Speaking

Investigating the use of speaking strategies in the performance of two communicative tasks: The importance of communicative goal

“…218-219) These challenges of developing the ability to engage in oral language production should hardly come as a surprise when we consider that in order to be able to do so learners are not only required to accumulate different types of TL knowledge (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, multiword units, phonology, pragmatics, genre types and purposes of the act of speaking, characteristics of spoken language), but they also have to deploy these resources in real time under considerable time pressure to attain their communicative goals. These are two interrelated facets which are referred to in the literature in terms of the distinction between language as a system and language in contexts of use (Bygate, 2002), form and meaning (Tarone, 2005), oral repertoires and oral processes (Bygate, 2008), but can also be conceived of in terms of explicit and implicit (highly automatized) knowledge or declarative and procedural knowledge (DeKeyser, 2010(DeKeyser, , 2017Ellis, 2009). The degree to which learners can succeed in employing the linguistic resources they have at their disposal in actual communication impinges on their fluency or "the degree to which speech flows, and to what extent the flow is interrupted by pauses, hesitations, false starts, and so on" (Derwing, 2017, p. 246).…”

“…The degree to which learners can succeed in employing the linguistic resources they have at their disposal in actual communication impinges on their fluency or "the degree to which speech flows, and to what extent the flow is interrupted by pauses, hesitations, false starts, and so on" (Derwing, 2017, p. 246). The obvious hurdles learners have to surmount in producing oral language become even more acutely visible when we consider the dominant models of speech production, both the one initially put forward by Levelt (1989) for speaking in the first language (L1) and its subsequent adaptations to the production of speech in an L2, by, among others, Bygate (2002), de Bot (1992, Izumi (2003), and Kormos (2006). All of them posit that the process of speaking comprises the distinct stages of message conceptualization, where requisite semantic concepts are activated and the choice of language takes place, formulation, where semantic, syntactic and phonological encoding occurs, and a phonological plan is created, and articulation, where the phonetic plan is executed, with the process of monitoring affecting all of the stages as well.…”

Assessing speaking ability in academic context: Focusing on a mixed methods approach

“…Speaking a language is especially difficult for foreign language learners because effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interactions (Fulcher, 2003). Bygate (1987) declared that to become a proficient EFL speaker, studying the knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, etc. is not adequate but the ability to use this knowledge in order to communicate successfully is indispensable.…”

Direct Spoken English Testing Is still a Real Challenge to be Worth Bothering About

“…Furthermore, using various improvisation skills, such as checking understanding or expressing agreement or disagreement, plays an important role in interaction, helping, for example, to check specific information or correct mistaken interpretations. (Bygate, 1987) However, in some situations, there are thousands of candidates, which means it is an immense task even if only a few minutes is given to test each candidate. This also demands sufficient resources.…”

“…(Bygate, 1987) Examiners have to pay attention to their examinees as well as adapting their messages according to their reaction and the type of speech (monologue, conversation and interview). For instance, the candidate will find it easier to carry out a face-to-face conversation than a telephone conversation with an interlocutor in a different room.…”