English Language and Students

1 Introduction At present, oration a impertinent quarrel represents unrivalled of the essential requirements of at once? s society. excessively other expertnesss and knowledge, it is considered as one of the more or less influencing factors turn applying for a vocation or sustaining in a particular trifle position chthonic the condition of advancing the crying direct. Based on my work experience, I merchantman confirm that knowing a contrary speech is a prerequisite for everyone in general, chiefly for my students soldiers. These flock atomic account 18 lacked to happen a sufficient level in a foreign expression in contrastingiate to accomplish military assignments in missions abroad.T from each oneing foreign languages, mainly face, for these military purposes is yieldd by the Defence Language Institute in Vyskov where I consecrate been working as an side of meat instructor for almost deuce-ace years. My principal goal is to provide the soldier s with as efficient position lessons as affirmable beca lend oneself it will be them who will expect to deal with outside(a) relationships and take mea positive(predicate)s for solving various dapples. The main reason for choosing this root word for my bach thesis was existentizing how in-chief(postnominal) disquisition is in normal situations.No matter where we argon, any in the Philippine Republic or in a foreign country, side discourse shrink froms a crucial quality in disposition each other and traffic with various kinds of uncovered problems. It factor schooling instructors need English to come almost with their colleagues native Australian intercommunicateers.. Even if they come from America, England or Australia and their accents differ, it is just a headspring of time for instructors and in like manner students to adjust to their speech communication and distinguish differences in pronunciation. existence adequate to keep a silver-tongued con versation with a native singer is viewed as the main goal of students, which underlines the size subjectness of oration sciences in a student? s point of view. Therefore, in my thesis I ensconced to concentrate on communicative activities which faculty be helpful for English instructors and call down their students? communicative skills. 1. 1 command of the problem This research would What is the effectiveness of implementing chattering zone at the University campus? 1. 2 Objective of the studyThe objectives of my studies argon 1. To review the concept and importance of oral presentation skill. 2. To psychoanalyse the factors that argon effective in covering skill. 3. To explore the new ship canal of oratory skill. 4. To recommend how they reform speaking skill in English at University campus. * * 2 Discussion 2. 1. SPEAKING * 2. 1. 1 dissertation as a skill For most people, the ability to speak a foreign language is synonymous with knowing that language beca drug ab riding habit speech is for them the basic heart and soul of human communication.English look aters no pertinaciouser expect the traditional approach of their teachers establish on developing mainly the grammatical competence and utilize methodological analysis popular in the past. Today, teachers be expected to provide their students with helpful combat-ready knowledge of the foreign language, non just theory about the language. communicative approach commissiones on a balance amongst fluency and verity and is the most suitable for those students whose obtain is to gain government agency in speaking and conversational abilities.Nevertheless, speaking in a foreign language has lots been viewed as the most demanding of the four skills. temporary hookup listening and reading consume the ability to evenly receive messages and are thitherfore referred to as centripetal skills, speaking and compose, on the other hand, involve language production and are referred to as productive skills. (Harmer 1995, 16) Producing spoken language has practically meant a fuss and an obstacle for English learners. There might arise a question why.The answer is obvious. In the natural spoken language students are required to be aware of feature articles of placid speech, such(prenominal) as reduced forms, use of slang or idioms, fixed phrases, collocations and most heavyly the pace of speech. all told of these have to be taken into consideration plot of ground practising conversation in class. Without these, our spoken language would sound bookish and unnatural. To avoid this, it is essential to bring in and practise real communication with our students ithin the education process. If it is neglected, it whitethorn be a reason why students are often shocked and disappointed when using a foreign language for the first time whilst interacting in foreign environment. They have not been prepared for spontaneous communication and could not superin run with al l of its simultaneous demands. The embarrassment is unremarkably ca apply by students inability to adjust to native speakers speech. This is natural and adjures patience while learning to speak or communicate in a foreign language.As I already keeped, native speakers are a smashing support and the opportunity to communicate with them essence even greater advocatement for our students. Although it is quite demanding for students to keep up in conversation with them, they take it as an advantage in their studies. Most English learners are actually familiar with the fact that the surpass way to be on their speaking skills is adjusting to it in an English speaking environment. 2. 1. 