Improving highh school students speaking skill while teaching other skills

THANH HOA EDUCATION AND TRAINING DEPARTMENT

THACH THANH I SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

EXPERIENTIAL INITIATIVE

IMPROVING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’
SPEAKING SKILL WHILE TEACHING OTHER SKILLS

Author: Đỗ Thị Lệ
Occupation: Teacher
Experiential initiative on: English

THANH HOA YEAR 2017


CATEGORY
I. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reason why the topic is chosen
1.2. The aims of researching
1.3. Research subjects
1.4. Methods of researching
II. CONTENTS
2.1. Theoretical basis of the experiential initiative
2.2. Current situation before applying the experiential initiative
2.3. Methods
2.4. The effectiveness of the initiative
III. CONCLUSION, OFFERS
3.1. Conclusion
3.2.Offers

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I. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The reason why the topic is chosen
Speaking is a crucial part of language learning. The mastery of speaking skill
in English is a priority for many second or foreign language learners. Nowadays,
many learners even consider the ability to speak the language is the aim of
language learning. They often evaluate their success in language learning as well as
the effectiveness of their English courses on the basic of how well they feel they
have improved in the spoken language proficiency. Despite its importance, for a
long time, teaching speaking has been under valuated. Traditional teaching methods
have seemed to emphasize the learning of language system (rules of grammar and,
lists of vocabulary items ..) as a goal in its own right and failed to give learners an
ability to gain realistic experiences in actually using the language knowledge
gained. Nowadays things have been different. Today's world requires that the goal

of learning speaking English should develop students'communication skill so that
students can express themselves and use the target language to state opinions,
express their feelings and exchange information. Many new teaching methods have
been introduced and applied to serve the basic need of English learners. Among
them,communicative approach and learner-centered approach seem to be the most
effective ways to teach oral communication. And we should apply these methods in
teaching the four skills and focus on designing speaking activities in appropriate
stages of English lessons while teaching other skills so that students always have a
lot of chances to practise speaking while learning English.
In Viet Nam, there has been also a reform in teaching English in secondary
schools as well as High schools. The new series of textbooks presently used in
secondary schools and high schools were designed in view of communicative
language teaching method. The topics of the lessons given in the textbooks are
really interesting and based on real- life situations that require communication.
In spite of many efforts of teachers and others, the results we get from our
students are unsatisfactory. Students still complain that they find speaking lessons
really stressful and thus speaking is a difficult skill to master. Many students, after
studying English for years have left school without being able to speak an
intelligible sentence. Therefore, in this writing I would like to tell you how to
improve the students’speaking skills while teaching English so that we can help
students to improve their speaking skills.
1.2. Aims of researching
- Improving the efficiency of teaching and learning speaking skill.
- Creating excitement for students to learning speaking skill
- Increasing the frequency of using English of students

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1.3. Research subjects

It is intended to give some strategies of teaching speaking skill in order to simplify
speaking skill learning, reduce the pressure, help students overcome the fear, the
stress in speaking English. As a result, students can speak this language more
natually and fluently.
1.4. Methods of researching
It is based on real situation of teaching and learning speaking English in my school
and the accumulated experience in years. I strongly construct theory, apply to the
current teaching and learning of speaking skill in my school, adjust, draw on
profond experience so as to write out the most efficient techniques in teaching
speaking skill.

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II. CONTENTS
2.1. Theoretical basis of the experiential initiative
It is based on real situation of teaching and learning English, especially
speaking skill in my school. If students have only chance tospeak in speaking
lessons, The frequency of using English is too little. Two criteria of evaluation of
speaking skill are the accuracy and frequency. In the past, teachers paid attention to
the accuracy while teaching speaking skill first, and then the frequency. That meant
that learners had to produce a grammatical correct sentence while opening the
mouth to speak Therefore, they felt so stressful that they kept silent. In recent years,
there have a lot of changes in teaching. Communicative approach and learnercentered approach have been applied and it seems to be the most effective ways to
teach oral communication. Catch up on this innovation, in my writing I focus on
creating convenient conditions and chances for students to express whatever they
want. Teachers have no intervention while students are speaking. Therefore,
learners overcome the fear of speaking English and they have had excitement for
speaking lessons.
2.2. Current situation before applying the experiential initiative

