Micro-skills of Speaking The Nature of Speaking
From the statements above, it can be interpreted that drilling is still important for teaching speaking, mainly pronunciation and intonation as long as it
is not overused and students know why they are doing it. 2
Intensive In this type of performance, students deal with their linguistic difficulties-
either phonological or grammatical aspect of language. Brown 2001: 273 states that intensive speaking goes one step beyond imitative to include any speaking
performance that is designed to practice some phonological or grammatical aspect of language. Intensive speaking can be self-initiated or it can even form part of
some pair work activity, where learners are “going over” certain forms of language.
3 Responsive
In this type of performance, students may give short replies to teacher or even students have an initiative for asking questions or comments. Student’s
responses usually sufficient and do not extend into dialogues. However, such speech can be meaningful and authentic.
4 Transactional dialogue
In this type of performance, students are involved in exchanging specific information with their conversational partners. This activity is carried out for the
purpose of conveying or exchanging specific information. In this case, Brown 2001: 273 says that transactional language is an extended form of responsive
language. Conversations may have more of a negotiative nature to them than does responsive speech.
5 Interpersonal dialogue
In this type of performance, students actively participate in the authentic give and take of communicative interchange. This type of activity is carried out
more for purpose of maintaining social relationships than for the transmission of fact and information. These conversations are a little trickier for learners because
they can involve some or all the following factors: a casual register, colloquial language, emotionally charged language, slang, ellipsis, sarcasm, and a covert
“agenda”. 6
Extensive monologue In this type of performance, students are called on to give extended
monologues in the form of oral reports, summaries, or perhaps short speeches. This performance is to develop students’ global oral ability of producing spoken
language which is more formal and deliberate. These monologues can be planned or impromptu.