Materials for Developing Speaking Skills

One way to understand the notion of speaking skill, as suggested by Bygate (1987:5-6) is by
viewing them in two basic aspects: motor-receptive skills and interaction skills. The former
involves a mastering of sound and structures not necessarily in any particular context.the
latter involves making decisions about what and how say thinks in specific communicative
situations to convey the right intentions or maintain relationship. This perception can be
futher understood by observing that these two sets of skills must not represent clear-cut
distinctions (Littlewood,1981:16) or two-stage operation,but from the start structure must be
taught in relation to use (Jhonson,1982: 22), moreover, much research on language awareness
also suggests that teaching sequence does not have to be structured before the communication
of meanings, but content-based activities can help learners to experience and respond to
meanings first. Arguably, speaking skills are best developed when learners learn eventeually
to take control oh their own performance from an insider perspective (e,g.from that of the
learner).
Second language teaching materials,as viewed by Tomlinson (1998: 2), can be created not
only by writers, but also by teachers and learners. In other, the act of developing materials
should be understoodbeyond the act of writing script for coursebooks and, in fact.
Tomlinsons perception coincides nicely with Nunans (1989: 11) vision that communication
shold be seen as a process rather than a set of products.
This understandinghelps explain why coursebook activities composed according to the
writers own assumptions(while disregarding their users) often do not work well in the real
classroom. The writers vision of the classroom process fails to harmonize with the teachers
vision, the leaners needs and the local contexts. If materials are contructed for speaking
skills, then the interactive process by the designer and the users should take place through
speaking, since it would be unrealistic for participants simply to sit there and imagine silently
how speech might work from a written scipt.
Methodological Trends
This knowledgement comes from two pieces of evidence, first, a look intonumerous
conversation activities in course materials, revelas the prevailing presence of communicative
approach. Second, it has been wedely agreed that CLT has made the teaching of spoken
language a goos deal more inspiring, effective and meaningful, which is clearly the reason
why the approach is still in use coursebooks using it continue to sell.
Trends in Materials for Speaking Skills
Trend in material design to progress in parallel with trens in methodology. Activities in
coursebooks are preciely where principle and practice are brought together. In fact, materials
published over the past thirty years have been cler indicators how the key principles of
communicative approaches are incorporated into speaking activities. Together with changes
in pedegogical principles, there have been gradual but constant efforts to improve how
materials for speaking skills are designed. For an example of thiss, let use examine three
activities samples that dealwith similar theme, namely describing objects,taken from three
english coursebooks published in 1978,1991 and 1999. The authors ask students to describe a
room from a given picture, there is nofreedom of choice, every learner perform the same role.
thea activity same or different ? provide student with several sets of pictures depicting
different object items and anvites them to discover how these items differ by asking each
other questions.utilizes the decoding and encoding of an information gap, which allows
student to exchange factual data. There is still no freedom of choice at least learners are given
the opportunity to interact for a purpose. Information seekers and information provider.
Invites learner to look at picture of six different doors and imagine the rooms behind
them,since there are no right or wrong answers, students are encouraged to process meanings
from their own experimences and perspectives. Besides providing freedom of choice, this
material takes learners beyond the level of an information gap into two new areas: a
reasoning gap, which involves deriving data by inference and perception, and an opinion gap,
which encourages personal fellings and attitudes.
By and large, many conscious efforts for improvement made by course-writers over the
decades have enabled materials design to evplve towards increasingly sophisticated levels.
Examining publishers claims over several decades in another way to recognize change in
materials development
A Proposed Framework For Developing Material For Spoken Language
In this framework, we would like to propose and discuss an approach comprising five
dimensions for developing materials for speaking skills, 1. Conceptualizing learner need
2. Identifying subject matter and communication situation 3 identifying verbal
communication strategies 4. Utilizing verbal sources from real life 5. Designing skill
acquiring activities.
Conceptualizing Learner Needs
Materials design should begin from who learners are in order to link language study not only
to the learners future use but also to their present receptivity. It is important to look at both
subjective needs and objective needs in the learner. The learners speaking difficulties and
real life conversational situations outside of the classroom. All of which will help the teacher
to decide what to teach.the latter includes such aspects as personality, learning styles and
preferences, wants and expectations of the course, all of which help the teacher to decide how
to teach. For example, through a speaking task conducted in pairs or groups, students can be
asked to jot down their expectations and pass them to the teacher. This discussion also allows
the teacher to listen to samples of students spoken english to form an impressionistic idea
about their linguistic proficiency as well as their ability to handle the given task. Howefer,
this practice alone may not be sufficient. Needs assessment, as suggested by Graves
(1996:27), should be viewed as an ongoing process which takes place before, during and after
the course, sekking to know leaner needs, after all, does not mean describing leaners but,
more importantly, it means actually involving learners in the process of developing materials
and giving them a voice in their materials.
Translating Needs to Subjective Matter and Communicative Situations
As learner reveal what they want to do which the target language, they also directly or
indirectly imply the type of environments where the language is exercised. It is now
important also to explore the context of such environments and to form efective speaker. In
general, this step is a preliminary effort to outline the instuctional content of the target
material. To support these endeavours, the two sections below will discuss some heplful
techniques to make these tasks possible.
Identifying Verbal Communication Strategies
Spontaneous speech by ten singaporean university students were played for one hundred
British listeners (who were from London and had never been ro singapore before) to listen
and to rate their intelligibility. Five speakers scored more than 80 per cent, two more than 70
per cent the highest was 89.1 per cent, and the lower 56,4 per cent. Instead, some of the more
striking problematic features were identified as interaction strategies, styles amd registers,
features of spoken proficiency which need to be included in materials design for oral
communication. Conversational strategies must be incorporated in teaching materials because
they are essential toolsto serve the communication of meanings, one method to do so is by
designing tasks for learner to act upon their interlocutors speech rather than merely
concentrating on their own. For example, learner can be helped to pratice building talk upon
talk, dealing with interaction pressuresuch as stealing and sustaining turns, handling
unrehearsed discourse, controlling their level of diplomacy and courtesy, choosing when to
move on to a new topic winding down a coversation, recognizing signals when their partner
wants to leave the conversation and so forth.
Utilizing Verbal Sources From Real Life
In many case, preparing materials might just be one-third of the job, that is, providing
opportunities for learning. To modify materials,besides what can be used to create spingboard
for communication from printed sources such as megazine articles or picture, we can also
utilize many verbal interactions taken from real life and in the classroom. One method to seek
for practical teaching ideas,as suggested by Tay (1988:36) is by taping learners peer group
interaction in the target language and analysing it. Arguably, this is a realistic way of
allowing learners to take part in the materials design process. Another method is by finding
opportunities to compare naturally occuring conversations with designer version which deal
with same topic. Keeping a diary might also be a realistic way to collect resources for
designing speaking activities. Such resources can come from overhearing conversations in
public places, from radio or television interview. Any such data, provided that it is relevant to
our teaching theme, can always be recycled and developed into instructional materials for
classroom.

Designing Skill-acquiring Tasks
Once communication content is outlinedand its components are selected, the decisive step is
to create revelant tasks that help learners in three essential aspects: to acquire new language,
to learn rules of interaction and to experience communication of meanings though not
necessarily in sequence. To facilitate the acquiring of new language, learner are taught and
helped to internalize new language before making it available to discusss topics. Teaching
new language can be done by presenting linguistic structures or more meaningfully, by
helping learner to discover for themselves form and function.