The Importance of Outside Classroom Activities in Promoting Oral Fluency in an EFL Context - Coursework Example

The Importance of Outside room Activities in Promoting Oral Fluency in an EFL Context Affiliation With the increasing usage of English in the world, the demand has grown. Hence, many countries that do not take English as the native language seek to have it incorporated into their teaching and learning system. The language instructors are responsible for devising ways and means to have the students and learners taking English as a foreign language comprehend utilize it. Thus, they can choose to do so inside or outside the classroom setting. A lot of research has been conducted on these two settings with varying results. However, the outside setting provides for intriguing aspects for learning and teaching using various activities. It is vital that the teaching of English take into consideration the oral proficiency of the learners. Without this proficiency, then communication cannot be achieved as is required. The Importance of Outside Classroom Activities in Promoting Oral Fluency in an EFL Context Introduction It is the aim of the basic education availed to learners world over to ensure that the students obtain the essential skills needed to tackle various situations in life. Among them is the development of the communication abilities of each learner and the utilization of critical and creative thinking skills. The ability to communicate is an essential human trait, without which, society is non-existent, as it has always been known. In this times when the world has become a global community, and it is easy for people from different parts of the world, speaking in different languages. Some languages are dominantly used worldwide. According to Sergeant (2012), the approximations are that in the beginning of the 21st century, around 400-500 million English speakers existed. Obviously, by now the number has dramatically increased. The reason being that many countries have picked up English as the primary foreign language as the world continues to connect more and more. In these countries, it is estimated that there is 20-30% of the population that speaks English. Thus, the author notes that around 1.5 to 2 billion English speakers exist worldwide. The numbers are inclusive of native language speakers who use English as their first language, and non-native English speakers who use English as their secondary language. It is in these non-native speakers that English as a Foreign Language exists. In Kuwait, learners lack the opportunity to speak English when they are in environments outside the class. Thus, it is only when undertaking English courses that they are able to communicate in English. Speaking is a vital language skill that is needed; however, many Kuwait students face many challenges when it comes to communicating in English. This research purposes to examine the importance of outside classroom activities in enhancing the oral proficiency of students. It also reports on how the students perceive these activities. Study Methodology To determine the importance of outside the classroom activities. Open-ended interviews were undertaken. Theses interviews were conducted on fifteen voluntary participants from the American University of Kuwait. For ethical reasons, their names have been withheld and shall not be disclosed. The aim of these open-ended interviews was to determine what the participants thought of the external activities. They also purpose to find out what they gained from the activities. Below are the results of the interview. Results The results obtained show that the learners deemed outside classroom activities very effective. They were effective in enhancing the oral proficiency, critical thinking, and boosting their confidence levels when speaking using English. The inference of the results from this research is that language instructors and programs that are in the English as a foreign language setting to be cognizant of the merits of integrating activities outside the classroom in their day to day teaching of the language. Discussion The utilization of English as a foreign language in order to communicate orally is an intricate aspect that many learners find hard to institute. However, with the help of activities outside the classroom setting, it is possible to make this intricate aspect simple to execute. Research indicates that the current times dictate that speaking in English is almost a necessity especially for those who wish to achieve various human aspirations. Thus, what happens in a country like Kuwait where English is a foreign language? The aim of teaching how to speak English is to ensure that students are able to not only read the course materials like books, but also orally communicate among themselves. Doing so maximizes the ability of a respective student to speak in English (Shehadeh & Coombe, 2012). Over the years, oral communication has been neglected, though it is now finding significance as various educational settings seek to introduce various languages into their systems. In the past, it was due to the misapprehension that human oral abilities progress with time. Another misunderstanding was that while writing, people gain important intellectual skills that can be easily passed on to the oral communication part. Usually, there are four essential skills in language. They include speaking, writing, reading, and listening. In spite of how the oral aspect of communication has been regarded in the past, current research indicates that this has changed. It is noted that oral speaking is the most important of the four language and communication skills (Bahous, Bacha, & Nabhani, 2011). Young people are able acquire the oral ability to communicate in English, quickly than older persons. Speaking capabilities progress with the years, but this is not the case when it comes to speaking capability in later years especially when it comes to another language. Thus, if students are to be able to speak and gain oral proficiency, then articulate attention coupled with day-to-day practice is needed. Hence, it has been concluded that for students who are taught English as a foreign language, fluency when speaking in English