The teaching of peaking skill 

Speaking Skill

a.) Historical Background

As Bygate (2001, edited in Carter and Nunan, 2001, 14) states, speaking has occupied a peculiar position throughout the history of language teaching and has begun to emerge as a branch of teaching, learning and testing for only two decades. Bygate concludes that there are three reasons for this. First, the traditional grammar translation methods still have a huge influence in language teaching. Second, tape-recording has been sufficiently cheap and practical to enable the widespread the study of talk and use of tape recorders in classrooms only since the mid-1970s. Third, most language teaching approaches exploited oral communication as only part of their methodology and most of the focus in teaching oral skills was limited to pronunciation. Until recently, speaking has become a special area in language teaching.

b) Characteristics of Speaking

Bygate quotes from Levelt (1989, edited in Carter and Nunan, 2001, 16) that speech production involves four major processes: conceptualisation, formulation, articulation, and self-monitoring. These processes happen very fast and the former three are more or less automatic in L1 speakers. According to Bygate (2001, edited in Carter and Nunan, 2001, 16), speaking skills are also affected by the context. Speaking is reciprocal, people can respond to each other immediately. He also indicated that people can participate in the same oral interaction except the varieties of equal speaking rights. Moreover, speaking is physically situated face-to-face interaction and speakers have to decide on their message without taking time to check it over.

How To Improve English Speaking Skills

1).Find An English-Speaking Conversation Partner

First of all, it’s important to find native speakers to practice with. Students who are living around many English speakers may be able to find informal opportunities to chat with neighbors and local business people.

2).Make Sure To Listen As Well As Speak

When practicing with a native speaker, try to balance your listening and speaking. It’s a good idea to prepare questions in advance so that the conversation will flow back and forth.

3).Record Your Conversation Practice

Recording is a great way to get the maximum benefit from a conversation with a native speaker. When you listen again, you can evaluate your own pronunciation and notice areas where you need to improve.

4).Surround Yourself With The English Language

Another way to improve your English speaking skills is to immerse yourself in English as much as possible. Watch movies or TV in English, with subtitles if you need them, and watch the same programs over and over.

5).Practice With Music and Movies

Listen to music in English and sing along. Music is one of the best tools for learning intonation pronunciation. Listening to and singing songs might also help you remember vocabulary and phrases (if the song is easy to understand), and it will help you learn to pronounce English rhythm in a more natural way. By unconsciously imitating the singer, you’ll learn to pronounce phrases the way native speakers do.

6).Read Aloud

Reading out loud is a great way to practice speaking when there are no conversation partners available. Reading aloud gives you a chance to focus on pronunciation and pacing without worrying about coming up with words.

7).Talk To Yourself

Practicing alone is also a low-pressure way to practice, since no one will hear your mistakes.

The principles the teaching of listening

1. The tape recorder is just as important as the tape

However good your tape is, it will be useless if the tape recorder has a poor speaker or if the motor speed keeps changing and the tape goes faster or slower. Another vital feature is a tape couter that is easy to see. If you want to use your tapr recorder for music as well as speech you may need a better machine.

2. Preparation is vital

Teachers and students need to be prepared for listening because of the special features we discussed above. Teachers need to listen to the tape all the way through before they take it into the class. Students need to be make ready to listen. Teacher will do their best to get students engaged with the topic and the task so that they really want to listen.

3. Once will not be enough

There are almost no occasions when the teacher will play a tape only once. Students will want to hear it again to pick up the things they missed the first time. The first listening iis often used hust to give students an idea of what the listening material sounds like. once students have listened to atape two or three times, however, they will probably not want to hear it too many times more.

4. Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a listening, not just to the language

As with reading, the most  important part of listeniong practice is to draw out the meaning, what is intended, what impression it makes on the students.

5. Different listening stages demand different listening tasks.

Because there are different things we want to do with a listening text, we need to set different tasks for different listening stages.

6. Good teachers exploit listening texts to the full

If teachers ask students to invest time and emotional energy in a listening task nd if they themselves have spent time choosing and preparing the listening then it makes sense to use the tape for as many different applications as possible.

Strategies Of  Writing

Two writing strategies you may want to use in your lessons are free writing and revised writing. Free writing 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 journals may be exchanged during class, but journal writing usually is done at home. 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, 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.

