SOME ALTERNATIVES FOR SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

          I read an article related to speaking activities which is named “Teaching Speaking” by M. Enamul Hoque where the author says many interesting things about Teaching Speaking; for example, “teaching speaking should produce the English speech sounds and sounds patterns, select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting, audience, situation and subject matter, use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called as fluency”, etc. Learners (we) should have these concepts in the use of the English language, and consider them as goals if they do not master it. One of the most important stuff that we should not forget is that we always have something to say about what people share with us. Even though, when we do not know what is it about. For these reasons, there are a lot of alternatives for speaking activities which let us organize, imagine and share our thoughts; for instance, discussions, debates, story completion, find the difference, simulations and so on. Now, we are going to look at some alternatives which we would use if they are necessary.

    
     Jigsaw activities: It is a kind of information gap activity which needs several participants to be done. In this activity, people, who take part of it, have a piece of a “puzzle” that needs to be fit with all the pieces into the whole picture. Also, this puzzle would be a tape recording conversation or a story which is separated in several parts. Learners would find it fun because they would encounter different versions of the “puzzle”; finally, they should agree in one.

   One kind of a speaking activity, which is well known as Communicative Output Activity as well, is role play. In this activity, participants are assigned to be characters that they may encounter outside of the classroom. After, this activity is done; participants would have practiced what they needed to make “a real conversation”.

    


     To conclude, it is believed that speaking activities break the traditional classroom where students have prepared questions and answers. In speaking activities, students should manage themselves to express what they think or believe as in real communication. I think that it is advisable that each teacher have to use these activities in order to increase the use of the English language in uncertain situations.