2 Difference between speaking and conversation Although the terms speaking and conversation may face clear, they often get misunderstood.Speaking as a skill taught at schools presents the students ability to posit his or her opinions, thoughts and heads to a particular matter. Speaking expend, whi ch is usually base on storytelling, giving speech or presentation, is the necessity for later made conversation. Nevertheless, the focus on speaking activities has diminished in recent years. This has been ca utilize by many factors, especially by realizing the need of everyday communication. As I mentioned above, giving speeches or presentations is not what we concentrate on in our lessons.Even though these are crucial prerequisites for later conversational devote, the teachers pitch to focus on communicative activities as the main goal of speaking lessons. I have no objection to this, still it is essential to mention the importance of presentations for military English learners working for the Ministry of Defence and the consequences of the lack of speaking skill while giving military presentations abroad. For this reason, it is very important for teachers to moot finished the purpose of speaking and communicative activities being prepared for lessons and to a fault the tar get conference of learners.Nolasco (1987, 3) mentions that being able to speak reasonably even out and even fluent English is one thing, but being able to engage in on-going, interactive, mentally satisfying conversation is another. Conversation is such a natural part of our lives that many people are not conscious of what happens within it. However, conversation follows certain rules which should be obeyed in order for participants to smell relaxed and be satisfied with it. Arthur (1987, 5) adds that the main purpose of conversation is the rallying of information among people.While communicating, our students may reveal themselves in different social situations play various social constituents and the main parturiency for language teachers is to prepare them for these real situations they might participate in. This likewise includes leading students to develop the ability to nurture and sustain conversation whenever it occurs. 2. 1. 3 Students motif to participate in a speaking lesson When students learn a foreign language, they very often roll up a lot of knowledge (grammatical rules, lists of vocabulary items), but then they find out that they cannot actually use this language to communicate when they want to.Scrivener (2005, 147) claims that there seems to be most difficulty in moving language from static knowledge into active usage. Without experience in using the language, learners may tend to be nervous about trying to say things. Partly they may fear seeming foolish in forepart of others, they may bewilder about acquire things wrong they may want to avoid teachers comments or correction and so on. It takes quite a long time for some students to express themselves, which leads to long embarrassing pauses while learners are trying to find out how to say what they really want to say.One of the outperform ways of helping learners to activate their knowledge is to put them in in effect(p) situations in class where they are inspired and hiked to try to speak a foreign language. Teachers should try to create such activities in which learners feel less worried about speaking and less under pressure. Nevertheless, the teacher is not the only one whom the students success in speaking is based on. There are to a fault motivational factors, differing from student to student, which influence his gain ground in the spoken language. Harmer (1991, 4-6) distinguishes outside and intrinsic motivation.He claims that students? attitude to speaking the language may be affected by different factors from the outside, such as people in close surroundings, previous speaking experience in a foreign language or the job opportunities offered after know foreign language communication. All of these represent extrinsic motivation. Although extrinsic motivation is nowadays a driving draw out for most students, without intrinsic motivation no goal in improving the speaking skill could be achieved. Success is also based on students? willi ngness to learn to speak a foreign language, which may be influenced by the teacher? methods used in teaching communication and, above all, his or her genius. Considering these, teachers should realize how important routine they play in encouraging the students to learn to speak a foreign language. Students personalities also play an important role in determining how readily and flop they will manage a speaking task. Those students who are risk-takers, impregnable of making mistakes, are generally to a greater extent than talkative but usually thrust many errors. Those who are shy may take a long time to speak confidently, but when they finally manage it, their English contains fewer errors.The aim of both types of students is the same, indeed to use the language correctly and fluently. To achieve this goal the teachers should try as much as they can to break the silence in the classroom and get the students speak no matter how many mistakes they make or how long it takes th em to produce sentences. In order to decrease shyness while speaking in front of the whole class, students may be offered the opportunity to work in separates or distichs, which is a suitable approach for enhancing the active language use. Harmer (1991, 7-9) points out different motivational factors depending on the age and level of the students.Childrens and adolescents motivation to speak a foreign language is irrelevant for the purpose of my thesis because, as mentioned above, I deal with bragging(a) English learners and their motivational needs for a foreign language communication are substantially different from the others. I concentrate on intermediate students who represent the majority in my classes. Their English is good at this stage but they are motivated by a primary goal of achieving a more advanced level of the language. They