Students' Perceptions About The Development of Their Oral
Students' Perceptions About The Development of Their Oral
Students' Perceptions About The Development of Their Oral
Thesis Advisor
Table of Contents
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….4
Statement of the Problem…………………………………………………………………….5
Research Questions…………………………………………………………………………..7
Objectives………………………………………………………………………………………8
Literature Review……..……………………………………………………………………….9
Use of English in the Classroom.……………….……………………………………9
Attitudes towards the use of a Foreign language...………………………………..15
The EFL teacher as motivator………………………………………………..17
Making mistakes on Oral Production….…………………………………….19
Importance of the Setting and Context in Oral Activities…………………….…....21
Context of Oral Activities as a Strategy for Developing Students Cultural
Knowledge of the Target Language……………….………………………...22
Awareness of the Teachers and Students’ Role in the EFL Classroom....23
Oral Production Activities in the EFL Classroom…………………………...24
Methodology……………………………………………………………………………………28
Type of study…………………………………………………………………………...28
Context of Study………………...……………………………………………………..29
Setting…………………………………………………………………………...29
Participants …………………………………………………………………….30
Data Collection Techniques ………………………………………………………….31
Researcher’s Role …………………………………………………………………….32
Data Analysis ………………………………………………………………………….33
Limitations of the study………………………………………………………………..35
Findings ………………………………………………………………………………………..37
Improvement of Students’ Perception of Their Oral Skills ………………………..37
Interactional Opportunities Offered in the Class……………………………………45
Factors that Affect Students’ Participation in Class………………………………..54
Discussion ……………………………………………………………………………………..61
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 6
Abstract
The globalization of English and a growing demand for good English speaking
skills in English teachers place a great emphasis on the teaching of English on a Pre-
service EFL program in Colombia. The ‘Professional Development Program for
Teachers of English‘1 (PDPTE) offered by the ‘Otún University’ (OU) focuses during the
four firsts semesters on providing instruction that may help pre-service teachers of
English to acquire the necessary English skills.
Throughout the data collected during the observations and the field diary,
questionnaires and interviews applied to students of the *Oral Skills Course, and its
subsequent comparative analysis, it was found that students perceived improvement on
their oral skills, students perceived the importance of using the target language inside
the classroom, but they did not interact spontaneously and the presence of the teacher
was needed to encourage the use of English in the class, fears of making mistakes in
front of the classmates were perceived as negative influence in the students’
participation in class, while the grade was perceived as a positive influence.
Implications of this study for ELT education include among others that teachers
should be aware of the need of helping students to develop their autonomy and a sense
of self responsibility own learning which motivate them to participate in class.
1
Pseudonyms were used throughout the document for names of institutions, courses, and participants.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 8
Introduction
The college of Fine Arts and Humanities of the Otún University 2(OU) offers a
Bachelor in Arts Degree in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language. Oral Skills I
is a course offered to students at the fourth semester of ‘Professional Development
Program for Teachers of English’ (PDPTE) program. The main goal of this course is to
improve students’ oral communication skills and to help them develop oral abilities to
communicate fluently in different contexts.
Thus, this research project focuses on observing and analyzing the development
of oral skills in 4th semester students from the (PDPTE) Program, specifically those
students from the Oral Skills course I.
The study also attempts to understand how this course facilitates the acquisition
of oral skills throughout the different activities provided by the teacher and the way in
which students’ motivation affects their participation and interaction in class.
2 pseudonyms were used throughout the document for names of institutions, courses, and participants.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 9
The English language has become a major medium for communication across
borders globally and is seen nowadays as the medium of communication not only for
business but also for academic purposes, Karahan (2007) describes English language
as ‘…leading foreign language enjoying a prestigious position in many countries,
including Spanish speaking countries, since the end of World War II. It is neither a
national nor an official language in Latin America but it is the most widely taught foreign
language at all stages of educational system’ (p. 1).
Colombia, due to the importance of its historical relationship with the United
States, is living a revival of English since it has become a global language and people
need to learn it and use it for different reasons. As it is expressed in the document
‘Formar en Lenguas Extranjeras: Inglés (2006)’ published by the Colombian Ministry of
Education, it explains that the standards in foreign languages point at the development
of English as a medium of communication in different fields such as educational since
students would be able to learn a new culture and would get more and better
information and knowledge. Acquiring a foreign language gives people the opportunity
to get better work opportunities since English nowadays is seen as a bridge to improve
life quality. People can go beyond country borders and learn about other cultures, thus,
people who are able to communicate in a foreign language are helping to the
development of their own country.
competences on the part of the learner. As it is well known, competence includes not
only knowledge but also the ability to use that knowledge.
In order to achieve mastery of a foreign language, learners must develop the four
principal language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. However, being able
to interact orally with others, using effectively the target language, is nowadays of the
utmost importance, up to the point where people who cannot speak a foreign language
cannot be considered effective language users, even if they can read it and understand
it.
However, students’ dynamic role, attitude, participation and motivation, are vital
in the process. Without their active involvement in class activities, oral skills cannot be
properly developed, especially as the classroom is, in many occasions, the only
environment in which they have opportunities to use orally the target language.
This study aims at understanding the student’s perceptions and opinions about
the development of oral skills in order to get insights about the kind of activities and
personal motivating factors that may contribute to strengthen their commitment to the
subject.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 11
Research Questions
Objectives
General Objective
To identify the factors that influence the practice of English oral communication and
speaking skills among students from the Oral Skills I offered at ‘Professional
Development Program for Teachers of English’ in the Otún University.
Specific Objectives
B) To identify which instructional tasks best promote the oral participation of the
participants.
C) To identify the main factors that influence participants’ involvement in oral activities
inside the classroom.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 13
Literature Review
Many learners of a foreign language usually do not like or are afraid of speaking
in the target language, and most of the time they exhibit a passive attitude in class,
since they do not have the opportunity to express themselves naturally and
spontaneously (Eckard & Kearny, 1981). As Cotter (2007) explains, training in oral
skills which let them communicate and interact in a meaningful and fruitful form, (e.g.
exchanging information, negotiating meaning, supporting ideas, facing oral defenses) is
a way to motivate students to perceive the foreign language as a tool for social
interaction. Hence, language should be use widely; we use language to achieve a
variety of social purposes, as for example, to entertain, to explain how something works,
to provide information, to argue a position, to explore the inner world of the imagination.
We also use language to make sense of the world, to express and develop ideas on a
range of topics, from everyday experiences to the ideas that are considered across all
the areas of the curriculum.
In order to do that, students need to develop skills and strategies that contribute
to the effective use of speaking and listening, as interaction skills, oral presentation, and
specific listening skills (Cotter, 2007). Interaction skills are important, for example, in
classroom discussions or in group work, where the students need to be aware of how to
start a topic, how to include others, how to change topics, how to repair communication
breakdowns, how to deal with those who dominate the conversation, how to use
language to solve problems, and how to end a discussion.
Oral presentation skills are increasingly important in a world where people are
judged on their ability to present their ideas in a coherent and articulate way in a range
of situations (school, workplace, and society) this means, be fluent when expressing
ideas and thoughts, ‘…fluency is the ability to speak (and understand) English quickly
and easily... WITHOUT translation. Fluency means you can talk easily with native
speakers-- they easily understand you, and you easily understand them. In fact, you
speak and understand instantly’ (Hoge, n.d.).
Cotter (2007) argues that as students learn to use English in the classroom
setting, they should also be involved in learning about how language works. They
should be asked to reflect on various aspects of language, to develop a common
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 15
language for talking about language, and to use this knowledge to evaluate texts
critically in terms of effectiveness, meaning and accuracy. ‘Someone who speaks well
would similarly understand when to use different grammar points’ (Cotter, 2007).
How can students connect accuracy and fluency in daily life routines in speaking
activities inside the classroom? According to Cotter (2007), role-play activities are
valuable classroom techniques that encourage students to participate actively in the
learning process. This author also mentions that those activities take several different
forms and that the teacher should provide students with a variety of learning
experiences by arranging different methodologies according to individual needs,
interests and learning levels. Cotter also explains that role-play activities enable the
teacher to create a supportive, enjoyable classroom environment in which students are
engaged and motivated to effectively learn the target language.
