Improving high school students’ speaking skill while teaching other skills

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT 
THACH THANH I SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVE 
IMPROVING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’
SPEAKING SKILL WHILE TEACHING OTHER SKILLS
Author: Đỗ Thị Lệ
Occupation: Teacher
Experiential initiative on: English
THANH HOA YEAR 2017
CATEGORY
I. INTRODUCTION
2
1.1. The reason why the topic is chosen
2
1.2. The aims of researching
2
1.3. Research subjects
3
1.4. Methods of researching
3
II. CONTENTS
4
2.1. Theoretical basis of the experiential initiative
4
2.2. Current situation before applying the experiential initiative
4
2.3. Methods
4
2.4. The effectiveness of the initiative
13
III. CONCLUSION, OFFERS
15
3.1. Conclusion
15
3.2.Offers
15
I. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reason why the topic is chosen
 Speaking is a crucial part of language learning. The mastery of speaking skill in English is a priority for many second or foreign language learners. Nowadays, many learners even consider the ability to speak the language is the aim of language learning. They often evaluate their success in language learning as well as the effectiveness of their English courses on the basic of how well they feel they have improved in the spoken language proficiency. Despite its importance, for a long time, teaching speaking has been under valuated. Traditional teaching methods have seemed to emphasize the learning of language system (rules of grammar and, lists of vocabulary items ..) as a goal in its own right and failed to give learners an ability to gain realistic experiences in actually using the language knowledge gained. Nowadays things have been different. Today's world requires that the goal of learning speaking English should develop students'communication skill so that students can express themselves and use the target language to state opinions, express their feelings and exchange information. Many new teaching methods have been introduced and applied to serve the basic need of English learners. Among them,communicative approach and learner-centered approach seem to be the most effective ways to teach oral communication. And we should apply these methods in teaching the four skills and focus on designing speaking activities in appropriate stages of English lessons while teaching other skills so that students always have a lot of chances to practise speaking while learning English. 
In Viet Nam, there has been also a reform in teaching English in secondary schools as well as High schools. The new series of textbooks presently used in secondary schools and high schools were designed in view of communicative language teaching method. The topics of the lessons given in the textbooks are really interesting and based on real- life situations that require communication.
 In spite of many efforts of teachers and others, the results we get from our students are unsatisfactory. Students still complain that they find speaking lessons really stressful and thus speaking is a difficult skill to master. Many students, after studying English for years have left school without being able to speak an intelligible sentence. Therefore, in this writing I would like to tell you how to improve the students’speaking skills while teaching English so that we can help students to improve their speaking skills.
1.2. Aims of researching 
- Improving the efficiency of teaching and learning speaking skill.
- Creating excitement for students to learning speaking skill
- Increasing the frequency of using English of students 
1.3. Research subjects
It is intended to give some strategies of teaching speaking skill in order to simplify speaking skill learning, reduce the pressure, help students overcome the fear, the stress in speaking English. As a result, students can speak this language more natually and fluently.
1.4. Methods of researching
It is based on real situation of teaching and learning speaking English in my school and the accumulated experience in years. I strongly construct theory, apply to the current teaching and learning of speaking skill in my school, adjust, draw on profond experience so as to write out the most efficient techniques in teaching speaking skill.
II. CONTENTS
2.1. Theoretical basis of the experiential initiative
	It is based on real situation of teaching and learning English, especially speaking skill in my school. If students have only chance tospeak in speaking lessons, The frequency of using English is too little. Two criteria of evaluation of speaking skill are the accuracy and frequency. In the past, teachers paid attention to the accuracy while teaching speaking skill first, and then the frequency. That meant that learners had to produce a grammatical correct sentence while opening the mouth to speak Therefore, they felt so stressful that they kept silent. In recent years, there have a lot of changes in teaching. Communicative approach and learner-centered approach have been applied and it seems to be the most effective ways to teach oral communication. Catch up on this innovation, in my writing I focus on creating convenient conditions and chances for students to express whatever they want. Teachers have no intervention while students are speaking. Therefore, learners overcome the fear of speaking English and they have had excitement for speaking lessons.
2.2. Current situation before applying the experiential initiative
	Before applying this experential initiative, the regrettable reality in my school is students are extremely bad at speaking. They don’t like the speaking lessons. In these lessons, only a few good students take part in the teacher’ activities. The learner are very passive, they only listen to the teacher and take notes. The teachers have not found the optinal methods to help them. So the efficiency of teaching speaking skill is not as expected. Over many years of teaching this skill, I have thought a lot how to improve this skill for the learners, which motivate me write out this research.
