Activity To Promote Speaking

Activity To Promote Speaking

A.   Definition of speaking

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997). Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving. However, speech is not always unpredictable. Language functions (or patterns) that tend to recur in certain discourse situations (e.g., declining an invitation or requesting time off from work), can be identified and charted (Burns &Joyce, 1997).For example, when a salesperson asks "May I help you?" the expected discourse sequence includes a statement of need, response to the need, offer of appreciation, acknowledgement of the appreciation, and a leave-taking exchange. Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language (sociolinguistic competence). Finally, speech has its own skills, structures, and conventions different from written language (Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter & McCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996). A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and knowledge to succeed in a given speech act.Bourdons in Nunan (1993) stated that spoken language needs the mastery of vocabulary habit. This means that practice speaking needs much time to fulfill the requirements of the mastery of spoken English, either from school or the environment.

Activity to promote speaking :

Kayi (2006: 2) states that there were some activities to promote speaking. They are explained as follows:

1) Discussion

 The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Here the teacher can form groups of students and each group works on their topic for a given time period, and present their opinions to the class. Fauziati (2002: 134) states that the main aim of group discussion is to improve fluency, grammar in probably best allowed functioning as a naturally communicative context.

2) Role Play and Simulation

 Role play has appeal for students because it allows the students to be creative and to put themselves in another person’s place for a while (Richard, 2003: 222). While simulation is very similar to role-play but here students can bring items to the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a singer, he or she can bring a microphone to sing and so on.

3) Interviews

 Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized. After interviews, each student can present the result to the class.

4) Reporting

 In class, the students are asked to report what they find as the most interest news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.

5) Prepared Talks

 A popular kind of activity is the prepared talk where a student makes a presentation on a topic. Such talks are not designed for informal spontaneous conversation; because they are prepared, they are more ‘writing-like’ than spoken orally. However, if possible, students should speak from notes rather than from a script (Harmer, 2001: 274)

6) Dialogue

 Dialogue is one of the media in teaching speaking. It helps the students practice in speech, pronunciation, intonation, stress. Dialogue also increases students’ vocabulary. The primary objective of using dialogue is developing student’s competence (pronunciation, intonation, stress) in teaching speaking like native speaker. Therefore, in teaching-learning uses dialogue (short and long), the students are motivated by the teachers question to reason rather than to recollect. Dialogues is two sides communication, it means we just not have to express something but we should have to understand what another peoples said (Podo and Sulaiman, 1995: 25). When we teach young learners we constantly have to keep in mind the fact what he have in front of us is a mixed class with varied abilities, expectations, motivation level, knowledge and last but not least, different learning styles. Thus, we need to vary our approaches and offer as much opportunity as possible to make the whole class find a little something to hold on to, expand and grow (Klancar, 2006).

·        Factors that influence Speaking

Factor # 1- Listening Comprehension

Factor # 2- Grammatical Accuracy

Factor # 3- Pronunciation

Factor # 4- Accent

Factor # 5- Vocabulary

Factor # 6- Appropriateness of Answers

Factor # 7- Organization of Ideas

Factor # 8- Fluency

Factor # 9- Enthusiasm

Factor # 10- Self-confidence

Factor # 11- Paralinguistic Communication Skills

Factor # 12- Length of Answers

Kinds of Speaking Test

(1) Interview (3 minutes)
Each of you will be asked basic questions about your home town, family, work or study, leisure and future plans.

(2) Individual tasks (4 minutes)
Each of you will be asked to compare two colour photographs and explain your personal feelings about them (you will be asked to speak for 1 minute, without any interruption). You will also be asked to give your opinion about the other student's photographs (you will be expected to speak for about 20 seconds).

(3)  Joint task (3 minutes)
You will be shown some pictures. You will be asked to discuss these with the other student and to make a decision. Sometimes you will be asked to agree on the conclusion, and sometimes you will be told that you may make different decisions.

(4) Three-way discussion (4 minutes)
You will be asked to discuss (together with the other student and the examiner) some ideas that are connected with the joint task.