Using situation bound utterances as supplementary materials to improve students' speaking skills at abant izzet baysal university preparatory school

This study aimed to make speaking skill, which is considered to be the hardest of four skills in English Language Learning by both teachers and learners, more effective and more natural. The Situational Bound Utterances (SBUs), which already exist in the course syllabus were found out, and a series of supplementary activities focusing on these SBUs were designed to make speaking in English more effective, more natural and more fluent.Five preparatoty classes in beginner level with 93 students in total and 5 English language instructors from Abant İzzet Baysal University Bolu, Turkey participated in the study. Participant students were asked to participate in the activities, each of whose effectiveness was evaluated aiming to teach the SBUs and the participant instructors were asked to observe the activities. At the end of the study, it was concluded that, when a syllabus based on SBUs is designed and when such a syllabus is supplemented by activities to make SBUs more permanent, students will speak more effectively, more fluently and native-like and will have more self-confidence not only in speaking skill courses but also in other skill courses.Since the findings in this study are limited to 5 preparatory classes, 93 students with beginner level and 5 instructors in Abant İzzet Baysal University, Bolu, Turkey, it may not be completely true to generalize the results of this research. However; it may give a general idea about how to design a speaking skill syllabus based on SBUs and what kind of supplementary activities should be designed depending on this syllabus.