Given the demands of today's world, students are expected to be users of knowledge rather the knower of it. In this scenario, teachers have to do their best to provide maximum opportunities to practice the language. In case of English, in a non-native English-speaking country like Pakistan, the entire responsibility comes on the shoulders of teachers who have to create situations where students are expected to use English for authentic purposes. In order to assist teachers in the teaching of spoken language to develop the English-speaking and listening skills of students, a mini-project was carried out in a private school of Karachi. This project was carried out in four stages: needs analysis, planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating. The needs analysis clearly brought out that teachers need support to develop the spoken language of the students. Based on the needs assessment, a plan was developed to build teachers' knowledge and skills for teaching and learning of speaking and listening skills of English. The plan was then implemented and was monitored simultaneously.
The findings disclosed that other than teachers' language skills and their pedagogical content knowledge, there were a lot of other factors involved that forced them to stay away from giving quality and equal time to the spoken language development. These include the influence of the prescribed textbooks, demand from the school management to complete the syllabus, teachers own proficiency in English, linguistic background of the students and, above all, the assessment system that mainly assesses the reading and writing skills. The outcomes of the project revealed that to develop the English-speaking language skills of the students, teachers and other stakeholders (parents and school management) would have to play an active role. The school management has to give relaxation in terms of completion of the syllabus and prescribe textbooks that equally focus on all four language skills. Furthermore, they have to make space in the school timetables for regular teaching of the spoken language.
Moreover, the importance of spoken language should also be made seen in the school assessment system making the students realize the value of speaking and listening skills in their language development. Parents should be made to realize the importance of spoken language and shall be guided in the manner in which they can support the child language development. Thus, collective efforts of the stakeholders are needed for the holistic language development of the students.