How class size influences the speaking skills of the students in the Reading and Conversation I courses in english at the Foreign Language Department of Universidad de El Salvador, semester II – 2017

It may seem that a successful and effective class in which students learn a new language will be that one full of different types of students, who share ideas, interact and construct language by using their own experiences. However, there has always been a debate about the effect of class size on students’ performance when learning a second language and different factors suggesting that class size in higher education is crucial in student’ outcomes. Elementary school students learn more in smaller classes (see Finn & Achilles, 1999); “As schools get larger, they usually expand their administrative staffs (Chambers, 1981)” say Lee and Loeb in their article Effects of School Size on Attitudes and Achievement. Besides that, students in large classes in higher education have the maturity to know that their performance will only depend on the responsibilities and commitment they have as students to achieve great scores (Louis et al., 1996)