The Importance Of Speaking

In Chinese EFL teaching environment, Speaking has been paid special attention to for many years. Both teachers and students consider speaking as the most important but difficult English skill to learn and acquire. There are two encoding activities in our learning process – writing and speaking. Compared with writing, speaking seems to be much more difficult for language learners. For example, people usually have no time to organize their language, and once the speaking process begins, there is no time for them to go back and correct errors from time to time. English is a foreign language for Chinese people, and we don’t use it in our daily life, thus the Speaking class is very important and precious for students to practice their oral skills and improve speaking competence.

Traditional Speaking class is usually conducted by foreign teachers, and the purpose is to help students gain more chances talking with native speakers. The activities in such classes are more conversation-based or discussion-based. We believe in such relaxing language environment, students tend to reduce their anxiety and talk more in English. However, problems still exist in such teaching styles. Speaking skills and strategies are less taught in this process, and students are more familiar with informal conversations rather than different speaking genres. In a word, students’ speaking competence cannot be fully practiced. Hymes (1971) believed that language learners’ speaking and communicative competence is equal to his ability to effectively use the target language in real communication. And this ability includes “both knowledge about the language and specific skills in using the language” (Goh & Burns, 2012). In order to achieve this goal, two traditional ...

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Part 5 Concluding remarks

I have not taught English Speaking in my teaching experience, because in most Chinese EFL areas, speaking teachers are native speakers. However, in my study period, I have learned speaking for more than 10 years. I appreciate the foreign teachers’ humor and teaching skills. However, most of the traditional oral lessons follow the similar format, which is topic selection, group discussion, class presentation, and teacher feedback. Such lessons are always conversation-based, and there is not enough speaking skills in particular genres. As a result, many Chinese EFL learners can chat with foreigners, but cannot give formal oral delivery in special occasions. EPS aims to teach speaking in a more formal and comprehensive way. Together with the traditional oral class, students can further develop their speaking competence in different areas.