Евразийский Союз Ученых (ЕСУ) # 4 (61), 2019 33

ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ
THE ROLE OF SPEAKING IN LANGUAGE LEARNING

Pirnazarova Manzura Matnazarovna

PhD, assistant of professor of
Urgench state university, Uzbekistan
Egamberganova Yulduz Toxirovna
Student of English language and literature departmet of
Urgench state university, Uzbekistan
Sharipova Shoxista Davronbek qizi
Student of English language and literature departmet of
Urgench state university, Uzbekistan
DOI: 10.31618/ESU.2413-9335.2019.6.61.50

АННОТАЦИЯ.
В данной статье показано, насколько важно владение речью в изучении иностранного языка и его роль
в учебном процессе. В статье обсуждается ряд вопросов, которые могут быть проблематичными для пре-
подавателей ESP и EFL. Более того, эта статья может быть полезна для студентов и может использоваться
в научных работах.
ANNOTATION.
This article illustrates how important is speaking skill in learning foreign language and it is role in teaching
process. A number of questions are discussed in the article which can be problematic to the teachers of ESP and
EFL. Moreover, this article can be beneficial to undergraduate students and can used in scientific works.
Ключевые слова: разговорные навыки, общаться, различать, обратная связь, выделять, контролиро-
вать, демотивированы, интерес.
Key words: speaking skills, to communicate, to distinguish, feedback, to allocate, monitoring, de-motivated,
interest.