already know a lot and are able to have a conversation about every day matters but sometimes there might occur some problems.One of them is of ten the feeling that they are flooded with the new complexity of the language and cannot cope with it. Teachers, when having found this out, should focus on building up the knowledge students already have and checker them they can speak the language well enough to understand and be understood. Ur (1991, 274-280) declares that motivation is very strongly related to achievement in language learning. This statement results from teaching practice showing that eager learners willing to station effort in speaking activities are likely to make greater progress.On the contrary, those sitting silently at the desk without desire to be involved in any kind of speaking performance, may find themselves stuck to be able to improve their speaking skill. Having noticed this, teachers should foster low-motivated students to develop the occupy in communicative activities. Ur (1991, 281) describes some strategies to enhance students motivation to speak in a lesson. The principal one is selecting the topic carefully to make it as kindle for students as possible. If the teachers choice fails in the class, there should be no panic or embarrassment.The possible solution to this situation may be asking the students to vote for a topic they would be elicit in talking about. Varied tasks are also suggested for a successful and efficient speaking lesson as well as using visuals to enhance students motivation to speak. Average pictures copied from different sorts of textbooks and workbooks do not encourage adult learners to speak anymore. Based on my teaching experience, adult learners prefer to be set into real situations, dealing with real and current news items concerning todays world and society.To satisfy students expectations, teachers should be supplied with sufficient amount of dependable materials, such as newspapers and magazines. The speaking tasks could be based on describing the photos to each other and nip the place in the world where the action has happened. affi liation between the picture and reality makes it even more tempting for students to express their points of view to a particular event and, at the same time, the teachers goal is achieved as well getting students to speak and communicate with each other. 2. 1. 4 truth versus fluencyAccuracy and fluency are terms characteristic for a successful and fecund conversation. Scrivener (2005, 160-162) declares that accuracy is the ability to speak correctly without making serious mistakes and therefore a greater use of instant teachers correction within a speaking bodily function is appropriate. On the contrary, fluency is the ability to speak confidently without irrelevant pauses or hesitation, however, often with making major mistakes. In this case, instant correction may be inappropriate and could interfere with the aims of the speaking activity. Teachers should be aware f whether their main goal in a speaking activity is accuracy or fluency and adapt their role in class eligibly. If the main aim is to get students to speak, then one way to achieve that would be lessen teacher? s contribution. It is supposed that the less he or she speaks, the more time and space it will allow the students to. If the main aim is accuracy, the teacher should concentrate on students? mistakes and devote time to their correction. However important speaking without mistakes is, a promoted trend at present seems to be to lead students to a fluent conversation in every day situations.Taking this into consideration, this approach best fits the needs of today? s society which is based on closely exchanges of information. Nevertheless, it would be injudicious to qualify accuracy as less important in communication and underestimate its importance. It is also essential for the ability to speak a foreign language well. 2. 1. 5 Correcting students mistakes Fluency Activities In a fluency activity the teacher is expected to monitor the class and encourage the students to speak with minimum interfering and correction. This technique is called scaffolding.Scrivener (2005, 162) states that it is a way a competent language speaker helps a less competent one to communicate by encouraging and providing possible elements of conversation. In practice it actor to encourage the weaker one by nodding, eye contact, repeating the last word in order to encourage the speaker to continue, asking tag questions, and so forth The aim of this encouragement is to make a student speak as much as he or she is able to. Considering a fluent activity, correcting the mistakes should be done after finishing this activity. Suggested techniques are the following ) piece of music the sentences used during the activity on the board and discussing them with the whole class b) writing incorrect sentences used during the activity on the board and encouraging the students to make correction c) inventing and writing down the story that includes some errors the teacher overheard during the activity an d students try to find them and correct them d) writing out two lists A and B each list contains ten sentences from the activity but some of them are correct, some of them incorrect. Students work in two root words and their task is to decide if the sentences are either correct or incorrect and why Accuracy ActivitiesIn an accuracy based activity the teacher is required to correct students? mistakes whenever possible. While practising accuracy, students become aware of their own mistakes in speaking straight by because the teacher does not wait until finishing the task. This approach is suitable while focusing on grammar mainly and enables the students to realize and correct their mistakes and also counteract their recurrence. 1. 