Thus, in order to give students a structured class where they can interact with
each other, the teacher should organize his/her class with the Presentation, Practice,
and Production method (PPP), Cotter (2007) proposed this method in his work and
says that there should be three stages in any language classroom and they are:
Preparation: Allow the students to prepare for the tasks ahead with an
effective warm-up. This gives everyone in the class ample opportunity to get
their English wheels turning. Presentation: Next present the topic for
discussion, target grammar, or any vocabulary selected for the lesson.
Practice: After the presentation, ESL / EFL students need to practice the
new material. It's unfair to expect them to make use of the new language
without adequate practice. And Free Use: You should always work towards
real use of the language.
Cotter (2007) suggests in her work that according to the activities that are been
developed in class, they should then move into freer and freer use of the language,
which will allow each student to integrate the lesson material with pre-existing language.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 16
Activities at the end of the lesson allow students to select vocabulary and grammar
structures, and to tie the day's material with previously studied language. Therefore, ‘for
a student to be considered proficient in English, he ultimately needs to speak it well’
(Cotter, 2007).
Language is part of communication, after all, and the only way to get that
proficiency in oral English is having conversations as much as possible, with native and
non-native speakers, but the main point is that students can interact in the language
with other people, since conversation involves using the language, listening to the
language, processing the information, and then responding to it.
Cotter (2007) states that when teachers prepare their classes, they should
constantly have in mind what the objective is in each of the oral activities they propose
to the students in order to achieve certain oral skills ‘the purpose of the conversation
affects the process, as does the place and the people involved’. Mastery of English as
a foreign language comes down to how well a student speaks. Students may write well,
get high marks on tests, or even have an accent nearly identical to a native speaker; but
if they cannot express ideas, opinions, or instructions clearly in a conversation, few
would call them proficient.
There are studies which explore the integration of other foreign speakers in the
classroom in order to order to highlight the relevance of using the foreign language for
communicative purposes. In their study, Mita, Shirao, Martin, Hatagaki & Dendo (2006)
investigated the effects and implications of inviting foreign Asian students to be present
in oral presentations. The researchers found that the fact that these students came from
different countries and did not share the same mother tongue helped to create a real
need for using English in the class. Mita et all (2006) described in their study that due to
their culture, Asian students are sometimes characterized as passive, introverted,
unmotivated, inactive and unresponsive in the classrooms.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 17
It is well known that all the individuals need social interaction to promote
communication and express their ideas and feelings, this must be the way in which
English as a foreign language would be taught to those people who want to interact in
this language, in this way, the major purpose of any teacher is to give the students good
strategies for their fluency development, but this process is a hard work that takes long-
time to be successful in such skills, mainly oral proficiency, that is what Forero (2005)
related in her proposal and research project:
‘…although social conversational skills are important, they are not sufficient
for classroom-based academic learning. Yet, it is easy to overlook the fact
that academic language can still be challenging and adversely affect the
student's academic performance even though s/he is fluent in everyday
conversations. In fact, a young person who is fluent in English on the
playground is likely to require four to six years to acquire the level of
proficiency needed for successful academic learning. (p. 13)
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 18
Students not only need to be well prepared in English skills, they need also use
them to build social relationships that allow them to interact with each other. An
argument that supports this view is found in Gutierrez (2005) who states: ‘learners often
need to be able to speak with confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic
transactions. It is the skill by which they are most frequently judged, and through which
they make or lose friends.’ (p. 3). This quote addresses the importance of real
interaction which gives the learners the opportunity to demonstrate what they can do in
the foreign language.
Any user of language must master four principal skills which are: reading,
writing,listening, and speaking. Students can put into practice most of these language
skills on their own but there is one skill that any person cannot practice by him/herself,
since it is seen that speaking need interaction (or even an audience) with those people
who share the same language. Essberger (2007)
The teacher may develop some activities in the classroom in order to develop
oral skills in his/her students, in this way, the teacher should use other students and
him/herself in order to foster oral activities in class, the teacher should encourage
students to speak no matter the mistakes in grammar and pronunciation they may have.
The teacher also should tell students to join conversation clubs in order to
challenge themselves to talk to different people. Role-plays in the class is another kind
of activity that the teacher may implement in class, situations such as going shopping
and asking about the prices, or just going to a bar and starting a conversation about any
topic. The use of songs and videos are other strategies that the teacher may use with
students, they may have different likes and dislikes about music and that is another way
to start an oral activity with students.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 19
The attitude is the emotion that a person has towards something or somebody,
this emotion predisposes the kind of interaction with a person, or the kind of success
when learning let’s say a foreign language. Demir (n.d) illustrates in her work some
characteristics about the attitude that a person should have, she explains that:
‘Attitudes are cognitive (i.e. are capable of being thought about) and
affective (i.e. have feelings and emotions attached to them). Attitudes are
dimensional rather than bipolar. Attitudes predispose a person to act in a
certain way, but the relationship between attitudes and actions is not a
strong one. Attitudes are learnt, not inherited or genetically endowed.
Attitudes tend to persist but they can be modified by experience.’ (Baker,
1988 cited by Demir, n.d.).
skills. Gutiérrez (2005) also highlights the essential conditions for effective language
learning, such as exposure, use, and motivation. With this view of language, task-based
learning offers many advantages in the designing of communicative activities and the
development and improvement of oral skills. A supportive environment is built by the
teacher on several grounds. These situations provide important social and practical
bases for students, especially EFL students.
Students are reluctant to speak inside and outside classroom in the target
language, they feel afraid of using English outside class, and in some way, they are
unenthusiastic to use English inside classroom, Farooqui (2007) illustrates this situation
presented in the English classroom, she investigated how private universities in
Bangladesh are helping students to acquire communicative skills and also to improve
higher education standards of English, since the government acquired a new
methodology in order to teach English in all the private and public universities
throughout the country.
Li (1998) cited by Farooqui (2007) showed that students are reluctant to actively
participate in class, students still consider the teacher as the authority figure. The
findings of Chowdhury (2001) (cited by Farooqui) explain that students are facing
themselves to a new world, since they received passive grammar translation method
where the teacher is the centre of the class; they encounter themselves with new
experiences that in some cases could be frustrating.
Farooqui (2007) also suggests that according to Shumin (2002), Brown (2001)
and Green & Nation’s (1989) findings, adults become more engaged in class when they
face themselves to short utterances, and activities where they work in pairs together in
order to create a short conversation or to build up the ending of a story. Farooqui
(2007) proposes in her findings that the communicative approach should be used in all
classes in order to provide the students opportunities to interact with each other. She
declared that the universities should provide all the necessary equipment and
environments for students to constantly interact in English with teachers and students.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 21
El Karfa (n.d) pointed out in his study that motivated students, who take an active
role in their learning, require the teachers to challenge those students who have
preconceived ideas about classroom roles; such students might expect the teacher to
assume total responsibility for their learning, for their achievement, and for the
classroom management. In that case, teachers need to use icebreakers (warm up
activities) to involve uninterested sub-groups or unmotivated and shy students in
classroom activities. Teachers should also create an atmosphere of familiarity,
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 22
friendship, and mutual confidence in the classroom throughout group work, pair work,
and collaborative class discussion where students are engaged in purposeful
communication that promotes their participatory skills and their sense of responsibility
and independence.
It also becomes appropriate to reflect upon how learners’ attitudes might affect
their motivation to learn English since motivation is commonly considered the very key
to successful foreign language learning (Larsson & Olsson, 2008). It is important to
make the students feel that English language in somehow enriches their identity.
Therefore, as Norris-Holt (2001) states, motivation is defined as the learner's orientation
with regard to the goal of learning a second language. Motivation is divided into two
basic types: integrative and instrumental. Integrative motivation is characterized by the
learner's positive attitudes towards the target language group and the desire to integrate
into the target language community.