Motivation dents feel really shy about talking in front of other stu-
Why should we teach speaking skills in the class- dents then one way to go about breaking this cultural
room? Many students equate being able to speak a lan- barrier is to create and establish your own classroom
guage as knowing the language and therefore view culture where speaking out loud in English is the norm.
learning the language as learning how to speak the lan- One way to do this is to distinguish your classroom
guage, or as Nunan (1991) wrote, "success is measured from other classrooms in your school by arranging the
in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the classroom desks differently, in groups instead of lines
(target) language". Therefore, if students do not learn etc. or by decorating the walls in English language and
how to speak or do not get any opportunity to speak in culture posters. From day one teach your students class-
the language classroom they may soon get de-moti- room language and keep on teaching it and encourage
vated and lose interest in learning. On the other hand, if your students to ask for things and to ask questions in
the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking English. Giving positive feedback also helps to encour-
in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner mo- age and relax shy students to speak more. Another way
tivation and making the English language classroom a to get students motivated to speak more is to allocate a
fun and dynamic place to be. Speaking is fundamental percentage of their final grade to speaking skills and let
to human communication just think of all the different the students know they are being assessed continually
conversations you have in one day and compare that on their speaking practice in class throughout the term.
with how much written communication you do in one A completely different reason for student silence
day. Which do you do more of? In our daily lives most may simply be that the class activities are boring or are
of us speak more than we write, yet many English pitched at the wrong level. Very often our interesting
teachers still spend the majority of class time on read- communicative speaking activities are not quite as in-
ing and writing practice almost ignoring speaking and teresting or as communicative as we think they are and
listening skills. Do you think this is a good balance? If all the students are really required to do is answer 'yes'
the goal of your language course is truly to enable your or 'no' which they do quickly and then just sit in silence
students to communicate in English, then speaking or worse talking noisily in their L1. So maybe you need
skills should be taught and practiced in the language to take a closer look at the type of speaking activities
classroom. Dealing with common arguments against you are using and see if they really capture student in-
teaching speaking skills in the classroom. Students will terest and create a real need for communication. An-
not talk or say anything One way to tackle this problem other way to encourage your students to speak in Eng-
is to find the root of the problem and start from there. lish is simply to speak in English yourself as much as
If the problem is cultural, that is in your culture it is possible in class. If you are shy about speaking in Eng-
unusual for students to talk out loud in class, or if stu- lish, how can you expect your students to overcome
their fears about speaking English? Do not worry if you
34 Евразийский Союз Ученых (ЕСУ) #4 (61), 2019
are not completely fluent or do not have that elusive student centred and not teacher centred. This is an im-
perfect native accent, as Swain (1985) wrote "We learn portant issue to consider. Learner-centred classrooms
to speak by speaking" and that goes for teachers as well where learners do the talking in groups and learners
as students. The more you practice the more you will have to take responsibility for using communicative re-
improve your own oral skills as well as help your stu- sources to complete a task are shown to be more con-
dents improve theirs. When students work in pairs or ducive to language learning than teacher-centred clas-
groups they just end up chatting in their own lan- ses (Long & Richards 1987).
guage. Is the activity or task pitched at the right level Nevertheless, many classrooms all over the world
for the students? Make sure you give the students all continue to be teacher centred, so the question you have
the tools and language they need to be able to complete to ask yourself is, how learner centred is my classroom?
the task. If the language is pitched too high they may Losing control of the classroom, on the other hand,
revert to their L1, likewise if the task is too easy they is a different issue. Once again walking around and
may get bored and revert to their L1. monitoring the students as they are working in groups
Also, be aware of the fact that some students espe- can help, as you can naturally move over to the part of
cially beginners, will often use their L1 as an emotional the classroom where the noise is coming from and calm
support at first, translating everything word for word to the rogue students down and focus them back on the
check they have understood the task before attempting task without disrupting the rest of the students who are
to speak.In the case of these students simply be patient working well in their groups. If students really get too
as most likely once their confidence grows in using rowdy then simply change the pace of the class and type
English their dependence on using their L1 will begin of activity to a more controlled task, for example a fo-
to disappear. cus on form or writing task where students have to work
Are all the students actively involved and is the in silence individually. Once the students have calmed
activity interesting? down you can return to the original or another interac-
If students do not have something to say or do, or tive group activity.
don't feel the need to speak, you can be sure it won't be Conclusion
long before they are chatting away in their L1. Was the These are just some of the problems that teachers
timing of the activity good? The timing of a speaking with large classes face when teaching speaking activi-
activity in a class can be crucial sometimes. How many ties in the classroom. These problems are not new nor
teachers have discovered that their speaking activity are the solutions offered above. Teachers all over the
ended up as a continuation of the students break-time world continue to face the same hurdles, but any
gossip conducted in the L1? After break-time, why not teacher who has overcome these difficulties and now
try giving students an activity to calm them down and has a large class of energetic students talking and work-
make them focus before attempting speaking activities ing in English in groups together will tell you it is worth
that involve groups or pair work. Another way to dis- all the trial and error and effort at the outset. If you be-
courage students speaking in their L1 is to walk around lieve in the importance of teaching speaking skills in
the classroom monitoring their participation and giving the classroom but are having difficulties making speak-
support and help to students as they need it. If certain ing activities work in your classroom why not contact
students persist in speaking in the L1 then perhaps you your local teaching associations or branch of TESOL.
should ask them to stay behind after class and speak to Maybe they run workshops for teaching speaking skills,
them individually and explain to them the importance or maybe they can put you in contact with other teach-
of speaking English and ask them why they don't feel ers in similar situations but with more experience teach-
comfortable speaking in English in the class. Maybe ing speaking skills who will be willing to share their
they just need some extra reassurance or they don't like experiences with you.
working with certain students or there is some other References:
problem that you can help them to resolve. When all the 1.Harmer, J. 1991. The Practice of English Lan-
students speak together it gets too noisy and out of hand guage Teaching. London: Longman.
and I lose control of the classroom. 2.Keller, E. – WARNER, S.T. 2002. Conversation
First of all separate the two points a noisy class- Gambits. Boston: Thomson Heinle.
room and an out-of-control classroom. A classroom full 3.Krashen, S. D. 1982. Principles and Practice in
of students talking and interacting in English, even if it Second Language Acquisition. Pergamon Press.
is noisy, is exactly what you want. Maybe you just feel 4.Wilkins, D. Harmer, J. 1991. The Practice of
like you are losing control because the class is suddenly English Language Teaching. London: Longman.