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3. Oral Interaction Activities......................................................................................................
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4. Other techniques and technologies.....................................................................................
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III. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………............................
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IV. Bibliography………………………………………………………………................................
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I. Introduction
Speaking is the most distinguishing feature of human beings from the other living creatures because it is the natural state of language that all human beings are born to speak their native language. In learning a second or foreign language, most of the learners find speaking the most difficult skill to have a success because it needs oral communication that consists of both speaking and listening. In the past speaking was not considered much in language learning and teaching. Primarily, learning structures, rote memorization of sentence patterns and vocabulary, and using literary language were of great importance. Generally speaking, language is a tool of communication. If you cannot speak, all your effort is in vain. Thus we have to give importance to speaking in our English lessons right from the beginning because there is no use of knowledge about a language without having the skill of using it.
We know that there is a difference between knowledge and skill. For instance, think about a driver. Normally a driver knows the names of the controls, where they are, what they are for and how they are operated. While knowing these things, a driver has to use these controls to drive the car on the road without hitting the other vehicles or the things that can get in the way. He/she has to keep the normal speed, drive smoothly and be careful not to get too close to the vehicle in front or nearby. Although these are necessary, they are not enough. Driving in a straight line is a must, but getting adapted to the variations in road conditions safely is a necessity.
The things we do in language learning is the same. We not only have to know how to create sentences but also have to change our sentences according to the conditions. “This means making decisions rapidly, implementing them smoothly, and adjusting our conversation as unexpected problems appear in our path” 1
It is common practice these days in Uzbekistan to substitute developing learners’ oral speech skills with training them for a better testing performance. These tasks often take the format of “form filling” and essentially contribute to the learners’ testing competence rather than to their communicative ability.
The reason for such substitution is easy to find. This phenomenon is called the “backwash effect”, which has been created by a spectacular experiment on a nationwide scale in Uzbekistan – training school leavers towards Uzbek National Exams in English. Today we can talk about the apparent predominance of blank filling activities at the English language lessons taking away all the teaching time intended for communicative practice. Not only has the chief idea of communicative language teaching been actually scrapped away, but the authenticity of communicative language testing followed the suit.
Doing multiple-choice and matching activities, restoring logical sequences in sentences and texts, filling in the missing meaningful elements, focusing on language formalities and discourse mechanics rather than on producing meaningful messages – these are but a few tendencies of recent developments in Uzbek language classroom routines. As a result, the actual communicative level of school leavers in English is being compromised by the scoring of learners according to the returns of the formal testing procedures. The need is being felt to look more attentively into the practice of introducing open examination tasks with an emphasis made on candidates’ communicative abilities rather than on their proficiency in a variety of filling in a number of testing formats and the degree of learners’ test wiseness.
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