EFL Teaching in the Amazon Region of Ecuador: A Focus on Activities and Resources for Teaching Listening and Speaking Skills

Abstract

Research on teaching listening and speaking skills has been conducted at many levels. The purpose of this study was to analyze the current implementation of classroom and extracurricular activities, as well as the use of educational resources for teaching both skills in public senior high schools in the Amazon region of Ecuador, particularly in the towns of Zamora and Yantzaza. The participants included 188 students between the ages of 15 and 18 years, and 10 English teachers in the area. This study was conducted using a mixed-method (quantitative and qualitative) approach. The instruments to collect information were students' and teachers' questionnaires, teacher's interviews, and observation sheets. In addition, the Cambridge English Unlimited Placement Test was applied in order to determine the students' English proficiency level of listening and speaking skills. The findings revealed that the completion of exercises based on a listening passage and dialogues were the most frequent activities used by students to practice listening in the classroom; meanwhile, dialogues and repetition drills were the most frequent activities applied to develop speaking. With respect to extracurricular activities, listening to English music with lyrics, watching videos, discussions, and conversations with native speakers were most frequently suggested for enhancing listening and speaking. Among the resources, audio CDs and textbooks were the most frequent aids to prompt listening and speaking activities.

La Fonética articulatoria en el desarrollo de las habilidades orales del idioma Ingles

“…Olivo (2016) states that there is a confusion between English and Spanish sounds because students pronounce sounds with their mother tongue influence. Furthermore, students remark that speaking skills are very difficult to learn as well as teachers have the same feelings with respect to pronunciation (Gonzalez, et al, 2015). For that reason, the students come to the higher education with serious speaking skills deficiencies.…”

Enfoque de aprendizaje basado en tareas en el desarrollo de la habilidad del habla

“…Ecuadorian students state their emphasis in the oral production difficulty because they fear to commit mistakes using the grammar and the pronunciation of the words which are unknown for them. Therefore, it is a need to improve speaking skills through pronunciation drills (Gonzales, et al, 2015). Furthermore, it can be stated that there is a poor quality in English education due to poor teaching skills which do not allow achieving education objectives (Quezada, Benítez, Vargas, & Zúñiga, 2017); thus, new methodologies, approaches and techniques are a must such as Task-based learning for improving Ecuadorian students' English proficiency.…”

Increasing Speaking Skill Through Role-Play and Story-Telling Aided With Audio-Visual

“…While exercises that aim to improve speaking skills are by practicing repeating the dialogue section and practicing dialogue. The class activities are supported by extra-curricular activities by listening to English songs accompanied by poetry, watching videos, discussing, and talking directly with foreign speakers in an effort to improve the ability to listen and speak more optimally (Gonzalez, et.al, 2015).…”