The Effect of Teaching Modern American Drama on EFL Learner’s English Speaking Fluency under Varying Time Conditioning

Iran, LLCE2015-209

The time conditions in testing of speaking fluency is one of the most influential elements for determining speakers’ ability in conveying their intended concepts and meanings, and here validity of its implication has been studied based on diagnostic test. It is based on pausing (means of length of pauses, number of pausing, and filled pauses percentage), speed rate (syllabus presented) and lexical diversity that in different levels of speaking in different students are completely different. Some testing researchers claiming that the time restrictions imposed in the test environment, when compared to the speaking conditions typical at JieroftPayamNour University, I.R. Iran may prevent English language and literature students from displaying the kinds of speaking fluency required in academic contexts. This paper studies the effect of an efficiency driven decision to reduce the time allowed for performance on a diagnostic test of speaking fluency based on Modern American Drama from 35 to 10 min. This research narrows the investigation by examining how a drama-based EFL program impacts three dimensions of oral communication: fluency, comprehensibility, and accentedness, and one anxiety factor - foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA) -, over time. Speech samples were collected from EFL learners in a treatment and a control .Pre- and post-test analysis indicate that learners in the treatment group made significant gains in oral fluency while oral fluency among learners in the control group remained unchanged.  This paper is based on a study on speaking fluency performed by JieroftPayamNour University students of English language and literature using retelling technique. The aim of the study is to find out the effect of retelling of Modern American Drama on the students’ speaking fluency and to know the strategies used by those students while retelling a text of Modern American Drama.This study was a true experimental and quantitative and carried out with 25 homogenous JieroftPayamNour University students of English language and literature by using retelling technique in an EFL situation. 40 EFL participants were chosen from 70 students based on their proficiency scores, and   their ages ranged from 19 to 29 and they were studying at intermediate level. The data were the speaking transcripts which were analyzed to see the progress after six-time treatment was given. The result reveals that the speaking fluency of the students increased in some areas as shown by the improvement on their vocabulary.

Key words: Modern American Drama, Iranian EFL Students, Speaking Fluency, Time Conditioning