Factors that influence high school students' English oral communication skills in Ecuadorian face-to-face learning environments

Abstract

Abstract: The investigation about the factors that affect the performance of high school students in their oral communication skills was carried out with the objective of determining the linguistic and emotional factors that influence their learning when they speak English. The present study was carried out in a public high school in the city of Cariamanga in which the sample consisted of 45 students in the 3rd year of high school and a teacher of English as a foreign language. The applied method was mixed, that is, based on qualitative and quantitative studies. The instruments used were a questionnaire for students and another for teachers, a semi structured interview, and an observation sheet. Likewise, it was observed in the results that both linguistic and emotional factors considerably affect the performance of students in their oral communication skills. In addition, the linguistic factor that most influenced the students was the difficulty of attending accurately when speaking English. Instead, the emotional factor that affected them was the concern that they would not be understood when they spoke in English.