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Teaching Speaking Skills

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 Teaching Speaking Skills
Eyüp Yaşar KÜRÜM, PhD, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey

Abstract

Speaking is considered to be the mostly sought skill for an individual to be accepted competent in a
foreign language. Speaking is more than to form grammatically correct sentences; it rather covers broad
areas of mechanics, functions, pragmatics and social interaction. Therefore, any foreign language teaching
methodology used in the classroom throughout the history has always sought to develop ways to improve
the competency of learners in these areas. In contemporary methodologies the emphasis in speaking is
fluency rather than accuracy. In a typical classification the speaking activities in a foreign language
classroom usually falls into one of these categories: Awareness raising activities, Controlled activities and
Autonomous activities. There are also some speaking strategies that can be implemented to encourage the
unmotivated students to produce speaking.

Keywords: Speaking, Speaking Competence, Types of Speaking Activities, Speaking Strategies.

Contents
1. Learning Objectives
2. What is Speaking?
3. Historical Background
4. Classroom Practice
5. The Types of Classroom Practice Activities
6. The Motivation of the Learners
7. A Sample Lesson Plan
8. References
9. The Biography of the Author

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Teaching Speaking Skills
1. Learning objectives

On successful completion of this chapter, you will be able to:

➢ Define and list the basic concepts and terminology about speaking skills.

➢ Develop an insight about the historical background of teaching speaking skills.

➢ Recognize and prepare awareness raising classroom activities

➢ Use the strategies to motivate the students to get engaged in speaking activities.

2. What is Speaking?

When we talk of a person who knows a language, we usually tend to mean that that person is able to
produce meaningful sentences in that language; in other words (s)he can speak that language. Thus the
claim that (S)he knows English usually includes the statement that (S)he can speak English. The teaching
of a second or foreign language therefore, one way or other covers the teaching of speaking skills. It is
safe to assume that many learners starting to learn a foreign language usually seek an improved
competency in their productive skills; namely writing and speaking. These learners assess their progress
in the target language in terms of their ability to speak fluently in communication.

As common sense and research suggests, speaking is more than to form grammatically correct sentences
and then to pronounce them. A well-known example of such a grammatically correct, however
semantically ill-formed sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" was composed by Chomsky in
1957. Language teachers then need to recognize that speaking involves more than mechanics. The three
areas of knowledge that composes speaking ability can be stated as follows:

 Mechanics (pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary): Using the right words in the right order
with the correct pronunciation

 Functions (transaction and interaction): Knowing when clarity of message is essential

(transaction/information exchange) and when precise understanding is not required
(interaction/relationship building)

 Pragmatics, Social and cultural rules and norms (turn-taking, rate of speech, length of pauses
between speakers, relative roles of participants): Understanding how to take into account who is
speaking to whom, in what circumstances, about what, and for what reason.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
Taking into consideration these broad areas of knowledge, second language teaching methodology has
switched its emphasis on various objectives throughout the history of language teaching. In the following
section, taking a look at the varying emphasis of objectives of language teaching approaches in history
will give us a better understanding on the topic.

3. Historical Background

At present, developing fluency not just the accuracy has become a major objective in language teaching
methodology (Brown, 1993). However, the emphasis on the communicative value of language teaching is
not actually new. When we look at Kelly’s (1969 in Stern 1991) historical study of the language teaching
methods, we realize that the issue has pursued three major objectives:

 social (language as a form of communication),

 artistic literary (language as a vehicle for artistic creation and appreciation),

 philosophical (linguistic analysis).

Depending on these general aims of language teaching, the objectives of the teaching have been
emphasized to varying degrees. According to Kelly’s (1969) classification, language teaching in the
Western world can be divided into five main periods:

➢ The Classical Period (from ancient times to the 4th century)

➢ The Middle Ages (4th century – 14th century)

➢ Renaissance (14th – 16th centuries)

➢ The Age of Reason (16th – 19th centuries)

➢ The Modern Period (from 19th century on).

