Teaching speaking and

listening skills
KHOSA M
 Aims of the session

To understand how listening and

speaking skills can be taught in the
FET English First Additional Language
classroom.
To give you some ideas of assessing
listening and speaking skills in the FET
EFAL classroom.
 What is speaking skills?

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.
 What is listening skills?

 Listening is the ability to accurately receive and

interpret messages in the communication
process. Listening is key to all effective
communication. Listening is the foundation for
the other language arts.
 Itis the first skill to be developed in point of
time, and is fundamental to the development of
speech and to the later development of reading
and writing.
 The importance of speaking and
listening
 Peopleneed communication when they want to
say something, transmit information or need
to speak.
 Speakersuse communication when they want to
express or inform someone about something.
 They use language according to their purpose and
it is necessary for there to be a listener and a
speaker for effective communication.
The four main types of speaking skills

 FLUENCY. Fluency is about how comfortable and

confident you are in speaking English.
 VOCABULARY. Of course, if you don't have the
words to say what you want to say, then you
cannot say it.
 GRAMMAR. The ‘rules’ of a language.
 PRONUNCIATION. Language in a specific dialect
The three main types of listening skills

 Informational Listening (Listening to
Learn)
 Critical Listening (Listening to Evaluate
and Analyse)
 Therapeuticor
Empathetic Listening (Listening to
Understand Feeling and Emotion)
 The importance of teaching speaking and listening skills

 Having productive conversations requires students to

listen deeply, reflect on what is said, express ideas
clearly, sustain attention, ask insightful questions, debate
respectfully, and develop comprehension of information
taken in.
 These essential listening and speaking skills need to be
taught and practiced and will help students have
successful conversations both inside and outside of school.
 Taking the time to teach and practice academic
conversation skills helps prevent or minimize problems
that can arise during collaborative work and enables
students to be more deeply invested in their interactions
and learning.
 The importance of teaching speaking and listening skills

 Listening
and speaking are now taught
because they are very important parts of
being able to use English to communicate.
 Listening
skills are also crucial to the
development of speaking skills.
 Listeningto other speakers helps students
to develop their pronunciation and fluency
in English.
Strategies of teaching listening skills in the FET EFAL classroom

Pre-listening: strategies to prepare students for listening,

e.g., activating background knowledge, predicting,
getting physically prepared.
During listening:
 Listening for specific information and comprehension
 Listening for critical analysis and evaluation
 Listening for interaction
 Listening for appreciation
Post-listening: answering questions, reviewing notes,
using information (e.g., to label a diagram).
 Four principles in developing listening skills
 A teacher must keep in mind that any listening activity in the
classroom should be a pleasurable rather than a threating
experience.
 Daily class activities should be planned to such that the amount
of listening required of learners is not over-powering and
impossibly great. (This will involve planning for no listening
activities during a greater portion of the day.)
 It is extremely important that listening in a classroom situation
should not be confined to listening by the learners to the
teacher. It is quite essential that learners learn to listen to each
other and, above all, that the teacher show, by her example, in
listening to her learners, that she regards listening as a valuable
and important activity;
 Classroom listening should be for rather than at.
 Activities to promote listening skills

Listen and draw a story

Listening dialogs, etc.
Teaching speaking skills in the EFAL FET

 Inorder to teach EFAL speaking skills, a

teacher needs to be a model speaker.
 He/she should speak in a well-modulated
voice, use fitting posture, demonstrate
correct usage, fitting enthusiasm, courtesy
and poise.
 Three elements of oral expression

Vocabulary,
Diction,
and
Sentence sense.
 Approach recommended for teaching
speaking skills
 Many linguistics and EFAL teachers agree on the fact that students learn to
speak in English as their FAL by interacting.
 Communicative language teaching and collaborative learning serve best for
this aim. 
 Communicative language teaching is based on real-life situations that
require communication.
 By using this method in EFAL classes, students will have the opportunity of
communicating with each other in the target language. 
 In brief, EFAL teachers should create a classroom environment where
students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful
tasks that promote oral language.
 This can occur when students collaborate in groups to achieve a goal or to
complete a task.
 Activities to promote speaking

 Informalspeaking and group work: discussion,

conversation, dialogue, unprepared reading aloud.
 Formalspeaking and presenting: prepared speech,
unprepared speech, reading aloud, interview.
 Argument and view point: panel discussion and
debate.
 Speaking for specific purposes/contexts: giving
directions, instructions, introducing a speaker,
offering vote of thanks.
 Suggestions for EFAL teachers in teaching speaking skills

 Provide maximum opportunity to students to use

the target language when speaking by providing a
rich environment that contains collaborative
work, authentic materials and tasks, and shared
knowledge.
 Try to involve each student in every speaking
activity; for this aim, practice different ways of
student participation.
 Reduce teacher speaking time in class while
increasing student speaking time. Step back and
observe students.
 Suggestions for EFAL teachers in teaching speaking skills

 Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student’s

response.
 Ask eliciting questions such as ‘What do you mean? How
did you reach that conclusion? in order to prompt students
to speak more.
 Provide written feedback like ‘Your presentation was
really great. It was a good job. I really appreciated your
efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of your
voice.’
 Do not correct students’ pronunciation mistakes very
often while they are speaking. Correction should not
distract student from his or her speech.
 Suggestions for EFAL teachers in teaching speaking skills

 Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of

class; contact parents and other people who can help.
 Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on
the right track and see whether they need your help while
they work in groups or pairs.
 Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in
speaking activities.
 Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty
in expressing themselves in the target language and
provide more opportunities to practice the spoken
language.
 Conclusion
Teaching listening and speaking skills is a very important part of
EFAL learning. The ability to comprehend and communicate in the
English language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success
of the student in school and success later in every phase of life.
Therefore, it is essential that language teachers, pay great
attention to teaching listening and speaking skills. Rather than
leading students to pure memorization, providing a rich
environment where meaningful communication takes place is
desired.