Speaking Ability Teaching Speaking

a. Pronunciation Pronunciation is the way a certain sound or sounds are produced Longman dictionary, 2002: 429. It covers the way for speaker to produce clear language when they speak. To be able to have successful communication, the speaker of a language needs to be able to understand each other with relative ease Nunan, 2003: 112. It means that the speaker has to be able to give clear message to the listener. Therefore, teaching pronunciation that includes stress, rhythm, and intonation is very important in speaking. b. Fluency Fluency is also an important aspect in speaking. Fluency is the ability to speak quickly and automatically Harris and Hodges, 1995: 14. It implies that fluent speaker is a person who can use the language quickly and automatically in a conversation. In other words, fluency is the ability to keep the conversation going naturally. Thus, the activities focused on fluency are needed to be conducted by the teacher. c. Accuracy Accuracy is the ability to produce grammatically correct sentences or utterances Longman Dictionary, 2002: 204. Brown 2001: 268 adds that a speaker is said to be accurate if he she produces clear, articulate, grammatically and phonologically correct language. It means that to speak accurately the speaker needs to follow the rules of the language such as grammar and structure. d. Vocabulary A set of lexemes, including a single word, compound words, and idioms Longman Dictionary. 2002: 580 that are typically used when talking about something. Burton 1982: 98 stated that without a large vocabulary, it is impossible to use English precisely and vividly. It means that vocabulary is one of the aspects which have to be learnt if someone wants to speak in English.

4. Stages of Teaching Speaking

Since comprehending speaking skills is important, in teaching and learning activity, teachers should consider the stages of teaching speaking. Terry 2008 suggests three stages of teaching speaking. Those three stages are, pre- communicative stage, practice stage, and communicative interaction or production stage. In pre-communicative stage, Terry suggests some useful activities to do such as Introduce the communicative function, highlight the fixed expressions, point out the target structure, provide students with the necessary vocabulary, and provide students with the language of interaction. During the practice stage, there are several activities that teachers should do such as, correct students if necessary prompt students if necessary do it lexically, ban monolingual dictionaries, aim for intelligibility. The last stage is communicative interaction, in this stage the activity that should be carried out are encourage language negotiation, take note of any aspects that may hinder communication pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, respect students ‘wait’ time. Almost similar with Terry, Richards 2008: 29-30 also suggests several stages in teaching speaking. However, different from Terry 2008, Richards ibid divides the teaching speaking into three groups, those are teaching speaking as Interaction, teaching speaking as transaction, and teaching speaking as performance. In teaching speaking as interaction, Richards states that talk as