Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions towardsthe Importance of Classroom Interaction in Enhancing Learners’ Speaking Skill

Abstract

The foremost target behind conducting this study is to investigate teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions towards the importance of classroom interaction in enhancing EFL learners‟ speaking skill. It has been hypothesized that the more EFL learners are offered sufficient opportunities for interaction by their teachers of OE, the more they (teachers/learners) deem classroom interaction as significant to promote the speaking skill. To confirm the formulated hypothesis two questionnaires were administered to one hundred first year students of English out of (331) and eight oral expression teachers at Mohammed Seddik Benyahia University, Jijel. The results obtained have shown that the majority of students prefer the type of teacherlearner interaction inside their oral expression classes. Furthermore, all teachers of oral expression module at Jijel University perceive classroom interaction as a crucial aspect that helps students to improve their speaking skill. Moreover, the findings revealed that learners held positive attitudes towards improving their speaking skill through more interaction in oral expression classes. Thus, both teachers and students are aware of the importance of classroom interaction in enhancing the speaking skill. Results from the analysis of both questionnaires demonstrated that the use of communicative activities during oral expression classes satisfied most of students since they believed that the use of those communicative tasks help them, to a great extent, to overcome the different difficulties they encounter during speaking performance and to develop their interaction skills