Teach english new edition r

■
Conclusions I 
In this chapter we have:
■ looked at the reasons for teaching writing, which include a chance for students to 
process language in a more considered way than they may sometimes do when 
speaking. We showed how writing for learning (e.g. language reinforcement) is 
different from writing as a skill in its own right.
■ discussed how different genres operate within a discourse community.
■ looked briefly at the writing process itself and said how important it is to build the 
writing habit.
■ looked in detail at three writing sequences.
■ tackled the difficult subject of correcting writing, suggesting that over-correction 
should be avoided and that teachers should always strive to be encouraging.
■ pointed out that, while handwriting is a matter of style, teachers should expect 
students to write clearly and legibly. In some cases, they may need special help with 
forming letters.
Chapter 
8
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Teaching 
speaking
Reasons for teaching
speaking
Speaking sequences
Discussion
■ More speaking suggestions
■ Correcting speaking
t What teachers do during a
speaking activity
Reasons for teaching speaking
There are three main reasons for getting students to speak in the classroom. Firstly, speaking 
activities provide 
rehearsal 
opportunities - chances to practise real-life speaking in the 
safety of the classroom. Secondly, speaking tasks in which students try to use any or all of 
the language they know provide feedback for both teacher and students. Everyone can see 
how well they are doing: both how successful they are, and also what language problems 
they are experiencing. (This is a good reason for boom erang lessons, see page 55.) And 
finally, the more students have opportunities to 
activate
the various elements of language 
they have stored in their brains, the m ore autom atic their use o f these elements become. As 
a result, students gradually become autonom ous language users. This means that they will 
be able to use words and phrases fluently w ithout very m uch conscious thought.
Good speaking activities can and should be extremely engaging for the students. If they 
are all participating fully - and if the teacher has set up the activity properly and can then 
give sympathetic and useful feedback - they will get trem endous satisfaction from it.
We need to be clear that the kinds of speaking activities we are looking at here are not 
the same as controlled language practice, where, for example, students say a lot of sentences 
using a particular piece of gram m ar or a particular function. That kind of speaking is part 
of 
study
and is covered in Chapter 
6
. The kind o f speaking we are talking about here almost 
always involves the 
activate
element in our ESA trilogy (see Chapter 4). In other words, the 
students are using 
any
and 
all
of the language at their com m and to achieve some kind of 
purpose 
which is not purely linguistic. They are practising what Scott Thornbury, in his 
book 
How to Teach Speaking
, calls