IMPROVING ENGLISH ORAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF PAKISTANI PUBLIC

SCHOOL'S STUDENTS

BY Ayesha Bashir Uddin

                

              This paper focuses on the improvement of Oral Communication Skills (OCSs) of

Pakistan's Public school's Grade-6 students who have a lack of opportunities and are seldom

exposed to the English language generally and OCSs particularly. Since more importance is

given to reading and writing skills of English in which results overlook the importance of OCSs

and due to which students are found to be silent, shy or have a profound fear of being wrong. It

further highlights self developed strategies of students in improving accuracy and fluency in

which the National Curriculum for English Language (NCEL) was taken as a guiding tool and

action planner through which systematic lessons were delivered in classrooms. Findings of Pre

and post intervention phases of four participants revealed that children’s OCSs had shown a

marked improvement by giving opportunities to practice oral languages, providing conducive

learning environment and using new teaching strategies. This study also claims that code

switching, Peer and self error correction, short pauses and speech fillers are inevitable to

improve speaking skills in the process of second language learning. It shows new ways in order

to improve students' speaking skills and has implications for second language learners and

teachers.

(International Journal of English Language Teaching

Vol.1, No 2, pp. 17-36, December 2013)