What this unit is about

Learning to speak is an important aspect of language education. It can also be the most fun. Most students are motivated to improve their speaking because they are aware of the advantages of being able to speak English well, but lack the confidence to speak freely in English.

In this unit, you will be introduced to activities that you can do with students to develop their confidence when speaking English and make speaking English easier for them. You can do this by:

• using your knowledge of your students to choose a topic that they will find interesting
• giving them the language they need to talk about that topic
• monitoring and giving feedback .

In these activities, you will focus on promoting fluency and not accuracy. When you promote fluency, you focus on the meaning of what students want to say and help them to learn how to express their own ideas. You will not focus on whether what they say is accurate. While accuracy – or grammatical correctness – is important, it should not be a focus of your teaching all the time. Activities that are particularly useful for promoting fluency include telling stories and role play (covered in this unit) and interviews and discussions (covered in the unit Supporting speaking in English: pair and group work).