The effect of strategy-based speaking activities on the speaking skills and speaking anxiety of secondary school students

The purpose of this research; To examine the effects of strategy-based speaking activities on seventh grade students' speaking skills and speaking anxiety. In the study, an embedded mixed design, which is one of the mixed methods in which qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques are used together, was used. In the quantitative part of the study, a quasi-experimental design with pre-test-post-test control group was utilized; in the qualitative part, a case study was used. The study group of the research was consisted of seventh grade students studying at a secondary school in Battalgazi district of Malatya in the 2022-2023 academic year. The study group consists of a total of 60 students, 30 of whom are experimental and 30 are control. The "Speaking Anxiety Scale" and the "Speaking Skill Evaluation Scale" developed by the researcher were used to collect quantitative data. "Semi-structured Student Interview Form, Semi-structured Teacher Interview Form, Focus Group Interview, Field Notes" were used to collect qualitative data. In the application aspect of the research, students in the experimental group were given speaking strategies training based on activities for eight weeks, while the control group was given training in line with the current curriculum of the Ministry of Education and the Turkish textbook. Quantitative data of the research; Depending on the normality of the data, dependent groups t-test, independent groups t-test, Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used. SPSS 22.0 package program was used in statistical analysis related to the research. Descriptive analysis was used in the analysis of the qualitative data of the research. According to the research results; Speaking strategies training significantly increased the general speaking skills and presentation, content editing and interaction skills levels of the experimental group students. In the experimental group in which speaking strategies training was applied and in the control group in which training was given in line with the current curriculum of the Ministry of Education; When the final measurement scores were compared, a statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups in terms of general success in speaking skills and presentation and interaction skills. In terms of content organization, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the post-tests. According to the quantitative findings obtained, there was a significant decrease in the general levels of speaking anxiety and the cognitive and physical sub-dimensions of anxiety of the students in the experimental group, where speech strategies training was applied. There was no significant change in the emotional sub-dimension of speaking anxiety scores of the experimental group. According to the research findings, the experimental procedure was highly effective in reducing the speaking anxiety level of the experimental group students. When the final measurement scores of speech anxiety in the experimental group and the control group were compared, a significant difference was found between the two groups between the general speech anxiety and its physical and emotional sub-dimensions in favor of the experimental group. However, no significant difference was found between the groups regarding the cognitive dimension of anxiety. The students in the experimental group and the application teacher expressed mostly positive opinions about the speaking strategies training. The applied experimental procedure improved the students' speaking skills and helped reduce their speaking anxiety. At this point, it was seen that quantitative and qualitative data supported each other. The results obtained from the research were compared with similar research results in the literature and some suggestions were offered to practitioners, program developers and researchers.