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Teaching speaking and writing — Part 1: Speaking
How much do your students actually speak English in your lessons? For many EFL classrooms, the answer is: very little. The teacher talks. Students listen. Students copy. Maybe one or two of the brave students answer a question. The rest stay silent.
This is the negative cycle of speaking: we believe our students cannot speak English well, so we do not give them speaking tasks, so they never improve. The cycle continues for years. Students leave school with grammar in their head but no ability to use it.
Breaking this cycle is not about better grammar lessons. It is about creating a classroom where students feel safe enough to try, where mistakes are normal, and where speaking is built into the lesson, not added at the end.
In this lesson, we will look at five practical principles for getting your students to speak more — even when they are shy, even when the class is large, and even when they get no English practice outside the room.
Q2: Which of these get in the way of speaking practice in your classroom? (Tick all that apply)
- If only a few students speak, the problem is almost never “the class is shy.” The problem is almost always how speaking is set up. With pair work and the right setup, even very quiet classes start talking
- Students worry about mistakes because, in many classrooms, mistakes are punished or laughed at. Your job is to make mistakes normal and welcomed — the price of learning, not a sign of failure
- The accent worry is real but unhelpful. Students do not need to sound American or British. They need to be understood. Most English in the world is spoken by L2 speakers to other L2 speakers
- Large classes seem to make speaking impossible — but pair work means 30 students all speak at the same time, which is exactly the same talking time as 30 minutes of one-by-one teacher questioning
- The negative cycle is the biggest barrier: I think they cannot speak → I do not give them speaking tasks → they never improve. Breaking it is the most important thing you can do for your students’ English
The biggest barrier to student speaking is not their level. It is the classroom atmosphere.
If students believe mistakes will be punished or laughed at, they will stay silent. If they believe pronunciation must be “perfect,” they will stay silent. If they have never been given thinking time, they will stay silent. None of these problems are about ability — they are about how speaking is set up.
Below are five principles that change this. They are not techniques to drop into a lesson. They are ways of running the classroom that make speaking possible. Apply them across weeks — and watch the silence start to break.
Most teachers find one of these is something they could start tomorrow, and one of them touches a deeper habit that will take longer.
- The easiest place to start for most teachers is pair work (Principle 2). It is concrete, it does not require changing how you feel about anything, and it produces immediate results
- The hardest is often letting mistakes happen (Principle 1). Most of us were taught to correct everything. Holding back from correction feels wrong at first. But constant correction kills speaking
- If your school or exams are very accuracy-focused, that is a real pressure. But fluency and accuracy can both grow — speaking practice does not stop accuracy work, it supports it
- You do not need to do all five at once. Pick one. Try it for two weeks. Add another. Real change in classroom culture takes a term, not a lesson
- The principles work together: thinking time + pair work + tolerance for mistakes is a set, not three separate things. Once one starts working, the others get easier
These are real EFL classroom situations. The right answer is the one most likely to break the silence and build real speaking ability.
Concrete plans are more useful than general intentions. Think about a real lesson next week.
| Principle | Your specific idea |
|---|---|
| Make mistakes normal — even welcome | |
| Use pairs and groups always | |
| Give thinking time — do not rush | |
| Aim for understanding, not perfect accent | |
| Set tasks slightly above level, with a way out |
| Principle | How it can work |
|---|---|
| Make mistakes normal — even welcome | Start with a clear classroom rule on day one: “In English class, mistakes are how we learn. Anyone who is not making mistakes is not trying.” When a student makes a mistake, smile, reformulate it correctly as part of your response, and keep them speaking. Never stop them mid-sentence. |
| Use pairs and groups always | Once per lesson, replace a question to the whole class with: “Tell your partner…” Two minutes. Now the whole class is speaking at once. Walk around. Listen. Pick 2–3 pairs to share at the end. From silent to active in three minutes. |
| Give thinking time — do not rush | After every question, count to 5 silently before taking any answer. Before any speaking task, give 1–2 minutes for students to plan with their partner (L1 is fine for planning). Resist the urge to fill the silence. |
| Aim for understanding, not perfect accent | Tell your class: “Your job is to be understood, not to sound American or British. Most English in the world is between non-native speakers. Clear is good. Perfect is not the goal.” Repeat this often. They will believe you over time. |
| Set tasks slightly above level, with a way out | For a speaking task, plan a slightly stretching version (e.g. “describe a memory using past tense”) and a back-up if it is too hard (“use simple past only, or describe with sequence words: first, then, after that”). Stretch but do not crush. |
Q6. Watch the video below. Think about which change is easiest for you to try first.
Host: We have just looked at five principles for getting students speaking. Now listen to three teachers. They share their problems first, then the changes they made.
Teacher 1: For years my class was silent. I thought my students were too shy, that their English was too weak. I asked questions and only the same four students answered. The rest stared at the desk. I felt I was teaching to a wall. So I just talked more myself, to fill the silence. The negative cycle.
Teacher 2: I used to correct every mistake. Every wrong word, I stopped them and made them say it correctly. I thought I was being a good teacher. But over time I noticed students stopped trying. They would whisper instead of speak. They were terrified of making a mistake. The corrections were silencing them.
Teacher 3: My students always told me their English was bad, their accent was bad, they were too embarrassed to speak. I tried to push them: “Just try!” It did not work. The harder I pushed, the more they shrank.
Teacher 1: I started using pair work for everything. Not just speaking lessons — everything. “Tell your partner…” became the most common thing I said. Suddenly the whole class was speaking at the same time. Even the silent students. The room went from quiet to loud, but a useful loud. Their English got better fast.
Teacher 2: I learned to wait. To not correct mid-sentence. I let them finish. I reformulated as I responded. They kept talking. Within a month, students who had whispered before were speaking in full sentences. The mistakes I was so worried about — many of them disappeared on their own once students were practising.
Teacher 3: I stopped pushing. I just kept saying, every lesson: “Mistakes are normal here. Your accent is fine. Your job is to be understood.” I said it for weeks. Eventually they started believing me. The quieter students started raising their hands. One girl who had never spoken in two years stood up and gave a one-minute talk about her family. I almost cried.
Host: None of these teachers had different students. None had different equipment. They changed the conditions in the room — how mistakes were treated, how time was given, how students worked together. The silence broke. The speaking began.
Q7. For each principle, choose the option that best describes where you are now.
One change. Be specific. Which lesson? Which moment? What exactly will you do?
- The biggest barrier to speaking is not students’ level — it is the negative cycle: I think they cannot speak → I do not give them speaking tasks → they never improve. Breaking it is the most important thing you can do
- Make mistakes welcome, not punished. Reformulate in passing rather than stopping students mid-sentence. Constant correction kills speaking
- Pair work is the single biggest change for a quiet classroom. In a class of 40, pair work means 40 students speaking at once — not just one
- Give thinking time. Wait 5 seconds before taking any answer. Allow 1–2 minutes of pair planning before any speaking task. Silence is the sound of thinking
- Aim for understanding, not perfect accent. Most English in the world is spoken by non-native speakers to other non-native speakers. Clear is good. Perfect is not the goal
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