This kind of motivation is also called intrinsic motivation which refers to the fact of
performing an activity for itself. It occurs when a person’s behavior is stimulated by the
inherent value of an action, it means when the person receives pleasure and
satisfaction from participation. Instrumental motivation underlies the goal to gain some
social or economic reward through L2 achievement, thus referring to a more functional
reason for language learning. Another way to describe this kind of motivation is extrinsic
motivation which refers to engaging in an activity when a person is stimulated by an
external source outside the activity.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 23
There are several factors that affect the initiative of students when taking part of
oral tasks inside the classroom. Some of them could be inner factors, students’ previous
experiences; while some others can be external as for instance the environment
created by teachers in the class ‘… non-English speaking adults are already timid about
using the English language. The teacher must help students’ self-confidence by being
encouraging. Learning environments can have a facilitating effect on oral production.’
(Payne & Whitney, 2002, cited by Farooqui, 2007. p. 5).
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 24
The main purpose of having oral activities in class is that students speak and
use the target language. They should overcome their fears of speaking and use the
target language even if they make mistakes, students cannot learn without making
mistakes, the error makes them realize they are having success in their learning
process; it is a proof of their development.
It is important to make students conscious of the role that mistakes play in the
development of a language. As Jianing (2007) explains in her work, many English
students believe that if they make mistakes or fail to find appropriate words to express
themselves, they will lose face. ‘To protect themselves from being laughed at, they are
reluctant to speak English. So there is the vicious circle: the less they speak, the less
they improve their speaking skills, and the more they are afraid of speaking’ (p. 1).
Jianing (2007) also states in her study that foreign language learners tend to lose
interest in what they learn if they find they make little progress. Additionally, fear of
making errors and losing respect are some of the factors that influenced university
students’ willingness in participating in classroom oral communication (Lin, 1998).
the students spend time practicing scales and theory instead of playing real
pieces. (p. 1)
This is what very often happens in any English courses, where students have to
deal with grammar rules when writing or reading, but most of the time, they do not face
oral communication, so they do not get practice enough in the target language and they
become afraid of talking in front of others.
Nimmannit (1998) commented on this in her work explaining what a typical class
in an EFL classroom is; she describes how students are sitting in neat rows listening
attentively to the teacher and obediently following each stage of the teacher's
instructions. The teacher directs questions to specific students, and occasionally calls
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 26
for volunteers, but students generally seem reluctant to respond. Nimmannit (1998) also
explains that students will be more motivated if they are exposed to activities to which
they can relate, which encourage them to use the target language, and which allow
them to choose what they want to say.
El Karfa (n.d) believes that cultural tips give the students the opportunity to share
with other cultures what they think about foreign ones and their own ones, ‘this is likely
to encourage the students a tolerant attitude towards the second language, its
speakers, and its culture, which will in turn make the students value their own culture
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 27
and identity’. However, according to Melouk (2003) cited by El Karfa (n,d) if students will
reject their own culture when learning a foreign language, it may occur because ‘it is
generally a consequence of ignorance (lack of knowledge), misjudgment and hasty
value judgments and can be avoided by choosing appropriate content. Content that
allows serious discussion and debate about substantive social and global issues will
encourage students to consider all sides of an issue and develop critical skills that
transfer outside of the classroom’.
In the traditional language classroom, students and teachers often have defined
roles. For instance, in highly teacher centered classrooms, the teacher decides who
talks when and about what, the teacher-dominated classroom is the one where the
teachers spend most of the time talking; these kind of teachers are the ones who control
the students’ participation through some classroom activities and students have little
chance to participate freely (Fernandez, 2004). This teacher-centered pattern of
communication does not encourage students to assume an active participatory role and
does not promote the development of interaction and communication skills that are an
essential element of English oral skills. ‘…teachers need to create an environment that
is conducive to learners’ practice of different participatory and intellectual skills. When
teachers relinquish the controlling role and recognize students’ contributions to the
learning process, teachers and students become collaborators in the learning process’
(El Karfa, n. d.).
facilitator of the learning process, students can direct and develop the classroom
activities by interacting among themselves. For this researcher, teachers who shift from
the dominant role as the source of knowledge empower their students to have more
responsibilities, and are themselves able to perform alternative roles as coordinators,
managers, organizers, and advisors.
Nevertheless, not all the methodologies, techniques, and activities that teachers
use in the classroom promote an active participation of the learners and an interactive
process that assures the completion of a successful language learning process. As El
Karfa (n,d) states on his work ‘the job of the facilitator is to create a safe space within
which people can work and then get out of the way.’ This means that teachers need to
create a relaxed and safe atmosphere in the classroom where students share
responsibilities for conducting classroom interaction, management and control ‘the
prevalence of a rigid distribution of roles and power relationships between teachers who
assume the role of sources of knowledge and students who assume the role of passive
recipients of this knowledge certainly impedes any effort to put oral English skills into
practice’ (El Karfa, n.d.)
Beale (2007) also emphasizes the importance of classroom activities for oral
practice. According to this author, students will be motivated to engage in an oral
activity if they feel it is cognitively challenging. Beale (2007) explains that activities
should move into freer and freer use of the language, which will allow each student to
integrate the lesson material with pre-existing language. The researcher also highlights
that more than the traditionally taught linguistic skills of listening, speaking, reading, and
pronunciation, students require using those linguistic skills in contextually appropriate
ways.
El Karfa (n,d) proposes in his work some learner-centered activities that include:
These student centered activities are more likely to motivate them, and also
provide the opportunity for students to engage in the type of negotiation and critical
thinking that will help them develop the participatory and intellectual skills necessary for
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 30
effective oral skills instruction and learning. Such activities expose students to each
other’s opinions with the final purpose of developing their communication strategies and
skills; more importantly, these activities help students recognize that there are different
ways of looking at things and that communication can be a process that is an essential
element for the solution of a conflict.
In addition to small group work and pair work, whole class discussion also allows
students to freely engage in interactive communication while they express themselves
and exchange ideas and information. El Karfa (n,d) agrees that a circle discussion
activity enhances open human communication because ‘in a circle, people can simply
be with each other face-to-face,’ in contrast to rows, where they ‘face the source of
power and authority, and it is clear who will talk and who must listen’.
There are many useful ways in which students can practice in their target
language, the teacher and the students are the ones who are in charged to build
settings where they can practice and develop a good oral fluency and accuracy, that is
what Eckard and Kearny (1981) illustrates in their work:
Structuring the classroom around concrete activities rather than paper and pencil
tasks is the strategy that is most likely to result in authentic use of language among
students. When students are engaged in an activity or task that interests them, they
learn language incidentally and naturally. El Karfa (n.d) describes a method in which
teachers should center the classroom atmosphere, he explains that ‘the best way to
create such an environment in which students learn the target language incidentally and
in the context of doing something that is inherently meaningful, is to center instruction
around interesting and engaging activities, integrating the use of the target language
into that activity’. If the activities turn around an issue or topic that is relevant to
students’ daily lives, language learning becomes even more efficient because of the
students’ high level of interest in the activity.
The importance of such activities is also underlined by Jianing (2007) who affirms
‘The lively atmosphere and real life environment created by activities such as stories
encourage the students to talk and discuss with each other. Besides, many stories can
be adopted into short plays and learners enjoy performing’.
This researcher also stresses the importance a free and optimistic atmosphere to
promote communication and explains that a nervous and stiff atmosphere builds
invisible obstacles for oral production.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 32
Methodology
Type of Study
The selected approach for this research project was the qualitative type of study,
as I was especially interested in understanding students’ feelings and perceptions about
their learning experiences. This type of research is used to help the researchers to
understand how people feel and why they feel as they do and as Merriam (1998)
explains, in qualitative studies ‘The key concern is understanding the phenomenon of
interest from the participants’ perspectives, not the researcher’s.’(p.6)
The study presents characteristics of the Basic or Generic Qualitative Study and
‘seeks to discover and understand a phenomenon, a process, or the perspectives and
worldviews of the people involved’ (Merriam, 1998, p.11). My interest in this research
project was to inquire into students’ perceptions about the development of their oral
skills and the factors that may influence their participation in class activities. The study
involved not only the students but also the learning context where they acquired English
oral skills. As it is stated in Merriam’s work, ‘Qualitative research is an effort to
understand situations in their uniqueness as part of a particular context and the
interactions there’ (2002, p. 5)
Context of Study
Setting
The setting for this research project was a public university ‘the Otún University’,
located on the south-eastern part of Pereira city, Risaralda (Colombia). The educational
offer of this university includes a variety of teacher training programs as well as
Engineering programs.
