TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL

I. INTRODUCTION
Speaking is a productive skill. It involves using speech to express meanings to
other people. Speaking covers a lot of categories like grammar and vocabulary: functions,
features of connected speech, appropriacy, body language and interaction.
Interaction is two-way communication that involves using language and body
language to keep our listeners involved in what we are saying to check that they
understand our meaning. Examples of these interactive strategies are: making eye
contact, using facial expressions, asking checking questions (e.g: Do you understand?),
clarifying your meaning (e.g: I mean...., what I’m trying to say is ...), confirming
understanding (e.g: mm, right).
We speak with fluency and accuracy. Fluency is speaking at a normal speed
without hesitation, repetition or self-correction, and with smooth use of connected
speech. Accuracy in speaking is the use of correct forms of grammar, vocabulary and
pronunciation.
II. ELEMENT OF SPEAKING
1. Language features
Among the elements necessary for spoken production are the following:
 Connected speech: effective speakers of English need to be able not only to
produce individual phonemes of English ( as in I would have gone) but also to use
fluent ‘connected speech’ (as in I’ve gone). In connected speech, sounds are
modified (assimilation), omitted (elision), added (linking r), or weakened ( through
contraction and stress planning). It is for this reason that we should involve students
in activities designed specifically to improve their connected speech.
 Expressive devices: native speakers of English change the pitch and stress of
particular parts of utterances, vary volume and speed, and show by other physical
and non-verbal (paralinguistic) means how they are feeling (especially in face to
face interaction). The use of these devices contributes to the ability to convey

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 meanings. They allow the extra expression of emotion and intensity. Students
should be able to deploy at least some of such supra-segmental features and devices
in the same way if they are to be fully effective communicators.
 Lexis and grammar: spontaneous speech is marked by the use of a number of
common lexical phrases, especially in the performance of certain language
functions. Teachers should therefore supply a variety of phrases for different
functions such as agreeing or disagreeing, expressing surprise, shock and approval.
 Negotiation language: effective speaking benefits from the negotiatory language
we use to seek clarification and to show the structure of what we are saying. We
often need to ask for ‘clarification’ when we are listening to someone else talk. For
students this is especially crucial. A useful thing teachers can do, therefore, is to
offer them phrases such as the following:
I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch that.
I’m sorry. I don’t understand.
What exactly does X mean?
Could you explain that again please?
2. Mental/social processing
If part of a speaker’s productive ability involves the knowledge of language skills,
success is also dependent upon the rapid processing skills that talking necessitates.
 Language processing: effective speakers need to be able to process language in
their own heads and put it into coherent order so that it comes out in forms that are
not only comprehensible, but also convey the meanings that are intended.
 Interacting with others: most speaking involves interaction with one or more
participants. This means that effective speaking also involves a good deal of
listening, an understanding of how the other participants are feeling, and a
knowledge of how linguistically to take turns or allow others to do so.

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III. TEACHING SPEAKING IN CLASS:
A. Controlled speaking:
1. Definition:
In many classes, learners do controlled practice activities. They are intended to establish
some correctness in the production of new items immediately after they are presented.
These are a very limited kind of speaking because they just focus on accuracy in speaking
and not communication, interaction or fluency. Learners are usually very aware that they
are repeating the new item or items over and over again. They also know they are
expected to avoid errors. Controlled practice activities can provide useful, if limited,
preparation for speaking.
The following activities can be used for the practice of pronouncing new words and
expressions, necessary vocabulary, organizing ideas… to help learners before they speak
freely.
2. Some controlled speaking activities
Activities Description
Students repeat teacher’s model as quickly and accurately as
2.1. Repetition drill
possible
Students ask and answer each other one-by-one in a circular chain
2.2. Chain drill
around the classroom.
Teacher states a line from the dialogue, then uses a word or a
2.3. Single Slot
phrases as a “cue” that students, when repeating the line, must
Substitution Drill
substitute into the sentence in the correct place.
2.4.Multiple-slot Same as the Single Slot Drill, except that there are multiple cues
Substitution Drill to be substituted into the line.
Teacher provides a sentence that must be turned into something
2.5. Transformation
else, for example a question to be turned into a statement, an
Drill
active sentence to be turned into a negative statement, etc.

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2.6. Question-and-
Students should answer or ask questions very quickly.
answer Drill
This can be done in pairs. Any controlled oral practice can be
2.7. Pattern Practice
done first with the whole class, and then in pairs.
2.8. Complete the Selected words are erased from a line in the dialogue – students
dialogue must find and insert.
Acting out short dialogues can very easily be done in pairs, with
2.9. Practising short little chance of students making mistakes. It can be done first with
dialogues pairs of students in front of the class, and then with all the
students working in pairs at the same time.
Students can discuss questions in pairs or groups and then read
2.10. Reading a text
the text; or they can read the text silently, and then ask and
and answering
answer the questions in pairs or groups. This is a good way of
questions
involving the whole class in answering the questions.
Students can do grammar exercises orally in pairs; the teacher
2.11. Grammar goes through the answers afterwards with the whole class, and
exercises students write the exercise for homework. This is more interesting
and productive than students doing exercises alone, in silence.
2.12. Grammar Various games designed to practice a grammar point in context,
Games using lots of repetition.

