ONGOING RESEARCH INTO SPEAKING SKILLS

Galina Kavaliauskienė

Mykolas Romeris University

Abstract

The aim of this research is to explore the students’ attitudes to developing speaking skills in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) classes. Speaking is a productive skill which is difficult to master. The research method employed the questionnaire on learner attitudes to different speaking activities in the classroom. It was administered to the students who study psychology at tertiary level. The students were asked to indicate the degree of difficulty they had with the various speaking activities on the Likert’s scale ranging from “very difficult” (1) to “very easy” (5). The results included the students’ responses obtained in three academic years of 2010, 2011 and 2012. The attitudes of students to different activities vary: they are more positive to short talks and discussions than to spontaneous speaking. The short talks and Power Point Presentations (PPPs) have been mandatory and graded in the ESP classes, so the correlations between grades in short talks and PPPs have been computed. Students’ contributions to discussions and impromptu speeches have not been graded because basically self-confident students take part in these activities while passive students fail to contribute. The excerpts of written self-assessments of learners’ achievements in improving speaking skills have been reproduced.

Key words: English for Specific Purposes, ongoing research data, attitudes to speaking activities.

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