The program where this research was carried out is the ‘Professional
Development Program for Teachers of English (PDPTE)’, which seeks to train
competent professionals in the area of English language teaching with the purpose of
improving the development of English language and promoting the expansion of this
language throughout the region.
This study was focused on the Oral Skills Course that this program offers to the
th
4 semester PDPTE students. The aim of these speaking classes is to increase the
students’ exposure to the English language, to give them an opportunity to share and
speak in English in the classroom providing different contexts and environments for the
practice of the four principal language skills, mainly oral production.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 34
Participants
With the purpose of getting the necessary information about participation and
interaction in class, two groups with a total number of forty-five students were observed.
In order to be able to enroll in the Oral Skills Course, students must have
attended and successfully passed the previous English courses offered at this program:
elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate courses. In fourth semester, students
are enrolled in the Advanced English course as well as in other courses taught in
English and in Spanish which are mandatory for them, what means that they are
receiving oral input in several other academic contexts besides the Oral Skills Course.
The students’ ages ranged from 17 to 25 years old, and most of them lived in the
city of Pereira. It is important to mention that the level of English of the students was
quite heterogeneous due to their different backgrounds, knowledge and use of the
target language (e.g. one student came from San Andres Island and another one had
lived in London, England, for several years).
Six students (three from each group) were chosen as participants and were
asked to answer a questionnaire and an interview. In order to get relevant information
about the factors that influenced their participation in the class, it was considered very
important that the participants of the study were students with different levels of
participation in the class. That is the reason why these six participants were not chosen
randomly but carefully selected by the teacher according to their different levels of
participation. The students attended to a three-hour class every week.
Out of the six participants, two were described by the teacher as showing high
participation and engagement in class, two of them showed a medium level of
participation and engagement, and the last two participants showed as the teacher
described a low level of participation and engagement in the classroom during the
development of the different activities proposed by the teacher.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 35
The methods used to gather the necessary information for answering the
research questions that guide this study were:
As the questionnaire was applied for the first time three weeks after the
beginning of the course, the simple past tense was used in the questions and answers
and it was explained to the students that they should refer to how their oral skills were
before starting the Oral Skills Course.
the students did throughout the class sessions. I collected the information from each
activity and then later classified it according to different categories in order to answer
the research questions.
The semi-structured interview took place at the end of the semester in order to
give the participants the opportunity to get the perception of the evolution of their skills
and the influence of the conversation class on the process; they were asked questions
about their perceptions related to the factors that influence their oral participation in
class. The interviews were digitally recorded and then transcribed.
Researcher’s Role
Taking into account that I studied the same course in previous semesters, I
wanted to inquire on its students’ perceptions about how this course is helping them in
the development of language oral skills. My role as a researcher at this particular study
was as observer. At no point during the observed sessions did I play any part on the
development of the class. I had this role in order to take detailed notes of everything
happening in class in my field diary. Key (1997) explains that descriptive research is a
continuous process that helps the researcher to explain each detail and fact that could
happen in the process of gathering data; descriptive research aims to collect data
without any manipulation of the research context.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 37
Data Analysis
In this section I will explain in detail the procedures followed to analyze the data
gathered from the instruments applied in the study.
A1: Always
A2: Usually
A3: Sometimes
A4: hardly ever.
A5: Never
I used the Excel® program to create a graphic that illustrated the obtained
frequencies in order to get a visual impression of the information collected.
As the same questionnaire was applied again at a later stage of the study, this
format for processing the information allowed me to introduce in the same table the new
answers of the participants and facilitated the observation of the changes in the
students’ perceptions. The comparison between each student’s answer to the same
3
The frequency was calculated by counting how many participants chose a particular answer and dividing it by the
number of total participants of the study.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 38
question at the two different moments in time in which the questionnaire was applied,
allowed me to observe the changes in the student’s opinion.
For example, Participant number 1 reported in the first stage (week 3) that he
considered that he only sometimes was able to express ideas clearly. As it can be seen
in the illustration below, the same participant reported in the final stage (week 16) that
he considered himself usually able to express his ideas clearly. The change from
‘sometimes’ to ‘usually’ shows that there has been an improvement in the student’s self
perception of his ability in this field.
A1: Always
A2: Usually
A3: Sometimes
A4: hardly ever.
A5: Never
This procedure was repeated with each question of the questionnaire and with
each of the six participants of the study.
With the purpose of finding answers to the first and the third research question, I
observed eight class sessions in total (four classes in each group). I took notes on my
field diary about events belonging to categories previously decided (the different
activities that the teacher provided to the students, their purpose and how the students
responded to them, and the kind of motivation provided by the teacher, the kind of
interaction and participation that students were exposed to, the kind of topics presented
to students, interest of the students towards the class and teacher, external factors,
etc).
I also paid careful attention to the students’ behavior during the development of
the activities as I aimed at discovering which activities increased or decreased students’
motivation in class by paying attention to their reactions, their attitude and the way they
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 39
participated in class. The notes were taken in a field diary and then the information was
read, analyzed and classified into main categories. As this process was taking place, I
digitalized the information directly in the chart.
The interview done to the participants at the end of the process lasted no more
than 15 minutes with each participant. The interview was digitally recorded and
afterwards transcribed into digital text. I read the information gathered several times
trying to detect the common patterns in the participants’ answers. I focused specifically
on those items related to the first research question that aimed at finding out what
factors influence the students’ participation in class.
Answers to the first research question were analyzed and classified according to
whether they provided negative or positive evidence in the influence of the factors in the
student’s participation in class.
Although three data collection instruments were used in the study, the
shallowness of students’ answers in some questions of the interview, (that was not
immediately noticed by the researcher) implied in practical terms that some findings are
only based on the information provided by one instrument and could not be supported
by evidence coming from any of the others.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 40
This research work would have benefited of a more detailed observational data
than the one collected. Lack of detailed description of students reactions during class
activities prevented me from getting strong evidence for some of the findings.
Unfortunately, I did not collect information about the objective results obtained by
the students in the subject. Those results would have allowed me to correlate my
participant’s perceptions about the development of their oral skills with their actual
results, what would have been very interesting.
The collection of observational data which was not well written in detail, and was
not focused on what I wanted to discover in order to respond my research questions.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 41
Findings
In relation to the research questions of this study, which aimed to find out
students’ perceptions of their oral skills development, interactional opportunities
provided by the teacher and factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities,
and after analyzing the information collected through the different instruments, the
following findings can be reported:
The questionnaire done at the beginning and at the end of the course sought to
establish how students perceived their class participation in the Oral Skills classes. The
students’ answers to the questions showed a marked improvement in their perception
regarding the different aspects of their oral skills at a final stage.
In relation to their ability to express and understand ideas clearly, there was a
drastic improvement of students’ self perception. As graphic 1a and 1b show, there was
a decrease in the number of students who considered themselves as hardly ever
capable of expressing ideas clearly (50% at the beginning of the semester against
16.6% at the end of the semester). A significant increase can be observed in the
number of students who consider themselves as usually able to express ideas clearly.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 42
Considering that the ability to express ideas clearly is a very important feature of
fluency, it can be safely assumed that at the end of the course, some students felt their
fluency improved.
The study revealed that students perceived a significant improvement since they
reported having advanced in their pronunciation and intonation performance at the end
of the course.
