5. The Characteristic of a Successful Speaking Activity
There are four characteristics of good speaking activity based on Penny Ur.
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First, students talk a lot. It means that the students are asked to participate in the learning process. However, the students‟ talk should be fair, not dominated by one or
two talkative students – all students get a chance to speak. Students‟ motivation to
speak is one reason of successful speaking activity. Language learners who lack of motivation to participate successfully in oral discussion often listen in silence while
others do the talking. One way to encourage such learners is to help them build up some minimal responses that they can use in different types of exchanges. Next,
students are willing to communicate because they are interested with the topic given. If they are interested, they will have something to say in front of the class. This is
also in line that students‟ want to take a part in the discussion in order to achieve task objective. The last characteristic is acceptable language level. Students express their
ideas in spoken language that is easily to comprehend by others participants. Moreover, Nunan points out successful oral communication involve
developing: a.
The ability to articulate phonological features of the language comprehensibly; b.
Mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns; c.
An acceptable degree of fluency; d.
Transactional and interpersonal skills; e.
Skills in taking short and long speaking turns; f.
Skills in the management of interaction; g.
Skills in negotiating meaning; h.
Conversational listening skills successful conversation need good listeners as well as good speakers;
i. Skill in knowing about and negotiating purposes for conversations;
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Penny Ur, A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 120.
j. Using appropriate conversational formulate and fillers.
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6. The Types of Speaking Activity
In recent study, teaching materials concerned in designing activity that focus on tasks mediated through language or that involve the negotiating and sharing of
information by the participants. It means that students should be provided with the opportunity to use language they know in meaningful activities which attract their
motivation to talk. Thus, teachers need to be creative in designing their teaching process, such as in preparing the materials, lesson plan and choosing the right
technique. In English Foreign Language EFL classroom, there are several activities that can be applied by the teachers.
A communication game, for examples, is one of speaking activities that useful for students to practice their English. Games-based activities can promotes several
speaking activities such as describing, predicting, asking for feedback, through activities such as filling questionnaires and guessing unknown information. Students
are expected to have communicative interaction between his partners in order to complete their task. Even though this is a hard task, students will enjoy finishing their
task and practicing their language. Another activity is problem solving. In everyday communication, spoken
activity takes place because there is some sort of information gap between the participants. In order to solve this problem, students must reduce or eliminate the
information gap. By doing this activity, students can help themselves expand their knowledge of the language. Then, students can use speaking to learn.
Furthermore, Simulationrole-play is also activity that promotes speaking skills. Role play is a way to get students to use language in different social contexts.
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David Nunan, Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 58.
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