How to teach speaking

Natalia Manzheliy

                                                                                                       Writing, 313

How to teach speaking

       Speaking is the most vital part of human’s life. Speaking is the most basic medium of communication by humans and it is the only way for living and differentiation people from monkeys. Speaking fluently requires long practice, paying a lot of attention to pronunciation and spending a lot of hardworking time. Everyone knows, if you want to be a good speaker of foreign language, first of all, you need to be good at pronunciation and you have to try to speak as a native speaker. Teaching speaking is a great dilemma, as the ways of teaching are not improved enough, they are old and as the matter of fact it is not effective. Now I want to tell my offers for teaching speaking, I hope that they will help anyone to improve these skills.

        Being good at speaking for foreign student is not an easy way, and not everyone, who knows Grammar, can speak with certain accent and pronounce the sounds correctly. I suppose that the best way for improving speaking skills is listening to different records with native speaker’s voice. It is very important to be accustomed to foreign pronunciation. Everyone has to listen to it and afterwards has to try to understand everything and pronounce sounds distinct and correctly and  reproduce the same intonation and all stresses.  You have to remember that it should be the native speaker’s voice, not your teacher’s. As   nowadays those who have a diploma of the teacher of foreign language are not sure in true pronunciation of the words, because most of all had never been abroad and had not heard foreign speaker’s proper spelling.

       I strongly agree with Janet White, who claimed that “children can try out different roles

and relationships, especially as they learn how to work in role or through the safe environment of drama. This helps them to understand how speakers use movement and gesture, eye contact, tone and volume to convey meanings…” (10). I suppose when children are in roles they try to act in way of their character, it helps them to develop their speaking skills and to be sure in rightness of pronunciation.

       Broadly speaking, those who want to speak well need to have fluency. Fluency comes from practice - plain and simple.  People can not build fluency by repeating single words or short phrases.  Fluency relates to being able to speak for longer periods of time in a smooth way. I suppose that speeches, presentations and group discussions will help to attain fluency in speech. There is no doubt, that good speech needs long preparation. You make a plan, than introduction, main body and conclusion. You need to summarize everything and tell just only main problems and your point of view to their decision. And then you have to practice your pronunciation, because you need to speak distinct and fluently and be ready to answer all the possible questions. So In my opinion preparation foe speeches and their discussion will help to be fluent in speaking.

         According to Wenquan Wu, who said that “the basic function of language is to communicate. So leaners can master a language by communicating in it...” (140). And I strongly agree with this opinion, because speaking, first of all, depends on practicing and practice we can only achieve with help of everyday communication.

       On the other hand, I think imitation of the sounds is one of the ways to have right pronunciation. For example, you can use different videos where you have an opportunity to see how linguist move his mouth and in what a position the tongue should be used to uttering different sound. Then you need to repeat it. In my opinion it is very good to do it in front of the mirror. Of course you have to do it several times to attain success.

        In conclusion I would like to say, that nowadays there are a lot different ways of teaching speaking. Scholars thought that the most effective ways are everyday communication and role playing. But I think that speaking with native speakers, learning new expressions and tongue twisters, using different I-net programs, imitation and following native speaker’s voice help everyone to improve their speaking skills. If you want to attain success try everything possible, find the best way for you. And above all, do not be afraid to speak. Do your best and you will have nice speaking skills in any foreign language.

Works Cited

1. White, Janet. “Speaking, Listening and Learning”. LITERACY Today (June 2004): 10.Print.
2. Wu,Wenquan. “The Application of Input Hypothesis to the Teaching of Listening and Speaking of College English”. Asian Social Science 6, 9 (2010): 137-141. Print.