The information from the questionnaire shows that at the end of the course,
according to their frequency of interaction and participation in class, participants
reported that they participated and interacted more often in class. As graphic 4a
illustrates, at the beginning of the course 33.4% of the participants declared that they
sometimes interacted in class. But at the end of the course, students’ answers showed
that there was a decrease in students’ interaction in class, some participants (16.6%)
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 44
perceived that they interacted less in class; while there were some students (16.6%)
who reported improvement in frequency according to their interaction in class. It can
also be observed that the participants (16.6%) who considered that they never
interacted in class at the beginning of the course, they perceived improvement in
interaction at the end of the class so this category disappeared in graphic 4b.
Regarding the students’ fluency and their ability to communicate ideas and state
opinions, this study demonstrates that there was an important improvement on the
students’ self perception about their oral abilities in order to communicate their thoughts
and opinions as well as fluency.
they could speak the target language, despite making mistakes. Graphic 8b shows that
at the end of the course there was an important improvement on students who
considered that they were fluent (50%), some of the participants perceived that they
gained fluency since they can speak with little mistakes in pronunciation and grammar.
The data collected from the participants’ responses stated that the participants
perceived they had a high ability to understand and to recognize vocabulary and ideas
from others with little or no use of the mother tongue (no translation to L1). In relation
to the students’ feelings towards the use of English in the classroom, there was an
important increase on the students’ self perception about the importance of using
English and sharing opinions and ideas with others in order to improve their English oral
fluency.
The participants reported that at the end of the course some of them had made
progress according to their attitudes towards the use of English; graphic 10b shows that
some participants (33.4%) at the beginning reported they always felt good using
English, while 50% of the participants at the end of the course perceived that they
always felt good when speaking in English. It could also be observed that there was an
important decrease in students’ perceptions about their feelings when using English in
class. 16.6% of the participants reported that they never felt good when using English
inside the classroom at the beginning of the course, whilst at the end of the course this
category disappeared.
This study revealed that there was a considerable decrease inhe use of L1 to
translate sentences from Spanish to English. Graphic 11a shows that 50% of the
participants declared that at the beginning of the course they hardly ever used the
mother tongue when speaking in the target language, meanwhile graphic 11b shows
that 66.8% of them felt that at the end of the course they did not see the necessity to
use the L1 in order to mentally build sentences in English.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 49
Graphic 10a: English use. Week 3 Graphic 10b: English use. Week 16
The data gathered in the observation sessions through the field diary provided
me with the information about the activities that the teacher and students developed in
the class. The following findings were observed:
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 50
The eight observations carried out throughout the first semester of 2009 in the
two different groups in ‘Oral Skills I’, provided me with information about the different
interactional activities that students engaged in during the class. The example below
illustrates the tendency in which the teacher was the main promoter of interaction in the
classroom since she proposed the different activities or topics to work in. Students just
waited for the teacher to organize the interaction in the class. They were responsive to
the teacher’s questions but did not take the initiative to engage in spontaneous
interaction among themselves or with the teacher. Most of the time the teacher
established the interaction among students, and she was the only one who started the
interaction in the class. The following excerpt is an example of how interaction took
place:
It could be noticed that the teacher sometimes arranged the class in groups in
order to prompt interaction among students debating, arguing, agreeing, giving opinions
and ideas, criticizing, analyzing, etc. Teacher - student interaction was based on asking
and answering questions individually or in groups. Most of the students participated in
the speaking class when the teacher called on them but few students volunteered to
participate. As it can be observed in the following excerpt, participant 4 recognizes that
the questions asked by the teacher motivate them to talk:
Question 4. Participant 4.
Line 72: ‘… the most important aspects of the conversation class I think the
energy of the teacher eh… she [talks] the class more interesting, she asks
questions, she is very active with us’.
It was noticed that most times students did not develop the tasks and activities in
the target language, in many cases I observed them talking in Spanish rather than in
English. Most of the students used Spanish among themselves; they only tried to use
English when the teacher was around. When the teacher was not monitoring them,
they felt relaxed and free to do something else, something different from the task
(joking, whispering, speaking, etc.) The following are some extracts from the field-notes
which support this finding.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 52
In sessions 2 and 7 it seemed that students did not like to interact among
themselves in the target language or maybe they did not see the necessity to speak in
the target language. The teacher constantly encouraged them to use English inside the
classroom. It is remarkable that although students knew the aim of the subject and the
usefulness of taking advantage of the activities to develop their oral skills, they seem to
need the constant pressure of the teacher to keep in track on the activities and also on
the use of the target language.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 53
I could notice that the interaction among students and the participation in class
were higher when the teacher arranged the students in small groups in relation to the
amount of students of this course (five people maximum); it seemed that they were
more confident when they practiced the target language in small groups where the
pressure was lower.
I realized that when students worked in small groups, there was more
participation among them since the class was noisier, and students’ facial expressions
showed they were motivated. Students participated more in class and there was turn
taking, interruptions among themselves, and I could observe that they tended to
complete each other ideas.
The patterns of interaction shown below are some excerpts from the information
gathered through the observations and note-taking which illustrate that students
preferred to work in small groups rather than in big ones or individually.
of the whole class. Some of them forgot what they wanted to say, some others
could not find the words to express themselves… The teacher noticed it and tried
to put students at ease by asking other students to help the one talking, by giving
prompts, etc’.
As we can notice from the data from session 4, students seemed to feel more
confident when the activities involved small group interaction (taking into account that
the course had 28 students) and they had to face only a few classmates at once.
Debates and Discussion as the most Engaging Activities for Students’ Participation
During the course, the teacher provided different kind of activities for the
students. Some of the activities presented by the teacher were vocabulary contests and
quizzes, monologues or group oral presentations, debates, discussions, short prepared
dialogues.
started talking without waiting for their turn; most of the students seemed that
they liked the topic because time after time they interrupted each other in order to
defend or establish their opinions’.
As we can observe from the sample from the data, students seemed to find
easier to engage in oral participation when the activities involved debating controversial
issues among themselves, in this way they perceive they are giving ideas and sharing
opinions in a meaningful way.
Data from the interview also provides information about how the students
perceived debates and discussion activities in class. The following is an extract from the
interview:
Question 4. Participant 2.
Line 64: ‘…when we are debating and we are all speaking and participating that
is important, that’s interesting and that is what the class is for… if there is an
issue or a topic that is interesting… they will participate and I will do the same.’
In the extract Participant number 2 confirmed that debating and doing discussion
activities were very motivating for him since students were talking and sharing ideas
and making oral production naturally. The participant is conscious of developing a
higher participation in this kind of activity.
The study also revealed that the use of authentic material in the class was a
trigger for students’ participation. Students reported that the teacher provided interesting
material that involved them in the learning process; the teacher brought different
interactive activities to have her students more engaged so in this way, students
interacted more among themselves. Some of the materials that the teacher presented to
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 56
students were different games, puzzles, magazines, songs, articles and poems from
authentic sources. An example of this can be observed in the following excerpt from the
data.
Question 3. Participant 1.
Line 40: ‘I think that, when the teacher starts the class with [the] game, with…
crosswords, with newspapers in English, [that] topics are [that] students were
more motivated’.
Line 40 shows that this participant stated that the kind of authentic material
teacher brought into the class motivated him/her in order to participate in class and be
more engaged in the different topics and activities that teacher proposed to the group.
From the observation sessions, it could be reported that students liked to interact
among themselves when the teacher presented topics that were new or fascinating for
them. Some topics that were discussed in class were culture tips, music, important and
famous places and people, private and public lives, politics and social issues, etc.
These kinds of topics gave the students the opportunity to think about their likes and
dislikes, and about their previous knowledge they might had about the topic involved.
Data from the observation and field-notes illustrate the effectiveness of the use of
these topics inside the classroom.
really wanted to participate in this activity since I could notice that most of them
were raising their hands, everyone wanted to state their opinions and ideas about
the topic they were discussing. Since the interaction in class included talking
about famous people I realized that most of the students wanted to share any
information they could have about those famous people. It seemed they liked the
topic in discussion since they interacted more among themselves, they shared
ideas, opinions, photographs, etc. I could notice they were more talkative, they
asked the teacher for the new vocabulary, and they were doing some comments
about the people they were reading about’.
