What is a communicative speaking task?

“I only need spoken English. No grammar, all coursebooks are boring so don’t even try” — is a new reality for the ESL teachers, trying to tick off all the boxes in the endless list of students’ expectations.

In this article, you will (or will not — I’m not giving you any false expectations here) find answers to some of your professional and rather philosophical questions about life-and-death teaching of students the communicative way.

This approach helps you teach without stress, self-doubt, and the constant feeling of ruining the sacred concepts of a perfect lesson framework.

Let’s start with the basics, so you can check if your idea of what the communicative speaking task matches its real meaning.

You have facilitated (or taken part in as a student) at least one of them, and know how beneficial this part of learning is. 

However, your students are not necessarily and more often — not fully aware of the efficiency of such exercise. Proving them wrong is one of the silent missions of a communicative teacher.

You can’t just start the lesson with “Today, I’ll prove that speaking tasks work.” No one asked, and no one believes you anyway. Instead, you set up the experience: the right task, the right level of challenge, the right context. And then — you let the magic happen.

But what does “right” mean here? Let’s break it down.

First of all, focus on interaction and communication.

That means, your students must be united by one common goal, either preparing an elevator pitch for the imaginary company’s product presentation, or finding their way around the city. Have them understand the role of interaction for achieving that aim. 

That is, your primary task is to explain the students, that simple turn-taking and nodding won’t do. In order to make it clear — give the students specific roles that would require certain interactions.

For instance, in a city navigation task, one student has the map, another has the list of places to visit. The task is to ask, clarify, suggest, and perhaps even disagree. The goal is not linguistic perfection, but making yourself understood and understanding your partner.

You might start wondering — quite naturally, since we have been taught that accuracy comes before fluency — whether a grammar check should be included. Then the questions arise: at what point, how often, and to what extent it should be given.

It is also important to correct only those mistakes that interfere with understanding or disrupt the coherent flow of ideas, rather than every grammatical error.

Second, be prepared for unpredictable.

This means, you have to leave your perfectionism aside and let it flow. Let your students be themselves: make jokes, feel confused and ask for help, express themselves freely without judgment for their imperfect accents. 

Be prepared for that the task may stay in the center of attention for a while longer than you’ve planned. For you’ll have to give your students an extensive feedback, or let them all prepare the speech they’d all feel proud of.

Third, be a facilitator, not a tyrant who limits the freedom of speech.

Remember, these are individuals who are already knowledgeable and confident in their native language, yet feel confused and often frustrated when faced with new challenges: grammar rules, vocabulary, communicative purposes, and cultural nuances. All of these elements demand attention simultaneously as they try to respond to what might seem like a simple task to you.

Since you’re acting on the behalf of a facilitator — be it. Focus on guiding the conversation, gently pushing your students towards meaningful interaction, encourage them to take risks and make mistakes. 

This level of assurance, coming from the safe person, will boost your students’ confidence and more willing to experiment. These skills are essential for developing true communicative competence.

Fourth: scaffolding is a key to fluency.

Now, while the memory of the third important step are still fresh — remember that you’re not supposed to restrict your students’ creativity, neither should you tell them what they can or cannot say (in terms of ideas, of course, you’re absolutely allowed to ban swear language and guide the students when they drift off-topic or slip into their L1-gossip mode).

However, especially for lower-level students, confidence isn’t quite there yet to produce perfectly structured and coherent dialogues on their own. This is where scaffolding comes into play.

Scaffolding in performing a communicative speaking task is essentially, about giving the learners temporary support for them to develop their skills and gradually withdraw any tools of support so the students gain confidence and fluency while independent practice.

Let’s explore how scaffolding is performed during communicative speaking task:

For example, instead of practicing a full directions-giving conversation — start by giving the students basic language of positions, correct prepositions to be used in every occasion, names of the streets and related verbs and collocations. 

Start with small part of the city map that you have to practice with, and gradually, expand the territory for the students to explore and discuss.

As was said in the tip above — give the students something they can fall back on: vocabulary lists, ready-made phrases, sentence starters. This will create a sense of support for the moments when learners feel they can’t yet rely solely on their own knowledge and memory.

If the task is too complicated, and you see that the instructions you’ve given did not help — model the task with a student, or show it yourself by referring to one of the students as your speaking partner.

While it’s best to avoid excessive evaluation — which can often be unnecessary and even discouraging — it’s important to encourage effective language use and gently correct mistakes that interfere with fluency.

At the same time, provide constructive feedback that helps them notice patterns in their errors without interrupting the flow of communication. A balance of encouragement and targeted correction fosters confidence and continuous growth.

After a while that your students have been working with the help of scaffolding you may notice how confident they’ve become. They now use language without looking into their notes, don’t change the forms of words, nor do they skip verb endings. 

This is when you start to let them go. 

Gradually reduce the support, giving them more space to take risks, experiment, and communicate independently. This is when real fluency begins to take shape.

Fifth: make your students own their learning.

The ultimate goal of communicative speaking tasks is learners expressing their thoughts freely and applying the language in creative ways. At the stage of unsupervised speaking the real fluency starts to grow.

Here are key things you need to know about fostering your students’ self-awareness in communication:

How does it work?

For delayed error correction. After the task, write key phrases on the board and let students spot what sounds off before you explain.

For self-correction. First of all, give your students time to analyse their mistake. If they don’t see the problem – try one of the following:

This encourages them to think about language after the fact.

It is also crucial that you build those into routines. You can do it by including quick “correction moments” after fluency tasks by asking students to underline or rewrite anything they’d say differently.

Another strategy of self-reflection that helps both you as a teacher (to track down the progress of your students), and the learners (to overcome their fears of speaking, boost confidence and foster responsibility) — is “Record and reflect”.

To perform this you’ll need either to record their speaking (with consent), and later have them reflect: “Did I use a variety of vocabulary?”, “Did I support my ideas?” — as an in-class activity, or ask each of the students to record their speaking on the topic and send it to you privately, in order to answer the same questions.

I know that communicative approach stands for many things, and a properly designed and facilitated communicative speaking task is the heart of it. 

Our primary task as teachers, while doing so, is not to perfect every sentence our students say, but to help them find their voice in the language. And that means giving them the tools, the time, and the trust to grow into confident, independent speakers. 

Remember that when you embark on the path of communicative teaching!