Use of oral english in project based learning

Abstract

This study focuses on the use of oral tasks to develop students' willingness to communicate (WTC) under a Project Based Learning (PBL) approach. The participants were thirty-one 10th graders from a private school in Chile. The data of this research was collected through audio-recorded lessons and a students' perception rating scale. The findings show that whenever the students were exposed to specific oral tasks, they used English more frequently to ask for information, as opposed to their L1, Spanish. The students also inclined to give more information in English when answering yes/no questions, as opposed to wh-questions. Moreover, the students used their L1 very few times; however, Spanish was still used when the teacher was not monitoring the tasks. The study also revealed that the students perceived they used English in different frequencies for different language functions.