Developing Classroom Speaking Activities;
From Theory to PracticeJack C Richards
The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second or foreign
language learners. Learners consequently often evaluate their success in language
learning as well as the effectiveness of their English course on the basis of how wellthey feel they have improved in their spoken language proficiency. Oral skills have
hardly been neglected in EFL/ESL courses (witness the huge number of conversationand other speaking course books in the market) though how best to approach theteaching 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,questioning strategies ) to indirect approaches which create conditions for oralinteraction through group work, task work and other strategies (Richards 1990).
Advances in discourse analysis, conversational analysis, and corpus analysis inrecent years have revealed a great deal about the nature of spoken discourse andhow it differs from written discourse (McCarthy and Carter 1997). These differencesreflect the different purposes for which spoken and written language are used. Jones(1996,12) comments:
In speaking and listening we tend to be getting something done, exploringideas, working out some aspect of the world, or simply being together. In
writing we may be creating a record, committing events or moments to paper.
Research has also thrown considerable light on the complexity of spoken interactionin either a first or second language. Luoma (2004) for example, cites some of thefollowing features of spoken discourse:•••••••

Composed of idea units (conjoined short phrases and clauses)
May be planned (e.g. a lecture) or unplanned (e.g. a conversation)
Employs more vague or generic words than written language
Employs fixed phrases, fillers and hesitation markers
Contains slips and errors reflecting on-line processing
Involved reciprocity (i.e. interactions are jointly constructed)
Shows variation (e.g. between formal and casual speech), reflecting speaker
roles, speaking purpose, and the context1

In designing speaking activities or instructional materials for second or foreign
language teaching it is also necessary to recognize the very different functions
speaking performs in daily communication and the different purposes for which ourstudents need speaking skills.

Functions of speaking
Numerous attempts have been made to classify the functions of speaking in humaninteraction. Brown and Yule (1983) made a useful distinction between theinteractional functions of speaking (in which it serves to establish and maintain socialrelations), and the transactional functions (which focus on the exchange ofinformation). In workshops with teachers and in designing my own materials I use
an expanded three part version of Brown and Yule’s framework (after Jones 1996and Burns 1998): talk as interaction: talk as transaction: talk as performance. Eachof these speech activities are quite distinct in terms of form and function and requiredifferent teaching approaches.
1. Talk as interaction
This refers to what we normally mean by “conversation” and describes interaction
which serves a primarily social function. When people meet, they exchange greetings,
engage in small talk and chit chat, recount recent experiences and so on because
they wish to be friendly and to establish a comfortable zone of interaction withothers. The focus is more on the speakers and how they wish to present themselves
to each other than on the message. Such exchanges may be either casual or moreformal depending on the circumstances and their nature has been well described byBrown and Yule (1983). The main features of talk as interaction can be summarized
as follows:
•••••
•••
•

Has a primarily social function
Reflects role relationships
Reflects speaker’s identityMay be formal or casual
Uses conversational conventions
Reflect degrees of politeness
Employs many generic words
Uses conversational register
Is jointly constructed2

Some of the skills involved in using talk as interaction are:
••
•
••
•
•
•

Opening and closing conversations
Choosing topics
Making small-talk
Recounting personal incidents and experiences
Turn-taking
Using adjacency-pairs
Interrupting
Reacting to others

Examples of these kinds of talk are:
Chatting to an adjacent passenger during a plane flight (polite conversation that
does not seek to develop the basis for future social contact)
Chatting to a school friend over coffee (casual conversation that serves to mark an
ongoing friendship)
A student chatting to his or her professor while waiting for an elevator (polite
conversation that reflects unequal power between the two participants)
Telling a friend about an amusing weekend experience, and hearing her or him
recount a similar experience he or she once had (sharing personal recounts)
Mastering the art of talk as interaction is difficult and may not be a priority for all
learners. However students who do need such skills and find them lacking report thatthey sometimes feel awkward and at a loss for words when they find themselves insituation that requires talk for interaction. They feel difficulty in presenting a good
image of themselves and sometimes avoid situations which call for this kind of talk.
This can be a disadvantage for some learners where the ability to use talk forconversation can be important.
2. Talk as transaction
This type of talk refers to situations where the focus is on what is said or done. The
message is the central focus here and making oneself understood clearly andaccurately, rather than the participants and how they interact socially with eachother. In transactions,…. talk is associated with other activities. For example, students may beengaged in hand-on activities [e.g. in a science lesson] to explore concepts
associated with floating and sinking. In this type of spoken language students
and teachers usually focus on meaning or on talking their way to understanding.
Jones 1996, 14Burns distinguishes between two different types of talk as transaction. One issituations where the focus is on giving and receiving information and where theparticipants focus primarily on what is said or achieved (e.g. asking someone for the3time). Accuracy may not be a priority as long as information is successfullycommunicated or understood.
The second type are transactions which focus on obtaining goods or services, such as
checking into a hotel.
Examples of these kinds of talk are:Classroom group discussions and problem solving activities.
A class activity during which students design a poster.
Discussing needed repairs to a computer with a technician
Discussing sightseeing plans with a hotel clerk or tour guide
Making a telephone call to obtain flight information .
Asking someone for directions on the street.
Buying something in a shop
Ordering food from a menu in a restaurant.
The main features of talk as transaction are:
•••
•
••

