improving english oral communication skills of pakistani public
TRANSCRIPT
IMPROVING ENGLISH ORAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF PAKISTANI PUBLIC SCHOOL'S
STUDENTS
Published IN: December 2013
Writer:
Qutbi Alam & DR. Ayesha Bashir Uddin
(Assistant Professor at AKUI for Educational Development
Abstract:
Pakistan’s Public School’s Rarely exposed to the English
Grade-6th students Language and OCSs
focused in article
works on the improvement of Oral Communication Skills
Both teachers and students.
Teacher can help student in improving OCSs by using new Methods of OCSs.
Status of OCSs are totally ignored
students are found
Silent
Shy
Hesitation
Fear of being wrong
Improving accuracy and fluency of students
Self-Developed Strategies guiding tool & action planner
systematic lessons delivered
Pre intervention and post intervention phases
when got opportunities to practice
oral languages performing activities
OCS are Improve
Code switching
Peer/self-error correction
short pauses
speech fillers
inevitable to improve speaking skills of second language learning.
What do you know about code
switching???
Introduction & Background:
The study was conducted in School of Karachi, Pakistan in urban context.
Two schools systems are working.
One is the private English medium schools.
Second are government Urdu-medium schools.
(English is learnt as a second language in both cases)
In the context of Urdu medium schools where this research was carried out,
The students have no exposure to English
Both students and teachers use Urdu or the regional language
The teachers role limited as ‘instructor’ or ‘director’.
Language learned passing examinations.
Traditional teaching methods
writing skills reading skills
Lack of awareness of new methodologies of teaching speaking skills.
National Curriculum for English-2006 developed:
teaching materials activities systematic lessons
Integrated
Communication Language Teaching (CLT) and Task Based Teaching Approach (TBTA)
Oral Communication Skills:
Exchanging ideas between people called
orally or written communication
Fluency accuracy
main communication elements
‘Learn by doing approach’ focused in research
teacher students
both are part of the task “Interactive process”
Sender & Receiver involved
Research methodology:
“How can I facilitate students of Grade-6 to improve Oral Communication Skills in a Lower Secondary Public school in Karachi, Pakistan?”
Research In-depth understanding
Qualitative methods used
Demonstrations/ Conversations (proof beyond the possibility of doubt)
Discussion/ group work.
Role plays.
Role plays in pairs.
Participants and Data Collection: Research conducted at Grade 6-B.
61 strength 4 participants 2 Boys
selected 2 Girls
Mix language ability Low Socio-economic
background
very basic understanding to EL
Variety of data collection tools were used:
Observations, interviews, audio recordings of teaching sessions, and document analysis.
Findings & discussion:Look at APPENDIX 1:
1. Action plan cycle
2. Form of lessons
3. Observation & recording interacting activities.
4. Three action research cycles
5. One cycle took three lessons based on:
* SLOs *Language functions & form *Activities
6. Activities based on 4 methods
7. 7 weeks duration
Interlinked with
student & teacher.Teacher
must used new
strategies, methods for better
OCLSs outcomes.
Reconnaissance Findings: 3 classroom observation Participants interviews.
Showed that traditional teaching methods used.
grammar translation rote learning
Teacher centered classrooms.
Text book used as main source of learning.
Lack of OCSs & activities.
It includes interesting observations & interviews.
know the current practices of teaching OCSs
Intervention and Post-Intervention Findings:
Students participation and responses in classroom activities increased.
Accuracy and fluency skills were developed.
Limited code switching was observed.
Self and peer correction helped in accuracy and fluency.
Imitation and questioning skills enabled students at sustaining oral skills.
(Comparison of pre-post intervention, Table:1)
Implications:
An action research have a potential to bring desired change and improvement in students learning.
Teachers are change agents, they must have accuracy and fluency in there communication.
Suggested, Incorporated communicative and interaction basedapproaches to ELT enhances the OCSs.
Teacher should be talk minimized and provides opportunities forstudents to talk and to practices by performing activities.
Daily reading enhance the listening and speaking skills.
Conclusion:
The practice of teaching English language needs to be changed.
Teacher centered classrooms replaced with student centered classes.
Traditional methods of language teaching, replaced with modern methods such as communicative approach and task based teaching approaches.
The oral proficiency must be improved by taking fluency as first step because it encourages learners.
Activity-based teaching, tasks in groups and pairs should be given.
Strategies help in reducing code switching in real classrooms.