Faculty of Education

Curriculum & Instruction Department

The effectiveness of ipad apps to improve speaking skills and attitudes

towards primary school students in year five.

A Research Proposal

Submitted by

By GAMAL HASSAN ELSAYED OMER

An English teacher

Ministry of Education

2023

1
Introduction

Speaking is an essential ability for efficient communication since it

allows people to convey their ideas, viewpoints, and opinions. (Shamim Akhter,
Rustam Haidov, Abdul Majeed Rana, and Dr. Abrar Hussain Qureshi, 2020)
Non-native English speakers are unable to converse with others who speak
other languages because English is the primary language of the global village.
EFL students should concentrate on creating curricula, altering instructional
techniques, and implementing tasks and materials in the classroom in order to
develop speaking abilities. In order to ensure good communication, speaking
assessment assignments should also be organized. People discuss their concerns
through language since it is necessary for communicating ideas, feelings, and
thoughts. Strong speakers are essential to a smooth system because they
translate intellect. People are attracted to speakers who have mastery over
productive and receptive skills in general and speaking skills in particular. They
also enable a clear understanding of others through interaction. As the saying
goes, a person's merit is known by their speech.

Speaking is regarded as the most crucial active skill for learning a foreign
language. (Ibodulloyeva Zarifa, 2020) It is generating utterances to convey
messages. It begins in utero and develops throughout childhood until reaching
adulthood. Syntax, grammar, morphology, pragmatics, social language,
semantics, and phonology are all microskills that make up speaking. Speaking
needs the participation of another person, unlike listening, reading, or writing,
2
making it an interactive process. Speaking ability encompasses the entire act of
forming meanings, making utterances, and confidently receiving and processing
information.

Speaking is a challenging task because EFL Learners have to make

sentences without planning. Shamim Akhter, Rustam Haidov, Abdul Majeed
Rana, and Dr. Abrar Hussain Qureshi, 2020). It is not easy for EFL or ESL
learners to make sentences without knowledge of grammar and its structure.
They need sufficient vocabulary to speak. Vocabulary is the heart of language.
In a foreign language classroom, mastering vocabulary is one of the most
difficult jobs. As a result, mastering grammar and its structure presents several
challenges for non-native English speakers.

The most important language skill to master when learning a

second or foreign language is speaking. (Rao, P. S. 2019). The majority of
EFL/ESL teachers treat teaching speaking skills as drill memorization, despite
the fact that it is crucial. Speaking skills instruction has gotten little attention.
Fluency and performance in daily life are necessities of the modern world, but
oral communication skills are mostly neglected in the current educational
system. Speaking proficiency for ELLs is hampered by the lack of emphasis
placed on phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic elements of
language. The emphasis has been on improving reading and writing skills.

3
 Iranian EFL Freshmen and Seniors experienced Speaking skill Issues
from Their Own and Their English Teachers' Perspectives. (2016) Afshar.
According to the study's findings, students thought that factors like teachers'
interruptions and error correction, a lack of native teachers, teachers' teaching
methods and techniques, a dearth of English courses with inadequate content,
and a lack of use of English outside of the classroom hindered their
development as oral communicators. Their study's findings suggested that the
overuse of L1, packed classrooms, and a lack of practice time were the main
obstacles Jordanian EFL students faced in improving their speaking abilities.

Young EFL learners struggle with speaking issues such inhibition,

motivation, low involvement, and mother tongue use. ( Al Hosni, S. 2014). In the
first place, indifference denotes students who are shy, self-conscious, or scared
of being corrected. Second, the students lack any reason to express themselves.
Thirdly, very few students are participating. Due to the size of the classrooms
and the tendency of some students to dominate, only one participant can speak
at a time. Other participants may speak only occasionally or not at all. The
fourth point is the use of the mother tongue. Students who share the same
mother tongue commonly use it due to its simplicity and the fact that speaking
in one's native language makes one feel less exposed. Furthermore, Rababa'h
(2005) noted that a variety of factors contribute to EFL learners' struggles with
speaking English. A few of these variables are influenced by the students
themselves, the curriculum, the environment, and the methods of instruction.
4
For instance, a lot of students struggle to maintain conversations because they
lack the vocabulary needed to communicate their ideas. A second cause for not
being able to continue the interaction is having insufficient strategic and
communication skills.

