Speaking through the Experience in Teaching English - Essay Example

Speaking through my Experience in Teaching English There is a growing need for good communicative skills in English around the world which has created a lot of interest in acquisition of English as a second language discourse. Since cross-cultural interactions are inevitable, and the fact that English has grown to be the most widely used language in the world, teaching English to Speakers of a Second Language (ESOL) is a discourse that has continued to generate interest. Spoken English, especially casual conversation, is described as the most difficult to learn, develop and teach. Teaching and learning English effectively involves several principles which the teachers need to be conversant with, in order to embrace a method of teaching that fully exploits the opportunities. This paper looks into the key principles that are important to developing speaking specifically developing speaking of the English language to learners from Saudi Arabia. I will use my personal experience coupled with literature references to show how these principles can and will be employed in my classroom. To develop speaking there are three important elements to consider; the teacher, the learner and the learning context. I will appraise these elements in the context of Saudi Arabia. First, when looking at the learner, it is important to consider their reasons for learning, their social cultural or economic conditions as well as their motivation. Secondly, pertinent to developing speaking English is the context in which it is acquired and the roles it plays in the society. Thirdly, developing speaking heavily relies on the teacher; the role he plays, the methodology he adopts, the practices and activities he uses in developing speaking to the learners and the kind of methods he uses in assessing the learner’s development in English speaking. The first principle in improving speaking development is learning the students and identifying their needs hence tailoring the teaching methodology to meet the needs of the students. It is very important to note that as there is no best method for learning. Prabhu (1990) argues that there is no single method, regardless of how good it is, that is best for everyone. Different learners have different needs and other factors that influence their learning. Therefore, no teacher can have success in teaching and developing speaking without carrying out an analysis of his/her students to identify their needs and factors that either enhance or inhibit their speaking development. In Saudi Arabia, English is still considered a foreign language which means the learners have limited opportunities to learn how to speak and to practice teaching. This means that most students look at the classroom as the place to learn and practice. Saudi English learners look to the teacher with great hope since they consider the teacher to be very competent which leaves the teacher with a lot of responsibility (Ansari, 2012). This means that o be effective as a teacher, I will have to satisfy the classroom expectations of the learners. However, I will also make efforts to dispel the over-dependence on the classroom by incorporating out-of-class learning and practice activities. This will instil a learning responsibility on the part of the student as well as create opportunities for developing relationships with the teachers and amongst the learners. As Harmer (2007) notes, the teacher is a decision maker and has the responsibility of managing the classroom processes. Another key principle is handling classroom problems especially anxiety and lack of motivation. Many learners have a mental block in learning a second language especially in Saudi Arabia where Arabic is widely used. On the other hand, some learners may have a motivation to learn and the desired outcomes lead to anxiety on whether they will perform or not. According to Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986), difficult in speaking the in the classroom is one of the major reasons of anxiety in second language classrooms. Anxiety inhibits any efforts from the students to get into conversations and which inhibits speaking development. One way to handle anxiety and demotivation is through being a supportive teacher. I will do this by acknowledging my students feelings and helplessness and offer personal suggestions for attaining English confidence that will facilitate speaking development. Pronunciation is a prominent factor in spoken English learning. According to Glakjani (2012), gaining full communicative competence is reliant on the prominence of pronunciation. Pronunciation is the habit of producing the sounds acquired by way of repetition. “Learning to pronounce a second language means building up new pronunciation habits and overcoming the bias of first language” Glakjani 2012, p. 96). The accents of the learner interfere with how fast the learner can be able to pronounce English word in standard pronunciation. This requires the teacher to know some of the pronunciation problems for different learners and develop ways of addressing them. In addition, the way the teacher pronounces words will affect the way the learner pronounces them. The Methodologies used in instruction is a key principle in teaching and learning speaking English. Teachers should be more robust and independent in the decisions they make in teaching English and move from the belief that “teachers sit at the feet of educationists and applied linguists waiting for ideas to drop, like crumbs, to sustain them” (Harmer, 2007, p. 2). Joyce and Slade (2000) say that “methodologies and materials for teaching conversation need to take into account the structure and characteristics of spoken language” (p. 12). She cites scripted dialogue as the materials used to teach casual conversation. This materials cause problems since they are based on written English and they do not consider the key features of spoken English. In addition they are a mere means to that illustrate language functions or grammar structures. In order to effectively teach spoken English, teachers need to come up with materials that provide students not only with authentic dialogues but also the dialogue should be comprehensible to them. The methodology should incorporate activities that allow the students to interact with context in as a realistic way as possible. Butterworth (2000) explains the process coming up with Listening to Australia books and tapes for teaching English. He says that in collecting casual conversations, he used two approaches; topic of discussion and semi scripting texts. The semi scripted texts have been found to be wanting in terms of authenticity. Teachers find casual conversation spontaneous to teach. According to Banks (2000, p. 17), “they feel that the most a teacher can do is to teach discrete language functions, structures and gambits, and to correct obvious errors” (cited in Joyce & Slade, 2000). This goes with the assumption that with practice the student gradually acquires the ability to develop a conversation. Follow up questions is one method that has been used over the years for prompting the student to talk. However, recent developments have been skewing towards finding alternative methods to follow up questions. The teacher initiates the student talk when they provide alternatives to follow up question. Allowing the students to talk also helps them to develop communicative competence. Alternatives to questioning increase students’ collaborative talk. One of the most important principles in speaking English is practice. Practice not only in repeating words they have heard but also be able to produce and practice other words. Students get the opportunity to speak and practice in the classroom, however there is limited time in the classroom for this and the teacher has many students to attend to. Hence the teacher is not able to attend to the students individually. Combining the practice that students have in the classrooms with an out-of-class activity would enhance the development of speaking in the students. One such activity is keeping of audiotaped dialogue journals in which students and teachers get to interact through recording oral conversations on the cassette or a recorder. The students is given the freedom to keep a regular journal in which they records dialogues in English, ask questions or give comments to different topics. Brown et al (1996 cited in Ho, 2003) asserts that the use of audiotaped dialogue journals have benefits in acquiring new vocabulary, helps in increasing grammatical accuracy and aides in development of good relationships between the teacher and the students. According to Ho (2003), audiotaped dialogue journals have many benefits. First, they help students to form a broad basis of language acquisition since students use different strategies to handle the difficulties they face. Secondly, the students go through the process of preparing scripts which facilitates gaining of language input as well and activate language output. Thirdly, journals allow for one-to-one instruction. Finally, the students form mutually supportive relationships among themselves in the process of making the journal entries which is very beneficial to learning. Audiotaped dialogue journals are known to aid in the stimulation of active thinking since the students are involved in the practice of producing the speeches. As a teacher, the audiotaped dialogue helps in identifying difficulty areas as well as measuring the students’ progress. In conclusion, a good teacher should be a good learner. A teacher becomes a learner through reflection which creates him the opportunity to understand himself better and also his students. This kind of reflection is a cycle in which the teacher reflects, takes action, evaluates and improves action. The teacher can then pass this activity to the students and help them reflect through the learning process. References Ansari, A. A. (2012), Teaching English to Arab students: Problems and Remedies. Education Research, Vol. 3, No. 6, pp. 519-524. Butterworth. A. 2000, Casual conversation texts in listening to Australia, in Joyce, H. S. Eds, Teaching Casual conversation, National center for English Teaching and Research, Macquarie University, Australia. Gilakjani, A. P. 2012, The significance of pronunciation in English language teaching, Canadian Center of Science and Education , Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 96-107. Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language teaching. (4th ed.). Harlow: Longman Ho, Y. (2003). Audiotaped dialogue journals: an alternative form of speaking practice. ELT Journal, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 269-277. Horwitz, E. K., Horwitz, M. B. & Cope, J. (1986). Foreign language classroom anxiety. The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 125-132. Joyce, H. S. & Slade, D. 2000, The nature of casual conversations: Implications for teaching, in Joyce, H. S. Eds, Teaching Casual conversation, National center for English Teaching and Research, Macquarie University, Australia Prabhu, N.S. (1990). There is no best method – why? TESOL Quarterly, 24, 2, 161-176 Read More