Improving Speaking Skills of Non-Native Learners - Assignment Example

 IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILLS OF NON NATIVE LEARNERS Abstract The essay discusses the issue of teaching speaking to the non natives. The number of non native learners is on the increase, owing to the burgeoning immigrant population. The issue of speaking fluent English with sound grammar and accent is discussed in the essay. Subsequently, several teaching speaking methodologies for improving the non native learner experience is suggested. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction………………………………………………………..4 II. Overview of Teaching Speaking to Non Natives……………….4 a) Non Native Speakers- Oral Communication Requirements…...4 b) Non Native Learner Accent Issues………………………………5 III. Literature Review……………………………………………….6 IV. Issues in Teaching Speaking……………………………………7 a) Motivation…………………………………………………………8 b) Conversational Skills……………………………………………..8 c) Innovation…………………………………………………………9 d) Supervision……………………………………………………….10 e) Transcriptions……………………………………………………10 VI. Methods in Teaching Speaking………………………………...11 a) The Grammar-Translation Method…………………………….12 b) The Audio Lingual Method……………………………………...12 c) Intelligibility for Non Native Learners………………………….13 VII. Native English Accent………………………………………….14 VII. Non Native Learners- Curricular Concerns…………………15 VIII. Conclusion……………………………………………………..16 References…………………………………………………………...18 I. Introduction Teaching speaking skills can be very challenging as well as very difficult. Learning to speak with proper grammar usage and pronunciation generally has a long learning curve. The ability to speak proper English is essential for being successful and in one’s career. This essay would be discussing how to improve the speaking skills of non native learners and make them speak more fluently and accurately, and encourage them to acquire an English native speaker accent. In the essay, some important aspects which are discussed include the accent issues for non-native learners, the methods used by teachers to ensure quality learning, some of which are motivating the non native learners, innovation of the teaching activities, using paused transcriptions and using regular supervision and feedback. Additionally, the importance of using the main conversational types as spoken message repetition; namely comprehension checks, comprehension checks and clarification requests, is elaborated in the essay. II. Overview of Teaching Speaking to Non Natives a) Non Native Speakers- Oral Communication Requirements There are various important needs which non native learners have. They primarily have four major purposes of learning (Douglas, 2000). These purposes are as follows: Gaining access to important resources and practical information in order to adapt properly with the globalized environment. Voice their feelings and opinions with more confidence. Being able to take actions themselves for solving various problems, rather than relying on people who know English for helping them out. Be future proof and ensure that they are updated and are in perfect harmony with globalization. In order to tackle these aspects of life, proper communication in English is imperative. The non native learners would also regularly need to communicate with employers, neighbors and colleagues in English. They might also have an objective of receiving higher education in a foreign country or get promoted in their jobs, hence for numerous purposes; non native learners enroll for spoken English classes (Ignash, 1995). b) Non Native Learner Accent Issues The non native learners are sometimes successful in carrying out conversational English with sound grammar. However, their accent and intonation makes their speech partly incomprehensible. According to Hughes ‘I have argued that because intonational meaning is central to a full understanding of spoken English, it deserves more attention in Applied Linguistics. If researchers are to better understand language acquisition, language production, listening comprehension, and discourse strategies in the context of communication as a whole, intonational meaning should be a central part of the program. Likewise, if language teachers are to foster communicative competence in their students, it is essential that intonational meaning be integrated with other skills in the classroom. I have recommended that the discourse of language learners could provide a good starting point for both teaching and researching intonational meaning in context’ (2005 p. 92). III. Literature Review Speaking fluent English is important for the non native learners. When they communicate with others in English, they have the modified interaction experience (Doughty & Pica, 1986). The modification is brought about by the spoken message repetition through the three major conversational types of moves. They are: Confirmation Checks-When a listener thinks that one has properly understood the speech, but wants to confirm to be sure. Clarification Requests-When the interlocutor asks for a certain clarification on a meaning