Games, tips and techniques for improving your students speaking fluency

Just for a second, put yourself in one of your students shoes and imagine that you have been asked to speak in English, maybe for a job interview, or even a professional presentation, and at that very second, your mind goes blank and you don’t remember any of the words that you have studied. You stand there, confused, what’s happening, I can’t remember anything, and then, as you are being watched through eyes full of expectation, nothing comes out of your mouth except a whispery gasp of air and a few confused whimpers.

For our students, when under stress, this can be more common than we realized, and one of the primary reasons is that most language programs neglect the skill of fluency, and the confidence that goes hand in hand with it when teaching students how to speak. Speaking, in most programs, is limited to our students answering a token 5 or 6 questions in pairs or small groups, an activity often done just once per unit in the book and taking a grand total of maybe 5 minutes. The thought process behind these activities defies logic!

Many students say that when they are required to speak in English, they forget everything, their minds become totally blank because they are so nervous. They say that they are afraid of making mistakes, of saying the wrong words or that no one will understand their pronunciation. It is this intense fear of failure that stops some people from speaking at all.

The objective of speaking English should be to communicate a message in a way that is clear and understandable, not as a perfect sentence that puts the speaker under undue stress. Never expect perfection from students, and never make them afraid of making mistakes! A mistake is not always going stop people from understanding the message that they are trying to express.

Understanding the foundations of English conversation

To be able to teach conversational English effectively, you must first have a stratagy that addresses the structure required for successful conversation.

If you are either a native speaker, or a non-native with a proficient level of English, then you have a fluent command of the language. Therefore,due to your familiarity with communicating in the language, you may have forgotten the basic strategies that are needed for holding a meaningful conversation. This is a common situation for many English teachers who often give their students a single topic to discuss, and then let them run free and unhindered. This can often be problematic if the students have no concept of how to conduct an effective conversation.

In order to avoid common conversational problems, and to maintain fluency, it is essential to present important foundational elements such as, how to assert opinions, ask questions and use follow-up questions to keep a discussion moving in the right direction.

Before starting a conversational lesson, put these practices into effect as a class.

Ask questions and give assertions

·         Walk around the room and ask students what their favorite food is. This will serve as the introduction to asking questions.

·         They may say “hamburgers” or “Sandwiches”. Now you will use this as the stimulant for asserting opinions.

·         For example, one student may say, “Hamburgers.” You will then respond, “Oh, I like hamburgers too, but without lettuce or ketchup”.

·         Explain how you asserted your opinion, and then move on to the next student. After a few repetitions, they will see how asserting an opinion works.

Follow-up Questions

·         Once your students have seen how to ask questions and assert their opinions, you can show them how to approach follow-up questions.

·         Explain how follow-up questions keep a conversation moving forward in an appropriate manner.

·         Going back to the previous example about different kinds of hamburgers, you can include a few follow-up questions like, “Do you like tomato?” or “Where is the best hamburger shop in the area?”

·         Explain how one simple question that relates to someone’s favorite food can be the foundation for asking and talking about places, other foods and personal preferences.

Pouring a solid foundation for conversational English strategies will help build confidence, and it allows your students to see the basic elements of a discussion.

Once the presentation stage is complete, let students ask you about your favorite foods following the same foundational format.

Make Fluency the Primary Priority

Achieving fluency is vital when teaching conversational English. However, many teachers are so bent on perfection that they continuely interrupt their students discussions under the guise of making “Necessary comments and corrections”. This drive for perfection is guaranteed to fail for the reasons that it destroys a students confidence to speak, and the constant interuptions prevents fluency.

An important rule when teaching and practicing conversation is for the teacher to make balanced comments and corrections. Students will inescapably get mixed up, they will pronounce words poorly or they may even struggle to find the right word to say. As tough as it may sound, limiting your corrections is essential to your students’ growth. Let them talk, let them gain confidence and with this, their fluency will flourish.

Here are a some tips and strategies for making fluency the number one priority.

·         Once you have presented the topic of the conversation, keep them talking for as long as possible. Remember, fight your urges to interrupt and let your students fly free.

·         If a student is having problems with a particular word or a word’s pronunciation, make a note and discuss it after the activity, or even in the next class.

·         You can also encourage the students to correct each other during pair conversation. You may even find that students are naturally correcting one another without you having to even give them guidance or instructions. Peer correction an essential part of conversation between a native speaker and non-native speaker, such as finishing each other’s sentences. This is a practice that should be encouraged!

·         Once the conversation activity is completed, you can then give some helpful feedback and proactive comments in a manner that is supporting and non-critical.
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Let Students control the Conversation

Letting your students choose their conversation topic on their own, as a group or in pairs, is an excellent way for keeping discussion lively and interesting for them.

One way is to use the opening question “What do you do. . .?”  to help students discover similar interests that they may share. You can also have students write down a few topics that they are interested in talking about and let them work it out once they are paired up with a suitable partner.

You start by having students write down things they like and dislike. This method also allows students to develop other multiple skills such as writing, reading and grammar. Plus, it gives them a chance to brainstorm their conversation, so that they are able to plan what to say and how to say it.

