Heliyon (Jul 2021)
The use of YouTube in developing the speaking skills of Jordanian EFL university students
Abstract
This study examines the effectiveness of using YouTube videos in teaching the speaking skills among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in Jordan. The study sample comprised 80 students attending Oral Skills classes in the English Language and Literature Department at a private university in Jordan. The participants were equally divided into a control group and an experimental group of 40 students each. The experimental group was taught through the use of YouTube videos, while the control group was taught the speaking skills using the traditional approach. A pre-test and a post-test were administered to the two groups. Four TEFL experts were asked to rate the participants’ performance using the IELTS speaking band descriptors, which consist of four main categories: fluency & coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range & accuracy, and pronunciation. The findings showed that the performance of the two groups was improved. However, compared to the traditional group, the experimental group demonstrated a relatively better improvement. The results also showed significant progress in the speaking performance of the students subjected to the YouTube experiment. Of all the four constructs under investigation, pronunciation and fluency & coherence were the most noticeably advanced in the performance of the YouTube experimental group. The present study recommends that YouTube videos be embedded into the EFL classroom to improve students' speaking skills.
