6 effective communicative activities for improving speaking skill

The following activities are truly communicative at the level of free communication. However, students may require practice at the levels of controlled and semi controlled communication before they are ready to perform the activity at the level of free communication.
For this reason, the researcher will explain how the teachers can, step by step decrease their control over the activity and motivate the communicative participation from students.

1. Using song

Songs can be applied at the beginning of the lesson as a warm up activity. It not only takes effect when teachers want students to practice listening but also enhances students’ oral skills by asking them to retell the content of the song after listening. It can be carried out in speaking and listening lesson.

Procedures: Teacher prepares handouts on which there is a song lyric with some gaps. Students listen to the song and fill in the missing words. After all the missing words are filled and checked by the teacher, students will be asked to work in groups of 4 or 5 and retell the content of the song. Then the teacher randomly chooses students from different groups to present their opinion; the others can support their friends.

Example

-          Unit 11: Smile

-          Material: the song “Let the music heal your soul”

-          Time: 15 – 20 minutes (see sample 1)

Or

-          Unit 3: Couples

-          Material: the song “Imagine me without you”

-          Time: 15 – 20 minutes (see sample 2)

2. Communicative games

Communicative games for speaking skills not only provide learners with opportunities to talk but also encourage their participation and can highly motivate them in talking. Furthermore, by playing these games, students will use their limited English more naturally because their concentration will be on solving the problems posed by the games and not on the language they use to solve the problems.

There are many speaking games for practicing speaking; however, the researcher only focuses on three games: "Shall I? Would you?", "Guess where?" and "Spot the difference" which are considered to be the most suitable and effective ones for first year students to enhance their speaking skills.

Shall I? Would you?

Time: 12 – 15 minutes

Procedure: The teacher explains that the class try to guess a word from the requests/orders that a student will give them as prompts. The teacher hands the learner a card with a word, for example, window, on it. Many clues are given as he/she can think of, for example:

Student 1: Would you open it for me, please?

Student 2: Book?

Student 1: Would you mind cleaning it for me, please?

Student 3: Car?

Student 1: Shall I close it for you?

Student 4: Window?

Spot the difference

Time: 12 - 15 minutes

Procedure: The teacher prepares pairs of pictures. The pictures in a pair should be similar but should have some differences. The number of differences depends on the level of the students. They work in pairs. Teacher gives each pupil a picture. Student A and B ask each other questions until they find the differences. They must not see each other's pictures. Finally they show each other their picture and compare them.

Questions that students might ask are:

-          Is it a girl?

-          Is she wearing glasses?

-          Has she got long hair?

-          Is she wearing a T-shirt?

Guess where?

Time: 15 minutes

Procedure: The teacher explains that a small object (for example, a matchbox, a pen or a book) is hidden somewhere in the classroom. The pupils must find out where it is by asking the teacher Yes/ No questions like:

-          Is it on the teacher's table?

-          Is it under Giang's desk?

-          Is it behind the blackboard?

All these kinds of game can be applied at the beginning of any lesson in the course book as a warm up activity for the students to be motivated and relaxed. Thanks to a relaxed feeling, they can produce the best English.

3. Question and answer

Free question and answer activity: Students make up their own questions and answers. These might be related to a topic discussed in class, to an illustration in or out of the course book, to a text or dialogue that the students have heard or read, and so on.

The interview is a free question and answer activity. There are basically two ways of conducting interviews. In the first one, students question a classmate who stands up, the only restriction being that they cannot ask any question they would want to answer themselves. The student being interviewed must give an appropriate answer to each question, although it may be false. Alternatively, a visitor to class may be interviewed. A second way to conduct an interview is to have pairs of students interview each other about particular topic.

-          Semi-controlled question and answer activity: The teacher gives students a chance to give their own responses to questions. The teacher can ask the questions or students can work in pairs and take turns to ask and answer questions provided by the textbook or the teacher.

-          Controlled questions and answer activity: Students have script to follow and few decisions to make.

