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PROBLEMS OF TEACHING SPEAKING IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSES
Raimjanova Nigora Inamjanovna, Namangan Engineering Pedagogical Institute Namangan, Uzbekistan
E-mail: Abdullo 34888@mail.ru
Аннотация. Данная статья посвящена проблемам обучения разговорной речи студентов на уроках английского языка. Приведены наиболее приемлемые способы обучения разговорной речи, факторы, препятствующие их развитию.
Ключевые слова: foreign language, teaching, state standards, requirements of CEFR, problem, speaking, speaking skills.
Great changes took place in Foreign Language teaching after the adoption of President's Resolution No. 1875 issued on December 10, 2012 named "About the measures on further development of foreign language teaching and learning system".
In our county Teaching English is based on the state standards of continuous education of foreign language teaching, which is designed with the requirements of CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference). Under this Decree new standards of continuous education, curriculum for foreign language teaching is being developed. The content of text-books and teaching materials is also changed. English is being taught from the first forms of the secondary schools.
Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Today modern methodics demands communicative approach in teaching foreign languages, because it is the most effective and fruitful. 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. 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
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social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance. In order to teach second language learners how to speak in the best way possible, some speaking activities are provided below, that can be applied to ESL and EFL classroom settings, together with suggestions for teachers who teach oral language.
In a short period of time English displaced other languages and became the leading means of communication worldwide. Its domination continues to extend. The modern world of media, mass communication, and Internet demands a good knowledge of English, especially of spoken English. Every person wishing to get the benefits of modern education, research, science, trade.
Speaking skills of today's students in Uzbekistan. In general, the problems of Uzbek students related to learning to speak can be divided into four main groups:
- Students feel shy speaking English because they are afraid of making mistakes. It is usually seen at the initial level as they are afraid of being criticized by teachers and other students;
- Working in pairs (or groups), students often begin to use their native language;
- Students don't have enough information on the topics discussed even in their native language;
- Students feel a lack of linguistic and verbal resources for solving the given task. In that case the teacher should create a friendly atmosphere of collaboration so that students will not be afraid of admitting their mistakes and will accept criticism.
Analyzing the topic of speaking skills, it becomes clear that speaking skills of most students, especially in Uzbekistan, are insufficiently developed. It is a real problem in the field of ELT and it should be solved by the use of different methods of enhancing speaking skills.
So we'll discuss the issues of communicative competence, methods of enhancing oral communication, motivation and ways of overcoming the language barrier. It was significant to learn different views of Uzbek and foreign researchers on the problem of speaking skills of students.
Activities to Promote Speaking:
Discussions. After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons. The students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things. For example, students can become involved in agree/disagree discussions. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial sentences like "people learn best when they read vs. people learn best when they travel". Then each
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group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class. It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided among group members. At the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way. This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others. For efficient group discussions, it is always better not to form large groups, because quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups.
Role Play. One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend they are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and..."
Brainstorming. On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas.
Information Gap. In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information
Storytelling. Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students to express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have. Students also can tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very beginning of each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as an opening. In this way, not only will the teacher address students' speaking ability, but also get the attention of the class.
In conclusion, teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of the learner in school and success later in every phase of life. Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking. Rather than leading students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place is desired. With this aim, various speaking activities such as those listed above can contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life. These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time make their learning more meaningful and fun for them.
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References:
1. Каримов И.А. Наша высшая цель - независимость и процветание Родины, свобода и благополучие народа. - Ташкент, 2000 - С. 65.
2. Ишмухамедов Р., Абдукодиров А., Пардаев А. Таълимда инновацион технологиялар - Т., 2008.
3. McDonough, J. and C. Shaw. 2003. Materials and Methods in ELT: a teacher's guide. Maiden, MA; Oxford.
4. Constructivist teaching methods [Electron recourse]. - URL: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_teaching_methods
