Rodrigo Rincón

1. Title: 

The impact of teachers´ level of proficiency in speaking to develop the speaking skill of learners

Abstract
This document aims to measure the effect of teachers´ proficiency level in speaking on the
language learning in speaking skills of learners from 12 to 14 years old. The participants will be
students with an A2 English level, between 12 and 14 years old who are attending a state school.
The tests will be stored quantitatively in order to facilitate the analysis of the results.

Introduction

Learning a foreign language corresponds to how people develop more ways to interact with
others, except for those who speak the same native language. It represents a way to correlate the
desire for ambition with personal improvement to achieve a better lifestyle, based on the use of
target languages to overcome obstacles in today's society. College students in particular are
directly involved in learning a new language because the updated information is included in
English books.

Because current research can be used to find negative aspects that influence the learning process
and to develop solutions that help students in Ecuadorian public institutions better learn and use
English. It is important to investigate the factors that influence learning English as a language to
actually convey the target language.

It is important to recognize that individuals benefiting from this study are specifically dealing
with a group of individuals involved in foreign language education. It consists of school
authorities, managers, and English teachers who plan interventions and pathways for change and
can take action to improve the learning process; students of all levels, and young people in public
schools. Has the opportunity to improve the way they receive instruction and get a better
education in their target language.

For many English learners, perhaps the most difficult skill to develop is the speaking, there can
be many reasons for that, but the one which is going to be researched and analyzed what is the
role of the teachers´ proficiency level in speaking on the English fluency speaking in learners.
Although in our context the exposition to the English language is limited, teachers try their best
in classrooms to teach learners.

Literature review

“When learning is spontaneous and informal, e.g. when a young child is exposed to a
language, it is acquired naturally without any thought about its structure, sound system, grammar
or vocabulary” (Krouse,1992:40) as cited in (Krügel, 2005, pág. 16) The acquisition of a
language should be a natural process in which language exposes to learners in a natural, and
practical way.

According to Krashen (2002) “language acquisition occurs through meaningful

interaction in the target language- natural communication -in which speakers are concerned not
with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding”
(p. 1), the word communication means the interchange of information, therefore it is implicit that
the participants can be 2 or more; in a classroom context, it supposes the interaction between
students and the teacher. However, in an Ecuadorian state teaching context, this interaction is
very limited, not to say null. This may happen because Ecuadorian teachers do not apply a
communicative approach, instead of that they use a textbook focused on grammar rules. Another
main reason for null interaction in the classroom could be because there is no comprehensible
input, which is a critical ingredient to acquiring a language (Krashen, 2002), students are not able
to understand what teachers say, due to the usage of unknown words or unknown grammatical
structures. The communication between teachers and students should be comprehensible to
students; for this aim, teachers must measure what their students are capable to understand and
producing and also be able to interact and produce correctly words and messages which may
improve and motivate students' use of English in class. An important part of the learning process
is the competencies teachers have to provide worthy qualities which learners can take advantage
of. This proposal aims to feed the field of language acquisition and teaching English as a foreign
language. 
 There are some researchers which studied the impact or effect of teachers’ limited
English proficiency on second language learners, such as Nel and Müller (2010), which as
finding has “teachers made basic errors such as grammatical errors, incorrect use of tenses,
concord and spelling errors” and infer that there is an evident influence of this on L2 learners,
“phonological errors, spelling errors, L1 transfer takes place on a syntactic level,
overgeneralization as a result of intralingual transfer, grammatical error, among others” (p. 639 ).
The research of Gul and Aziz (2015) suggests that “there are some deficiencies or gaps in terms
of teaching competencies for the implementation of policy decision to use English as the medium
of instruction” and concluded that “they were deficient in vocabulary and grammar while
speaking in English” (p. 102), to this, could be added that “teachers had gaps in their English
teaching competencies, like vocabulary teaching, oral communication, pronunciation, intonation,
assessment, and preparation of valid test” (Arshad, 2009) as cited in (Gul & Aziz, 2015, pág.
102). 
Szpotowicz (2009) reports in his study that teachers have varying English proficiency.
Teachers' language proficiency is likely to affect learning outcomes, and Muñoz (2006) observes
that not only is exposure severe, but the need to "provide a suitable model" (p. 34). Teachers'
language skills can be particularly relevant to the acquisition of grammatical features, especially
within the framework of use-based theory of language acquisition.
A study of teacher competence needs for student acquisition conducted by Malik (1996) in
Pakistan explores the needs of college students and focuses on the needs of teacher education
and training to teach English at a higher education level. increase. Warsi (2004) examines the
conditions under which English can be taught in Pakistan, including the English curriculum,
teaching materials, methods and techniques. In addition, a study by Din et al. (2010) Focuses on
the lack of formal qualifications of language teachers that affect student performance in
secondary education. However, Pakistan has not conducted significant research on teacher
proficiency that affects young learners' language acquisition.

English language

Comprehensible Input
 Among all of the researchers, Krashen has been the maximum chronic to the significance of
enter for SLA. Krashen's enter speculation proposed in 1982 states that we collect language
through information enter that may be a little past our contemporary degree of received
competence. According to Krashen (1985) all elements that inspire 2nd language acquisition are
effective, best once they make contributions to understandable enter. Krashen's enter speculation
claims that revolutionary speakme cannot be trained directly. It emerges as acquirers building up
their competence thru significant enter (Krashen, 1982). Learners circulate from their
contemporary degree of competence (i) to their subsequent stage (i + 1) through information
enter which contains (i+1) (in which i+1 can be a block of structures.) These structures, above
the prevailing degree of competence are understood through the use of context and information
of the sector collectively with the prevailing competence. According to Krashen (2003) language
is received best while we apprehend messages, that's feasible while we attain understandable
enter. Ellis (1999) additionally proposes that acquisition is promoted while the input to which
newcomers are exposed, is made understandable.