Data from the interview also confirmed how talking about famous people and
politic-social issues increased students motivation inside class. The following are some
extracts taken from the interview which illustrated students’ perception about this
finding:
Question 3. Participant 2.
Line 43: ‘I specially like political issues, political topics, and, mmm.. things that
[has] to do with our surrounding, with social issues’.
Participant 3.
Line 49: ‘… when you want to talk about the famous people you feel very
interested because you want a… eh… when you talk about the famous people
that you like, you feel very good, because is one of the things that you enjoy’.
The information obtained from the observations, field diary and interviews give a
clear view of the situation presented in this finding, some students stated they
considered more interesting to talk about topics they were more used to, everyday
topics, topics in which they could have some background information in order to
participate more in class. In this way some of the students seemed to feel more
confident and comfortable talking in class about topics they really like and enjoy.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 58
At the end of this study, the participants were interviewed in order to know their
perceptions related to their interaction and the factors that influenced their participation
in class. Students were addressed in order to know how they felt in the Oral Skills
course; the external and internal factors that might have influenced their participation
and interaction in class activities. The following are the findings that can explain the
main factors that influenced students’ participation in class.
The data collected from participants showed that the majority of them were
conscious about the importance of improving speaking skills and the problems they had
in oral communication. They felt the necessity of developing essential abilities in order
to have a better performance in their oral production, thus they saw participation in the
conversation classes as the chance for them to practice their English language and at
the same time to correct the mistakes they might make.
Question 4. Participant 3.
Line 68: ‘…in the conversation class […] it doesn’t matter the topic because you
have to talk, you need to talk… I like the conversation with everybody… because
you can correct the mistakes hearing the partners, the teacher, it doesn’t matter, I
just want to participate and learn more’.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 59
It is also important to highlight that some students were motivated in class since
they perceived the importance of acquiring fluency in English because they believed it
was very important for their lives and profession. Consequently, they saw the necessity
to develop good speaking skills if they wanted to become English teachers, they felt the
necessity to show a high English proficiency in their future teaching jobs as it is
observed in the following excerpt from the interview.
Question 4. Participant 5.
When asked about the specific aspects that they value the most in the
conversation class, Participant number 5 states that everything is important without
mentioning any specific aspect. From his use of the expression ‘everything that has to
do with conversation’, it seems that the participant refers to something more than just
different aspects of oral skills (fluency, accuracy, vocabulary and grammar that they
may acquire). Participant number 5 may also be referring to the organization and
management of that type of activities although this is just a hypothesis because I did not
ask further questions to the student that could have provided more detailed information.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 60
It could be noticed in the transcription of the interview that half of the participants
stated that having a good grade increased their motivation in class, so they were more
willing to participate in class. Those participants were motivated when participating in
class just to increase their marks in participation instead of increasing or improving their
speaking skills.
On the other hand, half of them believef that having a grade is not as important
as learning and improving their oral skills. They stated that they participated in the Oral
Skills class because they wanted to have better speaking skills.
Data from the interview shows some examples about this situation, these are
some opinions that students stated in the interview.
Question 1. Participant 2.
Line 8: ‘…if I know if I can obtain a higher grade for participating, I would do it
gladly and I’ve working hard for my grade, to increase my grade’.
Participant 3.
Line 10: ‘when I’m going to speak I think, I think a lot in my grade because it is
a motivation’.
Participant 1.
Line 5: ‘it’s most a little, because when I participate in class is because [ I want
to learn, for myself ], not for the grade, it’s most personal’.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 61
Participant 4.
Line 13: ‘I don’t think the grade is [not] important for me, I participate because I
want… eh… the grade is… I don’t know, is a motivation but is not important,
that’s because I want to learn’.
Lines 8 and 10 reveal that learners paid a lot of attention to their grades when
they were going to participate in class. Participants stated that the grade was very
important and influential for them because they perceived the grade as an important
factor that tells them they will pass the course, no matter how much they learn or
improve. However, lines 5 and 13 reveal the contrary; these participants stated that
they did not pay attention to the grades. From the expressions ‘when I participate in
class is because I want to learn, not for the grade’ and ‘the grade is a motivation, but is
not important, that’s because I want to learn’ I can conclude that Participants 1 and 4
perceived the grade as less important, they just want to learn and improve their oral
skills, that was the main reason why they participated and interacted in class.
Fear of Losing Face in Front of the Classmates as a Negative Influence for Participation
Some participants, who reported that they did not like to participate in class, also
explained that they were afraid of making mistakes when expressing their ideas or
making a presentation in front of their classmates.
Although there are different learners’ factors that may influence participation in
the class, my participants were very clear when stating that their unwillingness to
participate in the class is related both to their fear of making mistakes and to their
classmates’ negative behavior and reactions as an audience.
The following are some excerpts from the information gathered from the students’
responses to the interview.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 62
Question 2. Participant 3.
Line 28: ‘when I’m ready to talk in a [participation] I feel very afraid because of
the influence of the partners, I feel very [bored], very afraid, I don’t know, for
example when the teacher ask me I feel very [bored],, very afraid, because
eh.. I think I am going to make a mistake.. it is the problem.’
Participant 4.
Line 32: ‘I don’t like to talk [about], talk a lot in the class because I’m very shy,
and I don’t know, the classmates are very [mean] with other persons ... they
are so bad…’.
Participant 6.
Line 37: ‘I don’t like to participate because eh… the partners laugh a lot of
other’s mistakes’.
Lines 28, 32 and 37 illustrates that shyness, fear of making mistakes and lack of
confidence influenced students and made them unwilling to participate in class.
However, as we can see in their testimonies, participants also stated that they did not
participate in class because their classmates laugh at other students’ mistakes.
The participants stated that the group is clearly divided into small subgroups
which influence negatively the way in which students interacted and learned in the
class. Students with high academic achievement tended to interact among themselves,
and gave few or no opportunities to students with lower academic level to integrate in
their groups or interact with them. The following excerpt gathered from participants’
answers in the interview can illustrate this situation.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 63
Question 2. Participant 2.
Line 24: ‘…when the teacher organize us in little groups, there are some
students that don’t like to participate with us,… in my case I’m very shy and I
don’t like that other laugh [of] me… some students believe that they are better
than others’.
Data from the field diary can also support the participant’s perception; I could
observe that when the teacher asked students to freely create groups, they tended to
work with the same people, those students who might have better speaking skills than
others, tended to work together. Hardly ever could I see those students interacting with
low level speaking students. The following extract illustrates this finding:
As it can be observed from this extract, students with high English level
tend to work always with the same classmates, and ignore those whose level of
English is lower.
Discussion
The following research questions guided the data collection and analysis for this
study:
The data described the impact of a particular course (Oral Skills I) on the
students’ perception about the development of their oral abilities. The data revealed
that students perceived that their oral skills improved after attending the Oral Skills
Course. Participants reported feeling that the different factors related to oral
communicative abilities, like pronunciation, intonation, vocabulary, ability to express and
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 66
Eckard and Keamy (1981) stated that ‘the major goal of EFL education is to
teach students how to speak English well enough to converse spontaneously and
naturally’ (p. 2). This is especially important in the context of the PDPTE program,
since the students who are following its curriculum will need to have excellent levels of
English language skills because they will become English teachers.
According to the data from the oral abilities and communicative skills
questionnaire, a high percentage of participants thought they improved their speaking
since they perceived at the end of the course they had better oral skills; the data
revealed that students’ speaking skills had a tendency to get better since the students
perceived themselves as being more prepared when establishing a conversation or
preparing an oral discussion. Thus, it is important to highlight that students perceived
that their needs were fulfilled and their self-image increased positively since they felt
they could have a good use of their speaking skills. Venditi and Bahruth (1987) explain
better this finding, since they state that students’ difficulties in their speaking skills are a
direct result of their beliefs that they cannot think or perform accurately, they also state
that ‘students who have difficulty in school have often learned to perceive themselves
as incapable of performing or thinking correctly’ (p. 4).