3. Feedback and correction in accuracy work

It is the common assumption that it is the teacher’s job to correct learners, and the
learners cannot correct themselves. Neither assumption is true. But learners will be
passive and not correct themselves if you continually do it for them. Learners must learn
to correct themselves if they are really to learn the language.
 Techniques for helping learner’s self-correct
- Repeat the incorrect form with a questioning intonation

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 - Giving the correct form at the beginning of it, but not the whole sentence
- Repeat the sentence up to the error
- Simply indicate an error with a questioning facial expression or say ‘Sorry?’
- Move one hand over the other for wrong word order.
- Point backwards and forwards for past or future tenses.
- Give the learner a choice – ‘cheap, cheaper, more cheap?’
- Draw an S in the air with a finger for errors like ‘He live in Rome.’
In accurate practice most errors in key features should be corrected immediately but:
- You should give learners the opportunity to correct themselves, helping as necessary
(self-correction)
- If a learner cannot self-correct, you should invite other learners to make the
correction. (peer correction)
- If no other learner can make the correction, you should make the correction yourself
(teacher correction)
B. Guided speaking:
1. Definition:
These activities aim at developing accuracy and fluency, i.i. the ability to communicate
with little hesitation, even if they make mistakes. They are intended to promote the use of
language for real communication. The attention should be more on the information
learners are communicating than language. These activities usually combine new items
with other language and also the language used may be guided by dialogue scripts or
materials such as pictures and forms but information gap and some freedom for the
learners to decide exactly what they say are essential in these activities.
2. Stages of a guided speaking activity
STAGE I. PRESENTATION
1. Introduce the activity
The introduction may simply be a brief explanation. If almost always should include a
statement of the ultimate purpose so that students can apply all the other directions to that
objective.

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2. Justify the use of small groups for the activity
The teacher may not need to do this with the classes all the time, but if the students have
any doubts about the significance of the upcoming task, then tell them explicitly why the
small group discussion is important for accomplishing the task. Remind them that they
will get an opportunity to practice certain language forms or functions, and that if they
are reluctant to speak up in front of the whole class, now is their chance to do so in the
security of a small group.
3. Model the activity
If the students have done the activity before, modelling may not be necessary. But for a
new and potentially complex task, it is worthwhile for the teacher to make sure students
know what they are supposed to do. The modeling must be done first by the teacher and
an individual or a group, then two other individuals or groups will do it again for sure.
4. Give explicit detailed instruction
Now that students have seen the purpose of the task and have had a chance to witness
how their discussion might proceed, give them specific instructions on what they are to
do. Include:
 A restatement of the purpose
 Rules they are to follow
 Establish a time frame
 Assign roles
5. Divide the class into groups
To ensure participation or control, teacher may want to reassign groups in order to
account for one or two of the following:
 Native language
 Proficiency level
 Age or gender difference
6. Check for clarification
7. Set the task in motion

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STAGE II - PRACTICE
Monitoring the task: The teacher now becomes a facilitator and resource.
 A FEW DON’TS
 Do not sit at your desk and grade papers
 Do not leave the room and take a break
 Do not focus on one or two particular groups
 Do not correct students’ errors unless asked to do
so
 Do not assume a dominating or disruptive role
while monitoring groups

STAGE III. PRODUCTION

1. Reporting the findings
Make sure that there is enough time for the groups to report their findings. This whole-
class process gives each group a chance to perceive differences and similarities in their
work.
2. Recording mistakes
Teachers must observe, watch and listen to students when they are reporting so that they
can give feedback on how well students have performed. However, it is easy to forget
what students have said after the event. Most teachers, therefore, write down points they
want to refer to later, and some like to use charts or other forms of categorization to help
them to do this.
3. Feedback and correction:
One way of doing this is to write sentences with errors in them on the board – without
saying who made the errors. Then get the learners to identify and correct them.
IV. CHARACTERISTIC OF A SUCCESSFUL SPEAKING ACTIVITY
1. Learners talk a lot

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As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by
learner talk. This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talk or
pauses.
2. Participation is even
Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants, all gets a
chance to speak, and contribution is fairly even distributed.
3. Motivation is high
Learners are eager to speak, because they are interested in the topic and have something
new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective.
4. Language is of an acceptable level
Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each
other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy.
V. PROBLEMS WITH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES AND SOLUTIONS TO SPEAKING PROBLEMS
A. Problems:
1. Inhibition
Unlike reading, writing and listening, speaking requires some degree of real-time
exposure to an audience. Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a
foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or
losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts.
2. Nothing to say
Even if they are not inhibited, teachers often hear learners complain that they cannot
think of anything to say: they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty
feeling that they should be speaking.
3. Low or uneven participation
Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard; and in a large group
this means that each one will have only very little talking time. This problem is
compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak very
little or not at all.

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4. Mother tongue use
In classes, where all the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use
it, because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign
language, and because they feel less ‘exposed’ if they are speaking their mother tongue.
If they are talking in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes –
particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones – to keep the target language.
B. Solutions:
1. Use group work
This increases the sheer amount of learner talk going on in a limited period of time and
also lowers the inhibitions of learners who are unwilling to speak in front of the full
class. It is true that groupwork means the teacher cannot supervise all learner speech,
so that not all utterances will be correct, and learners may occasionally slip into their
native language; nevertheless, even taking into consideration occasional mistakes and
mother-tongue use, the amount of time remaining for positive, useful oral practice is
still plentiful.
2. Base the activity on easy language
In general, the level of language for a discussion should be lower than that used in
intensive language – learning activities in the same class: it should be easily recalled and
produced by the participants, so that they can speak fluently with the minimum of
hesitation. It is a good idea to teach or review essential vocabulary before the activity
starts.
3. Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest
On the whole, the clearer the purpose of the discussion, the more motivated
participants will be.
4. Give some instructions or training in discussion skill
If the task is based on group discussions then teachers should include instructions about
participation when introducing it. For example, tell learners to make sure that everyone in

