The effects of interactive teaching strategies on speaking skills of students learning Turkish as a second language

Abstract

Speaking in language teaching is an important skill both in learning and using the target language. It is highly important for students to have the competency of effective and fluent speaking skills in order to be able to express themselves comfortably and confidently, and to be able to communicate clearly in the target language. One of the most effective teaching ways that can be used in improving speaking skills is interactive teaching strategy. Interactive teaching is a strategy that supports self-learning of student during the process as well as their development by engaging them with their peers. Students’ active engagement in the in-class communication process for effective learning. This study focused on the effects of interactive teaching strategy on the improvement of speaking skills of students learning Turkish as a second language. A pre- and post-test based experimental design was employed in this study with a control and an experiment group. The participants of the study consist of C1 level students who are enrolled in the Aksaray University Turkish Education Research Center. The study was conducted during the fall semester of 2018-2019 academic year during a period of 9 weeks. Lessons were delivered in alignment with the interactive teaching strategy in the experimental group while traditional instruction methods were used in the control group. Speaking skills of students were measured with “Speaking Skills Evaluation Scale†and “Sources of Speaking Anxiety Scale.†The data gathered were digitized and analyzed by using SPSS 20. software. By using the general level of students’ speaking skills in the experiment and control groups, and control variable of pre-test scores of sub-dimensions and anxiety scores, an ANCOVA was completed to identify whether the mean post-test scores showed significant differences between the groups. The results showed that interactive teaching strategy improved the speaking skills of students learning Turkish as a second language.