Teaching Speaking

The entry starts with a definition of speaking ability in order to identify components of speaking that learners will need to acquire to become successful speakers. Six types of knowledge, ranging from lexical knowledge to knowledge about problem solving in speaking, are identified. Alongside these types of knowledge, a learner must master the accompanying skills to access the knowledge fast as speaking is a skill that must always be performed under time pressure. The entry then exemplifies how certain types of activities would foster speaking and what the role of the teacher in these activities would be. Finally, the methods of teaching speaking are situated in influential models of second language acquisition and it is shown how these theories reflect the two perspectives of “speaking to learn” and “learning to speak.”