Unrehearsed Speaking Activities for Language Learning

This paper discusses the situation of oral English in schools in Japan today, including textbooks and exams, theoretical and practical approaches that encourage more speaking opportunities, and recommendations for particular activities. Oral activities can be located on a scale from tightly controlled to spontaneous talking: from the repetition of other people’s words and sentences, to prepared presentations in public speaking, oral reports and debates, to the generation of impromptu, novel utterances. It is the potential and immediate benefit of increased practice to develop ability in this final stage, the expression of one own’s thoughts and words in unrehearsed speech, which this essay particularly addresses. As Maurer (1997) says, “Improvisation can be considered the fifth skill-- the skill which follows reading, listening, speaking, and writing. In many ways, it is the most important because it is the real test of whether students can use what they have learned without being told exactly what to do or say.” When studying English as a Foreign Language in Japanese classrooms, the role of speaking is invariably relegated to the bottom of the list of skills to learn, quite inverse to its order in learning a first language. While there are some justifications in studying this way