Abstract:

By 2023, all educational institutions have reopened their doors to welcome students back into their classrooms; since 2022, university campuses have been filled with sounds, colours, movement. This ‘back-to-normal’ experience did not mean, however, that old challenges had disappeared. Getting students to actively participate in class, particularly in second language (L2) lessons, proved to be more challenging than ever, both for teachers and students alike. The pandemic, despite the many opportunities it provided in the field of education, also meant that speaking in the L2 had limited space for growth, unless closely controlled by the teacher. It seems then, that teacher-centered instruction became a natural or preferred method in many online lessons. This approach takes a toll in students’ autonomy and Willingness to Communicate (WTC). In order to counterbalance the impact of such lessons, we need to unveil what hinders and what promotes students’ active participation in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes, particularly in a teacher education programme at a University in Chile.

A small-scale research project has been built on an action-research construct, which focuses on the learning experience of 50 English as a second language (ESL) freshmen students at a Chilean university. Participant’s level of English, as assessed by Cambridge Placement Test, corresponds to A1-B2, which meant they joined a beginners’ English course at the start of their school year. By the end of a 4-month instruction period, a survey was conducted to explore students’ perceptions on their oral performance. The analysis of the results indicates that students’ WTC is being affected by an array of emotional barriers and a deep-rooted belief that they need morphosyntax knowledge and native-like pronunciation in order to produce any coherent or accurate stretch of language in the L2. These first results show that, despite being exposed to a communicative language teaching approach at university, the majority of the students were experiencing a rather extended silent period.

In order to both break a tendency towards stagnation, fed by low self-esteem and lack of speaking practice in their online lessons, as much as to provide students with engaging communicative experiences, a selection of Kagan’s cooperative structures were implemented in the instructional design of a follow-up course. These communicative learning experiences were paired with metacognition strategies in the form of self-assessment and reflection rounds. In this paper, we will share the instruments designed for the project, the data analysis and the results of the instructional strategies both, in terms of language proficiency (B1 level) and students’ self-perception as L2 speakers.

Keywords:

Willingness to communicate, Kagan's cooperative structures, oral proficiency, metacognition.