It has a primarily information focus
The main focus is the message and not the participantsParticipants employ communication strategies to make themselves
understood
There may be frequent questions, repetitions, and comprehension checks
There may be negotiation and digression
Linguistic accuracy is not always important

Some of the skills involved in using talk for transactions are:•••••••••

Explaining a need or intention
Describing something
Asking questioning
Confirming information
Justifying an opinion
Making suggestions
Clarifying understanding
Making comparisons
Agreeing and disagreeing

3. Talk as performance
The third type of talk which can usefully be distinguished has been called talk asperformance. This refers to public talk, that is, talk which transmits information
before an audience such as morning talks, public announcements, and speeches.

4Spoken texts of this kind according to Jones (1996,14),…often have identifiable generic structures and the language used is morepredictable.
…Because of less contextual support, the speaker must include all necessary
information in the text – hence the importance of topic as well as textual
knowledge.
And while meaning is still important, there will be more emphasis on form andaccuracy.
Talk as performance tends to be in the form of monolog rather than dialog, often
follows a recognizable format (e.g. a speech of welcome) and is closer to written
language than conversational language. Similarly it is often evaluated according toits effectiveness or impact on the listener, something which is unlikely to happen
with talk as interaction or transaction. Examples of talk as performance are:Giving a class report about a school trip
Conducting a class debate
Giving a speech of welcome
Making a sales presentation
Giving a lecture
The main features of talk as performance are:
••
•
•
•

There is a focus on both message and audience
It reflects organization and sequencing
Form and accuracy is important
Language is more like written language
It is often monologic

Some of the skills involved in using talk as performance are:
••••
•••

Using an appropriate format
Presenting information in an appropriate sequence
Maintaining audience engagement
Using correct pronunciation and grammar
Creating an effect on the audience
Using appropriate vocabulary
Using appropriate opening and closing

Teachers sometimes describe interesting differences between how learners manage
these three different kinds of talk, as the following anecdotes illustrate.
I sometimes find with my students at a university in Hong Kong, that they are goodat talk as transaction and performance but not with talk as interaction. For example
the other day one of my students did an excellent class presentation in a course forcomputer science majors, and described very effectively a new piece of computer
software. However a few days later when I met the same student going home on thesubway and tried to engage her in social chat, she was at a complete loss for words.

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Another teacher describes a second language user with just the opposite difficulties.
He is more comfortable with talk as interaction than as performance.
One of my colleagues in my university in China is quite comfortable using talksocially. If we have lunch together with other native speakers he is quite comfortablejoking and chatting in English. However recently we did a presentation together at aconference and his performance was very different. His pronunciation became much
more “Chinese” and he made quite a few grammatical and other errors that I hadn’t
heard him make before.

Implications for teachingThree core issues need to be addressed in planning speaking activities for an oral
English course. The first is to determine what kinds of speaking skills the course will
focus on. Is it all three of the genres described above or will some receive greaterattention than others. Informal needs analysis is the starting point here. Proceduresfor determining needs include observation of learners carrying out different kinds ofcommunicative tasks, questionnaires, interviews, and diagnostic testing (e.g. Tsangand Wong 2002). The second issues is identifying teaching strategies to “teach” (i.e.
provide opportunities for learners to acquire) each kind of talk.
Talk as interaction is perhaps the most difficult skill to teach since interactional talkis a very complex as well as subtle phenomena that takes place under the control of“unspoken” rules. In my experience these are best taught thought providing
examples embedded in naturalistic dialogs that can serve to model features such as
opening and closing conversations, making small talk, recounting personal incidents
and experiences, and reacting to what others say. For example to practice reacting
to what others say, students can be given a dialog in which listener reactions such as“really”, “is that right”, “wow”, “that’s interesting” have been omitted. Students workin pairs to add them to the dialog, practice the dialog with the reactions, thenpractice a different dialog, this time adding their own reactions. Another technique topractice using conversation starters and personal recounts involves giving
conversation starters which students have to respond to by asking one or two followup questions. For example, “I didn’t sleep very well last night”. “Look what I bought
on Sunday. How do you like it?” “Did that thunderstorm last night wake you?”.
Talk as transaction is more easily planned since current communicative materials area rich resource of group activities, information-gap activities and role plays that can6

provide a source for practicing how to use talk for sharing and obtaining information
as well as for carrying out real-world transactions. These activities include ranking
activities, values clarification activities, brainstorming, and simulations. Groupdiscussion activities can be initiated by having students work in groups to prepare a
short list of controversial statements for others to think about. Groups exchange
statements and discuss them. For example: “Schools should do away with exams”.
“Vegetarianism is the only healthy life style”. “The Olympic games are a waste ofmoney.” Role-play activities are another familiar technique for practicing real worldtransactions and typically involve the following sequence of activities:•••