The emphasis of the language teaching has changed along with the role of languages in society. In
classical Rome for example, people learned Greek for purposes varying from social communication to
transmission of literary and intellectual thought. According to Kelly, the language teaching in the
Classical Period, the Renaissance and the Modern Ages are parallel. There is another parallel between the
Middle Ages and the Age of Reason.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
Since people learned a foreign language mostly for social purposes, the communicative objectives were
emphasized in the Classical Period, the Renaissance and the Modern Ages. However, in the Middle Ages
and the Age of Reason, the language teaching objectives shifted towards written and analytical skills.
Therefore, teaching speaking skills in these periods were not needed to be emphasized as much as they
were done in the Classical, Renaissance and Modern ages.

From 1850s to 1950s, Grammar-Translation method was one of the most eminent language teaching
methods. In this method, the language practices were usually in written forms and listening and speaking
skills were seen as the apex of language ability (Lowe, 2003). Therefore, the teaching of speaking skills in
this method was not a relevant issue. On the other hand, the Direct Method which became prevalent in
1890s took speaking and listening as the most important skills. The medium of instruction was a strict use
of the target language. Learners studied sequences of carefully planned grammatical phrases by listening
and repetition; grammar ‘rules’ were avoided, and replaced by phrases. These phrases had structures of
grammar disguised in them. Vocabulary was learned either incidentally, as part of the phrases being
taught, or via lists grouped under types of situation (Lowe, 2003).

The World War II had a significant effect on language teaching in the U.S. first and then eventually in the
entire World. The need to supply the Army with fluent speakers of major European and Asian languages
led the training of personnel with an innovative and ground-breaking language teaching program. Since
the conventional language methodologies of the time were not sufficient to train proficient speakers of
any language, a new approach was needed. Thus the government commissioned 55 major American
universities to prepare a special program in 1942. The Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP),
which was established in 1943, aimed to train the students to achieve conversational proficiency in a
variety of foreign languages. This program gained a surprisingly high success during the war years.

The emergence of the popular post war Audio Lingual Method was due to the effect of the Army
Specialized Training Program (Richards & Rodgers, 2002). In this method, the speaking skills were
promoted through listening and repeating as foreseen in the behavioral psychology. The repetition
activities were believed to achieve automation of speaking skills and language was accepted as a
continuum of hierarchically formed structures from easy to more complex (Morley, 1993).

In 1960’s, Chomsky’s reasonable criticisms of the structural and behavioral linguistic theories led to
significant changes. According to Chomsky, language is not a matter of habit formation. The creativity

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Teaching Speaking Skills
aspect of language cannot be explained through habit formation. Chomsky’s transformational grammar
theory explains the acquisition of language rules only through an innate biological mechanism of
individuals. Chomsky calls this mechanism Language Acquisition Device (LAD).

After Chomsky, the structural language teaching methodologies based on explanation, repetition,
memorization, drills and production lost their popularity. Especially, after 1970’s the Communicative
Language Teaching (CLT) underlined the importance of focusing on the functional and communicative
aspects of language rather than the grammar and vocabulary building (Richards&Rodgers, 2002). The
CLT emphasizes the learner’s understanding and explanation of the language functions and notions. With
this methodology, learner’s acquisition of communicative competency is the main purpose (Finocchiaro
& Brumfit, 1983). Regarding this, the speaking skills are taught through meaning based dialogues, group
works and language activities as authentic as possible. Fluency is more important than grammatical
accuracy.

The Natural Approach proposed by Tracy Terrell & Stephan Krashen in 1977 is based on learning
through comprehensible input when the learner is affectively ready to receive it. In this approach, the
importance of speaking is not by itself but rather its potential in providing comprehensible input
(Krashen, 1987, p.61). According to Krashen (1987), the fluency in speaking is not achieved through
speaking drills but rather by understanding the input in listening and reading. In other words, speaking is
the result of comprehension level, not its cause. The role of speaking in acquisition is an indirect role of
its contribution to comprehension.

