Improving the speaking skills of elementary 4th grade students with speaking fluency problems

Communication is the basic need for mankind since the origin of man. People have been fulfilling this need in various ways throughout ages, but the easiest and the most effective way has always been ?speaking?. Effective speaking is a skill that should be gained during childhood and schools must pay great attention to this skill. Speaking fluency skill brings along some facts like correct pronunciation, a wide vocabulary, control of behaviors accompanying speaking, knowledge of speaking rules, focusing on the conversation, holding an opinion about listeners, pre-knowledge about the subject. The continuity of these facts could be achieved through acknowledging the speaking skill. This study aimed at improving speaking skills of students?, who were diagnosed to have speaking fluency problems, through the tasks exercises designed by the researcher. In 2011-2012 academic year at the Atakent Elementary School in Yenimahalle, Ankara, pre-interviews and post-interviews were conducted and observations were made during classes with 4th grade students in direction of this aim. The interview results were analyzed examined and scored by both the researcher and two other experts. The scores showed that 10 students had speaking fluency problems. Classroom teachers and school guidance counselors approved that these students had no other physical or mental disorder than the problem of speaking fluency, nor were in need of special education. Qualitative and quantitative research methods were applied in this study. In the qualitative aspect of the study, content analysis method was used; in the quantitative ixaspect of the study, Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests were conducted in order to reveal the differences among pre-experiment, mid-experiment and post-experiment data. The participants were assigned to a 60-hour program of speaking fluency improvement tasks. After completing the program, results showed that the number of sentences students made per minute, number of words and syllables were increased; the number of unnecessary words students used per minute, number of inverted sentences, number of incomplete sentences, number of omitted letters sentences and number of incomplete words were decreased. Furthermore, the mean score of the number of words students used in a sentence, number of syllables and number of syllables students used in a word were increased; the number of unnecessary words students used in a sentence and number of omitted letters words were decreased. Keywords: speaking, speaking fluency, improving speaking fluency skill