As it was shown in the findings, at the end of the course the majority of the
students reported feeling that they interacted and participated more frequently with their
classmates in class activities. However, it must be acknowledged that one of the
participants affirmed that his interaction in class had decreased. This could be explained
by a misunderstanding of the question, a contradiction of the responses, or maybe this
Participant’s interaction and participation could have been affected by his perception of
little progress or maybe self-exigency.
Curiously, this same participant reported in his/her answers to the questionnaire that
s/he felt little improvement in his abilities to understand vocabulary and express ideas.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 67
The data from this student supports Jianing (2007) statement that foreign language
learners tend to lose interest in what they learn if they find they make little progress, in
consequence students tend to participate and interact less in class.
Forero (2005) also explains that it is easy to overlook the fact that academic
language can still be challenging and adversely affect the student's academic
performance even though s/he is fluent in everyday conversations, so it could be said
that although this participant reported they did not feel improved his understanding of
vocabulary and expression of ideas, still this student had improvement in their
communicative skills since s/he acquired new knowledge everyday.
The data also revealed that the teacher tried to enhance students’ interaction and
participation by asking them questions that might involve them in the topic or the
discussion. It is noticeable, however, that although students are aware of the
importance of participating in the class for improving their oral skills, few of them
participated or answered teacher’s questions voluntarily. This behavior is consistent
with what Nimmannit’s (1998) describes as a ‘typical’ classroom: one in which the
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 68
teacher directs questions to specific students, and occasionally calls for volunteers, but
students generally seem reluctant to respond.
Most of the time the teacher assumed total control of the class in terms of choice
and presentation of the topics and activities that students should develop in the class.
This situation is criticized by El Karfa’s (n.d) study, when he says that students should
not been considered as passive participants of their learning process, and the teacher
should not been considered as the authority, the centre of the class that provides
students with information and no autonomous learning. As he explains, ‘the prevalence
of a rigid distribution of roles and power relationships between teachers who assume
the role of sources of knowledge and students who assume the role of passive
recipients of this knowledge certainly impedes any effort to put oral English skills into
practice’ (El Karfa, n.d.)
As it has been previously mentioned, students did not take the initiative in oral
interaction; we would expect that students make more oral contributions and take
advantage of the opportunities that the Otun University offers to them since it is well
known that in our context few people can interact in a foreign language. Although
students did not identify this passive role as a factor that influences their participation
and interaction in the class, it would be interesting to study if this situation would change
by giving them a more active role in the choice of activities and topics.
Another possible factor that influences students’ speaking skills was the impact of
the teacher’s presence on students’ use of the target language. Although a high use of
the target language would be expected in such a particular group of students, aware of
the importance of interacting in the target language as well as of the lack of
opportunities out of class environment to improve their oral skills, the findings show that
the presence of the teacher was needed in order for the students to interact in English.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 69
This lack of use of English could be explained by the type of activities used in the
class. Nimmannit’s (1998) argues that students will be more motivated if they are
exposed to activities to which they can relate, which encourage them to use the target
language, and which allow them to choose what they want to say with no pressure of
teacher’s control (Activities-Relating activities to the students' experience, para. 1). Also
Gutiérrez (2005) emphasizes the importance of class activities and of using language
for real communicative purposes when she states that the teacher should create a low
stress atmosphere where students can use the language for real purposes in order to
be involved in meaningful communication and interaction that allow them to acquire
speaking skills.
Other findings of this study support these ideas. In my research I could notice
that the activities that seemed to motivate students participation was debates and
discussion activities about different topics. To facilitate oral skills development,
students were motivated by the teacher to talk about topics such as famous people or
places, likes and dislikes according to their free-time activities, politics and social
issues, private and public lives, poems and readings, music and movies, history, etc. in
this way, the teacher encouraged and allowed the students to talk about themselves to
promote conversation and confidence when talking about a content that was interesting
and entertaining for them in front of the class or small groups.
This study revealed that another factor that affects directly students’ participation
is the arrangement for class activities. My observation’s data showed that class
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 70
interaction was better when students were organized in small groups to develop the
activities. The finding concerning the class organization used by the teacher showed
that students tended to participate more when they were exposed to small groups. It
seemed that they felt more relaxed and more motivated to use the target language and
interact among themselves. This finding aligns to what El Karfa’s (n.d) study states, he
describes that group-work provides opportunities for students to be involved in
cooperative classroom communication and helps to create a comfortable and motivating
atmosphere in the classroom.
This kind of classroom activities do not simulate what students will have to do
with the language in real life contexts, even in lectures or teachers’ explanations in
class. In the first case there is an interest on the part of the person who listens (usually
you freely decide to attend a lecture), in the second case, a teacher’s explanations is
aimed at achieving something and it’s frequently followed by activities or interaction with
the audience.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 71
Since solo presentations are focused on the presenter and usually no questions
from the audience follow the speech, most students are disengaged and paying little
attention to what is happening, focusing instead on mentally rehearsing their own
discourse.
However, even if students dislike giving presentations, it must be agreed that this
type of activities has its usefulness in relation both with fluency and accuracy. Having
the opportunity of preparing in advance what they will say, students can focus in the
accuracy of their discourse. The actual presentation in front of the class will give them
the chance to practice pronunciation, intonation and public oral skills. The Colombian
Ministry of Education acknowledges the role of monologues as a communicative skill to
develop among students of English and includes it in the Standards of English that must
guide teaching practice in the country. Hernandez- Herrero (2005) explains that
students feel that facing the whole class requires more from them than working in small
groups. In addition, even though they feel nervous, oral presentations give them the
opportunity to practice public-speaking skills techniques, which will be very important for
their future professions.
This finding is supported by Mita et al’s (2006) findings; they stated that ‘It was
found that by making discussion activities inside the classroom, the learners discovered
the importance of grammatical competence and strategic competence. It means that,
students became aware of their own development as they learn English oral skills’.
the classroom, not only through their presence but also by the choice of activities that
are presented to the students.
The data from the interviews showed that the majority of the participants were
highly aware of the importance of active participation in class activities as a way of
improving their oral performance. This fact was consistent with the students’ reports
about participation in class activities. At the end of the course students reported a
higher level of participation in class activities than at the beginning of the course. Thus,
it can be argued that the Oral Skills I course was helpful to raise students’ awareness
on the importance of active involvement in the class and affected positively their
attitudes and motivation.
Attitudes and motivation play an important role when students are learning a
foreign language as they will strongly affect their success or lack of it in their learning
process. They need to be conscious of the necessity of using the target language to
communicate, since as Fernandez (2004) explains in her work, when learners have a
clear communicative need in the target language, they are most likely to learn language
spontaneously by participating in class activities.
The interview results showed that instrumental motivation dominated half of the
participants since they reported that they participated in class in order to have a good
grade in participation. According to them, the grade is one of the most important factors
to participate in class. These opinions expressed by the students contrasted with
Nimmanit’s (1998) findings which show that students are more motivated if they are
exposed to activities to which they can relate, which encourage them to use the target
language, and which allow them to choose what they want to say, instead of having
something external or just receiving a reward for participation in class in this case a
grade.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 73
However, there were also some streaks of integrative motivation. Some of the
participants stated that they liked to go to the Oral Skills class in order to improve their
communicative skills regardless of getting a grade. They explained that they considered
that acquiring the necessary tools for having fluency skills would help them in the future.
This can be interpreted as partly an integrative motivation since it comes from their
inner conviction of the value of having better oral skills in the target language in order to
achieve the goals they want for themselves.
Furthermore, Brown (2000) quoted by Larsson & Olsson (2008) to state that
‘students’ needs play a significant role when it comes to motivation, in the sense that
when they see that there is a possibility for their needs to be fulfilled, they become
motivated’. Students’ perception of their need of improving their oral skills, and also of
the usefulness of the class for achieving that goal may have had a strong influence in
their levels of participation in class activities.
On the other hand, aligning with Lin’s (1998) study about students’ fears of
making errors and losing respect in front of their classmates as factors that might
influence students willingness to participate in class oral activities, my research shows
some findings in which participants perceived fears about making mistakes or maybe
being laughed at by others due to inaccurate pronunciation or grammar as possible
negative influence in their motivation in participation.