Before applying this experential initiative, the regrettable reality in my
school is students are extremely bad at speaking. They don’t like the speaking
lessons. In these lessons, only a few good students take part in the teacher’
activities. The learner are very passive, they only listen to the teacher and take
notes. The teachers have not found the optinal methods to help them. So the
efficiency of teaching speaking skill is not as expected. Over many years of
teaching this skill, I have thought a lot how to improve this skill for the learners,
which motivate me write out this research.
2.3. Methods
2.3.1. Improving students’ speaking skill while teaching speaking itself.
There are many rules we must remember while teaching speaking so that we can
help students improve their speaking skill:
Firstly, we must make sure that students feel safe and confident while they
express themselves
Personally I think that the first thing that teachers have to do to help students
improve their speaking skill is that they have to help them overcome their feelings
of shyness and nervousness when practising English in their class. One of the best
ways to solve this problem is to put them in 'safe' situations in class where they are
inspired and encouraged to try using the language from their 'store'. Organizing
communicative activities in pairs, in groups is also an effective way to serve this
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aim. Working in pairs, in groups, students will feel less anxious than when they are
'on show' in front of the whole class together. Moreover, pair-works and groupworks can help shy students who would never say anything in a whole class
activity have the confidence to open their mouths. Students can also learn from
each other's new ideas so that they will have something to speak in front of the
class later. Another thing that teacher should remember to help students have
confidence in speaking is teacher's positive corrections and feedbacks . Making
errors is a natural and unavoidable part of the learning process, but how to correct

the students’ errors is particularly important. You need to provide appropriate
feedbacks and corrections, but don't interrupt the flow of communication. Take
notes while pairs or groups are talking and address problems to the class after the
activity without embarrassing the student who made the error. We can also write the
errors on the board and ask who can correct it.Teachers should encourage their
students to speak whatever they can and focus on what they have got right, not on
what they have got wrong. We should also help them to develop positive attitudes
towards their friends’errors and to correct themselves. Teachers should try to
develop for themselves positive strategies of error corrections. When students
achieve success in oral communication, they will feel confident, secure and enjoy
learning English, they will have confidence to take part in communicative activities
later.
Secondly, we must pay attention to warm-up activities:
Warm-up is also an important part which contributes to the success of a
speaking lesson. Warm-ups help our learners put aside their daily distractions and
focus on English. If they haven't used English all day, they may take a little while
to shift into it. Warm-ups also encourage whole-group participation which can build
a sense of community within the group and they can help to arouse student' interest
in speaking. We should vary warm-up activities to attract our students' attention and
interest because if they feel good about the lesson from the beginning they'll make
a good contribution to it These may be a discussion, a picture describing activities
or playing a game, brainstorming...ect. In order to have a good preparation, the
teacher does different things to arouse students’ interest, i.e brainstorming, musical
warmer, word card, etc. Before a new lesson I often motivate the students by
chatting to them about the topic of interest, giving them preparation tasks or quick
warm-up to get them in the right mood for speaking. Brainstorming is one of the
simplest, but the most effective kind of motivation because it takes a short time. I
can write key words on the blackboard and the class is encouraged to think of
ideas, words, phrases associated with them.
Example 1: Speaking in unit 12-English 10

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When I teach speaking in unit 12-English 10, I may present a picture of a famous
singer or musician and asks them the following questions
1. Who is she?
2. Do you like her?
3. If not, who is your favourite singer?
4. What kind of music does she sing?
5. Teacher leads in new lesson
Example 2: Speaking/Unit 15/English 12
Teacher may raise some questions and ask students to discuss in pairs:
1. Do you think that women are as intelligent as men?
2. Do they have equal rights in the family and in the society?
Students ask and answer in pairs, then some students present their answer, teacher
leads in new lesson
Example 3 : Speaking-unit 6-English 12
T asks students to play a guessing game:" Find someone who.........."
Teacher divides the class into 2 groups
Teacher gives some information about some popular and interesting jobs in the
society and asks student to guess what job it is. Each time they can guess they got
one point
Thirdly, students must be well-prepared and instructed before they practice
speaking.
Another point that makes it difficult for students to practise speaking is that
their knowledge of the language is poor and they don't have ideas to talk about the
topic (their language competences, vocabulary and grammar are limited)so in order
to help students practice,teachers have to provide them with necessary language
input and give students clear instructions

Example 1 : Task 2/speaking/unit 7/English 12
Teachers have to present some verbs used with the callocations given in the task by
asking students to do the matching
A
1. build
2. provide
3. reform
4. apply
5. train

B
Teacher's salary
Curriculum and textbook
More school
Teaching and learning method
More highly qualify doctors
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6. raise