2.3. Methods 
2.3.1. Improving students’ speaking skill while teaching speaking itself.
There are many rules we must remember while teaching speaking so that we can help students improve their speaking skill: 
Firstly, we must make sure that students feel safe and confident while they express themselves
Personally I think that the first thing that teachers have to do to help students improve their speaking skill is that they have to help them overcome their feelings of shyness and nervousness when practising English in their class. One of the best ways to solve this problem is to put them in 'safe' situations in class where they are inspired and encouraged to try using the language from their 'store'. Organizing communicative activities in pairs, in groups is also an effective way to serve this aim. Working in pairs, in groups, students will feel less anxious than when they are 'on show' in front of the whole class together. Moreover, pair-works and group-works can help shy students who would never say anything in a whole class activity have the confidence to open their mouths. Students can also learn from each other's new ideas so that they will have something to speak in front of the class later. Another thing that teacher should remember to help students have confidence in speaking is teacher's positive corrections and feedbacks . Making errors is a natural and unavoidable part of the learning process, but how to correct the students’ errors is particularly important. You need to provide appropriate feedbacks and corrections, but don't interrupt the flow of communication. Take notes while pairs or groups are talking and address problems to the class after the activity without embarrassing the student who made the error. We can also write the errors on the board and ask who can correct it.Teachers should encourage their students to speak whatever they can and focus on what they have got right, not on what they have got wrong. We should also help them to develop positive attitudes towards their friends’errors and to correct themselves. Teachers should try to develop for themselves positive strategies of error corrections. When students achieve success in oral communication, they will feel confident, secure and enjoy learning English, they will have confidence to take part in communicative activities later.
 Secondly, we must pay attention to warm-up activities: 
Warm-up is also an important part which contributes to the success of a speaking lesson. Warm-ups help our learners put aside their daily distractions and focus on English. If they haven't used English all day, they may take a little while to shift into it. Warm-ups also encourage whole-group participation which can build a sense of community within the group and they can help to arouse student' interest in speaking. We should vary warm-up activities to attract our students' attention and interest because if they feel good about the lesson from the beginning they'll make a good contribution to it These may be a discussion, a picture describing activities or playing a game, brainstorming...ect. In order to have a good preparation, the teacher does different things to arouse students’ interest, i.e brainstorming, musical warmer, word card, etc. Before a new lesson I often motivate the students by chatting to them about the topic of interest, giving them preparation tasks or quick warm-up to get them in the right mood for speaking. Brainstorming is one of the simplest, but the most effective kind of motivation because it takes a short time. I can write key words on the blackboard and the class is encouraged to think of ideas, words, phrases associated with them. 
Example 1: Speaking in unit 12-English 10
When I teach speaking in unit 12-English 10, I may present a picture of a famous singer or musician and asks them the following questions
Who is she?
Do you like her?
If not, who is your favourite singer?
What kind of music does she sing?
Teacher leads in new lesson
Example 2: Speaking/Unit 15/English 12
Teacher may raise some questions and ask students to discuss in pairs: 
Do you think that women are as intelligent as men?
Do they have equal rights in the family and in the society?
Students ask and answer in pairs, then some students present their answer, teacher leads in new lesson
 Example 3 : Speaking-unit 6-English 12
T asks students to play a guessing game:" Find someone who.........."
Teacher divides the class into 2 groups
Teacher gives some information about some popular and interesting jobs in the society and asks student to guess what job it is. Each time they can guess they got one point 
Thirdly, students must be well-prepared and instructed before they practice speaking. 
 	Another point that makes it difficult for students to practise speaking is that their knowledge of the language is poor and they don't have ideas to talk about the topic (their language competences, vocabulary and grammar are limited)so in order to help students practice,teachers have to provide them with necessary language input and give students clear instructions
Example 1 : Task 2/speaking/unit 7/English 12
Teachers have to present some verbs used with the callocations given in the task by asking students to do the matching 
A
B
1. build
Teacher's salary
2. provide
Curriculum and textbook
3. reform
More school
4. apply
Teaching and learning method
5. train
More highly qualify doctors
6. raise
More equipment and facilities
Teachers also have to elicit the meaning of some words or phrase in the task 
Example 2: Speaking/unit11/English 10
Before students practise, teachers have to present the form and use of conditional sentences type 3 which is used to express a regret about what you did in the past
Example 3: Speaking /unit3/English 12
 	Teacher presents some ways of giving and responding to compliments
Giving compliments
Responding to compliments
You really have a beautiful blouse, Babara
Thank you, Phil. That's a nice compliment.