Preparing: reviewing vocabulary, real world knowledge related to the content
and context of the role play (e.g. returning a faulty item to a store)
Modeling and eliciting: demonstrating the stages that are typically involved in
the transaction, eliciting suggestions for how each stage can be carried out,
and teaching the functional language need for each stage
Practicing and reviewing: students are assigned roles and practice a role playusing cue cards or realia to provide language and other support

Teaching talk as performance requires a different teaching strategy. Jones (1996,17) comments:
Initially talk as performance needs to be prepared for and scaffolded in muchthe same way as written text, and many of the teaching strategies used tomake understandings of written text accessible can be applied to the formal
uses of spoken language
This involves providing examples or models of speeches, oral presentations, stories
etc through video or audio recordings or written examples. These are then analyzed
or “deconstructed” in order to understand how such texts work and what their
linguistic and other organizational features are. Questions such as the following
guide this process:•••••

What is the speaker’s purpose?
Who is the audience?
What kind of information does the audience expect?
How does the talk begin, develop, and end? What moves or stages areinvolved?
Is any special language used?

Students then work jointly on planning their own texts, which are then presented tothe class.
The third issue involved in planning speaking activities is determining the expectedlevel of performance on a speaking task and the criteria that will be used to assess7

student performance. For any activity we use in class, whether it be one that seeks
to develop proficiency in using talk as interaction, transaction, or performance, weneed to consider what successful completion of the activity involves. Is accuracy ofpronunciation and grammar important? Is each participant expected to speak forabout the same amount of time? Is it acceptable if a speaker uses many longpauses and repetitions? If a speaker’s contribution to a discussion is off topic, does itmatter?
As the above questions illustrate, the type of criteria we use to assess a speaker’s
oral performance during a classroom activity will depend on what kind of talk we aretalking about and the kind of classroom activity we are using. Green, Christopherand Lam (2002, 228) in a report on teaching discussion skills recommend assigning
one student to serve as an observer during a discussion activity using the following
observation form:
Number of contributions
Students: ABCDEF

1. Total number of contributions made2. Responding supportively
3. Responding aggressively
4. Introducing a new (relevant) point
5. Digressing from the topic
A speaking activity that requires talk as performance, e.g. a mini-lecture, would
require very different assessment criteria however. These might include:••

Clarity of presentation: i.e. the extent to which the speaker organizes
information in an easily comprehensible order
Use of discourse markers, repetition and stress to emphasize important
points and to make the lecture structure more salient to the listeners

Different speaking activities such as conversations, group discussions, and speeches
make different types of demands on learners. They require different kinds and levelsof preparation and support and different criteria obviously have to be used inassessing how well students carry them out.

8Conclusion
I will conclude with a set of questions I use to guide myself when preparing speaking
activities for the classroom or in textbooks and which I use with teachers inworkshops which focus on developing and reviewing classroom materials.
••••••••

What will the focus of the activity be: talk as interaction, transaction orperformance?
How will the activity be modeled?
What stages will the activity be divided into?
What language support will be needed?
What resources will be needed?
What learning arrangements will be needed?
What level of performance is expected?
How and when will feedback be given?

9References
Brown, Gillian and George Yule 1983. Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
Burns, Anne. 1998. Teaching speaking. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 18, 102123.
Green, F, E. Christopher and J.Lam. Developing discussion skills in the ESL classroom.
In Jack C Richards and Willy Renandya (eds). Methodology in Language Teaching.
New York: Cambridge University Press. 225-234
Jones, Pauline 1996. Planning an oral language program. In Pauline Jones (ed).
Talking to Learn. Melbourne: PETA 1996 12-26
Luoma, Sari 2004. Assessing Speaking. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M. and R. Carter 1997. Language as Discourse: Perspectives for Language
Teaching. London: Longman
Richards, Jack C. 1990. Conversationally speaking: approaches to the teaching ofconversation. In Jack C Richards. The Language Teaching Matrix. New York:Cambridge University Press. 67-85
Tsang, W.K. and M. Wong 2002. Conversational English: an interactive, collaborativeand reflective approach. In Jack C Richards and Willy Rendandya (eds). Methodology
in Language Teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press. 212-224

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