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the group contributes to the discussion, appoint a chairperson or a secretary to each group
who will regulate the discussion and record what each member says.
5. Keep students speaking the target language
The teacher might appoint one of the group as monitor, whose job is to remind
participants to use the target language, and perhaps report later to the teacher how well
the group managed to keep to it. Even if there is no actual penalty, the awareness that
someone is monitoring helps participants to be more careful.
VI. SOME COMMON SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN CLASS
1. Role play
i) Role play is a way of bringing situations from real life into the classroom. When we
do role play, we ask students to imagine
They may imagine:
- A role: in other words, they pretend to be a different person (e.g: a farmer)
- A situation: in other words, they pretend to be doing something different (e.g:
planning a holiday)
- Both a role and a situation (e.g: police officer asking about a lost bag)
ii) In role play, students improvise. The situation is fixed, but they make up the exact
words to say as they go along.
Look at these examples of role play activities.
A. One student imagines he/she is a farmer. Other students ask him/her questions about
his/her daily routine.
B. A group of students imagine they are friends planning a holiday together. They try to
decide where to go and what to do.
C. One student has lost a bag. He/she is at the police station reporting it to the police.
The other student is the police officer, and asks for details.
Which activity would be the easiest for your students to do? Which would be the most
difficult? Why?

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Remember that the situations we use for role play should as far as possible be within the
experience of the students. In general, the more familiar a role or situation is, the easier it
will be. Suitable roles for school classes would be:
- People familiar to students from everyday life, e.g: parents, brothers, sisters, teachers,
shopkeepers, police officers.
- Characters from the textbook, and from other books or from television
Suitable situations:
- Situations which students see or take part in everyday life, e.g: shopping, holiday,
using local transport, asking the way to places.
- ‘Fantasy’ situations from stories they read, or from the textbook.

2. Information gap activities (pairs)

 Information Gap:
Each person in the pair has a picture or some information that the other needs, but
cannot see. They must find out, by asking questions and explaining, enough
information to solve the problem or complete the task.
Procedure: Students sit in pairs. In each pair, Student X is a customer, and has a
shopping list. Students Y is a shop assistant, and has a list of items in the shop and
their prices. They do not look at each other’s list. Students X tries to ‘buy’ the
things on her list, e.g.:
A: Have you got any tea?
B: Yes, I have.
A: How much does it cost?

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 B: 50p a packet.
 Find the differences (with two nearly identical pictures or maps)
Step 1: each student works with a partner. One student receives a copy of the
original picture, the other a copy of the picture with minor alterations. By describing
their pictures to one another and asking questions they have to determine how many
and what differences there are between them. They are not allowed to show their
pictures to their partners.
Step 2: when they think they have found out all the differences they compare
pictures.
 Ordering
Preparation: a comic strip ( or picture story) of at least 4 pictures is cut up, and the
pictures pasted in random order on two pieces of paper, so that each sheet contains
half the pictures. One student receive one set, and the other half, the other student.
Step 1: students work in pairs. Each partner has half the pictures from a comic strip.
First, each student describes his pictures to his partner. They do not show each other
their pictures.
Step 2: they decide on the content of the story and agree on a sequence for their
total number of pictures. Finally, both picture sheets are compared and the solution
discussed.
 Strip story
Preparation: a story with as many sentences as there are students. Each sentence is
written on a separate strip of paper.
Step 1: each student receives a strip of paper with one sentence on it. He is asked
not to show his sentence to anybody else but to memorize it within two minutes.
After two minutes, all the strips of paper are collected in again.
Step 2: the teacher briefly explains the task: ‘ all the sentences you have learnt
make up a story. Work out the correct sequence without writing anything down.’
From now on the teacher should refuse to answer any questions or give any help.

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 Step 3: the students present the sequence they have agreed on. A discussion
follows on how everybody felt during this exercise.
3. Surveys/questionnaire/interviews/discussion
 Find someone who
Preparation: handout
Find someone who Name Explanation
1. chews chewing gum.
2. reads more than one book a week.
3. has been to Scotland.
4. has played this game before.
...................................................................................................................................
.....
Step 1: each student receives a handout. Everyone walks around in the room and
questions other people about things on the handout. As soon as somebody finds
another student who answers yes to one of the questions, he writes his name in
the space and goes on to question someone else because each name may only be
used once. After a given time (15 minutes) or when someone has filled in all the
blanks, the questioning stops.
Step 2: students read out what they have found out. They can preface their report
with “I was surprised that X liked.......” or “I never thought that Y liked.....”
 What would happen if ...?
Preparation: about twice as many slips of paper with an event written on them as
there are students.
Procedure: every student receives one or two slips of paper with sentences like
these on them: ‘What would happen if a shop gave away its good free every
Wednesday?” or “What would you do if you won a trip for two to a city of your
choice?”. One student starts by reading out his question and then asks another

