Incorporating a Task-Based Approach to Motivate Speaking in the General English Classroom

Abstract

The speaking competency of students learning General English at Tertiary Educational Institutes (TEIs) has become a primary concern of many academics and policy makers. In such a context, this paper investigates the implications of incorporating a task-based speaking component to the General English curriculum at tertiary level. The target students join TEIs after finishing their G.C.E. Advanced Level. The students in this study had attended schools in the Western province in Sri Lanka and the majority belongs to middle-income families. They were selected from an institute, which has university status, providing English courses for General Purposes. An identical speaking task was administered, first without scaffolding and later with scaffolding to observe students’ performance. It was observed that when a speaking activity is assigned, learners have the tendency to visualize it in L1 and convert it to L2. In a case where scaffolding items such as, note cards and strips are not allowed, learners memorize the lines or utterances and enact the given speaking task. Consequently, their discourse is impeded as they struggle for better vocabulary as well as sentences. Insights of the students’ needs and their feedback led the institute to allocate extra time weekly for speaking.