There are also a number of other scholars who have different perspectives than Krashen about the role of
teaching speaking on language acquisition. Scholars taking language acquisition from a socio-cultural
perspective claim that a person’s full acquisition of a language only occurs through interaction of
individuals in various social situations, in other words speaking is the cause of acquisition (Long, 1983).
Swain’s (1985) Comprehensible Output Hypothesis claims creating situations in which learners speak and
write is essential for language acquisition.

Today, comprehensible input and social interaction including negotiation of meaning are considered to be
the most essential two factors in second language acquisition (Faltis, 1993, p.101). Therefore, in any
language teaching program making learners achieve their communicative goals in effective and
interactional English speaking situations and making them gain speaking skills are principal goals.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
Regarding this, in the next chapter we will now focus on the examples of classroom practice for teaching
speaking skills.

4. Classroom Practice

The desired outcome of any activity in a foreign language classroom is usually achieved through the
effective construction of the teacher. Based on Harmer’s (2007) model, an instruction unit should consist
of the following stages:

➢ Introduction: Explaining learners the purpose of the current lesson. Asking them to lay
out their background knowledge on the topic. For example, if the topic of the lesson is
purchasing a plane ticket to go abroad, students can be asked to guess the content of a
possible conversation taking in a travel agency.

➢ Presenting the task: In this stage, what we expect from the students to do should be
explained clearly. For example, if the teacher wants the students to make a dialogue with
their partners on a given topic, (s)he can make a similar dialogue with a student as a first
step. To check whether the task is understood clearly by the students, they can be asked to
repeat the process. This can be done in English or Turkish depending on the level of the
students. In addition, students should be given all the necessary role cards, pictures,
listening and reading texts, etc. about the task.

➢ Observation: The teacher’s keeping track of the activity going on in the class. Teacher
intervenes whenever required. This intervention does not necessarily involve the
correction of errors, but rather ensuring the students’ progress according to the objective
of the lesson.

➢ Feedback: To make the students learn about their performance at the end of the activity.
In this stage, a feedback on the content of the activity rather than the grammatical
accuracy would be more appropriate. Informing students what they have achieved is
better than saying them what they have failed. Such a feedback would contribute to their
inner motivation, sense of achievement and self-confidence. This would also have a
positive contribution to low affective filter which is considered to be an essential
condition in language acquisition by Krashen (1987).

➢ Follow up Activity on the Topic: Finally a follow up assignment to reinforce the activities
in the lesson can be given. For example, if the topic of the lesson was about speaking

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Teaching Speaking Skills
 activities on purchasing a plane ticket for an abroad flight, the homework could be a
research on how to purchase the same ticket on the internet and presenting the data on the
following class.

We can summarize the above mentioned instructional stages in Figure 1.

Introduction
and The
explanation possession
of the
required
knowledge
by the
Putting forth the
learners
details of the
task

The Observation
of the Activity
by the Teacher

Giving The Follow up

Feedback Activity

Figure 1. The Stages in a Speaking Class (Adapted from Harmer, 2007).

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Teaching Speaking Skills
5. The Types of Classroom Practice Activities

A. Awareness Raising Activities

According to Cognitivism, awareness raising is the prerequisite stimuli that either restructure or awaken
the learner’s mental representation (Thornbury, 2005). In the awareness stage, the learner performs
activities that enable him/her to notice a new knowledge or situation. According to Thornbury (2005),
awareness consists of the following processes:

➢ Attention: Raising interest, curiosity and a desire for involvement on the features of the target
skill.

➢ Noticing: This is more than just paying attention. For example, while driving a car, we pay
attention to the road without noticing until a rabbit appears in front of us. We immediately notice
it away from the other details on the road. Just like that, a learner learning a new word can see it
in many different places, because (s)he is now noticing it.

➢ Understanding: It is the last process. We cannot talk about a real noticing without understanding.
Understanding is noticing a general rule or system and comprehending the relation of the subparts
between each other and how these parts interact.

