Integrating Speaking Skills Development

Integrating speaking skills development is important for various reasons such as improving students' confidence and 'loosening their tongues', not to mention giving them practice in using their grammatical and lexical knowledge in context. It is very different knowing a structure or a word and having to produce it orally when needed.

• Make sure your students always speak English in the classroom, and as much as possible outside it.
  
  
• Use English yourself at all times with your students, outside the class, before and after, etc. as well as during class.
  
  
• Unless there is a good reason for doing an activity in the first language, for example, in order to gain insights into one of the parts of IELTS Speaking, do all discussion activities in English, including checking answers for listening activities, and so on. Linked with feedback, this makes valuable practice.
  
  
• Use topics and lexis from reading and listening texts to set up discussions or related tasks, so that you give your students opportunities to practise new vocabulary.
  
  
• Encourage students to follow news and current events by reading English language newspapers and magazines, or listening to English language broadcasting. The internet too is a good source of material. The information gained can be used in different ways to develop all four skills.