More equipment and facilities

Teachers also have to elicit the meaning of some words or phrase in the task
Example 2: Speaking/unit11/English 10
Before students practise, teachers have to present the form and use of conditional
sentences type 3 which is used to express a regret about what you did in the past
Example 3: Speaking /unit3/English 12
Teacher presents some ways of giving and responding to compliments
Giving compliments

Responding to compliments
You really have a beautiful blouse, Thank you, Phil. That's a nice compliment.
Babara
What a beautiful blouse it is !
You've got to be kidding! I thought it was
terrible
How beautiful you are!
Thanks, Peter. It's nice of you to say so
Congratulation. You've played so Thank you. Your compliment is really
well today
encouraging
Your hairstyle is terrific
Thank you for saying that
Forthly, Varying communicative activities is also important
As I have just presented above, effective methods of teaching indirectly
encourage oral interaction and they can provide motivation. The direct way to
promote oral communication is to provide students with opportunities to participate
and to communicate with each other so that students can learn the language from
speaking. The more opportunities of speaking the language they have, the more
fluent they become. Actually, various activities in each lesson adds interest to
students and can help with making students more dynamic and active. In speaking,
students will be motivated if teachers provide them with various communicative
activities. Below are some common speaking activities that I often carry out in my
classes to make my speaking lessons more interesting and to motivate my students
in practising English:
a. Discussions : In an discussion students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share
ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the
discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the
teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose. In an
discussion teacher can form groups of 4 or 5 students. then each group works on

their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class. For
efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large group because quiet
students may avoid contributing in large groups. Generally speaking , in class or
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group discussions, whatever the aim is, the students should always be encouraged
to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so
on.
b. Role play: One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students
pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role
-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are
and what they think or feel.
c. Information gaps: in this activity students are supposed to be working in pairs.
One student will have the information that the other partner does not have and the
partner will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes
such as solving a problem or collecting information. These activities are effective
because everybody has the opportunity to talk extensively in the target language.
The aim of this activity is to get learners to use the language they are learning to
interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of
information and opinions.
d. Brainstorming: This helps students produce ideas in a limited time. The good
characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not criticised for their ideas
so students will be open to sharing new ideas. Brainstorming is one of the simplest,
but the most effective kind of motivation because it takes a short time. Teacher can
write key words on the blackboard and the class is encouraged to think of ideas,
words, phrases associated with them.
e. Storytelling: students can briefly summarises a tale or story they heard from
somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates.
Storytelling fosters creative thinking

f. Interviews: Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various
people. It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they
know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students
should prepare their own interview questions.
g. Reporting Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or
magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most
interesting news. Students can also talk about whether they have experienced
anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class.
h. Group planning tasks: An example of this is planning a party or an excursion
for the whole group. In this activity, teachers should allow them a good amount of
time to prepare for a presentation in which they attempt to persuade the rest of the
class to agree with their arrangements.
i. Picture Narrating: This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students
are asked to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying

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attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can
include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating.
j. Picture Describing : One way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to
give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the
picture. For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a
different picture. Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a
spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class. This
activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their
public speaking skills.
Last but not least, we should also pay attention to these points:
The communicative activities listed above can help teachers a lot in
promoting their students' speaking skills because they are quite interesting and they

give students a reason to speak in different situations and about different topics.
However, how should teachers run an activity effectively so that they can achieve
their aims is also a problem. Here I would like to provide you with a basic routemap plan for running a simple EFL activity(English as a Foreign Language)
Activity route map
1. Before the lesson: familiarise yourself with the material and the activity;
prepare any materials or texts you need
2. In class: Lead-in, preparation for the activity( this may be helped to raise
motivation or interests, or perhaps to focus on language items that might be
useful in the activity. model the conversation or the talk. Typical lead-ins are:
show a picture connected to the topic. Ask questions/write up or read out a
sentence starting a viewpoint. elicit reactions/ask students if they have ever
seen/been/or done ect/make a strong, controversial statement/ .... )
3. Set up the activity : give instructions, make groupings, organize the class
..ect
4. Run the activity: students do the activity, maybe in pairs or in groups while
teachers monitor and help
5. Close the activity and invite feedbacks from learners
6. Post activity: do any appropriate follow-on work.
Example: Task 2-speaking-English 10/page 67
This task is a discussion activity.
 Before the lesson ( teacher prepare at home )
 In class : To lead in and prepare students for the activity, I may show them
the model of the boat and ask them about the different characteristics of each
section/present some useful expressions for expressing agreements and
disagreements /teacher asks some good students to make an example in front of
the class before each group practise.

