How to teach Speaking Skills: Strategies & Methods

In today's teaching climate, it's easy to forget the importance of oral language, or speaking and listening skills. With all the focus on reading and writing, sometimes teachers neglect this more basic aspect of language! Yet students need to learn speaking skills and have opportunities to practice making their voices heard in a safe and constructive environment. Speaking skills are important because:

One of the reasons teachers might feel hesitant about teaching speaking skills is that it can feel overwhelming. Oral language is complex, and in order to teach it properly, we need to deconstruct it into separate skills. The following skills are important to consider when working on speech with students:

Mechanical Skills

Students need to learn how to project, or speak at the right volume for their audience to hear them. They need to learn how to use intonation to express mood and how to pronounce words properly. They must also learn how to pace their spoken language so that they are neither too fast nor too slow to be understood.

Organizational Skills

Just as students must learn to organize their writing, they must learn how to organize, or structure in a meaningful way, their oral language. This means talking in logical sequence, stating thoughts in an order that makes sense, and making sure the spoken word is relevant to the topic of conversation.

Expressive Skills

One of the most important aspects of speaking is expression, or the ability to effectively communicate ideas and feelings. Students must learn how to say what is on their mind or make oral arguments that get their points across.

Pragmatic Skills

Finally, students who are learning speaking skills must gain experience with pragmatics, or the aspect of language that has to do with social norms and the rules of conversations. Students need practice taking turns in conversation, making eye contact while speaking, and responding appropriately during dialogues.

Now that you know about some of the skills in speaking that are important, you are probably wondering how to help students learn these skills. One strategy is collaboration and conversation. By putting students in small groups or partnerships and giving them pre-selected topics to discuss, scripts to practice together, or questions to work on answering, you give them a chance to listen to one another and put their oral language skills to use. Being an effective conversation partner involves all of the skills of language, but students might need help getting started, keeping a conversation going, and reflecting on what did or did not go well in a spoken conversation. Conversation is especially useful for students who need to practice their expressive and pragmatic skills.