The study investigates difficulties faced by EFL undergraduates in

speaking skills, focusing on excessive Arabic use in class. (Dina A. Al-Jamal &
Ghadeer A. Al-Jamal, 2014) EFL students participating in this study indicated
that Using Arabic in class is excessive. In EFL education, a balance between
theory and practice is crucial for effective communication. Piagetian
constructivism is essential for maintaining oral skill mastery, but students may
fall back on old knowledge when they haven't acquired enough. Interference in
the performance model may result from using first language competence as an
utterance initiator, potentially replacing acquired second language competence.

There are factors affecting students’ speaking performance at LE

THANH HIEN high school. (Nguyen Hoang Tuan and Tran Ngoc Mai, 2015)
At Le THANH HIEN High School, the students are not good at English. They
can pass exams easily but they find it difficult to use English to communicate.
To help the students improve their speaking skills, it is necessary to find ways to
help them overcome their problems. Furthermore, teachers must be aware of
the issues influencing their students' speaking abilities in order to address them
and aid in the students' improvement.

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 Nunan (1999) asserts that a speaker needs to be communicatively
competent, which includes not only linguistic proficiency, such as a sufficient
vocabulary and command of grammar, but also a variety of other
sociolinguistic and conversational abilities that assist the speaker know what to
say and when to say it. In this study, four aspects of communication
competence—linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, pragmatic
competence, and strategic competence—are described.

For Ur (1996), there are some speaking problems that teachers can
come across in getting students to talk in the classroom. These are: inhibition,
lack of topical knowledge, low or uneven participation and mother-tongue use.
The first problem that the students often encounter is inhibition. In order to
help students overcome problems in learning speaking, it is necessary for the
teachers to figure out factors that affect their speaking performance. Students’
speaking performance can be affected by the factors that come from
performance conditions (time pressure, planning, standard of performance and
amount of support), affective factors (such as motivation, confidence and
anxiety), listening ability and feedback during speaking activities.

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 Fortunately, IPAD apps can help me solve the problem. We can record videos with a
green screen background using the KINEMASTRER app. I changed the background of a
green-background video (Taw Kuei, 2021). It is beneficial to employ green screen and
chroma key technology during online lectures. Using this technique, the entire content of a
single LED panel is projected onto the chroma key composited image behind the lecturer. It
is therefore compatible with almost any software used to produce the lecture content,
including spreadsheets, video players, graphic design, PDF annotation software, and more.

The subskills of speech are shown in Figure 1 on page 51. (Bailey,

K. M. 2003). Four categories of linguistic analysis are listed in the left column,
but as teachers, we are most interested in the centre column. It identifies the
components of spoken language. Text refers to undefined-length linguistic
segments that start at the base of the pyramid. Errors are the building blocks of
spoken texts. For example, in asking a friend about what to eat, you might ask,
"Would you like pizza?" This utterance is a fully formed grammatical sentence.
But if you are both thinking about what to eat, you might just ask your friend,
"Pizza?" Although this is not a grammatical sentence, it is an utterance. The
next two levels, clauses and phrases, are often confused. A phrase is a unit of
words without a subject or verb marked for tense, such as prepositional or
infinitive phrases. Clauses are words with a tense-marked verb, such as full