To be an example of such awareness activities, we are here presenting a part from Neville J.H. Grant and
C.R. Wang’ombe’s course book English in Use published in 1980. In this activity, the learner performs
an awareness practice on the likely problems of communication in daily life conversations and (s)he
practices the required language to overcome these communication challenges.

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Repair Strategies to Overcome Communication Challenges (Thornbury, 2005, p. 42)

Another way to raise the awareness of the learners about the features of daily life conversations is to make
them listen to samples of daily conversations and later study on the scripts of these conversations. Here,
the likely difference between the real daily conversations and course book conversations can be
emphasized. The course book conversations usually do not reveal features of pausing, repetition,
reflection that usually help better understanding in daily life conversations. For example, the following
excerpts taken from J. Coates’s Men Talk compare the two versions of the dialogue on the same topic in
real life and course book (Thornbury, 2005).

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Teaching Speaking Skills
An authentic version of a conversation on ear rings (Thornbury, 2005, p. 43)

The course book version of the same conversation (Thornbury, 2005, p. 44)

The learners’ attention can be drawn to the fact that in the course book version of the dialogue, the daily
spoken language’s natural features like the interruption, waiting for the other speaker’s pause to take over
the conversation or starting to talk without waiting the other part, etc., are not seen at all. The learners can
be asked to state their opinions why these two versions differ and how the course book version of the
dialogue can be changed to make it more authentic.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
Making students hear real life spoken English samples excerpted from real TV or radio shows is a
beneficial awareness raising activity. There are points however that should be taken into consideration.
These are:

➢ Activating learners’ already existing background knowledge on a topic increases comprehension.

This background activation is more essential especially in hard topics. For example, if the
learners are supposed to hear a speech on a comparison of hybrid engine cars with traditional
benzine cars, they would be asked to carry out a brainstorm session to find the already possessed
vocabulary on the topic. In this way, a useful vocabulary activity and an awareness raising can be
done simultaneously.

➢ After the first listening or watching, general questions such as the following should be asked:

o ‘Who is talking with whom?

o What are they talking about?

o Where are they?

o What is the relation between the speakers? Are they friends, relatives, colleagues, etc.?

o Why are they talking? What is their purpose?

The above like questions would help the teachers to find out the general comprehension of the
learners. The determination general understanding is a prerequisite for developing detailed
activities on the topic.

➢ Then, activities aiming for detailed comprehension should be done. Such activities can be filling
out a table, answering multiple choice questions, sentence completion, matching, etc. In this
stage, the text can be listened or watched a few times until the learners can answer the majority of
the questions with ease.

➢ If the language used in the text has some peculiarities, learners’ attention can be drawn to these
language pieces. For example, expressions like you know / I know, as a matter of fact, by the way,
etc.

➢ If there are some sociocultural aspects of language are revealed in the spoken language, these
parts should especially be made noticed. Such examples revealing the culture of the target
language would raise cultural awareness. For example thanksgiving, street musicians, employer-
employee relations, the status of women in the society, methods of saving money, etc. can vary
between the cultures. In the texts that such cultural aspects are the speech topic, the teacher

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Teaching Speaking Skills
 should make explanations on cultural aspects. Comparing and contrasting the mother tongue
culture and the target language culture could be a useful discussion topic.

➢ The grammatical aspects of the spoken language can be underlined. For example, the intensity of
the words in written and spoken languages is different. The intensity of the words mean the rate
of the content words in the text. In spoken language, the intensity is less than the written
language.

B. Controlled Activities

Making learners to become fluent speakers, controlled practice helps them to learn the control of speaking
skills. Drill and chants, in this case involve practicing that control. In a drill type exercise the learner is
given words, phrases and even whole utterances to mechanically repeat and imitate so that (s)he is
supposed to notice and use the piece of useful language supposed to be produced automatically in
everyday conversations.

