Speaking: Productive and Interactive Dimensions

Key ideas: What to take into account when designing a speaking activity: • Goal of the activity
(production/interaction, accuracy/fluency, form/meaning) • Level • Time • Topic • Age • Learners’ L1 •
Teacher talk vs. student talk
Production: Interaction:
► Fluency ► Pronunciation ► Turn-taking ► Misunderstanding repair
► Complexity ► Relation between participants ► Discourse markers
To achieve leaners, communicate in a foreign language isn’t enough to know about grammar and vocabulary. They
should also develop intercultural competences. It seems one of the issues that requires special attention is  explicit
teaching of production and interaction strategies.
Goh and Burns draw on Levelt’s (1989) model for speech production that consists of three stages: conceptual
preparation, formulation, and articulation.

Model for speech production

Conceptual
Speakers select a topic or the ideas and information they want to express and transmit
preparation

This is probably the most challenging stage. Speakers make lexico-grammatical choices to express these abstract
Formulation
mental concepts

Speakers activate and control specific muscle groups in the articulatory system to carry the message in the form of
Articulation
sound waves to the listener

Analyzing the interactive dimension of speaking implies a focus on turn-taking, misunderstanding repair, the
relationship between the participants, discourse markers. At the level of speech production, studies are often concerned
with fluency and pronunciation. A focus on English as lingua franca has led to “discussions surrounding the importance
of intelligibility over accuracy. This takes us to another problematic issue in the field of teaching speaking centered on
production, that is, what is the importance of students trying at all time to imitate an accent and which accent, anyway?
Learners receive large amounts of input spoken with different accents and this exposure to a great variation of accent is
essential to the process of mastering listening skills. Apart from fluency and accuracy, the third key feature of learners’
speech is complexity (e.g., complex grammatical resources, compound and complex sentences, embedded clauses). We
cannot expect the same complex grammatical forms in oral discourse as in written discourse and teachers should bear in
mind this difference when assessing their students’ speaking skills.
It is interesting to note some specific features of
spoken discourse Goh and Burns (2012) have
observed, e.g., speakers must avoid
communication breakdown, they have limited
planning time ahead, and might have to add or
‘tag on’ to previous utterances. Repetition is
another specific feature of spoken discourse. In
a conversation, the listener can repeat some of
the words the speaker used to show interest,
agreement, or reinforce personal relationships.
Along the same lines, researchers consider that
students should be provided with enough
material of real interactions in a variety of social
and cultural contexts to make them aware of the diversity of spoken language. Textbook materials tend to use grammar models
based on high-prestige standard forms and students might be surprised to find that the expressions they are taught in a formal
educational context differ from real examples of interactions between native speakers.

Scott Thornbury argues that there are three components implicated in second language speaking: knowledge, skills, and the
use of strategies.
Knowledge
Learners should know the features of the language system: Phonological, lexical, and discourse. They should also be able to
encode their communicative intentions, using the resources of the target language.
Skills
Speaking is rarely limited to production; it is mostly interaction. Thus, students need interactive skills, such as negotiation
skills and management skills (mainly turn-taking).
 Strategic component
Communication strategies are applied to compensate for some deficiency in the linguistic system. For instance, learners can
paraphrase an expression or use gestures to convey meaning. Communication strategies can be cognitive, metacognitive, and
interaction.
Considerations: ► Communicative Language Teaching: “real-life” situations ►Intelligibility/Communication over accuracy?
► Accent: Whose accent? Native speaker as a model? ► Written vs. oral discourse (computed mediated communication)

Current practice in teaching speaking

The situational approach: Typical contexts (e.g. at the restaurant) determine the choice of language items.
The speech act approach: Focuses on specific speech acts (e.g. greeting, apologizing).
he skills and strategies approach: Focuses on a number of subskills, such as opening and closing conversation, interrupting,
or turn-taking.
The genre approach: Focuses on the social purposes of speaking and related genres (e.g. narrating, giving a presentation).
he corpus-informed approach: Draws on corpora of spoken language to identify its particular syntactic and lexical features.

Thornbury (2012) proposes a three-tier staging of speaking instruction:

 An awareness-raising stage: Learners are presented or discover features of spoken language.
 Appropriation activities: Reading aloud, rehearsing and performing dialogues; learners gain control
of targeted features.
 Autonomy: Discussion, debates, formal presentations, and drama-based activities (pp. 203-204).