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 student to answer it. The second student continues by answering or asking a third
student to answer the first student’s question. If he has answered the question he
may then read out his own question for somebody else to answer. The activity is
finished when all the questions have been read out and answered.
Variation: students can prepare their own questions. Some more suggestions:
What would happen if:
Everybody who told a lie turned green?
People could get a driving license at 14?
Gold was found in your area?
.............................................................................
What would you do if:
You were invited to the Queen’s garden party?
If it rained every day of your holiday?
You got lost on a walk in the wood?
 Ageless
Each group talks about age, guided by the following questions:
What do you like about your present age? What did you like about being younger?
What will you like about being 5/10/30 years older? What will you like about being
elderly? What is the ideal age/why? What could you say to someone who is not
happy about his age? Do you often think about age/growing old/staying young?
Variation: the questions can be distributed to different students, who ask the
other members of the class/their group when it is their turn.
 Desert island
Step 1: The teacher tells the class about the situation and set the task:
“You are stranded on a desert island in the Pacific. All of you have is the swim-suit
and sandals you are wearing. There is food and water on the island but nothing else.
Here is a list of things you may find useful. Choose the eight most useful items and
rank them in order of usefulness.

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 A box of matches Ointment for cuts and burns
A magnifying glass A saucepan
An axe A knife and fork
A bottle of whisky 20 meters of nylon rope
An atlas A blanket
A transitor radio with batteries A watch
A nylon tent A towel
A camera and five rolls of film A pencil and paper

Step 2: Students present their solutions and defend their choices against the others’
argument.
Notice: There is of course, no correct solution to this task. It should be viewed as a
lighthearted activity which will help provide an element of imagination and fun in
the foreign language class.
 Balloon debate (Advanced)
In this kind of debate, there are no teams. Instead, each speaker represents a type
of job or occupation. Usually there are five speakers – for example, a doctor, a
lawyer, a farmer, a housewife, and a teacher.
Preparation: picture of a gas balloon.

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 Step 1: teacher introduces the debate like this:
Before airplanes were invented it was possible to travel through the air using a gas
balloon. The large part above was full of gas which keeps the balloon in the air.
The people were in a large basket underneath, sometimes known as a gondola. The
balloon needs to be full of gas in order to remain in the air.
Step 2: the five characters and the audience are asked to imagine that they are in
the gas balloon moving through the sky. Unfortunately, the gas is leaking and the
balloon’s load has to be lightened. This can only be done by throwing one person
out.
Step 3: the five speakers go to the front. As a first stage, each one speaks for three
minutes explaining to the audience why they particularly should not be thrown
out.
Step 4: after they have all spoken, the audience votes by writing the name of the
person they think is the least useful to the world on a small piece of paper. After
counting the votes, the one found to be least useful is sent back to the audience,
leaving four.
Step 5: these four are then given three minutes each to speak against each other.
The audience votes again. One more is thrown out, leaving three.
Step 6: these three are now questioned by the audience, who can either ask them
individual questions or put the same questions to them all. Again, the audience
votes, and they reduced to two.
Step 7: for the final round, the two remaining candidates are allowed to speak once
more, before a final vote is held to find the winner.
 Secret topic
Step 1: two students agree on a topic they want to talk about without telling the
others what it is.
Step 2: the two students start discussing their topic without mentioning it. The
others listen. Anyone in the rest of the group who thinks he knows what they are

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 talking about, join in their conversation. When about a third or half of the class
have joined in, the game is stopped.
 Chain story
The teacher starts the story by giving the first sentence, e.g: ‘it was a stormy night
in November’. A student (either a volunteer or the person sitting nearest to the
teacher) continues the story. He may say up to three sentences. The next student
goes on.
Variations: each student is given a number. The number determines the sequence in
which the students have to contribute to the story.
 Picture stories
Preparation: pictures from magazines and cartoon strips with the words in the
speech bubbles blanked out.
The students have to write texts for the pictures or fill in the speech bubbles.
Variations
1. If more than one pair of students receive the same pictures/cartoon strips, their
results can be compared.
2. One pair of students fill in the first speech bubble on a cartoon strip then hands
the page the next pair who fill in the next bubble, and so on. The first pair, in the
meantime, fill in the first speech bubble on another strip, and then pass on in the
same way.
4. Games
 Guessing games (elementary) using 20 yes-no questions
Class has to guess, what object, person, action or place one student is thinking of
or has a picture of.
 What’s in the box (object)
One person or team thinks of an object. The others can ask up to 20 questions with
Yes or No answers in order to guess what the object is. If they guess less than 20
questions, they have won. Questions like: is it alive? Is it made of wood? Does it
have 4 legs? Is it bigger than a car?...
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  What is my job? (People)
Similar to ‘what is in the box?’. Questions like ‘Do you wear a uniform?’ ‘Do you
travel a lot?’ ‘Do you work outside?’.... can be asked.

VI. THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN SPEAKING LESSONS

As with any other type of classroom procedure, teacher needs to play a number of
different roles during the speaking activities. However, three have particular relevance
if we are trying to get students to speak fluently:
 Prompter: students sometimes get lost, cannot think of what to say next, or in some
other way lose the fluency we expect of them. We can leave them to struggle out of
such situations on their own, and in deed sometimes this may be the best option.
However, we may be able to help them and the activity to progress by offering discrete
suggestions. If this can be done supportively – without disrupting the discussion, or
forcing students out of role – it will stop the sense of frustration that some students feel
when they come to a ‘dead end’ of language or idea.
 Participant: teachers should be good animators when asking students to produce
language. Sometimes this can be achieved by setting up an activity clearly and with
enthusiasm. At other times, however, teachers may want to participate in discussions
or role-plays themselves. That way they can prompt covertly, introduce new
information to help the activity along, ensure continuing student engagement, and
generally maintain a creative atmosphere. However, in such circumstances, they have
to be careful that they do not participate too much, thus dominating the speaking and
draw all the attention to themselves.
 Feedback-provider: the vexed question of when and how to give feedback in
speaking activities is answered by considering carefully the effect of positive different
approaches. When students are in the middle of a speaking activity, over-correction
may inhibit them and take the communicativeness out of the activity. On the other
hand, helpful and gentle correction may get students out of misunderstandings and
hesitations. Everything depends on our tact and the appropriacy of the feedback we