Example

-          Unit 1:  Me

-          Time: 15 minutes

-          Procedure: Teachers provide a list of Wh-question on the blackboard then call one of the students in class to be the interviewee. The whole class play a role as the interviewer, thus, they can ask as many questions as possible using Wh-questions and the interviewee attempts to answer all of them. 

4. Role play

Role play is a type of skit in which learners assume the identity of individual characters in a given situation and engage in a conversation that reflects the personalities, needs and desires of the characters portrayed. In setting up a role play, the teacher should explain the situation, perhaps go over some of the utterances that would grow out of the situation and perhaps demonstrate role-playing with a student. The other steps depend on what type of role play is chosen.

Free role play: No prescribed structures and very few suggestions. If it is necessary, the vocabulary to be used is presented. The teacher simply gives students and the characters; alternatively, students come up with their own situations. After an appropriate time, they deliver their presentation.

Semi-controlled role play: Structures or vocabulary may be suggested by the teacher, but much of the content is determined by the participants. A list of utterances or only a list of words which could be used in the situation are given to students who are allowed time to prepare the role play before presenting it to the class.

Controlled role play: This involves the use of grammatical structures and vocabulary which are controlled by a script. The script offers the participants to change the tense of the verb. 

Example

-          Unit 6: Shop

-          Time: 30 - 45 minutes

-          Procedures: Teacher follows the steps:

(1) Divide the class into two sides: A will be sellers, B will be customers.

(2) Ask side B to go out of the classroom and side A to prepare everything to sell. 

(4) Tell side A to sell as many items as possible and earn as much money as possible and tell side B that they only have 200.000 VND (maybe more) and that they must buy as many items as possible and spend as little money as possible.

(5) Tell side B to go into the classroom and begin the transactions.

(6) Ask some of the Ss about their shopping and business. T tries to find out who is the best buyer (more items and more money left) and who is the best sellers (more money and few or no items left).

* Variation: If teacher provides vocabulary and structures relating to selling and buying, this activity becomes semi-controlled

5. Class discussion

Teachers can stimulate a successful class discussion of a topic in the following way: (1) Introduce a topic and an outline and giving a few leading questions in the preceding class period so that students have a chance to think about them will result in a more fruitful discussion. (2) Nominate the first student to introduce the problem or issue. (3) Guide the group in keeping the discussion going. (4) Ensure that all students participate by observing their work.

-          Free discussion - A free discussion is an open exchange of ideas on a topic suggested by the students or based on a reading passage.

-          Semi controlled discussion - The teacher provides the topic and an outline or list of points to be discussed, while the students produce their own language. Or, a list of questions which require analysis, evaluation or judgment may be provided. A third approach is to make use of values clarification, a process of evaluating one's own personal beliefs, feelings, goals, and values. One type of values clarification activity is the personal opinion survey. Then the student is forced to examine his or her personal values concerning a certain issue before discussing it and thus be prepared to enter into the discussion and compare his or her opinions with those of others.

-          Controlled discussion - The teacher provides the topic, some of the language, and an outline or list of points to be discussed.

   Example

-          Unit 4: Fit

-          Time: 15 - 20 minutes

-          Procedure: Teacher follows the steps:

(1) Raise the topic “Money or Health. Which one do you choose? ”

(2) Have students choose their own option.. 

(3) Form the two big groups based on the students’ choice.

(4) Let students in two groups debate by asking questions and supporting the ideas.

(5) Comment on students’ performance and make necessary corrections.

6. Problem-solving activity

A problem may be solved by students working in groups or by each student working alone. In the latter case, after each student has his solution, the students may be divided into several small groups of 4 or 5. The task of each group is to arrive at a consensus regarding the solution to the problem, selecting a spokesperson, and formulating a rationale for the group's decision. A further possible step is to have all of the groups arrive at a consensus. Here is an example for a problem-solving activity:

-          Unit 8: Rich

-          Time: 15 minutes

-          Procedure: Teacher asks their students to work in groups of 4 or 5 then introduce the topic: “Imagine that you have just won a lottery of 500 million VND. Decide what to spend it on”.

* Variation: If the teacher provides a list of to do and to buy, and so on, the 500 million VND lottery, this activity becomes semi-controlled.