7
sentences or less. Next, a language unit that may stand alone and have meaning
is referred to as a word and is called a free morpheme (hat, flee, already, etc.).
There are also bound morphemes, which are always connected to words. These
include prefixes, such as un- or pre-, as well as suffixes, such as -lion, -s, or -ed.
Finally, the top levels of the pyramid deal with the sound system of the
language. In Figure 1, the word syllable overlaps the levels of morphemes and
phonemes. In a language, a phoneme is a unit of sound that distinguishes
meaning. Phonemes can be either consonants (like /p/ or /b/ in the words pit and
bit) or vowels (like /I/ and // in bit and bat). Moreover, consonants and vowels
are segmental phonemes, with syllables containing one or combined sounds, free
and bound morphemes, and varying combinations. On the right side of the
pyramid there are three other labels. Stress, rhythm, and intonation are called
the supra segmental phonemes, because when we speak, they carry meaning
differences but they operate "above" the segmental phonemes. To illustrate that
the supra segmental phonemes carry meaning, consider the sentence, "I think I
know." Consider these interpretations:

- I think I know. (You may not think I know the answer, but I'm pretty sure I
do.)
- I think I know. (I'm not entirely sure, but I think I know the answer.)
- I think I know. (You may not know the answer, but I think I do.)
- I think I know. (I am not unsure—I am quite confident that I know the
answer.)

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Literature Review

Many studies have been made about apps. Having good speaking English is
through the Tik Tok application (Herlisya, D., & Wiratno, P. 2022), using cake application
in learning English speaking skills (Anisa Fitria, 2021) ,using ELSA app in speaking classes
about Students’ voices ( Darsih, E., Wihadi, M., & Hanggara, A. 2021), using Pinterest
apps for smartphones to improve the speaking abilities of EFL students in Indonesia
(Muthmainnah, M., Marzuki, A. G., Santiana , S., Erizar, E., & Nursyam, N. 2022),
integrating English Conversation and Short Conversation Applications will help students'
speaking abilities. (Mariam, S., Kepirianto, C., Raharjo, R., & Ma’mun, N. 2022), the usage
of Mall applications to improve Arabic EFL learners' English language abilities
(Almadhady, A. A., Salam, A. R. H., & Baharum, H. I. 2021), Speaky - Language Exchange
App to Improve Second Language Speaking Skills ( Nushi, M., Shirvani, D., & Bahrami, G. 2021)

and enhancing speaking skill through WHATS APP (ARTHI, N. 2018).

9
 This is an explanation of different methods for teaching speaking.
(Fátima Castillo Mejillam, Lucelia Benedith Calero, Karen Álvarez Salgado, 2014)
-Total physical response: it is based on coordination on speech with the actions and body
movements. Moreover, to learn a second language is similar to first language development it
passed a long process of listening and speaking and understanding before to produce themselves.
-Audio lingual method the principal action in this method is that students listening to real-life
language models, often referred to as the silent method, to develop criteria, error correction, and
learn through repetition.
- Grammar translation method: Grammar translation method is a classical teaching method for
teaching foreign languages, involving students learning grammatical rules and applying them in
sentence translations.

Besides audio lingual method can be:

Repetition: they repeat words when it appears.
Inflection: when the word appears in other way.
Replacement: a word is replace by another.
Restatement: the students re-phrase an utterance.
-The natural method: this method is referred to acquire as large vocabulary as fast as possible
and then they increase and sharpen their management structures. The teacher used text to
introduce the vocabulary and structures and they repeat this every day.
-Communicative approach: focus on communication skills, emphasizes in the interaction as
both the means and the ultimate goal of learning a language. The focus is on meaning and
functions of language and the teacher is facilitator in language acquisition.

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 After reviewing a number of related studies, there was a gap in the literature
review. Finding new apps is more important than using old ones. The previous studies
focused on using old apps like YouTube to improve speaking and listening, but this is not
an effective way because students cannot repeat the sentence again. If they want to repeat
the sentence again, they have to listen to the video again from the beginning:

1- Lack of concentration.

2- Lack of repeat the sentence again

3- Lack of understanding

4- Talking fast

5- No chance to repeat the same sentence to learn its pronunciation and intonation.

