1. Teaching Speaking.
Speaking is a fundamental human behavior which consists basically of producing
systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning. In the context of first language
acquisition it is an ability learnt by children quite quickly and without formal
instruction, unlike reading and writing. Indeed, for most people it is easy to
communicate orally in their mother tongue but when learning a second language the
scenario changes drastically when it comes to speaking. This essay will cover the main
issues related to learning speaking as well as techniques useful to overcome the issues
when teaching this productive oral skill considered the most difficult one from Bailey’s
(2004) , and Brown’s (2001) perspective. (Written by Valeska Soto)
Firstly for both authors, speaking is always taught and learnt with one main purpose:
Communication. But in order to communicate both authors agree that speaking
implicates more than mastering and putting together sounds, words and grammar patters
of an L2 . The sociolinguistic appropriateness (Brown, 2001) or the sociolinguistic
competence (Bailey, 2004) plays an important role because speakers must also have the
ability to use the language appropriately in various contexts to communicate efficiently.
According to Bailey (2004) this competence goes together with the linguistic
competence (sounds, words and grammar), the strategic competence (language
strategies learners use to compensate for gaps in skills or knowledge) and discourse
competence (cohesion and coherence) giving as a result a broader idea of
communicative competence. (Written by Valeska Soto)
They are different teaching techniques for teaching speaking. Bailey (2004) mentions
one that is the Audio lingual method, which speaking is taught by having students
repeat sentences and recite memorized dialogues from the textbook. This method is
designed to familiarize students with the sounds and structural patterns of the language.
Lessons followed the sequence of presentation, practice, and production. So people
assumed that with this method, students learn to speak by practicing grammatical
stricter. On the other hand, Brown (2001) mentions that this method that he called,
“imitative” is part of the communicative language in the classroom. Of course you do
not need to repeat everything, but drilling or repetition helps students to listen some
forms of language that are difficult to understand. (Written by Stephanie Aedo)

2. In a different vein, Bailey (2004) and Brown (2001) argue that balancing accuracy
(clear, articulate, grammatically and phonetically correct language) and fluency
(flowing and natural language) is a complex issue for learners. Brown (2001) claims
that fluency cannot be prioritized over accuracy and accuracy cannot be prioritized over
fluency because the two are clearly important to pursue in communicative language
learning. On the other hand, Bailey (2004) suggests that teachers must understand that
in students at non proficient levels accuracy and fluency often work against each other
since applying rules and vocabulary slow learners’ speech making it dysfluent,
Likewise, fast speakers do not hesitate to apply the rules they have learnt so their
number of errors may increase in their speech. (Written by Valeska Soto)
According to Bailey (2004) speaking happens in real time, and you cannot edit and
revise what you would like to say, so the 2 authors agree that speaking is one of the
most difficult skills. Even though Brown and Bailey argue in accuracy and fluency,
Bailey (2004) thinks that in order to communicate well in other language we must make
ourselves understood, by the people we are speaking with and this is not an easy task
especially for beginners and intermediate levels. So the main difference here, between
the 2 authors is that both of them argue in the fact that L2 students need to communicate
and make themselves understood by other people, even if they do not manage a good
accuracy and fluency (Written by Stephanie Aedo)
Bailey (2004) argues that another important issue that makes learning speaking difficult
is that the same utterance can carry completely different meanings as well as diverse
utterances can actually mean the same; in other words, a form can have different
functions and a function can have different forms. Therefore, it is important for teachers
to be aware of functions of language (also known as speech acts) so students can learn
the appropriate ways to accomplish their goals when they are speaking. Brown (2001)
agrees that is important to focus on the forms and functions of language adding that in
teaching oral communication teacher must not limit students’ attention to the whole
picture, instead they must also help students to see the pieces of language that make the
whole. Thus language students need to be shown the details of how to convey and
negotiate the ever-elusive meaning of language. (Written by Valeska Soto)

3. One of the teaching techniques that is mentioned by both authors is to give students
opportunities to initiate oral communication. Brown (2001) says that is a very good way
of classroom interaction because here is not only the teacher speaking, but also students
are able to initiate a conversation. On the other hand, Bailey (2004) mentions the idea of
providing opportunities for students to talk by using group or pair work, and limiting the
teacher talk. Even though some students are not very keen on doing this, because they
do not have the confidence enough to talk in an L2 with a classmate, this helps students
to give feedback to each other and also to correct each other when they make mistakes,
and you can actually work with developing 2 skills which is listening and speaking.
(Written by Stephanie Aedo)
On the other hand, whereas Bailey (2004) focuses on teachers understanding and
mastering the components of spoken language such as phonology, morphology, syntax
and discourse in order to help students overcome the issues mentioned before; Brown
(2001) moves towards affective factors arguing that it is teachers’ job to provide a
warm, embracing climate that encourages students to speak in spite of how halting or
broken their attempts may be because of the major obstacles learners have to overcome
is learning to speak is, in fact, the anxiety generated over the risks of saying something
wrong, stupid or incomprehensible. (Written by Valeska Soto)
Teaching speaking is very hard because most of the time students do not understand the
meaning of the words. Bailey and Brown agree that the main problem when teaching
speaking is letting the students speak in their L1 language and also when the teacher is
the one that speaks in L1. According to Brow (2001) when this happens students may
found difficult to understand some words like colloquial language in L2, idioms,
clustering etc, because they do not have the necessary techniques to be able to speak a
different language, and Bailey (2004) says that is only necessary to use the L1 to
communicate with the children when there are starting to learn the language or they are
in a beginners class. Of course not many teachers use this because we can see that in
some advance classes teachers and students use their L1 to communicate with each
other. (Written by Stephanie Aedo)

4. As a conclusion it can be said that both authors have different views in the way that
teachers should teach speaking in a classroom. They believed that speaking should be a
way of communication and also they agree that is one of the most difficult skills to
teach and kids are not very keen on learning this skill mainly because they find this hard
and also they are probably ashamed on not speaking well in public or even in front of
their friends. They are many useful techniques to teach speaking, but the main one is to
give confidence to the students when they are try to speak, and encourage them to
continue practicing. Also is not recommended to embarrass your students if they are
not able to speak well. So it can be said that for many students speaking is the hardest
skill to develop, but with different teaching techniques students may be able to speak,
and to get confident in this skill. (written by Stephanie aedo )

5. References.
Bailey, K. M. (2004). Practical English Language Teaching: Speaking. D. Nunan (Ed.).
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language
pedagogy. New York, NY: Longman.