Teaching speaking Pre-school and Primary Education
Techniques and strategies
Speaking with support 1 This unit looks at how to encourage children in their first efforts to speak English by:
Encouraging the use of set classroom phrases.
Teaching pronunciation and vocabulary together
Collecting suitable rhymes and songs
You can support children when they are starting to speak English:
By encouraging all the efforts children make to speak, no matter how small.
By listening carefully when they speak and no interrupting to correct small errors.
1. Using classroom phrases Pupils respond to their teacher. They
Ask him/her questions and tell you things they want you to know
Often repeat comments and requests
Can easily learn to repeat the set expressions you use during their English lesson.
When children repeat set phrases it does not necessarily mean language acquisition is taking place. But they are getting used to saying English sounds; practicing the intonation pattern and gaining confidence, especially if you praise them or show your approval in other ways.
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Slattery, M. & Willis, J. (2001).
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Remember
When children are learning their first language they hear phrases and understand the general meaning before they start to understand individual words.
They hear connected sounds before they separate them into individual words.
Only written language is divided into words and sentences.
Learners who cannot read hear a flow of sound.
They hear intonation patterns, and sounds on words that are stressed. These are the sounds they will say first.
It is best to introduce useful classroom phrases in the situation in which they are normally used.
2. Saying rhymes and singing songs to practice pronunciation, stress and intonation Children love doing actions when they watch and listen to their teacher saying rhymes and chants. Children soon begin to repeat the wo rds as they do the actions. They are speaking with the teacher. This builds confidence and a feeling of achievement. Children usually like singing and performing. It helps them feel at ease with English. They enjoy learning songs and rhymes they can sing or say to their parents at home. As children acquire more English, chants, rhymes and songs can form a real part of the learning process. They could be used:
For enjoyment
As part of the teaching plan
As a change in activity
To revise vocabulary
To connect with new or familiar topics
To practis up-to-date expressions
For drama and to practice punctuation.
When choosing a song or a rhyme, they should suit the pupils’ age and interests; match their level of English and have a catchy, easy to remember melody. Children often sing a song or say a chant or rhyme all together. However, when they are very familiar with the rhymes, songs and chants they can perform them by singing or saying different parts in groups. This group performance is very useful with big classes. It helps develop teamwork but it still allows everyone to take part. Read this chant about animals. The children can say it in groups as they ask and answer the questions. The teacher could start by checking to see if everybody is ready: Ok, are you ready? All the groups are ready? Spiders? Ok. Beetles? Puppies and sheep? Ok, now question group, you start one, two, thr ee… 2
Question group
Who’s having fun?
Spider group
Spiders in the sun.
Question group
Who’s having lunch?
Beetle group
Beetles in a bunch
Question group
Who’s chewing socks?
Puppies group
Puppies in a box
Question group
Who’s fast asleep?
Sheep group
Three black sheep.
Teaching tips
Songs, rhymes and chants
Start with very short rhymes or chants.
sounds:
Look for songs and chants that have
loudly.
topics the children are learning about.
Use songs and rhymes to play with speaking
softly –shouting
Use simple instruments to add to the
Make sure the children generally
rhythm, such as tambourine, bell,
understand what they are saying –they
drum, cymbal.
do not need to understand every word but maybe the gist of the lines.
Encourage your pupils to say them for family and friends outside school.
Songs and chants Look up the articles Materiales y recursos para
Suggestions to teach songs and chants in the classroom
la enseñanza de una lengua extranjera en
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XLLNH6WNdE&list=PLD7
Educación Infantil and Las rimas y canciones:
553B4D104CF235
un recurso excelente en las clases de idiomas
You can find songs and rhymes on the links below
de Educación Infantil in Enseñanza- aprendizaje
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWO9uP_VJV8
de una lengua extranjera a edades tempranas,
Dancing English
to find more information about exploting songs
http://www.youtube.com/user/DancingEnglish?feature=watch
and rhymes in Pre-school education and the first
Peter and Jack
cycle of Primary Education.
http://www.peterandjack.es/es_ES
http://www.doredin.mec.es/documentos/0182
Mother Goose Club
00320049.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgnDMw6xI5pm1gDN UVV5YAjGHFMjydvgB
Other resources: Phillips, S. Drama with children. Oxford: O.U.P. Phillips, S. (2007). Speaking. In Young Learners. Oxford: O.U.P.