Not easy to concentrate on a single topic

Related studies:

In a study, students in Jordan who are learning English as a second language (EFL)
evaluate the efficiency of YouTube videos in teaching speaking skills. (Hadeel A. Saed and
Ahmad S. Haider, 2021)At a private university in Jordan, 80 students enrolled in the department
of English language and literature's Oral Skills classes made up the study sample. A control
group and an experimental group each contained 40 participants, who were divided equally. In
contrast to the control group, which received traditional instruction, the experimental group
received instruction through the use of YouTube videos. A pre-test and a post-test were
administered to the two groups. The IELTS speaking band descriptors, which have four primary
categories: fluency & coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range & accuracy, and
pronunciation, were used to grade the participants' performance. Four TEFL specialists were
invited to do this.

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 In a study published in 2017, Theresa Schenker and Angelika Kraemer
investigated the effects of an iPad app on the general fluency, syntactic complexity, and
speaking skills of the students. Studies comparing the acquisition of vocabulary using pen-and-
paper methods with mobile apps discovered noticeably larger gains using the mobile
applications. When prompted to snap images of newly learned terms, students can use their
mobile devices' photo-taking capabilities to help them expand their vocabulary. According to
one study, pupils who used mobile dictionaries as opposed to analogous print dictionaries
gained more vocabulary. The use of tablets can help even young children in pre-school increase
their vocabulary. Additionally, mobile devices provide opportunity for developing higher-order
thinking abilities and supporting personalized learning. They have also been recommended as
aids for interview practice. Intervention on the linguistic abilities of the kids, but only looked at
how they felt about the project. In a nine-week course, Lys investigated the effects of additional
speaking activities utilising iPad technology on the oral ability of advanced German language
learners [48]. Students in her study submitted weekly video clips of themselves doing various
duties, such discussing their environment, and held weekly FaceTime calls with a classmate
(Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA, USA)

To Support EFL Speaking Skills, the iPad is used as a Mediating tool. (Valentina
Morgana, 2018) Research on the use of mobile devices in the English as a Foreign Language
(EFL) classroom has tended to focus more on perceptions or receptive skills like listening and
reading than on speaking and writing skills. This study aimed to examine possible uses of the
iPad to develop productive skills rather than receptive skills. It particularly looks at what
behavioural changes occurred in students and teachers as a result of the iPad as a tool.

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 Lys (2013) conducted an interesting study in an advanced German class,
investigating the integration of the iPad into the classroom and its influence on learners’ oral
language development. The author particularly focused on how an instructional setting that
provides additional conversational opportunities in and outside the classroom with a mobile
device (an iPad) could impact the quality of students’ oral language proficiency. The study was a
one-to-one iPad implementation project, and it was part of a larger study at a private American
university; it lasted nine weeks, involving 13 students. They were engaged in a variety of
speaking, listening, and recording tasks. Each week they worked on a scaffolded task, had a real-
time video chat using FaceTime, and had to provide an open-ended recorded speech. Results
showed that real-time conversational activities could contribute to advanced learners’ speaking
proficiency. Students had more time to speak compared to a standard non-iPad class, and they
reported being enthusiastic about it.

Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) is a research project attempting to

explore the way to learn efficiently through mobile devices, a change from teacher-led learning
to student-led learning through m-learning (Alzatma, A. A., & Khader, K. 2020). Following
various examples of using mobile apps for language learning, the prospects for learning a second
language in a virtual environment are presented. Here, efforts have been made to demonstrate the
advantages of using cell phones as a second language when studying English. The mobile
language learning field addressed in this paper includes speaking skills. Mobile apps like PDAs,
tablets, and other mobile devices are used frequently these days to do almost everything from
voice calls and instant texts to video communication, audio listening (MP3, MP4, MPEG), web
browsing, shopping, and so on.

