OP3: Describe the kinds of skills required to become good at speaking in English.

One of big challenges for the people living in modern society can be learning English. The appearance of a term 'World English' literally shows that English is the most commonly used language in the world for international communications. Therefore, English speaking especially has become basic requirement nowadays. My opinion on required skills to become good at speaking in English covers mind setting, noticing and practicing drill.

First of all, mind setting gives important role in speaking. Learner should put aside the anxiety for making mistakes. Korean students tend to listen rather than speak. As EFL speaker, there is no need to feel embarrassed. Positive determination for making an effort will find great sources and better opportunity to improve speaking ability. Planning achievable goals, for example, being more talkative in English class, join English-speaking club and find English-speaking foreigners and try to have conversation with them will motivate the learner in a good way.

Secondly, practice 'noticing'. It is an important skill before conducting actual speaking. The reason why the learner should do noticing before speaking is that it gives basic knowledge working as good fertilizer. It will help you for better understanding and self-correction. Noticing is a self-learning method involves with watching, hearing and thinking using various materials. Information that the learner gets can be vary from simple as words to complicated one as cultural input. For instance, if the goal of noticing is focused on fluency should look into "Enunciation" which involves every matter related to sounds, such as, pronunciation, intonation and emphasis.

Thirdly, practice drills. It will boost speaking proficiency. Combination of pre-noticing and drill will produce speaking automaticity. Automaticity depends on how fast the learners can think and speak, and ultimate desire of English learners is catching up the similar level of native speakers. There are numerous kinds of drill strategies that will help speaking fluency. Drills also have different stages according to learner's levels.

In conclusion, it is nonetheless to say that speaking takes significant part of English learning skills. I discussed three methods to be a good English speaker. Active mind, noticing and drills. These skills may valuable improving integrated English proficiency as well.

Your essay is very impressive, and provides lots of useful hints to develop my own speaking skills. Thank you! Certainly learners need inputs thru reading and listening, have to practice useful drills. Wth teachers' effort to remove students' anxiety , we could apply integrated speaking teaching skills to our students.

What a great combination between this class and another Jason's one!
I never thought that I can use those methods that I learned in another Jason's one. How smart you are!
noticing, speaking drills, and what I learned in the class is really priceless.

That is why I like those classes!

Hi Hwan Ki,

Thanks for your effort with this essay. As Kanghoon pointed out above, it was great to see you 'marrying' content from two different subjects (Methodology of Speaking and English Composition). You haven't quite understood some of the essential concepts you attempt to describe here (for example focusing on the example of enunciation in the noticing concept, or quoting automaticity in the way you have), and that is always a risk when people try to explain things they don't fully understand. However, personally I think it is really fantastic that you're trying to put your newfound awareness to use. By thinking through the concepts you're helping yourself to gradually understand them better, and what better place to test yourself in that regard than right here in your composition practice? My hat's off to you for the brave attempt!

Overall, your ability to categorize here shows great progress, as does the basic structure and organization of your writing. I thought the interest-grabbing contextual 'hook' at the start was excellent. On the other hand, I found myself scratching my head a little when considering the mind-setting idea. Is that a skill or an attitude/behavior? I think you could get away with calling it a skill, given you've supported the idea with practical details...

Below you'll find some suggestions relevant to language development:

Hwan Ki, Kim wrote:One of big challenges for the people living in modern society can be learning English. The appearance of a term 'World English' literally shows that English is the most commonly used language in the world for international communications. Therefore, English speaking especially has become basic requirement nowadays. My opinion on required skills to become good at speaking in English covers mind setting, noticing and practicing drill.

First of all, mind setting gives important role in speaking. Learner should put aside the anxiety for making mistakes. Korean students tend to listen rather than speak. As EFL speaker, there is no need to feel embarrassed. Positive determination for making an effort will find great sources and better opportunity to improve speaking ability. Planning achievable goals, for example, being more talkative in English class, join English-speaking club and find English-speaking foreigners and try to have conversation with them will motivate the learner in a good way.

Secondly, practice 'noticing'. It is an important skill before conducting actual speaking. The reason why the learner should do noticing before speaking is that it gives basic knowledge working as good fertilizer. It will help you for better understanding and self-correction. Noticing is a self-learning method involves with watching, hearing and thinking using various materials. Information that the learner gets can be vary from simple as words to complicated one as cultural input. For instance, if the goal of noticing is focused on fluency should look into "Enunciation" which involves every matter related to sounds, such as, pronunciation, intonation and emphasis.

Thirdly, practice drills. It will boost speaking proficiency. Combination of pre-noticing and drill will produce speaking automaticity. Automaticity depends on how fast the learners can think and speak, and ultimate desire of English learners is catching up the similar level of native speakers. There are numerous kinds of drill strategies that will help speaking fluency. Drills also have different stages according to learner's levels.

In conclusion, it is nonetheless to say that speaking takes significant part of English learning skills. I discussed three methods to be a good English speaker. Active mind, noticing and drills. These skills may valuable improving integrated English proficiency as well.

Therefore, English speaking skills in particular have become a basic requirement these days.

First of all, proactive mindset plays an important role in speaking.

Secondly, it is important to engage in 'noticing' from oral language input.


This essay is a huge improvement over your earlier efforts and I'm really pleased with the progress you are showing. Keep it up!

Take care,

~ Jason


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