Tips to Improve Spoken English for Classroom Readings

There are lots of ways we can improve spoken English for classroom readings whilst having fun. Improving students’ spoken English is great as it not only gives them more skills for classroom readings but also helps them better structure arguments. Here are our five top tips for improving spoken English for classroom readings, and having a whole lot of fun doing it.

Increase Student Talking Time

Are you reading a book in class? Have an extract on the board? Well then, why not try and get your students to read these out themselves rather than you doing the legwork? If you take it in turns so everyone in the class gets a turn reading, this should be a really good way to improve spoken English, and the practice makes perfect too!

Avoid Yes/No Questions

Instead of asking your students questions and them responding to you with the one-word answers, ‘yes’ or ‘no’, try and encourage them to put either ‘because’ at the end of these words or ask open-ended questions.

This should encourage students to speak out more and from this, they’ll be able to practise their speaking skills which will really help them for their classroom readings.

Word of the Day or Week

You could have a ‘Word of the Day’ or ‘Word of the Week’ poster up in your classroom. By having a new word each day or week for your children to see and learn from, this should broaden students’ spoken English as they’ll learn more vocabulary to use. Make it quick for yourself too by just pulling a word and its definition from a dictionary – perfect!

Have Group Discussions & Class Debates

A great way to encourage English speaking is by having debates or group discussions on a subject. You can be really creative with these too. Perhaps split the class up into groups to represent ‘for’ and ‘against’ a topic? Or just let people partake in both sides? The choice is yours!

EducationCity also has a fantastic Activity in their English module which will help with how speakers present points during debates to learn from, so your students can make their arguments even more persuasive!

Soapbox Superstars – In a debate on school uniform policy, analyse and evaluate how speakers present points effectively through use of language and gesture. Play with a classmate through the 2 player option.

England: Year 5 & 6
Scotland: Second **
Wales: Year 6
N. Ireland: P7

Use EducationCity’s ThinkIts

On EducationCity, there’s a fantastic way of encouraging speaking in class. That’s through the use of ThinkIts. ThinkIts encourage critical thinking in the classroom and challenge students to think on their feet and elicit higher order thinking skills. They ask students questions to discuss together and they’re available in all year levels on EducationCity. You can also print them out or have them up on the whiteboard for a group or class discussion – it’s really up to you! Check them out.

Do Some Drama

Whether you find a script yourself from a play or make roles up and have fun pretending to be characters, by getting involved with drama in class, you’ll be promoting the use of English speaking, and it’s fun too! What’s more, EducationCity has a fantastic ThinkIt to help with drama and thinking about characters for you to use…

Speaking in Character – Think about different characters and the voices they would use.

England: Year 3
Scotland: First **
Wales: Year 3
N. Ireland: P4