MATERIALS FOR DEVELOPING

SPEAKING SKILLS
Nisa Nuranisa
Suryadi
Dini
 CONTENT
 INTRODUCTION
 OVERVIEW
 A RATIONALE FOR EFFECTIVE MATERIALS FOR
SPEAKING SKILLS
 EVALUATING MATERIALS FOR SPEAKING SKILLS
 ASPECS THAT DESERVE MORE ATTENTION
 CONCLUSION
 OVERVIEW
 SETTING THE SCENE: SPEAKING SKILLS AND THE
NEED FOR RELEVANT MATERIALS
speaking skills are best developed when learners learn to eventually take control of their own performance
from an insider perspective (e.g. from the learner), rather than being constantly dictated by external
manipulation (e.g. by the teacher).

Second language materials, as viewed by Tomlinson ( 2010 , 2011 ), should be created not only by writers
but also by teachers and learners, in a creative process which stretches to the real classroom

teaching communication should be seen as a process rather than a set of products (Tomlinson & Nunan)
 OVERVIEW
 METHODOLOGICAL TRENDS

• the learning of linguistic systems

1960S • Structural Approach

• witnessed a ‘communicative revolution’

1970S

• multidimensional syllabus
• to build on a range of communicative criteria at the same time as acknowledging the need to provide
1990S systematic practice in the formal proprieties of the language’. (McDonough & Shaw)
 OVERVIEW
 TRENDS IN MATERIALS FOR SPEAKING SKILLS
STREAMLINE INTERCHANGE LANGUAGE IN USE
ENGLISH

Lesson 6: A Nice Flat Book 3, Activity ‘Same or Different?’ in Unit Activity 1 of Unit 3: Talking about Places (see
(see Figure 20.1 ) 12 (Richards, Hull and Proctor, 1991) students Figure 20.2 ) invites learners to look at a
students are asked to are provided with several sets of pictures picture of five different doors and imagine
describe a room from a depicting different object items and invited to the rooms behind them. Since there are no
given picture. There is discover how these items differ by asking each right or wrong answers, students are
no freedom of choice other questions. This activity utilizes the encouraged to process meanings from their
and hardly any peer decoding and encoding of information gaps, own experiences and perspectives. Besides
interaction involved in which encourages students to exchange factual providing freedom of choice, this material
this task since all data. There is still no freedom of choice but at takes learners beyond the level of
information comes least learners are given the opportunity to information gap into two new areas:
directly from the same interact for a purpose. There are two different reasoning gap, which involves deriving data
visual. Every learner roles to perform: information seeker and by inference and perception, and opinion
performs the same role. information provider. gap, which encourages personal feelings and
attitudes.
A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPING
MATERIALS FOR SPOKEN LANGUAGE
CONCEPTUALIZING LEARNER NEEDS
Involving learners

TRANSLATING NEEDS TO SUBJECT MATTERE AND COMMUNICATION SITUATIONS

IDENTIFYING VERBAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES

Designing tasks Practical devices

UTILIZING VERBAL SOURCES FROM REAL LIFE

Exercises Real life communication situations

DESIGNING SKILL ACQUIRING TASKS

 A RATIONALE FOR EFFECTIVE MATERIALS FOR
SPEAKING SKILLS
 Effective materials for oral communication should enable
learners to actively :
1) share and process information,
2) control meanings,
3) choose how to participate,
4) utilize affectivity,
5) utilize individual knowledge,
6) become aware of ellipsis in spoken language, and
7) move beyond the Initiation-Respond-Feedback model.
 EVALUATING MATERIALS FOR
SPEAKING SKILLS
 Linguistic support -Do the materials provide appropriate and suffi cient
linguistic input? Do the materials help students get familiar with many
characteristics of spoken language?
 Content-based and affective support – Do the materials satisfy learners with
moments of inspiration, imagination, creativity and cultural sensibilities? Do
the materials contain visuals that inspire and support verbal learning?
 Skills support – Do speaking activities give students opportunities to both
share and process information? Is the language presented and organized to
effectively facilitate verbal discussion in chunks of speech?
 Diversity and flexibility – Are the materials fl exible enough to serve more
than one type of learning style, profi ciency, maturity and interest?
 Utilizing research trends –What view on methodology is implied in the
materials and how does it refl ect recent SLA theories on speaking skills
development? (see Burns and Hill, 2013 ; Timmis, 2013 )
 ASPECTS THAT DESERVE MORE ATTENTION
 The Need for Reflection of Learner Identity
 One important ingredient of high-quality materials as highlighted by Bassano
and Christison (1987) is the opportunity for learners to remain themselves in
the new language because being allowed to be who you are, as Johnson ( 2011 )
suggests, gives learners comfort in learning.

 The Need for Cultural Localization of Materials

 One way to check whether the materials are culturally appropriate and
effective is to ask oneself such questions as: Will the learners be able to relate
the content of the materials to their own situations and experiences in ways
that are meaningful and interesting to them? What are the most signifi cant
issues in the society where our learners live? What are the most important
values and beliefs embedded within their everyday life? Scholarly insights have
been proposed for addressing the above problems.
 CONCLUSION
 The nature of communication reproduced in many current course
materials is often far less complex than life, perhaps because simplifi ed
language is easy to design – into activities that are easy to teach.
However, it should be a never-ending responsibility of material writers
to form a habit of reconsidering what has been written.
 Developing materials in a second language is an ongoing, long-term
process which involves strategizing in the writer’s offi ce, applying to
classroom action, and modifying on the grounds of real experiences and
real contexts of use. No matter how thoughtfully the material may be
planned, it should be always open to some degree of writer-user
interaction for further revision. This can be done by constantly observing
real-life situations, comparing them with our scripted materials to
highlight new features and new skills required for learners to operate
more effectively in unpredictable communication.