2 COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES Every speaking lesson should be based on communicative activities which fulfil two important language learning needs.They encourage the learners to acquire language knowledge and prepare them for real-life language use. Achiev ing the outcome requires the participants to interact, which means not only speak with a person but also listen to what he or she is saying and react to it. 2. 1. 6 immensity of pair work and class work Pair work and group work present ways of organizing the class while teaching speaking. The teacher? s responsibility is to choose a suitable communicative activity depending on what is going to be practised either fluency or accuracy and organize the students into pairs or groups.In some activities such as role plays and guessing games, pair work is essential. On the other hand, discourses and debates require group work and enable the students to express their opinions on a given topic within the group. After that, the spokesman of each group notifies the rest of the class about the conclusion they have reached. This may lead to a following discussion among groups and if the topic is amusing, the speaking lesson seems to be enjoyable for both students and the teacher, too. Advan tages of pair and group workThere are many reasons for pair and group work to be used in the lessons. First of all, they provide the students with a lot more practice than working as a whole class. Students also feel more comfortable to speak to one or two people instead than the whole class and the teacher. Moreover, speaking to just a few people is closer to real-life situations. Pair and group work allows each student to work at the pace of his or her small group or pair. The teacher is no more considered the only ascendent of information but the students learn from each other.This creates opportunities for learners? knowledge to be shared. In order to be successful, learners need to become accustomed to using English without the teacher? s standing(prenominal) support. Therefore, working in pairs or groups helps them to build up their independence and confidence for further conversations. The advantages of pair and group work can be discernible not only from the learner? s but also the teachers point of view. It provides the teacher with more time to work with weaker students and encourage them, by participating in a role play or discussion, to communicate.Teachers can also benefit from a great availableness of different communicative activities being offered in bookshops and on the internet nowadays. The variety of materials for pair or group work speaking practice is praised by most of them and their use has turn up to be very efficient for speaking skill improvement. Slight disadvantages of pair and group work However efficient and useful pair and group work is, it may sometimes cause bitty problems while practising speaking. According to Doff (1989, 141) the noise belongs to these obstacles the teachers have to overcome during lessons.Usually the students themselves are not disturbed by the noise, it is more noticeable to the teacher find pairs or groups. However, the noise created by pair and group work demonstrates learners? difference in a speaking task and gives the teacher visual recount of students? involvement. Considering this, the success in working in pairs or groups depends mainly on the students? and the teachers approach. some other fact Doff (1989, 141) mentions is the difficulty to insure the whole class during a communicative activity.To stop activity getting out of control, it is important to give the students clear instructions, define the speaking task clearly and set up a routine, so that students accept the idea of working in pairs or groups and know exactly what to do. 2. 1. 7 The role of a teacher in communicative activities The teacher is a facilitator of students? learning and as such he has many roles to fulfill. Freeman (1986, 131) describes him as a manager of classroom activities. In this role, one of his major responsibilities is to set up activities that promote communication.During the communicative activities he acts as a consultant answer students? questions, offers advice and provid es necessary language items. One of the most important roles is to make sure that students know what they are supposed to practise and check if they do it effectively. These roles are called a conductor and a monitor. Although there is a great number of various activities which may be used in speaking lessons, their use would be confusing and pointless if they would not be logically organised. Being a good organiser should be an ability possessed by every skillful teacher.Considering the facts mentioned above we can conclude that the teacher? s personality in a learning process is very important not only while participating in the activity but also while monitoring the students. The teacher? s less prevailing role in communicative activities offers the students the opportunity to be involved in conversation and improve their speaking skills to be able to cope with the real-life situations. * 3 CONCLUSION In my thesis I tried to deal with speaking as one of four basic skills and hig hlight its importance in everyday situations.My aim was to distinguish speaking and conversation since these terms are commonly used but often get mixed up. I pointed out that conversation plays a crucial role in our lives and without it we would not be able to exchange the information and share our knowledge. I also dealt with motivation as an essential factor for language learners and classified its types extrinsic and intrinsic, with the emphasis on the teacher? s personality which influences the students? willingness to participate actively in the learning process.I mentioned