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 Set up the activity : I would like you to work in groups of 3 or 4 students ,
deciding the best seat for each person mentioned in task 1.You have 7 minutes to
complete the task
 Run the activity : Teacher lets students to carry out the discussion in groups,
move around and monitor the class
 Close the activity : Teacher asks some groups to perform in front of the class
and gives feedbacks
 Post-activity : Teacher asks students to present their choice ( which seat is
the most suitable for them )
Good atmosphere in the class and friendly relationship between teachers and
students.
Presenting our opinions and feelings in front of a lot of people in our native
language has been a challenge to many people and using another language to
convey what we want to say is of course more challenging. Therefore if the teacher
does not encourage his students and make them feel good about their teacher and
their lessons, the class will become tense and dull . Interaction can't take place in
the class effectively. As a teacher in a language class, we should always create a
good class atmosphere from the beginning because our students, especially young
students, will have no communication if they don’t feel good about their teachers
and their English class.
Teacher's and students' involvement :
The main aim of organizing a communicative activity is to get students to
speak, then one way to achieve that would be for you to reduce your own
contributions. Probably the less you speak, the more space it will allow the students
.It could be useful to aim to say nothing while the activity is underway, and save
any contribution for before and after.
2.3.2. Improving students’ activities while teaching other skills.
Teaching reading, listening and writing.
As I have mentioned above, speaking is the most important skill to any
learners of English or any other languages. Therefore, we must help students to

make full use of every chance to practice speaking. This can be done at different
stages of the lessons : Pre-, while- and post- . Before students read or listen to a text
or write about a certain topic, they should be prepared about what they are going to
read in advance by discussing some questions and talking about their own
experiences relating to the topic. These activities can be carried out in pairs or in
groups, or sometimes the teacher asks questions and the students answer. The
teacher at this time should play the role of an assistant. We use different ways to
encourage our students to be engage in oral communication and present their ideas.
We can also apply this when we present new language (vocabulary, structures,
etc..) or review what they have learned. We can make our students think and pay
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more attention to our teaching by asking them for their opinions, suggestions, or
encouraging them to guess new words, having them contribute what they remember
or already know instead of introducing directly the new lesson. Some of the
communicative tasks we can give our students while teaching listening or reading
or writing are:
• Discussions about the text
• Summarising texts
• Reviewing texts
• Using a 'follow-up' speaking task related to the topic
Clearly, I can encourage those students to share the knowledge with those
members who do not and I can help my students make full use of every chance to
practice speaking. And in fact, telling someone about what we have read, listen is a
very natural reaction to a text.
Speaking activities can be also used as a mean for students to check the
answers with each other after they listen or read the text. Students may answer the
teacher’s questions directly or discuss the questions in pairs.
In this stage, we can encourage students to talk by asking them to summarize

what they have read or listen. Students take turns to talk in groups and then they
may present the ideas in pairs. Telling someone about what we have read is a very
natural reaction to a text.
Some illustrations of using communicative tasks while teaching reading,
listening or writing :
a. Pre-reading activity : while teaching reading Unit 1- English 11: Friendship:
Teachers give some ‘English proverbs’ about friendship and asks students to
work in groups to explain the meaning of each statement orally. After the students
have practiced, the teacher will asks them to exlain orally in front of the class. Then
the teacher will asks them the next question: What are the quality of a good
friendship?
• A friend in need is a friend indeed.
• Hold a true friend with both your hands
• Be a person that your friend can trust.
• A friend indeed is a person who always walks in while the rest of the world
walk out.
b. Pre-listening stages: Unit 2- English 11. (Listening)
Teacher asks students to work in groups. Each group will makes three
sentences to describe the picture. The teacher feedbacks and introduce new lesson.
c. Pre-reading, Unit 8- English 11. Teacher asks students to describe the picture
orally and then tell the whole class which occasion it is?
d. Post-reading, Unit 8- English 11. Teachers asks students to talk about their
last Tet holiday.
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e. Pre-writing – Unit 8. T aks students to talk about different festivals before
writng….ect
While teaching language focus.
Teaching grammar sometimes makes students feel passive and bored.

