How to
motivate students to speak English
Baobin Zhao,
In the four skills, speaking is usually the poorest for the students of
learning English in
be reluctant to speaking English in class as
well as after class. It is important for teachers to encourage and motivate
them to speak English, especially in class. During the years of my
teaching English in a teacher
training college in
and they made a lot of progress in speaking
English.
Environment is essential
Generally speaking, there are two factors to affect students' speaking
English in class. One is they fail to find suitable words to express themselves
and the other is they are afraid of
making mistakes. Sometimes they make mistakes when
they are speaking because they are shy and nervous. So good
environment helps the students to speak actively and correctly. On
the one hand, I try to ease my students and remove their nervousness,
fear and anxiety with encouraging words and on the other I have tried these
ways to build a free and
lighted-hearted environment.
1. I try to arrange the seats of my classroom in a circle or in groups
with the students facing each other not in rows and lines.
2. Let the students speak English sitting in their seats not standing. They
will not feel uneasy this way.
3. At first stage, I allow the students to play their tape recording
they have prepared for a certain topic beforehand.
4. I ask students to wear a mask they make for themselves to protect
them from embarrassment.
5. Let students talk in the sound lab or on telephone without seeing
each other.
6. Try to divide the students into pairs and groups according to the
different topics, if you can and also you can let them prepare their
"opinion", and then have a group spokesman
deliver the opinion.
7. Set a day for no native language spoken. Students prepare a certain
number of cards and they can write down those words or expressions, which they
can not convey in English if
they have. Later on we discuss those words and
expressions in class.
8. Let the class have 5-10 minutes free talk at the beginning of every
class. Students can talk about any interesting events, news or stories they
have read, listened and watched recently.
9. Let students have an English class out of classroom with such
activities as a class barbecue, picnic and party.
10. Build an English corner at the school and let students talk freely
with those who are interested in learning English.
It is essential to try to build an atmosphere where the students no
longer feel shy, where they will voluntarily raise their hands to ask a
question and where they will freely voice their
own opinions.
Encouragement is necessary
After students finish their speaking in class, teachers should encourage
them and let the students feel they have made some progress with a sense of
their fulfillment. I try to do these:
1. Be firm in a gentle way and give them praise whenever they are doing
anything close to a good job.
2. Be sincere and look for opportunities to
find them doing something right. Never get frustrated, angry and impatient.
3. Be a nice, sensitive, and approachable
person at all times. Never single students out or put them on the spot.
4. Treat them with kindness and respect. Smile a lot and value their
opinions. Never embarrass anyone for a laugh.
5. Allow the students to be themselves rather than expecting them to
conform to your preconceived ideas about how they should behave. Build their
trust, take your time, and wait for
them to come to you.
Of course you should point out some apparent mistakes in their speaking,
for example, the incorrect words in pronunciation or some serious mistakes in
grammar after they finish their
speech.
Methods are important
It is very important for the teachers to adopt as many ways as possible
to let students to practise English in class. I believe the success of this
teaching strategy is due mainly to the fact
that the learners can choose what they want to
read, listen to, watch, and talk about in class. I try the following ways to do
the practice.
1. Free talk: First I try to choose those topics that have something to
do with their interest and experience and also choose those subjects that
students understand that there is no
"right" answer, and the teacher is
not judging their ideas, such as holidays, nature, ads, environment and
pollution. Sometimes let students have complete freedom to choose the topics
whatever they want to talk about. In
their learning logs, students keep a record of what they have read and what
they have listened to. They usually like to talk about such topics as
movie stars, songs, music, magazines, sports and
travel.
2. Retelling: Ask students to retell a story they have read, listened
and watched.
3. Role playing: Ask students to practise situational dialogues by doing
role plays, such as in the medical clinic, at the station, at the post office,
in the restaurant and in the shop.
4. Debating: First try to choose some debatable topics such as who is more cleverer? boys or girls? Is
the computer game useful or harmful for the students? Then I let them discuss
in
pairs for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes of
discussion in pairs, I divide the class into two groups; each representing
their own real belief. Finally I let each group debate the other. I act as a
guide to help the debate along and nudge some of
the silent students to talk. Almost all the students take part and the class is
lively and active.
5. Storytelling: I ask students to tell stories with right intonation
and pronunciation and gesture and expressions. I also ask students to invent
improvised stories by being provided with
situation and characters. Students
can get a lot of fun from it.
6. Talking according to the picture: Show students some cartoon
pictures, or humorous pictures. Let them talk freely.
7. Short play: I find that students enjoy short plays because students
understand that the atmosphere is cooperative -- students helping each other
understand the main points of the
reading. I asked my students to
make a short play about the text we have learned if possible.
8. Speech contest: Choose a topic to have a speech contest in class. I
also let the students be a judge to give marks to the speakers.
9. Description: Ask students to describe to a certain thing or event. For
instance, give your opinion on appearance after the teacher makes up and
changes her clothes. Another example:
find my friend. One student describes his/her
friend and let the class guess who he/she is.
10. Acting and speaking: Let one student act as a certain profession,
for instance a doctor examining a patient. The other student talks about the
acts.
11. Speaking and acting: One person tells an act and the others should
act as soon as possible, such as, touching your nose,
running and asking his name.
