5 Top Tips for Getting Students Speaking

Being able to speak another language is high up on the ‘wish list’ of many British adults. In fact, according to the British Council, 60% regret not continuing with the language skills obtained at school and only 21% can actually have a conversation in a language which is not their own.

So if we place so much importance on being able to ‘speak’ in another tongue, why is it that we, as languages teachers, often struggle to develop this skill in our learners?

I have asked this question a few times recently, either on my social media platforms or in webinars, and the responses are consistent. Many teachers I have asked have acknowledged that speaking often takes a backseat in their classrooms, citing reasons including having too much subject content to get through, developing learner confidence, and behaviour management, amongst others. I too have been guilty of needing to push on with the curriculum and sometimes prioritising other skills over speaking, but I have to remind myself that seeing and hearing students speaking in the target language is one of the most rewarding parts of my job.

Indeed, it was hearing my own teacher speaking German so beautifully which inspired me to want to do the same!

So how can we encourage more speaking in our classrooms? I shared some ways to do this in my webinar ‘Speaking Stars’ for This is School, which you can watch here; I have also extracted some of my top tips below!

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🗨️ Back to Basics!

Firstly, just get them talking! Like in any other activity we do in our classrooms, some students may be off task, but many won’t be!

Insist on your expectations, monitor the classroom, give plenty of praise and just go for it!

Don’t forget the simple activities such as surveys, basic question and answer activities and bouncing questions and answers around the room (perhaps by throwing a ball or teddy and encouraging students to ask and answer questions with each other).

Embed these simple activities into every lesson - they don’t need to take up too much time!

❗❗Phonics, phonics, phonics!

Thank goodness we place so much emphasis on phonics nowadays! We can’t expect students to feel confident when speaking in a language which is different from their own if we don’t give them the skills to be able to have a good go!

My favourite activity is ‘Flash Phonics.’ A simple choral repetition game, whereby I literally ‘flash’ our key sounds on the board and students either repeat after me or, once more confident, say them together without my support. I then ‘flash’ words which include those key sounds and we repeat those too. This activity takes a couple of minutes and again, can easily become part of every lesson.

🌳 Take them outside!

During covid, practising speaking became almost non-existent (for obvious reasons), but on a few occasions, I took students outside onto the tennis courts where we had plenty of space to socially distance and we did some speaking activities there.

I have done this again since, as I find taking students elsewhere can be really exciting for them, increases engagement and is much more memorable. My last classroom backed onto a fairly unused playground and away from other classrooms, so I would also sometimes allow small groups of students to practise role plays outside of the classroom, ready to perform for the class.

They really love having this freedom and having the opportunity to put their drama skills into action!

Please just check your school policies and risk assess if you try these out. I always ensure students are nearby and I can see them at all times!

🪄 Trickery!

Many teachers complain of students misusing speaking activities as an opportunity just to chat in English. A great way to avoid this is trying out speaking activities where students don’t even realise they are speaking in the target language, as they are often so engrossed in the activity or game.

Trapdoor is a brilliant one for this. Though it doesn’t develop spontaneous speech, it is a great way for students to practise reading aloud whilst also working on their pronunciation. Give students a ‘story’ based on the topic you are working on with three multiple choice endings for each part of the story. Students choose their endings (keeping it secret from their partner) and then read the story, guessing their partner’s answers to each part. Every time they guess an answer incorrectly, they swap over and then have to start from the beginning until they can read their partner’s story correctly from top to bottom. I often model this with the class first and they have to guess ‘my story.’

Noughts and Crosses is also a great way of encouraging students to speak in the target language at all times. Give them a grid with a question in the target language in each section. They play a normal game of noughts and crosses, but can only put their 0 or X in the box once they have answered the question in the TL. Their partner definitely won’t let them get away with answering in English, because if they do, they miss their go!

🚮 Get them talking rubbish!

A wonderful GCSE class of mine a few years ago complained of not being able to ‘speak proper German.’ They said that if they went to Germany, they wouldn’t have a clue how to just have a conversation with someone. Ask a German what they do for the environment, yes! Ask a German what they’re up to and if they’d like to meet up to go to the cinema – no! This resonated with me as I remember going to Germany on my year abroad and not being able to ask my housemates for basics such as a knife, fork and spoon and tap water!

So I created an activity called Quatschen (literally, to talk rubbish), where for the duration of a cheesy German pop-song, students could just go around the classroom and chat to each other in German. No rules other than ‘no English’ and I gave them a list of basic conversational phrases and a few colloquialisms for fun too! We also added to our list as the weeks went on and as students thought of things they wanted to ask each other.

I remember vividly a student who was disengaged with languages taking part in ‘Quatschen’ and remarking that it was ‘the best lesson ever!’.

‍A SCITT student who I worked with this year (thanks Arthur) mentioned that he includes a ‘Modo Español’ section in his lessons, where students know that everything that happens in that section of the lesson (both from them and the teacher) will only be in Spanish. He reports that they love it and have a lot of fun with it!

We as languages teachers know what a joy it is to be able to speak foreign languages and we have a responsibility to develop this skill in our learners. The challenges placed upon MFL teachers are becoming greater and greater, but let’s not lose sight of the reason why we ourselves are so passionate about what we do! Speaking does not need to take up a lot of lesson time!

Keep it snappy, try some of the ideas above and some which I explain in more detail in my webinar, and make speaking a part of every language lesson!

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Claire Wilson has been a teacher of German, Spanish and French for 16 years and has 12 years experience as a subject leader. She is currently Teacher Development Lead at a comprehensive school in the Midlands. Passionate about all things teaching and learning, Claire also works as an educational consultant, writer, speaker and lecturer. You can watch her webinars Speaking Stars in MFL and Low Effort, High Impact Ideas here on This is School!

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Feeling inspired to tackle bring speaking back to the top of your agenda? Start your 14-day trial of This is School and explore our Speaking tool as part of your plan!

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