In such an activity taken from Thornbury (2005), students first listen to a recording of a conversation in
which a number of useful formulaic expressions are embedded. After the teacher ensures the content of
the conversation is comprehended well, the recording is played again, but this time the teacher pauses the
recordings at strategic points and the students repeat the already heard chunk in chorus. Then, a few
individuals repeat the same key phrases until a certain degree of confidence in producing these phrases
are achieved. A sample activity of this kind is given below:

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A sample drill conversation with formulaic utterances embedded (Thornbury, 2005, p. 65-66)

The use of chants and songs can be a more playful and fun form of practice to repeat the formulaic
expressions. A list of such expressions can be given from Thornbury (2005). (see below)

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Discourse markers:

C. Autonomous Activities

Since one of the main objectives of the foreign language class is to create autonomous learners who
achieve a certain degree of fluency and automaticity in speaking competence, activities requiring the
learner to produce authentic language should be carried out. According to Thornbury (2005), the speaking
activities that enable the learners to produce autonomous language should include the conditions of
productivity, purposefulness, interactivity, challenge, safety and authenticity.

Productivity includes the maximal new language production rather than just exchanging certain phrases.
Purposefulness is the clear and well defined outcome of the language activity usually achieved through
cooperation among learners. Interactivity is the learner’s consideration of the effect (s)he is having on
his/her audience. Challenge means the difficulty level of the task. The task that the learner is engaged
should be a little bit above the current language level of the learner. This challenge enables the learner to
force himself/herself to stretch his/her available communicative resource. This challenge condition is

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Teaching Speaking Skills
actually in accordance with Krashen’s (1987) i+1 comprehensible input principle. Safety is the learner’s
feeling of self-confidence of not having too much risk while dealing with challenging tasks. It includes
supportive, non-judgmental and encouraging classroom atmosphere for making errors. Authenticity is
the relation of the speaking tasks to real life language use.

With regard to autonomous speaking activities Blaine Ray’s (2014) Teaching Proficiency Through
Reading and Story Telling (TPRS) offers a variety of techniques and activities. Ray believes students
should be given enough opportunities to express themselves in a stress free environment, not just repeat
memorized lines. Some examples of autonomous speaking activities in a TPRS class are given below:

Team Retell: You can use this activity after a story to get students speaking without calling on specific
students and forcing them to speak. First, split the class in half and have both sides of the class stand up.
Students take turns saying sentences from the story and receive points or lose points as follows:

 Five (5) points for each NEW (previously unsaid) sentence from the story that is said by a team
member that has NOT already contributed.
 Three (3) points for each NEW (previously unsaid) sentence from the story that is said by a team
member that HAS ALREADY contributed.
 One (1) point for each sentence from the story that has already been said, as long as it is said by
someone that has NOT already contributed. Even though it’s a repeat, the goal is to get kids
talking in a low-pressure situation and to get in repetitions of the structures.
 Zero (0) points for each sentence from the story that has already been said, if it said by someone
that HAS ALREADY contributed. This will prevent kids from just repeating one or two
statements forever.

Story Telling Cube: In order to do this activity, you will need to create storytelling cubes for your
students. One cube should have a different character on each side and the other cube should have a
different problem image on each side (ie. thunderbolt, broken heart, etc.) Once students have rolled each
cube, have them come up with a story. This activity is very flexible and could be used as a speaking or
writing activity. Students can work individually, in pairs, or in groups, depending on what you want them
to accomplish. You can even hand out a cube template and allow students to make their own storytelling
cubes. This way they get to decide which characters and problems they want to use.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
Free Reading Discussion: After your class has spent some time free reading, it is nice to have some sort
of activity to do. Since we don’t want to make students dislike free reading by assessing it, one activity
that you can do is to help students have a discussion. Put some examples on the board of things that they
can say about their books and then model a few sentences for them and tell them a little bit about your
book. Put students into groups and have them tell the other students about their own books. It is nice if
they still have the books at this point because they can show them to the other students at the same time.
After everyone has finished sharing with their group, ask for volunteers to share something about their
book with the whole class. These statements that the students provide can then be circled and you can ask
lots of questions and compare different students’ books, which will provide lots of comprehensible input
to your students.
(Retrieved from http://tprsteacher.com/category/activities/speaking/)

