12 master speaking since it allows the speakers to go back and forth in performing
to speak. Last yet importantly, teachers need to consider the ten features of a successful oral communication proposed by Nunan and what a speaking
activity involves proposed by Harmer in helping their students to be able to perform their speaking well.
b. The Basic Types of Speaking
Speaking has been categorized into some types based on varied ways of categorizations. Based on the number of speakers, speaking activity can be
categorized into monolog and dialog. Monolog is a speaking activity in which there is only one speaker. It usually appears when someone has to deliver a
speech or report some news. Meanwhile, dialog is a speaking activity in which there are two people interacting or talking to each other. This kind of speaking
activity is more communicative. It allows each participant to negotiate and confirm meaning being conveyed in the conversation.
Brown 2000 categorized monologs and dialogs further. In reference to his theory, each of monolog and dialog consists of two sub-categories. There
are planned monologs and unplanned monologs. Planned monologs such as speeches and other pre-written materials usually have little redundancy and
therefore are relatively difficult to understand. Meanwhile, unplanned monologs have more redundancy which makes for ease in comprehension.
However, the presence of performance variables and other hesitations may either help or hinder comprehension. On the other hand, dialogs can be
13 subdivided into those exchanges that promote social relationships i.e
interpersonal dialogs, and those for which the purpose is to convey propositional or factual information transactional.
In line with the theory by Brown above, Nunan 1993:18 proposes another way of classifying speaking activities. He classifies them based on the
functions of speaking. They are then divided into transactional, interpersonal and aesthetic or expressive language―language used in the speaking activity.
By using transactional language, the speaker transfers something―goods or
services― to the hearer. Meanwhile, by having interpersonal language, the speaker’s main focus of communication is not transferring something anymore.
Other than that, interpersonal language is used to socialize or build rapport in other words. Finally, aesthetic or expressive language focuses on neither
securing goods and services nor oiling the wheel of social life. Rather, it is to express something in a poetic way.
On the other hand, in relation to the implication of the types of speaking for the speaking activity in the class, Brown 2004: 141 categorizes speaking
performance into five categories. Those are imitative speaking, intensive speaking, responsive speaking, interactive speaking, and extensive speaking.
Imitative speaking is the ability to parrot back or imitate a word or phrase or possibly a sentence. The main concern in this type of speaking is the speaker
ability to pronounce words correctly. Second, intensive speaking is the oral production of short stretches of language designed to demonstrate competence
in a narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical or phonological relationships.
14 Examples of intensive speaking in a language class include directed response
tasks, reading aloud, and dialog completion. Third, responsive speaking refers to an interaction but at somewhat limited level of very short conversations,
standard greetings and small talks, simple requests, comments, and the like. Fourth, interactive speaking is a more complex version of responsive speaking.
The third and fourth kinds of speaking differ from each other in terms of the length and complexity of the interaction, which sometimes include multiple
exchanges andor multiple participants. The last but not least, extensive speaking or monolog is an oral production which includes speeches, oral
presentations and story-telling during which the opportunity for oral interaction from the listeners is either highly limited perhaps to nonverbal response or
ruled out altogether. The conclusion of this discussion is then that a speaking activity may be
classified into some categories depending on the way of classifying it. For example, a speaking ability can be both transactional and extensive. This means
that the activity functions to transfer something which might be some information, and at the same time, it is a kind of speech or else.
In terms of a classroom context, in order to achieve the goals of learning, teachers need to pay attention to what kind of speaking performances
their students need to learn. By doing so, they can design the classroom activities to as much as possible facilitate the students to have a good speaking
performance as they are expected to.
15
c. The Micro- and Macro-Skills of Speaking
