Oral Communication Skills &

Classroom Speaking Performance

By
Luis Carlos Lasso Montenegro
 They refer to the skills speakers
use in conversational discourse Micro Skills
and provide teachers a clear idea Skills at the
of what the learners actually Sentence Level
need to perform in oral
communication.

Both Micro & Macro Skills are

focused on the forms and Macro Skills
functions of language and can Skills at the
become a testing criteria in Discourse Level
speaking evaluation.

Reference: Brown, H. (2007). Teaching by principles, an interactive approach to language

pedagogy. Third Edition. New York: Pearson Education.
 Ability to use language
system, grammar rules GRAMMAR AND
and lexical units. VOCABULARY RANGE
Linguistic Skills in
Oral Production FLUENCY AND
Capacity of pronouncing
ACCURACY
correctly English words
and phrases. PRONUNCIATION

Ability to express ideas PRAGMATICS

using spoken language
and different types of oral
Functional use of production TYPES OF SPOKEN
LANGUAGE
spoken language
Ability to interact in a LANGUAGE
social context. INTERACTION
 • Produce chunks of language of different lengths.
•Orally produce differences among English phonemes and
allophonic variants.
•Produce English stress patterns and intonation contours.
• Use an adequate number of lexical units in order to
accomplish pragmatic purposes.
•Produce fluent speech.
•Monitor oral production and use strategic devices (pauses,
fillers, backtracking, turntaking…)
•Use grammatical patterns and rules.
•Produce speech in natural constituents (appropriate
phrases, pause, breathing...)
•Express a particular meaning in different grammatical
forms.
Reference: Brown, H. (2007). Teaching by principles, an interactive approach to language
pedagogy. Third Edition. New York: Pearson Education.
 • Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse.
• Accomplish appropriate communicative functions
according to situations, participants and goals.
•Use appropriate registers, implicatures, pragmatic
conventions and other sociolinguistic features in face-to-
face conversations.
•Convey links and connections between events and
communicate such relations (main idea, exemplification…)
•Use facial features, kinesics, body language (non verbal)
with verbal language to convey meanings.
• Develop and use speaking strategies such as
emphasizing, rephrasing, providing a context, asking for
help, using circumlocutions…

Reference: Brown, H. (2007). Teaching by principles, an interactive approach to language

pedagogy. Third Edition. New York: Pearson Education.

Imitation occurs not for the
purpose of meaningful
interaction, but for focusing
on some particular element
of language form.
Drills (limited practice
through repetition) provide
learners an opportunity to
listen and to orally repeat
certain strings of language.
Imitative Speaking Tasks
• Minimal Pair repetition
•Word/phrase repetitions
•Sentence repetition
EXAMPLE
Students listen to the teacher and repeat
the pronunciation of English words and
expressions such as:
Words: Bus Terminal, police station,
desk clerk, information counter,
downtown…
Expressions:
-Good Morning, may I help you?
-Excuse me sir, where can I get a taxi?
-How much does it cost?
-What time does the bus leave?

Unlike imitative speaking
which is designed to
practice some phonological
or grammatical aspect of
language, Intensive
speaking provide learners
the opportunity to “go
over” and use certain forms
of language through
controlled speech
production.
Intensive Speaking Tasks
• Directed response
Tell me he went home.
•Read-aloud
(for pronunciation or fluency)
•Oral sentence completion
Yesterday, I______
•Oral cloze procedure
Yesterday, I ______ to the gym
•Dialogue completion
A: May I help you?
B: ______________
•Directed response
What did you do last weekend?

Responsive speaking
involves short replies to
teacher or student-initiated
questions or comments.
These replies are usually
sufficient and do not
extend to dialogues.
Speech production can be
meaningful and authentic.
Responsive Speaking Tasks
• Picture description or elicitation
of directions
How do I get to the post office?
•Question & Answer
How do you like the weather?
•Question elicitation
Ask me about my hobbies and
interests.
•Elicitation for instructions
What’s the recipe to make a pie?
•Paraphrasing
(a short narrative, a phone
message, report…)
TRANSACTIONAL DIALOGUE INTERPERSONAL DIALOGUE

Transactional language is an Interpersonal dialogue is

extended form of responsive carried out more for the
language which is carried out purpose of maintaining
for the purpose of conveying social relationships than for
or exchanging specific the transmission of facts
information. and information.
Interactive Speaking Tasks •Casual register
•Colloquial language
•Role plays
• Oral interviews •Slang
• Discussions and •Sarcasm
conversations •Emotions
• Games
Extensive speaking
(Monologues) usually occurs
when students are asked to
give oral reports, summaries or
short speeches.
Extensive Speaking Tasks
• Oral presentations
(Academic or professional
context)

The kind of register is more •Storytelling

formal and speaking
•Retelling a story or news
performance is carefully
event
produced.
•Reporting information
Monologues can be planned or
presented without earlier
preparation.
Which activities can the teacher carry out to
get students to speak fluently?
Thanks for your
attention!