6. The Motivation of the Learners

In a speaking class, some learners might be unmotivated to attend the class due to various reasons. For
such learners Harmer (2007) proposes some strategies taken from Helgesen (2003 in Harmer, 2007). A
strategy for such learners can be making a mental plan in advance and rehearsing it for a few times before
starting to talk. For example while traveling by bus, the learner can imagine himself/herself traveling in a
taxi and making up imaginary talks to give directions to the taxi driver for the destination. Or they can
make up imaginary talks to explain a friend the best or the worst thing occurred on that day. Making up
such imaginary talks can reduce the anxiety of speaking for the learners. An over anxious learner having
to present a speech before his/her class can pre-record his/her speech and give it to the teacher to have a
feedback before the actual presentation date. This can reduce his/her stress about the speech and make
him/her feel more comfortable before the class (Mennim, 2003).

Having learners form discussion groups can be another strategy for encouraging learners to become more
motivated contributors to the speaking activities. Before discussing the topic, the learners can be asked to
brainstorm on the topic and think about it deeply before the actual discussion starts. Some unwilling, shy
students can think they cannot express themselves clearly in large groups. In such cases, smaller groups
can be formed in which shy students have a better share of speaking.

In some cases, the students can inhibit himself/herself from speaking whatever is done. If so, these
learners can be coerced. For example, in a group activity consisting of 4 students each student can be
given a part of a whole text and the students can be asked to share the information covered in their parts
with the others so that they will be able to answer the comprehension questions at the end of the passage.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
In this activity, every student should contribute to the practice to accomplish the task. As proposed by
Merrill Swan’s Comprehensible Output Hypothesis in 1985, learners learn speaking by speaking (Lynch,
2003, p.33). Or from the point of view of Krashen, speaking is important to provide comprehensible
input. Therefore, especially for advanced level students more speaking activities that enable students to
exchange communication practice should be incorporated into the syllabus.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
7. A Sample Lesson Plan

Subject: Asking Questions

Lesson No.:
Date:
Room No:
Teaching staff:

Students will be able to

Learning objectives:
- ask questions about a piece of information that they would like
to learn about,

- interview with their classmates.

- Listening and Speaking Strategies video at

Materials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zRgNymCB7w
- Pencils and erasers.
- "Have You Ever..." search paper, 1 copy per student. A
piece of white paper divided into 16 equal squares with
four columns down and four rows across. At the bottom of
each square there is a piece of information at least one
student in the class may have experienced or a quality at
least one student may have, such as "broken a bone," "loves
pizza," "speaks two languages," "has been on an airplane,"
or "good dancer."
- Computer with Internet access (optional)

Warm up activity: Ask students if they know their classmates well. Do they like to
learn more about their classmates? Let them know that in today’s
activity, they will learn new information about their classmates.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
 Procedures To begin, play a few rounds of telephone with the class to
demonstrate the importance of having good speaking and listening
skills. Then have students watch Speaking and Listening Strategies
to further explore good skills.

After watching the program, talk about experiences when students

have to ask questions or follow directions. Ask them: Why is it
important to give clear directions? What kind of situations have
you been in when you have had to listen very carefully to someone
talking? Why is it important to develop good speaking and
listening skills? Have students describe situations when they have
not used good speaking or listening skills. What were the results?

Explain the students that they will play a scavenger hunt-type

game with their classmates. Hand out copies of "Have You Ever?"
and tell students that the object of the game is to be the first person
in the class to complete the squares. To do so, they must match a
classmate's name to the criteria written in a square. Each square
must represent a different person, so a winning "Have You Ever?"
sheet cannot have one student's name on it in more than one
square.

Tell students that they will walk around the classroom and ask
their classmates questions to fill in the squares on their sheet, such
as "Have you ever broken a bone?" If a classmate has broken a
bone, they meet the criterion, and the student should write the
classmate's name in that square. If not, the student can choose to
ask the person a different question or move to a different classmate
until they have found one who has broken a bone. Explain to
students that they will also answer questions. For example, if Ediz
is asking Tülay a question, he cannot leave her when she has
answered his question. He should wait until Tülay asks her
question and they are both ready to move to new classmates.

