In Oxford Advanced Dictionary the definition of speaking is to express or communicate opinions, feelings, ideas, etc, by or as talking and it involves the activities in the part of the speaker as psychological, physiological (articulator) and physical (acoustic) stages.
According to Chaney(1998), speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts.
While another expert, Theodore Huebner said Language is essentially speech, and speech is basically communication by sounds. And according to him, speaking is a skill used by someone in daily life communication whether at school or outside. The skill is acquired by much repetition; it primarily a neuromuscular and not an intellectual process. It consists of competence in sending and receiving messages from the above definition, it can be inferred that speaking is expressing ideas, opinions, or feelings to others by using words or sounds of articulation in order to inform, to persuade, and to entertain that can be learnt by using some teaching learning methodologies.
2.5.2 Principles of teaching speaking
Focus on both fluency and accuracy, depending on your objectives
Accuracy is the extent to which students‟ speech matches what people actually as when they use the target language. Fluency is the extent towhich speakers use the language quickly and confidently, with few hesitations.
Provide intrinsically motivating techniques
Try all times to appeal to students‟ ultimate goals and interests, to their need for knowledge, for status, for achieving competence and autonomy, and for “being all that they can be”. Even in those techniques that don‟t send students into ecstasy, help them to see how the activity will benefit them. Often students don‟t know why we ask them to do certain things, it usually pays to tell them.
Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts
This theme has been played time and again. It is not easy to keep coming up with meaningful interaction. We all succumb to the temptation to do, say, disconnected little grammar exercises where we go around the room calling on students one by one to pick the right answer
Provide appropriate feedback and correction
In most EFL situations, students are totally dependent on the teacher for useful linguistic feedback. In ESL situations, they may get such feedback “out there” beyond the classroom, but even then you are in a position to be of great benefit. It is important that you take advantage of your knowledge of English to inject the kinds of corrective feedback that are appropriate for the moment.
Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening
Many interactive techniques that involve speaking will also of course include listening. Don‟t lose out on opportunities to integrate these two skills. As you are perhaps focusing on speaking goals, listening goals may naturally coincide, and the two skills can reinforce each other. Skills in producing language are often initiated through comprehension.
Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication
A good deal of typical classroom interaction is characterized by teacher initiation of language. We ask questions, give directions, and provide information and students have been conditioned only to “speak when spoken to”. Part of oral communication competence is the ability to initiate conversation, to nominate topics, to ask questions, to control conversations, and to change the subject. As you design and use speaking technique, ask yourself if you have allowed students to initiate language.
Encourage the development of speaking strategies.
The concept of strategic competenceis one that few beginning language students are aware of. They simply have not thought about developing their own personal strategies for accomplishing oral communicative purposes
(Source : H. Douglas Brown, Teaching by Principles, San Francisco State University, ThirdEdition,
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2.5.3 Speaking activities
Hammer (2001:122-145) devided these activities into seven categories as follows Reaching a consensus
In this activity,after a certain amount of dicusssion learners have to set agreement with each other. Consensus have been very successful promoting free and spontaneous language use.
Problem –solving
This type of activity helps students develop their language skill in negotiating and find solution to a set of problem situation or tasks.
Simulation and role-play
Role-play activities increase the leaners‟motivation and provide them with opportunities to use language in a new context and for new topics. Small groups often are given situations , roles to act out and explore simultaneously . Like a role - play can be seen as simplications of real world situations. Students can develop their social skills such as making persuading , influencing and so forth .
Dicussion
Dicussion is described as the most natural and effective way for leaners to practice talking freely in English.This activity also reduces shyness from students when they produce their speech . In addition, help them to gather a wide range of the information from their friends.
Relaying instruction
Students are required to give each other instructions.They create a model then instruct group or other groups so that they can duplicate the original model .
Interview
Interview is the activity which is often used in communicative classroom.
Students need to raise questions and answer according to their role . With this activity students have chance to speak language naturally.
Communicative games
Teacher have to design a game-like task in which students can use various from of language to complete the task , based on the principle of information gap.
These activities can be seen as the intergration of such skills such as reading, speaking, listening and dicussing.
2.5.4 Using authentic materials in teaching speaking
Nowadays, beside of tradional speaking teaching style and textbooks are available from education system, teachers use authentic materials to support and improve in their method. Although authentic materials still sound new and difficult, teachers have used them to enhance students‟motivation and create a profectional learning enviroment. Authentic materials have been used such as :audio-visual, visual , etc by teachers because of its high effectiveness:
- Help prepare learners for the „real‟ world of communication;
- Guide learners toward the language they need for their particular context;
- Motivate learners to communicate, because they help make communication
„real‟.(http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2014/05/authentic-materials-classroom-advantages/) There are several ways in which authentic materials are motivating and useful to second language learners. For example, one way authentic texts increase student motivation is by giving the learner the feeling that he or she is learning the
„real‟ language.
Among current popular authentic materials are clips from mass media , best selling essays or short stories,TV news, magazines, talk shows and so on, which have been found most appealing in recent years because of their realistic , ready-to- use language and relevance to learners‟life and experiences.
According to Gilmore (2007), authentic materials, particularly audio-visual ones such as films and TV shows, offer a much richer source of input for learners and the potential to be exploited in different ways on different levels to develop learner‟s communicative competence, and the most useful point of a film is that learners naturally acquire the sense of „language in action‟ in the target language.