse them or the teacher’s attitude and approach put the students off.

So how to make the unmotivated and semi-motivated students speak?

When it comes to teaching speaking, the first thing we should do is to get students understand what is special about English, what makes it different from the Russian language, enable them to believe that they have the potential to express themselves clearly in the target language. There is a wise saying, “If you study to remember, you will forget, but if you study to understand you will remember.”

The first step teaching speaking is probably the sounds. When students are taught to pronounce English sounds correctly and they become aware of such things as stress, and rhythm of the language they feel more confident to speak. In spite of the fact that there are a lot of accents of English I still believe that we must teach students classical English which is all-inclusive. It’s the basis, the foundation, the golden standard. You will never be misunderstood if you master it.

How to make students learn to produce English sounds correctly? There are certain sounds which are difficult for Russian students to pronounce.  We can use visual representation of the mouth and show the position of the tongue when forming sounds like the unvoiced sound /t/ and voiced sound /d/. Some students can’t actually hear the difference between these sounds, in this case it’s a good idea to let them feel it. If they put their hand over their throat and pronounce the sound /d/ they can feel it, when they try to produce the sound /t/, they won’t be able to feel it.

It’s also important to accentuate the alternation between long and short sounds. If you don’t see the difference between these sound you will find yourself in confusing situations and might be misunderstood.  As we know there is a great number of words that differ just in one sound, for example leave-live, duck-dark, hut-heart, cut-cart, spot-sport, cot-court, naught-not, hit-heat etc.  There is a nice way to practice the long sound /I:/ and the short sound /i/ by using fingers. It’s also a visual representation.

In a stream of speech we often don’t hear the words which are said because the words glide together. It’s another peculiarity of the English language which is called contractions. To make it more understandable for students we can use the following technique. For example, saying “he is” we show two fingers, then we make it short by joining two fingers from the back and saying : “he’s”

Another important area of English is the placement of stress on words and the rhythm of the language. The intonation can be rising or falling. To make our students aware of the English intonation we can do this visually by using head. When the intonation rises then the students raise their heads, when the voice falls, make their heads go down.

To empathize the rhythm of English you have to empathize the alternation of weaker and stronger beats. In a sentence there are content words which are stressed, and those which are unstressed. For example, Her eyes are blue. Content words include nouns, adjectives, verbs, numerals. One way to make students familiar with that is to ask them to speak together: one, two, three, four……Then introduce another sound: a one, a two, a three, a four…. Then we add one more word: and a one, and a two …..

We can use a rhyme. First we say socks, shoes, jeans, shirt, trousers, blouse, skirt. Then we add another word: socks and shoes and jeans and shirt, trousers coat, and blouse and skirt. This makes the students aware of the potential difference between their language and English: you can fit a number of weaker beats in between the stronger beats.

Once your students can connect a few words into a sentence have them talk to each other, help them understand that English is now their own instrument of communication. These are some techniques that can help them to develop their spoken English. Being organized at the start of the lesson is necessary for a teacher, but it’s also important for students to feel relaxed. If the teacher is relaxed, feels the part of the lesson then the students will feel the same way and they will be more inclined to participate. A warmer is a good way to create such an atmosphere. One idea for the warmer is when you are arranging group work. Each student gets a card with an animal on it (e.g. 5 owls, 5 sheep, 5 horses). Their task is to find students who have the same animal as they do. So they go around the class and ask, “Which animal have you got?” –No, you’re not in my group”. The teacher should distribute the cards in a clever way so that in each group there were less inhibited and more inhibited students. So they can help each other.  You can offer cards with different pictures. It depends on the topic that you are studying. In this way we get some fluency even before the activity begins.

Before doing each task the teacher gives an instruction. When you give an instruction, let the students know here it comes. To attract their attention, I usually use signal rhymes. For example, I say, “Scooby dooby doo” Students react,” Where are you?” They know that it’s a signal for keeping silent and be all ears. Once I’ve given an instruction, I check if they’ve understood it correctly by asking them, “What are you going to do?” If they still have difficulty understanding the task, one of the students explains to the rest of the class in Russian what they have to do.

If you want the students to practise particular language, then it’s important to do some controlled oral practice of the target language before they start to practise in groups. For doing any task it’s useful for the students to see the language that they are going to use while practising speaking. Why not having this on the walls or on the table. When students are surrounded by the language, it encourages them to use English.

Thus, while teaching speaking we should bear in mind the rule of “Three T”:

1. Tasks should relevant and achievable. We set a model

Before doing each task

2. Tools. Provide students with appropriate language, grammar, vocabulary
3. Time. Give them time for preparation.

Another thing that is worth being mentioned is that listening and speaking go hand in hand. Listening comprehension in skill number one. We can provide students with a great amount of examples, models to imitate. We can teach them to express some simple ideas. However, if they don’t understand what is said to them all our efforts to establish communication patterns may be in vain.

In conclusion, I’d like to give a “MAP” formula which can make all students in a class speak without inhibition

Motivate

• Be enthusiastic, show your passion for training your students
• Be a role model. Be articulate
• Establish a rapport with your students
• Give a pat on the back
• Sound positive

Activate

• Enthuse and energize your students
• Create a friendly environment for students to speak
• Make your students feel comfortable discussing any topic
• Tolerate their grammatical errors and correct them later
• Give more pair work and group work

Participate

• Mingle with your students and participate in activities such as group discussions and role play
• Empathise with learners who need your special attention
• Know your students’ strengths and weaknesses