Speaking Strategies Used at the Intermediate English Level

The ability to speak a Second Language besides one's mother tongue embodies a significant challenge for students of a BA in English Language. This is because most of the times this skill does not get the right amount of attention, as it should (Bashir, Azeem & Dogar, 2011). Based on the researcher's experience, students had a noteworthy lack of oral participation when a teacher posed a question. Only a few of them responded and spoke to the whole class while the rest remained silent. Even though in some occasions the answer was incorrect. Consequently, silence predominates most of the lesson. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the speaking strategies that students from the Intermediate English level in the term August 2016-January 2017 apply to develop and achieve oral proficiency and communication in the target language. It also seeks to discover which of those strategies they use the most and how they apply them within classroom activities. In order to carry out this research, it was taken a qualitative approach, case study. The main tools for obtaining information were classroom observations, questionnaires and interviews.

Autorentext

Esteban Juan Bautista Zárate Mejía, MA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Bachelor of Arts, English Language, School of Languages University of Veracruz, México. Certified teacher performance assessor by Mexican National Institute for the Evaluation of Education. University and Elementary Education professor. Lecturer at different colloquia

Klappentext

The ability to speak a Second Language besides one s mother tongue embodies a significant challenge for students of a BA in English Language. This is because most of the times this skill does not get the right amount of attention, as it should (Bashir, Azeem & Dogar, 2011). Based on the researcher s experience, students had a noteworthy lack of oral participation when a teacher posed a question. Only a few of them responded and spoke to the whole class while the rest remained silent. Even though in some occasions the answer was incorrect. Consequently, silence predominates most of the lesson. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the speaking strategies that students from the Intermediate English level in the term August 2016-January 2017 apply to develop and achieve oral proficiency and communication in the target language. It also seeks to discover which of those strategies they use the most and how they apply them within classroom activities. In order to carry out this research, it was taken a qualitative approach, case study. The main tools for obtaining information were classroom observations, questionnaires and interviews.