Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes towards the Role of Using Technology beyond the Classroom in Enhancing the Speaking Skill.

Abstract

This work highlights the important role of using technology outside the classroom in enhancing students’ speaking skill. Firstly, the current study gives a general overview about the speaking skill. Secondly, it provides a theoretical background about the role of technology inside the classroom as a tool for teaching and learning a foreign language, and outside the classroom as a means to develop learners’ speaking skill. It is hypothesized in this research that, Teachers and students may have positive attitudes towards the role of using technology beyond the classroom in enhancing the speaking skill. To check this hypothesis, two questionnaires are administered to both teachers and Master one students at Department of Letters and English Language, University of 8 Mai 1945, Guelma during the academic year (2017-2018), in order to see the extent to which they are interested in using technology inside the classroom to facilitate teaching and learning process, and their attitudes towards the role of using modern technologies beyond the classroom in improving the speaking skill. The findings indicate that students face many difficulties while speaking, mainly because of the limited opportunities to practice the language inside and outside the classroom. Both teachers and students see that modern technologies help in improving one’s speaking skill. From these results, it is concluded that there is a positive relationship which exists between using technology outside the classroom and the speaking skill; as a result, teachers and students have a positive attitudes towards the role of using technology outside the classroom in enhancing the speaking skill. Finally, it is recommended that teachers should raise learners’ awareness towards the use of technology beyond the classroom to ameliorate their oral communication, and students also should benefit from modern technologies outside the classroom in enhancing their speaking skill.