This post describes a speech activity for elementary school students (grades 5 and 6) in EFL classrooms. Speeches offer a simple way for students to practice writing and speaking. It is especially effective if students are encouraged to perform the speech from memory along with it being counted toward some kind of grade. This motivates them to work hard on the speech prior to them performing it. My experience is based on working in South Korean elementary schools, hence this speech activity is related to the way South Korean elementary school textbooks are structured, where each chapter is built around a main dialogue of some kind.
Basic Elements
This post relates to students who know very little English. One may think that such a situation means that students would be incapable of creating and performing their own speech. However, by pre-teaching some of the dialogue and target language, along with offering some scaffolding, any student, regardless of their English level, can become capable of performing a speech. The scaffolding can come in the form of a speech model. One can base the model on the main dialogue of the chapter in question, for example the dialogue may be:
A: What’s your favourite season?
B: My favourite season is spring.
A: Why do you like spring?
B: Because I can see many beautiful flowers.
(Taken from Daekyo 2014 Grade 6 Chapter 11)
One will notice that ‘why’ and ‘because’ are important language points in the dialogue, hence, a speech could be built around those points. It would also be useful for the model to include language that the students already know, or language that is not too difficult for them. Such a speech might look something like this:
Hello, my name is Steve. Today, I will talk about my favourite sport. My favourite sport is soccer. I like soccer because I like to score goals and because I can exercise. My favourite soccer team is Liverpool. Thank you for listening.
A model would simply blank out each variable part of the speech, for example:
Hello, my name is __________. Today, I will talk about my favourite _________. My favourite __________ is __________. I like __________ because ____________________ and because ______________. __________________________. Thank you for listening
With the language of the model being quite simple, students can easily understand the meaning of each sentence. And with some repetitive choral drills, the teacher can easily teach students how to pronounce each sentence appropriately. The blanked out sentence prior to "Thank you for listening" is a ‘free sentence’ to challenge students to create their own sentences. It can be excluded, or more could be added depending on student ability. This is one way to expand or contract the length of the speech.
Lesson Procedure
Prior to starting this speech activity, I teach students the target language of the chapter in question, which includes the basic vocabulary and dialogue. After about 3 or 4 lessons, when students are comfortable with the vocab and dialogue, I move onto the speech. I start off by showing the students an example speech (like the one above), then I show the model with blanks, and then get the students to write out their own speeches. The main difficulty for the students are the blanks that they have to fill in. Depending on the speech, the blanks may require language that the students do not know, in which case the teacher would need to help the students out. I have Korean-English dictionaries which are sometimes helpful in this regard, or, if available, Google translate is also useful. On the other hand, the blanks may require language that the students have previously learnt, which will make the speech much easier for the students to make. However, the point of a speech is to make it somewhat personal to each student, meaning that they will need to use language that they may not have learnt previously. In this way, a speech offers students the opportunity to learn new language that applies to them personally and which is beyond what they learn in the textbook.
Once the speeches are written, I check each one for any language errors (including grammar, spelling, etc), and then get students to memorise the entire speech. This takes about 1 or 2 lessons. Once I feel that the students are ready and that every student will be able to perform a successful speech, I then dedicate a lesson to them performing their speeches in front of the class where I assess them. If some students can't read English, I get them to write the speech out in their own language, i.e. they write the English pronunciation of the speech in their own language. This isn't ideal, but at least they end up performing the speech in front of the class, which I think is an important skill to practice.
Assessment
A speech like this would take approximately 20 seconds for students to complete and can be assessed in various ways. The way I assess speeches has changed over the years. I'm sure there are better ways, but currently I give students a score out of 10, but importantly I start each student with a score of 10, and then subtract a point every time I notice a mistake of some sort. For example, if a student speaks to slow or too fast I would subtract a point. I also add points if students do something that I think is good. For example, I would add a point if a student has a PowerPoint presentation along with their speech, or if they speak with an incredibly good fluency and intonation. Indeed, it has happened that a student has achieved a grade of 12 out of 10 in my class.
In Conclusion
Speeches, or any tasks that involve language that is unique to the textbook, are where a foreign teacher can excel in teaching English in a non-English speaking country. It is the case that English textbooks are structured in such a way that the English content is presented in a formulaic way, and is easy to assess because of the fixed language content. Therefore, anyone, despite not knowing much about English, will be able to ‘teach’ it. However, if one can bring in unique language that only a person who can speak English will understand, and importantly be able to assess, and as long as the new language isn’t beyond the students ability, then teachers who do this are really teaching English at a level beyond not only the textbook, but also beyond what the local non-English-speaking teachers around them are able to teach. This is one place where the value of a native speaker of English lies. Don't teach the textbook only, go beyond it.
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