What a beautiful blouse it is !
You've got to be kidding! I thought it was terrible
How beautiful you are!
Thanks, Peter. It's nice of you to say so
Congratulation. You've played so well today
Thank you. Your compliment is really encouraging
Your hairstyle is terrific
Thank you for saying that
Forthly, Varying communicative activities is also important
As I have just presented above, effective methods of teaching indirectly encourage oral interaction and they can provide motivation. The direct way to promote oral communication is to provide students with opportunities to participate and to communicate with each other so that students can learn the language from speaking. The more opportunities of speaking the language they have, the more fluent they become. Actually, various activities in each lesson adds interest to students and can help with making students more dynamic and active. In speaking, students will be motivated if teachers provide them with various communicative activities. Below are some common speaking activities that I often carry out in my classes to make my speaking lessons more interesting and to motivate my students in practising English:
a. Discussions : In an discussion students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose. In an discussion teacher can form groups of 4 or 5 students. then each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class. For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large group because quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups. Generally speaking , in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, the students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so on.
b. Role play: One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role -play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel.
c. Information gaps: in this activity students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that the other partner does not have and the partner will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. These activities are effective because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language. The aim of this activity is to get learners to use the language they are learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of information and opinions.
d. Brainstorming: This helps students produce ideas in a limited time. The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not criticised for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas. Brainstorming is one of the simplest, but the most effective kind of motivation because it takes a short time. Teacher can write key words on the blackboard and the class is encouraged to think of ideas, words, phrases associated with them. 
e. Storytelling: students can briefly summarises a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Storytelling fosters creative thinking
f. Interviews: Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interview questions.
g. Reporting Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.
h. Group planning tasks: An example of this is planning a party or an excursion for the whole group. In this activity, teachers should allow them a good amount of time to prepare for a presentation in which they attempt to persuade the rest of the class to agree with their arrangements.
i. Picture Narrating: This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.
j. Picture Describing : One way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills. 
 Last but not least, we should also pay attention to these points:
The communicative activities listed above can help teachers a lot in promoting their students' speaking skills because they are quite interesting and they give students a reason to speak in different situations and about different topics. However, how should teachers run an activity effectively so that they can achieve their aims is also a problem. Here I would like to provide you with a basic route-map plan for running a simple EFL activity(English as a Foreign Language)
Activity route map
Before the lesson: familiarise yourself with the material and the activity; prepare any materials or texts you need
In class: Lead-in, preparation for the activity( this may be helped to raise motivation or interests, or perhaps to focus on language items that might be useful in the activity. model the conversation or the talk. Typical lead-ins are: show a picture connected to the topic. Ask questions/write up or read out a sentence starting a viewpoint. elicit reactions/ask students if they have ever seen/been/or done ect/make a strong, controversial statement/ .... ) 
Set up the activity : give instructions, make groupings, organize the class ..ect
Run the activity: students do the activity, maybe in pairs or in groups while teachers monitor and help
Close the activity and invite feedbacks from learners
Post activity: do any appropriate follow-on work.
 Example: Task 2-speaking-English 10/page 67
 This task is a discussion activity.
Before the lesson ( teacher prepare at home )
In class : To lead in and prepare students for the activity, I may show them the model of the boat and ask them about the different characteristics of each section/present some useful expressions for expressing agreements and disagreements /teacher asks some good students to make an example in front of the class before each group practise. 
Set up the activity : I would like you to work in groups of 3 or 4 students , deciding the best seat for each person mentioned in task 1.You have 7 minutes to complete the task
Run the activity : Teacher lets students to carry out the discussion in groups, move around and monitor the class
Close the activity : Teacher asks some groups to perform in front of the class and gives feedbacks
Post-activity : Teacher asks students to present their choice ( which seat is the most suitable for them )
Good atmosphere in the class and friendly relationship between teachers and students. 
Presenting our opinions and feelings in front of a lot of people in our native language has been a challenge to many people and using another language to convey what we want to say is of cour