Tactful correction of student writing is essential. Written correction is potentially damaging to confidence because it's very visible and permanent on the page. Always make positive comments and respond to the content, not just the language. Focus on helping the student clarify the meaning of the writing. Especially at lower levels, choose selectively what to correct and what to ignore. Spelling should be a low priority as long as words are recognizable. To reduce ink on the page, don't correct all errors or rewrite sentences for the student. Make a mark where the error is and let the student figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. At higher levels you can tell students ahead of time exactly what kinds of errors (verbs, punctuation, spelling, word choice) you will correct and ignore other errors. If possible, in addition to any written feedback you provide, try to respond orally to your student's writing, making comments on the introduction, overall clarity, organization, and any unnecessary information.

Consider the following ideas for your writing lessons.

1.  Types of Tasks
    Here are some ideas for the types of writing you can ask your students to do.

a.    Copying text word for word

b.    Writing what you dictate

c.    Imitating a model

d.    Filling in blanks in sentences or paragraphs

e.    Taking a paragraph and transforming certain language, for example changing all verbs and time references to past tense

f.     Summarizing a story text, video, or listening clip (you can guide with questions or keywords)

g.    Making lists of items, ideas, reasons, etc. (words or sentences depending on level)

h.    Writing what your students want to learn in English and why

i.      Writing letters (complaint, friend, advice) - give blank post cards or note cards or stationery to add interest; you can also use this to teach how to address an envelope

j.      Organizing information, for example making a grid of survey results or writing directions to a location using a map

k.    Reacting to a text, object, picture, etc. - can be a word or whole written piece.

2. Format
Clarify the format. For an essay, you may specify that you want an introduction, main ideas, support, and a conclusion. For a poem, story, list, etc., the format will vary accordingly, but make sure your students know what you expect.

3. Model
Provide a model of the type of writing you want your students to do, especially for beginners.

4. Editing
Consider giving students a checklist of points to look for when editing their own work. Include such things as clear topic sentences, introduction and conclusion, verb tenses, spelling, capitalization, etc.

5. Correction
Minimize the threatening appearance of correction. Instead of a red pen, use green or blue or even pencil, as long as it's different from what the student used. Explain to the students that you will use certain symbols such as VT for verb tense or WO for word order, and be very clear whether a mark (check mark, X, star, circle) means correct or incorrect as this varies among cultures.

            Carderonello and Edwards (1986:5) explain in their book Raugh Draft as follows: specify that there are five components in the process of writing, namely:

1. Inventing: Namely to find and generate ideas / ideas of students, what will students write or tell, steps can find ideas in many ways such as reading, talking, brainstorming, questions, etc. mindmapping.

2. Planning: the stages of how students are trying to determine how to convey ideas. This stage students will be raised the issue, purpose, reader, text structure and tone of the text to be written.

3. Drafting: In this stage, students tried to form a material or materials into text. Draft sustainable written, from draft 1, draft 2 and draft 3 to be the final result.

4. Revising: revise including adding a new idea, another idea of eliminating some of the words or ideas that do not need or reconstruct what has been written in the draft.

5. Editing: Editing is polishing a piece of writing from various aspects such as, spelling, tenses, choice of words and others.

Strategies for developing reading skills

Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include:

1)    Previewing : reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection

2)    Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension ; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure ; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing , vocabulary and content. 

3)  Skimming: using to quickly identify the main ideas of a text. When you read the newspaper, you're probably not reading it word-by-word, instead you're scanning the text. Skimming is done at a speed three to four times faster than normal reading.

4)     Scanning: a technique you often use when looking up a word in the telephone book or dictionary. You search for key words or ideas. In most cases, you know what you're looking for, so you're concentrating on finding a particular answer. Scanning involves moving your eyes quickly down the page seeking specific words and phrases. Scanning is also used when you first find a resource to determine whether it will answer your questions. Once you've scanned the document, you might go back and skim it.

5)    Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words , instead of stopping to look them up.

6)    Paraphrasing : stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text.

Instructors can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies in several ways:

1)  By modeling the strategies aloud , talking through the processes of reviewing, predicting, skimming and scanning, and paraphrasing. This shows students how the strategies work and how much they can know about a text before they begin to read word by word.

2)   By allowing time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting activities as preparation for in- class or out of class reading.

3)   By using cloze (fill in the blanks) exercises to review vocabulary items. This help students learn to guess meaning from context.

4)   By encouraging students to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what strategies they actually used. 

The Importance of Vocabulary Learning

Vocabulary learning is the important aspect in learning a foreign language. Students will improve much if they learn more words and expressions. As a linguist David Wilkins (in Thornbury 2002:13) says that vocabulary learning is very important.