SPEAKING ACTIVITIES
for
Language Development in L2 Classrooms
Jill Kerper Mora,
Ed.D.
San Diego State University
Click here for a detailed list of speaking
activities appropriate for proficiency levels one and two. Some appropriate
activities are described below.
AFFECTIVE-HUMANISTIC
ACTIVITIES
Affective
activities attempt to involve students' feelings, opinions, desires, reactions,
ideas and experiences. They are considered acquisition
activities because the focus is on content, i.e., what the students are
saying.
These speaking activities are appropriate for proficiency levels one and two.
Complexity and literacy oriented variations on these activities can be added as
students' proficiency and control of vocabulary increase.
Dialogues
Dialogues
vary in the amount of structure or creativity. The open dialogue allows students
some measure of creativity. Situational dialogues can be used where the
instructor sets up a situation and solicits students' reactions.
Interviews
Students
are divided into pairs and are given a series of questions to ask their partner.
The best interviews focus on interesting events in the students' own
lives. Example:
When you were a child,
did you have a nickname? What games
did you play? Did you ever have any serious illness or accident?
Who was your favorite relative?
Interviews
can be constructed around a particular grammatical structure, such as the use of
past tense or present progressive verbs. If
the conversational exchange is interesting enough, the grammatical focus will
probably not interfere with the interaction, or the conversation will expand
naturally into a semantic or contextual emphasis.
Preference
Rankings
This
activity is conducted orally but the material must be printed and distributed to
the students. It consists of a
simple lead-in statement followed by three or four possible responses.
Students
then rank (1-2-3-4) the responses according to their own preference.
My favorite summer
activity is:
____swimming
____reading novels
____playing tennis
____cooking
The
point of preference ranking is not the initial ranking itself, but the follow-up
conversation between the instructor and the students.
Who ranked swimming as
number one? (Mark raises his hand.)
Where do you swim, Mark? How often?
When did you first learn to swim? Have
you ever swum competitively? Who
else in the class swims a great deal? Did you check swimming as your first
preference? Why not? What
did you rank first? Why do you like
tennis more than swimming?
Personal
Charts and Tables
Charts
and tables can be used for students of various levels of proficiency.
The construction of tables of information about the students in a
particular class can serve as meaningful and interesting input.
For example, a chart can be created by asking questions about students'
weekly routines.
|
Person
&
Activity
|
Monday
|
Wednesday
|
Saturday
|
|
John
|
works
at the skating rink
|
studies
|
plays
baseball
|
|
Jim
|
studies
|
has
baseball
practice
|
works
in sportswear
shop
|
|
Louise
|
studies
|
has
swim team practice
|
plays
water polo
|
|
Herman
|
works
at the supermarket
|
works
out at the gym
|
visits
friends
|
The
table is then the basis for conversation based on the information given and
expansions by individual students.
Revealing
Information about Oneself
These
activities involve simply supplying personal information as a basis for
discussion or stating opinions about some issue or topic. In the following
example, students match beverages and occasions.
|
Occasions
|
Beverages
|
|
1.
breakfast
|
A.
soft drinks
|
|
2.
lunch
|
B.
coffee
|
|
3.
dinner
|
C.
tea
|
|
4.
before going to bed
|
D.
iced tea
|
|
5.
at a party
|
E.
mixed drinks
|
|
6.
on a picnic
|
F.
beer
|
|
7.
to celebrate
|
G.
fruit juice
|
|
8.
after playing football
|
H.
milk shake
|
|
9.
after swimming
|
I.
lemonade
|
|
10.
to stay awake
|
J.
milk
|
|
11.
for a snack
|
K.
water
|
In
a similar activity, students use adverbs of frequency to describe their eating
habits.
How frequently do you
eat the following foods?
Use (1) a lot
(2)
sometimes (3) almost never
(4) never
1.
For breakfast I eat
2. For lunch I eat
a.
eggs
a. a sandwich
b.
ham
b. spaghetti
c.
cereal
c. fried potatoes
d.
hamburgers
d. a salad
e.
beans
e. fried chicken
f. bananas
f. pancakes
Activities
using the Imagination
There
are various sorts of experiences in which the students are asked to imagine some
situation, some person, or some interaction that might take place.
