Peer Feedback to Improve Speaking Fluency in Adults

Abstract

The need to learn English is in constant increase and it is a current requirement in companies worldwide (Cambridge English, 2016). Although English learning (EL) is a priority for adults (Evans & Tragant, 2020), other factors affect speaking. Oral skills are difficult to master due to personal feelings like anxiety, shyness (Dinçer et al., 2012), lack of motivation (Uzuner et al., 2016), or a low perception of own prior knowledge (Tashpulatova,et al., 2022). While adult English learners have enough reasons to study English (Safotso & Tompte, 2018), English learning involves more elements. Current research gives communicative activities an important role in speaking skills. For example, providing adults with opportunities to perform, with an intrinsic set of strategiesin learning, increases motivation (Evans & Tragant, 2020). There are logical arguments to recommend the use of interaction and performance (Chen et al., 2022); mainly, adults that interact with their classmates improve their speaking skills (Qutob, 2018). The path to effective communication also implies correction; when adults receive feedback it may result in language benefits (Ghanizadeh et al., 2020). In other words, speaking relates to performance, interaction, and feedback. The study targets to discover the effect of peer feedback on speaking fluency in adults. It has been observed that the group of students that participate in this research are afraid of making mistakes at the moment of speak due to lack of vocabulary or the correct pronunciation of the words. Moreover, the anxiety at the moment of speaking in real time in public is another reason that affects negatively the speaking fluency as Numonjohnovna et al. (2019) has revealed in their studies. The study is a mixed-design research that integrated qualitative and quantitative instruments in order to collect and analyze data and answer the research questions