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Statement of the problem
While working as an English teacher and a language instructor for 2 years, It was
noticed that the level of students in speaking is rather poor to help the students to
communicate well. A lot of researchers studied the performance of Egyptian
students’ speaking skill. These studies showed a lack of the mastery level of
student’s speaking skill. Through reading and reviewing the related studies, the
researcher read about the importance of apps in developing speaking skill. Based on
all these ideas, the researcher wants to study how can apps be used in developing
pronunciation skill for Egyptian primary stage students?

Research questions:
The present study attempts to answer the following questions:
1-What are the major speaking skills needed to be emphasized at the fifth year
primary stage?
2. What is the impact of integrating apps into EFL instruction on developing EFL
prep stage pupils’ general speaking skill?
a. What is the impact of integrating apps into EFL instruction on developing
EFL 2nd year prep stage pupils’ oral fluency?
b. To what extent does the use of apps develop the pupils’ pronunciation?
c- How far does the use of apps in EFI classes develop the pupils’ grammar?
d. To what extent does the use of apps in EFL classes
develop the pupils’ vocabulary?
e. What is the effectiveness of using apps in developing the pupils’ nonverbal
communication skills?

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 f. How far does the use of apps in EFL classes develop the pupils’ confidence to
speak English?
g. What is the impact of integrating apps into EFL instruction on developing EFL
primary stage pupils! Overall comprehensibility?

Hypotheses of the Study

The present study attempts to verify the following hypotheses.
1. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the control and the experimental groups in oral fluency
on the post speaking test.
2. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the control group and the experimental one on the post
speaking test regarding pronunciation.
3. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the control group and experimental group in grammar on
the post speaking test
4. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the control group and experimental group concerning
vocabulary on the post speaking test.
5. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the control group and experimental group regarding
non verbal communication on the post speaking test.
6. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
15
scores of the control group and experimental group regarding
confidence on the post speaking test,
7. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the control group and experimental group regarding their overall
comprehensibility of speech on the post speaking test.
8-There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the control group and experimental group in speaking
skills as in general on the post speaking test regarding general
speaking skills.
9. There is no statistically significant difference between the mean
scores of the pre and the post administration of the speaking test on
the experimental

Purpose of the Study

This study aims to:
1. Investigate the effectiveness of using apps in developing EFL prep stage students’
speaking skills (oral fluency, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, confidence,
nonverbal communication and over-all comprehensibility)
2. Equip program participants with sufficient motivation and tools to
continue their learning of the language independently and beyond the
exit point of the school.
3. Significance of the Study
The study gains its significance from the following:
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- Developing EFL learners' speaking skills at primary schools
- Drawing EFL teachers’ attention to the effect of apps on
developing EFL pupils’ speaking skills and to use them in their EFL
classes.
- Encouraging researchers in faculties of education to expand their
research on apps in EFL teaching and the other technological tools that might be
useful to develop the process of teaching and learning English. Employ new
technological devices in EFL teaching and learning.
Delimitations of the Study
The proposed study is delimited to
1- Fifth grade pupils of primary school.
2- The speaking skill.

Methodology of the study

Research design

The research design adopted for the study is the quasi-experimental design which
provides a systematic and logical method for answering this question: if this is done
under carefully controlled conditions, what will happen?

A pretest is administered on both control and experimental groups to measure

their speaking skill. The experimental group receives the treatment through using
YouTube videos to develop their speaking skills and the traditional method to teach

17
speaking is adopted with the control group. After that, a post-test is administered to
both of the control and the experimental groups after treatment to find out the
difference between the mean scores of both of the groups in relation to speaking
skills.

Participants and setting of the study:

Participants in this study are two classes in the second year prep stage and
both classes are randomly assigned to a control group and an experimental one.
The study is applied in in the fifth grade of primary school. Both groups are from
the same region, of the same age and have the same teacher.

