Oral communication skills in the primary english classroom

Anna Hohls

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2008
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9783638053747
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: English Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Examination Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1, 0, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg (Englisch), language: English, abstract: In the summer of 2004, English as a foreign language was introduced as a core subject to primary schools in all 16 federal states of Germany. This came as a result of many years of research and several years of experience teaching foreign languages at primary level in individual schools all over the country. With the development of different ideas and approaches to primary specific language teaching, the emphasis on the different skills involved and required in language learning has varied. In recent years, the importance of communicative skills has grown and speaking, not only as a productive and reproductive, but also as an interactive skill, has come into the focus of foreign language teaching at primary level. However, classroom observations show that most English lessons do not go beyond teaching the pupils to repeat phrases and little dialogues after the teacher or to recite them, usually under cover of their classmates. The question I want to deal with in this paper, which I have written as part of my final examination, is what aspects oral communication skills are comprised of and how far they can be successfully developed in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms at primary level. I will look at the aspects which must be considered in order to enable pupils to actively use the foreign language in the classroom and, resulting from this, in real life situations. In order to do so, I consulted several introductions to EFL learning and teaching both at primary and secondary level and literature dealing with the aspects of speaking and communicative competence, even though they were in most cases designed for secondary schools and adult education, as well as articles taken from primary English magazines, giving insights into the practice of language teaching.