Speaking is one of the most difficult
skills language learners have to face. In spite of this, it has traditionally
been forced into the background while we, teachers of English, have spent all
our classroom time trying to teach our students how to write, to read and
sometimes even to listen in a L2 because grammar has a long written tradition (Bueno, Madrid and Mclaren, 2006: 321).
“speaking in a second or foreign
language has often been viewed as the most demanding of the four skills” (Bailey and Savage 1994: 7). What
specifically makes speaking in a second or foreign language difficult?
Brown
(1994) labels speaking as the most challenging skill for
students because of the set of features that characterize oral discourse:
·
Contractions, vowel reductions and
elision;
·
The use of slang and idioms:
·
Stress, rhythm and intonation;
·
The need to interact with at least one
other speaker.
Speaking is an “activity requiring the
integration of many subsystems…all these factors combine to make speaking a
second or foreign language a formidable task for language learners…yet for many
people, speaking is seen as the central skill” (Bailey and Savage 1994: 6-7).
We speak for many reasons- to be sociable,
because we want something, because we want other people to do something, to do
something for someone else, to respond to someone else, to express our feelings
or opinion about something, to exchange information, to refer to an action or
event in the past, present, or future, the possibility of something happening,
and so on (Lindsay and Knight, 2006:
58).
We speak for many reasons- to be
sociable, because we want something, because we want other people to do
something, to do something for someone else, to respond to someone else, to
express our feelings or opinion about something, to exchange information, to
refer to an action or event in the past, present, or future, the possibility of
something happening, and so on (Lindsay
and Knight, 2006: 58).
Harmer.
J.
also explains that:
When speaking, we construct words and
phrases with individual sounds, and we also use pitch change, intonation, and
stress to convey different meanings (2007:
29).
Speakers have a great range of
expressive possibilities at their command. Apart from the actual words they use
they can vary their intonation and stress which helps them to show which part
of what they are saying is most important. By varying the pitch and intonation
in their voice they can clearly convey their attitude to what they are saying,
too; they can indicate interest or lack of it, for example, and they can show
whether they wish to be taken seriously. At any point in a speech event
speakers can rephrase what they are saying; they can speed up or slow down. This
will often be done in response to the feedback they are getting from their
listeners who will show through a variety of gestures, expressions and
interruptions that they do not understand.
And in a face to face interaction the
speaker can use a whole range of facial expressions, gestures and general body
language to help to convey the message (Harmer,
2007: 53)
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