which one doesn’t understand. Comprehension Checks-When the speaker wants to be sure that the listener has properly understood one’s words. These are extremely important for teaching speaking since, in the classroom, learners would have a higher rate of success in second language acquisition when they follow the three conversational moves (Swain, 2000). Generating language output such as writing or speech helps the learners to process English language more comprehensively (Swain, 2000). Speaking is also considered to be the process as well as the product of second language acquisition (Flores, 1999). Using the English language linguistic components is an integral part of the communicative competence of a non native learner (Nunan, 1991). Outside classrooms, the learners generally use speech for transactional purposes and interactional purposes (Brown & Yule, 1983; Pridham, 2001). According to Nunan (1991), there is a certain degree of fluidity and unpredictability in interactional speech, more than transactional speech. Hence, teaching materials designed for improving English speaking abilities in non-native learners, must therefore address both transactional and interactional purposes, since non native learners requires mastering both in order to be successful English speakers (Friedenberg, Kennedy, Lomperis, Martin & Westerfield, 2003). V. Issues in Teaching Speaking There are numerous prominent issues of teaching speaking. These problems are universal and teachers around the world face the same problems. However, for those teachers who have successfully tackled these issues, the trial and error methods are definitely worth the efforts. According to Savignon (1991), grammar translation teaches the non native learners writing and reading skills. For assisting non academic non native learners, courses based on language awareness activities and interactive communicative language need to be designed by the teachers for making the non native course more effective. This type of instructional approach will aid the non native learners to pick up their speaking skills (Graham, 1994; Swain, 2000). All in all, language awareness and communicative language speaking will help the non native learners substantially, according to Swain (2000). Moreover, it is imperative that the non native teaching curriculum is extended to adult school and community college courses. (Rymes, 2002). Teaching speaking skills in the classroom, especially for the non native speakers requires some important facets that teachers should keep in mind while they teach speaking. Some of them include the following: a) Motivation For a number of students, being able to speak in English equates to knowing English, which actually is partly true. Hence, it’s important that the students are encouraged to speak in English in the classroom. The teachers must encourage them to speak in the English language, otherwise there’s a fair chance that the students might get de-motivated. The teachers must implement the right classroom activities to make speaking English in class very enjoyable. Speaking is the basic of human communication; hence the teachers must give priority to speaking in the classroom over writing and reading. Sometimes, teachers encounter situations where the students do not say anything, partly due to their shyness. A teacher should therefore try to tackle the problem’s root. Some students find speaking loudly in class is not in line with their culture. In these situations, the teacher can make it a norm to speak loudly in class from the outset. This would make the students know that speaking loudly is a necessity. This would therefore help in breaking the cultural barrier. Another way of motivating the students is by giving them regular positive feedbacks, especially to the students who are comparatively weak. b) Conversational Skills Speaking involves a good degree of conversational skills. The students who perform the oral tasks in speaking classrooms, need to follow three primary guidelines in order to succeed in learning speaking: Rehearsal: When conversations and free discussions are allowed in the classroom, the non native students get an opportunity to rehearse. Some of the activities which will encourage rehearsal of the students would include role plays with subjects like lost property in office. This would get the students acquainted with communicating in English. Feedback: The teacher should always give feedback to the groups and also in an individual level. Engagement: The aspect of student engagement is an important issue as well. The students can be engaged in speaking activities through discussions, problem solving, role plays and others. The teacher needs to plan these activities carefully as engagement would contribute to better confidence in speaking English. c) Innovation Sometimes, the speaking activities which are designed for the students are not as creative; hence the students get easily bored. Some students just keep chatting in their native language, which should be discouraged at all costs in the classroom. The teacher should also speak in