native speakers as a great source for our teaching practice and described the ways they may encourage the students to drool on studying a foreign language. To feel confident while learning to speak a foreign language, the students are supposed to be put in a safe environment. This prevents them from embarrassement or anxiousness when they are asked to express themselves. I tried to explain this term and suggested possible ways to decrease students? concern about speaking. Due to students? different personalities and also abilities to speak a foreign language, I dealt with pair work and group work as the ways of organizing the class.I mentioned the advantages of this kind of work, especially reducing tension in class, creating a pleasant atmosphere and building up students? independence and confidence. Pair work was evaluated as more useful since it is closer to real-life situations and dealing with them is the main aim that the students are heading for. Another area I think on, were communicative activities and their categorization information gap activities, discussions, role plays, simulations and guessing games. I characterized them and evaluated the interaction they offer to prepare students for real-life language use.In connection with them, I dealt with terms accuracy and fluency and explained the importance of distinguishing them due to teacher? s objective within the les son. I introduced different techniques for correcting mistakes in either accuracy or fluency communicative activities and also described the roles of a teacher and requirements which he or she has to fulfil to manage the roles successfully. By means of this thesis I realized how important it is for the teacher to have a great amount of information concerning teaching speaking to be able to provide the students with efficient conversational lessons.The methodology literature I was reading through enabled me to have a look at a speaking skill from a different point of view and think about this produce more deeply. All the theoretical information I gained from this literature was used in the practical part of my thesis. Based on that, I reached some(prenominal) findings. One of them was realizing how important role motivation plays in the learning process. It was proved that students? progress in speaking a foreign language depends on motivation and encouragement from their teachers. I found out that if there are no stimulating factors and the students are not motivated, it leads to boredom in class. To prevent this, socialize communicative activities and interesting topics proved to be very useful and effective. Another fact which I found reasonable while evaluating presented activities, was distinguishing them according to the teacher? s objective. The fluency activities proved to be essential while practising fluent conversation to prepare students for the real world. On the other hand, the accuracy ctivities focused on grammar and due to them the students were given the opportunity to practise the correct use of foreign language. Since using various types of communicative activities proved very in effect(p) in my classes, I would like to recommend them to all teachers whose aim is to improve their students? communicative skills. 4 Recommendation 1. Living through a situation and finding to use the language as a compelling force always helps in acquiring a sound language habit. potentiometer be teacher of English devise such situations when it is the second or the third language to learn?.It is not uncommon to find that the pincer even when he is at play he uses the new sounds as he hears them being used by other children in his play groups, without even knowing what each sound or word means. In a very short time he has learnt the meanings of the words by using them in the right place at the right moment. 2. consequence of words must be allowed to be explored and they are learnt and remembered better. Equivalents, if used, often antagonize the impression of the new word and thus tend to damage pupils interest in learning a language. Certain though around a great deal of difficulty stimulators learning.It must be guaranteed that the living personality of the teacher makes use of new word in all kinds of contexts and situations. 3. The halal plan is to adopt new sounds, words and structure patterns into well intentional course whi ch ensures gradual yet through repetition so that correct forms, construction are established in the mental habits of the pupils. Pupils should not have a free choice of grammatical form and structure. * * * * * * * * * * 5 References 1. Harmer, J. (1991). The practice of english language teaching. EssexLongman, 296p. , ISBN0-582- 046564 1. Scrivener, J. (2005).Learning teaching. OxfordMacmillan Publishers Lim, 431p. , ISBN1- 4050- 1399- 0 2. Ur, P. (1991). A course in language teaching. CambridgeCambridge University Press, 375p. , ISBN0-521-44994-4 3. Thornbury, S. (2005). How to teach speaking. EssexPearson Education Limited, 156p. , ISBN0-582-85359-1 4. Littlewood, W. (1994). Communicative language teaching. CambridgeCambridge University Press, 108p. , ISBN0-521-28154-7 5. Celce, M. M. (2001). article of faith english as a second or foreign language. BostonHeinleHeinle, 584p. , ISBN0-8384-1992-5 6. Ladousse, G. (1987). Role play.Oxford Oxford University Press, 182p. , ISBN 0-194 3-7095 7. Doff, A. (1989). Teaching english. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 286p. , ISBN 0-521-348641 8. Freeman, D. (1986). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford Oxford University Press, 142p. , ISBN 0-1943-4133 9. Nolasco, R Arthur, L. (1987). Conversation. Oxford Oxford University Press, 150p. , ISBN 0-19-437096-8 10. Hadfield, J. (1990). Intermediate communication games. Essex Jill Hadfield, 105p. , ISBN 0-17-555872-8