Abstract:
In seeking employment, undergraduates with better speaking skills in English with
average academic performance tend to get an edge over their colleagues with
comparatively lower communication skills despite their excellent academic
qualifications. Opportunities that can be made available to undergraduates to speak
during class hours are hardly enough to bring about any tangible result. The purpose of
the present research was to study the role of writing activities in the development of oral
fluency of undergraduates who learn English as a second language. In this study, it is
assumed that there is a correlation between speech and writing and thus writing can help
stimulate the cognitive mechanisms relating to speech production, which would lead to
the improvement of oral fluency.
The study was conducted with two groups of students. All the participants were taught
for fourteen weeks where the control group was made to do only the lessons common to
both groups. Conversely, in addition to the lessons common to both groups, the
experimental group was made to do the specially designed writing activities which were
intended to improve their fluency. The recorded conversations of the participants were
analysed for their fluency according to Fillmore's definition of fluency. Speed of
delivery, frequency of voiced fillers and silent pauses were taken into account when
analysing the data.
The two groups were statistically compared for their achievement in fluency usmg
statistical package ofSPSS (Version 16). The results showed that there was a significant
improvement in the fluency of the students of the experimental group, especially of the
weaker ones, which could not be found in the students of the control group. Thus the
study supported the view that special writing activities could be used for improving the
fluency of adult Second Language learners of English.
