How
to improve students' speaking skills in English in high school.
by
English teacher Zhumabaeva Zh. K.
Almaty, region Karasay," Kazakh high school in
st.Chamalgan with a preschool mini-center".
May 2015.
I'm proud to have chosen English as my major and
become an English teacher at school therefore, I determined to be a good English teacher. This means I would be responsible to help my
students with their English learning. I want my students to like English and
make great progress in it. And I would like to make some
comments on improving students' speaking skills. Making students speak more
English in the classroom is not only a matter of "forcing" them to
speak. This demands good preparation of proper material and implementation must
be progressive and systematic which demands more teacher's workload. I mean,
lots of those teachers who learned what and how to do in the classroom, as a
teacher, simply don't do as they are supposed to. They seem as though they
don't like to work much. No way! Teachers need to work much so they accomplish
the teacher's role.
A few tips for teachers in general: 1) reduce your TTT (Teacher Talking Time)
in the classroom, by giving simple and clear instructions, by asking one or two
students to show (by means of speaking) that they understood the task
instructions, and also by asking other students to answer a student's question.
Being a teacher of English is different from being a lecturer. 2) Increase STT
(Student Talking Time), again, by asking other students to answer a student's
question, by showing pictures related to the topic of the class and, without
saying a single word, eliciting students' participation. 3) avoiding yes/no
questions; prefer those questions that make students speak in order to make
themselves clear. 4) Attention to your way of correcting students. Sometimes,
even when your intention is simply to help a certain student, you may make
things even worse to them. For instance, if you want to show a certain mistake
to a student, instead of saying "Oh! this is not correct, ..." or
"You made a mistake, ..." or "Oops! don't say this or
that,..." etc you'd better say "Maybe you should change this or that
..." or "Why don't you use ...", or "Well, it may be even
better if you do/say ..." 5) When watching student for mistakes, don't be so close to them
because this will make them even shier. Instead, get close to another student
or simply stand back or pretend being interested in something different,
picking up a book or going back to your table etc. This will make students feel
more comfortable and increase STT. 6) When your students are having fluency
practice (for instance, free conversation), which is totally different from
pronunciation or grammar practice, never correct them, unless something really
serious happen. Let them talk! Let them feel that they can communicate in
despite of their mistakes in pronunciation, grammar etc. Praise them for
speaking!!! Show satisfaction!!! 7) Activities such as group discussion/debate
(topics must be of students' interest), description of places/things/people in
pairs for guessing, etc tend to help students speak, but remember, if you stay
very close to them, like a "mistake hunter", you might spoil everything.
Speaking is so important in my opinion, in acquiring
and using a language, and language-competence covers so many aspects.
Phonetics, both theory and practice constitute the basis of speaking above all
other aspects of language in my opinion. Speaking is a tool of communication.
And pronunciation is the foundation of speaking. Good pronunciation may make
the communication easier and more relaxed and thus more successful. In English
many words can have the same pronunciation but be written differently with
different meanings. For example "to, two, and too" which all have the
phonetic transcription /tu/. Sometimes, words can be written similarly but have
different pronunciations as in the "ough" combinations thought,
though, bough, and through. The
students are indicated with the International Phonetic Alphabet and followed by
examples and exercises dealing with contrasting sounds, recognition and
dictation. For high school students to
improve pronunciation skills of the students in high school, exercise them
through reading some text provided in the course book is a good way. The
teacher read those text first then ask them to repeat, if they do mistake in
pronounce the words or sentences, it is
the teacher’s job to correct. Beside through reading text, practice the
conversation in front of the classroom can be a way to improve their pronunciation beside to improve reading skill. In this level, for senior high school, the
should become aware with the common word stress patterns and
begin become familiar with IPA (but the teacher should underline the aim of
pronunciation for them is just to know how to pronounce words with good
stress). In this level, students should be able to pronounce irregular
verbs as well. (Students in this level commonly do not pronounce
the last letter of any words, ie; went (wen), left (lev), right (raik).
My first attempt is
making a rule of speaking for the class. I tell my students: 'Speaking is the only way you can express
yourself. You have an equal chance to speak, and when you are speaking, I can
help you correct your pronunciation.'
I want my students to challenge themselves to speak and build up a sense
of grasping chances. During every class, I ask the students to read the new
words or paragraphs aloud in order to complete the exercises. I think this
process will correct and strengthen their pronunciation. The students mention
above always take the chance to speak.
We believe that the teacher's own
enthusiasm about his/her subject is what motivates students the most. If you
love your subject, then it's more likely that your students will too. Your
enthusiasm will lead you to question what you are doing in order to find better ways of doing it in
the future.
The enthusiasm is so important that it could rebound on my
students, because I was setting an example in the classroom. It is like spring
water to encourage me to think continuously and learn more knowledge. In order
to be a better teacher, never enable the students to call me a teaching robot.
I must keep my enthusiasm to assist their motivation and ensure they like my
class, listen in my class, understand the knowledge and develop their own
abilities. Beside this, I need to show humor, tolerance, and patience. Whatever
the age of my students, I should try my best to activate the atmosphere in the
classroom. When I found the students felt tried, sometime I would have a rest
in the class and discuss some interesting things or invite one or two of
students to sing a song. I found this could help the students to gain
confidence. Some of them had thought it was impossibly difficult to study English,
and I could look down on them. It was a vicious circle for them. By teaching
them with enthusiasm, humor and patience, I broke this vicious circle. And
without praise and encouragement, they will lose interest in their study.
Although I am a teacher and they are students we are all human beings, and
everyone needs praise and encouragement. From then on, in every class, I
believe I never forgot to praise and encourage them. For example, a student
told me: "You never abuse or
punish us, no matter answer was right or not, you smile and say Good/ Well
done! We felt you were lovelier than before". I was so happy because it is repayment from
my students. It also helped me to be a better teacher.
Annotation:
The main purpose of this study is to know the improvement
of speaking skills in English by a few tips
for teachers in general. The method
of this research is classroom action research. This research indicates that the
using of tips for teachers can improve
students’ speaking skills in English.
Bibliography:
Gilbert, J. B. (1994). 'Intonation: A
Navigation Guide for the Listener (and gadgets to help teach it)'. In J. Morley
(Ed.), Pronunciation Pedagogy
and Theory TESOL, Illinois.
McNiff, J., (1993), 'Teaching as Learning', Routledge Books,
London.
McNiff., J., & Whitehead, J., (2005), 'Action Research for Teachers', London: David
Fulton Publishers
Ma, L., (2006), 'How can I
attract my students' attention educationally?' CECEARFLT Archives, Ningxia
Teachers University at Guyuan.
Gussenhoven, Carlos.
(2004). The Phonology of Tone and Intonation. London: Cambridge University.
Hancock, Mark. (1997).
Pronunciation Games. London: Cambridge University