Teaching Strategies to Increase EFL Speaking Skills in a Communicative Learning Environment

Abstract: AbstractEven though developing speaking skills is the essential key to achieving proficiency in a target language, there are some pupils (grades 4-6) who do not participate in communication tasks in English classroom. Thus, the purpose of this literature overview is to investigate the reasons for the unwillingness of some young learners to speak and interact in English. In addition, a variety of effective teaching strategies will be observed and analyzed. The used methods were different electronic databases, such as ERC, ERIC and Google Scholar, to access relevant peer-reviewed journal articles to our research questions. The observed and analyzed articles showed that there are some pupils who do not interact because English teachers often focus too much on reading and writing skills rather than on speaking skills. The limitation of communication tasks and large classroom sizes are other mitigating factors. In addition, teachers often using the first language in class resulted in pupils doing the same. This contributes to a lack of motivation and confidence in speaking English for some learners. This study identifies teaching strategies and activities that can be used by the teacher to raise motivation and confidence in speaking English. Results have indicated that the use of Vygotsky's sociocultural learning theory was very useful to involve every pupil in authentic communication tasks, which also provided a supportive communicative environment. Task-based and theme-based learning, such as stories, songs, games, project work and pair work is shown to be beneficial to increase pupils’ motivation towards speaking.