2.3. Previous Related Studies in the Field
2.3.2. The Impact of TBI on L2 Speaking Performance
2.3.2.2. The Impact of TBI on L2 Oral Fluency
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by the students and providing the required words. At the end of this stage, the students were asked to talk about the given tasks before the whole class. The third stage was allocated to increase students’ knowledge of the target grammar through some awareness-raising activities.
The difference between this group and the other two groups was in the second stage where the students in the information-gap group were assigned some information-gap tasks and were asked to work in pairs to discuss these tasks and exchange the necessary information and the students in the problem-solving group were employed some problem-solving tasks and then asked to provide reasons while talking about the given tasks. On the other hand, the students of the control group were employed the traditional 3Ps strategy where teaching was teacher- centered and the students were not given the opportunity to express their opinion or provide reasons while doing the assigned tasks. After the treatment, which lasted for 15 sessions, the post test was run to measure the impact of the treatment on students’ oral fluency performance.
The participants’ speaking recordings were scored by two expert raters along with the researchers, and then analyzed using SPSS to measure the difference in students’ oral performance after the treatment which lasted for 15 sessions. The results of one-way ANOVA revealed that the participants with the three communicative tasks outperformed those with 3Ps and that the information-gap task had a greater impact on students’ fluent production of the target language to a significant degree.
Adopting the same trend towards the meaning of fluency and having similar results, Ortiz-Neira (2019) embraced the mixed-methods research approach to collect both numerical data about the impact of information-gap tasks on students’ production of more fluent speech and descriptive data about students’ perception towards the adopted teaching approach. The researcher used two research tools to gather the research data: the pre-post test and questionnaire
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tools. The participants, a total of 23 eighth graders, were chosen based on their low English proficiency level (between A1 and A2 according to CEFR). The homogeneity of the participants was confirmed based on their low performance in speaking activities and on the results of a previous study conducted on students with a similar grade level in the same context. The students’ speeches were recorded and assessed using a fluency rating scale adapted from Weir (1993). This scale included five fluency measures: hesitation, coherence, the length of utterance, the speed of utterance and the ability to use fillers skillfully. This holistic scale was validated by three PhD professors and five master students. The information-gap tasks used throughout the treatment, which lasted for 10 sessions over 10 weeks, were taken from the Cambridge English:
Young Learners test based on students’ proficiency level and then adapted in accordance with the Chilean curricular framework. Two types of information gap tasks were employed throughout the intervention and assessed using two different versions of the “Cambridge Young Learners English: Flyers Speaking”. The questionnaire was applied to a focus group of 6 students to understand their perception towards the employed tasks.
To describe the intervention, two types of tasks were given in every session: spot/find the difference and information exchange tasks. During the spot/find the difference tasks, the students were assigned to work in pairs with each one having a similar picture and talking about five different things in the picture. During the information exchange tasks, the students were given out incomplete grids and they had to exchange information with their pairs to complete the gaps by asking questions and giving answers.
The findings from this study showed a significant improvement in students’ fluent production on the two types of tasks after the treatment. The results also showed no significant difference in students’ scores on the two types of tasks after the treatment, indicating the equal
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balance created by the two types of information-gap tasks on students’ ability to produce more fluent speech. Finally, the results exhibited the positive perceptions of students towards the employed teaching approach as (1) it encourages students to engage in communicative activities and practice the target language, (2) it has clear objectives, and (3) it creates positive classroom atmosphere with the use of fun tasks.
Similarly, Masuram and Sripada (2020) investigated the impact of TBI on undergraduate students’ oral production of more fluent language in Hyderabad. It also explored both teachers’
and students’ opinions towards the use of TBI to improve students’ speaking skills. To do so, the researchers adopted the quasi-experimental research and used five tools to gather the research data: pre-post tests, questionnaire, interview, students’ diary and classroom observation checklist. The participants’ fluency performance was assessed on a number of communicative tasks; such as speaking on a topic, planning for a trip, picture story retelling, re-ordering the sentences and so forth. The pre-test was administered at the beginning of the experiment to check the current fluency level of students while the post-test was run two week after the intervention to measure the difference in students’ fluency performance. The English classes were observed by the researchers to ensure the proper adoption of the investigated TBI.
The research intervention, which lasted for three weeks, was conducted using different communicative tasks to develop students’ speaking abilities based on TBI. Before assigning the tasks, the students were given clear instructions on how to complete them, and then they were divided into pairs to complete them. These tasks included making an identity card of the partner, exchanging personal experiences and goals, talking about a topic, etc. After the task was completed, some students were assigned to report on the task in front of their colleagues. At the end of each lesson, a general discussion between the teacher and the students was held to know
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the students’ beliefs towards the impact of the assigned task. Not only this, the students were also asked to write their diaries on the significance of TBI in their English as a second language (ESL) classes.
At the end of the treatment, a post-test was run to examine the impact of the treatment on students’ production of more fluent language. This was followed by some informal interviews with the participating students and teachers to understand their opinions towards the effective and successful implementation of TBI to foster students’ speaking abilities. The results showed a significant improvement in students’ fluency performance after the experiment when compared to their performance prior to the experiment. The results also showed teachers’ and students’ positive views towards the adoption of TBI in EFL classes for its ability to promote students’ interaction and provide more opportunities for engagement in real-life and meaningful situations. Further to this, they agreed that TBI provided the three main conditions for learning:
motivation, exposure and use of the target language.
