Speaking Activities 1 Characteristics of A Successful Speaking Activity
about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts.
The second one is there is nothing to say. Even if they are not inhibited, often learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to
express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking. The third one is low or uneven participation. Only one participant can talk at a
time if he or she is to be heard; and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little talking time. This problem is compounded by the tendency of
some learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all. The last one is mother-tongue use. In classes where all, or a number of, the
learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it because it is easier, it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and they feel less
‘exposed’ if they are speaking their mother tongue.
3 Solutions
There are some solutions the teachers can apply to solve problems that often appear in speaking classes. First, use group work. Using group work gives many
benefits for both the teacher and the students. It increases participation, improves the students’ motivation, allows the teacher to wander freely to give help, encourage and
correct the students’ mistakes, and gives the students chances to learn from each other.
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Second, base the activity on easy language. Using too complex and complicated language and expecting the students to do so will only waste the lesson
time. Basing the explanation and allowing the students to use simple but acceptable language can make them gain the real purposes of the task given.
Third, take a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest. Kinds of topic and task have big influences in the success of a speaking class. Interesting topic
and task, which are suitable with the students’ needs and wants, can encourage them to truly participate in the class activities.
Fourth, give some instruction or training in discussion skills. Before the students do the task, the teacher must make sure that they have understood well what
and how to do the task. Simple but clear explanation can be given before distributing the things needed in the task, e.g. cards and pictures. It will keep the students paying
attention while the teacher is explaining. Finally, keep the students speaking in the target language. Allowing the
students to use their mother tongue in class will only create a bad habit. How frequent they forget or do it on purpose when they feel it is too hard to convey their opinion in
the target language, keep them trying If they use the target language, they will be accustomed to do it. They will learn from mistakes. In addition, one encourages
others to speak the target language also. 22
4 Kinds of Speaking Activities
As mentioned before, activities in speaking classes should be focused on the use of the target language. Prabhu 1987:46, as cited by Nunan 1989:66, proposes
three principal activity types. The first one is information-gap activity. It involves a transfer of given information from one person to another - or from one form to
another, or from one place to another – generally calling for the decoding or encoding of information from or into language. An example of information-gap activity is pair
work, in which each member of the pair has a part of the total information and try to convey it verbally to the other. An incomplete picture or a tabular representation with
information available in a given piece of text can be used as the means of this activity.
The second one is reasoning-gap activity. It involves deriving some new information from given information through processes of inference, deduction,
practical reasoning, or a perception of relationships or patterns. The activity, as in information-gap activity, involves comprehending and conveying information but the
information to be conveyed is not identical with that initially comprehended. The reasons underlying the taken choices or decisions in a conversation are the primary
things. The last one is opinion-gap activity. It involves identifying and articulating a
personal preference, feeling, or attitude in response to a given situation. The main focuses of this activity are not to judge one’s opinion as right or wrong, and to expect
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the same outcome from different individuals or on different occasions, but to use factual information and formulate arguments to justify one’s opinion.