SOME BASIC STRATEGIES IN TEACHING SPOKEN ENGLISH IN A NIGERIAN LANGUAGE ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Teaching pupils to speak English is more effectively achieved by allowing them to speak rather than by listening or reading. Pupils therefore must have the opportunity to express their likes and dislikes, to talk about their interests in living natural English. Without this training in the productive speech, skills pupils’ ability to communicate in spoken English will be meager despite acquisition of knowledge of rules of pronunciation, grammar and sentence formation. To help pupils to develop speaking ability, this paper describes procedures of teaching speech as a communicative activity. At the same time, it suggests some activities that encourage pupils to exchange ideas spontaneously, and to practise fluency in asking questions while focusing attention on the information instead of the linguistic forms carrying that information.