Revista simpozionului Eficiență și calitate în educație - 19 mai 2017 Eficiență și calitate în educație | Page 64

DEVELOPING LIFELONG SPEAKING SKILLS
Marinela Onițiu, Colegiul Național „Gheorghe Lazăr” Sibiu
Abstract:
Speaking skills, although difficult to develop, are the most rewarding when it comes to learning a foreign
language. Real-life situations and technology can work together with the teacher and the students in order to
trigger instances which enhance speaking and interaction. The four-minute conversation, The Community
Update and Technology Talk are only some traditional examples which boost speaking skills while ESL
Discussions, Fotobabble and English Central are Internet resources which give an alternative to speaking
activities. Resilience is also needed when learning, and developing speaking skills are no exception.
Key words: speaking, skills, activities, develop speaking skills.
Speaking has always been the ultimate purpose of both educators and especially the
learners, no matter what the language in question was. School, under the form of the
teaching-learning-assessing process, has been considered the major and the most
important means of acquiring information and developing skills and abilities, though not the
only one in today’s society. Its role has changed from merely communicating and
transmitting information to raising interest and developing life-long skills. Nowadays, it
should also boost the students’ motivation while using or urging students to make use of
whatever objects they have at hand in order to reach their goals.
It has always been both easy and difficult to teach and learn how to speak. Easy, on
the one hand, as it is considered closest to every individual’s interest, thus the learners are
open and willing to engage in it, and difficult, on the other hand, because it is so vast and
differs from one person to another, while it remains hard to assess when and if someone
can really use a foreign language in a life situation.
There are some factors which should be consciously taken into consideration when
teaching and/or learning how to speak a foreign language: previous knowledge of both
grammar and vocabulary items and structures, previous experience, motivation, will-power
and grit, as Albert Einstein once stated “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with
problems longer”. These can be rounded by individual factors, personality and character
ones, time and other resources, which all differ from one person to another.
Although each learner is unique and has their own learning purpose, background
and approach to learning a foreign language, today’s speakers of English have something
in common: relevance and application of learnt language to as many life situations as
possible and easiness when learning. Thus, speaking should be smoothly introduced and
inserted in English classes, as though it were a constant part of it.
An activity which could be used as a warm-up might be The four-minute
conversation, allowing each student to tell their desk-mates what they did at the weekend/
the previous day. The advantage is that the students speak about real-life situations while
using previously learnt vocabulary and grammar. Its drawbacks are that it can be rather
boring after using it several times, repetitive and limiting when it comes to grammar
structures. To make it more interesting the teacher might ask the students to speak about
the most interesting film/ event/ party they saw/ went to, describe the most special
moment, why it was so extraordinary, etc.
A similar activity could be done at the end of the class, the students telling their
near-by colleagues what they are going to do at the weekend, what event they are going to
attend, describing it and sharing information just like in real life or when posting on social
media. The students may also be asked to change mates/ turn around and speak to
another person, or even to a group. A further-practice activity could be writing a short
description of it and then adding it to the class group for everyone to get inspired by.
64