MA Applied Linguistics and TESOL/ MA TESOLSchool of Education, University of Leicester

ED 7002 Second Language Teaching and LearningSession A2: Speaking

Aims of the session

1. To explore the nature of spoken language2. To explore what is involved in the ‘speaking skill’3. To consider potential difficulties faced by learners in learning to speak

another language4. To consider appropriate methodology for teaching speaking skills 5. To present a variety of activities for teaching speaking skills

1. Introduction

Oral proficiency is the goal of many language courses and the speaking skill is often particularly valued by learners and teachers. A language, after all, is of little use to many people without the ability to speak. This is only half the story, however, as there must be someone to listen and communicate with, and this is perhaps the reason why so many learners have difficulty acquiring oral fluency in a classroom environment which can never totally simulate the real world.

Before looking at classroom activities and speculating on their usefulness, we need to examine the nature of the spoken language and the speaking skill, taking into account the context in which oral interaction takes place.

2. The Nature of Spoken Language

There are a number of differences between the spoken and written form of a language. Oral production draws upon different processing skills compared to reading or writing because of its ephemeral nature and the fact that it is carried out in real-time. Speech production is said to involve four processes: conceptualisation; formulation; articulation; self-monitoring (Levelt, 1989). All these processes happen very fast, and formulation and articulation are more or less ‘automatic’ in the L1 speaker.

Insights from research conducted by discourse analysts, such as Brown and Yule (1983), have shown how there are also differences in form between the spoken and the written language. Brown and Yule (1983: 15) note that the syntax of the spoken language is typically much less structured than that of written English, and often includes incomplete sentences and sequences of phrases.

Recent technological developments and the study of language corpora (samples of language use recorded in real situations and stored electronically) have led to significant insights into the nature of the spoken language. The CANCODE Project (the Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in

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English), for example, a collaborative project between the University of Nottingham, U.K. and Cambridge University Press, has shown that spoken English has its own grammar and lexicon. CANCODE is a corpus of spoken interaction which was collected in the 1990s under the direction of Professor Mike McCarthy and Professor Ronald Carter.

 We will explore some of the features of spoken grammar which analysis of the CANCODE corpus has revealed and consider the implications this may have for language learners in Task 1. If you are interested in following up this research project in more detail, there are a number of publications that are based on the CANCODE corpus which you can consult. Some of these are listed in the reading list and you can also find additional information about CANCODE on the University of Nottingham website.

TASK 1

Exploring Spoken English (Carter and McCarthy, 1997:84-90)

This recording is taken from the CANCODE corpus (Carter and McCarthy, 1997:84-90) with kind permission of Cambridge University Press. It highlights significant aspects of the spoken language which are important for language teachers to be aware of and to take into account when attempting to develop the oral skills of their learners.

You will hear three female Art College students chatting. They share a house together in Carmarthen, Wales. It is Sunday afternoon and they are having tea at home.

Before listening: what do you think they might talk about?Listen: what topics do they discuss?After listening: what difficulties might a learner of English experience with this conversation?

The above extract reveals many distinctions between written and spoken grammar yet traditional textbooks often appear to rely more upon a written model of English to teach speaking skills in the form of dialogues. If we are to draw upon recent technological developments in our pedagogy and incorporate “authentic”, spoken language into our course materials, there are certain methodological considerations which should be taken into account. These include consideration of the variety of English we should teach; how authentic language can be graded for lower level learners; how we can ensure high quality recordings of real English; and how materials writers can deal with language change.

2.1 Features of Spoken Grammar: some examples from CANCODE

Ellipsis: Good job you told me!Heads: This friend of mine, he’s got an old Morris Minor.

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Tails: You’re silly, you are! Good wine that.Vague language: Have they got any mineral water or anything like that?

2.2 Why Speakers Speak in this Way

According to Bygate (1987:15), speakers cope with time pressures when speaking by:

simplifying structure using ellipsis using formulaic expressions using fillers and hesitation devices

Bygate claims that we draw upon:

‘Information routines’: stories; descriptions of people and places; presentation of facts; instructions

‘Interaction routines’: service encounters; interviews; casual encounters; conversations at dinner parties; radio and TV interviews (Bygate, 1987: 23).

2.3 The Nature of Social Interaction

The anthropologist, Malinowski (1923) coined the phrase ‘phatic communion’ to describe talk which is primarily aimed at establishing and maintaining social relations. Hughes (2006:20) comments that the aim of casual conversation is usually ‘phatic’ in the sense that it signals friendship and promotes bonding within a social group. Brown and Yule (1983: 11) draw a distinction between the “interactional” and “transactional” function of language. They claim that interactional language, such as chatting to maintain social relations, is primarily ‘listener-oriented’; whilst transactional language whose main function is to transfer information or get something done (Eg. buy a stamp at the post-office) is primarily ‘message-oriented’.

2.4 The Nature of Conversational Interaction

The more we know about the way spoken language works, the more we can draw upon this knowledge in our approach to pedagogy. A body of literature exists on conversation analysis (CA) which aims to look at the coherence and structure of conversations in a broad sense. A seminal paper on conversation analysis was written by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) and is well-worth consulting if you are interested in pursuing this area further.