English as much as possible, in order to make the students more proactive. Working in pairs should be encouraged in the classroom as well. The pairs should be assigned tasks which are pitched for the appropriate level. The teacher has to provide them with the right tools for completing the task as well. The teachers need to be conscious that the beginner level student would attempt to translate the words in their own language for a better understanding. Hence the teacher should be patient. Additionally, the timing of the speaking activities is essential. For instance, the teacher should assign the students certain activities right after break time, which would calm the students down. Subsequently, the speaking activities which incorporate group or pair work should be implemented. d) Supervision The teacher needs to supervise the classroom and monitor by walking up and down the aisles. This would encourage participation from the whole class and also enable the teacher to speak to students individually. Another point is to distinguish between an out of control classroom and a noisy classroom. The teacher must know that a noisy classroom with active student participation in speaking activities is a positive sign. A noisy classroom which is actively involved in speaking activities is essentially a learner centered class room. As opposed to a teacher centered classroom, a learner centered classroom is more effective in language learning. e) Transcriptions Writing down or transcribing live speech or recorded speech is also an important aspect of teaching speaking. The spelling, punctuation skills and the listening skills would get sharpened by transcription lessons. In the process of transcriptions, the teachers first select a particular piece of article. The summary of the article is then read aloud by the teacher in the classroom. The reading aloud is accompanied by discussions as well. Finally, the teacher reads the piece of writing to the class slowly and the students in turn start transcribing. The copies of the original are then dispensed to the students and they check their transcription for accuracy, punctuation and spelling errors. Transcription is considered as one of the best diagnostic aid for teaching speaking. VI. Methods in Teaching Speaking Some important points which teachers should implement when teaching English includes: - collecting the errors for a later evaluation. teaching speaking with appropriate facial expressions. using body language such as rolling one’s hand from side to side, which indicates a mediocre attempt by the student. repeating the words which was said by the students to indicate their mistakes. indicating the number of errors made by a student. using grammatical terminology for identifying mistakes and requesting one’s partners to spot errors. It’s essential for curriculum designers, language teachers and material developers to understand the various speech acts and the way that these speech acts work. Speech events are basically the discourse contexts which are recognizable. Some relevant examples include job interviews, lectures, sermons, dinner table conversations and eulogies. Speech events are generally related to specific social purposes and places. For instance, job interviews take place in an office and not in a church. Some speech events require very little instruction such as ordering food in a fast food restaurant. There are also complex speech events such as describing and exemplifying during a conversation. Hence, students require using a wide variety of speech acts in order to be successful in various types of speech events which they might encounter. According to Garton and Richards ‘One of the areas that can be particularly troublesome is appreciating the difference between lessons designed to practice language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) and those designed to develop language systems (grammar, vocabulary, phonology, discourse), each of which, according the assessment criteria of this centre’s awarding body, requires a different approach. This distinction can be confusing for trainees (2008 p. 8). The following paragraphs describe a few important methodologies in teaching speaking. a) The Grammar-Translation Method For the teachers who teach the grammar-translation method, students require analyzing grammar and subsequently translating the grammar from one language to another by writing. The key objective of a teacher here is to ensure that the students are focused on reading and writing, they have a high degree of accuracy, they develop better vocabulary and they are able to form proper sentences, since sentences are the fundamental unit of language practice (Richards and Rodgers, 1986). The teaching method is generally deductive, or in other words, for teaching non native learners successfully, it is important that the teacher introduces the grammar rules to the students through translation and practice. It is also important that the teacher uses the native language of the students as the medium of instructions for teaching English to the non native