After a period, they are asked to describe to the class what they
"saw" and "said". One strategy is visualizations where
students close their eyes and imagine a place with certain characters and
interaction, guided by verbal cues from the instructor.
Think of a pleasant
place. It may be outdoors or
indoors. Look around you. Notice as much as you can.
Try to feel the air around you. What
is the weather like? Can you see
the sun? Is it cloudy?
Is it warm? Cold?
Is it a calm day or are there storms on the horizon? Perhaps it is
raining. Now get up and walk around your environment.
What is the first thing you see? Look
at it carefully. Describe it in
your mind. What is the shape? Are there colors? Is
this thing you see alive? What is
it doing?
Another
activity is to imagine some hypothetical situation and ask students to relate
what went on. For example, ask a
student to imagine he is speaking to Napoleon and giving him advice about his
campaign against Russia. Or imagine
that the student is interviewing his great, great grandmother as she crossed the
plains in a covered wagon on the way to California.
Problem-solving
Activities
In
these activities an individual or group is focused on finding a correct answer
or solution to a question, problem or situation. The problems or projects may involve many of the activities
mentioned earlier, such as rank-ordering, use of charts, visualizations and
simulated situations, etc. Some projects may include work on:
1.
maps of all kinds
2.
timetables and itineraries
3.
floor plans of buildings, appropriately labeled
4.
menus, both typical ones and for banquets, etc.
5.
charts and tables from magazines and newspapers
6.
a class newspaper
7.
a scrapbook of current events, etc.
8.
original, rehearsed skits or plays
9.
study of an aspect of the culture and customs of the target country for
presentation as a broadcast, exhibition, or guidebook
10.
advertisements and want ads
11.
games
These speaking
activities range from the simple to the more complex and must be selected or
adapted for different levels of oral language proficiency.
1.
Reply to directions or questions given by the instructor or by another student.
2.
Give directions for other students. (For
example, "Give me the..." "Point to the..."
"Ask X how old he is." "Ask
X if he can do...")
3.
Create "original" sentences with communicative expressions, structures
or vocabulary that has been prepared.
4.
Frame questions to ask the instructor or other students based on a reading
passage or on a common experience.
5.
Tell what objects appear in a picture or on a chart. Describe these objects using elements of color, placement,
size, etc.)
6.
Tell a well-known story or retell an experience in their own words. The teacher
can suggest key vocabulary words.
7.
Read a newspaper report of an event or topic of interest and answer questions to
categorize the information: Who? What? Where? When? Why?
8.
Using realia
or representations, improvise realistic conversations for a setting, such as a
shop, library, post office, bank, etc.
to role play a conversation:
A.
Making an
appointment (with a doctor, professor, a friend)
B.
Breaking an appointment with the same person and trying to arrange another one
C.
Giving a friend advice on courses to take at a school or university
D. Asking about some mutual friend whom you have not seen for a long time
E. Asking
directions to a certain place
F. Tactfully refusing an invitation or food or drink at a party
G. Giving a family member advice about taking a trip
H. Discussing an art exhibit with a friend as you are viewing it and
agreeing or disagreeing with each other
9.
Conduct a debate, a discussion, a forum or other oral group activity based on
research (e.g., a cultural or professional topic) in which students are forced
to listen attentively to the previous speaker in order to agree, disagree,
express uncertainty, or add other information.
10.
Engage in telephone conversations in which both speakers can be seen and heard
or only one speaker can be seen and heard.
(Other class members should guess what the second speaker is saying by
what they can hear the first speaker respond.)
11.
Interview a classmate about their daily routine, hobbies, or school life.
Prepare a set of interview questions in advance in a group.
12.
Engage in role-playing based on typical target language use situations.
13.
Take roles in well-known modern plays or Readers' Theatre.
14.
Discuss technical, professional or literary topics with an educated native
speaker.
Sources:
Finocchiaro, M. &
Brumfit, C. (1983). The
Functional-Notional Approach.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krashen,
S. & Terrell, T.(1983). The Natural Approach: Language
Acquisition in the Classroom.
Haywood, CA: Alemany Press.
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This page was last updated on 07/26/02