CHAPTER II.USING VARIOUS WAYS LEARNING SKILLS
2.1. Language Proficiency
In terms of language proficiency levels, a score of 500 or more would typically
be considered intermediate to advanced. At this level, a person would be able to
understand and communicate effectively in a variety of everyday situations, as well
as express opinions and ideas on more complex topics.
For example, someone with A2 level proficiency might be able to hold a
conversation about their hobbies or describe their daily routine. They could also read
simple texts such as news articles or short stories. However, they may struggle with
more technical or abstract concepts that require specialized vocabulary. In the
English classrooms also, the language teachers have to train the learners in such a
way that they have to face the interview with positive attitude and self-confidence.
Hence, the language teachers’ role is very crucial in developing the learners’
language teaching as these skills play an important part in an interview. The teachers
should train the learners properly so that they will never fail in facing the interviews.
Moreover, the teachers should remind their learners that body language plays a
major role in an interview and the learners are suggested some useful tips to
overcome this problem.
Presentations Nowadays, giving a ‘presentation’ has become a daunting and
even frightening situation for job aspirants. To become an eloquent speaker, one
should know how to present his or her speech to the audience. Here everything
matters. One should prepare his or her presentation with more enthusiasm, tons of
useful content, proprietary and unique data and plenty of jokes in order to make his
presentation lively and realistic. The English teachers should train their learners well
to prepare them to give presentations in the English classrooms. For this purpose,
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the language teachers should teach their learners the necessary ways to improve their
presentation skills
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.
The teachers have to teach some tips like practising it multiple times, arriving
early to the place, attending other presentations, taking deep breaths, adjusting to the
surroundings, keeping their faces always smiling, using positive visualization, using
only the important, insightful, useful and actionable information, engaging the
audience actively and entertaining them through the presentation and so on.
King states, “Oral presentations have been shown to help bridge the gap
between language study and language use; that presentations require students to use
all four language skills in a naturally integrated way; and that presentations have
been shown to encourage students to become active and autonomous learners”.
There are many advantages of using oral presentations in the modern English
classrooms such as learner-centred, provide the learners with realistic language
tasks, improves learners’ motivation, enhances outside classroom learning, usage of
all the four language skills effectively, and so on.
It is the responsibility of the language teachers to motivate the learners to
prepare themselves for presentations without any hesitation or phobia. As these
presentations have become the essential part of their future career, the English
learners should acquire these skills in order to sustain in their positions or get better
opportunities for their bright career. Therefore, it is evident that the learners should
be trained in language teaching by English language teachers, adopting various
techniques and activities in the classrooms. In fact, such activities and techniques
boost the learners’ confidence, help them acquire language teaching and eventually
lead them to expose themselves to the external world in the process of seizing
opportunities for their successful career.
Speaking is a fundamental language skill. It is the primary way in which we
communicate information. When we ask how well we can function in a second
12
"Teaching English Through Drama: How to Use Drama and Play-Based Activities to Teach English"
by Suzi Bewell and Sarah Phillips, 2009, p-20
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language, we ask the question “how well do you speak…?”, so it is the ability to
speak well which best represents our proficiency in another language.
As teachers, however, we must be mindful that speaking involves more than
simply using words to articulate what we are thinking, and there is more at play than
simply asking students to say the words that they know.
Being a ‘good speaker’ requires a range of skills beyond accurate grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciation, though these are the basic building blocks that enable
a message to be understood. An effective communicator chooses the words they use,
and the way in which they speak to different people in different situations, whether
that is ordering a sandwich at a snack bar or giving a keynote speech at an academic
event. The skills involved in how we interact with others in different ways are called
communicative competencies: teachable skills which frame the language used in
interaction in different settings.
Speaking as a language skill involves these competencies much more than it
requires accuracy of language, so when we talk about ‘teaching speaking’, we are
talking about something different from grammar or vocabulary practice.
Speaking can be used to practice new language (as is common in question-
answer tasks or role-plays held after specific language instruction, but this kind of
activity may not teach the skill of speaking itself. Just as we can instruct, present and
practice specific grammar features to students, the component competencies which
make up speaking as a pure language skill can also be broken down and presented
systematically
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.
Notice that none of these sub-skills make specific reference to grammar,
vocabulary or pronunciation, though obviously these are necessary for students to
communicate what they want to say. In order to bring the focus onto these
competencies, it is therefore advisable to lead speaking tasks on topics that are
familiar to students, and using language that is within their ability. Taking the strain
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"Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning
in the Classroom" by John C. Bean, 2011, p-43
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of new language out of speaking activities allows students to focus on the pure sub-
skills listed above.
This is similar to the way in which native speakers are ‘trained’ for public
speaking or assertiveness in social situations: as native speakers, they are
comfortable with the structure of their own language, but want to develop other skills
which go along with that.
