The Role of Listening Comprehension in Improving EFL Learners’ Speaking Skill Case Study: Second Year Students (LMD) at Biskra University.

Abstract

This present work is in the field of English language learning as many studies have been working on, specially the different skills among which speaking and listening are the main concern of this current study. Since a lot of researches have neglected the listening skill and its relation with the other skills especially the speaking one, as it was not the matter of their center, but in reality the listening skill is placed in the front of all the language skills. That is why the aim behind this research work is to clarify and to spotlight on the importance of listening comprehension and listening practice in developing EFL learners’ oral performance. It contributes in helping them to find remedies to their deficiencies in speaking such as lack of vocabularies, mother tongue use, and pronunciation through making them used to their target language. This dissertation is divided into two parts; one is theoretical containing two chapters. The first one tackles the listening skill and aims at clarifying the importance of the listening skill in both foreign language teaching and learning. The second talks about the speaking skill as it aims at showing the necessity of the correctness of the speaking skill in measuring the mastery of the target language. The aim behind these two chapters is to clarify the inter relationship and the independence of both skills on each other. The one is practical containing one chapter in which we have emphasized the analysis of both teachers’ feedback interview and students’ feedback questionnaire. This part aims at checking teachers’ and students’ viewpoints concerning the topic under investigation. The case that we have worked with is both second year teachers and students (LMD). Their opinions will be gathered and collected through a questionnaire devoted for students and an interview devoted for teachers. Results showed that all of the interviewed teachers and the majority of the questioned students believed that listening to the target language is one of the most important sources that enable EFL learners to develop their oral production. So, the listening skill has a great positive influence on enhancing the speaking skill. From what is stated above, the hypothesis that we have put was confirmed.