IELTS Speaking Instruction through Audio/Voice Conferencing

Abstract

Hossein Khodabakhshzadeh is a lecturer and PhD candidate in TEFL at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. His current research interests cover issues in ELT, FLA and SLA. He has been involved in a range of projects in the area of applied linguistics, and has published several articles in internationally-refereed journals. AbstractThe current study aims at investigating the impact of Audio/Voice conferencing, as a new approach to teaching speaking, on the speaking performance and/or speaking band score of IELTS candidates. Experimental group subjects participated in an audio conferencing class while those of the control group enjoyed attending in a traditional IELTS speaking class. At the end of the study, all subjects participated in an IELTS Examination held on November 2011 in Tehran, Iran. To compare the group means for the study, an independent t-test analysis was employed. The difference between experimental and control group was considered to be statistically significant (P<0.01). That is the candidates in experimental group have outperformed the ones in control group in IELTS speaking scores.

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“…In a separate study, Ramchandran (2004) discovered that effective use of technology in the classroom aids students' literacy growth. Ghaemi, et al (2012) also discovered that audio/voice conference was one of the most effective techniques for teaching speaking skills, particularly IELTS speaking. In a recent study by Hermes and King (2013), technology-based language learning was found to be beneficial in the early stages of learning and practicing the language.…”

Learning How to Speak Like a “Native”

“…Audio and videoconferencing tools are strongly associated with business and professional communication in work settings (Denstadli, Julsrud, & Hjorthol, 2012; Ruppel, Gong, & Tworoger, 2013) and are gaining attention as an inexpensive and effective means for delivering professional communication training in educational settings (Craig, Poe, & Rojas, 2010; McNair & Paretti, 2010). While extant second-language acquisition (SLA) studies have examined learning communities in which members connect with audio or video in order to develop their spoken communication skills, these studies are largely experimental (Blake, 2005; Ghaemi, Khodabakhshzade, & Kargozari, 2012; Yamada, 2009; Y.-F. Yang, 2011; Y.-T. C. Yang & Chang, 2008), focusing on outcomes such as the number of utterances and self-corrections that learners produce (Yamada, 2009) or student performance scores in areas such as pronunciation, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary (Y.-T. C. Yang & Chang, 2008; Y.-T. C. Yang, Gamble, & Tang, 2012).…”