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.