Factors that affect the learning of another sound system

The extent to which the learner will have a near-native accent depends on the age at which she/he starts learning
Age
English. As learners get older L1 system becomes increasingly well integrated

Learners who have the same L1 usually pronounce the foreign language in the same way, which shows how L1
The learner’s
influences
first language
patterns of pronunciation. It will be easier for teachers who are familiar with students’ L1 to prevent
mispronunciation

The learner’s development

There is
anda developmental
range of interlanguage stage for phonology. As learners proceed in their learning of L2,
styles interference processes from their L1 decrease, but developmental processes increase

The learner’s life experience and attitudes to the learning process; type of motivation; the number of years the
The experience and attitude of the learner
learner has lived in an English-speaking country

The way in which the sound system is taught and learnt, e.g., seeing a speaker’s mouth movement can improve
The conditions for teaching and learning
certain aspects of pronunciation

Teaching pronunciation implies not only the correct pronunciation of sounds, stress, and intonation, but also
attention to processes such as blending and omission of sounds. Learners should become aware of how non-verbal
behaviour like gestures affect interaction. Nation and Newton identify five factors that affect the learning of
another sound system.
Nation and Newton (2009) also identify five possible causes for learners who are reluctant to speak: inadequate
vocabulary, inadequate control of grammar, lack of fluency, shyness, lack of encouragement (p. 112). These students
might feel awkward when they have to use the target language in a speaking activity.
Another reason of anxiety can be the lack of decontextualized oral-language skills. For Goh and Burns (2012),
“decontextualized oral-language skill is the ability to talk about things that are beyond the immediate context of
interaction and make information explicit and coherent for listeners who share limited background information with the
speakers” 

Teacher Talk
Research into teacher talk examines a wide range of issues, such as teachers’ language use, native and non-native language
teachers, the type of questions and directives teachers use, teacher talk time, etc. To explore the role of teacher talk in the FL
classroom, we should first distinguish between teaching a language through speaking and teaching speaking skills explicitly.
Teacher talk time, compared to the amount of student talk has become an important topic in recent debates about the teacher’s
role in the FL classroom. Research shows that in the proportion between teacher talk and student talk, teacher talk prevails,
 i.e., it usually takes between 50% and 70% of the class time. he first step to reducing teacher talk time is to observe our own
performance in class and detect the proportion of class talk time our speech takes. It seems clear that  excessive teacher
talk will reduce students’ talk, but we should also decide what we understand by “excessive teacher talk”. 
Quality of teacher talk is as important as teacher talk time. Another aspect we should take into account when we analyze
teacher talk is how teachers distribute their time between functional interactions and explanations.
One of the elements that affects interaction is the type of questions teachers ask. Another feature of teacher talk is how
effective explanations are. Long monologues might not be the best way to present new material if we want to develop
students’ speaking skills. Thus, it becomes clear that “classroom interaction is shaped by teachers’ decisions”

Factors that affect the learning of another sound system

Genuine questions. The teacher does not know the answer, unlike display questions, whose purpose is to allow
Referential questions
students display their knowledge. Implies a greater effort and depth of processing on the part of the teacher

Feedback on content involves responding to the content of what learners are saying, rather than commenting
Content feedback
solely on the form

The time teachers allow students to answer questions before asking another student, rephrasing the question or
Wait time
answering the question themselves

Learners should also be asking questions. A high proportion of student-initiated questions suggests a healthy
Student-initiated talk
distribution of the “ownership” of classroom discourse

teacher talk —simplification of language. Simplified input is inevitable at early ages of learning to ensure the
general comprehension of explanations and instructions. Apart from speaking slowly, teachers often
provide paralinguistic cues to help beginners process the message. Error correction is one of the most sensitive
issues in the EFL classroom. First, we should make difference between error and mistake:
If learners get something wrong because their developing internal second language (i.e., their interlanguage) is not yet
complete or ‘fully competent’, this is a developmental error. Errors may also be caused by interference, that is, the influence
of the learners’ L1 on their L2 in a range of ways, including grammar, lexis, and phonology […].
In contrast, however, mistakes are the result of slips of the tongue (where learners actually know the right language but fail to
produce it). (Hall, 2011, pp. 13-14, italics in original)

