Teaching english speaking for FCE: using facebook as a tool of instructional practice

Ilona Kostikova; Svitlana Miasoiedova; Tetiana Razumenko; Anastasiia Chernenko; Olha Pochuieva

Ilona Kostikova H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.
Svitlana Miasoiedova Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Ukraine
Tetiana Razumenko H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. Alchevskykh Str., Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Anastasiia Chernenko H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University.
Olha Pochuieva Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, Ukraine.

Keywords: English; speaking; exam; site; Facebook.

Abstract

The current paper intends to describe the practice and analyse the results of using social networking sites as an additional extra-class tool of developing competence in Speaking in the course of preparation for the well known international exam in English: First Certificate in English. The aim of this paper is to prove the hypothesis that a social media as an effective tool to teach English speaking for upper-intermediate learners to pass the FCE exam and to examine the offered practice experimentally. The study has proven the hypothesis and provided the experimental research. Theoretical (analysis and synthesis), empirical (observation, testing, conducting pedagogical experiment) and statistical (one sample t-test) methods were used to achieve the stated aim. The main results show that the significant difference was observed in the experimental group of 24 Kharkiv non-linguistic university students of the same age where the experiment under the title ‘All in the Same Boat’ started on Facebook and was carried out in 2018/2019 academic year. Furthermore, comparing the test results according to 5-band scale in four different criteria at the different stages of the course allowed to compare the development rate of the checked English Speaking skills. The resulting data confirmed the improvement in students’ performance in Speaking test on average in 21.8 % during the first term, and in 29.1 % after the experiment started, overall progress being 57.3 % that is a substantial increase. The authors’ experience is significant in the world learning context as it proves the effectiveness of using social media to teach English speaking for upper-intermediate learners to pass the First Certificate in English exam.

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Author Biographies

Ilona Kostikova, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Doctor of Science, Ph. D in Pedagogy, Ph. D in Philology, Full Professor, Head of the Department of Theory and Practice of the English Language, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine.

Svitlana Miasoiedova, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Ukraine

Ph. D in Philology, Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages # 3, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Ukraine

Tetiana Razumenko, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. Alchevskykh Str., Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Ph. D in Pedagogy, Associate Professor, Department of English Philology, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Ukraine. Alchevskykh Str., Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Anastasiia Chernenko, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University.

Ph D Student in Pedagogy, Department of General Pedagogy and Higher School Pedagogy, H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University.

Olha Pochuieva, Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, Ukraine.

Ph. D. in Pedagogy, Senior Lecturer, Department of Education, Foreign Philology and Translation, Simon Kuznets Kharkiv National University of Economics, Ukraine.

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