ENHANCING EFL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC SPEAKING THROUGH REFLECTIVE ORAL PRESENTATION ASSESSMENT

Abstract

This research explores how reflective oral presentation assessment can support the development of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ academic speaking in the context of tertiary education. Academic speaking courses tend to value presentation skills; however, students are typically offered few chances to reflect on their processes and progress as speakers. This study investigates to what extent students’ academic speaking competence can be facilitated by means of oral presentation with reflective assessment. A mixed-methods research design was adopted to conduct the study with the participants being a class of undergraduate EFL students taking an academic speaking course at an Indonesian university. The materials used for data collection included presentation performance scores, reflective journals, and semi-structured interviews. The task-constrained reflective assessment element of the project involved students assessing their own performance, strengths and weaknesses, and areas for improvement for future presentations. Descriptive and comparative statistics were used for quantitative data analysis and thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data (collected from reflections and interviews). Results suggest that students made significant improvements in the delivery of many aspects of academic speaking particularly the organization of ideas, clarity of delivery, language accuracy and confidence when presenting academic topics as a result of engaging with reflective assessment. In addition, students became more aware of their speaking strategies and learning progress through reflection. The findings indicate that integrating reflective oral presentation assessment into academic speaking classes can enhance the meaningfulness of learning as well as the students’ autonomous development.