The Impact of Oral Presentation on Fluency and Accuracy of Iranian EFL Learners’ Speaking

Abstract

This study was an investigation into the efficacy of students’ oral presentations in improving their speaking ability in terms of accuracy and fluency. In this respect, control and experimental groups data were gathered through an oral interview. Oral pre- and post-tests were administered to both groups, comprising the total of 35 participants, while students’ performance was recorded for further analysis. The recorded data was transcribed later and two measures, i.e., error-free T-units and number of correct words per minute, were used to identify students’ speaking accuracy and fluency. An analytic scale was also prepared and used by an observer and a teacher as an observation checklist in pre- and post-test sessions to assess students’ performance. T-tests were run to compare groups on pre- and post-tests. The obtained results from observation checklists were compared with the data of two measures. The outcome of both analyses showed that oral presentation can improve accuracy and fluency in speaking ability of students and the effect size in both measures was large. In addition, the comparison between findings of accuracy and fluency measurement and outcome of observation checklists yielded the same result; both of which verified students’ speaking improvement.