Teaching Speaking

I am a little slow with my blog with respect to the readings but I did want to get my ideas out there about the readings for this week.

I quite enjoyed the H.D.B. chapter on speaking. The chapter started with research in the field of speaking, however, it did not seem any of the studies were conclusive. Next, the types of spoken language were reviewed, such as interpersonal and transactional. H.D.B. also offered some possible reasons why speaking could present a problem for E.L.L.s. Several of the points brought up were presented by Kizuna and Charlie last week, such as stress intonation and rhythm.
Finally, the implications for teaching were provided. One implication that was offered stated that teachers need to give opportunities for the students to initiate oral communication. What I am wondering is where does the teacher draw the line? I am constantly keeping the students that I observe and when you get them talking about dinosaurs or soccer, look out! I think to a point it is important for the teacher to let that natural communication flow, but on the other hand the teacher needs to make sure the students stay on task.

H.D.B. also talked about some of the factors that could limit a students pronunciation. He also noted that fluency and accuracy were to be taught. I liked the metaphor that was used in relation to these topics. He stated that spoken language can be viewed as learning to play tennis. Fluency gets the student onto the tennis court with a ball and racket, but accuracy is like the logistics of the game such as the scoring, etc...
I liked that analogy not only because I like tennis but because it makes a lot of sense. Students need both accuracy and fluency to be successful in their L2.