Macro and Micro Skills of Speaking

c. Macro and Micro Skills of Speaking

Taylor 2003:2 states that the underlying construct of spoken language proficiency today advocates more modern and cognitive descriptions of the speech production process. Such view holds that the proficient second language speaker possesses the following competences:a a wide repertoire of lexis and grammar to enable flexible, appropriate, precise construction of utterances in ‘real time’the knowledge factor;b a set of established procedures for pronunciation and lexico grammar; and c a set of established ‘chunks’ of language. Many experts have attempted to subcategorize speaking into distinct elements. The general consensus is that speaking skill is divided into micro and macro skills. The micro skills of speaking refer to producing small chunks of language such as phonemes, morphemes, words and phrasal units. The macro skills include the speakers focus on the larger elements such as fluency, discourse, function, style cohesion, nonverbal communication and strategic options. Another expert who tries to formulate micro and macro skills of speaking is Brown 2007: 328, who further elaborates themes follows: 1 Micro-skills of speaking a Produce chunks of language of different lengths b Orally produce differences among the English phonemes and allophonic variants. perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user c Produce English stress patterns, word in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, and intonation contours. d Produce reduce forms or words or phrases. e Use an adequate number of lexical units words in order to accomplish pragmatic purposes. f Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery. g Monitor your own oral production and use various strategies devices- pauses, fillers, self-correction, backtracking-to enhance the clarity of the message. h Use grammatical words classes noun, verbs, etc, systemse.g., tense, agreement, pluralization, word order, patterns, rules and elliptical forms. i Produce speech in natural constituents-in appropriate phrase, pause groups, breath groups and sentences. j Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms. 2 Macro-skills of speaking a Use cohesive device in spoken discourse. b Accomplish appropriately communicative functions according to the situations, participants, and goals. c Use appropriates registers, implicature, pragmatic conventions, and other sociolinguistics features in face-to-face conversation. perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user d Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information and given information, generalization, and exemplification. e Use facial features, kinesics, body language, and other nonverbal cues along with verbal language to convey meanings. f Develop and use battery of speaking strategies, such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help and accurately assessing how well your interlocutor in understanding you.

d. Assessing Speaking