grows with more experience to the language. How is this experience gained? Outside classroom activities come in handy when availing the experience to students. Thus, outside the class setting activities have been shown to avail the required input to significantly enable students to pick up the oral facet of the foreign language, in this case, English (Hosseini, Bakhtiarvand, & Tabatabaei, 2013). The outside the classroom activities avail the chance for the students to interact with the language while promoting verbal traits in them. It has been opined that the even understanding the word by word meaning is enhanced through these activities while also improving the proficiency to utilize the language. Thus, through these activities, the students are able to give an output using the language after taking in the input availed by the activity. It leads to the advancement in the selection of the linguistic part that they can use while expressing their thoughts. Meanwhile, in the process of undertaking these external activities, various studies have noted that students are able adopt what they learn and practice (Zhang, 2009). It has been documented that, the learning of any language, including foreign languages like English require some settings so that the aims of these learning can be attained. For example, oral proficiency. Some of these settings include the chance to utilize the language, experience, training, and stimulus. It is vital that the students are given the opportunities to speak the foreign language, English, in a way that they are able to without been coerced. In addition, learners need to experiment with the language as much as possible in a setting that does not threaten their experimentation. Do external classroom activities avail these? Yes, they do as the students are able to undertake oral learning activities on their own without the interference of an instructor or a person who knows and understand the language too well (Widiati & Cahyono, 2006). Teaching and learning of English as a second language requires creativity and innovation. The creativity and innovation is limited within the classroom environment. Hence, an out of the class environment broadens creativity and innovation to boost oral proficiency. Studies show that it is not through mindful determination that students learn to speak a foreign or second language. It is through unaware and impulsive mechanisms. Such mechanisms are triggered when the students take part in outside the classroom activities that enable them to interact using the language. What does unaware imply? The unaware aspect of these learning and speaking activities is the usage of the language without minding its usage in whatever is been done. Hence, students speak and communicate subconsciously enhancing their oral proficiency during these activities (Khany & Boghayeri, 2014). Speaking and communicating subconsciously during outside the classroom activities enables not only the oral knowledge of the language to be impacted to the students, but also the definition of the words used. Many a times, when students read in the classroom and are taught varying definitions, they tend to forget easily after the teaching. However, it is a different case when these activities come into play. Further, when undertaking the activities, the focus should not be on if they pronounce it correctly, but if they know when to say it in the right context. Hence, when they learn how to use these words rightly, pronunciation can be taught in class later (Kaburise, 2014). Results showed that the outside the classroom activities enabled the students to gain various traits that are fundamental while using the second language. Amongst these was confidence. Confidence is paramount when speaking using English as the second language. It made them use the language more and more during the activities (Kuimova & Gaberling, 2014). The student also gained certain pronunciation skills vital for verbal communication. As a result, enhancement of the pronunciation translated to better spelling and writing skills in the long run Conclusion It is evident that outside the classroom activities contribute greatly to the comprehension and learning of English as a second language. Without them, learning becomes monotonous in the classroom, and the teaching options are limited. Hence, using these activities boosts the students’ oral proficiency and helps them to gain positively. They gain in terms of confidence, pronunciation, and understanding. Students find these external activities to be fun and interactive. The interaction enables them to experience the use of English in their everyday life. The experience is easily reciprocated in the classroom setting. References Bahous, R., Bacha, N. N., & Nabhani, M. (2011). Motivating Students in the EFL Classroom: A Case Study of Perspectives. English Language Teaching, 4(3), 33-43. Hosseini, S. H., Bakhtiarvand, M., & Tabatabaei, S. (2013). A Comparative Study on the Effect of Individual, Pair and Team work on Speaking Fluency of Iranian Elementart EFL Learners. International Research Jorunal of Applied and Basic Sciences, 4(8), 2180-2196. Kaburise, P. (2014). Using Explicit and Implicit Instruction to Develop Pragmatic Ability in Non-Urban Classrooms in South Africa. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(23), 1235-1241. Khany, R., & Boghayeri, M. (2014). How Creative Are Iranian EFL Teachers? Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(10), 15-28. Kuimova, M. V., & Gaberling, I. P. (2014). Drama in etracurricular activities for technical univeristy students studying English as a foreign language. Life Sceince Journal, 11(9), 352-353. Seargeant, P. (2012). Exploring World Englishes: Language in a Global Context. Abingdon: Routledge. Shehadeh, A., & Coombe, C. A. (2012). Task-Based Language Teaching in Foreign Language Contexts: Research and implementation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Widiati, U., & Cahyono, B. Y. (2006). The Teaching of EFL Speaking in the Indonesian Context: The State of the Art. BAHASA DAN SENI, 34(2), 269-292. Zhang, S. (2009). The Role of Input, Interaction and Output in the Development of Oral Fluency. English Language Teaching, 2(4), 91-100. Read More