Speaking skills

Hi everyone, 
I read an interesting article last month and after reading it, I decided to check many aspects in my lessons because my main aspiration is to hear my students speak English. But we all know that it is sometimes difficult for those who are shy or introverted.

So how can we help learners to speak English with confidence?

1. Teacher's Role

·         First of all, try to speak English as much as possible so that children can listen to the foreign language and can have a good comprehension of the different messages.

·         Design speaking activities for everyone to succeed. Give patterns to them if the activity requires them. Make them feel confident with the activity and let them to work in groups.

·         Use lots of repetition because children need to do things many times. That makes them feel comfortable and help them to learn.

·         Present short activities to keep their attention and interest. 

·         Link gestures, movements and/or actions with clue words. That way of introducing the new vocabulary or structures in the oral activities will reinforce children’s learnings. Whenever they want to produce the oral activity, they will remind them and match their gestures with their productions.

2. The classroom

Most of schools have an English room for the foreign language. That is perfect, but do they have free space for moving up? As language teachers, many of us start the lesson with a warm-up activity. We need to check old learnings and maybe we introduce new ones. We work as a group and children feel as part of it. There may be more because learning English is a skill itself. So, be sure that an English Classroom has enough free space for these type of activities.

3. Tools for teachers

When I was a child, I had a book, a dictionary and a notebook for studying English. Nothing else. Things have changed a lot since then. Yes, we live in a digital age and our students have born in that one. So, how can we cope with this reality? Using digital tools and making them alive in your English lessons. For Primary beginner’s teachers, I should recommend to have contact with some basic tools:

• Audacity. It is free and it is useful for recording and editing sounds.
• Tellagami. A useful app for teachers and CS students. They all can have in their mobile phone and use it whenever they consider. Easy to download and easy to use.
• PictureTrail. It is a social network that allows members and visitors to share photos online in a different way. Visit it and see how many things and albums
• Pinterest will help you with lots of ideas and images. Snap and add them to your personal account. There is a huge amount of teachers following interesting ones.  Try it and see how your imagination shines searching for new ideas for your lessons.
• Google+. This google tool allows you to share your pictures and create slide shows for your blogs or web pages. 
• Drive. It is the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online
• Blogs. Do you use a blog at your school for English lessons? If your answer is negative, try to give you a chance and find out more about that tool. Start by choosing an easy one for you to work in so that it will allow you to make things easier for children and families. A learning dissemination is alive because English arrives at home and allows children check and share some activities. Families will see how their kids are improving the language. I am a blogger and I am at a different place professionally and personally if I compare myself 20 years ago. I’m not at all special, but I’ve managed to promote my school and myself because of my passion to share and help you, as an English teacher.  If you decide to have a personal blog, you can share information and best practices. Do not doubt, it is a useful tool.
• Internet Archive. You can record children and upload to the web. You can embed them in your blog or web page for your pupils to listen to. 
• Voki. Voki is a free service that allows you to createpersonalised speaking avatars and use them on your blog, profile, and in email messages.
• Symbaloo is a visual bookmarking tool that makes it simple to organize your best on line resources in the cloud. You have all your favorite websites categorized as you decide.
• Many websites giving new ideas and different resources. Our age is a digital one. There are lots of interesting websites and blog ideas. Rather than pinning those items on Pinterest, which is blocked at many schools, save an image and the website address to the proper folder or to your personal blog so when you are lesson planning for a particular topic, it will literally be there.