Speaking Exercises
During a recent thread on a ProLiteracy forum, a question came up about ways to get students to speak English outside of the classroom. Here is a summary of some of the ideas as well as some interesting caveats.
- Ask your students to designate a time during which they will only speak English in their home. Many suggest the dinner hour as an appropriate time.
- Some concerns: “This works for some students, but for students with limited time with family, dinner may be one of the few times families connect or other family time might be limited and using that precious time for practice isn’t conducive to meaningful family interactions. Also, for some families, it is important to them that they speak their native language at home so that their children become fluent in it. Or there may be other family members who can’t speak English and will be excluded.”
- Connect willing students to call each other on the telephone outside of class. This can been especially successful with students who don’t speak the same language so they have to speak English.
- Find out from students first if they are willing to participate in this activity to respect confidentiality
- You can also meet with the pairs in person before calling starts to ensure that everyone is wiling and comfortable
- Pair up tutors with students for a similar telephone session outside of class.
- This might be hard with multiple students and one tutor, or it might be easy.
- You could also develop a “team” within your organization to be part of these pairs across all students.
- Always remember to keep safety and confidentiality in mind for both students and tutors.