Remind students that everyone in the classroom will be working

on their scavenger hunt at the same time, so it is important that
students use indoor voices, listen to what their classmates are
saying very carefully, and not to run. The first person to fill in all
of their squares without repeating a name wins. Tell students to
raise their paper and call out if they think they have won.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
 Give students time to complete their scavenger hunt. Walk around
the classroom while students are engaged to make sure everyone is
playing fairly and nobody is running. Call time when a student has
announced they have finished and have students quietly freeze
where they are standing while you check the possible winning
sheet. If the student is mistaken, have the class resume the activity.
If not, ask students to return to their seats.

Discuss the scavenger hunt with students. Who learned something

new about their classmates? What did they learn? Why was it
important to use good listening skills during the scavenger hunt?
Why was it important to use good speaking skills?

Choose one of your friends and talk about him/her? What are
his/her likes and dislikes, what are the things you like about
him/her, etc.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
 Use the following three-point rubric to evaluate students' work
during this lesson.
Evaluation
Three points: Students were highly engaged in class and group
discussions; enthusiastically participated in the scavenger hunt;
followed the rules of the scavenger hunt without needing teacher
guidance or supervision; and demonstrated a clear understanding
of the importance of having good speaking and listening skills.

Two points: Students generally engaged in class and group

discussions; participated in the scavenger hunt; followed the rules
of the scavenger hunt with little teacher supervision or guidance;
and demonstrated a basic understanding of the importance of
having good speaking and listening skills.

One point: Students participated minimally in class and group

discussions; were unable to participate in the scavenger hunt
without constant teacher supervision or refused to participate in the
scavenger hunt; and were unable to demonstrate a basic
understanding of the importance of having good speaking and
listening skills.

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Teaching Speaking Skills
8. References

Brown, H. D. (1993). TESOL at twenty-five: What are the issues? On State of the Art TESOL Essays (pp.
16-31). Virginia: TESOL.
Burkart, G. S. (1998). Spoken language: What it is and how to teach it. Washington D.C.: Center for
Applied Linguistics retrieved from http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/speaking/spindex.htm
Faltis, C. (1993). From kindergarten to high school: Teaching and learning English as a second
language in the U.S. On State of the Art TESOL Essays (pp. 91-114). Virginia: TESOL.
Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching. U.K.: Longman.
Kelly, L. (1969). 25 Centuries of Language Teaching. Newbury House retrieved from
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/scott-thornbury/relocating-tesol-age-political-
correctness?page=1
Krashen, S. D. (1987). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. U.K.: Prentice-Hall
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Long, M. (1983). ‘Native Speaker/non-native speaker conversation and the negotiation of
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 9. Biography of the author

Eyyüp Yaşar KÜRÜM

He is currently working as an English instructor and teacher trainer at Maltepe Military High
School in İzmir. His educational background includes an undergraduate degree from Boğaziçi
University, English Teaching Department in 1994, master’s degrees from Marmara University,
Technical Education Faculty on Technology Education in 2003 and Hacettepe University,
Faculty of Education on ELT in 2008 and finally a doctorate degree on ELT in Hacettepe
University, Faculty of Education in 2012.
He taught Lexis 180 and Teaching English to Young Learners at Hacettepe University for two
semesters in 2013-2014. He also taught doctorate level Educational Planning and Testing class at
the Turkish Military Academy Institute of Defense Sciences for two semesters in 2014.
He has published books and papers in many national and international conferences. His two
books published are “Eğitim Teknolojisine Giriş” (An Introduction to Educational Technology)
by Pelikan Yayıncılık in 2009 and “İngilizce İçin İnternet Rehberi” (An Internet Guide for
Learning English) by Pelikan Yayıncılık in 2012.

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Teaching Speaking Skills

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