Effects of using educational technology tools to enhance EFL students’ speaking performance

Abstract

Educational speaking technology is a digital expertise used to enhance speaking performance. This research examined the effects of using educational speaking technology tools: FORVO, YouGlish, and OALD 8th ed. to enhance students’ speaking performance. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest two groups design was used. Test, questionnaire, interview, and teacher-log were used to gather the data from 82 first-year Information communication and Technology (IT) students selected through comprehensive sampling. The experimental group students had learned speaking skills through educational speaking technology tools while the control group students learned using the conventional method. When the quantitative data were analyzed through independent samples T-test, the qualitative data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings of the study uncovered that there was a statistical difference between the experimental and control group students in their speaking performance. Accordingly, the learners who had learned through educational speaking technology have enhanced their speaking performance compared to the students that learned conventionally. Predominantly, students who learned through educational speaking technology were fluent, coherent, and accurate in their speech, rich in lexical resources, used a variety of grammatical ranges, and better in pronunciation. Besides, the students’ have positive perceptions towards using educational speaking technology tools. Consequently, this study recommends researchers, teachers, and students to make the use of educational technology and to go in line with the state of the art.