Using utterance fluency measures to score speaking fluency, Tavakoli, Campbell and McCormack (2016) conducted very important research in which they studied the impact of a short-term pedagogic intervention on students’ development of L2 fluency. The researchers adopted the quantitative approach and used the pre-post test instrument to collect the research data from 37 English for academic purposes (EAP) students. The participants were chosen based on their score on the IELTS test in the speaking and listening tests (between 5 and 5.5) before the experiment (B2 level according to CEFR), and then randomly divided into two groups;
control and experimental groups. While the two groups received a syllabus-based instruction on listening and speaking activities, the experiment group further received a pedagogical intervention in the form of fluency-focused tasks (awareness-raising tasks).
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The aim of this intervention was to (1) raise the experimental group’s awareness of different fluency aspects (e.g., speed, repair and breakdown) through some awareness-raising activities (e.g., students listen to a non-native English speaker and evaluate their fluency performance with regard to speed, repair and breakdown measures), (2) improve the experimental group’s utterance fluency through the use of some techniques (e.g., using fillers effectively and practicing them in conversations and avoiding hesitation in conversations), and (3) to offer the experimental group the opportunity to practice the target language collectively inside the class (e.g., students to retell the story they just listened to) and individually outside the class (e.g., students to retell another story and record their speech, then they listen to their own speech and identify the problems and then record their speech again on the same task).
Throughout the pedagogical intervention which lasted for four weeks, the students at the experimental group were given two 15- 20 minutes instructional sessions every week to talk about the assigned fluency-focused tasks as well as in-class and follow-up fluency focused tasks. The experimental group was further given a weekly fluency training task to do at home, and their work on this task was discussed in the next session. To enhance both groups’ speaking, they were asked to work on both planned speeches; such as individual presentations, and unplanned speeches; such as group discussions.
The participants’ performance was evaluated through two monologic tasks, one before the experiment and one at the end of the experiment. They were given one minute to plan for the task and another minute to perform the task. The fluency measures included in this study were:
mean length of run, mean length of pauses, mean number of clause-internal versus clause- external silent pauses, mean number of filled pauses, mean number of partial or complete repetitions, hesitations, false starts and reformulations per minute, phonation time ratio,
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articulation rate and speech rate. The research data was analyzed using three statistical analysis tools: multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), t-tests and correlations. The results revealed that, the experimental group's fluency performance significantly differed from the control group on the post- test, as it gave longer runs, faster speech and articulation rate and high phonation time ratio.
Adding dialogic tasks to monologic tasks to know which type of tasks has a greater impact on students’ fluent production of the target language, Witton-Davies (2014) examined the impact of monologic in the form of story retelling and dialogic in the form of discussion, on students’ production of fluency over a period of 4 years. The results indicated the superiority of dialogic tasks over monologic tasks in enhancing students’ performance of L2 fluency as the participants with dialogic tasks produced higher speech rates, fewer repair words and less pausing.
Agreeing with the results of Witton-Davies (2014) and providing reasons why monologic tasks are used more extensively in the literature than dialogic tasks, the study by Tavakoli (2016) was significant as it reported on the challenges facing L2 fluency measures on both monologic and dialogic task performance and on the impact of some interactive aspects of speech (e.g., overlap, interruption, between turn pauses) on dialogic task performance. To conduct the study, 35 EAP students from a university in the United Kingdom (UK) were selected to be the research participants. Their level was B2 level (CEFR) based on their results in the IELTS test (between 5 and 5.5). The participants, who were the native speakers of Thai, Russian, Kurdish and Arabic languages, performed a monologic task and a dialogic task in one of the speaking sessions.
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The monolgic task was a retelling task in which the participants were provided one minute to prepare for the task and another one minute to perform the task. The dialogic task was a discussion task in which the participants were given one minute to plan for the task and three minutes to report on the task. Students’ performance on both tasks were recorded, coded and scored based on a number of measures including: articulation rate, speech rate, mean length of pauses per 60 seconds, mean number of pauses per 60 seconds, mean number of partial or complete repetitions, hesitations, false starts and reformulations, mean number of filled pauses, mean length of run, phonation time ratio, and number of turns and number of interruptions.
Praat software was used to measure all temporal variables of fluency; such as articulation rate, length of pause and phonation time, while the rest of measures; such as repairs and number of filled pauses, were measured manually.
The results from this study showed that the participants with dialogic tasks outperformed those with monologic tasks on measures like repair, speech speed and length of pauses to a significant degree, while no significant difference was noticed on measures like number and location of pauses. However, despite the positive impact of dialogic tasks on L2 fluency, the researcher provided reasons why monologic tasks were more frequent in L2 fluency research.
According to the researcher, unlike dialogic tasks, monolgic tasks are more controlled tasks, students’ performance on monologic tasks are more predictable and the fluency measuring procedures are more clear and easier to conduct with monologic tasks.