Facilitating Self-regulation with Mobile Devices to Improve Oral Interaction in a Public School in Ecuador

Abstract

This action research aimed to determine EFL learners' speaking difficulties from their prior knowledge, training, and perspective. This action research included quantitative and qualitative data collected through a pre-test and a post-test to see learners' progress. In this study participated thirty-four students, 19 females and 15 males from 15 to 18 years old, from a public high school with a rural background. In the beginning, most of them had low English knowledge, and a few of them had an intermediate level and two or three with a higher proficiency level. Students worked with self-regulation strategy. In Padlet, they uploaded five speaking videos and self-assessed their work against a rubric. The facilitator provided feedback for each assignment. The instruments were a rubric and an interview, and the global oral interaction improvement showed a positive effect size (ES) of 0.89. In the final part of the study, results showed a significant improvement in teacher and students average scores contrasting their first videos against their fifth ones. Since the implementation of selfregulation has been beneficial, EFL teachers may find this study helpful for subsequent research and implementation in classrooms.