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Self-Assessment to Improve Spoken Fluency

Abstract:

the process of teaching and learning English, “implies the interaction of teachers and students, in a social environment” to reach out those same fields (Saricoban & Sakisli, 2006, p.1). In addition to this, the use of new technology in the classroom allows students to feel more engaged in participating in the process as well. This is why, English has become popular among teachers all over the world and particularly in Ecuador, who find e-portfolios useful for helping and motivating students “learn through technologybased ways” (Rabbani & Kana'ni, 2020, p.50). It is not a surprise then, why so many countries have approved and encouraged the teaching of English as a foreign language. Ecuador is no exception; in 2018, the government released an official statement making English a compulsory graduation requirement for Higher Level Education students (Consejo de Educación Superior, 2019). To achieve this, before the coronavirus crisis in early 2020, students enrolled in English courses to complete activities for the speaking component which required them to engage in many real-life, face-to-face, individual or collaborative group speaking activities in the classroom. These activities went from dramatization, role-playing, conducting interviews, to conducting oral presentations in the physical presence of others in order to achieve an A2 proficiency level under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages required to obtain a technological degree (Council of Europe, 2018). However, due to this pandemic, there has been an emergency shift to distance learning, where all these courses are being delivered in online sessions. The students enrolled in the Level 3 course (out of 5 levels) as part of their first-year curricula in a private Higher Education Institute in the city of Guayaquil revealed difficulties in the production of the oral messages. That is the reason why the need for self-assessment tasks to cover these activities is evident. The present research report explores the results of applying a pretest and a posttest as instruments for self-assessment tasks to improve oral production.