Статья "Как помочь студентам заговорить по английски?"

Tips for Encouraging Students to Talk

Getting your students talking a lot is key to a successful ESL Speaking lesson. Here are some tips to help avoid situations that hinder student speaking, and encourage your students to start chatting.

First, ask yourself why your students might not be talking enough in class

• Do students feel uncomfortable speaking because they are shy or embarrassed of their level?

• Is there too much emphasis on speaking correctly and students are afraid to make a mistake?

• Are the speaking assignments at the right level for your students?

• Are instructions clear on the speaking tasks you are giving?

• Are students tired or bored with the same old topics and/or speaking partners?

• Do students feel motivated enough to use the language?

Once you’ve diagnosed any problems, then you’ll know which of these tips for getting students talking to focus on first:

So let’s get your students talking!

1. Focus on Fluency – Remember that while it’s important for students to be accurate with their grammar, especially when learning how to use a new phrase or grammar point, you don’t want to focus too much on accuracy during a speaking exercise.

2. Focus on Intelligibility – When deciding which mistakes to correct in a fluency exercise, a good rule of thumb is to choose only those that actually hinder the students’ ability to be understood (intelligibility). In a fluency activity, as long as the student can get his or her point across, that is what matters.

3. TPR – Total Physical Response – Adults and children alike need some movement now and then to get the oxygen to the brain and maintain attention levels. If your students seem a little lethargic, incorporate more activities with movement into your lessons, such as “Charades, Running Dictations, or Mill Drills”. Often times, just having students stand up and switch partners/seats can be enough to get everyone talking again.

4. Switch Groupings Often – Make sure to pair your students with different partners and change often so they are not always speaking to the same person. Also make sure to mix up your tasks so sometimes students speak in pairs, groups, as a whole class, and directly with you.

5. Praise! Praise Praise! – Always praise your students’ efforts to speak, especially those who are more reluctant. Let them know you, and their classmates, appreciate any and all contributions they make.

6. Give Time to Prepare – Imagine you are a student and the teacher asks you ‘ What would you do with a million dollars?’ your immediate answer would probably be ‘um…uh…I’m not sure…” Think carefully about the questions you’re asking and if it’s not something that can be easily answered right away make sure to give students a minute to think about their answer first.

7. Talk Little. Listen Much. – Always watch your own TTT ( Teacher Talking Time) and make sure you’re not putting too much focus on yourself at the expense of student talking time. Teachers need to find the balance between providing good quality input to enhance our students listening skills and spending too much time talking to them.

8. The Art of Good Conversation – Hone your own conversation skills by making sure to ask students a lot of questions and keep class dialogue going by listening carefully to student responses and asking more questions based on what they’ve said.

9. Choral Response – For beginner level students who are not yet comfortable forming a lot sentences on their own, include choral response drills in your lessons. This is a technique where the whole class speaks together in unison, usually repeating after the teacher, or a sentence/ dialogue they have read. This is the easiest way for low level students to practice speaking a lot, especially with a large class size.

10. Give Clear Instructions – Always ‘grade’ your language when giving instructions for speaking tasks. Grading language means making it easier for an ESL student to understand. Speak slowly, use the shortest amount of words necessary to explain what to do, and put a quick visual on the whiteboard so students can read the instructions or conversation question as well. Take a good look at the wording of the question and make sure it’s at the correct level. If not, take a minute to change the wording to vocabulary you know your students will understand.

11. Be a Good Model – For more difficult speaking tasks, give students, especially at lower levels, a clear model for how to respond. You can either demonstrate a response yourself or have them try repeating it, or write the form they could use in their response on the whiteboard.

12. Use Interesting Materials – Don’t just rely on the textbook for speaking activities – Bring in cards with questions on them, role play cards, pictures to talk about, speaking games, brochures and other visuals, and anything else you can find to create a new prompt/task for your students to speak with.

13. Try Task- Based Activities – To get students motivated, choose activities where they must speak in order to achieve an outcome. Examples are information gap tasks where one student knows something the other must find out in order to fill in a chart, map activities where on student must find a place on the map based on his partner’s directions, or role plays where there is a decision that must be made/agreement that must be reached by the end of the task.

14. Choose the Right Topics – Choose speaking topics that you know are of particular interest to your students. Of course you can’t please everyone all the time but do get to know your students and choose the most relevant topics. You can do a ‘needs analysis’ with a short questionnaire at the beginning of the class, and you can offer your students a choice of topics now and then.

15. Create a Friendly Environment – Finally, it’s the teacher’s job to ensure all students feel comfortable and welcome in your class and to quickly address any issues that may be causing discomfort such as seating arrangements, room temperature, or students who bully others.

If you can incorporate these tips for encouraging students to talk into your ESL classroom, you will be sure to have happy, talkative students!