Tips to overcome nervousness:

Know your speech
Prepare yourself physically
Picture yourself giving a great speech
Remember that you are the expert
Do not admit nervousness to the audience
Slow down.

1. Preparation. Show the learners a picture of two people conversing in a familiar casual setting. (The setting will be determined by a prior needs assessment.) Ask them to brainstorm what the people might be discussing (i.e., what topics, vocabulary, typical phrases).

2. Presentation. Present several video clips of small talk in casual situations. Have learners complete a worksheet in which they describe or list the topics discussed, the context in which the speech is occurring, and any phrases that seem to typify small talk. Follow up with a discussion of the kinds of topics that are appropriate for small talk, the factors in the specific situations that affect topic selection (e.g., relationships of participants, physical setting), and typical phrases used in small talk. Chart this information.

3. Practice. Give learners specific information about the participants and the setting of a scenario where small talk will take place. In pairs, have them list topics that might be discussed by the participants and simple phrases they might use. Learners then engage in improvised dialogues based on these simple phrases.

4. Evaluation. Give pairs a teacher-prepared dialogue based on their scenario from š. Ask them to compare their improvised dialogues with the prepared dialogue, analyzing the similarities, differences, and reasons for both.

5. Extension. Have learners go individually or in small groups into various contexts in the community (work, school, church, bus stop) and record the conversations they hear. Ask them to report their findings back to the class, and then have the class discuss these findings.

Effective Conversations Follow the Cooperative Principles

The cooperative principle states that conversations will be satisfying when the contributions made by the conversationalists are in the line of the purpose of the conversation (Grice,1975,pp.44-46).

Based on this principle, H.Paul Grice describes the following four conversational maxims (requirements):

Quality maxim-requirement to provide information which is truthful
Quantity maxim- requirement of the sufficient amount of necessary information, not too much and not too less.
Relevancy maxim-requirement to provide information that is relevant to the topic being discussed
Manner Maxim-requirement to be specific and organized when communicating thoughts
Morality maxim- requirement to speak in ways that meet ethical/moral guidelines
Politeness maxim- requirement to be courteous to other participants.
Presentations
“Almost anyone can become an excellent speaker”

For a success at speaking, following “3Ps” is must
Prepare carefully
Practice often
Perform with enthusiasm

Guidelines for Preparation and Delivery
Know your listeners
Prepare three stages of presentation: beginning, middle, and end
Stick to a few main points
Put your outlines on cards, paper, or overhead
Practice, practice, practice
Speak vigorously and deliberately
Avoid filler words
Use rhetorical questions
Maintain eye contact
Use appropriate gestures and postures

Guidelines for Presenting Graphics
Discover listeners preference
Think about graphics early
Keep the message simple
Many any wording brief and visible
Use colors carefully
Leave graphics up long enough
Avoid handouts
Maintain eye contact while using graphics
Include all graphics in your practice session.

Good Listeners

Attending
Attend to important information
Ready themselves mentally and physically
Listen objectively regardless of emotional involvement
Listen differently depending on situations
Understanding
Assigned appropriate meaning to what is said
Seek out apparent purpose, main points and supporting information
Ask mental questions to anticipate information
Silently paraphrase to solidify understanding
Seek out subtle meanings based on non-verbal cues
Remembering
Retain information
Repeat key information
Take notes
Evaluating
Listen critically
Evaluate inferences
Responding empathically
Provide supportive comforting statements

Bad Listeners

May not hear what a person is saying
Fidget in chairs, look out the windows, and let their minds wander
Visibly react to emotional language
Listen the same way regardless of the type of material
Hear what is said but are unable to understand or assign different meaning to the type of words
Ignore the way information is organized
Fail to anticipate coming information
Seldom or never mentally review the information
Ignore non-verbal cues
Interpret message accurately but forget it
Assume they will remember
Rely on memory alone
Understand but unable to weigh or consider it
Accept information at face value
Pass of joy or hurt, change the subject

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997). Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving.

Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language (sociolinguistic competence).

Difference between Listening and Hearing

Hearing is a natural ability to detect sound
Listening is a skill, which is developed to understand, interpret the message accurately.
It does not require much of an effort to hear,
whereas Listening to be effective, takes much
of an effort and time on the part of a listener.

Steps involve in Effective Listening:

Hearing. Hearing just means detecting sound without have complete awareness of what has been said.
Understanding. The next part of listening is when you comprehend what is being said.
Judging. After you are sure you understand what the speaker has said, think about whether it makes sense. Do you believe what you have heard? Your own interpretation of the message and then see how accurate the understanding is.

Concepts Related to Listening Ability
1.Concentration
2.Questioning
3.Objectivity
4.Note Taking
5.Feedback

1.Concentration
Motivation and Demotivation
Anticipate what the speaker will say next
Focus on the message
Avoid interruption, let the speaker finish first.

2.Questioning
Use of questioning is an effective listening strategy. It serves two purposes:
message gets clarified
Speaker gets a positive feedback that a listener is involved.

3. Objectivity
I. Minimize the impact of emotion-laden words
II. Judge content, not delivery
III. React fairly and sensibly
IV. Overcome distraction; internal as well as external

4. Note Taking
The usefulness of note taking depends on the situation.

5. Feedback
Feed is important in the listening process to that a speaker knows that his/her message is understood.

General Barriers

Faking attention
Avoid difficult listening & dismissing the topic as uninteresting
Listening only for facts
Criticizing physical appearance and delivery
Yielding easily to distractions.

Listening ability vary according to:

Interest in topic , the delivery of the message, importance of the info, length of the message, complexity of the message, the delivery of the message, personal problems, external distraction.

Creating Ability to speak English:-

We learn to speak our mother tongue by imitating those who speak around us, in a similar manner a foreign language is learned by imitation and reproduction. In the earlier stages, parrot-like repetition is more important than understanding the various parts of a sentence, or formulating ideas in a desired pattern. It is just like learning some skills as driving as knitting. The rule followed is,

Practice makes a man perfect!

When certain forms of languages have become automatic with learner, he will be able to reproduce them at his will. The teacher should therefore, give drill and ample practice in the basic patterns of language so that they become automatic with the pupils. The questions and answers also help in developing the power of expression.

In order to acquire the ability to speak English the students must possess:

Sufficient vocabulary;
A reasonable command of English idiom;
Reasonably correct pronunciation and intonation;
A proper sense of sentence structure;

The skillful use of language requires endless repetition and practice. It is due to the absence of this mode of learning a skill that most of students can hardly speak a sentence of English even after graduation which means at least nine years of study of the English language. So the must possess the following qualities and follow these suggestions to speak good English. Pronunciation, Practice, Correction of mistakes and learning by games.