Journal of English Language Teaching

Use of Online Videos to Improve Speaking Skills

Dhareppa Konnur

Associate Professor of English, Seshadripuram Evening Degree College, Bengaluru, India

Keywords: Teaching speaking skills, online videos in ELT

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Abstract

While learning the mother tongue, people never feel that they are learning a language, but while learning a foreign language they become cautious. When language learners are asked to speak in English on a given topic, they try to speak, but they may not speak well or fluently due to lack of ideas, information, exposure, and confidence. Even to write a piece of composition they need to get ideas. So, they escape, avoid or postpone due to scarcity of ideas. Owing to this, they lose confidence; they hesitate to speak and show reluctance to write. It becomes inevitable to the learners of vernacular background to acquire communicative competence in English. Using online videos would be a better idea to motivate the learners of heterogeneous groups to enhance their communicative skills. The core of the approach is: ‘the more they see, the more they learn’. The approach presented and discussed here will provide a platform to cater for learners to meet the needs of the present-day world through “computeracy”. The present article focuses on teaching speaking skills through group/team work.

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