Abstract
Students at languages and translation departments at Saudi universities take listening and speaking courses. Before the pandemic, the students used to complete the activities in the textbooks which required them to engage in many real-life, face-to-face individual and/or collaborative small-group activities in the classroom such as role-playing, dramatization, inviting a guest, conducting interviews and others. However, due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, there was an emergency shift to distance learning at Saudi universities starting March 2020 , where all courses are being delivered online. Several platforms are being used in distance education such as Blackboard, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and others. The current study explores the types of online speaking activities that a sample of college instructors at some language and translation departments are currently using in distance education and how they engage students online in the absence of face-to-face activities, interaction, and communication. Survey results showed that EFL college instructors are using a variety of online speaking activities such as: (i) assigning a topic which the students research and prepare at home and then give an online oral presentation about it online through the platform; (ii) using online debates about some issues; (iii) answering problem-solving questions; (iv) student-created podcast on a topic of their choice and them in Speaking Center on Twitter; (v) combining listening and speaking activities; (vi) using . free online audio recording creator to record conversations and presentations; (vii) using the app and others. Students and instructors’ views on the effects of the online speaking activities on students’ speaking skill development in the distance learning environments are reported.
Highlights
Students majoring in English language, translation, linguistics, and literature at Saudi universities take listening and speaking courses
Before the CoronavirusPandemic, which started early 2020, students enrolled in speaking courses used to complete the activities in the textbooks which required them to engage in many real-life, faceto-face individual and/or collaborative small-group speaking activities in the classroom such as role-playing, dramatization, inviting a guest speaker to the classroom, conducting interviews, debates, oral presentations in front of their classmates, and others
Findings of the present study showed that speaking instructors at the sample institutions in the present study mainly used oral presentations, gave problem-solving questions, used online debates, student-created podcasts posted in a Speaking Center on Twitter, used Vocaroo to record students’ presentations and Kahoot for contests and games
Summary
Students majoring in English language, translation, linguistics, and literature at Saudi universities take listening and speaking courses. In the Spring semester 2020 AL-JARF (2020a) , conducted a study with a sample of students and instructors at a sample of colleges of languages and translation in Saudi Arabia and found that 55% of the students and instructors surveyed were dissatisfied with DL, found it ineffective and frustrating and preferred in-class face-to-face instruction. The students indicated that their instructors used the same class material without adapting it to DL. No supplementary online material or resources were added. 69% had problems communicating with their instructors and classmates. They preferred lecture recordings to attending live lectures as they found the latter boring
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