Rhymes On this video you will find suggestions to teach rhymes and poems to young learners. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LWGFguPjE On these two websites, you will find lesson plans, printable activities, illustrated rhymes, picture cards and crafts http://curry.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm http://www.dltk-teach.com/
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3. Practicing pronunciation of new sounds Children acquire pronunciation and intonation naturally by listening to the teacher. When you talk they absorb the sound of the language. But this does not mean that they will produce perfect words or phrases when they begin to speak in English. They need:
To try out the sounds
To play with sounds
Teacher’s help and praise all the time.
Young children naturally like playing with language. They can mime the new sounds more easily than older learners. You can play games to encourage them to practice the sounds of English. I spy with my little eye (Veo, veo) is a fun way to get children used to hearing new sounds. You can play it like this:
Tell the children I spy with my little eye something beginning with “sh” or /ʃ /.
The children guess.
The firs child to guess correctly comes to the front.
This child tells you a new word (in their mother tongue or in English).
Then you can say the first sound of the word to the child.
The child waits while the other guess.
Teaching tips
In the classroom
You can arrange pictures of words
playing the game “I spy”: I can hear
with the same sound together: blue-
with my little ear a word beginning
shoe-two
with…/
If the children can read, add the
beginning with…
written word underneath
Use other expressions when you are
I
can
remember
a
word
You can use this little activity at any
Use actions to help children remember
time and for one or two words to
the face movement that produces the
remind
sound: stretch your arms for wide
vocabulary.
mouth sounds.
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children
of
sounds
and
Speaking more freely This unit looks at how you can help children to speak more fluently in English by:
Supporting and encouraging them while they are speaking
Showing them how to ask questions and elicit simple responses
Playing games that encourage them to interact
Starting with teacher-led activities, then moving on to pair and group work.
Teaching speaking techniques Watch this British Council video about teaching speaking techniques: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF7zsz8fi64
1.Children as language learners Learners need
To hear clear pronunciation and intonation
To feel successful when using English
Plenty of opportunities to communicate
To enjoy their efforts at speaking in English
To know they have achieved something worthwhile.
The teacher can
Speak a lot of English and repeat children’s words or phrases when you are answering them
React to the meaning of what they are trying to say
Encourage them by showing that what they are saying is more important than your correction
Wait until they finish speaking before you repeat and rephrase
Show your approval for all your pupils’ speaking –however short if may be.
Provide activities that are fun and that have a purpose or a goal, and that have and end- product that they can feel proud of.
Set up activities so that children can do them in pairs and groups. Then they will get opportunities to use English not just to respond to questions, but also to ask questions. They will also have the satisfaction of completing a task on their own. You can help children by
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Showing them what to do first
Practicing an activity first with the whole class
Arranging children into groups so that you can easily get around to listen and talk to them all.
We will look at activities where the teacher guides and supports the children as they speakthese are teacher-led activities. When children feel confident and happy using English, you can move to group activities so that they can speak more.
2. Starting to speak freely- eliciting personal talk Children generally like to talk about themselves, and to hear their classmates doing the same. They enjoy talking about their favourite things, their hobbies, sports, families, and so on.
Read 5A where a teacher asks her pupils to speak about their families. Notice that
The children’s responses are very short
The teacher rephrases and adds to what the children
She praises her pupils’ efforts
The context is real and meaningful
say
The context in this interaction is very clear and simple, the pupils need two types of word sets to answer: brother/s and sister/s; numbers. The context is real and the children are thinking about the meaning, not just repeating words to practice pronunciation. The communication is controlled because of the limitations of the language used and more than a language exercise. With older children you can use this teacher-led question and answer activity to do a survey of some kind, for example:
Find the average number of brothers and sisters in
the class, or find out whether there are more boys than girls in all their families put together.
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Extension ideas You can follow on from this activity by asking children to Ask questions and give short answers about
each other, for example, How many brothers has Ana/Hugo/Alba got?
Focus on the use of he/she
Join the information together to prepare for
more sustained speaking. Personal presentation is an example of more sustained talk with older children.
Teaching tips
Support children’s early efforts by
Waiting for their responses (don’t be
speak but
afraid of silence)
Frequently
summarizing
Don’t put pressure on children to speak if they are not ready.
