How to teach speaking - Teacher Training video

hello teachers today the business is how

to teach speaking and in this series of

videos I'm going to talk about how we

should teach speaking to students quite

often I see conversation classes or

speaking classes and they're little more

than the teacher and the student just

chatting about certain topics and while

I think there is value in practicing

conversation it is by far the smallest

part of what a teacher should be

thinking about and in processing during

a speaking lesson it's like an iceberg

the tip of the iceberg that we see above

the water is the speaking part of the

class but there is so much more going on

underneath that the teacher should be

monitoring and recording and developing

in the students such as pronunciation

there is the prasada core the Supra of

segmental elements like rhythm

intonation tone there's vocabulary and

grammar structures that we need to

monitor markers and linkers and fillers

we need to think about teaching

functions of the language and strategies

for developing fluency in the end our

goal what we want the students to

achieve is accuracy fluency

appropriately and complexity so these

four things are what we aim to develop

in the students but there is so much

more going on that the teacher needs to

think about so in this series of videos

we're going to talk about the following

list of things the terminology which I

think is important for teachers to

understand we don't need to pass that on

to students in fact I recommend you

don't you'll probably just confuse the

student more than teach them but it's

important that we know the terminology

so we can receive training and

understand clearly we're going to talk

about exchanges including transactional

and interactional exchanges will talk

about agency pairs and irfs and I'll

give you some strategies that you can

implement in your class today to help

students develop conversational fluency

and we'll talk about turn-taking

including how to take the floor how to

hold the floor and how to give up the

floor and then we'll look a little

deeper into the strategies that students

need to learn to

develop turn-taking skills and finally

we'll talk about our overall goal which

is communicative competence and graces

Maxim's and how they relate to teaching

speaking

so ready set go let's get into it first

of all the terminology when one person

opens their mouth and says a sentence we

call this an utterance the verb is utter

and they'll be making good use of this

word throughout the video it basically

just means saying something

when two people interact one person

utters a sentence and another person

receives understands and returns a

response that's called an exchange an

exchange is the basic unit of

conversation and small exchanges we

refer to as fatik speak so just such a

small talk basically like when you meet

somebody and say how are you yeah I'm

fine thanks

there's nothing really substantial in

the exchange adjacency pairs are a pair

of exchanges are a pair of utterances

one person utters a sentence the other

person hears and returns the response is

generally a predictable response based

on the information that came from the

first utterance an example might be hi

how are you the response which is quite

predictable will probably be I'm fine

thanks and you hopefully not but

probably yes they're just simple binary

interactions so when we talk about

exchanges we can divide them into two

categories for this video

transactional exchanges and

interactional exchanges a transactional

exchange occurs when one person needs

information there is there's some work

to be done I need something the other

person can satisfy the that need and the

interaction is generally quite

predictable we know the trail that it

will follow and for this reason

beginners start to learn transactional

exchanges you'll find these when people

order a coffee call somewhere for

information or ask what the time is very

basic interactions again they're quite

predictable and they're kind of a safety

net for beginner students I like to

develop the interactional exchanges in

even in beginner students so that they

they kind of get out of their comfort

zone a little bit

and they're forced to develop fluency

and cognitive processing at the time of

speaking which I believe is quite

important

so transactional exchanges are great we

can teach them in a variety of ways but

I find that the interactional exchanges

are where students really need to work

quite often students expressed that they

go blank or they don't know what to say

and that may be because teachers haven't

developed the strategies that the

students need to develop in order to

master interactional exchanges

interactional exchanges are a little bit

more open they may start off with a kind

of predictability but we don't know

where they will end because they're

interactional there can be surprises but

we can develop strategies to help

students improve and and interact in a

more natural way and we'll talk about

those a bit later in this video and we

need to develop strategies in the

students even the small things like

back-channeling so back-channeling are

the little signals that we give to show

that we are listening like that

aha yeah nodding the head instead of

just checking Facebook or Instagram

while the person is talking we we should