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 give in particular situations. When students have completed an activity, it is vital that
we allow them to assess what they have done and that we tell them what, in our
opinion, went well. We will respond to the content of the activity as well as the
language used.
More speaking suggestions

The following activities are also helpful in getting students to practise ‘speaking-as-a-
skill’. Although they are not level-specific, the last four will be more successful with
higher-level students (upper intermediate plus), whereas the first two, in particular, are
highly appropriate at lower levels (but can also be used satisfactorily with more advanced
classes).

1. Information-gap activities:
An information gap is where two speakers have different bits of information, and
they can only complete the whole picture by sharing that information - because they have
different information, there is a ‘gap’ between them.
One popular information-gap activity is called Describe and draw. In this activity,
one student has a picture which they must not show their partner (teachers sometimes like
to use surrealist paintings - empty doorways on beaches, trains coming out of fireplaces,
etc). All the partner has to do is draw the picture without looking at the original, so the
one with the picture will give instructions and descriptions, and the ‘artist’ will ask
questions.
A variation on Describe and draw is an activity called Find the differences -
popular in puzzle books and newspaper entertainment sections all over the world.
In pairs, students each look at a picture which is very similar (though they do not
know this) to the one their partner has. They have to find, say, ten differences between
their pictures without showing their pictures to each other. This means they will have to
do a lot of describing - and questioning and answering - to find the differences.
For information-gap activities to work, it is vitally important that students
understand the details of the task (for example, that they should not show each other their

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pictures). It is often a good idea for teachers to demonstrate how an activity works by
getting a student up to the front of the class and doing the activity (or a similar one) with
that student, so that everyone can see exactly how it is meant to go.
2. Telling stories:
We spend a lot of our time telling other people stories and anecdotes about what
happened to us and other people. Students need to be able to tell stories in English, too.
One way of getting students to tell stories is to use the information-gap principle
(see above) to give them something to talk about. Students are put in groups. Each group
is given one of a sequence of pictures which tell a story. Once they have had a chance to
look at the pictures, the pictures are taken away. New groups are formed which consist of
one student from each of the original groups.
The new groups have to work out what story the original picture sequence told.
For the story reconstruction to be successful, they have to describe the pictures
they have seen, talk about them, work out what order they should be in, etc. The different
groups then tell the class their stories to see if everyone came up with the same versions.
We can, alternatively, give students six objects, or pictures of objects. In groups,
they have to invent a story which connects the objects.
We can encourage students to retell stories which they have read in their books or
found in newspapers or on the Internet (such retelling is a valuable way of provoking the
activation of previously learnt or acquired language).
The best stories, of course, are those which the students tell about themselves and
their family or friends. We can also offer them chances to be creative by asking them to
talk about a scar they have, or to tell the story of their hair, or to describe the previous
day in either a positive way or a negative way. When students tell stories based on
personal experience, their classmates can ask them questions in order to find out more
about what happened.
Storytelling like this often happens spontaneously (because a certain topic comes
up in the lesson as ‘magic moment). But at other times, students need time to think about
what they are going to say.

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3. Favourite objects:
A variation on getting students to tell personal stories (but which may also involve
a lot of storytelling) is an activity in which students are asked to talk about their favourite
objects (things like MP3 players, objects with sentimental value, instruments, clothes,
jewellery, pictures, etc). They think about how they would describe their favourite
objects in terms of when they got them, why they got them, what they do with them, why
they are so important to them and whether there are any stories associated with them. In
groups, they then tell each other about their objects, and the groups tell the class about
which was the most
unusual/interesting, etc in their group.

4. Meeting and greeting:

Students role-play a formal/business social occasion where they meet a number of
people and introduce themselves.
5. Surveys:
Surveys can be used to get students interviewing each other. For example, they
can design a questionnaire about people’s sleeping habits with questions like ‘How many
hours do you normally sleep?’, ‘Have you ever walked in your sleep or talked in your
sleep?’, ‘Have you ever fallen out of bed?’, etc. They then go round the class asking each
other their questions.
A variation of this is a popular activity called Find someone who ... .In this activity,
students list activities (e.g. climb a mountain, do a bungee jump, swim in the Pacific, act
in a play, etc) and they then go round the class asking ‘Have you ever climbed a
mountain?’, ‘Have you ever done a bungee jump?’, etc.
Both activities are good for getting students to ‘mill about’ in the class, talking and
interacting with others in a way that is different from many other activities.
There is no reason, either, why they should not go outside the classroom to
conduct surveys.
6. Famous people:

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 Students think of five famous people. They have to decide on the perfect gift for
each person. We can also get groups of students to decide on which five famous people
(living or dead) they would most like to invite for dinner, what they would talk about and
what food they would give them.
7. Student presentations:
Individual students give a talk on a given topic or person.
In order for this to work for the individual (and for the rest of the class), time must
be given for the student to gather information and structure it accordingly. We may want
to offer models to help individuals to do this. The students listening to presentations must
be given some kind of listening tasks too - including, perhaps, giving feedback.
8. Balloon debate:
A group of students are in the basket of a balloon which is losing air. Only one
person can stay in the balloon and survive (the others have to jump out). Individual
students representing famous characters (Napoleon, Gandhi, Cleopatra, etc) or
professions (teacher, doctor, lawyer, etc) have to argue why they should be allowed to
survive.
9. Moral dilemmas:

Students are presented with a ‘moral dilemma’ and asked to come to a decision
about how to resolve it. For example, they are told that a student has been caught
cheating in an important exam. They are then given the student’s (far-from-ideal)
circumstances, and offered five possible courses of action – from exposing the student
publicly to ignoring the incident - which they have to choose between.