Repeating what they say in your response
Give children lots of opportunities to
Remember, silent children are still likely to be listening and learning.
what
different pupils say
3. Speaking games You can encourage children to use English by playing a game. Pass the ball
To play this game you need a CD recorder, a music CD, and a ball. This is how you play it.
Put on the music.
The children keep passing the ball to the child next to them.
When the music stops, the child with the ball has to answer a question or talk about a picture.
If a child does not want to answer, he or she can say Pass.
When the music starts again, the ball continues around the room.
You can say change at any time and the ball will go in the opposite direction.
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Extension ideas After playing this game you could play a memory game. The children could
Try to remember who said which things for each picture
Look at the pictures again in pairs, then turn them over and name as many things as they can
Without seeing the pictures again:
List five things in each picture.
Say what colours those things in that picture were
Say where they were.
Teaching tips
Use any set of words or phrases from a topic the children are familiar with.
Use a story the children know well, and:
Ask questions about characters
Ask what happens next
Guess the mime
Miming is another activity that involves movement. It is also good fun. To play Guess the mime you need some pictures of people doing different things. Put the pictures on the board. The children can:
Work in pairs
Choose any picture they like
Become the person in the picture and behave like this person
Perform the mime together
The rest of the class watch and try to guess which activity they are miming. They can ask questions Are you swimming? or just call out the names of the actions, for example, swimming.
Teaching Tip Mimes
After mimes ask children to remember what different pupils were doing, e.g. What were Kevin and David doing? Were they swimming or playing football?
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4. Children speaking in groups When your pupils work in pairs and group they
Get more opportunities to speak
Ask and answer questions
Learn a lot from each other
Gain confidence because they are speaking in private rather than to the whole class.
Personal presentations Teachers can start by asking children about themselves: their name-where they live, their phone number, what they like. Pupils can extend this later to personal presentations.
In 5F the pupils planned how to describe the animal they were going to be. This is a kind of selfdescription. To prepare for this guessing game, children could do one of these: 1. Name and describe animals while looking at the pictures 2. Group pictures into big/small animalswild/farm animals 3. Find similarities and differences, e.g. pictures of an elephant and a mouse 4. Play different guessing games. Let the children describe pictures on the walls. Ask the other groups to pick the right picture from the description 5. Play odd one out
The children add one different category to their list
The others have to pick it out and say what why it is the odd one out, for example, cat, hamster, tiger, dog.
Then the children will be familiar with phrases they can use to describe their animal for the guessing game. Teaching tips Children speaking in pairs and groups
Make your instructions very clear
Show the children first what you want
what to say
them to do
Give children planning time to think of
Help them to acquire phrases to use when
Let them rehearse if they are going to speak to all the class.
talking to each other
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Some common communicative activities Here are examples of some popular types of communicative activities. Note that the main focus is on encouraging communication, rather than controlled use of particular items of 2
language or with accuracy .
Group planning tasks One example is planning an end-of-year trip. Collect together a number of advertisements or brochures advertising a trip for Primary students. Explain to the students that they can all go on an end-of-year trip together, but they all must agree on where they want to go. Divide the students into groups of three and give each group a selection of this material. Their task is to plan an end-of-year trip for the whole group (within a fixed budget per person). Allow them a good amount of time to read and select a trip and then to prepare a presentation in which they attempt to persuade the rest of the class that they should choose this trip. When they are ready, each group makes their presentation and the class discusses and chooses a trip.
Ranking tasks Prepare a list of items that learners can discuss and place in a particular order according to their opinions.
What is the most useful invention?
What is the best improvement that could be made to our town/ school/ neighbourhood?
What are the best programmes on TV?
Who are the best athletes in the world?
Pyramid discussion It is an organizational technique that works particularly well with simple problem- based discussion and especially with item-selection tasks, eg What are the four most useful things to have with you if you are shipwrecked on a desert island? , or list sequencing tasks, eg Put these items in order of importance. Here is how to do it: 1. Introduce the problem, probably using a list on the board on or handouts. 2. Start with individual reflection –learners each decide what they think might be a solution. 3. Combine individuals to make pairs, who now discuss and come to an agreement or compromise. If you demand that there must be an ag reed compromise solution before you move on to the next stage, if will significantly help to focus the task. 4. Combine the pairs to make fours; again, they need to reach an agreement. 5. Join each four with another four or –in smaller classes- with all the others. 2
Teaching Speaking (n.d.) and Scrivener, 2011.