Many of these features of speaking fall into the category of discourse – the
organization and style of a message as it is delivered in different situations. When
teaching speaking in a given context, think about how people actually speak in that
situation. Find recordings of people interacting in restaurants, banks, or wherever
your lesson will be set, and think about the functional steps of the interaction as it
happens.
You will probably find that most interaction that you listen to is quite
formulaic and predictable, so can be used as a structure for the dialogues that you
present and practice in class, only with the organization and ordering of the speech
as the focus of the class rather than the specific language used. Taking an opposite
approach, think of situations where the above list of competencies is common.
For example: we often use circumlocution when we are talking about
complex, technical subjects, like when we describe a problem we are having with a
gas cooker, car engine or plumbing; we may not know the exact name of the part
which is not working, but we can still communicate it to a gas fitter, mechanic or
plumber. This is a useful life skill, and one which can be used to harness second-
language speaking for language learners.
Again, as with grammar and vocabulary, we can incorporate these target
competencies into standard formats of lessons – we can present the feature of speech
through an audio or video task, and then ask students to practice applying the feature
in a restricted task.
Gapped dialogues, ordering lines in a script, or choosing the best alternative
from three different responses in a conversation, for example. Again, as long as the
learners are playing with language they already know, their ‘discourse brains’ will
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be more engaged and they will have more focus on the competencies they are
learning.
Free speaking tasks should be exactly that: student-student interaction which
does not have too many limitations. Give students a topic or situation and ask them
to script out a typical interaction in that situation. Assign roles to different students,
so that they can practice speaking to different ‘people’, and see how they flex their
ideas when talking to their boss as compared to their 7-year-old daughter. This will
open up the features they are learning in application to different types of speech
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.
Finally, be aware that although your learners have been focusing on these
great features of spoken communication, they have not yet had the opportunity to
fully apply these until they have spoken totally freely, without a script, or notes to
work from (after all, native speakers don’t carry scripts around with them to use in
sandwich bars, though they do have an ‘expected script’ in their mind which informs
their use of language), by participating in a speaking event with another student or
students.
The same dialogue that was used in free practice can be repeated, though with
different participants to ensure spontaneity and flexibility with language. Only then
can you say that students have truly applied what they are learning by the end of the
class.
In this paper, an attempt has been made to bring out various techniques and
activities to teach language teaching in the English language classrooms. The
activities that are done by the learners in English classrooms yield positive results in
the process of learning language teaching . The emphasis is on the interaction
between the teacher and learner in the English language classrooms. The importance
of language teaching for a successful and bright career has been highlighted in this
research paper. Hence the English language teachers are expected to implement all
the above illustrated techniques and activities in their classrooms in order to develop
the language teaching of the learners.
14
"Teaching Speaking: A Holistic Approach" by Anne Burns and Jill Burton, 2010,p-56
27
There is no hard and fast rule to apply all these methods, but better results will
be expected if they involve the learners in various speaking activities. Instead of
adopting one or two techniques, applying a wide range of techniques makes the
learners shift from the normal routine and as a result, they participate in various
activities very actively with more energetically and enthusiastically. As there is no
hope of getting a right job for the academic qualifications, there is a need for the
future job aspirants to acquire good language teaching . Therefore, the language
teachers have to understand the real situation and train the learners in getting good
command over the language teaching as these skills are very much useful for their
survival in this the global competitive job market.
Since the importance of language teaching has been recognized rightly in this
competitive job market and business world, there is a need for a drastic change in
the attitude of learners to prepare themselves for their bright career. In order to teach
language teaching effectively, the teachers should go through the recent trends in
the English language teaching and undergo training to acquire the latest techniques
and approaches and introduce various activities in their classrooms in order to make
the learners more proficient and skilful in their language teaching .
Speaking is the process of building and sharing thoughts and ideas through
the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts. Adequate
language teaching contribute to successful communication process. Communication
is one of the most important skills for students in learning English. It implies
exchanging opinions, information, notions of social, cultural and political aspects of
everyday life. But communication, moreover, includes a surprised face, a smile, a
nervous movement, etc. The world around us is the world of communication in
various spheres. Therefore, speaking is a crucial part of foreign language learning
and teaching. Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been
undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as
a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues. At language lessons, the only
means of communication have traditionally been textbooks and the lecturing teacher
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who has been the source of information. Hence, this communication is under control
rather than free.
However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should
improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can
express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate
in each communicative circumstance. In this case, the purpose of the teacher is to
transform the communication with students to a pleasant, attractive and emotional
lesson. Real communication is always informative, unpredictable, and unexpected.
In order to teach real and meaningful communication in the class, the teacher must
apply different ways to their teaching and, therefore, the communicative
approach which is one of the most effective and widely used methods to teach
English nowadays. The communicative approach has been applied in many countries
in the world. This has brought positive effects on teaching English
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.
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