teach how to give how to give signals

that we are listening and these vary

depending on the culture that you're in

so that's just something small that we

need to consider IRF switch our

initialization a response and then a

follow-up something I've been really

into lately is developing strategies for

the students to improve fluency and to

build longer and more complex phrases at

the moment of speaking it's a kind of an

interactional exchange we start with an

initialization for example do you play

any sports the response may be I love

basketball then the follow-up can be ah

where do you play basketball so what we

do here is is develop the ability for

students to process cognitively at the

moment of speaking which is when most

people do the processing instead of just

relying on on functional fixed phrases

that they've memorized because that's

just not going to cut it in a natural

conversation so something you can

implement in class now is the but so

because game I don't know what it's

called because I just created it myself

but I'm sure it's it's being done

everywhere

it's it's where even beginner students

that have a control of basic phrases

like expressing frequencies they can use

one of those phrases put a little

conjunction in here like but and then

put another phrase after it but maybe I

always have a big breakfast but today I

didn't so I'm hungry when students know

that they're going to use these little

conjunctions they start to develop the

ability to extend the phrase and control

more complex phrases and it's absolutely

attainable even in the beginning levels

when they've they've learned their basic

frequency phrases take a look at this

video of some of my students in the

English zero level and they're using

this method when I'm a senior I used to

rollerskates a lot but now I don't

okay so I really think it's a great idea

for teachers to implement students love

it because they feel that they're

interacting more and they are and

they're also developing strategies for

keeping an idea in their head while

they're speaking the first phrase and

then they know that a conjunction will

be used and they need to flip that idea

the butt and then just the fire with us

so what this does is allows other

opportunities to open to continue the

conversation so we use the IRF initial

initialization response and follow-up

and then we ask the student to push the

conversation a bit further do you play

any sports I love basketball oh where do

you play I play at the local school and

now that opens up a door from perhaps

more questions like what days do you

play once the conversation dries up and

you reach that pregnant pause you just

ask the students to ask a different

question or present them with kind of a

controlled speaking so that you present

them with the next idea and they're

ready to

create the sentence themselves

let's talk about turn-taking well it

might seem quite obvious that people

take tones when they're speaking it's a

little bit more complex than that and

it's very cultural - I'm from Australia

when I arrived in Brazil I found it very

difficult to enter into a conversation

because of the way that Brazilians

finish off what they're saying and then

the next person starts before the other

person has completely finished then that

person will come down and start to

finish then the next person will take

off and start to speak and it's

difficult in a second language for

somebody to get accustomed to this and

so we need to think about this when

we're teaching a second language in my

culture it's quite common for the first

person to finish there's a small pause

and then the second person starts to

speak not always so in the Brazilian

culture and we need strategies for

handling turn taking turn taking

includes how to take the floor and when

I say floor I mean the time when you are

speaking and others are listening we

need strategies for how to hold the

floor when we're trying to express what

we want to say we don't want to be

interrupted by people and we need

strategies for giving up the floor or or

giving the turn to the next person so

taking the turn I think is very

important that people understand how to

interrupt a person speaking in a nice

way or how to present what they want to

say without interrupting somebody

without creating negative feelings

because of the way that they interrupted

so strategies can include things like

putting your hands up and the facial

expression moves up as well these are

the the paralinguistic features the

quick inhalation that shows that you

want to say something it's like leaning

forward and identifying when somebody

else's turn is finishing so that you

know when it's okay for you to start

these include the prosodic features of

English as well like intonation when the

intonation kind of goes up and then you

feel it falling down that may be your

signal that it's okay to start talking

and these are the little things that

teachers need to develop in students as

well there are games you can play and

activities to help develop

holding the floor is another one so we

need to develop strategies for students

at that time when they when they're

searching for a word and they don't want

other people to interrupt just like I

did then so quite often it's a hand

movement the eyes might go up into a

trans derivational search and we kind of

