THE ROLE OF CLASSROOM INTERACTION IN DEVELOPING LEARNER’S SPEAKING SKILL

Abstract

It is generally accepted that classroom interaction can facilitate students’ language development and communicative competence. The most common proposition of the role of classroom interaction is its contribution to language development simply by providing target language practice opportunities. Today, many researchers claim that through classroom interaction knowledge can be constructed and skills can be developed. However, getting students to respond in a language classroom, especially a foreign language one, is a problem that most language teachers face. The present work aims at showing that classroom interaction can be a best pedagogical strategy to develop English language learners’ speaking skill and even to foster their capacity to generate new language. To shed light on the value of interaction in foreign language classroom, the dissertation in hand exposes issues about the speaking skill and classroom interaction in its theoretical part. As far as its practical part is concerned, two questionnaires that are administrated to both first year English language LMD students and teachers of Oral Expression module are handed out and analyzed in depth. Data gathered from both questionnaires are useful to get information about the impact of classroom interaction on developing the students’ speaking skill. The analysis of the questionnaires revealed that both learners and teachers consider classroom interaction as an important pedagogical strategy in enhancing the speaking skill. By the end of the dissertation in hand, set of pedagogical recommendations are suggested.