Instruments of the study:

The following instruments are designed and used in this study:

- A Questionnaire

A. questionnaire is prepared to determine the most important

speaking skills needed at the second year preparatory stage,

- A Pre/post Speaking Test

The test includes four sections. The test is modified by Jury members for validity
and Cronbach's alpha is used to measure its reliability

- A Rubric
A rubric is developed to measure second year preparatory stage

pupils’ speaking skills.

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A Checklist of Criteria:

Apps selection criteria is prepared.

Apps: apps are carefully selected to teach participants of the experimental

treatment program. The lesson plans are written, the sessions are organized
according the predetermined time frame, there are 16 sessions for 9 units of the
textbook of the ministry of education. The implementation of the program is
carried out in the first academic semester of the academic year

2022/2023.

Procedures of the Study

The study proceeds according to the following steps:

1. Reviewing related literature and previous studies.

2. Developing a questionnaire to determine the most important

speaking skills. Developing a Speaking Skills Test (SST).

Developing a rubric to measure students’ speaking skills.

Preparing the criteria to choose the suitable videos.

Presenting the test, the rubric, and the criteria to jurors for validation.

7. Modifying the test, the rubric, and the criteria according to jurors’

opinions to their final forms.

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8. Piloting the SST to measure its reliability

9. Choosing the sample of the study and randomly distribute them to

control and experimental groups.

10. Administering the SST to the control and the experimental groups

(the pre-test),

11 Selecting suitable IPAD apps and prepare some videos to be

used for developing the speaking skills of the experimental group.

12. The treatment takes place during the first semester of the academic year
2022/20213, from Oct.1* to Dec.15".

13. Administering the SST to both the experimental group and the

control group after treatment (the post-test).

14. Analyzing data statically using appropriate statistical methods

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Pilot study:
The researcher conducted a pilot study to a group of EFL student teachers at King Abdul-Aziz
university faculty of education (n=30) to identify their level in speaking. A questionnaire (See
Appendix 1) was administered by the researcher and distributed among student to identify their
speaking skills. Results of the questionnaire supported the researcher’s observations and the
previous studies findings as well. The students′ questionnaire had 58 multiple-choice questions.
This item aimed to elicit the students' opinions about their levels in terms of English speaking
skills.
Students' Opinions about their Levels in terms of English Speaking Skills
Items Student Mean Poor Average Good Very Excellent
teachers′ good
deviation
1.07 1.77 % N % N % N % N % N
58 53.33 16 30 9 6.66 2 6.66 2 3.33 1

Table (1) shows that 83.33% of the students think that they were poor or average in terms of
speaking ability.

The researcher also conducted a speaking test (See Appendix B) to measure oral
fluency speaking skills with its four sub-skills (Organize the oral production both
cognitively and physically, Manifest a certain number of hesitations, pauses,
backtracking and corrections, Use gap-fillers correctly, and Produce language
spontaneously without interlocutors). This test includes two sections that measure
different aspects of students' speaking fluency skill. It is the participants' advantage
to say as much as they can. It is also important that they speak fluently according to
the directions. In the first section the student teachers described the situation in
which three of the characters in pictures are involved in detail. In the second section
the students chose one topic from three to talk about. The sample include (30)
student. Results of the test supported the questionnaire results which show a
noticeable lack in oral communicative competence among student.

number mean Student teachers′

Oral fluency deviation
speaking skills 30 8.80 1.69

Table (2) shows the lack of oral communicative competence among student
teachers

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 Section 1

Questionnaire for Students

Instructions:

Please select just one response for each question or assertion.

Implement the following scales:

Strongly agree: (If you firmly believe the idea put forth in the item ).

Agree: (If you accept the viewpoint expressed in the sentence).

Disagree: (If you reject the viewpoint expressed in the item).

Strongly disagree: (If you vehemently disagree with the point made in the item).

For each of the following statements, check the box (√) that best expresses your
perspective.