extend an open open-ended sound like a

vowel and this is this is how it's done

in my culture so or and just showing

physically and with your intonation that

you haven't finished and you would like

to continue your train of thought

another technique or another strategy

might be to begin your sentence with a

conjunction

for example whereas I can start the

sentence with whereas I think it's

important that we teach strategies for

students it's more important they

develop autonomy with these strategies

so when I start with where as you

understand that there's going to be more

coming later and you kind of wait until

the the time is appropriate to speak

another way in a meeting for example

might be to start your sentence with a

count I have two things to say and now

anybody at the table will understand

that you want to finish your two points

and that it would be a little

inappropriate to interrupt you before

you finish these two points so these are

small strategies we can implement right

now in our classes to help develop

holding the floor strategies ok giving

up the floor as well is something we

need to think about as that when our

intonation starts to fall down it can

generally be a time that other people

are going to wait to interrupt or to

take the floor and if we don't want that

to happen we need a strategy to prevent

it so to give up the floor can be quite

easy you can just cut your conversation

and say what do you think so I think

it's important that student students

develop these strategies and we develop

the strategies in the students let's

talk about communicative competence

I often measure a person's ability or

fluency in English or ability to

converse based on the communicative

competence elements which include

linguistic competence we need to think

about grammar structures functions and

Lexy's we also need to think about the

strategic competence which is what we're

just been talking about do they have

strategies from maintaining a

conversation entering and exiting and

all of that socio linguistic competence

is it appropriate to say certain things

like when we when we're meeting a person

for the first time do you ask them how

much they make well that may be

acceptable in certain countries like

China for example in in my culture it's

it's a taboo certain things you don't

ask about certain things are a little

inappropriate and we also need to think

about discourse competence as well so

does everything is everything cohesive

is it appropriate does it follow a

certain line and the students have

strategies to develop that

and Grice's Maxim's as well are quite

important when we're talking about

conversation Grice's Maxim's are the

maxim of quality and quantity the maxim

of quality talks about we should always

say what is true we don't lie I mean

we've all spoken to people that that

tell a tall tale you know you know what

they're saying is a lie but you just

kind of humor them and this breaks max

the maxim of quality so we want to make

sure we're being truthful and we're

speaking directly the maxim of quantity

so for example if a person wants to know

something and the information you give

them is very little the person is not

satisfied they don't have the

information they need that breaks the

maxim of quantity on the other hand if

they give way too much information and

you're getting a little kind of

uncomfortable and you already understand

the point that also breaks the the maxim

of quality if we talk about the maximum

of quantity as being giving enough

information to get your point across and

no more and no less

then there's the maximum of relation we

need to make sure that what we're saying

is relevant and that it's pertinent to

what we're speaking about so if we're

talking about playing sports we don't

all of a sudden say my dog loves bones

it's very strange and it can create that

kind of uncomfortable feeling in a

conversation the last one is the maxim

of men are so we need to make sure the

manner that we're speaking is

appropriate we're speaking clearly we

avoid ambiguity or obscurity so we don't

kind of speak in code or riddles we need

to speak directly so the manner that we

speak quite often one Maxim can break

another for example when you break the

maxim of of quantity so you don't give

enough information for the person they

don't quite understand what you're

saying because you're short of words

that can break the maxim of men are

because you're not being clear it comes

across as a little ambiguous or vague

and so 1:1 Maxim ties in and overlaps

with the other as does the communicative

competence

I'll make some more videos later where

we go more profoundly into the

individual elements today we just

scratched the surface on this series of

videos and I presented what we will talk

about more in depth later on hope you

enjoyed it leave a comment if you did if

you have any friends that are teachers

invite them over we'll have a nerdy

English teacher training session

together over at my youtube channel it's

a little bit lonely over there so come

and visit if you're already on YouTube

that's great then go over to Instagram

and and follow me there but the the goal

here is to invite as many teachers as we

can try to raise the the quality the

level of teaching in the region and I

hope you will enjoy that until the next

one ciao for now