We can lay down some basic ground rules for casual conversation from what we intuitively know from speaking in our own language, that is:

usually only one person speaks at a time

the length of contribution varies (usually short turns)

turn-taking operates

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there are techniques for allowing the other party or parties to speak

neither the content nor the amount of what we say is specified in advance

there is no external audience

negotiation of meaning takes place

pausing, hesitation and false starts occur

usually there is a small number of participants

there are ways to repair conversation

CA has identified the ‘adjacency pair’ as a basic unit of organization in conversation (see Eggins and Slade, 1998, chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion).

An Example of an Adjacency Pair

acceptance preferred responseOffer

refusal dispreferred response

Conversation analysts have identified larger sequences in conversational structure, such as pre-requests and pre-invitations before we make an actual request or invitation. It is also worth noting that there may be cultural differences in the way particular speech acts are realised (Coulmas, 1981; Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper, 1989).

2.5 ‘The Co-operative Principle’ (Grice, 1975)

Grice offers a description of the ‘norms’ that speakers operate with in conversation.

“Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” (Grice,1975: 45).

Four Maxims

1. Quality (true)2. Quantity (informative)3. Relation (relevant)4. Manner (clear)

From this, Grice is able to describe the type of meaning a speaker can convey by “flouting” a maxim.

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The flouting of a maxim results in the speaker conveying an additional meaning as well as the literal meaning, and this is termed a “conversational implicature”.

Example

A: How did you find the play?B: The lighting was good.(Nolasco and Arthur, 1987)

3. What Speakers Know

Part of a speaker’s knowledge includes knowing particular socio-cultural rules of speaking and how they are codified linguistically. Thornbury (2005:11) explains that speakers possess both linguistic knowledge and extralinguistic knowledge.

Linguistic knowledge concerns knowledge about aspects of language, such as grammar, phonology, vocabulary. It also includes knowledge of discourse, genres (types of speech events, such as chats, interviews, sermons, and lectures), speech acts, linguistic politeness.

Extralinguistic knowledge includes background knowledge about culture, topic and context. This type of knowledge guides speakers when they initiate topics and helps them to interact in an appropriate and polite way in a variety of contexts.

Speakers also possess pragmatic knowledge. Pragmatics concerns the relationship between language and its contexts of use. Speakers know how to adjust their message depending upon the context to convey their intended meaning in an appropriate way. Pragmatic knowledge draws upon both extralinguistic and linguistic knowledge. Knowing how to realise particular speech acts, such as requests, offers, and apologies is part of a speaker’s linguistic repertoire and forms part of a speaker’s pragmatic knowledge.

4. Potential Difficulties for Second Language Learners

Second language learners have

• less certainty about which plans to choose for different objectives• a smaller repertoire of ready-made plans to put into effect automatically• a lower degree of automaticity in calling up appropriate plans

Hence, when speaking learners need to focus more on:

THE MECHANICS

• constructing sentences

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• selecting words• inflecting words• forming sounds

while seeking to meet the needs of a higher-level plan and the need to keep a conversation going. As a result, fluency may suffer. In addition there are the effects of :-

• fatigue• nervousness - lack of confidence• pressure to speak quickly• uncertainty

This brings us to the question of what we need to teach.

There would seem to be a place and a need for teaching both the mechanics (concentrating on accuracy) and preparing learners to speak fluently under real-life conditions.

4.1 Learner Needs for Oral Communication

How can we help second language learners to develop speaking skills?

Skehan (1998) suggests that we are dealing with three aspects of speech production:

fluency accuracy language complexity

Skehan also claims that focusing on one of these will reduce the processing capacity available for the others. Language teachers need to help L2 learners to develop automaticity by giving them practice in the above three aspects of speech production.

5. Appropriate Methodology for Developing Speaking Skills

The Communicative Approach with its emphasis on oral interaction based not only on linguistic but rather communicative competence is a good starting point for examining how we can take account of research into the nature of speaking in our classrooms.

Hymes’s (1974) model shows that the following factors need to be considered:

S setting: time and place; cultural settingP participants: addressor; addressee; audienceE ends: what is the expected outcome of this interactionA act sequence: the form and function of the utterance

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K key: the tone and manner of the utterance (irony, sarcasm, etc)I instrumentalities: channel of communication (e.g. the phone)N norms of interaction: eye contact; distance; response time,

interrupting, etc.G genre: poem; prayer; lecture; chat

Based initially on the work of Hymes (1972), Canale and Swain’s (1980) model of communicative competence has been generally accepted and identifies the following components as being essential to felicitous communication:

a) linguistic competence - a knowledge of how to operate the grammar, lexis and phonology of the language

b) strategic competence - this would include the ability to manage interactions

c) sociolinguistic competence - how to use the linguistic systems to produce intended meaning in an appropriate way. This will involve social and cultural awareness and will vary according to the context in which English is being learned and used.

d) discourse competence - linking meaning across longer stretches of discourse in order to maintain interaction. Discourse competence is related to the appropriate use of cohesive devices across sentences in written texts and to the organisation and progression of topics in conversational interaction.

