PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING: A NEW APPROACH TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS IN ENGLISH

Spanish students' inner resistance to speak in English can be lowered significantly when they are given the opportunity to communicate their own personal experiences and feelings in a friendly atmosphere free from tension and formalism. In this paper we will present a study on several groups of Spanish adult students of English as a second language who were given such an opportunity in intensive courses. The results of our team research reveal that making the students the real protagonists of their learning process increases oral proficiency significantly. By giving them meaningful scenarios related to their own life experiences - allowing them the opportunity to self-evaluate their learning process- and focusing on expressing themselves freely rather than avoiding making mistakes, the students are able to speak at ease and achieve high standards in oral English in a relatively short time.