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Exercises for developing students’ speaking skills 

Speak on the text heard 

Discuss a problem or problems touched upon in the text read or heard (to 
compare the system of education) 

Have an interview with a foreigner (one of the students is a Londoner, the 
classmates ask him various questions and express their opinions on the subjects 
under discussion) 

Help a foreigner, e.g. to find the way to the main street, or instruct him as to 
the places of interest in the town. 
There are of course other techniques for stimulating learner’s unprepared speech. 
In conclusion it should be said that prepared and unprepared speech must be 
developed simultaneously from the very beginning. The relationship between 
prepared and unprepared speech should vary depending on the stage of learning the 
language. 
Lecture 11 
Teaching writing 
1.
Writing as a skill. 
2.
How to teach writing. 
3. Exercises for developing writing skills. 
1. Writing as a skill 
Writing as a productive skill is very important in teaching and learning a foreign 
language; it helps students to assimilate letters and sounds of the English language, 
its vocabulary and grammar, and to develop habits and skills in pronunciation, 
speaking, and reading. 
The practical value of writing is great because it can fix patterns of all kinds 
(graphemes, words, phrases and sentences) in students’ memory, thus producing a 
powerful effect on their mind. That is why the school syllabus reads: “Writing is a 
means of teaching a foreign language.” Writing includes penmanship, spelling, and 
composition. The latter is the aim of learning to write. 
Since writing is a complicated skill it should be developed through the formation 
of habits such as: 
(1) the habit of writing letters of the English alphabet; 
(2) the habit of converting speech sounds into their symbols – letters and letter 
combinations; 
(3) the habit of correct spelling of words, phrases, and sentences; 
(4) the habit of writing various exercises which leads students to expressing their 
thoughts in connection with the task set. 
In forming writing habits the following factors are of great importance: 
1.
Auditory perception of a sound, a word, a phrase, or a sentence, i.e., proper 
hearing of a sound, a word, a phrase, or a sentence.

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2.
Articulation of a sound and pronunciation of a word, a phrase, and a sentence 
by the pupil who writes.
3.
Visual perception of letters or letter combinations which stand for sounds. 
4.
The movements of the muscles of the hand in writing. 
The ear, the eye, the muscles and nerves of the throat and tongue, the 
movements of the muscles of the hand participate in writing. And the last, but not the 
least, factor which determines progress in formation and development of lasting 
writing habits is students’ comprehension of some rules which govern writing in the 
English language. 
Since students should be taught penmanship, spelling, and composition it is 
necessary to know the difficulties Russian students find in learning to write English. 
The writing of the English letters does not present much trouble because there 
are a lot of similar letters in both languages. They are a, o, e, n, m, p, c, k, g, x, t. 
Only a few letters, such as s, r, i, h, 1, f, b, j, i, g, q, n, etc., may be strange to Russian 
students. Training in penmanship is made easier because our school has adopted the 
script writing suggested by Marion Richardson in which the capital letters in script 
have the same form as the printed capital letters. The small letters such as h, b, d, i, k, 
f, are made without a loop. 
Students find it difficult to make each stroke continuous when the body of the 
letter occupies one space, the stem one more space above, the tail one more space 
below. 
The most difficult thing for Russian students in learning to write is English 
spelling. 
The spelling system of a language may be based upon the following principles: 
1.
Historical or conservative principle when spelling reflects the 
pronunciation of earlier periods in the history of the language. For example, Russian: 
кого, жил; English: busy, brought, daughter. 
2.
Morphological principle. In writing a word the morphemic composition 
of the word is taken into account. For example, in Russian: рыба, рыбка; the root 
morpheme is рыб; in English: answered, asked; the affixal morpheme is ed. 
3.
Phonetic principle. Spelling reflects the pronunciation. For example, in 
Russian: бесконечный - безграничный; in English: leg, pot. 
One or another of these principles may prevail in any given language. In Russian 
and German the morphological principle prevails. In French and English the 
historical or conservative principle dominates (as far as the first 1000 words are 
concerned). The modern English spelling originated as early as the 15
th
century and 
has not been changed since then. The pronunciation has changed greatly during that 
time. Significant difference in pronunciation and spelling is the result. The same 
letters in different words are read differently. For example, fat, fate, far, fare. 
Different letters or letter combinations in different words are read in the same 
way: I - eye; rode - road; write - right; tale - tail. 
Many letters are pronounced in some words and are mute in other words: build 
[bild] - suit [sju:t]; laugh [la:f] - brought [bro:t]; help [help] - hour [auә]. 
The discrepancy that exists in the English language between pronunciation and 
spelling may be explained by the fact that there are more sounds in the language than 

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there are letters to stand for these sounds. Thus, there are 23 vowel sounds in English 
and 6 letters to convey them. 
In teaching English spelling special attention should be given to the words 
which present much trouble in this respect. The spelling of the words, for example, 

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