In teaching speaking in primary school, the speaking activities should be designed to enable students to express themselves in a much more personal way.
Types of Speaking Activities
Based on my experience, there are three main types of speaking activities we can suitably use in primary schools.
1. Songs, Chants, and Poems
They are very effective to encourage young learners to mimic the model they hear on the cassette or video. This helps students to master the sounds, rhythms, and intonation of the English language through simple reproduction.
Poetic language, based on rhythm and rhyme, is learned far more easily by children than is prose language. Along with songs, poetic language introduces the children to the flow of the new language and familiarizes them with its phonology elements: emphasis, intonation, pitches, etc.
In addition, a great number of songs or poems also contain certain grammatical points. Well-selected songs or poems can be integrated into lessons for reinforcing grammar points.
2. Games and Pair Work Activities.
They are commonly based on a given model; they do encourage young learners to begin to use the language by presenting them with a certain amount of choice within a fairly controlled situation.
In addition, using games is also advantageous because by doing games and pair work activities, the students (though they are totally unaware of this at the time) also develop a rich store of grammatical forms and structures.
However, since games and pair work necessitate much energy, they are more suitable to use in the upper classes, i.e., in grades four to six.
3. Presentations and Discussions
Students need to talk to each other about what they’re reading and share their ideas and insights with others.
In this way, the stories come to life, students gain insight and ideas from others, and language learning is enhanced.
Doing this, speaking and reading skills will be integrating and deepen students’ understanding of the reading material, reveal any problem they have understanding a text, and, most importantly, let them apply the information they have read into authentic speaking practice that improves their fluency.
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