Student Speaking Time

[Niko]

Teachers do not need practice speaking

Students come to the ESL class for the primary objective to improve their English skills. As such, it’s the teacher’s job to help students attain their English proficiency goals. One method of achieving English fluency is by means of speaking practice.

The teacher needs to ensure the majority of classtime is devoted to speaking practice for students. Two thirds of classtime for speaking practice is the ideal. Remember, teachers do not need practice speaking English, it’s the students that need practice.

Some of the ways in which speaking practice can be implemented are:

• Use group and pair-work activities with the teacher circulating amongst the various groups.
• Q&A between students. All too often the Q&A time is between student and teacher, not student and student. A more effective means of Q&A time is to have students ask and answer questions amongst themselves whilst the teacher observes.

As can be seen, speaking practice is an important part to improving English proficiency amongst ESL learners. Always consciously think of ways to reduce your own speaking time and improve the speaking time of students.

[reviewer]

It's very important to get participation from students during the lesson. Not only will they be more involved and more likely to learn the material, you can also easily gauge if certain students need more assistance.

[exported_kiwi]

Yep, I give em a subject, let em plan a little but not too much and then let em go at it. I always use humour as a way to get them to loosen up enough to feel comfortable enough to try and participate. I let them have a little prep time because I think they if they can write a sentence on paper, they can write one in their heads too, and through this, they learn how to think in English. Ideally, all will participate, but not all do. I use humour as a medium to build their own self confidence to a point where they're not afraid of losing face and can really get involved........ works for me and my lot of lil darlins anyway!

Just a few cents more!

[Tutor]

The various methods that can be used to get the students speak more are

1) Group Discussion & Debates
2) Public Speaking
3) Role Play
4) Case Studies