Making your students speak in English is easy, when you allow them to speak more and more in the target language. Be gentle and tolerant when they make some mistakes while talking. Allow them to chat in the beginning as a pair work, for the first ten minutes of the class.You could please refer to my previous blog "Chat in English fluently" regarding the benefits of chatting.
Sentence games are fun activities given to the students to relieve the monotony of prosaic learning. This game is introduced to the students with lots of fun with the motive of enhancing their sentence structure in speaking.The game starts when a student says a complete meaningful sentence.The last word of this sentence is picked up by the next student to invent a sentence of his own. To quote an example, a student says : "She has a good habit of keeping her things clean", the next student should frame and say a sentence using 'clean' as the beginning word,within a time of 10 seconds. If the students exceed the time limit,they have to quit. The game will go on, till the winner and runner up are left. Benefits: When each and every student frames his own style of sentence, the individual skills in constructing a sentence will be explicit. These sentence games are often practiced in classrooms and the participants compete with each other to score more.
Generally, on the spot topics are given for the students to speak instantly in English without any hesitation. Here are some of the topics for brainstorming: Small-scale business, Family, Music, Indoor games.
The students are encouraged to start talking on any such topic furnished above, with a short introduction. They will continue with one or two main ideas and supporting examples and at last sum up with a small conclusion. Subsequently, after a few days of practice they are well trained in organizing a speech and presenting them in concisely.
Workshops develop team work and group interaction motivating students to converse in English and overcome inhibitions. Here are a few topics they could talk about as examples: Regional cinemas-impact on society; deforestation and its ill effects; kinds of flowers and their specialities.
Arranging workshops on various interesting and current topics will facilitate the oral fluency of the participants. The trainees are divided into different groups and each group is assigned any current or interesting topic for discussion. Each and every member of the group will debate and discuss among themselves. They are encouraged to speak their minds without any reservation. The views expressed are not so important as that of the style and expression. On completion of the inner debate and discussion, the groups will come on to the stage and recount their workshop in a lively way. All participants will have to speak on the performance of the workshop. Finally, the teacher will make her observations and offer her suggestions for a better performance.
To conclude, a teacher becomes more of a facilitator, director and a listener in speaking classes. No continuous lectures are advocated here like in other classes. Students' speaking is appreciated and motivated more by the strategies mentioned above.