Using sample sentences taken directly from your ESL students is  a great way for them to work on their editing and error recognition and corrections skills.  There really isn't too much to complicate this idea as it is really quite simple in practice.

What you do is collect a series of sentence examples from your students' work.  You can choose to select sentences that all display a similar problem (verb tense for example), or simply collect any examples you wish.  I would suggest that you get permission from your students before you do this and then make sure to keep them anonymous.  I've never had any student refuse, but it best to respect their privacy.  On that note, be sure to choose sentences that are not personally revealing either in terms of personal information/experiences or just basic "I can guess who wrote this" information.

So what do you do with these example sentences?  Well you give them to your students to work on.  Their goal should be to find and correct any errors in logic, grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice etc.  Of course you as the teacher can limit them to working on only very specific issues (find all spelling mistakes).  I typically give 3-4 sentences out to a class and give them about 20-30 minutes to work on them.  Usually individually at first, and them in pairs or threes.  Once you think they have done enough, be sure to go over them in class.

What you will find is that as long as you have used sentences from students at the same basic ESL level, they will struggle mightily with this task as they are trying to find the same errors that they typically make. 

If you have access to a computer lab, you can have them do this in a word processor which allows them to manipulate and move the words around very easily.  It is also very good to do the review on a computer with projector so that they can see you move the words around as well.

Without fail students come away from this activity with a much greater appreciation for error recognition and correction.

A simple extension of this into the speaking realm is to have students transcribe some free speech (a commentary on a picture perhaps) and then do the error hunt and fix afterwards.

Here are a few examples to give you an idea of some basic ESL sentence examples you could work with.  There are from an intermediate academic prep class I taught a few years back.

1. It is hard to see snowing in my hometown so I am very exciting.
2. It is unreasonable for me, in fact I should be exciting and happy.  Because she studys in University of British Columbia.
3. When my friend has arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia.  This feeling is stronger than before.
4. Braised pork slices is my favorite but my mother is board chairman in her company she hasn’t time to cook for me. but she teached me to cook some of my favorite food, especially when I came to Canada.
5. I see other people wear less clothes than me, sometimes I think “why they can wear so less, and Don’t they feel cold?”.

Example sentences are very easy to collect, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't actually use these.  Use examples from your class, they will match your students' levels better.

Cheers,

Eric

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Speaking practice activities don't need to be super complicated, they only need to provide a student with the opportunity to speak and get some kind of feedback on their speaking.  Feedback doesn't mean a test mark, in this case it is more in keeping with what Krashen talks about, getting a response to your production (your speaking) so that you know if what you have said has been understood or not so that you can try to make adjustments in your speaking.

In this way of thinking feedback can be as simple as a raised eyebrow showing confusion or someone saying "can you say that again please".  This is the kind of immediate feedback that over time produces the best results.  It is also the kind of feedback to which students are most afraid of exposing themselves.

OK, so what is a really simple form of speaking practice that can give some decent feedback without being a test, and without too much stress?  Well recording and transcribing is a very good option.  In this kind of activity, the speaking practice takes two and a half steps (more or less).   Here is how it works…

1. You as a teacher collect a selection of short reading passages, or have your students write something short (100-200 words max)
2. hand them out to the students.  You have a choice to make this more or less impromtu by changing the amount of time in advance the student can see the writing
3. have each student record their text. You can do this on a PC or tape deck, it doesn't matter.  I have a lab with 22 PCs so that works well for me, but if you don't, just be wise in the use of your resources (like a boy scout).
4. Once they are all recorded, have students swap recordings (or move to a new PC) and spend some time transcribing their classmates audio.  Tell them to write only what they understand, and as they understand it (even if it means writing a word they don't really understand  phonetically).  Also, they should NOT have seen or read the text previously.  Ideally they would do this with several students to get transcriptions from several sets of ears.
5. They then hand their transcription to the student who did the recording.
6. The original student then reviews the audio and transcription(s) looking for problem areas to work on  (this is step 2 in the speaking practice )

Do it again next week or as it fits your schedule.

This is a very simple way to take advantage of call technologies (computer recording software and word processing) to help with speaking practice in an interesting way.  You may find it a bit chaotic the first time you do it, but it provides your students with a good source of feedback without a lot of stress.

Cheers,

Eric

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A new teacher who has been observing some of my classes lately as part of her ESL Teacher training asked me this question the other day: "How do I teach speaking?".

At first I thought it was a joke question, because to me the answer seemed so simple, but when I realized that it was a serious question, I had to stop and think about if for a second.  At first glance, teaching speaking simply involves providing your students with as many chances to speak as is possible - sometimes in a controlled context, and sometimes in a free context.

The first thing to keep in mind is that when we are helping our language students learn to speak English, we are not actually teaching them to speak.  Unless they are infants, they already know how to do that.  What we are really helping them with falls into three categories

1. improving fluency (speaking smoothly)
2. improving pronunciation (saying words properly)
3. improving enunciation (Saying words/phrases clearly - I think this includes word and sentence intonation)

Some would say that vocabulary, grammar, and cultural usage also fall into how we teach speaking, but I'd say that while they are critical, they are not only in the domain of speaking.  Speaking is about using our mouth and vocal cords to make sounds that people understand as language.  It certainly involves other elements like grammar and vocabulary, but they aren't the core of it.

