Abstract
International trends, compounded with the effect of globalization, have made English communication skills become much more crucial for university students. Of the four aspects of English skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing, speaking instructions have not been adequately provided to university students in Taiwan. Nonetheless, there is a national educational goal that university students should be able to speak adequate English outside of school and in the workplace after they graduate. The purpose of the study was to investigate English-speaking problems and needs experienced by university students. The target population for this study was students at a selected university in northern Taiwan. This study employed a qualitative approach. Specifically, students were interviewed to gather useful information regarding their English-speaking problems and learning needs. Results of the investigation pinpointed problems associated with the current instructional delivery and design of English-speaking courses. In addition, students’ specific learning needs were identified. Appropriate teaching strategies were suggested to improve instructors’ teaching effectiveness. Comparisons with other universities in Asia were made to explore cross-cultural differences. With the aim of helping instructors of speaking courses to achieve maximum improvement, practical recommendations were offered for instructors to modify their pedagogical designs and deliveries to address the problems and needs of students.
Author Information
Dylan Sung, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
Paper Information
Conference: ECE2023
Stream: Foreign Languages Education & Applied Linguistics (including ESL/TESL/TEFL)
This paper is part of the ECE2023 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Sung D. (2023) An Investigation of University Students’ English-Speaking Problems and Needs ISSN: 2188-1162 The European Conference on Education 2023: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2023.39
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2023.39
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