Some Suggested Practices to Develop Speaking Skills and Communicative Competence of B1 Level Efl Learners at Tertiary Level

Abstract

The progress of the communicative competences as well as the speaking abilities of people all around the world in terms of the correct and fluent use of English have gained a considerable amount of importance since the formulation and formation of the CEFR within the European Union countri es. The CEFR as well as the criteria it has brought to the process of language teaching and learning have been accepted as one of the corner stones in this field by Turkish linguists and authorities as well. With the development of the CEFR, the Council of Europe promoted to embosom all the cultural values of the European countries through a very close relation and cooperation of the members in terms of their social and cultural capacites. While doing so, the main anchor for the union has been the mutual un derstanding and tolerance for the otherness of the cultures by means of multicultural and multilingual togetherness. This study has aimed to develop some CEFR - based speaking practices for the B1 level Turkish EFL university students so that they could enh ance their communicative competence and consequently their tolerance for other cultures. Prior to the design of these practices, a Needs Analysis questionnaire was prepared with the help of the B1 level ̳can do‘ descriptors. Thus, the practices have been d eveloped considering the results of the questionnaire that helped the researcher specify which of the subjects to choose for the training process. In the implementation phase the practices were applied on 44 students, the 25 of whom were the Experimental G roup and the 19 were the Control Group. The process lasted for five weeks and both before and after this treatment process the ix Pre and Posttests were applied on these students. The results of these tests indicated that the treatment process including the C EFR - based practices has been useful to develop the speaking skills and the communicative competence of the students. In addition, it has been understood that the kind of activities centering communicative competence help students focus on the point and have fun while participating the class actively and voluntarily. The assessment of the qualitative data that the researc her has provided by way of the interviews indicates that students are motivated much more for active participation to the lesson when they feel happy and confident in the class