So, back to the main question of how to teach speaking.  Let's look at each of the three elements I mentioned above

Improving Fluency

Fluency comes from practice - plain and simple.  However it needs to be practice that involves extended use of the language and use of extended sentences.  You can not build fluency by repeating single words or short phrases.  Fluency at its heart relates to being able to speak for longer periods of time in a smooth way.  Broadly speaking, here are a few things that can help build fluency:

1. speeches or presentations
2. group discussions
3. role plays
4. negotiations and debates
5. interviews and meetings
6. chatting in small groups 

Improving Pronunciation

Pronunciation is the ability to say words properly with the correct sounds in the correct places.  This is a skill that can take a VERY long to develop, but with consistent work and practice, it can be done.  There are two keys to proper pronunciation 1) tons of native speaker input and 2) tons of speaking by the learner with native speakers.  However, practice and lessons that target specific trouble areas can make a huge difference in a student's ability to deal with issues in pronunciation. 

1.  working on specific vowels
2. working on trouble consonants  (e.g. th for French speakers)
3. working on understanding movement and location of mouth and tongue when making sounds

Improving Enunciation

Enunciation is speaking clearly - perhaps better understood by its opposite which is mumbling or slurring words.  Enunciation is a very important aspect of speaking in that poor enunciation can make someone almost impossible to understand.  Again improvements in enunciation come from exposure to native speakers, and plenty of natural practice.  Of course focused work targeting problem areas can help a great deal as well.  Things that can be done to help with enunciation include:

1. focused work on trouble word combinations
2. working on reductions (want to –> wanna)
3. working on sentence level stress points
4. working on word level stress points (e.g. differences between noun/verb forms of same word record/record)
5. working on sentence level intonation patterns

As you may have noticed I haven't provided any specific lesson ideas on how to teach speaking.  There are literally hundreds of different activities that you can use in myraid different situations.  There isn't one right way, or even one right sequence.  Just be sure to give your students plenty of time for talking freely, supplement this with targeted exercises and practice, and actively encourage your students to listen to and speak with as many native speakers as they possibly can on a regular basis.

Cheers,

Eric 

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Listening is a very complex skill that takes a great deal of effort and time to master.  Interestingly most of us who learn languages can understand what we hear at a higher level than we are able to produce in speaking.  Basically we have a higher tollerance for ambiguity (we can figure things out despite not knowing all the words and contexts).  Be that as it may, we still need to help our language students work on their listening abilities.

In many cases students who have learned a second language in a place where it is not commonly used (learning English in Japan for example) have a very hard time when they first arrive in a country where English is the 1st language.  They are not accustomed to the speed, the jargon and slang, the cultural references and common verbal reductions (e.g. going to –> gonna).  This means that even if they were 'strong' listeners back home, they need to retrain their ears and mind to understand the 'new' way of speaking.

When it comes to listening skills, we need to focus on the type of listening being done.  On the surface listening seems to be quite simple.  However different situations require different listening skills and different levels of focus.  Level of attention, and what you are attending to vary depending on the situation, and the importance of the information to your life.  Here are just a couple of examples

• listening to music on the bus
• listening to a lecture in a Biology class
• listening to your friends chat over a pint in the local pub
• listening to a border guard as he snaps on rubber gloves
• watching the news about a natural disaster in your hometown
• Understanding your doctor's explanation of a medicine you need to take

Clearly each of these situations requires a slightly different focus from the listener, and misunderstandings will have a very different impacts on the listener.

So as teachers what can we do?  Well we need to do our best to figure out what type of listening our students do most, and where their weaknesses may lie.  Then we need to provide them with many opportunities to practice the skills relevant to those situations.

There are literally hundreds of sources of audio available online ranging from the sublime to the rediculous, so there should be no shortage of audio samples for you to access.

For video (and of course the audio that goes with it) two great places are

1. http://www.youtube.com
2. http://www.ourmedia.org

For pure audio

1. http://www.podcastalley.com
2. http://www.odeo.com
3. http://www.podcastdirectory.com

For ESL based audio

1. http://www.esl-lab.com
2. http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com

From these, the sky is the limit.  Just use your imagination to find topics and create language activities for listening practice specific to your students' needs.  Also, don't be shy about creating your own audio files.  There is a ton of free content online that you can record into you computer or a tape recorder to use as the base for listening activities.  Sites like http://www.reprint-content.com are full of free to use content.

For working on reductions, I really like the simplicity of "Whaddaya Say".  It is a very easy to use book and covers some of the most commonly used reductions in English (and shows how they are used in combination)

I hope this is of some help to you in thinking about and planning useful language activities for listening practice.

If you've got other resources, drop them in a comment so others can benefit as well.

Cheers,

Eric

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