Training course: How to teach speaking

Develop your understanding of speaking skills and explore teaching techniques and activities that promote oral communication in the classroom for a range of ages and levels. This course is open now – enrol until 23 September.

A Black teacher and a learner in a wheelchair smiling at each other. There are other learners of different genders and ethnic backgrounds sitting at the same table.

TeachingEnglish

Understanding

9–12 hours

Start: 03/04/25
End: 30/09/25

Certificate

Workbook

Online community

How will the course help you?

By the end of How to teach speaking, you'll be able to:

evaluate and adapt activities to promote meaningful communication
adapt tasks to maximise learner interaction
identify and justify appropriate speaking activities that effectively support specific lesson objectives.

How can you enrol on the course?

Enrol on this free course

What does the course include?

Self-study modules that you can access at any time before the course closes
A certificate of achievement on successful completion of the self-study modules
A free workbook with extra learning content and resources connected to the course contents
A dedicated Facebook community of course participants with up-to-date insight, resources and innovative teaching ideas for you to try out (Facebook account required)
Learning content related to our courses on Facebook and YouTube
Live events and recordings with course tutors and language teaching experts on Facebook and YouTube

What are the self-study modules?

Module 1 – Understanding speaking – key terms and issues: The aim of this module is to explore key terms and issues in the teaching of speaking. You'll look at how to evaluate and modify activities in terms of communicative quality, and consider how to get your learners using 'real speaking', not just completing grammar tasks.
Module 2 – Understanding speaking – maximising interaction: The aim of this module is to introduce you to a range of techniques and activities which promote speaking in your classroom. You'll look at the benefits of pair and group work and adapt tasks to maximise learner interaction.
Module 3 – Understanding language practice activities: The aim of this module is to explore and evaluate a range of practice activities. The module also looks at flexible activities that can be adapted for different ages and levels. You have the opportunity to select appropriate activities which match with lesson aims, and justify your choices.

Course reviews

What have other teachers said about how How to teach speaking helped them?

"Today, I taught a beginner class how to participate in a role-play activity for the first time. Instead of giving them instructions and then moving on straight to the speaking activity, I extended the speaking practice by eliciting what a role-play is, and brainstorming possible situations and roles reducing teacher speaking time. Also, after the role-play I extended the activity by asking them how they felt during the role-play encouraging them to express their personality and inout on the activity."
Course participant, Argentina

"After learning about the importance of fluency-focused activities, I started including short speaking tasks earlier in my lessons instead of leaving them until the end. For example, I now use pair discussions or role-plays in the middle of class to give students more time to practise speaking freely. This has helped boost their confidence and made lessons more interactive."
Course participant, Malaysia

"The British Council, TeachingEnglish course on how to teach speaking was very insightful. For example, I learned the importance of using communicative activities like role-plays in speaking lessons. I now regularly incorporate role-plays into my daily classes, allowing students to practice real-life conversations in a supportive environment to boost their confidence and helps improve their speaking skills more effectively."
Course participant, Nigeria

Do you have more questions?

Please see our FAQs or access further support through our Help button.

Downloads

File attachments

How to teach speaking workbook 20251.09 MB

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Comments

My Portfolio

Hi,

If you are logged into TeachingEnglish ( this means you may have to create a free account?), you'll see above your personal details a menu bar? (If you're on a mobile you can click the three lines to open the Menu). Do you see a Menu option My portfolio? If you do, click My courses and you should see the courses which are live. The Speaking course is not currently running. The course you will see soon if 'How to teach grammar' from 30th August.

Anne

TeachingEnglish team

Hi,

I have created my account but I don't know how to use it because I DON'T know where my PORFELIO is. Please help me!

Starting a course

Hi Akhtar,

Firstly 'Welcome to the site' and let's hope you can be online learning with us soon! I'm sorry that you haven't been able to find the menu 'My Portfolio' where you'll be able to see any courses that are currently active. If you are logged into TeachingEnglish ( this means you may have to create a free account?), you'll see above your personal details a menu bar? (If you're on a mobile you can click the three lines to open the Menu). Do you see a Menu option My portfolio? If you do, click My courses and you should see the course.

Let us know if you can see and start the course :)

Anne

TeachingEnglish team

4-week course

Hello everyone, Just I need to ask you about the course items, where I can find Today's course topics sorry for that, this is the first time here for me
Thank you alot

TeachingEnglish: How to teach speaking