Graduate Learners’ Perspectives of Developing ‘Speaking’ Skill in the Classrooms of Non-native English Speakers

The major focus of the current study is to know different students' perspectives on the different activities, which improve the learners' speaking skill in the English as Second Language (ESL) or English as Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms that are from different countries and background. The current research paper depicts the innovative activities that help learners' speaking skill and how these activities can be effective to graduate learners. The obstacles or benefits of those activities are also subjected to be surveyed. This is a qualitative and descriptive study in nature. The researchers selected 15 participants from 12 different countries where there were 3 male and 12 female participants. The data was collected through direct interviews and a focus group discussion (FGD) with open-ended questions. The research is based on the students' viewpoints of their previous experiences about the activities to improve speaking skill in the ESL/EFL classrooms. Therefore, the manuscript, in fact, deals with different classroom activities to improve speaking skill from the lens of graduate students. As all the students were professionals and were involved in the teaching profession, the researchers tried to depict their past experiences as a student and a teacher as well. Since they are still the students of language background, they could successfully opine for the best activities effective in their respective context of second or foreign language. The findings implicated using activities like- role play, debate, picture description, group activities, drama, competition, presentations, multicultural interactions, answering questions, songs, read aloud task, pair work that are effective as these activities can encourage and motivate by engaging the learners to learn a second or foreign language. Few participants also mentioned the obstacles like lack of confidence, shyness, and communication problem because of different cultural background and opinions and some talked about the benefits.