Table Of ContentMasaryk University
Faculty of Arts
Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature
and
Teaching English Language and Literature for
Secondary Schools
Bc. Petra Šolcová
Teaching Speaking Skills
Master’s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: James Edward Thomas, M.A .
2011
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
……………………………………………..
Author’s signature
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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor James Edward Thomas
for his guidance, insightful comments and suggestions.
This project was funded by the Action Austria/Czech Republic grant.
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction ....................................................................................... 6
1.1 Thesis structure .................................................................................. 7
1.2 Underlying motivation and research questions ....................................... 8
1.3 Target age groups of learners ............................................................ 13
1.4 What is ‘teaching speaking skills’? ..................................................... 16
2 Theoretical framework ..................................................................... 20
2.1 Basic features of speaking.................................................................. 20
2.1.1 On the seemingly disorganised nature of speaking ..................... 20
2.1.2 Classroom implications: teachers’ expectations ........................... 25
2.1.3 The role of context ................................................................... 27
2.1.4 Classroom implications: teaching materials ................................ 29
2.1.5 The types of communicative exchanges ..................................... 34
2.1.6 Classroom implications: communicative tasks use ....................... 36
2.1.7 Characteristics of conversation .................................................. 41
2.1.8 Classroom implications: challenges of conversational classes ....... 44
2.2 Communicative competence ............................................................... 47
2.2.1 Historical background ............................................................... 47
2.2.2 Individual components of communicative competence ................ 50
3 Practical part .................................................................................... 65
3.1 Individual aspects of teaching speaking skills ...................................... 65
3.1.1 Fluency and accuracy ............................................................... 65
3.1.2 Corrective feedback and evaluation ........................................... 76
3.1.3 The importance of pair work in LT ............................................. 79
3.2 Practical techniques ........................................................................... 81
3.2.1 Information gap activities.......................................................... 82
3.2.2 Cooperative activities ................................................................ 85
3.2.3 Interviews ................................................................................ 87
3.2.3 Storytelling and retelling ........................................................... 89
3.2.4 Role plays and simulations ........................................................ 93
3.2.5 Discussions and debates ........................................................... 94
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3.2.6 Creative tasks .......................................................................... 96
3.2.7 Games ..................................................................................... 99
4 Research ......................................................................................... 102
4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................... 102
4.2 Data analysis.................................................................................... 109
4.2.1 Teaching approaches ............................................................... 109
4.2.2 Communication and the success of teaching speaking skills ....... 121
4.2.3 Teaching materials and using transcripts of recordings .............. 128
4.2.3 Accuracy versus fluency and corrective feedback ....................... 131
4.2.4 Assumptions about teaching speaking ....................................... 134
4.2.5 Practical techniques for teaching speaking ................................ 137
4.3 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 140
Conclusion ......................................................................................... 142
References ......................................................................................... 144
Appendix A – List of abbreviations ........... Chyba! Záložka není definována.
Appendix B – Glossary of terms ................ Chyba! Záložka není definována.
Appendix C – Activities .............................. Chyba! Záložka není definována.
Appendix D – Questionnaire...................... Chyba! Záložka není definována.
Appendix E – Charts and tables ................ Chyba! Záložka není definována.
Czech resume ............................................ Chyba! Záložka není definována.
English resume .......................................... Chyba! Záložka není definována.
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1 Introduction
This thesis sets out to show the full scope of teaching speaking skills, which in
its entirety means more than just teaching ‘speaking’. The concept of teaching
speaking skills is presented with respect to the notion of communicative
competence. The main line of argument is consistent with the view that in
order to become competent speakers, learners must acquire a good command
of all fundamental areas of communicative competence: linguistic,
sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic.
In addition, this thesis considers the differences between speaking
and writing and advocates a teaching approach which takes these differences
into account. It also attempts to link relevant theoretical concepts and thoughts
to practice and considers their implications for language teaching.
Furthermore, it aims to present some of the ways of practising
speaking skills in the classroom focusing on fluency and offers a variety of
practical techniques which can be used in the classroom. Finally, it seeks to
answer my initial research questions, which are presented in one of the
following sections of this chapter.
The research part of this thesis consists of a comparative study that
investigates how teaching speaking skills is realised in practice by teachers in
the Czech Republic and Austria. Moreover, primary focus is placed on the
teachers’ assumptions and possible misconceptions about speaking as well as
the classroom techniques they use.
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1.1 Thesis structure
This thesis is divided into four main parts. In the introductory part the
underlying motivation behind the choice of the particular topic is discussed and
my research questions and hypotheses are presented. There is also a
subsection providing an explanation why the focus of the thesis is not restricted
to any particular age group of learners and a section attempting to define the
concept of ‘teaching speaking skills’.
