Teaching Speaking

 Hi Guys! It has been a heavy week since I did not post anything. To be honest, I have involved myself in many responsibilities that I could not foresee the impact on a daily basis. But anyways, here I am to explain a bit about Teaching Speaking.

As natural speakers, we have three dimensions at the time of it for instance:

- Transactional or Interpersonal

- Interactive or Non-interactive

-  Planned or Unplanned

The speaking will be influenced by our environment and that is the conversation type we will have. For example, when I find my friend on the street it will not be a transactional o formal conversation, all the opposite. It will be the same as speaking with the President, it will not be a friend-to-friend conversation. Now, how is it in the classroom?

In a Classroom will be more common to make use of Role-plays. Not the only one but it is practical for students and easy to recreate by the teacher, and easy to understand by the students. Here students can practice their pronunciation and confidence in speaking with a friend or many of them. We can add other approaches such as grammar or vocabulary by speaking about something specific, it means, I can ask a simple question such as "What types of cars can you see on the street?" by asking this question we are asked to answer with a specific vocabulary and subsequently practicing the pronunciation for car brands. 

A new technique we learned was Jazz Chants, have you ever heard about it? 

It was created by Carolyn Graham who had the inspiration after listening to people on the streets playing jazz and practicing a bit herself. 

If you are curious about it I suggest you get more info but... In a nutshell, it is about following a certain rhythm, the rhythm of Jazz, and explaining that the English language follows these 4-period rhythms where you practice your pronunciation and I dare to say your intonation too. 

As part of the activities, we created a Chant by giving a sentence. It was fun and interesting to apply in future classes. So, it will be all so far and I hope we keep on track for the last weeks of classes. 

See you next Entry!