Guidelines for oral in-class reports: A practical application

English for Academic Purposes and Language Skills

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Lugar: Córdoba; Año: 2009; p. 141 - 147

In keeping with a view of knowledge as a social construct (Bruffee, 1999), researchers, practitioners and students in all areas of academic development are expected to take part in the production, communication and publication of ideas and findings in the joint construction of knowledge. This entails the need to develop linguistic and communicative skills to achieve an effective and fluent dialogue between participants in all academic settings. In the context of foreign language teaching at undergraduate level, the acquisition of these skills posses a great challenge to language learners. As teachers of EFL students with an advanced level of English enrolled in a teacher training programme at university (Lengua Inglesa II, Facultad de Lenguas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), we have observed that many students attending our classes face serious difficulties when preparing and delivering speeches. Since there is not much teaching material in the field of foreign language learning to address this issue, we have sought to apply a set of guidelines to lead our students through the process of preparing and delivering speeches on the topics developed in Lengua Inglesa II. These guidelines are based on the models for oral communication in academic settings developed by Hybels (1995) and Jordan (1997). Thus, the aim of this paper is to present an overview of students? responses to this learning experience through the analysis of their answers to a questionnaire about the application of these guidelines in our classes in Lengua Inglesa II over a one-month period.