If you want to help your learners develop their speaking skills, this is the perfect place to get started.
The free tools and resources below have been specially selected to help you:
- develop your understanding of speaking skills and how you can help your learners develop these skills
- develop your skills in planning and managing lessons to include more speaking activities of various types
- help your learners to find ways to improve their speaking skills
- prepare learners for speaking in the real world
- support learners in preparing for speaking tests.
There is no set order for the resources below. Choose what to do according to the time you have and the topics that are most interesting for you.
- Webinar: Four skills mini event: speaking (60 minutes)
Rhona Snelling begins this webinar by examining what speaking is and how it relates to the other language skills and systems. It also considers the many subskills of speaking and gives practical tips for classroom activities to boost your learners' confidence when speaking.
- Video: Teaching speaking: Monitoring
When your learners are doing a speaking task, what should you be doing? In this short video (part of our Teaching speaking video series), watch how classroom teachers in Thailand monitor their learners during speaking activities, often taking a back seat and letting their learners take the lead, while they listen carefully. The video comes with accompanying reflection tasks.
Watch the video and access the activities
- Article: Evaluating speaking (10 minutes for each article)
Paul Kaye looks at the different aspects and subskills involved in successful spoken communication. In a second article, he then considers which aspects we can evaluate and gives practical ideas about how we might do that.
Read the first article on Evaluating speaking
- Podcast: Do I need to sound like a 'native speaker'?
In this episode of the TeachingEnglish podcast, We'am, Chris and Professor Jenny Jenkins discuss why the term 'native speaker' is problematic and why it is not necessary to sound like one. They also talk to members of the TeachingEnglish Facebook community who give their opinions on the topic.
Podcast: Do I need to sound like a 'native speaker'?
- Article: Speaking aids (10 minutes)
In this article, Judtih Fehér looks at different simple tools and resources you can use to support the development of speaking skills and make speaking activities more engaging for learners.
Speaking aids
- Publication: Maximising speaking opportunities in online lessons (10 minutes)
This short publication by Karen Waterson looks at the specific issues faced by teachers who teach speaking in online classes.
Maximising speaking opportunities in online lessons
- Lesson plans and activities: (50-100 minutes)
What would you ask a refugee?
Secondary learners at B2 level listen to refugees speaking about their experiences and then take part in a discussion about how they could make newcomers feel welcome in their own community.
Lesson plan: What would you ask a refugee?
Yesterday
In this secondary B1-level lesson, learners use the past tense to talk about what they did yesterday.
Lesson plan: Yesterday
Motivating speaking activities
How can we motivate learners to speak more in class? This series of classroom activities is designed to help young learners and adults feel more confident practising their speaking skills.
Motivating speaking activities
Personalised speaking
In real life, we spend a huge amount of time speaking about ourselves and our experiences, so it's important that our learners can do the same in English. David Heathfield gives some practical ideas about how to set up these speaking activities and an example lesson where learners describe their shoes and what they mean to them.
Personalised speaking activities