5.1 Communicative Approaches and Methodology

Rivers and Temperley (1978) talk about skill-getting and skill-using. These do not represent two successive stages in language learning – even beginners have skills they can use to communicate something. The teacher’s role is to design activities to help bridge the gap between skill-getting and using. They suggest using pseudo-communicative skill-getting activities which would lead “naturally into spontaneous communication” (Rivers and Temperley, 1978:5).

Skill-getting activities might focus on grammatical accuracy or certain functional exponents. It could also include practising sequences of sound. So, during the skill-getting stage, decisions concerning the management of interaction, such as turn-taking and the content of the interaction are reduced.

Skill-using would focus on more fluency-based work giving learners the opportunity to express their own personal meanings.

Littlewood (1981) claims we need four types of language exercise.

Pre-communicative activities: (i) structural (focus on grammar)(ii) quasi-communicative (drills and

dialogues)

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Communicative activities: (i) functional (information gaps/ problemsolving)

(ii) interactive (simulations/ role playing)

Social interaction activities exploit simulation and role-play. They are used within the classroom to create a wider range of social situations and relationships than would otherwise occur. Success here is measured in language terms with the focus on social acceptability and the functional effectiveness of the forms used, and would therefore develop sociolinguistic, linguistic and pragmatic competence.

Littlewood refined his model in 1992 to offer a conceptual map that sees the internalization and the use of the language system as the goals of oral activities. These goals of internalization and use are dependent upon two strands of development through classroom activities:

Internalizing the languagesystem

Literal meanings Function/social meanings

Talking about Practising communicativeshared knowledge functions

plus new information plus personal intentions

Exchanging literal information Role-playing tasks

Use of thelanguage system

The use of the language system is secured in higher order oral activities such as problem-solving, experiential learning etc. For a full discussion of the model see Littlewood (1992:79-95).

Goh and Burns (2012) propose a new model for teaching speaking which builds upon previous models, but claims to offer a more holistic approach. Their ‘teaching-speaking cycle’ aims to provide a more systematic approach to teaching speaking which encourages learners to reflect upon and plan their own learning.

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6. Activities for Developing Speaking Skills

(a) Role-play and simulation

Role-play and simulation are helpful in preparing learners for the unpredictable uses of language in a variety of settings. Some writers make the distinction between role-play and simulation where in a role-play learners take on another character whereas in a simulation they are themselves but in an imaginary, and sometimes highly contrived, situation. For instance, students might be asked to work in threes to enact a radio interview with a celebrity e.g. sports star, poet, singer, politician. One is given a profile of the celebrity to read while the other two are given a list of things to find out. The two formulate a plan of appropriate questions to put to the celebrity when s/he arrives in the studio. One of them acts as interviewer, the other as presenter. Whether we call this a simulation or role-play is perhaps not important. What is important is the skill-using opportunity afforded to each learner.

(b) Information gap

An information gap is a feature of any interaction where one party has information that the other does not. The following are just a few common information gap tasks for pairs or groups to work on:

Two learners have separate pictures with in-built differences. Differences are found through discussion in pairs.

Describe and draw: one learner has to describe a picture to others who must draw it without having seen it.

Identify which picture learner A has from a set in front of learner B. Learners have incomplete versions of the same text. They must

complete their texts by asking each other questions. Learners must pool information to solve a problem.

(c) Problem solving and discussion

Ur (1981) is a good source of ideas, mostly for intermediate level and above. Klippel (1984) also includes a range of innovative communicative speaking tasks with suggestions on the classroom management of group activities.

Other ideas are: Organising statements into agreed priorities e.g. ranking statements of

problems by degree of seriousness Choosing 10 items you would take with you to a desert island Working out a person’s holiday itinerary from data e.g. authentic

materials that include tickets, receipts, brochures etc. Putting a cut up text into order, for example: a jumbled poem.

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(d) Games

There are many useful game-type activities, for example:

board games card games ‘find someone who’ games bingo

(e) Awareness-raising Activities

Thornbury (2005:41) suggests using awareness-raising activities to help learners become more aware of features of spoken language. He suggests using recordings of speech and transcripts; focusing on selected language features, such as aspects of spoken grammar; using live listening and noticing-the-gap activities. Live listening activities are activities where learners listen to the teacher or a guest speaker. Thornbury argues that learners can benefit in these activities from the contextual clues, paralinguistic information and from the interactivity: the speaker can adjust their talk based upon their perception of the listeners’ comprehension; there is the opportunity for learners to ask questions and check meaning. Noticing-the-gap activities involve the learner noticing the difference between their novice performance and the performance of an expert. Task-based methodology whereby learners go through a cycle of performing a task; observing an expert perform the same task and then re-performing the task themselves seems appropriate here. The teacher may choose to include some focused work upon specific linguistic items through the use of transcripts of recorded speech prior to their re-performance of the task.

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