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 TEACHING WRITING
I. INTRODUCTION
1. What is writing?
Like speaking, writing is a productive skill. That means they involve producing language
rather than receiving it. Very simply, we can say that writing involves communicating a
message (something to say) by making signs on a page. To write, we need a message and
someone to communicate it to. We also need to be able to form letter and words, and to
join these together to make words, sentences or series of sentences that link together to
communicate that message.
2. Key concepts about writing
 All writing texts have two things in common. Firstly, they are written to communicate
a particular message, and secondly, they are written to communicate to somebody. Our
message and who we are writing to influence what we write and how we write. For
example, if you write a note to yourself to remind yourself to do something, you may
write in terrible handwriting, use symbols or single words that other people would not
understand. If you write a note to your friend to remind him/her of something, your note
will probably be clearer and a bit more polite
 Writing involves several sub-skills. Some of these are related to accuracy, e.g: using
the correct forms of language. Writing accuracy involves spelling correctly, forming
letters correctly, writing legibly, punctuating correctly, using correct layouts, choosing
the right vocabulary, using grammar correctly, joining sentences correctly and using
paragraphs.
 Writing isn’t just about accuracy. It is also having a message and communicating it
successfully to other people. To do this, we need to have enough ideas, organize them
well and express them in an appropriate styles.
3. Why do students write in class?
 If we think only of the long-term needs, writing is probably the least important of the
four skills for many students; they are more likely to need to listen to, read and speak

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English than to write it. Their need for writing is most likely to be for study purposes and
also as an examination skill.
 The main importance of writing in the classroom is to help students to learn. Writing
new words and structures helps students to remember them; and as writing is done more
slowly and carefully than speaking, written practice helps to focus students’ attention on
what they are learning.
II. WRITING ACTIVITIES
There are 3 main types of writing activities: controlled, guided, and free writing
A. CONTROLLED WRITING
There are 2 types of controlled writing activities: mechanical and meaningul writing
activities.
1. Mechanical writing – teaching handwriting:
If the students’ L1 is different from English, the first task will be to master English
handwriting. So the earliest activitites will be copying letters, letter combinations, words,
and simple sentences.
2. Meaningful writing
2.1. Gap filling
Listen to the teacher, and then write out the complete sentences:
Paper.................wood. It................. the Chinese in ..................
2.2. Reordering words
Write the sentences correctly
We/six o’clock/and/tea/drink/get up/at.
Then/the/patients/wake/go/and/the/wards/we/round.
Sometimes/medicines/injections/them/we/or/give.
2.3. Substitution
Write a true sentence like this about yourself
Samir enjoys playing football and reading adventure stories.
2.4. Correcting the facts

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 Rewrite the sentences so that they match the picture.
At the market, I saw an old woman sitting in a chair.
She was selling eggs. It was raining.
i) Ask students to write the sentences, correcting the facts.
ii) Ask students to read out the correct sentences, and write them on the board
2.5. Sentence completion

Complete these sentences using the present continuous tense

1. At the moment, my brother ………………..
2. The teacher ......................
3. Mr and Mrs Brown ……………….
2.6. Sentence building
Write complete sentences using these prompts
1. John/write/letter/moment.
2. You/waiting/somebody?
3. Present/I/prepare/new project.

2.7. Write a summary based on prompts

Write the summary of the text using these cues.
Yesterday – Tom – home from school – way – saw – old man – lying – side –
street – ill – took – hospital.
2.8. Sentence transformation
Rewrite the following sentences keeping the meaning unchanged.
1. This cafe belongs to Mr Smith.
Mr Smith ....................................
2. They built this house a long time ago.
This house ..................................
3. ‘Don’t go out late’, her Mum said.
Her mum ....................................
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B. GUIDED WRITING
1. Why is guided writing necessary?
- Many students would probably find free writing quite difficult, and make many
mistakes. If so, they would find the task frustrating and discouraging thus probably not
learn very much from it.
- Students would probably approach the task in different ways, and produce a wide
variety of different paragraphs. So the only way to correct their work would be
individually, book by book; this would be very time-consuming for the teacher.
- As soon as they have mastered basic skills of sentence writing, students need to
progress beyond very controlled writing exercises to freer paragraph writing. However,
students will make this transition more easily and learn more if we can guide their
writing. There are two main ways of doing this:
 By giving a short text as a model
 By doing oral preparation for the writing
2. Writing lesson:
2.1. Writing based on a text
- Students read the model text and perhaps study particular features of it (e.g: the way
sentences are joined, the use of the verb tenses, the use of the passive). Then they write a
paragraph which is similar, but involves some changes.
- Examples of texts that could be used: students read a paragraph about a students’ day,
then write about their own day; students read a description of a car, then write
descriptions of other cars, students read a description of a room, then write a description
of another room shown in a picture.
2.2. Doing oral preparation for the writing
The teacher asks questions to elicit ideas from students. Students make suggestions and
contribute ideas, the teacher builds up an outline or a list of key expressions on the board.
The students then use this as a basis for their writing. This approach has several
advantages:
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- It is flexible: it can be done in different ways according to the interests and ability of the
class.
- Ideas about what to write come from the students themselves, this makes the activity
much more interesting and relevant to students.
- It does not require specially – prepared texts or other materials.
How to do it?
- Brainstorm for language and ideas
- Ask questions to elicit from the students.
IV. STAGES OF A WRITING LESSON (Guided writing)
STAGE I - PRESENTATION
- Lead-in
- Topic given with clear instructions
- Presenting input (vocab/structures/ideas)  giving cues/brainstorming for ideas/giving
a model/doing oral preparation etc.)
STAGE II – PRACTICE:
- Students write in groups or individually
- Teachers monitors and facilitates their writing
STAGE III – PRODUCTION:
- T marks papers and gives comments (pay attention to errors of competence and
performance and techniques of correction)
- T gives feedback: pointing out good points and common mistakes for whole class to
learn from peers.
V. CORRECTING WRITTEN WORK
A. CONTROLLED WRITING

