The Secret to SpeakingJames Pengelley, IH Bogota

•Some people do it better than

others

•It is informed by a range of

sub-skills and processes

•It can be learned and

improved

If speaking is a skill…

Shumin (2002), Factors to consider: Developing adult EFL students’ speaking abilities

Theoretical Basis of Communicative Approaches (Canale & Swain, 1980)

•Grammatical Competence

• Can use grammar, vocabulary and phonological mechanics

•Discourse Competence

• Use and understand structures and discourse markers to

connect ideas and time, indicate causal relationships etc

•Strategic Competence

• How to take turns and deal with communication

breakdowns

•Sociolinguistic Competence

• Mastery of social norms regarding timing and manner of

interactions between speakers in a given context

Competent Speakers

•Scripts and Schemata• Who is speaking, and how are they expected to

behave?

• “A horse walks into a bar and the barman says…”

•Register• High-risk situations and hedges > appropriate tone

•Managing Interactions• Establishing roles, expectations and agendas

•Managing the message

Sociolinguistic competence

How would you say this in L1 vs L2?

What social and cultural factors governing this exchange

might cause communicative difficulties for learners?

What social and cultural factors governing this exchange

might cause communicative difficulties for learners?

Holmes & Riddiford (2011), Tracking sociolinguistic development

The Lesson

• A task-based framework• Analysis involved:• Listening to 2 native speakers• Noting the sequence of interactions

• Discussing:• Is their relationship close? Is it

polite?• How do the speakers feel? Why?• Finding examples of language that

demonstrate these assumptions

The results

•Sequence and pattern of interactions

followed a typically “Colombian”

manner

•Learners’ assumptions of “roles” may

override linguistic knowledge

•It’s not what you say…

•…it’s why you choose to say it

•Contextual factors are just as important as, if

not more than, linguistic ones if we are to

promote language as a phenomenon that

evolves from relationships between people

rather than a mechanical tool used to trade

information and fill in gaps (McConachy,

2009)

Sociolinguistic competence

The Secret to SpeakingJames Pengelley, IH Bogota