How to Teach English Speaking

This guide is about how to change that in an ordinary class - forty learners, forty minutes, no equipment - and what to do about the three problems every teacher meets: silence, the first language, and correction.

Before changing anything, measure it. In your next lesson, note roughly how many minutes learners speak English to each other. In most classrooms, in most countries, the honest answer is under five out of forty.

The number matters more than any method. A class of forty where everyone talks in pairs for ten minutes produces four hundred learner-minutes of speaking. The same class answering the teacher one at a time produces forty at best, and one learner speaks while thirty-nine wait.

Fix a target - half the lesson, in pairs or groups - and plan backwards from it.

A learner cannot invent Have you ever ...? while also thinking what to say. Put the two or three structures the task needs on the board, drill them once chorally, and leave them there.

Add the small phrases that keep a conversation alive, which coursebooks often skip: Really? Why do you think so? What about you? I'm not sure. These are what make an exchange last more than two turns.

For weaker classes, give a sentence frame with a gap. My favourite ... is ... because ... is not childish; it is the scaffolding that gets a first sentence out.

Thirty seconds of silence before speaking doubles what most learners say, and it is the cheapest improvement available.

Let them make notes - words, not sentences. Notes in full sentences turn a speaking activity into reading aloud, so give a limit: three words, or five.

For anything harder than personal facts, let them try it once in pairs before any of it is said in front of the class. The second telling is always better, which is why rehearsal, not performance, is where the learning happens.

The strongest speaking tasks have an information gap: one person knows something the other needs. Spot-the-difference, find someone who, interviewing and reporting back, describing a route - all of these make speaking necessary rather than decorative.

The weakest task is "discuss this in pairs" with nothing to produce. Give an outcome: agree an order, find three differences, choose one plan, report your partner's answer.

Set a visible time limit and stop the task while learners still have something to say. A task that runs until it dies teaches learners that speaking is dull.

Some first-language use is normal and useful, especially in the planning stage. What matters is the speaking stage itself.

Set a short window rather than a permanent ban: "English only for these three minutes" is enforceable, and "never use your own language" is not.

Where a class slips into the first language constantly, look at the task before the discipline: it is usually too hard, too vague, or missing the language it needs.

While learners speak, do not interrupt. Walk round with a pen and write down what you hear: two or three errors that several learners made, and two or three good sentences.

At the end, put four sentences on the board - two correct, two with the errors - and let the class find and repair them. Nobody is named, and the good sentences get read out with credit.

Correct on the spot only when the error blocks understanding, or when it is the exact language you have just taught.

Pairs, always. Everyone speaks at once; you do not need to hear it all. Forty learners in pairs is twenty conversations, which is exactly the point.

Rows instead of mingles. Where learners cannot move, they ask the four people nearest them, then everyone moves one seat along once.

Sample, do not assess everyone. Listen properly to four or five learners each lesson and keep a note. In eight lessons you have heard everybody, and nobody waited.

Use the room's own noise as a measure. A speaking task should sound loud. Silence in a speaking activity means the task has failed, not that the class is well behaved.

Tell learners the three things you will listen for before they speak - for example: the target language used, ideas connected with and, but, because, and being understood without repeating.

Assess a few learners at a time, during ordinary tasks, over several lessons. A separate speaking examination for a class of forty costs a week of lessons and tells you little more.

Give each learner one thing done well and one thing to change. A list of six weaknesses changes nothing.