Problems of productive skills. Speaking

When we speak, we pass on information, ask questions, make suggestions, argue or express wishes, hopes or feelings, for example. All of this must also be learned and practiced in the foreign language. We assume that one only learns to speak by speaking, i.e. by speaking as often as possible in situations that require speaking. Actively involving the learners in the lesson and getting them to speak as often as possible is a particular challenge for the teachers and the lesson design. Sometimes you also speak to make a first contact or to avoid being impolite. You can also speak without direct reference to the person you are talking to, but this usually requires special opportunities or situations, such as presentations or presentations (monological speaking).

Normally, however, one speaks with a partner (dialogical speaking) with whom a relationship is to be established. So speaking is a social interaction. Depending on the social group in which we move, speaking takes place in more or less fixed, interculturally often very different forms of conversation. We speak differently with our colleagues at work than with friends in a sports club, with our children differently than with our parents, with strangers we speak differently than with familiar people. After that, it is not only decided how formal or informal our language has to be (e.g., use the formal or formal language), but also which phrases, conversational routines and forms of politeness we use ("leave me alone" you might say to your friend, but not to his boss) and which topics we can talk about.

Finding the right words, paying attention to structures without being afraid to say the words out loud and also paying attention to the intonation or knowing when to say what to whom and how - you probably know all this from your own language learning. Speaking is a very complex process in which many small subprocesses have to run in parallel and automatically.

"Spoken language refers to the verbal parts of oral communication, including all meaningful vocal and prosodic phenomena." This is how Fiehler describes what we casually call "speaking". This means that in addition to the phonetic expressions in the form of words and texts, melody, voice pitch, etc. are also included. In addition, “oral communication” is to be defined even more broadly, as it includes “understanding between at least two parties through verbal oral communication, physical communication and/or communication based on visual perception […]”. So not only what we hear plays a role, but also what we perceive through body language. All of these aspects play a role in DaF lessons.

Speaking in itself is very complex and has numerous characteristics, among other things, it typically takes place in face-to-face communication (exception: on the phone) and depends on the respective extra-linguistic context, i.e. on the situation in which it is spoken and dependent on the previous knowledge of the communication partners. For example, the sentence "Don't you have a trash can?" is not to be understood as a question, but as an indirect request to clean up, which both interlocutors must know for the speech act to have an effect.

Other features of spoken language include:

• •    a sentence once spoken can only be corrected afterwards,

• •    you usually have to react spontaneously to verbal statements,

• •    broken sentences, incomplete or grammatically incorrect sentences, repetitions or pauses can occur,

• •    non-verbal elements (gestures and facial expressions) accompany and support speaking,

• •    linguistic routines and formulaic phrases are usually automatically resorted to.

These characteristics must also be taken into account in speaking skill training in order for learners to be able to speak fluently.

What actually happens in your head when you speak? The best-known model is that of Levelt (1989), who assumes a conceptualization, formulation and articulation phase.

In the conceptualization phase, the communication is planned. The knowledge of the world that the speakers possess, their knowledge of the respective conversational situation and the way people talk to each other, as well as their addressee knowledge, i.e. they know who they are talking to, help here.

In the formulation phase, the words are searched for and the grammatical and phonological structure of the utterance is built up. To do this, the speaker uses his speech memory (mental lexicon) in which vocabulary, grammar and sounds are stored.

This means that the formulation first exists internally in the head before it is spoken out loud in the articulation phase, for which we need voice and the corresponding muscles for mouth and tongue movements etc.

All mental processes are checked again and again, either by an internal monitor (conceptualization phase) or by the listening comprehension system (formulation and articulation phase). So we always say the words mentally and check them. The speaker listens while planning and while speaking. If we do not agree with what we are saying, we break off the articulation, e.g. if we have made a slip. Strictly speaking, speaking without hearing is therefore hardly possible. When we speak, we train our hearing at the same time.

However, the different processes do not run one after the other, as the model might suggest, but take place simultaneously. When speaking, articulatory, phonological, grammatical, semantic, textual skills and knowledge of the world must interact - and very quickly. Because unlike when writing, when speaking, you don't have time to first search for the right word in your head, then think about an ending, for example, and then connect the word with the next word, etc. The conversation partner gets restless when between the words too much time passes when the spoken language is not fluent. Therefore, not only speaking per se, but above all fluent speaking must be practiced in class, as provided for in the learning field model.

In order to learn to speak, we have to train vocabulary, structures and pronunciation (formulation phase). Since speaking is a form of human action that takes place in social interaction, it is also important to build up culture-specific action knowledge, as presented in the conceptualization phase of the Levelt model, and to train it through application, in which learners get to know different situations and roles and in and with them act. This has important consequences for practicing speaking skills in task-oriented classes that are intended to prepare for language action

LITERATURVERZEICHNIS

• 1.    Karin Ende, Rüdiger Grotjahn, Karin Kleppin, Imke Mohr (2012) Curriculare Vorgaben und Unterrichtsplanung, Goethe-Institut, München 8-57.

• 2.    ARRAS, Ulrike (2009): Kompetenzorientierung im Fremdsprachenunterricht -was heißt das eigentlich? In: Pandaemonium germanicum . 14(2). S. 206–217.

• 3.    BUHLMANN, Rosemarie / ENDE, Karin / KAUFMANN, Susan u.a. (2009): Deutsch für Zuwanderer: Rahmencurriculum für Integrationskurse Deutsch als Zweitsprache . Berlin: Cornelsen.

• 4.    Council of Europe (2001): Common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment.Cambridge University Press, Hardback (ISBN: 0521803136) Paperback (ISBN: 0521005310).

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