New Teacher Tips on How to Improve Speaking Skills in the ESL Classroom

What do you do when students don't want to put that extra mile to do a speaking presentation, so they get cold feet and read from their notes just to get by. Improving speaking skills takes a lot of classroom practice, motivation to speak, and skill. Sometimes it is necessary to think beyond the box, adding creative elements wherever possible depending of course, on the skills of your students and how open they are to creative thinking.

Improving the speaking skills of your students may be difficult, but the added benefit is building confidence in students for speaking skills and strategies. Even though the professional years are still way in the future, help your students by starting small. Teach both speaking and listening activities, sometimes even in one lesson, while preparing them for that future presentation. That way, students don't feel the pressure and burden when it comes their turn to present a presentation due to remembering the fear of those earlier years during those speaking activities.

Teaching Activity Using Speaking Activities
1. Use picture prompts. Depending on the variety of visual resources and class level and ability, a teacher can brainstorm with the class a variety of sentences, (key) words, and phrases around a particular category or situational context that is the building block for a presentation.

2. Follow-up with a memory game or exercise. Students then work in pairs writing down or translating the words they remember.

Effective Teaching Continues
1. Another teaching activity involves asking questions or presenting statements that are not true about themselves, and then asking their friends to decide whether they are true or false. Students have a lot of fun with this one.

2. Play Adjectives All Around! Students have one minute to present all the adjectives they can in a sentence.

3. This person is _______________________________________________.

4. The other student then tries and guess who the person is. Make sure they include a minimum of five adjectives and no more than seven or eight. A teacher can use this activity to draw the students' attention to the different categories that make up an adjective.

Additional Tips for Improving Speaking Skills

*Allot a time limit for each and every speaking activity. Take into consideration those activities that involve either group or pair work.
*Keep the activity fun and simple. Make sure the instructions are also crystal clear.
*Don't overdo speaking activities in one lesson.
*Make sure you aim for a balance between speaking and listening.
*Have a back-up plan for the entire class and for individual students who are withdrawn.
*Always reflect on what can you do as a teacher to help students improve their speaking skills.
*The more diverse and creative your speaking activities become, the easier it will be for you to train your students to improve their speaking skills and speaking exercises will become much more automatic.

Make Your Teaching Sparkle. Teach for Success. Make a difference in the classroom. Subscribe to receive your FREE e-zine and e-book, "Taking Charge in the Classroom" when you visit the New Teacher Resource Center at http://www.newteachersignup.com. Purchase your ebook of classroom tested tips - "Tips and Tricks for Surviving and Thriving in the Classroom," at:http://www.MakeYourTeachingSparkle.com and you'll receive a FREE ebooklet, "Yes! You Can Teach K-12 English language learners Successfully!" Dorit Sasson is a freelance writer, speaker, educator and founder of the New Teacher Resource Center. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dorit_Sasson

Reinforcement Activities For ESL Students

Though many ESL students manage a good level of English, they need to continue practicing the language through diferent activities that will allow them to reach their language goals. In this way, they will not only maintain fluency but also improve their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills.

Firstly, most students need to reinforce mainly grammar where difficulties first appear. People tend to translate from their native language to their second language, and this is where some doubts come up because we know grammar is not the same in all languages. Students are not used to learning the second language as their native one; they tend to focus more on rules and a more structured way of learning. This causes the learning of the language to be incorporated slowly. Secondly, in many cases they need to improve their listening comprehension and oral skills.

ESL programs offer a wide range of activities to refresh and reinforce topics that have been covered all year long. These activities are available online, as well as in booklets or study guides to practice in the comfort of their homes.

When we talk about business English, where it might be essential for students to travel, and where they will have to speak to native speakers, attend business meetings, and close important deals, maintaining good fluency is extremely important. Business travelers have higher demands and need a constant language practice not only in class but with extra material and a great number of activities to do at home. Since some of the activities are done at home with the absence of a teacher, they should be clear, with detailed instructions and should be something they can do on their own and bring to class later for corrections.

You may see some examples below of diferent kinds of exercises which may be done in any level to reinforce any kind of topic or grammar point.

Grammar

1. Multiple choice: consists of choosing the best option
2. Fill in the blanks: is also a constructive activity where you have to complete with the correct tense.
3. Complete dialogs: complete a conversation, filling in the gaps with correct verb tenses, prepositions, auxiliaries.
4. Word order: consists of putting words in the right order to make a sentence.
5. Question writing: students will write a question for each of the statements.
6. Matching: it's an interesting activity where you'll have to match two halves to make a sentence.
7. Answer questions: about yourself (practice all tenses, past, simple present or anything else you wish or need to improve)
8. Change from infinitive to past tense: you'll see a list of verbs and you must change them to the past tense.

Reading

1. Students are given a title and pictures. They create a short story on what they think the story is about. Usually warm ups are short paragraphs.
2. Students read the story.
3. There are comprehension questions about the story.
4. Fill in the blanks with verb tenses.
5. Look up words in dictionary.
6. Write a summary about the story.

Writing

It is essential for students to have guided instructions.

1. Writing e-mails in English: you'll see a set of words and expressions that you will have to use and write an email.
2. Writing about your daily routines, where you'll practice simple present.
3. Writing a story in the past tense: state what happened; you have to use the vocabulary provided.
4. Role plays: a whole lot of fun as it also facilitates interaction and improves speaking skills. A situation is presented and students have to write the dialogs. They act them out afterwards.

Speaking and listening activities are available online, where you can practice pronunciation through repetition, for example.

If you enjoyed this article about an ESL programs, please feel free to post it to your site or blog and forward this link to your friends. Have a great day! Don't forget to visit our ESL blog. Learn English in the United States - http://www.englishlci.com/ Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Susan_Thomason

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