Mostly, teachers only teach grammar rules and ask students to do excercises in a
passive way. If we observe Traditional Grammar Teaching class in most of the
schools, we may find out that nearly every teacher follows a simple way like this:
firstly, the teacher lists the grammar rules. Then, the students learn by heart all the
rules and do some exercises. Lastly, the teacher gives more written exercises such
as blank-filling or translation. This is quite similar with what we called 3p theory:
presentation, practice and production. These three stages convey different purposes.
Presentation is to present new language in context so that the meaning is clear, to
present the new form in a natural spoken or written text so that students can see its
use in discourse, to link the new form to what students already know, to check
comprehension, to elicit the form from students where possible and exploit their
existing knowledge.
And when students learn English this way, some of them would have good
command of English especially in the examinations, but when they open their
mouth, they always find that they can’t get a proper word to express themselves or
sometimes when the author points out some mistakes in their speech they can
hardly believe they had made such silly mistakes. Most of the students mention that
they are quite sure to have learned the corresponding term but couldn’t help making
mistakes when they get to talking. That is the question which is going to be focused
on today.Nowadays most of us realize that to teach grammar lessons effectively so
that students can not only remember grammar rules but also apply the language in
communication we should resourcefully move as quickly as possible from certain
pattern drills to oral interaction because each student really likes talking about his
or her own ideas and feelings. We should give them a reason to use the structure we
teach in conversation. Let’s look at some examples :
a. Target structure: The simple past tense
Practice stage : To help students practice The simple past tense, the teacher
may ask his students to look at the picture of a famous film star 10 years ago
and talk about her:
+ At that time she was poor. She was not famous. She lived in a small village

in the South. She worked as a street vendor then. The teacher asks students to
practice in groups, taking turns to talk about themselves 10 years ago .
b. Practice stage: Simple present tense
T asks students to tell the whole class about their daily activities or tell
fairy tales using simple presents to make the story more vivid. It’s always
very interesting to talk about themselves. And the students will be bare in
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their my that simple present is used to express a habit, a routine and in storytelling.
c. Target structure: Relative clauses
Practice stages ; Teachers devides the class into two group and asks
them to play a guessing games : Find someone who………….Each group
will gives a statement and the other group must guess who he or she is.
Ex: - He’s a person who works on spaceship.
- She is a person who works in a hospital.
- He’s a person who is caught because of shop-lifting or selling drugs..
d. Target structure: if clauses
Teachers give some cues and asks students to work in pairs asking and
answering questions using the cues given:
Cues : See a pickpocket /get lost in a jungle/ have a lot of money/ Go to
Africa/President of a country.
Ex: A : What would you do if you are the President of our country.
B : I would issue many policy which is good for the poor.
A : What about you ?
B : I would try to make our country richer and richer.
Above are some examples in which we can use communicative tasks to help
students practice English while learning Grammar. Giving them as many chances to
practice speaking English as possible is the best way to help them improve their
speaking skill.

2.4. The effectiveness of the initiative
After some years of conducting these solutions, to my expectation, I have
gained satisfying results. I've found that my students have become more confident
and active in speaking lessons. Many of them said that they no longer feel their
speaking lessons stressful and burdened. Most of them admitted that their speaking
skill has been improved a lot day by day.
This is the statistics this year
Before applying this experiential initiative
Grade
10

Number of students
395

Mark 5 and over
total
rate
140
35.4%

Under mark 5
total
rate
255
64.6%

After applying this experiential initiative
Grade
10

Number of students
395

Mark 5 and over
total
rate
238
60.3%

Under mark 5
total
rate
157
39.7%
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My collagues have already recognized the efficency of my research after they
apply it to their teaching speaking skill in their classes.
We also organized the speaking English club and students join it eagerly. More
and more students show their pasion for English especially oral English

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III. CONCLUSION AND OFFERS
3.1. Conclusion
Speaking is an important part of second language learning to any learners.
The ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes
to the success of the learner in school and success later in life. Therefore, it is

essential that language teachers pay great attention to help students develop their
speaking skill rather than leading students to pure memorization. Teacher should
provide students with a rich environment where meaningful communication takes
place while teaching any skill.
3.2. Offers
These are my personal experiences that I have got after many years of
teaching. Since it is used by myself and collagues in my school, limitations and
shortcomings can not be avoided. I boldly present here with the desire to receive
the valuable contributions of teachers, friends and colleagues so that my research
will become more perfect.
I think that The Education and Training Department should organize more
seminars on teaching speaking skills so that teachers have the opportunity to
exchange experiences.
XÁC NHẬN CỦA
THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN VỊ

Thanh Hóa, ngày 22 tháng 05 năm 2017
Tôi xin cam đoan đây là SKKN của mình viết,
khơng sao chép nội dung của người khác.
(Ký và ghi rõ họ tên)

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