Developing a Cooperative Interactive Learning Module for improving speaking skills of graduate students

Charanjit Kaur Swaran Singh

Abstract

Students in higher learning institutes in Malaysia face some difficulties in expressing themselves in English language and show lack of competency in speech. They perform poorly in the English language during examination held in the university and also interviews. Based on the problems encountered by the weak students, it was deemed necessary to provide some form of guidance to enable the ESL students to speak confidently. The guidance comes in the form of a cooperative interactive learning module for teaching speaking to weak ESL students. The purpose of the study is to develop a cooperative interactive learning module as a teaching approach that could benefit ESL students at the university. This study also investigates the attitudes of the students before and after using the cooperative interactive learning module concerning speaking.The research comprises of two stages namely instructional design, ADDIE model (to develop the module). A quasi-experimental design was carried out to look at the effectiveness of the Cooperative Interactive Learning Module on students’ speaking skills. Cooperative Interactive Learning (CIL) Training Module was designed as a teaching and learning aid to assist educators to enable them to use some of the fundamental concepts of (CIL) in their everyday teaching to enhance ESL students’ speaking skills. The module consists of three units of hands on activities, current practices on (CIL) and prior knowledge, CL concepts, conceptualization of a structural and complex CIL approach. The findings revealed that the Cooperative Interactive Learning Module was effective for higher learning institutes students because it enhanced graduates’ communication skills that will enable them to understand written and spoken instruction, and express ideas in a variety of situations.

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