The Relationship Between the Use of Video Blogging and the Development of Speaking Skills: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

The present research explores the relationship between the use of video blogging and the development of oral proficiency among English as a Foreign Language students at Ambato Technical University. Video blogging is a tool that aims to provide extra opportunities for students to practice the language in a context where high levels of standardization are required, despite the lack of time. A quasi-experimental study was conducted on a group of pre-service teachers who were divided into an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). A pre-test was applied to assess the level of oral proficiency. Then, video-based tasks were assigned to the EG, simultaneously the CG performed tasks with no relationship to the strategy. At the end of the treatment, a post-test was used to compare the two groups. The results of this quasi-experiment suggest that the use of video blogging does influence the development of oral proficiency due to the fact that the scores obtained in the post-test by the EG are higher than those of the CG. The present preliminary study proposes to carry out future investigations with a greater sample and a longer time of the treatment application in order to obtain more conclusive results.