learners. b) The Audio Lingual Method Around the world, one of the most dominant non native teaching methods for a number of years was the audio lingual method. The teacher teaches speaking skills to students by making them recite textbooks which are memorized and repeat sentences. Repetition drills are one of the most tried and tested methods in teaching speech and pronunciation. The structural patterns and the sounds are quickly learnt by students through repetition drills. The audio lingual method also assists the students in speaking through repeated practice of grammatical structures. The constant repetition eventually makes the structures automatic for the learners. According to Bygate (2001), oral conversation is not as easy to teach as once thought. Teaching oral language requires more than repeated speech structure production and improvement of phonological and grammatical accuracy. Although the degree of training that non native teachers in the US currently have is not known for certain, efforts are underway to improve the knowledge level of non native teachers by providing them quite useful such as New Ways in Teaching Speaking (Bailey & Savage, 1994) and New Ways in Teaching Adults (Lewis, 1997), which would help non native teachers to master language teaching to immigrant students of English. c) Intelligibility for Non Native Learners For teachers, it’s quite a daunting task to get speech accuracy, since for the adult learners, English is a second language. Pronunciation is regarded as one of the primary aspects of intelligibility (Florez, 1998). In the past exercise of grammar translation, pronunciation was considered as unimportant. Learners spent a lot of time in the audio-lingual method repeating sound patterns. According to Garton and Richards ‘For listening and reading skills, it is possible that the students may be able to listen to English conversation or to read some texts in English from many kinds of international media. Nevertheless, for speaking and writing, it is difficult for them to have a chance to use it in their everyday lives (2008 p. 128). The advent of communicative and more holistic teaching methods brought about a great change (Piper & Cansin, 1988). It has also been suggested that the native like pronunciation of English gets more prominent when an immigrant arrives in a new country earlier (Goodwin, 2001; and Morley, 1991). Morley (1991) has stated that there are five categories of people who face difficulties in pronunciation, which ultimately hinders their social and professional performance. Three of them belong to the non native learners group. They are namely immigrant residents with higher education degrees, teenage refugees, and non native English speakers working in IT, business or industries. VII. Native English Accent There are a lot of processes involved in making the learner acquire a native English accent and pronunciation. Therefore, for the teachers to successfully inculcate native English accent to all the students, a combination of interactive workshops, practical speaking exercises and feedback needs to be deployed. In the workshop, the key concepts of acquiring an English accent are detailed. Some of the key concepts which the students require being conversant with include the phonology and phonetics for English language. The non native learners are provided with a map of the articulators. In the map, the learners get to understand the vocal tract which produces various sounds during speech. Also the isolating features, the consonants and the phonetic symbols are discussed to the learners. There are several consonants and vowels, diphthongs, monotones, reduced vowels and schwa that are introduced to the class by the teacher as well. These would enable the students to get over their native accent influence and understand the intricacies of producing a native English accent. Moreover, there are several books accompanied by tapes and CD’s, which are concerned with accent training, modification and reduction, which should be introduced by the teacher to the class.. Additionally, the teacher needs to touch on topics such as specific sound pronunciation, word stress and phonetic alphabet learning. What’s more, there should be a detailed exercise set for the learners. Some of the questions which would test the learner’s level of knowledge would include naming the three sounds which gets aspirated in American and British English; identifying the five features of one’s speech and accent which the learner feels are non native accent markers; and identifying those features in one’s speech that one feels have been changed to native English accent. These are some of the crucial steps which would enable the non native English learners to develop a native English accent. VII. Non Native Learners- Curricular Concerns The curriculum for teaching non natives is basically the sequence that the teachers intend to present the subject matter to the students. According to Hughes ‘Not only should the candidate’s performance be rated, but the tester’s performance should also be evaluated. Recall that within