i) The teacher writes the correct answers on the board, or gets students to come out
and write them. If spelling is not important, he or she can go through the answers
orally.

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 ii) As the teacher gives the answers, students correct their own work and the teacher
moves around the class to supervise what they are doing; or students can exchange
books and correct each other’s work.
iii) When the teacher notices errors made by a number of students, he or she can draw
attention to these for benefit of the whole class.
Advantages and disadvantages of various correction techniques:

- Correct work orally in class: is a good idea for a large class, as it greatly
reduces the teacher’s workload. As he or she corrects, the teacher can move
around the class to check that students are correcting their own work.
- Correct work immediately in class (rather than returning it the next day)
means that the teacher can draw students’ attention to problems while they are still
fresh in their minds.
- Get students to correct each other’s work (before the teacher gives the
correct answers) : this takes time in the lesson, but it give students useful practice
in reading through what they have written and noticing mistakes. It’s also a good
way of keeping the class involved.
B. GUIDED WRITING
The effect of so many corrections in a piece of written work would probably be
discouraging the students – they make it appear that she/he has written almost
nothing correctly.
Ways of correcting students’ work more positively and effectively:
- The teacher could correct only the errors that seem most important, or only
errors of a certain kind (e.g: items that were taught recently, or just problems with
verbs)
- The teacher could reduce the amount of underlining and write the
corrections in the margin; this would make the page look less heavily
corrected.The teacher could simply indicate where students have made serious
errors, and ask them to try to correct

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 them themselves. This would encourage the students to look again at what they
have written and be more careful next time.

IDENTIFY SENTENCE ERROR TYPES

Symbols Examples
agr agreement (S-V, N-pron) Either John or you has to do it.
? ambiguous, Alice told Mrs. Wilson to take her book.
incomprehensible
coh coherence (wrong use of Mike felt dizzy, but he also had a headache.
linking words / arrangement
of ideas)
cs comma splice Mike felt dizzy, he also had a backache.
>< conflict, mismatch John is a nice and generous man who is loved
by all his neighbors as well as colleagues.
However, he is rather stingy and rarely returns
what he has borrowed from others.
dang dangling modifier Walking across the street, a car hit me.
frag fragment He was quite happy. Because that was what he
wanted.
 good idea
mod misplaced modifier A child can even understand it.
Gr other grammar errors
para parallelism He is an excellent teacher and very hard-
working.
punc punctuation mark Mary asked me where he had been?
ro run-on, fused My sister who is living in the USA is a
successful programmer and she has a happy
family with a caring husband and two lovely
children who are university students now
which makes her my father’s favourite.
sp spelling Do you think it is a necessary?
uni unity (irrelevant ideas, shift - My neighbor is a lawyer. I don’t like lawyers
in pronouns) because they are too talkative. He is a short
man with tiny eyes and a bald head.
- We need to protect the environment. If we

29
 litter, that may affect your health.
vf verb form Carol wants watching TV.
vt verb tense My mother has worked in China 5 years ago.
 very good
wf word form (plural, singular, His homesick made him sad.
part of speech)
 word missing My father is  doctor.
wo word order Mary asked me where had he been.
ww wrong word, wrong choice The noise of voices came up from the street.

VII. THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER IN WRITING

1. Motivator: one of our principal roles in writing class will be to motivate students,
creating the right conditions for the generation of ideas, persuading them of the
usefulness of the activity, and encouraging them to make as much effort as possible for
maximum benefit. This may require special and prolonged effort on our part for longer
process-writing sequences.

2. Resource: especially during more extended writing task, we should be ready to supply
information and language where necessary. We need to tell students that we are available
and be prepared to look at their work as it progresses, offering advice and suggestions in
a constructive and tactful way.

3. Feedback provider: giving feedback on writing tasks demands special care. Teachers
should positively and encouragingly to the content of what students have written. When
offering correction teachers should choose what and how much to focus on based on what
students need at this stage of their studies, and on the tasks they have undertaken.