Question Agree Strongly disagree Strongly

agree disagree

1- I usually speak English in the classroom. 12 6 2 10

‫عادة ما أتحدث اﻹنجليزية في الفصل‬

2- When my English teacher is explaining the lesson, I pay 13 4 5 8

much attention.
‫كثيرا‬
ً ‫ فإنني أهتم‬، ‫عندما يقوم مدرس اللغة اﻹنجليزية الخاص بي بشرح الدرس‬

3- You think you speak English well. 14 5 4 7

4- You can mimic other accents well 13 8 5 4

5- Speaking English is fun. 12 9 5 4

6- Speaking English is important to you in general. 17 3 5 5

7- To perform well in oral exams, you speak English. 14 2 4 10

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8- I speak English with my classmates in the classroom. 12 6 5 7
‫أتحدث اﻹنجليزية مع زمﻼئي في الفصل‬

9- You are not worried about making mistakes when you 10 8 4 8

speak English.

10- Speaking English is important to you because you might 14 4 7 5

need it later for your job.

11- You think if you put much effort in practicing, you can 10 6 6 8
speak English well.

12- At school, if you didn't know how to give an answer in 18 6 4 2

English for sure, you'd still answer out loud in class anyway.

13- Because of my English teacher, I love using the language. 15 5 4 6

14- My English teacher employs a variety of speaking 15 5 4 6

exercises.

15- Speaking exercises in the English textbook are 15 4 5 6

insufficient.

16- For speaking practice, I frequently listen to English 11 6 7 6

speakers online.

17- I'm urged to use English in class by my English teacher. 16 2 3 9

18- Being good at English will help me study other subjects 14 6 4 6

well.

19- I believe that learning English is simple. 13 8 6 3

20- We take oral English tests from the English teacher. 15 2 3 10

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24
Appendix 2

EFL Speaking Fluency Test

This test includes two sections that measure different aspects of EFL students'
speaking fluency skill. It is the participants' advantage to say as much as they
can. It is also important that they speak fluently according to the directions.

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26
27
28
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Definition of the Key Terms
Mobile application: According to the Cambridge Dictionary, it is defined as follows: "a
software program that runs on a mobile phone." Junior students: According to Merriam-Webster,
“a student in the next-to-the-last year before graduating from an educational institution”. The
researcher defines junior students as the students in their first and second year of their university
“Freshman and Sophomore students”.

Speaking skills: are the skills that give us the ability to communicate effectively. These
skills allow the speaker, to convey his message in a passionate, thoughtful, and convincing
manner. Speaking skills also help to assure that one won't be misunderstood by those who are
listening.

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References:

Afshar, H. S., & Asakereh, A. (2016). Speaking Skills Problems Encountered by Iranian EFL Freshmen
and Seniors from Their Own and Their English Instructors' Perspectives. Electronic journal of Foreign
language teaching, 13(1).

Akhter, S., Haidov, R., Rana, A. M., & Qureshi, A. H. (2020). Exploring the significance of speaking
skill for EFL learners. PalArch's Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 17(9), 6019-6030.

Al Hosni, S. (2014). Speaking difficulties encountered by young EFL learners. International Journal on
Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL), 2(6), 22-30.

Al-Jamal, D. A., & Al-Jamal, G. A. (2014). An Investigation of the difficulties faced by EFL
undergraduates in speaking skills. English Language Teaching, 7(1), 19-27.

Almadhady, A. A., Salam, A. R. H., & Baharum, H. I. (2021). The use of mall applications to enhance
the english speaking skills among arab EFL learners. Psychology and Education, 58(4), 3237-3255.

Alzatma, A. A., & Khader, K. (2020). Using Mobile Apps to Improve English Speaking Skills of EFL
Students at the Islamic University of Gaza.
ARTHI, N. (2018). ENHANCING SPEAKING SKILL THROUGH WHATS APP (Doctoral dissertation,
University of Madras).

Bailey, K. M. (2003). Speaking. Practical English language teaching, 47-66.

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