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Speaking
Speaking main skills:
The primary speaking skills are accuracy and fluency.

A) Accuracy:
Accuracy is related to being able to say deliver your message without
mistakes.
This can be divided into a number of subskills such as:
1. Grammatical accuracy: Being able to speak without
grammatical errors.
2. Grammar range: Being able to speak with various structures,
not only playing safe and using basic structures such as present
simple and past simple only.
3. Lexical accuracy: Making accurate word choices to suit the
situation.
4. Lexical range: The ability to use varied levels of vocabulary, not
only the so commonly used ones.
5. Pronunciation: The ability to utter sounds, words, and
sentences correctly without pronunciation mistakes using both
word and sentence stress accurately in addition to using the
correct intonation.
B) Fluency:
Fluency refers to the ability of the speaker to speak naturally and
spontaneously without unnecessary pauses.
This does not mean that the speaker should not pause while speaking but the
pauses should be natural to think about ideas for example and not to think of
the language. (Grammar and vocabulary)
During the natural pauses, the speaker should also use pause fillers to gain
thinking time while speaking.

Speaking subskills:
In addition to the language skills mentioned before (Grammar, vocabulary, and
pronunciation, there are some further subskills that stem from what people do
while speaking and the purposes of speaking and the genre of their talk.
(Casual conversation, debate, presentation, discussion, etc)

Speaking genres and purposes of speaking:

A) Casual conversation:
The aim is usually to maintain relationships with others and to express oneself.
The nature of the conversation accounts for the skills you will need to have
throughout the conversation. For example,
i. Turn-taking:
In a conversation between three or four people, every one of them should
learn how to take a turn in the conversation. For example, he waits until the
speaker finishes and then says something that shows that he wants to speak.
For example,
- “Well,……’
- “That reminds me of ……..”
- “Let me say that……………
 Students use one or more of these expressions to give the impression that they
want to take their turn in the conversation.
Students do this in their first language naturally, but they need to be aware of
how to do this in English. Thus, taking a turn in a conversation is considered
one of the speaking subskills that need to be developed in the language
classroom.

ii. Backchannelling
When someone speaks for an extended amount of time, other people involved
in the conversation need to show interest in his talk. Otherwise, he might feel
that people are bored and not willing to listen. When you listen to someone
telling a story, for instance, you need to say things such as, ‘em, er, ah, oh,
Really, that’s amazing, unbelievable, Kidding me? etc’.
These sounds, words, and expressions are called backchanneling devices and
they are examples of how to sow interest in peoples’ talk and it is difficult for a
language learner to be able to do this unless he develops it in class. That is,
backchannelling is one of the speaking subskills.

iii. Asking for clarification

Sometimes when you are involved in a conversation, you mishear something,
or you are not very clear about something. As a speaker, you need to be able
to ask for repetition or clarification. For example, if you do not hear
something, you may say,
“Come again, please”.
‘Could you repeat?
‘Could you speak up?
“Excuse me,”
“Sorry, I didn’t get your point.”
This skill is very useful to help the listener understand the speaker well, which
means we, teachers, should aim to develop it in the speaking classes.
iv. Changing the subject

Sometimes while you are speaking, you want to change the subject of the
conversation. To do this you use phrases and expressions like. “By the
way……….” or “This reminds me of ……….”
This is one of the speaking subskills in a conversation.

v. Interrupting politely

When you are listening to someone involved in a conversation, you might

need to say something urgently, so you have to interrupt them without
making them angry. So, you might say, “Could you please let me in and say
something?” or “Can I interrupt you?” This is another skill of conversation
that needs to be developed and improved.

B) Presentation:
Another genre that speakers of a foreign language need to be aware of is to
give presentations.
On giving a presentation, you are the only speaker, so you do not have to take a
turn or interrupt, but you need other subskills such as grabbing the audience's
attention, keeping eye contact with everyone, using the correct tone, asking
questions to involve, etc. These are different speaking subskills when the genre
is a presentation.

Other genres can be debates, discussions, lectures, documentaries, etc. Each of

these genres has different subskills according to the needs of the specific
genre.

All the previous subskills should be catered for and developed in the
speaking classes. This means that any good speaking course should
include some classes that aim for improving and developing speaking
subskills (Interrupting, changing the subject, making suggestions,
accepting, and refusing, interrupting people politely, etc.
Speaking activities:
There are different types of speaking activities that can be used to promote
speaking in class.
1) Role play:
Students act in a dialogue or a conversation where they do imaginary roles.
For example, they might act as a police officer and a car driver on the road, a
doctor and a patient, a teacher, and a student. They can also act in a dialogue
where they are the same persons, ‘students’ but they are in a different context
from the classroom. For example, work in groups of three, each group should
plan for a holiday.
The teacher should choose situations that are not beyond the students'
experience. For example, it should be too challenging for learners to imagine a
dialogue between two criminals planning for a bank robbery because this
might be away from their life experiences.
The teacher should also provide students with as much support as possible.
The following are some ideas for supporting students in doing a role-play
activity.
✓ The teacher provides students with the useful language they are likely to
use in the activity.
✓ Students take time to rehearse the language they will use while
speaking.
✓ The teacher demonstrates the activity by doing it himself in front of the
learners.
✓ The teacher asks two brilliant students to come and demonstrate the
activity in front of the class.
✓ The teacher monitors without interrupting learners but he can help
them in case they need it.
✓ The teacher provides constructive feedback after students finish the
activity.
2) Debates:
This is a common speaking activity where students are divided into two main
groups, and each of them has a different point of view about a specific topic.
For example, “Are you for or against replacing human doctors with intelligent
Robot doctors.”
This requires not only the language to speak about the topic but also the
language of debating such as taking turns, interrupting politely, disagreeing
with an opinion politely, etc.
Support:
➢ The teacher offers students some useful language to speak about the
topic. (Exposure to a text).
➢ The teacher elicits language of debating such as (Sorry but I disagree
with this point).
➢ The teacher gives students time to rehearse useful language and
brainstorm ideas that support their opinions.
➢ The teacher monitors in the preparation stage providing help and
feeding in any language students ask about.

3) Information-gap activities
When you show learners the following picture and ask them to ask and answer
questions about it, they will not be highly motivated to do so since they do not
have a real reason to ask and answer the questions. (Both of them can see the
picture so why they should ask? NO PURPOSE.)
If the two students can see the picture, why should one ask the other,

Is there a window in the picture? Yes, there is.

Can you see two old women? No two young boys.
Are the boys eating? No, they are not.
Those questions do not really make sense to students since both of them can
see the picture. That is the activity is not purposeful or authentic.

The activity can be made more

purposeful if we could create a
real purpose for the interaction.
This can be done by finding two
pictures of the same place
where there are some
differences. Students work in
pairs, and each one is given a
different picture and sits back-
to-back so no one of them can
see the partner’s picture.
Students should be told not to
show or reveal the content of
the picture he has. Students ask and answer questions to spot the five
differences in the picture.
The idea behind the activity is that there is a need to interact since students do
not know the content of the other partner’s picture. This is why this activity is
called an information-gap activity.
4) Surveys
Another effective way to make a speaking activity purposeful is to ask students
to do a survey where they include some real questions they need to know
about their friends. See the following one.

Find someone in class who:

Has spent the weekend outdoors.
Smokes
Does exercise daily
Is interested in pop music.
Has traveled abroad recently.
Has been bullied recently.
Has more than three siblings.

The questions are real questions that students may like to know about their
peers. They can be offered the questions, or they can be given the freedom to
create their own questions.

Best of luck
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