While there is no doubt about the need to design activities that allow
students to generate speech in the target language, speaking activities are
challenging also for teachers, as they have to help students overcome
their anxiety, stress, and frustration. Goh and Burns (2012) discuss what
they consider the three key features of learner
speech: fluency, accuracy and complexity and classify activities
according to the key feature they focus on: fluency (meaning focused),
accuracy (form-focused) and complexity (form and meaning focused). A
cyclical model for teaching speaking that is not limited to a single class
or activity, but is extended over a sequence of lessons. The model can be
applied through a task-based approach and a text-based approach, among
others.
Activities, Tasks and Resources in the EFL Classroom
Nunan (1991) focuses on the so-called “interlocutor effect” to show how in interaction both the difficulty of a
task and its outcome depend to a great extent on one’s interlocutor’s skills.
Activities can also be designed to develop the four core speaking skills: pronunciation, speech function,
interaction management, and discourse organization. One of the most important aspects involved in teaching
speaking is teaching pronunciation. Teaching pronunciation usually begins by listening to certain sounds and then
identifying these sounds in words and utterances. This is followed by guided pronunciation activities. The teachers
can use minimal pairs to help students distinguish the individual sounds. Visuals are very useful in this type of
activity, especially with young learners. In the initial stages of the process, repeating after a model is
essential. Diagrams of pronunciation with pictures of the position of the tongue in the pronunciation of different
sounds will help students understand the way these sounds are produced. We should not forget to pay special
attention to intonation and stress.
The teachers can use minimal pairs to help students distinguish the
individual sounds. Visuals are very useful in this type of activity,
especially with young learners. In the initial stages of the
process, repeating after a model is essential. Diagrams of
pronunciation with pictures of the position of the tongue in the
pronunciation of different sounds will help students understand the
way these sounds are produced. We should not forget to pay
special attention to intonation and stress.

Interaction involves
the integration of
Types of control and techniques of speaking listening and speaking
skills, “with the
Degree and type of control Techniques listener negotiating and
shaping the spoken
Prepared reading aloud Giving dictation message” (Nation &
Unprepared reading aloud Chain story Newton, 2009, p. 97).
Rehearsed formal speaking Read and retell The feedback the
Formal speaking with no time pressure Peer talks listener provides to the
One-way information gap activities Listen and do speaker “may involve
Split information activities with time pressure Find the difference pointing out problems
with the
comprehensibility of the message and specifying where the problem lies. This feedback and questioning is
called negotiation” 
Negotiation in interaction facilitates learning in several ways, such as making input understandable or making
students aware of the need to express themselves clearly. Teachers should encourage negotiation in classroom
activities. Split information activities are an example of negotiation; for instance, two students can be given
worksheets with different information on the same topic and required to ask and answer questions in order to draw
a full picture of the topic.
Another opportunity for negotiation is a problem-solving task, in which students are given the same information and they
have to cooperate and reach an agreement on the solution of the problem. 
Bygate (2009) divides speaking skills into
two categories. This division can be used as a
basis for designing speaking activities and by
extension for establishing assessment criteria.
He defines routines as “conventional ways of
presenting information” (p. 23).
Some types of teaching-speaking activities
were mentioned above in the discussion of
different methodological approaches to
teaching speaking. Some others include:
information-gap activities vs. context-gap
activities, discussion, brainstorming,
monologic tasks (learners produce extended
piece of discourse, they have to be able to
open, maintain, and close discourse on a
topic, use cohesive devices, share their
personal view, and speak in front of an audience), oral drills, games, role-playing, simulation activities (e.g. setting up a
company, advertising campaign, trying to solve a local community problem), acting out social roles, sharing leisure activities,
etc. Activities should engage students with their personal experience and with the world around them. 
Types of teaching-speaking activities:
Speaking activities often require peer interaction and it is important to build positive group dynamics.
Assessment
There is a wide agreement among researchers and instructors that because it is carried out in real time and is
mostly interactive, speaking is very difficult to assess. 
Speaking tests include interviews and scales, group oral exam, dycoms (split information), describe and draw,
conversational cloze, multiple-choice speaking test, imitation, role play and any other activity that the teacher
can adapt for assessment.
Reflective tasks allow learners to become aware of their performance and progress. Self-assessment
worksheets will include accuracy and fluency, among other factors, depending on the approach adopted, but in
this case, students are also asked to reflect on their skills, challenges, and strategies they employ to overcome
difficulties. Self-assessment checklist can include their feelings and how they cope with time pressure and
anxiety. These tasks also aim at boosting students’ self-confidence.