Fostering Students’ Oral Communication Skills in the Second Language Classroom : Främja elevers muntliga kommunikationsförmågor i andraspråksklassrummet

This thesis was carried out with data collected from a school in the south of India and written by two students becoming teachers of English. The aim of this thesis is to find out how a teacher can foster and develop student’s oral communication skills so that they have the ability, willingness and confidence to speak English. The thesis is based upon the following research questions: What factors, according to the students and teachers, are important for developing and fostering oral communication skills? What speaking activities did the students and teacher find important for developing and fostering oral communication skills? The main findings of this study showed that the teachers found a comfortable environment, expansion of vocabulary, letting students choose their own topics and importance of good communication skills important when fostering students’ oral communication skills. The students in this study expressed that choosing topics and feeling comfortable in natural communicative situations was important for the development of their oral communication skills: This study, as well as previous studies, found that a teacher can in fact help students increase both their motivation and confidence by planning lessons revolving around topics that are of interest to students, as well as give them the scope to choose their own topics when practicing oral communication activities. Furthermore, the result for the second research question showed that there were several speaking activities that the teachers and students found important for developing and fostering oral communication skills. Some of these were everyday activities which increased their vocabulary, carrying out speeches that allowed the students to choose topics and role-play, such as debates