this new framework, interaction is viewed as a social, not a cognitive, issue and therefore the candidate’s speaking language ability is dependent on the tester’s performance’ (2005 p. 282). For maximizing the benefits of the curriculum for speaking English, the learners must be given access to the curriculum content. It is therefore important that the teachers dispense the instructions at times which are convenient during the classes. The classes are also required to meet in places which are accessible. Furthermore, the tuition rates should be reasonable so as to prevent learners from staying away from enrollment. The course content must also be appropriately designed for the learners' needs. Hence the topics covered in the course should integrate daily issues that learners would encounter. VIII. Conclusion The issues of accent improvement for non natives were detailed and also the teaching methods for modifying non native accent such as using audio tapes, books and phonology maps were mentioned. Some other important points discussed in the essay included the specific methods used by English speaking teachers such as the Grammar-Translation Method and the Audio Lingual Method. Hence, non native learners require special treatment by the teachers in order to effectively teach them speaking English language. As mentioned, the number of non native learners is on the rise, owing to the wave of globalization and the immigration of millions of people from their native countries to English speaking countries. Hence, it’s important for teachers to discourage big multi level classes, substandard teaching speaking facilities, inconstant funding for teaching English speaking, limited English speaking resources and outdated teaching methods. Since the effort of speaking a new language such as English is very challenging and complex, the need for further research on garnering teaching English speaking is very real indeed. References BROWN, G., & YULE, G. 1983. ‘Teaching The Spoken Language: An Approach Based On The Analysis Of Conversational English’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. BYGATE, M. 2001, Speaking In R. Carter & D. Nunan (Eds.), ‘The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English To Speakers Of Other Languages’ (pp. 14–20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CASTALDI, T. 1991, ‘Ethnography and Adult Workplace Literacy Program Design’, Washington DC: National Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education. DOUGHTY, C., & PICA, T. 1986, ‘Information gap Tasks: Do They Facilitate Second Language Acquisition?’, TESOL Quarterly, 20(2), 305–325.160 DOUGLAS, D. 2000, ‘Assessing Languages For Specific Purposes’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press FLORES, M. A. C. 1999, ‘Improving Adult English Language Learners’ Speaking Skills’, Washington, DC: Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education. FLORES, M. A. C. 2002, ‘Content Standards Of Adult ESL: NCLE Annotated Bibliography’, Washington, DC: National Center for ESL Literacy Education. FRIEDENBERG, J., KENNEDY, D., LOMPERIS, A., MARTIN, W., & WESTERfiELD, K. 2003, ‘Effective Practices in Workplace Language Training: Guidelines for Providers Of Workplace English Language Training Services’, Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. GOODWIN, J. 2001, ‘Teaching Pronunciation, In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.) Teaching English s A Second Or Foreign Language’, (3rd ed., pp. 117–138). Boston: Heinle & Heinle GRAHAM, J. G. 1994, ‘Four Strategies To Improve The Speech Of Adult Learners’, Journal, 3(3), 26–28. HUGHES, R. 2005, ‘Spoken English, TESOL and Applied Linguistics: Challenges for Theory and Practice’, New York:. Palgrave Macmillan IGNASH, J. M. 1995, ‘Encouraging ESL students’ persistence: The Influence of Policy on Curricular Design’, Community College Review, 23(3), 17–34 MORLEY, J. 1991, ‘The Pronunciation Component in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages’, TESOL Quarterly 25/1 51-74. NUNAN, D. 1991, ‘Language Teaching Methodology: A Textbook For Teachers’, New York: Prentice Hall PIPER, T., & CANSIN D. 1988, ‘Factors Influencing The Foreign Accent. The Canadian Modern Language Review’, 44(2), 334-342 PRIDHAM, F. 2001, ‘The Language Of Conversation’, London: Routledge RICHARDS, J. C., & RODGERS, T. 1986, ‘Approaches and Methods In Language Teaching: A Descriptive Analysis’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. RICHARDS, K. and GARTON, S. 2008, ‘Professional Discourse Encounters in TESOL’, New York: Palgrave Macmillan RYMES, B. 2002, ‘Language Development In The United States: Supervising Adult ESOL Pre Service Teachers In An Immigrant Community’, TESOL Quarterly, 36(3), 431–452. SAVIGNON, S. J. 1991, ‘Communicative Language Teaching: The State Of The Art’, TESOL Quarterly, 25(2), 261–277. SWAIN, M. 2000, ‘The Output Hypothesis And Beyond: Mediating Acquisition Through Collaborative Dialogue’, In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning (pp. 97–114). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More