One student may find a topic of interest that was written by another student and begin with discussion openers like, “Why do you like playing football?” or “I didn’t know you were interested in ballroom dancing”

No matter which conversational English strategy you utilize, letting your students guide the conversation is a win-win situation for everyone. You will find your students speaking more fluently, and enthusiastically.

Get Your Students Moving

Get your students up, get them moving, get them mingling, just like we do in a plethora of different, real life social situations. Set them in pairs, agree upon subjects, but, every five minutes or so, get them to change partners and start again. This method is guaranteed to prevent a conversation from going stale.

Below are a series of techniques, tips, games and challenges which I have successfully utilized in my classes for many years. Whilst you may have heard of some of them, I hope that you find something new that you could utilize with your students.

The Coffee House Method

Native English speakers have purposeful conversations every day of their lives, the same as our students do in their own native language. Most of these interactions happen in a face-to-face scenario, like meeting a friend for coffee and cake or maybe when having lunch with family.

Basically, conversational English revolves around pair or group  interaction, a situation that you as a teacher can recreate in your classroom through a variety of different activities..

The best way to establishing the coffee house method is to make it as close to real life as possible, whether this means completely transforming your classroom into a coffee shop or by bringing in a few coffee cups and cookies and just having an informal “cuppa and chat”.

Once the coffee house environment is set up, explain to your students that this activity is exactly the same as they would experience if they had coffee with friends or family in their native language, but just in English.

·         First, to set the mood for the activity, transform your classroom into a coffee house. This can be done as a class, or you can have it completed before your students arrive.

·         Next, pair your students up. It is best to choose students with similar interests before you start as this will encourage a more fluent conversation.

·         Once in pairs, let the coffee house talk begin. Give Student One and Student Two cups of coffee and guide them through the conversation. For example, tell Student One that Student Two has just started work as a ________. Or for kids and teens, the base topic could be sports, homework, school or even world events. As an alternative, you could get your students to submit subjects for consideration.

·         Let the conversation move naturally and jump in with a contributing question, or statement when it slows down, or stalls completely

After a specified period of time, say 10 minutes, change the students into different pairs or groups in order to add new life into the activity.

The picnic method.

The Picnic Method is similiar to the Coffee House Method with the exception that coffee is replaced with soda, juice, cookies, cake etc, and can be held not only in the classroom, but also in the school yard or even in a public park. For obvious reasons, the picnic method is far more suitable for young children and teens who may not be allowed to drink coffee.

Classroom games and challenges

Who's Telling the Truth? 

Have each student write three facts about themselves that nobody in the class knows on a piece of paper. Make sure each student includes their name on the top of the paper.  Collect the sheets of paper and bring three students to the front of the room. Read aloud one of the facts that is true for one of the students in the front of the room. The class then proceeds to question the students in an attempt to determine who is telling the truth, and who is lying. Each student is allowed to ask one question to one of the three students. After a round of questioning, the students predict who is telling the truth.

Descriptive drawing

Put students in pairs and give each of them a picture which they must not show to their partner. Next, one at a time, they must describe the picture for their partner to draw. Finally, get each student to compare the picture that they drew to the original picture.

Debates

Give each student a piece of paper with “agree” written on one side, and “disagree” on the other side. Read aloud a controversial statement, and have each students hold up their paper stating whether they agree or disagree. Next, the teacher must choose one student from each side to explain their position and to participate in a short debate. This is an excellent activity for either expanding the subject and vocabulary from the unit of a book, or, to introduce new subjects.

Impromptu presentations

Split the class into two teams, Next, write impromptu speaking topics on blank pieces of paper or cards. Have each student, one by one, choose a topic card and respond without preparation. Each student must speak continuously for 45 seconds until the teacher yells out "stop."  Whilst each student is speaking, the other team members should listens for any hesitation, grammatical mistakes or vocabulary mistakes. If the other team can correctly identify an error, they get a bonus point.

Two Truths, One Lie

Each student should write three facts about themselves on a piece of paper. Two of the facts should be the truth, and one should be a lie. Students read aloud the facts, and give the other students a chance to question them and decide which statement is a lie.

Whats your secret?

What’s your secret is a pair activity that involves the whole class. In this game, which is a style of investigative journalist, each student writes a secret down on a piece of paper, things like: “I dance ballet.” or “I have 12 cousins.” The papers are placed in a hat or a box and each student draws one out: that’s where the game begins.

What’s your secret? can either be played by allowing students to walk about the classroom freely or by setting up a speed dating scenario, where each pair has 1 minute to speak before rotating. Students may ask one another yes/no questions—they may not ask directly if what’s on the piece of paper is true about them or not.

Students then must guess to whom the secret they drew belongs.

Teach the class

Teach a class is a fun activity for advanced level students. In this activity, you assign each pair of students a grammar, vocabulary or cultural point that they must teach to the class. The pair works together to prepare activities and lesson plans and then they teach the point to the class.

When the pair teaches the class, the teacher should play the role of a student, and afterwards, evaluate the lesson once they have finished.

Well, I hope that you find these ideas and suggestions helpful in your class. Remember, fluency and confidence, are to a major degree, more important for our students than structural perfection. Include activities that allow your students to fly free without restriction, fear or stress, because when you do, you will find that not only will they participate more enthusiastically, but they achieve a far higher proficiency in English.