Principles for Teaching Speaking

20 material which is relevant and involving. They also need to boost students’ esteem and be conscious of their need for identity. Basically, adolescents have a unique characteristic as it has been explained above. Therefore, teachers should prepare relevant strategies to teach speaking to them. The appropriate method, technique, and materials are necessary to help them understand how to improve their speaking skills.

b. Principles for Teaching Speaking

There are several principles of teaching speaking that can be used to help language learners practice speaking in the target language. It can be taken as consideration for the teacher in conducting speaking activities in classroom. Nunan 2003: 54 proposes some principles in teaching speaking. First, the teacher has to consider of the differences between second language and foreign language learning contexts. For example, Indonesia is a country where the target language is not the language of communication in society. As a result, learning English speaking skills is very challenging for the students in foreign language contexts, because they have very few opportunities to use the target language outside the classroom. So, the teacher should make the process of teaching speaking is suitable based on its context. Second, the teacher gives students opportunity to practice with both fluency and accuracy. In speaking classroom, the students cannot develop fluency if the teacher is constantly interrupting them to correct their oral mistakes. The teacher should consider the right moment when feedback or correction is given. 21 Furthermore, the teacher also provides the students with fluency-building practice and realizes that making mistakes is a natural part of learning a new language. Third, the teacher provides opportunities for students to talk by using group work or pair work, and limiting teacher talk. Pair work or group work activities can be used to increase the amount of time that students get to speak in the target language during lessons. In that situation, the students can take speaking roles that are normally filled by the teacher like questioning and offering clarification. Fourth, the teacher has a plan of speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning. Negotiating for meaning is a process to check if the person has understood with what someone has said, clarifying understanding, and confirming the meaning. By asking for clarification, repetition, or explanation during conversations, the students can learn about the differences of negotiation meaning expressions. Fifth, the teacher may design classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both transactional and interactional speaking. Transactional speech is a process of communicating with someone to get something done, including the exchange of goods or services. Instead, interactional speech is a process of communicating with someone for special purposes like establishing and maintaining social relationships. Thus, the teacher can arrange speaking activities or tasks that make the students are involved in interaction process both interactional and transactional settings. 22

c. Types of Classroom Speaking Performance