Unit 6 – Speaking Activities & Discussions
Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 8:06 pmUnit 6 – Speaking Activities & Discussions
Since I'm a bilingual teacher, I'm not allowed to give speaking classes in the company I work for. There for, I don't have this kind of classes at work. But if I would give advice to a teacher, I would say that you should:
1- Let the students watch a video talking or resembling the activity then let them guess the name of the activity ( role play for example). After that, divide them into groups and let them imitate what they just watched with any changes they want to apply. At the end, give them sometime to write and do their own performance in front of you as a teacher.
So, the main point here is that let the students get the confidence at the beginning of the activity then let them do it.
2- Here are some of the potential problems with discussion activities, which we looked at in exercise 2:
What do you do to solve these problems?
Students make lots of mistakes:
I think making the students LISTEN to some English videos or any tapes is best way to improve their speaking skill. In addition to that, they can memorize and repeat some conversations where they can acquire the word ordering, the speaking speed, vocabulary and the pronunciation.
Not all the students participate:
If the students feel shy for example, the teacher should stat by yes/no questions. Then she can add why that short answer. After that, the teacher can ask them to answer all wh/ questions gradually. In addition, the teacher shouldn't forget the team work in which the students fell more comfortable together.
Sometimes students aren't interested in the topic:
I can ask them to give their opinions through showing their disagreement points towards the topic. Then we can ask them to suggest the topic which they would like us to discuss next time and why. This step may be applied if the students didn't like the topic.
The students spend a lot of time speaking in their mother tongue:
For me, I direct them immediately to the English vocabularies and sentences to repeat them. Or I ask them to say the sentences with their friends help or the dictionary. Sometimes, the students learn how to use the dictionary while making sentences so that they learn the vocabulary in addition to the part of its speech.
Since I'm a bilingual teacher, I'm not allowed to give speaking classes in the company I work for. There for, I don't have this kind of classes at work. But if I would give advice to a teacher, I would say that you should:
1- Let the students watch a video talking or resembling the activity then let them guess the name of the activity ( role play for example). After that, divide them into groups and let them imitate what they just watched with any changes they want to apply. At the end, give them sometime to write and do their own performance in front of you as a teacher.
So, the main point here is that let the students get the confidence at the beginning of the activity then let them do it.
2- Here are some of the potential problems with discussion activities, which we looked at in exercise 2:
What do you do to solve these problems?
Students make lots of mistakes:
I think making the students LISTEN to some English videos or any tapes is best way to improve their speaking skill. In addition to that, they can memorize and repeat some conversations where they can acquire the word ordering, the speaking speed, vocabulary and the pronunciation.
Not all the students participate:
If the students feel shy for example, the teacher should stat by yes/no questions. Then she can add why that short answer. After that, the teacher can ask them to answer all wh/ questions gradually. In addition, the teacher shouldn't forget the team work in which the students fell more comfortable together.
Sometimes students aren't interested in the topic:
I can ask them to give their opinions through showing their disagreement points towards the topic. Then we can ask them to suggest the topic which they would like us to discuss next time and why. This step may be applied if the students didn't like the topic.
The students spend a lot of time speaking in their mother tongue:
For me, I direct them immediately to the English vocabularies and sentences to repeat them. Or I ask them to say the sentences with their friends help or the dictionary. Sometimes, the students learn how to use the dictionary while making sentences so that they learn the vocabulary in addition to the part of its speech.