Developing students' speaking skills in a multilingual classroom

Date of Award

8-1-2003

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Master of Education (M. Ed.)

Department

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Abstract

In Pakistan English, as a Foreign and as a Second Language, is being taught from primary classes. In such classes teaching is based on rote-memorization with little meaningful activities. Teachers provide very few opportunities to students to relate their learning with their experiences in daily life. Students are mostly asked to listen passively to the teacher or read from the textbook and copy down the answers from the blackboard or from the textbook and memorize them in order to re produce them in the examinations. The study was undertaken to explore how ESL teachers could be helped to develop their students' speaking skills in ESL multilingual classroom. Using an action research approach within the qualitative paradigm, the students were engaged in different activities, which allowed the teacher and the researcher to examine the effectiveness of the strategies employed in developing students' speaking skills in English. Data collection in this study occurred in three stages. At the reconnaissance stage, observations and semi-structured interview were conducted in order to explore the teacher's understanding, and her existing practices in developing students' speaking skills in English. At the initial implementation stage, the researcher tried and tested out some strategies recommended as effective in developing students' speaking skills in English in order to examine their effectiveness in developing students' speaking skills in the multilingual school contexts, where this research was conducted. At the second implementation stage, the participant teacher was provided with the opportunity to try out the strategies in her classroom, and see the effectiveness of the strategies in developing students speaking skills in English.

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