Brown 2004:140 defines speaking as a productive skill that can be directly and empirically observed. Speaking is the product of creative construction of
linguistic strings, the speaker makes choices of lexicon, structure, and discourse.
Thornburry in Harmer 2007:343 suggests various dimensions of different speaking events in order to describe different speaking genres. There is a distinction
between transactional and interpersonal functions. Transactional function has its main purpose conveying information and facilitating the exchange of goods and
services, whereas the interpersonal function is all about maintaining and sustaining good relations between people.
According to Riddell 2003:120, speaking is one of two things in a lesson. Speaking is not reading aloud pronunciation, either reading the answer to a
grammar question accuracy. Speaking is neither reading the answer to a readinglistening question comprehension. In each of these cases the aims are not
speaking-related. It could be a speaking activity designed to give practice of language
just learned or reviewed.
From many definitions and explanations about speaking above, it can be concluded that speaking is actually a way of how people communicate and interact to
each other and convey the meaning they want the hearer to get.
a. Micro- and Macro- Skills of Speaking
In teaching speaking, teachers also help students to learn micro skills and macro skills of speaking, as stated by Brown 2004:142-143. The microskills and
macroskills of speaking are listed as follow:
Microskills
1 Produce differences among English phonemes and allophonic
variants. 2
Produce chunks of language of different lengths. 3
Produce English stress patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions, rhythmic structure, and intonation contours.
4 Produce reduced forms of words and phrases.
5 Use an adequate number of lexical units words to accomplish
pragmatic purposes. 6
Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery. 7
Monitor one’s own oral production and use various strategic devices—pauses, fillers, self-corrections, backtracking—to enhance
the clarity of the message.
8 Use grammatical word classes nouns, verbs, etc., systems e.g.,
tense, agreement, pluralization, word order, patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.
9 Produce speech in natural constituents: in appropriate phrases, pause
groups, breath groups, and sentence constituents. 10
Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms. 11
Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
Macroskills
1 Appropriately accomplish communicative functions according to
situations, participants, and goals. 2
Use appropriate styles, registers, implicature, redundancies, pragmatic conventions, conversation rules, floor-keeping and –
yielding, interrupting, and other sociolinguistic features in face-to- face conversations.
3 Convey links and connections between events and communicative
such relations as vocal and peripheral ideas, events and feelings, new information and given information, generalization and
exemplification.
4 Convey facial features, kinesics, body language, and other
nonverbal cues along with verbal language. 5
Develop and use a 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 is understanding
you.
Those micro and macro skills above can be a checklist of objective when assessing spoken language. Teachers should pay attention to these when they are
teaching speaking skills.
b. Fluency and Accuracy
According to Riddell 2003:118-119, the ability to talk fairly freely, without too
much stopping or hesitating is called fluency. It requires the listener understands what is being said, so there must be intelligibility and meaning. With accuracy the
emphasis is on ‘correct English’ – the right grammar, the right vocabulary. Both fluency and accuracy are equally important. But Riddell has different thought. It is
actually depends on what the teachers are teaching. If they teach a high-level student who is about to take an exam to enter college, accuracy is very important indeed.
On the other hand, when teaching beginners, or other very low levels, teachers cannot possibly expect fluency. Here, teachers really do have to help them build their
language accuracy bit by bit until they reach the stage when they can speak more fluently. What is far more important is that they can make themselves understood,
and can talk relatively fluently. Teachers need to give their students confidence when
speaking and not to be obsessed with constant correction. 2.
Teaching Speaking a.
Teaching and Learning Speaking Skills
Kimble and Garmezy in Brown 2000:7 state that learning is a relatively permanent change in a behavioral tendency and is the result of reinforced practice.
While teaching is showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving
