Teaching speaking #1 – Conversational routines (Cambridge Conversations)
[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 5 | February 8, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]
The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second-language or foreign-language learners. Consequently, learners often evaluate their success in language learning, as well as the effectiveness of their English course, on the basis of how much they feel they have improved in their spoken language proficiency.
Oral skills have hardly been neglected in EFL/ESL courses (witness the huge number of conversation and other speaking course books in the market), though how best to approach the teaching of oral skills has long been the focus of methodological debate. Teachers and textbooks make use of a variety of approaches, ranging from direct approaches focusing on specific features of oral interaction (e.g., turn-taking, topic management, and questioning strategies) to indirect approaches that create conditions for oral interaction through group work, task work, and other strategies (Richards, 1990).