Алла Марчишина
(Кам’янець-Подільський НВК № 3)
Ірина Загоруйко
(ВСП «Кам’янець-Подільський фаховий коледж
харчової промисловості НУХТ)
TEACHING SPEAKING STYLE
Speech is a kind of language representation. It is the most often used variety of language application. Since early childhood, a human begins to acquire a language through its oral form, and much later writing is introduced. So, speaking initiates a language activity and dominates it. Teaching speaking at school is among the contemporary priorities fixed in school foreign languages curricula; they are of top importance regarding internationalization of education and globalization of the world communication. That is why it is so important to teach speaking to pupils at school, especially if it is foreign language speaking. The key objectives of this paper are to state the significance of speaking skills and to make secondary school pupils differentiate styles of speaking depending on the communicative situation.
Speaking successfully means using a style of speaking appropriate to the particular circumstances. The latter are meant both as linguistic and extra-lingual elements facilitating or obstructing the current conversation, i.e., everything (explicit and implicit) influencing the understanding of intercourse between two humans.
Delivering a speech does not consist solely in the ability to construct grammatically correct sentences with a proper vocabulary. Any speech alongside with lexico-grammatical organization aims at achieving a definite pragmatic purpose: it has to explain, convince, impress, motivate, educate, reproach etc.
It becomes evident that in order to make a speech effective the preparatory stage must consider several components. So, learners of English primarily have to acquire skills of making a speech sketch. A draft version should include some alternatives of address, introductory utterance, content nucleus, final remarks. All these comprise corresponding lingual units, well-structured and adjusted.
Learners of English develop their individual scope of knowledge while acquiring linguistic skills. Besides, they as well may be explained how to use a wide range of alternatives among grammar structures and vocabulary items the combination of which results in a definite style. For instance, the learners will easily differentiate between elliptical and complete sentences, clipped and full lexical forms etc. On condition of proper illustration and exercise, the elementary competences of speaking styles will be successfully formed.
According to resent research, teaching speaking requires more encouragement, creation of more comfortable surrounding and more profound basic skills, more tolerance on the part of the teacher [2]. The pupils are free to commit errors; they should be encouraged to speak regardless of mistakes so that interruption and correction should not discourage them.
While presenting different speaking activities in the classroom, teachers do not always understand that “doing speaking” is not the same as “teaching speaking”. The competence of composing and pronouncing utterances involves both discoursal and linguistic features of speech which have to be taken into consideration in speaking practices. Before beginning to teach speaking, a teacher has to ask her/himself a question, “What must a competent speaker be able to do?” According to Anne Burns, there are three components of teaching speaking competence: knowledge of language and discourse, core speaking skills, communication strategies [1].
As far as teaching practice is concerned, acquisition of speaking skills goes through three stages: elementary exercises including intonation patterns drills and production of short utterances aiming at overcoming the fear of foreign speaking; developing skills of producing sentences and responses aiming at listening comprehension and creation of extended utterances; speaking within the pattern of a definite style. According to Lee, the latter refers to particular ways of using language in particular contexts” [3, p. 41]. A message can be communicated effectively in many different ways. These ways are styles of communication, and the choice of a particular style is determined by the context – the communicative situation. So, alongside with teaching learners to talk, a teacher should instruct them to practice a style of conversation.
The conclusion arises from all the beforementioned speculation. Teaching speaking is not a homogeneous aspect of learning. Beside practicing grammar and memorizing vocabulary units, learners of a foreign language should acquire elements and regularities of constructing a speech style.
REFERENCES
- Hussain Sh. Teaching Speaking Skills in Communication Classroom. International Journal of Media, Journalism and Mass Communication. 2017. Vol. 3 (3). P. 14–21.
- Burns A. Concepts of Teaching Speaking in the English Language Classroom. Language Education and Acquisition Research Network Journal. 2019. Vol. 12 (1). P. 1–11.
- LEE D. Genres, registers, text types, domains, and styles: clarifying the concepts and navigating a path through the BNC jungle. Language Learning & Technology, 2007. Vol. 5 (3). P. 37– 72.