Cultivating L2 oral fluency: The learner uptake in video feedback

This study aimed at investigating the effects of video feedback on the development of L2 oral proficiency of the preparatory school students, specifically focusing on oral fluency, and exploring the perceptions of the students on the effectiveness of teacher video feedback required for an online speaking class. To this end, this study employed an action-based research methodology, adopting an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. The study was conducted with 11 preparatory school students, all majoring in Political Science and Public Administration, in the second term of the 2020-2021 academic year. The quantitative data were collected through the analyses of the speaking scores assigned to the students by two raters using an analytic scale in a modified IELTS speaking module used before and after the video feedback intervention as the pre- and delayed post-test. Moreover, the participants' spoken discourse over the four weeks when the video feedback was received was quantitatively analyzed to see whether temporal measures of L2 oral fluency of the participants' differed due to the video feedback implementation. Finally, the qualitative data were collected via two semi-structured, focus group interviews with all the participants to explore their perceptions on getting teacher video feedback for their speaking class assignments. The quantitative findings revealed that receiving video feedback from their teacher resulted in a significant improvement in not only the participants' overall L2 oral proficiency but also L2 oral fluency. The quantitative findings also unveiled that receiving video feedback significantly improved the learners' temporal measures of L2 oral fluency. The qualitative findings uncovered the pedagogical affordances and challenges of the incorporation of video feedback regarding its broad benefits, its specific contributions to the participants as L2 speakers, and its limitations. Based on the findings, the present study offers highly important implications for theory, research, and pedagogy for SLA scholars, practitioners, and L2 learners. Keywords: Speaking, Foreign Language (L2) Oral Fluency, Video Feedback, Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL), Assessment