Examining the Impact of Student–Teacher Interaction in the Classroom on the Speaking Skills of ESL Learners: A Study Conducted at BS Level

Abstract

The paper analyzes how the teacher-student classroom dynamics affect the speaking skills of undergraduate ESL learners. A quantitative survey method was used to sample 265 BS English students (156 girls, 109 boys) to fill out a Likert scale survey about issues like frequency of interactions, feedback, teacher encouragement, and opportunity to speak in the classroom. Findings indicate that although interaction, encouragement, and speaking activities are seen by many learners as helpful to their oral proficiency, a considerable number of them gave a neutral or negative answer, which implies that there is inconsistency in the contemporary interactive teaching methods. The results suggest that interaction between students and their teachers is not being utilized to the maximum to help learn speaking. In order to overcome this, there is a need to have more organized interactive methods, more individualized feedback and more practice opportunities, both within and outside of the classroom. The paper is ended with effective suggestions to ESL teachers, administrators, and recommendations to conduct additional research.