RESEARCH PAPER

English Language Teaching in Chile

Speaking

Students: Isaas Cruces Hidalgo

Enrique Espinoza
Class: Language Acquisition
Professors: Roxanna Correa Perez
Angie Fuentealba Cartes

June, Monday 22nd, 2015

Research Problem
English as a Foreign Language (EFL) seen as a subject has been currently
discussed and modified by the Chilean government policies related to teaching of
this language. In fact, it is evident that the Chilean government started to invest in
English language teaching through the Ministry of Educations English Opens Doors
program and launching several other policies that provided: graduate studies, the
Semester abroad program and even funding for in-service teachers training, among
others. All these policies have been inspired with a purpose which is that Chilean
students reach a certain level of English in their third year of High School;
specifically, the B1 Level according to Common European Framework of Reference
(CEFR) scale.
Even though, the decision that Chilean students reach that level seems outstanding,
but if we compare this with the High School reality is not at all. Actually, an
standardized test taken in 2012 called Sistema de Medicin de la Calidad de la
Educacin (SIMCE) tested the student level of English regarding just receptive skills
(listening and reading). In the mentioned test the 82% of students performance
was too far from the expected B1 level, just reaching the levels A1 and -A1. This
government decision of achieve B1 level in Chilean students was not coincidence;
further, to be part of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) we should be within the parameter of accomplish the required level of
English; in other words, have an English bilingual education or at least have a
competent level of it. In that case, do not we need to be competent in productive
skills as well? Considering the focus on this receptive skills in the SIMCE test, we
might assume that English lessons in High Schools are mainly done in the same
way. Gemma Dunn (2010), The Guardian journalist, referred to this quoting in her
article a professor of Bolivariana University Jorge Cuevas who said:

Although it is possible all teachers may reach level B2 in the national testing, I think it is
highly unlikely students will reach the goals that have been set. Even if they did, the Toeic
Bridge test the government is planning to use only tests passive skills, so speaking levels will
still be substandard.

As a matter of fact, this focus generates a remarkable gap between the receptive
and productive skills of students whose level of English is partially reached. Hence,
how can we be part of OECD if there is not a complete level of English
accomplished? We strongly believe that EFL speaking language teaching needs an
important improvement considering the student learning gap mentioned above. We
consider crucial this specific productive skill, because of its importance in the
interchange of thoughts, desires or ideas between the communication agents
(sender and receiver). Besides, speaking skill is one of the main difficulties of
students regarding phonetics or accuracy issues at the moment of speaking; to put
this in another way, we just need to take a look at how the most Chilean English
speakers of High School interrelate with English community speakers. Even more,
their relation to these foreign speakers is barely understandable and generates that
communication breaks down using just common known words, or just laughing about
the embarrassing situation.
Therefore, the main purpose of this research paper is to point out how Chilean EFL
teachers can improve their lessons focused on speaking activities knowing what
speaking is and the main purpose of this one.

Authors perspectives
To begin with, as we have seen before, speaking is one of the productive skills that
is not as considered as other skills in Chilean tests of English; however, for some
authors is the most important ability we have to develop.
First of all, we must answer the next question: what do we need to communicate?
According to Nunan (1999), One needs to know how to articulate sounds in a
comprehensible manner, one needs an adequate vocabulary, and one needs to
have mastery of syntax. This quotation is tightly related to phonetics and
vocabulary. It is required to know that phonetics is a branch of linguistics that is in
charge of the study of human speech sounds, and how they are created and
received, these sounds that are used in speaking are useful to communicate each
other.
On the other hand, phonology is based on patterns, and how these patterns are
used in different languages; nonetheless, what is the relation of these concepts to
the speaking problem? We can associate these definitions with an issue that often
occurs in Chilean classrooms. Learners tend to be afraid to speak English in front of
their classmates and teachers, because of their pronunciation problems, they do not
know the correct pronunciation or articulation of English sounds. This is due to there
is no pronunciation teaching at school; nevertheless, teachers should dedicate some
minutes of their classes to teach and train their students on these aspects. According
to Harmer (2001), pronunciation is not a separate skill; it is part of the way we
speak. Furthermore, Harmer (2001) also explains that Pronunciation teaching is not
only makes students aware of different sounds and sound features, but can also
improve their speaking immeasurably. That is why, it would be interesting teaching
this, because it would generate an improvement in students pronunciation;
consequently, this would also cause that speaking is not seen as a serious problem
to treat. Having said that, the materials used in class are also important; for instance,
the use of dictionaries that normally have the phonetic symbols written on them, it
allows students to know how to pronounce these words according to their correct
pronunciation.

Therefore, considering the previous concepts, Harmer (2001) agrees on that

students should have at least a minimum knowledge on phonetics, perhaps not to
know all about this field, but just to have a little perspective related to pronunciation
using a short part of the lesson for that purpose.
Regarding the last points, it is also necessary to know what speaking is. For most
people, speaking is just talk and generate an interaction between a sender and a
receiver through a message; however, for some authors as Nunan (2003),
...speaking is the productive aural/oral skill. It consists of producing systematic
verbal utterances to convey meaning.
Some people think that teaching speaking is an easy task, or simple, nevertheless,
this is not true, in view of speaking is considered as the hardest skill to develop in a
second language learning, especially for foreign language (FL) learners as Chilean
students, in which English is not their mother tongue, but Spanish. Nunan (2003)
affirms Learning speaking skills is very challenging for students in FL contexts,
because they have very few opportunities to use the target language outside the
classroom.
This clearly happens in Chilean reality, learners do not have the opportunity to have
an interaction with a real context; besides, outside the classroom the situation is
totally different, it is not suitable, seeing that in Chile only few people handle the
language appropriately. Regarding to the Chilean Census (2012), only 9,1% of
Chilean population mentioned that can hold a conversation in English, so that this
percentage corresponds to 1.585.027 people in the whole country.
Hence, why people find speaking skills harder than other skills? Nunan (2003) states
...unlike reading or writing, speaking happens in real time, a very clear example it
occurs at the moment of speaking with someone, due to we are expecting someone
elses response and most of the time we require an immediate answer; the other
point is that we cannot do the same as writing, this means to edit what we are saying
in our speech.

