Speaking proficiency is one kind of language proficiency to be achieved in the teaching of modern languages including English. Talking is the primary vehicle for fostering mutual understanding, mutual communication, using language as a medium.
Speak in the language classroom activities have aspects of two-way communication, ie, between the speaker and the listener on a reciprocal basis. Thus exercises should first talk based on: (1) the ability to listen, (2) the ability to say, and (3) mastery (relative) vocabulary and phrases that enable students to communicate the intent or his thoughts.
Therefore, it can be said that the practice of this speaking is a continuation of a listening exercise activities are also contained in the said exercise. Target to be achieved in this case is the ability and verbal fluency or oral talk (communicate) directly as a primary function of language, particularly English. Because the principle is to Teach in Teaching Speaking The Language, Do not Teach Only About The Language.
The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. Learners should be able to make themselves understood, using their current proficiency to the fullest. They should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication situation. To help students develop communicative efficiency in speaking, instructors can use a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output, and communicative output. Language input comes in the form of teacher talk, listening activities, reading passages, and the language heard and read outside of class. It gives learners the material they need to begin producing language themselves.
In the presentation part of a lesson, an instructor combines content-oriented and form-oriented input. The amount of input that is actually provided in the target language depends on students' listening proficiency and also on the situation. For students at lower levels, or in situations where a quick explanation on a grammar topic is needed, an explanation in English may be more appropriate than one in the target language.
Students often think that the ability to speak a language is the product of language learning, but speaking is also a crucial part of the language learning process. Effective instructors teach students speaking strategies -- using minimal responses, recognizing scripts, and using language to talk about language -- that they can use to help themselves expand their knowledge of the language and their confidence in using it. These instructors help students learn to speak so that the students can use speaking to learn.
Language learners who lack confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral interaction often listen in silence while others do the talking. One way to encourage such learners to begin to participate is to help them build up a stock of minimal responses that they can use in different types of exchanges. Such responses can be especially useful for beginners. Minimal responses are predictable, often idiomatic phrases that conversation participants use to indicate understanding, agreement, doubt, and other responses to what another speaker is saying. Having a stock of such responses enables a learner to focus on what the other participant is saying, without having to simultaneously plan a response.
Some communication situations are associated with a predictable set of spoken exchanges a script. Greetings, apologies, compliments, invitations, and other functions that are influenced by social and cultural norms often follow patterns or scripts. So do the transactional exchanges involved in activities such as obtaining information and making a purchase. In these scripts, the relationship between a speaker's turn and the one that follows it can often be anticipated. instructors can help students develop speaking ability by making them aware of the scripts for different situations so that they can predict what they will hear and what they will need to say in response. Through interactive activities, instructors can give students practice in managing and varying the language that different scripts contain
Language learners are often too embarrassed or shy to say anything when they do not understand another speaker or when they realize that a conversation partner has not understood them. Instructors can help students overcome this reticence by assuring them that misunderstanding and the need for clarification can occur in any type of interaction, whatever the participants' language skill levels. Instructors can also give students strategies and phrases to use for clarification and comprehension check. by encouraging students to use clarification phrases in class when misunderstanding occurs, and by responding positively when they do, instructors can create an authentic practice environment within the classroom itself. As they develop control of various clarification strategies, students will gain confidence in their ability to manage the various communication situations that they may encounter outside the classroom.
Traditional classroom speaking practice often takes the form of drills in which one person asks a question and another gives an answer. The question and the answer are structured and predictable, and often there is only one correct, predetermined answer. The purpose of asking and answering the question is to demonstrate the ability to ask and answer the question. in contrast, the purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task, such as conveying a telephone message, obtaining information, or expressing an opinion. In real communication, participants must manage uncertainty about what the other person will say. Authentic communication involves an information gap; each participant has information that the other does not have. In addition, to achieve their purpose, participants may have to clarify their meaning or ask for confirmation of their own understanding.
To create classroom speaking activities that will develop communicative competence, instructors need to incorporate a purpose and an information gap and allow for multiple forms of expression. However, quantity alone will not necessarily produce competent speakers. Instructors need to combine structured output activities, which allow for error correction and increased accuracy, with communicative output activities that give students opportunities to practice language use more freely.
Speaking skills to be mastered by the students because these skills are directly related to the entire student learning. Student success in following the process of teaching and learning in schools is largely determined by the mastery of their speech. Students who are unable to speak properly will have difficulty in following the learning activities for all subjects. Any talk of learning to speak learning methods have advantages and disadvantages of each. One method that will complement the other methods. Teachers can choose one or combine various methods in accordance with the conditions of students and availability of other means of support. In addition, teachers can also create a new model in the implementation of learning to speak. Language experience approach is one method that can be used by teachers to improve fluency in speaking because of the language experience approach, the materials developed by teachers with students face to face. In the normal development of materials that can be developed all language skills: listening, or listening, speaking, reading, and writing. With all the skills in an activity that required teachers to be more creative.
http://www.nclrc.org, acces on 27th June, 2012.
