• I would like to make some comments on improving students' speaking skills. Makingstudents speak more English in the classroom is not only a matter of "forcing" them to speak. This demands good preparation of proper material and implementation must be progressive and systematic which demands more teacher's workload. I mean, lots of those teachers who learned what and how to do in the classroom, as a teacher, simply don't do as they are supposed to. They seem as though they don't like to work much. No way! Teachers need to work much so they accomplish the tearcher's role.

    A few tips for teachers in general: 1) reduce your TTT (Teacher Talking Time) in the classroom, by giving simple and clear instructions, by asking one or two students to show (by means of speaking) that they understood the task instructions, and also by asking other students to answer a student's question. Being a teacher of English is different from being a lecturer. 2) Increase STT (Student Talking Time), again, by asking other students to answer a student's question, by showing pictures related to the topic of the class and, without saying a single word, eliciting students' participation. 3) avoiding yes/no questions; prefere those questions that make students speak in order to make themselves clear. 4) Attention to your way of correcting students. Sometimes, even when your intention is simply to help a certain student, you may make things even worse to them. For instance, if you want to show a certain mistake to a student, instead of saying "Oh! this is not correct, ..." or "You made a mistake, ..." or "Oops! don't say this or that,..." etc you'd better say "Maybe you should change this or that ..." or "Why don't you use ...", or "Well, it may be even better if you do/say ..." or "Very good try, but you'd better say/do ..." or "Nice try/beginning. Now why don't you ...?" or "Good participation/answer, now I will make it better..." etc.5) When watching student A for mistakes, don't be so close to them because this will make them even shier. Instead, get close to another student or simply stand back or pretend being interested in something different, picking up a book or going back to your table etc. This will make students feel more confortable and increase STT. 6) When your students are having fluency practice (for instance, free conversation), which is totally different from pronunciation or grammar practice, never correct them, unless something really serious happen. Let them talk! Let them feel that they can communicate in despite of their mistakes in pronunciation, grammar etc. Praise them for speaking!!! Show satisfaction!!! 7) Not only encourage them to watch movies. Give them tips on what and how to select what really matters, based on what they are interested in. For instance, taking notes on useful sentences/phrases and thinking about which environment or opportunity they could put those selected sentences in action (among friends, with a teacher, at work, at the club etc), just for practice. 8) Never forget! Participating/speaking is what really matters in this case in question, and when a student participates (answering questions, clarifying, helping other in English, arguing etc) ACCEPT that as something GOOD, despite of being right or wrong, otherwise you take the risk of making your student shier and shier (lack of participation). 9) Activities such as group discussion/debate (topics must be of students' interest), description of places/things/people in pairs for guessing, etc tend to help students speak, but remember, if you stay very close to them, like a "mistake hunter", you might spoil everyting.

    Hope this helps!