VIII. MORE WRITING SUGGESTIONS:

1. Instant writing:
One way of building the writing habit (see above) is to use instant writing
activities as often as possible with both children/teenagers and adults who are reluctant
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writers. Instant writing activities are those where students are asked to write immediately
in response to a teacher request. We can, for example, dictate half sentences for students
to complete (e.g. ‘My favourite relative is ...’ or ‘I will never forget the time I ...’). We
can ask students to write two sentences about a topic ‘right now’. We can give them three
words and tell them to put them into a sentence as quickly as possible.
Instant writing is designed both to make students comfortable when writing, and
also to give them thinking time before they say the sentences they have written aloud.
2. Using music and pictures:
Music and pictures are excellent stimuli for both writing and speaking. For
example, we can play a piece of music and the students have to imagine and then write
out the film scene they think it could accompany (this can be done after they have looked
at a film script model). We can dictate the first sentence of a story and then have the
students complete the story, based on the music we play them. We can then dictate the
first sentence again and have them write a different story (because the music they hear is
very different). They can then read out one of their stories and the class has to guess
which music excerpt inspired it.
Pictures offer a wealth of possibilities. We can ask students to write descriptions of one
of a group of pictures; their classmates then have to guess which one it is.
They can write postcards based on pictures we give them. We can get them to look
at portraits and write the inner thoughts of the characters or their diaries, or an article
about them.
All of these activities are designed to get students writing freely, in an engaging way.
3. Newspapers and magazines:
The different kinds of text found in newspapers and magazines offer a range of
possibilities for genre analysis, followed by writing within that genre. For example, we
can get students to look at a range of different articles and ask them to analyse how
headlines are constructed, and how articles are normally arranged (e.g. the first paragraph
often - but not always - offers a summary of the whole article). They then write an article
about a real or imaginary news story that interests them. At advanced levels, we can get

31
students to look at the same story dealt with by different kinds of publication and ask
them to write specifically for one or the other.
We can do the same kind of genre analysis in newspaper and magazine
advertisements. ‘Lonely hearts’ entries, for example, always conform to a genre frame.
Our students can learn a lot from analysing the genre and being able to imitate it. In the
same vein, agony column letters (where people write in to ask for help with a problem)
offer engaging writing practice.
Finally, we can show students a story and have them respond to it in a variety of
different genres, and for different audiences (e.g. the report of a long traffic delay can
prompt letters to the newspaper, emails, text messages, letters of apology, etc).
4. Brochures and guides:
We can get students to look at a variety of brochures (e.g. for a town,
entertainment venue, health club or leisure complex) to analyse how they are put
together. They can then write their own brochure or town guide, using this analysis to
help them.
Younger learners may enjoy writing brochures and guides for their areas which
give completely wrong information (e.g. ‘Sending postcards home: Look for the bins
marked “Rubbish” or “Litter” and your postcards will be delivered next day; Travelling
by bus: The buses in London are similar to taxis. Tell the drivers where you want to go
and they’ll drive you home!’). This is potentially just as engaging for children and
teenagers as writing serious pieces of work.
5. Poetry:
Many teachers like getting students to write poems because it allows them to
express themselves in a way that other genres, perhaps, do not. But we will have to give
students models to help them write (to start with, anyway), since many of them will be
unused to this kind of writing.
We can ask them to write acrostic poems (where the letters which start each line,
when read downwards, form a word which is the topic of the poem). They can write a
poetry alphabet (a line for each letter), or we can give them sentence frames to write with

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‘I like ... because ...’ x 3, and then ‘But I hate ...’). We can get them to write lines about
someone they like with instructions such as ‘Write about this person as if they were a
kind of weather’. We can give them models of real poems which they have to imitate.
Poetry writing is especially appropriate for younger learners who are usually not
afraid to have a go in the ways suggested above; but it is appropriate for older learners,
too, since it allows them to be more creative than is permitted in some other activities.
6. Collaborative writing:
Students gain a lot from constructing texts together. For example, we can have
them build up a letter on the board, where each line is written by a different student (with
help from the class, the group and/or the teacher). We can tell a story which students then
have to try to reproduce in groups (a version of this activity goes by the name dictogloss,
where, when students have tried to recreate what they have heard, they compare their
versions with the original as a way of increasing their language awareness).
We can set up a story circle in which each student in the group has a piece of
paper on which they write the first line of a story (which we dictate to them). They then
have to write the next sentence. After that, they pass their papers to the person next to
them, and they write the next sentence of the story they now have in front of them. They
then pass the paper to the next student and again write the next sentence of the (new)
story they have. Finally, when the papers get back to their original owners, those students
write the conclusion.
Students can also engage in collaborative writing around a computer screen.

7. Writing to each other:

The email interview (see above) is an example of getting students to write to each
other. They can also write emails, or any other kind of message (the teacher can act as a
postal worker) which has to be answered. They can be involved, under our supervision, in
live chat sessions on the Internet, or we can organise pen pal exchanges with students in
other countries (often called mousepals or keypals when done via the Internet).
8. Writing in other genres:

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 There are countless different genres that students can write in apart from those
mentioned so far. We can have students write personal narratives and other stories. We
can prepare them for this by looking at the way other writers do it. We can analyse first
lines of novels and then have students write their own attention-grabbing lines. We can
get students to complete stories that are only half told. For many of these activities,
getting the students to think together before they attempt the task - brainstorming ideas
- will be a major factor in their success.
Students can write discursive essays in which they assemble arguments both for
and against a proposition, work out a coherent order for their arguments, study various
models for such an essay and then write their own. The procedures we follow may be
similar to the spoken discussion ideas.
All these ideas depend for their success on students having a chance to share ideas,
look at examples of the genre, plan their writing and then draft and edit it.

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