When I first began teaching Spoken English I had no clue what I was doing. I was unaware of the differences between written and oral skills. I learnt on the job and I learnt fast.

Essentially there are Four Language Skills that one needs to master to learn a language. These are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Notice that's the order in which a baby learns a language too.

The baby in India is usually bombarded with at least two different languages before he can understand a word at home. The regional language or mother tongue is one and Hindi is the other. In urban areas there are babies who learn English at home besides these two other languages.

However the majority are usually fluent in their Mother Tongue alone.As for Hindi and English that is learnt in school. When you teach English in school to these children all the langauage skills get used. Language Skills come into play in this order writing, reading, listening and speaking. The teachers are more interested in getting the child to write answers correctly for the exams and after the priliminary classes when orals are no longer part of the exams one hardly gets to practice speaking the language.

This leads to a large population who has learnt English in school but has little confidence to speak the language. That's where Spoken English classes come in to their rescue. What is done is to make them speak as much as they can in English. This is done using various techniques such as impromptu discussions, prepared speeches and presentations, dialogues between people,and many more exercises. This improves their confidence levels and Spoken English.