Students’ Perceptions towards the Effectiveness of Oral Instruction in Developing the Speaking Skill

Abstract

The speaking skill became a crucial part of the language learning process since one of its major goals is gaining communicative efficiency. Thus, the foremost aim behind conducting this study is to explore students’ perceptions in regards to the effectiveness of oral instruction in enhancing the speaking skill, and to determine the factors that hinder the students’ participation in oral tasks. Accordingly, the dissertation in hand is based on the hypotheses that learners will report unsatisfactory attitudes and perceptions if they find insufficiency in the development of their speaking abilities and that the curriculum adopted in teaching this skill has some weaknesses and lacks efficiency. For the sake of testing these two hypotheses, a descriptive design was implemented in which a questionnaire has been administered to seventy (70) first year Master students of English at Mohammed Seddik-Ben Yehia University, but sixty two (62) students answered the questionnaire. The findings showed that students reported negative attitudes toward the curriculum currently in use in teaching oral expression module. To put it concisely, the research hypotheses were confirmed and the oral instruction curriculum lacks a variety of interactive tasks and communicative skills.