“SPEAKING OF TEACHING…THE TEACHING OF SPEAKING”
(MANAGING FEAR & RISK OF ERROR)
In attempting to assist L2 learners’ biggest challenge is often an incredible amount of fear to overcome speaking incorrectly. There is a common lack of confidence by most second language learners to take the risks necessary to speak consistently because of the desire to avoid making pronunciation errors and grammatical mistakes. In order to overcome this fear, students must be spoon fed simple words, sentences and later phases which they can “parrot,” repeat in chunks or modify slightly in order to achieve small steps of success.
For the Language teacher, the first order of business is deciding what the purpose or goal of the speaking task is? Is it comprehension or correctness? If understanding and self-expression are the keys, the teacher may want to avoid correcting their grammar and instead simply recast the sentence in the proper format, modeling correct usage and pronunciation. For example, S1: “I wan’ go town today afternoon.” T1: “Oh,” says the teacher enthusiastically, “You want to go to town later today in the afternoon.” S1 Yes, I want to go town in afternoon, and buy food.” T1. “I see. You want to go to town this afternoon and go to the market to shop for food.”
This is not only why a TEFL teacher needs to speak slowly and simply, but to keep their concepts concrete, easy to follow and literally by avoiding the abstract applications of the target language. The temptation to teach a diverse numbers of phrasal options, idioms or inference type of questions is usually too difficult for most beginners. In short, because the language is far too “open ended” and complex.
An English language teacher must attempt to strike a balance between some generic sentences (greetings and requests) and allowing the second language learners the autonomy of self expression and original thought. They key question becomes not “How are you today?” with the robotic sounding, “I am fine today thank you…and you?” Rather it is instead to help them determine “What is it you want to try to say?”
This innate fear of speaking is perhaps one of the most crucial English language components for students to overcome on the road to L2 improvement and greater fluency. The need to speak and listen creates the foundation of conversation. The need for students to have models and examples of how to form simple sentences in a proper fashion is paramount, along with the recognition of basic introduction of vocabulary.
FOLLOW A SYSTEMATIC STEP BY STEP PROCEEDURE
There are indeed many options of lesson plans which a teacher can follow. Some work in certain situations better than others for specific individuals. Regardless, one thing they all tend to have in common is a step by step procedure. Students have to “stand” before they can “crawl or walk,” in terms of learning an additional language, and “walk” before they can “run.”
Unfortunately, based on months of direct observation, the common trend inexperienced teachers tend to expect his students to “run before they can walk,” so to speak. Therefore if a language teacher continually uses phrases and tends to omit the systematic introduction of vocabulary and pronunciation practice, the student will not be able to create an authentic voice or speech pattern in the new language centered on inquiry and self-expression.
If the instructor fails to utilize the examples of pre-formed sentences where the students can use them as examples and make slight alterations on which to build a leveled measure of success frustration at the limitless possibilities may ensue and de-motivation may result. Therefore, it is recommended that a teacher working with beginning learners not expect too much from his students without taking the time to lay the basic foundations the need to master successful speaking techniques and basic building blocks of conversation with straightforward and simple sentences first. Teaching the basic question words of “Who, What, Where, When, Why and How” can often aid in the formation of questions and answers early on.
MODELING VOCBULARY, PRONUNCIATION AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE
The written word is a source of comfort for many learners who may have studied the target language in school as an academic subject, but lack proper speaking practice, which is why challenging them with “basic conversation”, is a crucial element of building fluency.
As stated previously, beginning and intermediate second language learners need structure and patterned examples of words to follow when they engage in speaking in order to figure out the correct sequence and order in which to put their words. Using sentences with fill in the blanks has been suggested as one method to aid in this process. It consistently appears that many new TEFL teachers get so excited to get to the “main body of the lesson” he does not take the time necessary to “chunk” their lesson, beginning with the vocabulary and related material necessary to allow the students to digest what they need to “chew on and digest” before they have the strength to tackle speaking advance. Building listening skills is critical and necessary before students focus on performing complicated speaking tasks because otherwise, there are simply too many options of how to arrange the words in terms of syntax to make this process manageable.
Also, if students are simply told to “say it like this” (formatting their expressions in the Queen’s English) it defeats the conversational purpose and often results in the alluring temptation for the instructor to “pick the bones” out of what they have said because a large portion of their speaking sentences were phrased incorrectly.
This is why the act of role-playing/acting can be so helpful in the more advanced stages of speaking practice, provided that basic guidelines and scenarios are put in place to provide the necessary vocabulary, structure and boundaries needed for L2 learners to achieve a marked degree of improvement and speaking success. Some key concepts for the teacher to consider and coach their students in with regard to the elusive goal of determining what their students “want to try to say” it is sometimes helpful for them to consider the following procedure.
- Look at the person to who you will be greeting (what can you decipher about them).
- Listen closely to their request or comment.
- Think about what kind of response is best meets their needs to express, inquire or respond.
- Adjust your level of speaking based upon the situation and social parameters (formal vs. informal). Then forming your words and phrases/sentences in an appropriate manner.
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