Speaking means conversation
If we bear Brumfit's comments in mind, we see that spoken language classes ought to focus largely on conversation / discussion and perhaps extended speaking (for example, giving a presentation or speech on a given theme, which, as he points out, may only be appropriate to more advanced levels). As Brown and Yule suggest, these activities are difficult to achieve and are often avoided:
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Spoken language production, learning to talk in the foreign language, is often considered to be one of the most difficult aspects of language learning for the teacher to help the student with. […] In the production of speech […] each speaker needs to speak. He needs to speak individually and, ideally, he needs someone to listen to him speaking and to respond to him. When he speaks, he makes a noise which will disturb other students unless they are saying the same thing at the same time, or unless they are listening to what he says. The possible ways of coping with this seem to be limited. You find choral practice of language which is written down, or learned, or which copies an immediately preceding model. You find students giving individual short responses to the teacher's question. You find students working with language lab courses without disturbing anyone else, which may give a simulated feeling that there is a listener present and where, from time to time the teacher may overhear what the student is saying and correct it. In rare, privileged, environments, you occasionally find small-group 'conversation' classes where eight to ten people talk together in the foreign language. Brown and Yule (1983b: 25) |
This rarity is what the optimistic oral tutor or seminar leader of today hopefully aims for. Anything less constitutes letting the modern foreign languages student down. As Bygate (1987: 5) argues, if we limit ourselves to teaching our students to make the right sounds in the right places with grammatical accuracy, we leave them with the ability to drive well, but on a deserted road. They require interaction, and a measure of communicative freedom, but achieving this is not so simple.
Before we consider what to teach in oral classes in order to attain this goal, we have to look at why we are teaching oral production in the first place, what its function really is.