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6. When the whole class comes together, see if you can reach one class solution. What’s the point of doing a discussion in this way? The technique gives students time to practice speaking in smaller groups before facing the whole class. Even the weaker speakers tend to find their confidence grows as the activity proceeds and they are able to rehearse and repeat arguments that they have already tested on others. Learners who are shy will still get a number of chances to speak, and because they have practiced a little, may even get up the courage to say them again to everyone. It also tends to lead to a much more exciting and well argued whole- class discussion. The smaller groups are seedbeds for a variety of ideas and opinions; if we jumped in the deep end with the whole- class stage, we would probably get silence or possibly just one or two students dominating. Information-gap activities
Students have different information and they need to obtain information from each other in order to finish a task. Activities using pictures
There are many different information-gap activities that can be designed around pictures. One common type is to use two pictures which look identical to each other at first glance, but actually have several differences. One student gets one picture and a second student gets the other picture. Their task is to discover all the differences between the two pictures without looking at each other’s pictures. In this way, they must describe the pictures in detail. The language used for such a task can be somewhat controlled by the vocabulary for the items in the picture. The level of difficulty of this task can be changed depending on how obvious the distinguishing characteristics of each picture are. There are many variations on this theme. One variation is to give Student A a set of 4-6 pictures that are similar to each other, while Student B has only one of those pictures. Student A must find out which picture Student B has by asking questions. Another variation is instead of giving one learner the complete set of pictures, the teacher can give four members of a group each a different picture and give the fifth member a duplicate picture of one of the first four members. The task is that the fifth member must ask question the first four to find out who has the identical picture. A third slightly more challenging variation is to give Student A a set of pictures that tell a story in correct order and Student B the same set of pictures in jumbled order. Student A must describe the story in sequence so that Student B can put the pictures in the correct order without letting Student B look at Student A’s set of pictures. Other speaking activities
Many kinds of activities can be designed around the theme of exchange personal information. Even when you have a class of students that know each other quite well, you can still design activities where the task is for them to find out some details about each other that they do not already know. One good activity that can have a game element to it is called “Find someone who…” It is best if the teacher designs the activity with the knowledge of something about the students. It can be designed around a theme after students have learned vocabulary for it such as sports. Below are some examples.
Find someone who…: Stand up and walk around the room. Ask your classmates what 11
they like to do. Once you find someone who likes something, write down his/her name in the blank next to the activity. Continue asking until you have a different name written down for each activity. The first person to fill in all the blanks is the winner. Bingo Activities
Bingo is an easy game to set up and can be used to practice many language areas. Give the students a game card with 16 boxes on it (or have them make their own). Decide what category of words you want to work on—a common one is numbers. For example, tell the students to write down one number in each box in random order from 1 to 30. This way each student will have different numbers and in different boxes, o they cannot simply look at their neighbor for the answers. The teacher calls out the numbers in random order and writes down the numbers as she/he says them. The students draw an X through the numbers as they hear them. Once a student gets four Xs in a row either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, he/she can call out BINGO! The student reads out the numbers in that line so that the teacher can check if she/he actually called out those four numbers. This game can also be played with vocabulary. Students write down 16 vocabulary words from a list of 25 or so words in random order. Then the teacher can read definitions of the words instead of the words themselves, so the students need to know the meaning of the words in order to mark an X through the correct words. Change the story
A story game is called “Change the story”. Students work in small groups of 3 -5. Each student writes a short story or description and then underlines all the verbs in the story. The group together then makes a list of about 20 random verbs. Each group member reads his/her story but pauses at every verb. The group then supplies one of the random verbs into that slot. The results can be very funny. No specific responses
A very lively game that helps students practice spelling is called “Human Scrabble”. Make two sets of alphabet cards. Use thick paper. Write one letter in thick ink on each card. Make two cards of each vowel and leave one card blank. Have two teams of 5 or 6 people each come to the front of the room and face the class. Give each person 4 or 5 letters. The teacher then calls out a word in English while both teams must rush to hold up their cards in the proper order to spell the word. Whichever team spells the word correctly gets a point. The rest of the class can help judge which team is quicker. The teacher then calls out another word and the play continues. In the end, the team with the most points wins the game.