Given these points, it is compulsory that EFL teachers be concerned about the
purpose of speaking, what are the aims that speaking tries to reach and what is their
main goal. One of the principal purposes is to facilitate communication between
learners, so that they can negotiate meaning and build their own knowledge, this
must be meaningful and must produce in students an interaction that permits them to
achieve speaking; therefore, to be able to generate this productive skill.
Thus, if we really put this in practise in classrooms the interaction among our
students it will emerge some features that the students of a certain class will need to
reach appropriately and successfully in order to the speaking skill. Jim Scrivener
(2005) for conversation and discussion classes; primarily, divides this into fluency
and confidence. Regarding these characteristics, the lesson needs to be planned to
help learners activate their knowledge in safe classroom situations encouraging
them to prompt the language they have stored. Nevertheless, the selected activities
not only need to be focused on teaching new language, but also need to allow
learners to try out the language that they have already mastered. In other words,
what teachers need to be aware is to create activities in which students perceive
themselves less worried about their speaking performance. For instance, activities
where they feel less nervous, less under pressure and less concerned about
speaking indeed. A practical example of some classroom activities that can lead to
fluency and confidence; according to Scrivener (2005) are:
1. Learners repeat sentences you say.
2. At the start of the lesson, learners chat with you about their weekend plans.
3. Learners work in pairs and agree their list of the best five films of all time.
4. Learners prepare a monologue about their hobbies and then give a five-minute speech to the
whole class.
5. Learners learn by heart a list of useful chunks of language they can use in conversations.

pp. 148
However some activities seem sort of aggressive to students, it is a way to push
them to the English language contributing at the same time foundation skills and
knowledge rather than working straightforwardly with fluency itself. From the
activities mentioned above, the ones which are primarily focused on foster fluency
are the second (the chat) and third (the discussion about films).

In addition, Scrivener (2005) makes a noticeable difference in the working of fluency

and accuracy in the speaking-based lessons. He refers to a switching from fluency
to accuracy activities depending on stage or just changing in response to things that
happen in class. Undoubtedly, there are activities in which you can work on both
accuracy and fluency proportionately; however, the switching is presented in many
everyday lessons focusing on one more than the other. That is quite relevant for
English teachers, because it is necessary their awareness about what aims and
procedures involve each one in the classroom interaction. For example, in accuracyfocused work it would be exceptional the use of instant correction; on the other hand,
in fluency-focused work an instant correction might be not appropriate and could
interfere with the aim of the activity which is generate an instance to speak. In fact,
Scrivener (2005) stands that as teachers reduce their own contributions it will allow
the students more space to interact and save any contribution for before or/and after
(taking notes of what mistakes are being produced to aboard them later on). For this
reason, it is necessary to be clear which aim are you following as teacher, accuracy
or fluency, adapting yourself to the proper role for each one.
All the points that have been described before are closely related to an approach
lately applied in language teaching called Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT). Moreover, the classroom activities that are made in this approach are
designed to get students to speak and listen to one another interchanging
information; such as, facts, opinions, ideas, instructions, etc. This interchange is
mainly made through communicative activities which Scrivener (2005) describes its
aim as:
The aim of a communicative activity in classis to get learners to use the language they are
learning to interact in realistic and meaningful ways, usually involving exchanges of
information or opinion

pp. 152
Considering the definition above a real communicative activity is just when involves a
real exchange of information; e.g., Giving instructions so that someone can use a
new machine. In this task, one person knows something that the other does not

know and there is meaning to be transferred (Scrivener, 2005). Following this, the
CLT principle goal is achieved successful communication rather than an accurate
use of specific language forms. Besides, in this approach you might offer either
grammar or vocabulary before the activity to increase the student accomplishment of
the language.

Personal Perspective
Before to come up with our final assumptions and perspectives about the topic, we
consider that is necessary to clarify certain issues that have been affecting English
language teaching in Chile and even this research. The low level presented in
Chilean students English performance (A1 and -A1) generates a gap in terms of the
students input. Actually, we strongly believe that is crucial to provide them a
meaningful input that might be through different receptive skills as listening or
reading. Skills that will help them to encourage them in the learning process; in order
to that, if they are motivated to learn English obviously they are going to acquire
more input from different sources; such as, songs, TV shows, documentaries, books
or articles. Just concerning this, we might assume that the speaking activities
described above will be reached in a better and easier way to Chilean students if
they accomplish that level of English necessary to start communicative activities
successfully. Even though, the Chilean reality is not yet enough according to the
international standards we hope that at some time the globalise use of English helps
to increase the Chilean level of English. Above all, as future English teachers we
need to encourage and improve the speaking skill little by little making our future
students proficient in receptive and productive skills as well.
Despite everything, although we want to improve some parameters related to the
English in Chile, our education system is rigid and non-flexible. It is required a
curricular change that adjusts to the real needs of Chilean students, so that teachers
can decide the manner in which they implement their contents to produce a
meaningful and better English teaching quality. In fact, the Ministry of Education
should implement the test including all the abilities associated with a language
acquisition (writing, speaking, reading, listening) to test all of these, that without a
doubt are linked each other helping to build up the student language performance as
a whole.

References
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