The effects of writing as a pre-speaking activity in a social media-integrated speaking class on college students’ speaking skills

Abstract

The present study aims to explore the effects of implementing writing as a pre-speaking activity in a social media-integrated speaking class on Korean EFL university learners’ speaking skills. It also tries to examine their attitudes and perceptions toward this new instruction. This study was conducted with fifty Korean university students during one semester. The participants were assigned to an experimental group (n=25) who engaged in writing as a pre-speaking activity in a social-media integrated speaking class and a control group (n=25) who received a traditional speaking instruction. To collect data, a pre- and post-speaking test and a survey on students’ attitudes and perceptions were implemented. A survey measured the participants’ overall learning experiences and affective attitude such as motivation, interest, confidence, and anxiety. The quantitative data was analyzed by t-tests while the qualitative data was analyzed by a coding procedure. The results presented that using writing as a pre-speaking activity has a positive effect on the students’ speaking proficiency and this new instruction is more effective than a traditional classroom. This study suggests that integrating wring as a prespeaking activity into a speaking course can be used as an effective teaching approach to improving speaking skills.