Improving Oral Communication Skills Through Online Collaborative Activities

Abstract

Pasdunrata National College of Education as a provider of teachers to the system of education, especially English teachers, has an utmost responsibility of moulding them into quality competent teachers. It is of great importance that these teachers are taught to be capable of handling classes with a good command of English. Though Covid 19 pandemic restrained the physical functioning of the college, the skill development of the student teachers has to be incrementally maintained to achieve the aforesaid goal. The objectives of this research were to study the perceptions of the student teachers on the effectiveness of pair work and group work in improving their speaking skills in English, to examine the challenges they faced in adopting online mode in their learning process and to identify the most suitable teaching techniques to improve their communication skills. The research design selected was action research with two cycles. Thus, data were collected through questionnaire with five-point Likert scale questions, open-ended questions, focus group discussions, marks obtained from the pre-test, post-test and notes taken from my own reflective journal. Data thus collected were analysed using Microsoft excel, paired sample ttest and thematic analysis. The results revealed that proper planning and implementation of pair and group work online, employing new techniques, constant practice and constructive feedback greatly influenced student teachers to improve oral communication skills and to promote their confidence.