Also Farooqui (2007) supports this finding when she claimed in her study that
non-English speaking students are timid about using the language; that is why the
teacher must help students to develop self-confidence.
The importance of errors in the class has been widely discussed. Essberger
(2007) highlights the importance of making mistakes as a way to develop the
interlanguage and Jianing (2007) explains that many students of English believe that if
they make mistakes or fail to find appropriate words to express themselves, they will
lose face. So it becomes a vicious circle in which these students are reluctant to speak
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 74
due to their fears of making mistakes and ‘the less they speak, the less they improve
their speaking skills, and the more they are afraid of speaking’ (p. 1)
As Gutiérrez (2005) and El Karfa (n.d) emphasize, if teachers want to help their
students to become fluent speakers, they need to turn the class into a safe place in
which learners have opportunities to speak and where their attention be more focused
on communicating content than in the accuracy of their speech.
This situation might be explained by Karahan (2007) study about the different
components of students’ attitudes towards their classmates in which he describes that
attitudes tend to have cognitive and behavioral components. The cognitive component
determines student’s behavior; this means that the beliefs or perceptions about the
persons or situations related to the class in general may generate like or dislike and
thus prompt learners to adopt particular learning behaviors. For instance, low-English
proficiency learners or low-self esteem learners may feel anxious, nervous and
embarrassed because they assume that they are being judged for those with a better
oral proficiency. As a result, students may create a fear for communication and tend to
avoid the situations in which they have to confront those more capable classmates.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 75
Teaching Implications
Students consider that participating in the Oral Skills Course I has a positive
influence on the development of their oral skills. It must be explained that the main
purpose of my research was to explore students’ feelings and opinions about the impact
of Oral Skills class on the achievement of the oral and communicative skills they will
need.
My research shows that students consider that participating in the class helps
them to improve their oral skills. This is of great importance for us as teachers because
regardless of the objective achievements of students (which I did not pretend to assess
in my study), the class has a positive influence on their self-image as English speakers.
This implies that including in our programming conversation stages may help students
to develop a positive self-image that might increase their participation in class and in
this way their oral skills will probably improve.
This finding points out at the necessity of developing students’ autonomy and
self-responsibility for their own learning. Teachers must help their students to become
empowered in the classroom so they feel confident to participate spontaneously and
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 77
start oral interactions on their own so they maximize the practice of oral language in the
class instead of being reduced to wait for the teacher to include them in the activities.
In relation with this need of developing self responsibility in the students, it is also
interesting to mention that my research shows that the teacher’s presence was needed
to maintain the use of English when students were interacting in small groups. Teachers
should gradually adjust their style of teaching, avoiding their traditional role of instructor
in which they only transmit and assess knowledge, and gradually adopt a facilitator role
that may help students to take control of their learning process.
This research study also showed that the grouping of students for class activities
influenced students’ participation in oral activities. Since low English proficiency
students feel more capable of participating in class when they are exposed to small
groups in which they feel confident to speak, this kind of arrangement should be
maximized for conversation classes.
Besides, students reported that having to interact with classmates whose level of
English was too different from their own, impacts negatively their participation. It seems
important, then, that teachers assess the conversation group’s language proficiency
level at the beginning of the semester so they can take into account individual oral skills
and decide the most fruitful arrangement for group activities.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 78
Since ‘fear of losing face’ was identified by students as one of the most influential
factors that reduced their participation, teachers should increase their efforts to make of
the classroom a safe and comfortable environment where students are tolerant of other
classmates’ mistakes and where the error is seen as a proof of ongoing development,
so the participants feel encouraged to try their hypothesis about language and take risks
to communicate.
Research Implications
This study carried out in the Oral Skills Course I offers information that can
contribute to the enrichment of the teaching and learning process in communication
skills. The following aspects should continue to be analyzed, studied and explored:
EFL teachers can conduct this research in speaking classes and offer the
teaching community interesting insights about students’ attitudes and motivation that
may allow creating more participative and safer environments for English oral practice.
Researchers must identify the most suitable activities, instructional materials and
practices for the development of oral skills in the Colombian context. A study that
compares the effectiveness of the use of different oral activities for the development of
oral skills would be helpful for teachers.
It could also be interesting to research the use of oral English outside the
classroom by PDPTE students and the impact that this use may have in their oral skills
development.
In order to obtain enough and necessary data for this type of study, researchers
should design carefully the methodology and data collection techniques they will use
when carrying this study.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 80
Conclusions
In this study, students’ perspectives about their English oral performance and
motivation to participate in oral activities in the class were studied.
The findings of this research show that students perceived improvement of their
oral skills after attending and participating the Oral Skills course.
The findings also revealed that although students are aware of the importance of
participating in class activities they leave the responsibility of interaction to the teacher
whose presence is necessary to maintain the use of the target language in the activities.
Factors as the grade are found to positively impact students’ motivation whilst
fear of losing face and the composition of the groups for class activities may have a
negative influence on participation.
From the findings above mentioned, the following educational implications follow:
- teachers should include in their programming conversation stages that may help
students to develop a positive self-image as well as developing students’ autonomy and
self-responsibility for their own learning which motivate them to participate in class; in
order to maximize students participation in class activities it seems advisable that that
teachers make a previous assessment of the students’ interests and needs, that allows
them to include in their classes the topics and activities more engaging for the particular
group of students they have in charge; it is of the utmost importance to create a safe
and comfortable environment where students are tolerant of other classmates’ mistakes
and where the teacher avoid the traditional role of instructor, and gradually adopt a
facilitator role.
This study leads to further research in the field that may focus in aspects such
as: the design of a comparative research study about different types of activities and
topics and their impact on students’ participation, the design, implementation and
assessment of practical interventions to turn around negative attitudes in the classroom,
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 81
the implementation and study of the impact on students’ participation and motivation of
computer mediated communication activities, investigate the use of oral English outside
the classroom and its impact on the students’ oral skills development.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 82
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Cotter, Ch. (2007). Speaking well - four steps to improve your ESL EFL students
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http://ezinearticles.com/?Speaking-Well----Four-Steps-To-Improve-Your-ESL-
EFL-Students-Speaking-Ability&id=631232
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Appendix 1
QUESTIONNAIRE No. 1
Note: the same questionnaire was applied to the participants at the end of the course. It
was changed the use of the verbs to simple present.
(Self Assessment of oral performance at the beginning in the Oral Skills Course I)
This questionnaire is done as an instrument to collect data for the current project called
‘The students’ perception of their oral participation in the Oral Skills course I’. This
instrument will collect your opinion towards your English oral performance. Please,
answer the following questions, giving any information that you consider important for
you. The data you provide us will be used confidentially.
After each question you are offered five different options. Choose the option that applies
better to your oral performance in the Oral Skills classes.
- How was your participation in class before starting the conversation class?
4. A FLUENT person has the ability to converse about fairly abstract ideas,
state opinions, understand the language when spoken normally (on TV, radio,
film, etc.), can reorganize sentences in order to communicate and figure out the
majority of new vocabulary within the context. In other words, fluency refers to
the smoothness with which sounds, syllables, words and phrases are joined
together during speech. Based on this,
- Were you fluent when speaking in English before starting conversation classes?
- Could you communicate easily your ideas with your partners and friends?
- Were you able to understand the general idea of the language as it is spoken,
even if you didn't know every single word?
To what extent did you use the L1 in order to (mentally) build sentences when you
interacted in English?
5. I have never used the L1 to (mentally) build sentences when speaking in English
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 88
4. I hardly ever have used the L1 to (mentally) build sentences when speaking in
English
3. I sometimes have used the L1 to (mentally) build sentences when speaking in
English
2. I usually have used the L1 to (mentally) build sentences when speaking in English
1. I always have used the L1 to (mentally) build sentences when speaking in English.
Students’ Perceptions of Their Oral Participation 89
Appendix 2
INTERVIEW: This interview is done as an instrument to collect data for the current
project called ‘The students’ oral participation in the Oral Skills class I’.
Appendix 3