UNIVERSITY OF LA SALLE – SCHOOL OF EDUCATION SCIENCES
BA IN SPANISH, ENGLISH, AND FRENCH
FOREIGN LANGUAGE DIDACTICS
HOW TO TEACH SPEAKING (Harmer, 2001)
What kind of
speaking should
students do?
Why encourage
students to do
speaking tasks?
How do listening
tasks look like?
How should
teachers correct
speaking?
How do speaking
activities fit into
ESA?

Controlled language practice where students say a lot of sentences using a particular
piece of grammar or a particular function (Study)

Free language practice where students use any and all the language at their command
to perform some kind of oral tasks. There is a task to be completed and students want to
complete it.
Rehearsal: it is a way for students to “get the feel” of what communicating in the foreign
language really feels like.


Feedback: speaking tasks where students are trying to use all and any language they
know provides feedback for both teacher and students; teachers can see how well the
class is doing and what language problems there are and students can see how easy
they find a particular kind of speaking and what they need to do to improve.

Engagement: Speaking activities such as role-playing, discussion, and problem-solving
can be highly participative, intrinsically motivating and really informative.
Information gaps: Two speakers have different parts of information they to need to
share to make up a whole text or story. Example: Describe and draw.


Surveys and questionnaires: It is one way of provoking conversation and opinion
exchange. It the students plan them themselves, the activity becomes even more useful.

Discussions: Exchange of opinions organized to provoke spontaneous fluent language
use. It is important to remember that people need time to assemble their thoughts
before any discussion. Students need to be Engaged with the topic. They then might do
some Study (some language input, facts or figures, etc.) and move quickly to Activate
stages – which include the discussion itself.

Role-plays: Activities where students are asked to imagine that they are in different
situations and act accordingly. They offer chances for rehearsal and engagement. Two
things need to be added: first, the teacher can make the role-play a whole-class activity
and second, not all role-plays need to be intricate.
It is important for teachers to correct mistakes made during speaking activities in a
different way from the mistakes made during a Study exercise because constant
correction and interruption can destroy the conversational flow.


Many teachers watch and listen while speaking activities are taking place. When the
activity has finished, they then ask students how they thought the activity went before
giving their own feedback. Then they will say they hear some mistakes and they can
then either discuss them with the class, write them on the board or give them
individually to the students concerned.

Sometimes, teachers will have to intervene in some way if the activity is not going
smoothly: the activity starts to dry up, the topic has run out of steam, etc. Prompting is
often necessary, but as with correction, teachers should do it sympathetically and
sensitively.
The speaking activities tend to follow the same basic pattern: Engage-Activate_Study –
that is, the teacher gets students interested in the topic, the students do the task while
the teacher watches and listens and they then study any language issues that the
teacher has identified as being problems.


Speaking activities can well form one part of a much longer sequence which include
reading or listening and, after the activity, Study work.
Taken from: Harmer, J. (2001). How to teach English. Chapter 9: How to teach speaking, 87-96. UK: Pearson Longman.
DEVELOPING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES
Instructors need to combine structured output activities, which allow for error correction and increased accuracy, with
communicative output activities that give students opportunities to practice language use more freely.
Structured Output Activities
Two common kinds of structured output activities are information gap and jigsaw activities (In a jigsaw activity, each partner
has one or a few pieces of the "puzzle," and the partners must cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture). In both
these types of activities, students complete a task by obtaining missing information, a feature the activities have in common
with real communication.
Communicative Output Activities
Communicative output activities allow students to practice using all of the language they know in situations that resemble real
settings. In these activities, students must work together to develop a plan, resolve a problem, or complete a task. The most
common types of communicative output activity are role plays and discussions.
STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILLS
Effective instructors teach students speaking strategies -- using minimal responses, recognizing scripts, and using language
to talk about language -- that they can use to help themselves expand their knowledge of the language and their confidence
in using it.
1. Using minimal responses
Language learners who lack confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral interaction often listen in silence
while others do the talking. One way to encourage such learners to begin to participate is to help them build up a stock of
minimal responses that they can use in different types of exchanges. Such responses can be especially useful for beginners.
Minimal responses are predictable, often idiomatic phrases that conversation participants use to indicate understanding,
agreement, doubt, and other responses to what another speaker is saying. Having a stock of such responses enables a
learner to focus on what the other participant is saying, without having to simultaneously plan a response.
2. Recognizing scripts
Some communication situations are associated with a predictable set of spoken exchanges -- a script. Greetings, apologies,
compliments, invitations, and other functions that are influenced by social and cultural norms often follow patterns or scripts.
So do the transactional exchanges involved in activities such as obtaining information and making a purchase. In these
scripts, the relationship between a speaker's turn and the one that follows it can often be anticipated. Instructors can help
students develop speaking ability by making them aware of the scripts for different situations so that they can predict what
they will hear and what they will need to say in response. Through interactive activities, instructors can give students practice
in managing and varying the language that different scripts contain.
3. Using language to talk about language
Language learners are often too embarrassed or shy to say anything when they do not understand another speaker or when
they realize that a conversation partner has not understood them. Instructors can give students strategies and phrases to use
for clarification and comprehension check. By encouraging students to use clarification phrases in class when
misunderstanding occurs and by responding positively when they do, instructors can create an authentic practice
environment within the classroom itself.
Information taken from “The Essentials of Language Teaching” at http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/speaking/spindex.htm
Look at this speaking activity for students and give your views on these questions.
Which activities are speaking activities in the following sentences? What order would you put the activities in?
Why?
Taken from: Harmer, J. (2001). How to teach English. Task file, 162-164. UK: Pearson Longman.
UNIVERSITY OF LA SALLE – SCHOOL OF EDUCATION SCIENCES
BA IN SPANISH, ENGLISH, AND FRENCH
FOREIGN LANGUAGE DIDACTICS
HOW TO TEACH WRITING (Harmer, 2001)
Why teaching
writing?
What kind of writing
should students
do?
What do writing
sequences look
like?
How should
teachers correct
writing?
How does writing fit
into ESA?

