Unit 8 - Speaking

The eighth unit was about speaking which is one of the two productive skills and or me one of the most complex and hard skills to develop. Speaking involves using speech to communicate meaning to other people. Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997). Some of the reasons why speaking is so complex is because when we speak we do not have enough time to prepare what we are going to say (unless it is a speech) as in writing in which we do have time to think.  Speaking as the other skills involves some sub skills such as: using body language, producing different text types, using features of connected speech, using interactive strategies, etc. all these sub skills must be used according to the person we are speaking to, the degree of affinity, degree of formality, etc. If we can used correctly the sub skills, strategies, etc we will convey the meaning and our message will be understood by the hearer. In the classroom we can used different activities to help our students to develop this skill like control practice activities, which means that students will use a specific grammar and there won’t be much space to mistakes. To motivate our students and encourage them to speak is really important because many of them don’t like to speak because they are afraid to make a mistake. Some activities such as pair or group work will ease the development of this skill. 

A video about "How to imrpove your English conversational skills" below:

References

• Cunningham, M.. (1999). Improving Adult English Language Learners' Speaking Skills. April 25, 2015, from CAELA website : http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/Speak.html
• Engvid.com (November 9, 2010) How to improve your English conversation skills [Vídeo]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3u40rnqgF8