CONTENT:

1. WHAT ARE SPEAKING SKILLS?

2. THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF SPEAKING SKILLS

3.TECHNIQUES

4. RESOURCES

5.ACTIVITIES

WHAT ARE SPEAKING SKILLS?

The ability to speak confidently and fluently is something which children will develop during their time at school, and something that will help them throughout their life.

Speaking skills are defined as the skills which allow us to communicate effectively. They give us the ability to convey information verbally and in a way that the listener can understand.

Children will learn English speaking skills as well as speaking skills in other languages, in primary and secondary school. Learning how to develop English speaking skills is so important for ESL students and EAL students too. It's one of the most important parts of language learning as speaking is how we tend to communicate in everyday life.

The four elements of speaking skills

Vocabulary:

To develop our speaking skills, we first need to know the right words. Vocabulary development begins when we are infants, as we learn to describe the world around us and communicate our needs. This progresses from single words to sentences when children are 2 or 3, at which point they will normally have a vocabulary of 150-300 words.

Grammar:

You may think that grammar is something we only need for written language. But grammar includes lots of important areas for spoken language such as an understanding of tenses and the correct way to structure sentences. Grammar helps us to convey information in a way that the listener will recognise and understand.

The four elements of speaking skills

Pronunciation:

Understanding how to correctly pronounce words is another important element of speaking skills. We learn how to pronounce words by listening to those around us, such as our parents, friends and teachers. Pronunciation varies from country to country, and even city to city!

A lot of this comes from phonemic awareness. This involves understanding the small units that make up spoken language. English can differ quite a lot compared to other languages.

Fluency:

Fluency in spoken language is something that naturally develops as children go through school, as they are using and practising speaking skills every day. Reading widely (and out loud) is a good way to improve fluency as it introduces children to new vocabulary and reinforces their knowledge of spoken language.

TECHNIQUES

READ ALOUD TO IMPROVE SPEAKING

 Reading aloud is the first thing you should apply to improve speaking.  Read out loud!  Because?

 It is a great way to start hearing yourself speaking much more agile English (since you are reading someone else's words), but also to work on the intonation of sentences within a paragraph.

MASTER GRAMMAR

 Knowing how to use the grammar of your level is essential to improve speaking, because how are you going to level up if you don't know how to construct a sentence or express yourself in a specific time?

 But be careful!  Grammar has to be used in context (and that's how I work on it in my English classes). 

 If you learn conditionals you have to know what

 they are for and how they are used, and… use them!

TECHNIQUES

EXPAND VOCABULARY BY TOPICS OR SITUATIONS

 The best thing you can do to improve speaking quickly is to expand your vocabulary.  But not crazy but by themes and situations.

Expand it by topics or situations: being interested in different topics is the key.  This will give you new ideas with which to improve your speaking and it will be easier to remember the new vocabulary since everything will be included within the same topic.

LISTEN IN ENGLISH AND OBSERVE

 Listening to English is essential to improve speaking.  You will improve your pronunciation and something super important: you will learn intonation.  If pronunciation helps us understand and have them understand what we say, by mastering intonation we improve how we say it (does that sound familiar to you about “it's not just what you say but how you say it”?) and this is essential to move towards the level B2+ and C1.