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Role-play3 Introduction Incorporating role-play into the classroom adds variety, a change of pace and opportunities for a lot of language production and also a lot of fun. If the teacher believes that the activity will work and the necessary support is provided, it can be very successful. However, if the teacher isn't convinced about the validity of using role-play the activity will be a failure. What is role-play? Role-play is any speaking activity when you either put yourself into somebody else's shoes, or when you stay in your own shoes but put yourself into an imaginary situation. Imaginary people - The joy of role-play is that students can 'become' anyone they like for a short time: the President, the Queen, a millionaire, a pop star …….. Students can also take on the opinions of someone else. 'For and Against' debates can be used and the class can be split into those who are expressing views in favour and those who are against the theme. Imaginary situations - Functional language for a multitude of scenarios can be activated and practised through role-play. 'At the restaurant', 'Checking in at the airport', ‘shopping' are all possible role-plays.
Why use role-play? It is widely agreed that learning takes place when activities are engaging and memorable.
It is fun and motivating
Quieter students get the chance to express themselves in a more forthright way
The world of the classroom is broadened to include the outside world - thus offering a much wider range of language opportunities In addition to these reasons, students who will at some point travel to an English-speaking country are given a chance to rehearse their English in a safe environment. Real situations can be created and students can benefit from the practice. Mistakes can be made with no drastic consequences.
The role of the teacher Some of the possible teacher roles are:
Facilitator - students may need new language to be 'fed' in by the teacher. If rehearsal time is appropriate the feeding in of new language should take place at this stage.
Spectator - The teacher watches the role-play and offers comments and advice at the end.
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Budden, 6 January, 2004.
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Participant - It is sometimes appropriate to get involved and take part in the role-play yourself.
Bring situations to life Realia and props can really bring a role-play to life. For example, a group of young learners can play the roles of pizza chef and customer. A simple cone of white card with CHEF written on it would take a minute to make and it will make the whole process more fun and memorable for the class. Rearranging the furniture can also help. If you are imagining you are at the tourist information office try to make it as real as you can. Students can even leave the room and make an entrance by knocking on the door.
Error Correction There are many ways to correct mistakes when using role-play. It is rarely appropriate for the teacher to jump in and correct every mistake. This could be incredibly demotivating. Some students do like to be corrected straight after a role-play activity, while the language is still fresh in their minds. Sentences with errors can be written on the board for the group to correct together.
Self-correction - If you have the equipment to record the role-plays either on audiocassette or on video, students can be given the opportunity to listen to the dialogue again and reflect on the language used. They may find it easy to spot their own mistakes.
Peer-correction - Fellow students may be able to correct some mistakes made by their peers. Students could be asked to listen out for both great bits of language they'd like to use themselves, and some mistakes they hear. Be careful to keep peer-correction a positive and profitable experience for all involved.
Making a note of common mistakes yourself and dealing with them in future classes ensures that the students don't lose motivation by being corrected on the spot or straight after the role-play. Negotiate with students and ask them how they would like to be corrected.
Here you will find role-play cards for young learners. http://www.eslkidsworld.com/worksheets/role%20plays/
Ideas for correction work after a fluency activity (Scrivener, 2011, p.226)
Write up a number of sentences used during the activity and discuss them with the students.
Write a number of sentences on the board. Ask the students to come up to the board to correct the sentences.
Invent and write out a story that includes a number of errors you overhead during the activity. Hand out the story next day and the students, in pairs or as a whole group, find the errors and correct them.
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Write out two lists headed A and B. on each list, write the same ten sentences from the activity. On one list, write the sentence with an error; on the other, write the corrected version. Thus the correct version of sentence 3 might be on either list A or list B (the other list has the incorrect version). You divide the students into two groups, A and B and hand out the appropriate list to each group. The groups discuss their own list (without sight of the other list) and try to decide if their version of each sentence is correct or not. If it is wrong, they correct it. When they have discussed all the sentences, the groups can then compare the two sheets (and perhaps come to some new conclusions).
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REFERENCES Budden, (6 January, 2004). Role Play . Message sent to
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/articles/role-play Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning Teaching. The Essential Guide to English Language Teaching . Oxford: MacMillan. Slattery, M. & Willis, J. (2001). English for Primary Teachers. Oxford: O.U.P.
Teaching Speaking (n.d.). Retrieved from http://zy.swust.net.cn/06/1/zxyyjcjf/unit%209%20teaching%20speaking.htm
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