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Spoken language is at the heart of much human interaction, at home, at work and in society. If we think of all the different conversations we have in one day and compare that with how much written communication we do in one day and we will realize that in our daily lives, most of us speak more than we write. However, many English teachers still spend the majority of class time teaching reading or having students do written exercises, almost neglecting the practice of speaking skills. So, if the goal of language teaching is truly to enable students to communicate, as it is the case with English language teaching, then speaking skills should be taught and practiced on a regular basis in the language classroom. Learning to speak is an important goal in itself, for it equips students with a set of sub-skills and strategies they can use for the rest of their lives. What is also striking is the fact that there has hardly been any consensus, among applied linguists and teachers alike, as to how to approach the teaching of oral skills. As a matter of fact, speaking has not received equal attention in the different teaching methods that have been developed over the history. A quick look at how speaking was approached in the classroom in the traditional methods, such as the audiolingual method of the 1970s, for example, will reveal that it usually meant some kind of controlled practice, i.e. repeating the teachers utterances, memorizing dialogues and learning them by heart. or responding to a variety of mechanical drills, influenced by what structuralists and behaviourists and behaviorists were advocating at that time, all of which reflected the greatest concern for the mastery of grammatical structures by students. Despite the importance of speaking, its teaching, for many years, has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach it just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues, i.e. in a rather mechanical way. In the same line, the common characteristic of many language classes was a heavy focus on the language system. Grammar and vocabulary seemed to gain far more attention than the skills needed to use this vocabulary and grammar. On the other hand, when innovative methods (comprehension-based methods in particular, such as the Natural Approach and Total Physical Response) were developed, they advocated the need for learners to go through a 'silent period' to allow them to absorb language first before requiring them to produce it because it was considered to be a natural part of language acquisition and may be beneficial, as well, to the language learning process, though we must admit, there is not yet any agreement among applied linguists regarding the contribution of the silent period to language learning. Given this, the teaching of speaking was doomed to suffer again and the development of oral skills was, as a result, neglected, especially at the initial stages of learning the target language. However, the emergence of communicative language teaching led to changed views of syllabi and methodology which are continuing to shape approaches to teaching speakong skills nowdays. Grammar-based syllabi were replaced by communicative ones built around notions, functions, skills tasks, and other non-grammatical units of organization. As a result, communication, or fluency became a goal for speaking lessons and activities and tasks were designed to allow learners to attempt real-life communication, and boost their communicative competences despite their limited proficiency in English. Many language learners regard speaking ability as the measure of knowing a language. These learners define fluency as the ability to converse with others thers, much more than the abiliry to read, write or comprehend oral language. Consequently, they regard speaking as the most important skill they acquire/learn, and they assess their progress in language learning in terms of their accomplishment and effectiveness in spoken communication and the degree of their iniprovement in their spoken language proficieney.
