Speaking involves the vocalized production of language in real time through the use of the speech organs. It is the hardest of the four language skills due to the limited time for planning. Speaking requires conceptualizing ideas, formulating them syntactically and lexically, articulating sounds, self-monitoring, and employing fluency strategies like pausing, fillers and prefabricated language chunks. Fluency depends on factors like number of syllables between pauses and use of strategies rather than constructing utterances from scratch. Speaking also involves turn-taking rules and knowledge of genres, contexts, paralinguistics and sociocultural norms.
2. What is Speaking?
• Speech is the vocalized form of human
communication
• Speech production takes places in real time
and it is linear, i.e. utterance by utterance.
• Planning is severly limited, therefore, it is the
hardest of all four skills.
4. ! Note that:
• In English, utterances tend to have a two-part
structure:
Topic + comment
5. Articulation
• It involves the use of the organs of speech to
produce sounds.
• Sounds are produced in a continuous stream,
some sounds merge with others. Handbag,
baked beans
• Continual changes in loudness, pitch direction,
tempo and pausing serve to organize the
sounds into meaninful words and utterances.
• Proficients speakers produce 15 phonemes a
second.
6. Self-monitoring & repair
• It is a process that happens concurrently with
the stages of conceptualization, formulation
and articulation.
• Self-monitoring may result in a slowing down,
pausing and backtracking or rephrasing of an
utterance.
9. ! Note that:
Being under pressure or tired will affect a
speaker’s performance
10. ! Note that:
• Speaking is like any other skill such as driving
or playing a musical instrument: the more you
practice, the more likely you are to be able to
chunk small units into larger ones.
11. Fluency
• Is fluency the ability to speak fast?
• It’s not only about speed, but pausing is
equally important.
• However, frequent pausing is a sure sign of a
struggling speaker.
• Natural sounding pauses| are those that occur
at the ontersection of clauses, | or after groups
of words that form a meaningful unit.|
12. Fluency
Another factor in the
perception of fluency is the
lenght of the run (number of
syllables between pauses)
Race-callers and auctioners
rather than constructing
from scratch,use
prefabricated chunks
Pause fillers: uh, um, er
Repeats
• Long runs
• Use of
prefabricated
chunks
• Production
strategies
13. Interaction and turn-taking
• Sometimes, a face-to-face dialogue is involved
in speaking.
• Turn-taking is negotiated because speakers
are familiar with the rules and skills of turn-
taking. Two rules are to be followed:
Long silences are to be avoided
Listen when other speakers are speaking
14. Discourse markers
• That reminds me. (I’m continuing with the same topic)
• By the way… (I’m indicating a topic change)
• Well, anyway.. (I’m returning to the topic)
• Like I say… (I’m repeating what I said before)
• Yes, but.. (I’m indicating a difference of opinion)
• Yes, no I know.. (I’m indicating agreement with a negative
idea)
• Uh-huh… (I’m listening)
16. Genre knowledge
By its purpose:
• Transactional: for the purpose of conveying or exchanging
specific information
• Interpersonal: For the purpose of maintaining social
relationships
By its interaction:
• Non-inteactive or interactive
By its planning:
• Planned or unplanned
