Teaching Speaking Skills: Best Activities to Promote Speaking

Introduction S peaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998, p. 13). Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues. Today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance. What Is "Teaching Speaking"? According to Nunan (2003), what is meant by "teaching speaking" is to teach ESL learners to: Produce English speech sounds and sound patterns. Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm o…