Teaching Speaking : What Makes Speaking Difficult?

1. Clustering

Fluent speech is phrasal not word by word. Learners can organize their output both cognitively and physically trough such clustering.

2. Redundancy

The speaker has opportunity to make meaning clearer through redundancy of language. Learners can capitalize on this feature of spoken language.

3. Reduced forms

Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels etc all form special problems in teaching spoken English. Students who don't learn colloquial contractions can sometimes develop a stilted, bookish quality that in turn stigmatizes them.

4. Performance variables.

One of the advantages of spoken language is that the process of thinking as you speak allows you to manifest a certain number of performance hesitations, pauses, backtracking and corrections. Learners can be taught how to pause and hesitate.

5. Colloquial language.

Make sure the students are reasonably well acquainted with the words, idioms and phrases of colloquial language and that they get practise in producing these forms.

6. Rate of delivery

Another salient characteristic of fluency is a rate of delivery. One of the task in teaching spoken English is to help learners achieve an acceptable speed along with other attributes of fluency.

7. Stress, rhythm, and intonation.

The stress timed rhythm of spoken English and its intonation patterns convey important message.

8. Interaction

The creativity of conversational negotiation.

Source :Teaching by Principles by H. Douglas Brown.

future educator.

shikin hasnan.

MUET.

MUET (Malaysian University English Test) is a test of English Language proficiency runs by Malaysian Examinations Council.


MUET has 4 components which are listening, reading, writing and speaking.Each has different scores and percentage. 

• Listening - 15%
• Speaking - 15%
• Reading - 45%
• Writing- 25%

We can see that reading has the highest percentage so it is crucial to score at reading component as it will help  you to increase your total marks. 

The score or the total marks are graded in 6 bands, the band 6 is the highest and band 1 is the lowest score.

Band 6- Very good user (Aggregated score:260-300).

Very good command of the language. Highly expressive, fluent, accurate and appropriate language: hardly any inaccuracies. Very good understanding of language and contexts. Functions extremely well in the language.

Band 5- Good user (Aggregated score:220-259) 

Good command of the language. Expressive, fluent, accurate and appropriate language but with minor inaccuracies. Good understanding of language and contexts. Functions well in the language.

Band 4- Competent user (Aggregated score:180-219) 

Satisfactory command of the language. Satisfactory expressive and fluent,appropriate language but with occasional inaccuracies. Satisfactory understanding of language and contexts. Functions satisfactorily in the language.

Band 3- Modest user (Aggregated score:140-179) 

Modest command of the language. Modestly expressive and fluent,appropriate language but with noticeable inaccuracies. Modest understanding of language and contexts. Able to function modestly in the language.

Band 2- Limited user (Aggregated score:101-139) 

Limited command of the language. Lacks expressiveness, fluency and appropriacy: inaccurate use of the language resulting in breakdown in communication. Limited understanding of language and contexts. Limited ability to function in the language.

Band 1- Extremely limited user (Below 100)

Poor command of the language. Unable to use language to express ideas: inaccurate use of the language resulting in frequent breakdowns in communication. Little or poor understanding of language and contexts. Hardly able to function in the language.

MUET is what you need to enter university so, it is important for you to score at least band 3 and above. Some course set band 4 as the requirements. Stress on your reading and writing components and be careful when you do your listening as well as speaking.

So, good luck for those who are taking MUET. And do not worry, if you're not satisfied with the first attempt, do not worry because you can try it next time, now it has 3 batch in a year.

shikin hasnan.

Teaching Children

Are you interested to become an English teacher? What teacher do you want to be? and Do you prefer to teach children, teenagers or adults?

Well, some prefer teaching children as they like children so much and some thinks that teaching adults would be easier because they are mature enough to make their own decision.

Here are the criteria to be considered when teaching English across age level.

• Intellectual development
• Attention span
• Sensory input
• Affective factors
• Authentic meaningful language.

And now lets look at how to teach children ( age up to 11 )

image from google.

Intellectual development:

image from google

• avoid rules and complex grammar
• give examples and demonstrate certain pattern                                 
• repetition is needed
• do's and donts'

Attention span

• short only for things that are boring, useless or too difficult.
• teachers have to make the lesson interesting, lively and fun by doing variety of activities 
• sense humour will help to keep them intested.

Sensory input

• do a lot of physical activity, role play and total physical response using all the five senses- sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing
• hands on activities help children to internalize language.
• use sensory aids- audiovisual like videos, tapes and music.

image from google

image from google

Affective factors

• non verbal language is very important
• show patience and be supportive                               
• sense of humour is useful

Authentic meaningful language

• focus on language use of here and now
• language should be context embedded
• use the whole language approach.

"It takes a very special person to be able to  teach children effectively" - Teaching by Principles, H. Douglas Brown.

future educator,

shikin hasnan.

Life as a student.

Syntax, you are next in my list. so, please be nice. PELT, I'm not in the mood for you now.

Sociology, wait for me, I'll deal with you later. Literature, see you tomorrow.

Oh, these are the subject that I have to take for this semester.

Not to forget, IT and CTU. Both of them are next in my to do list.

Assignments oh assignments! Anyone would like to help me? 

:)

Learning Languages.

Learning language is not easy. It takes time to master. Language has to be acquired, not just learn.

"....Acquisition is used to refer to the gradual development of ability in a language by using it naturally in communicative situations with others who know the language. The term learning however applies to more conscious process of accumulating knowledge of the features such as vocabulary, grammar of a language typically in an institutional setting...." - The Study of Language by George Yule.

So, we can say that in order to really master one language, we definitely have to use it. If we are able to communicate using that particular language, that means we acquired the language.

At school, we learn English as well as Bahasa Melayu and other language such as Bahasa Arab, Bahasa Cina and Bahasa Tamil but do we really can speak the languages? 

I remember when I was in the primary school, my classmates were mostly Indians and Chinese so we speak English most of the time and I did learn some of the Tamil and Mandrin words. Then, when I was 13, my family moved to East part of Malaysia, Kelantan. I encountered some difficulties to communicate for the first 3 years in Kelantan as they speak a different Bahasa Melayu which is the Kelantan's Dialect. 

Dialect is different from language. Dialect describes features of grammar and vocabulary as well as aspects of pronunciation. But then, after 5 years, I can simply not just understand Kelantan's Dialect but to speak as fluent as the Kelantanese even though my friends used to say that when I speak, I sound weird at first. 

Well, there is another term which is accent. Accent is different from dialect as it describes the aspects of pronunciation only. You know, people from American has a different accent from British but they still speak English and you notice how the Spanish speak English? It is sexy!  As for me, I speak English with Malay accent.

Learning languages is fun. I hope to learn as many language as I can but it really takes time so maybe not now but someday maybe. As for now, I should focus on learning English.

shikinhasnan.