One factor that sets speaking apart from the other language skills is the difficulty that students experience in practising outside the classroom. The receptive skills of listening and reading can be exercised in isolation, since students process the source material themselves and are largely in a position to measure their own understanding, take their time over the task and consult reference books where necessary. This is to a certain extent also true for the productive skill of writing, with the added advantage that a piece of written work could be presented to a tutor at some future date for verification.

The immediate nature of the spoken language imposes constraints on practice sessions: in order to be meaningful, it requires an interlocutor to process the message, and to provide instant feedback (either direct, in the form of correction, or indirect, indicated by whether a message has been communicated). In this section we look at the difficulties students encounter in practising speaking skills, how these obstacles are overcome, and the steps tutors can take to enable students to maximize opportunities for practice.