I'm teaching oral presentation skills, I try to vary the speaking activities that I give to my students. Some of them are very stimulating and motivating. I remember once to group students into five each and allocate some time for them to think after explaining that they needed to produce TV programs and when I switched on a group meant that they talked. This activity was fascinating due to available purpose and novelty. My students couldn't feel the time and they just loved it. May you share one of your speaking activities that was thrilling and motivating?
From a personal experience in teaching Oral Expression for more than 7 years, I really find it necessary to provide students with the opportunity to work as pairs or small groups of 3-4 so that to overcome their deficiencies in front of peers first. I recommend Jason Anderson's Role Plays for Today and Speaking Games. Good luck
No matter what you do, as Nation (2009) states, you should use an input which is below the learners' present competence. The reason is that speaking is a complex process and familiar input can reduce learners' anxiety level.
Have you checked Mario Rinvolucri's books? I found Challenge to Think and Grammar Games particularly motivating for students at all levels of proficiency. Every activity is clearly explained and categorised according to students' levels, age, the time it takes to complete the activity, and the area of language that is targeted.
Penny Ur's book 'Discussions that Work' really does provide teachers with clear instructions for the preparation and organisation of oral activities that do 'work'. Some of the generic ideas, can of course be adapted to your own context.
Although the 'Discussions that Work' book is quite old, it is very helpful. It bridges the gap between theory and practice. It is designed according to "task-based" teaching approach.
Check out TESOL's New Ways in Teaching Speaking. It contains more than 100 activities suitable for all proficiency levels and ages.
Dividing the students into groups and carrying out activities that can improve their communication skills are the best ways for teaching speaking.
From a personal experience in teaching Oral Expression for more than 7 years, I really find it necessary to provide students with the opportunity to work as pairs or small groups of 3-4 so that to overcome their deficiencies in front of peers first. I recommend Jason Anderson's Role Plays for Today and Speaking Games. Good luck
My students love what in French they call "Mental Conversation Board", inspired by French Institute in Poland (https://espaceformationsfle.com/la-carte-mentale-de-conversation/). You basically take a topic, like Football, write it in the middle of the board, and then you put the phrases around: "is boring because of ... ", " I like because of ...", "is problematic because of", "is necessary for ... "is popular because of... " . You can vary it depending on the topic and the direction for conversation you wish to set. Then you give your students a set of words (can be around 40), like: publicity, religion, rules, physical activity, TV, corruption, arrogance, stupidity, violence, etc.
The task is to associate a specific word to a specific category, like: "The football is boring because of publicity". and so on, explaining their choice. It's important to empathize in the beginning that there can be multiple visions on the same word.
At the same time, it's nice to work in two groups and then compare the differences.
It can lead to very animated conversations and help students to learn to argument their opinion.
Thanks a lot for this new idea that I found really useful and helpful to encourage students to take part in the learning process and to be active participants.
Free Outdoor Talk is an in interesting activity for teaching speaking. It is simply done by distributing a simple dialogue sheets among the students. This dialogue contains questions and answers about greeting people, and general simple questions. The teacher should read and explain the dialogue to the students. Then he asks the whole class to practice this dialogue in pairs outside the classroom, probably in the corridor or the garden of the school. He should move around them for encouragement and answering questions. Students can exchange roles or partners.
I use task-based approach for the teaching of speaking. Students start to use drills to acquire the vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar. Next, they are required to use language for purposeful and meaningful communication
I teach speaking to adult students whether they are university students, college graduates or any other adults in specific groups within the same level of English language ability. I love it and they love the speaking activities we do have. I use different kinds of speaking activities. For example, I have conversation cards made in USA which have different questions and situations on to talk about. Also, I sometimes choose a topic for about 20 minutes and I ask them what they have about they topic and I usually ask different provoking questions related to the topic of the day. As it is said, practice makes perfect, and I can say the vast majority of the students get to practice their speaking and they are enhancing their speaking step by step.
Regards,
Karwan
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