12. Speaking and drawing: Let one student give some description and ask
other students to draw what the student say, such as, the location of a place
and a plan of a school.
13. Watching and speaking: 1) Let students to watch parts of cartoon
film or some acts of TV play without any sound and voice and ask some of them
to guess the meaning and talk
about it. 2) Let one or two students watch and talk
about only pictures of film or TV play without any sound. The other students
imagine the scene by listening to the students' talking
with their backs facing the TV set and then let
them watch the program to compare.
14. Acting as an interpreter: Let one student act an interpreter and one
as a foreigner and some students as local citizens. They communicate through
interpretation, like shopping and
sightseeing.
15. Problem solving: Give students some topic with some key words and
ask them to solve a certain problem. For example, if you have these tools: a
compass, a knife and a tin, how can
you survive in the forest for a week?
16. Games: Students love games. I try to choose these games to have
students practise.
a) Twenty questions: One
student has a word or some expressions in his mind. Other students guess the
word by asking only general questions and alternative questions. The
student
answers them only with "yes" or " no". If the students can
guess the word or the expression in less than twenty questions, they win,
otherwise they lose.
b) Taboo word description:
One student thinks of a certain word in his mind and describe it without
mention some words which have something to do with the word. For example,
the
word "book", you cannot mention the words: book, letter and paper. Another
student acts as a judge. Other students listen. If the student mentions those
taboo words, he
will
lose.
c) Listen and guess: One
student writes a word or a sentence or a job on the blackboard and the other
student describes it with gestures but without mentioning the word itself.
Other students sit without
facing the blackboard and guess the word by the student's description.
d) Repeat and add: First, one
student says a sentence of an improvised story. The next student repeats the
sentence and adds another one. Then next student repeats the
sentences
and adds one more sentence. This will go on and see who will repeat without
missing the sentences they have said. Finally this will make a funny story. The
student
who
can say the story fully will win.
e) Speaking and guessing:
First choose four students to come to the front or in the middle of the circle
with their hands over their ears to prevent them from hearing anything and
then
show other students an expression or a sentence without letting the four
students see it. Finally the students try to tell the four students the meaning
of the word or
expression
that they saw with gestures. The student who guesses right or close right will
win.
f) Right or wrong: First ask
4 students to come to the front and other students ask them some alternative questions
or tag questions concerning knowledge, such as, geography,
history,music and arts, then the four students try to
answer them. The student who answer the biggest number
of the questions correctly will win.
Teachers should invent more ways to let students practise. This will
arouse their interest to speak and help them more easily to master this skill.
Guidance is helpful
Teachers play an important role in making the class lively and active by
their guide and arrangement. Students' initiatives should be encouraged and
respected, but it does not mean
there is no guide or assessment on the part of the
teacher. After all, the guidance and help of the teacher makes his job
inevitable in the classroom and education. I try to do these:
1. I try to use many gestures, vivid language and clear expressions in
class.
2. I always act as an actor as well as a conductor giving demonstrations
and showing them first such as retelling, free talking and storytelling.
3. I give students enough time to prepare what they want to speak. I
provide the students with a conversation planning worksheet for this purpose. The
conversations can vary in length
depending on the level of the class.
I think it necessary to give students time to plan what they want to say.
4. Let students know the day before what they will be expected to
participate in the next day. Sometimes I will give a handout that asks for
opinions and tell the class that I expect each
student to have at least one with
very low level or particularly shy students, I am more than willing to have
them say what they have written down.
5. I ask the students to try to memorize the whole thing, but if I smell
rote, I break it up by asking questions and try to let them to think and say in
their own words.
6. It is not uncommon for learners to feign understanding when in
conversations with one another. I also believe that when learners repeatedly
feign understanding, they have lost
important opportunities to practice
conversation strategies. I encourage students to say: "
I beg your pardon" if you fail to understand your partner.
7. I try to teach students to concentrate your attention on the
important information of the speech rather than every word that your partner
says.
8. I try to explain some cultural background before students talk about
a certain subject. Let them know the differences between the two cultures, for
instance, the courses of a meal to
help their speaking and understanding..
9. In speaking I asked the students to focus on fluency over accuracy. Don't
think too much of grammar. However, I remind the students some influence from
our mother tongue, such as
the confused sounds [au and ):] as in the words
"house" and "horse" and the easily swallowed sounds [l] and
[n] as in the words "government" and "children".
10. Try first to call those students who express and act better to serve
as examples. Then call those students who are poorer in English expressing and
acting.
Teachers should invent more ways to let students practise. This will
arouse their interest to speak and help them more easily to master this skill.
Conclusion
In my experience of teaching, I find students actually have a strong
desire to speak. They are reluctant to speak because they are afraid of making
mistakes and failing to find suitable
words to express themselves well. If the teach try
to encourage them to speak by using as many ways as possible and creating a
good language speaking environment, students will
speak actively, willingly and naturally. Speaking as one of the four skills, can be mastered only through
practice. Practice makes perfect.
Baobin Zhao baobinzhao@yahoo.com.cn
Hebei P.R. China 061001
Tel: 0317-2033784; Fax: 0317-3033554