Peter Lucantoni

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Peter Lucantoni

• Activities for developing speaking skills

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Peter Lucantoni

• Started teaching in 1979 in UK, MA TESOL
  University of Edinburgh, lived and worked in
  Europe and Middle East, now based in Cyprus
• Author, Educational Consultant Teacher Trainer
  for Cambridge University Press
• Cambridge TKT, CELTYL, CELTA DELTA trainer and
  Cambridge CELTYL assessor
• Examiner for Cambridge ESOL speaking examinations

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Overview

• What do the experts say?
• What does speaking involve?
• Pairwork and groupwork
• Making it motivating
• Activities
• Conclusions

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What do the experts say?

• The ability to speak a second language well is
  a very complex task (Jack Richards, 2002)
• Learning to speak a foreign language requires
  more than knowing its grammatical and semantic
  rules (Kang Shumin, 2002)
• Speaking is in many ways an undervalued skill
  (Martin Bygate, 2000)

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What do the experts say?

• Getting students to talk is the major and one of
  the most difficult tasks confronting any teacher
  (C N Candlin, 1990)
• We often make judgements about a persons social,
  cultural or educational background on the basis
  of the quality of their spoken language
  (Lucantoni, 2002)

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What does speaking involve?

• Discuss with your colleagues and try to agree on
  the different things that speaking involves.
• recall of appropriate words

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Speaking involves

• recall of appropriate words
• organisation of words into units
• movement of lips tongue to form sounds
• monitoring sounds and correcting if necessary
• awareness of cultural conventions

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What do learners need to practise and learn?

• 1 carry out routine exchanges
• 2 take part in unpredictable exchanges
• Think of examples of both types of exchanges

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What do learners need to practise and learn??

• 3 know when it is appropriate to speak, when to
  interrupt,
• 4 monitor what they say, for correction
• 5 negotiate and manage exchanges
• 6 speak with intelligible pronunciation
• 7 select appropriate grammar vocabulary

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Do we need to teach speaking skills?

• Grammar vocabulary learning involves oral
  practice
• Receptive skills lessons often involve speaking
• Speaking often bound up in everything else we do
  in classroom

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Do we need to teach speaking skills?

• Many learners say that speaking is the most
  important skill for them
• Dedicated speaking lessons are useful
• Provides safe rehearsal for the real world

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Pairwork group work

• Greatly increases amount of time students can
  talk in class best way to maximise class time
• Improves quality of talking, more natural
  hesitation, mixed structures, unfinished
• Natural framework for interaction
• Encourages communal classroom, helps to
  individualise learning

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Pairwork group work

• Students learn by doing things for themselves
• Focus on fluency rather than accuracy
• Confidence building
• Teacher freer to listen to more students
• Classes more active/interactive and fun,
  therefore more motivating

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Making it motivating

• Make speaking relevant
• Make speaking real
• Dont forget pronunciation
• Show them how much they can say (not what they
  cant say)

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Making it motivating

• Dont criticise mistakes
• Encourage free expression
• Provide feedback
• Give them the words they need
• Speaking means listening too

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Find someone who ...
Name Details
can ...
cant ...
likes ...
doesnt like ...
would like to ...
didnt ...
is going to ...
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Find someone who ...

• You Hassan, can you drive a car?
• Hassan Yes, I can.
• You When did you learn to drive?
• Hassan Two years ago.

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Find someone who ...
Name Details
can ... Hassan He learned two years ago
cant ...
likes ...
doesnt like ...
would like to ...
didnt ...
is going to ...
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Find someone who ...

• You Salma, would you like to come for
  dinner?
• Salma Yes, I would.
• You What would you like to eat?
• Salma Not meat Im vegetarian.

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Find someone who ...
Name Details
can ... Hassan He learned two years ago
cant ...
likes ...
doesnt like ...
would like to ... Salma Doesnt eat meat
didnt ...
is going to ...
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Swim swam swum street

• Think of the area where you live streets,
  shops, buildings, restaurants, etc
• Draw a simple map and name/label the details from
  the first stage
• Look through your notes and books and pick out
  10-12 useful words or phrases that you want to
  revise, eg, swim/swam/swum

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Swim swam swum street

• Now rename the details on the map, using the
  vocabulary you want to revise, for example Swim
  Swam Swum Street, On the Other Hand Restaurant,
  Most Comfortable Bank
• In pairs or small groups, present new maps to
  each other, reinforcing vocabulary to be revised

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Question-Question

• Sometimes we answer a question with another
  question
• Why? Try to think of three reasons

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Question-Question


Ali gtgtgt
ltltlt Badra
Pretty good. Where are you going? Im nosey. Can
I come with you? I said How are you? Hi, Badra,
how are you?
Im ok. What about you? What did you say? Ahhh,
thats my secret! Why do you want to know? Are
you crazy?
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• Ali Hello, how are you?
• Badra What did you say?
• Ali I said How are you?
• Badra Im ok, what about you?
• Ali Pretty good. Where are you going?
• Badra Ahhh, thats my secret! Why do you want
  to know?
• Ali Im nosey! Can I come with you?
• Badra Are you crazy?!

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Useful questions

• What did you say?
• Why do you ask?
• Can you say that again?
• Can we stop this?
• Are you deaf?
• What do you mean?

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The world

• Listen to the words
• Think about in which country you can write them
• Example coffee could go in Italy because the
  coffee is good there, or in Brazil because coffee
  beans grow there
• Discuss with your partners and give reasons for
  your choices

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The world

• Where did you put coffee?
• I put coffee in Brazil
• So did I / I didnt
• Why did you put coffee in Brazil?
• I chose Brazil because
• I agree / disagree

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The world

coffee football history wild animals
oil chocolate mountains fishing
coffee
peace water music
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Presenting a new product

• Umbrella
• Paper clip
• Candle
• Fork
• Coat hanger
• Highlighter
• Chopsticks

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Presenting a new product

• Choose the product you want to present
• Think of five new features for it
• Draw and label it, showing the new features

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Presenting a new product
1. Laser pointer
5. _______________
2. Multi-coloured
4. _______________
3. ________________
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Presenting a new product

• Look at the talk skeleton and make notes about
  your product
• Prepare and deliver your presentation to the class

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Presenting a new product

• Thank you very much for coming to our
  presentation!
• Our wonderful new product is called .
• Im going to tell you about it. Afterwards, you
  can ask questions.

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Presenting a new product

• The . is fantastic!
• Firstly .
• Secondly .
• Also .
• And .
• Finally .

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Presenting a new product

• We believe that our . is .
• I have time to answer two or three questions now
• Thank you all for listening!

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Conclusions

• Competence in speaking is just as much about how
  as what
• Building learners confidence is an essential
  part of the whole speaking process
• Dont sacrifice creativity for accuracy
• Dont sacrifice accuracy for creativity
• Scaffold, scaffold, scaffold

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Any questions?
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• peter_at_cup-training.org