Unit 8 Speaking

Perhaps this is the most important skill for our students. If they know how to speak they will certainly feel confident and proud of themselves, so we have to give emphasis to this productive skill.

Usually, students understand us perfectly but they cannot communicate with us. How to overcome this? I believe that to make them speak first we have to create the necessity by obliging them to speak English in class. With higher levels, we can create fees when they speak Spanish in the class. Any student who speaks Spanish should pay 5 cents. It is worth adding that this strategy can be inappropriate in some institutions so we have to be careful.

Another way to make them speak is by providing language chunks. Students can learn them by heart or memorizing, and according to experts chunks help students to build up confidence. (Spratt, Pulverness, & Williams, 2012). Later on, English as a Foreign Language students will hesitate less.

Finally, it is important to say that we always have to use lead ins when performing speaking activities in class due to the fact that they give context that implicitly will help them to internalize language.

On the following links we can find some resources to teach speaking:

Fluency Tutor: Texthelp

This is a Google app that we can use to teach students fluency when the curriculum is tight and doesn’t allow a lot of speaking practice in the class. Basically, students read some passages to the computer and it sends us to evaluate.

https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/fluencytutor

3 Fast Ways to Get Fluent in American English

This video goes over 3 strategies to improve our fluency; we can teach them to our students.

References

English, G. N. (Dirección). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OjTjPeAp8A). 3 Fast Ways to Get Fluent in American English [Video].

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2012). The TKT Course Modules 1,2 and 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Texthelp Ltd. (2015). Fluency Tutor. Obtenido de https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/fluencytutor