The second part explores the subject matter from a theoretical
perspective linking the theoretical aspects to practical implications for classroom
teaching. First of all, it deals with the basic features of speaking, such as its
different organization in comparison with writing and the role of context. It also
makes a distinction between two types of communicative exchanges and
discusses the basic characteristics of conversation. It further presents the
concept of communicative competence, describes its components and discusses
the individual aspects which they entail.
The third part is practical and aims to present a range of
communicative activities that can be used in speaking skills lessons. Apart from
this, it discusses several individual aspects of speaking skills teaching, in
particular the fluency/accuracy dichotomy, corrective feedback and the
importance of pair work in language teaching.
The final part presents my own research in the area and suggests
further directions for investigation. The appendices include a list of
abbreviations, a glossary of terms, samples of activities to practise speaking
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skills, a questionnaire used in the quantitative research and charts and tables
accompanying the research part of this thesis.
1.2 Underlying motivation and research questions
In my profession as a teacher and as the head of a private language school, I
meet hundreds of students seeking language training each year, mainly adult
learners. In the introductory conversations we have with newcomers the
majority of them stress that they especially need and want to improve their
spoken language production. Moreover, a substantial proportion of people
consider themselves to be very poor speakers.
Interestingly, although they may be coming from different
backgrounds and their motivations for language study may differ – be it school,
work or personal interests – almost all of the potential learners agree that what
they primarily want to practise is speaking. They also wish to gain practical
skills which they could utilise in their lives.
Upon hearing the often repeated requests for practical speaking skills
training, one naturally starts to ask oneself why it is, that the need for learners
to practise speaking is so great.
It is undisputable that “face-to-face communication is the most
fundamental mode of human language” (Givón 1997: 92) and its training is
naturally sought out by learners for a number of obvious reasons. On the other
hand, this does not explain why so many learners frequently feel there is a lack
of speaking skills practice in schools and courses.
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Even though learners are to a certain extent responsible for their own
learning success, or the lack thereof, teachers can greatly influence their
learning experience and language acquisition (LA). After all, teachers are the
key players in the way lessons are organised and what skills are taught, down
to the individual tasks that students deal with. According to Tomlinson,
researchers stress that it is the teacher who determines what actually happens
in the classroom. Referring to Williams and Burden (1997) he further adds that
“the teachers’ own beliefs can affect classroom action more than a particular
methodology or coursebook” (Tomlinson 2008).
Although some teachers might argue at this point that they need to
follow certain guidelines or that they do not have much of a say when it comes
to decisions about coursebooks it cannot be denied that they themselves opt for
inclusion or exclusion of certain activities and extra materials in their lessons.
Furthermore, they also decide on the way these resources are used and how
each individual task is put into practice. Even under very restricted conditions,
this gives them some leeway to shape the nature of their lessons on a daily
basis and to place emphasis on the subject matter they consider important.
My hypothesis is that although many teachers may think that
teaching speaking skills is an important part of a curriculum, their assumptions
about speaking may prevent them from being successful in teaching speaking. I
suspect that many teachers fail to recognise important differences between the
nature of spoken and written texts in the first place. As a result, their speaking
skills training fails to meet their learners’ needs because it does not reflect real-
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life conditions of speech production and the scope of the skills that are
necessary for successful communication.
As early as in 1979, Allwright reports that “language teaching,
globally, has not led to a satisfactory level of communicative skill in the vast
majority of cases” and in making a reference to the content of textbooks and
national syllabuses he says that there has been an “apparent failure to ensure
that communicative skill is adequately represented in language courses”
(Allwright 1979: 167). Twenty-six years later, Thornbury still suggests that one
of the reasons why students complain about inefficiency of language teaching
(LT) when it comes to speaking is ‘lack of genuine speaking activities’
(Thornbury 2005: 28).
In my research I would like to put this hypothesis to the test. My
research supports Thornbury’s view that students need an abundance of
practical skills training opportunities and interactive speaking itself.
Furthermore, I assume that in general, teachers do not succeed in providing
these in their lessons on a broader scale. If this hypothesis proves true, one of
my objectives is to examine the reasons why this might be happening.
There are several different scenarios that might emerge from my
research. I hope to find some indication which of the following hypotheses is
the most probable to apply in reality.
My initial research questions are:
a) Do teachers deliberately omit speaking skills practice from their
tuition and if so what is their justification?
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Description:3.1 Individual aspects of teaching speaking skills to any particular age group of learners and a section attempting to define the concept of