Reinforcement: Most people benefit from seeing the language written down. Students
often find it useful to write sentences using new language shortly after they have
studied it.

Language development: The mental activity people have to go through in order to
construct proper written texts is all part of the ongoing learning experience.

Learning style: For many learners, the time to think things through, to produce language
in a slower way, is invaluable. Writing is appropriate for such learners.

Writing as a skill: Students need to know how to write letters, how to put writing reports
together, how to reply to advertisements, and increasingly, how to write using electronic
media.
The type of writing teachers get students to do will depend on their age, interests, and
level.


In general, teachers will try to get students writing in a number of common everyday
styles. These will include writing postcards, letters of various kinds, filling in forms,
writing narrative compositions, reports, newspaper and magazine articles, etc.

When teachers have a much more mixed group, teachers can choose writing tasks
which teachers think are generally useful but which, more importantly, they are likely to
enjoy doing.
Postcards/letters: Students Study a particular type of writing and then write something
which is very similar in design and structure.


Altering dictations: It is a useful activity in a sequence designed to ask people to take
positions on a certain subject and can therefore be used as a prelude to a discussion, or
a controversial reading, for example. The teacher dictates statements which students
have to alter to suit their own preferences and opinions.

Newspaper headlines/articles: the teacher introduces students to the way newspaper
headlines are constructed and then gets students to write their own newspaper articles.

Report writing: The teacher introduces features of report writing necessary for the task:
what comes in the introduction, middle paragraphs and conclusion. The teacher also
offers language which the writing style uses.
Some pieces of written work are full of mistakes, but over-correction can have a very
demotivating effect. One way of avoiding this is for teachers to tell students that for a
particular piece of work they are only going to correct mistakes of punctuation, or
spelling, or grammar, etc.


Another technique is to agree on a list of written symbols (S= spelling, WO= word order,
etc.) so that students can try to work on their problems on their own. Teachers have to
ensure they understand their problems and then redraft the passage correctly.

It is always worth writing a comment at the end of the written work.

Teachers are not in position to ask student to change their handwriting style, but they
can insist on neatness and legibility.
Writing can approach the ESA procedure from a number of different angles: teachers
can, for example engage students into a topic, then Activate their knowledge in a writing
stage, and later Study by making correction where appropriate. Or, teacher can simply
Engage students into a type of text, then have students Study its features, and finally
get students to Activate their knowledge by writing their own version.

Taken from: Harmer, J. (2001). How to teach English. Chapter 8: How to teach writing, 79-86. UK: Pearson Longman.
WRITING STRATEGIES
Two writing strategies you may want to use in your lessons are free writing and revised writing.
Free writing
It directs students to simply get their ideas onto paper without worrying much about grammar, spelling, or other
English mechanics. In fact, the teacher can choose not to even look at free writing pieces. To practice free writing,
give students 5 minutes in class to write about a certain topic, or ask them to write weekly in a journal. You can try a
dialog journal where students write a journal entry and then give the journal to a partner or the teacher, who writes
another entry in response. The main characteristic of free writing is that few (if any) errors are corrected by the
teacher, which relieves students of the pressure to perform and allows them to express themselves more freely.
Revised writing, also called extended or process writing
It is a more formal activity in which students must write a first draft, then revise and edit it to a final polished
version, and often the finished product is shared publicly. You may need several class sessions to accomplish this.
Begin with a pre-writing task such as free writing, brainstorming, listing, discussion of a topic, making a timeline, or
making an outline. Pairs or small groups often work well for pre-writing tasks. Then give the students clear
instructions and ample time to write the assignment. In a class, you can circulate from person to person asking, "Do
you have any questions?" Many students will ask a question when approached but otherwise would not have raised
a hand to call your attention. Once a rough draft is completed, the students can hand in their papers for written
comment, discuss them with you face to face, or share them with a partner, all for the purpose of receiving
constructive feedback. Make sure ideas and content are addressed first; correcting the English should be
secondary. Finally, ask students to rewrite the piece. Such finished pieces are often shared with the class or posted
publicly, and depending on the assignment, you may even choose to 'publish' everyone's writing into a class
booklet.
Taken from http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/esl/writing.cfm
HOW TO WRITE RIGHT
When you approach any document, follow this simple procedure:
1.
Establish the AIM: Every document must have a single aim - a specific, specified reason for being
written. Once you have established your aim, you must then decide what information is necessary in
achieving that aim.
2.
Consider the READER: As the writer, you have to decide what to tell and how best to tell it to the particular
audience. There are three considerations: (a) what they already know affects what you can leave out, (b)
what they need to know determines what you include, and (c) what they want to know suggests the order
and emphasis of your writing.
3.
Devise the STRUCTURE: Structure is used to present the information so that it is more accessible to the
reader. While still considering the aim and the reader, the document is broken down into distinct sections
which can be written (and read) separately. These sections are then each further decomposed into
subsections (and sub-subsections) until you arrive at simple, small units of information - which are
expressed as a paragraph.
4.
DRAFT the text: Write the first version as appropriately as you can.
5.
EDIT and REVISE: When you have decided what to say, to whom you are saying it, and how to structure it;
say it - and then check it for clarity and effectiveness. You can check layout, style, punctuation, spelling,
simple errors, sentence length, wordiness, etc.
Taken from http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art4.html
Look at this writing activity for students and give your views on these questions.
Taken from: Harmer, J. (2001). How to teach English. Task file, 159-161. UK: Pearson Longman.