Incomprehensible Input

While Krashen's enter speculation limits SLA to publicity to understandable enter,

incomprehensible enter is taken into consideration to beautify the manner of SLA via presenting
the important enter. One of the capability kinds of language enter is meaningless enter (White,
1987). In his incomprehensible enter speculation, White underlined the factor that after language
inexperienced persons encounter language enter this is incomprehensible due to the fact their
interlanguage policies cannot examine a specific 2d language structure, they need to alter the
ones interlanguage policies to recognize the structure. Consequently the incomprehensible input
catalyzes the manner of SLA. White keeps that the purchase of the lacking systems might not
take vicinity with inside the presence of an issue of understandable language input. We can also
additionally summarize that in step with White, the incomprehensibility of a few factors of the
language enter attracts the learner's interest to precise capabilities to be acquired English
teaching in Ecuador

V. Peña (2017) reports that the National Government has been attentive to improving the
quality of education in all areas since the meeting in Dakar in 2000. After this meeting, the
country committed to being part of the “Education for All” plan. 21 In our country, the
objectives of this commitment are institutionalized in what is known as the “Ten Plan 2005-
2015”, which has eight educational policies and several objectives to be met. Objective number
four of the plan establishes that capacities must be potentiated of the citizens for which they
made curricular changes.

One of the most relevant was the one carried out in 2011 through the updating of the
Curriculum Reform, which carried out transformations in the structure of curricula in all subjects
and began with the project "It's time to teach English." tried to improve the system of teaching
English as a foreign language, and aspects of methodology and teaching skills were taken into
account. Additionally, in agreement 0041-14, it was possible for English to enter the formal
curriculum with a workload of 5 hours from the eighth year of basic education With this, an
attempt was made to improve the level of linguistic skills of students through the teacher training
in this area.

Proficiency level of teachers in Ecuador

According to Peña V and Sanchez G, (2013) "5,022 English teachers were evaluated by the
Ministry of Education along with the public school SENESCYT through an exam called
TOEFL." The result of this assessment was that "74% of teachers are assessed at A1 and A2
levels, and the remaining percentage (26%) can reach B1 levels." (p.7)

The Ministry of Education states that in Ecuador, teachers need to be proficient at the B2
level

These effects confirmed that almost all of instructors in Ecuador did now no longer have
communicative capabilities in English to carry out coaching tasks. Thereby, an pressing
necessity to enhance the technique for gaining knowledge of and coaching English in public
faculties all around the country has arisen.

The purpose of this research is to identify the relationship between teachers´ English proficiency
levels in speaking, and learners´ speaking skill development. Therefore, it is important to
mention that this research will be focused on speaking skills to make it more specific and
measurable. The variables taken into consideration in the present study are, teachers´ English
proficiency level in speaking, language speaking skill development in learners; for this reason
this research will intend to answer the following questions.

 What is the effect that the language proficiency level of teachers by speaking has on the
language speaking fluency development of the English learners from 12 to 14 years old?

Methodology

The present research is going to be executed in Ecuador, taking as reference the state
education in English language learning, in which participants are going to be taken both, students
and teachers. The selected students will have an A2 English proficiency level, while the selected
teachers should be 2 with B1 and C1 English proficiency levels. According to EF EPI, (2021)
“Ecuador has one of the worst English proficiency levels in Latin America”, and El Comercio
(2019) claims that “only the 15% of teachers in Ecuador has de B2 Certificate”, which is not
even the most advanced certificate of competences, but rather the high-intermediate one. 
The dominant native language in Ecuador is Spanish, but also are some different
indigenous languages that are spoken in specific communities, such as Quechua, Shuar among
others. But for this research the students selected will be the ones whose mother language is
Spanish. 
To achieve the purpose of this study, it was necessary to collect information from the
Internet, a pretest and posttest, and various books. The information obtained was used to fill in
the subject of the study variables and theoretically support the ongoing project. In addition, it
was necessary to collect information from classroom observations and send a questionnaire to 2
public high school teachers and 10 students for later analysis of the results.

Participants

This study was conducted in Portoviejo City. . The sample surveyed were 2 English teachers
from 2 different English courses with. 10 students form each course were randomly selected to
complete the questionnaire. Finally, 10 classes of observations were made to pursue the purpose
of the study.
Data gathering

The research will be a quantitative one and is going to be executed in Ecuador, taking as
reference the state education in English language learning, in which participants are going to be
taken both, students and teachers. The selected students will have age between 12 and 14 years
old and will have an A2 English proficiency level, while the teachers will have B1 and C1
proficiency levels in English. The learners will have will be divided randomly into 2 groups. The
first group will have the B1 level teacher, the second group will have the C1
Firstly the students will attend a test to evaluate their English proficiency level in
listening and speaking taking as an instrument the sample test that Cambridge provides on its
web page and youtube for speaking, therefore no test will be created. The teachers who will
participate in this research, must provide an international certification and attend an interview to
measure their level of speaking, and the results will be scored against the CERF. 
Next, 20 students who achieve the needed level will be randomly divided into 2 groups of
10, and each teacher will be managing one group. In the next 2 months, the students will attend 2
times a week and 2 hours for each class. For the proposal of this research, the teachers will have
pedagogy freedom, but they will have to teach with a communicative approach, therefore the
suggested kind of activities are the following; role-play, interviews, group work, information
gap, opinion sharing, scavenger hunt. 
The use of English in classes will be measured through class observation, for this, the
researcher will attend to a different group for each day of class. After two months the program
will end and the students will attend the proficiency test in speaking again and the results of the
pretest and the post-test will be compared. 
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