Materials for Helping Young Learners to Develop Oracy Skills

My position in this chapter is that young children can and do develop oracy skills from experiencing the language in use. Children typically do so in their L1 from needing and wanting to use the language, from multiple opportunities to use it and from interaction with their peers and parents. However, when learning an L2 in a classroom they typically do not need and want to use the language, they have few opportunities to use it and they rarely interact in order to communicate. In this chapter I will explain why learners who are inherently capable of developing oracy skills in their L1 often fail to do so when learning an L2. Then I will propose ways in which young learners of an L2 can be helped to develop oracy skills in similar ways to those which helped them to develop these skills in their L1. My focus will be on ways which provide the learners with motivated exposure to the L2 in use both inside and outside the classroom and on ways which stimulate them to use the L2 for communication. I will refer to examples of successful approaches I have experienced in primary schools in a number of different countries and I will recommend and exemplify principled pedagogic procedures which I have found to be successful with young learners. Without doubt these procedures were successful because they were meaningful and relevant to the learners, they were non-threatening and, above all, they were enjoyable.