Uzaktan konuşma: Sınıf dışı çalışmaları teşvik etme

This study aims to explore whether students perceive that the computer-mediated communicative (CMC) out-of-class speaking activities support the development of their oral speaking skills, whether students consider that the out-of-class speaking activities contributed to building their level of confidence with respect to using the target structures and vocabulary in the classroom, and the advantages and/or challenges they perceive in using computer-mediated communicative out-of-class activities to improve their speaking skills. A further aim of this study is to investigate whether the use of computer-mediated communicative out-of-class speaking activities supports the development of students' willingness to communicate (WTC), measured by using students' performance on PowerPoint (PPT) exercises over a period of five weeks. The research was conducted at a public university in Turkey with 6 participants, who were chosen among upper-intermediate level students on a voluntary basis. The data for this research was collected via five different PPT slides, interviews at the end of each PPT and a final interview, which was conducted at the end of the study, one questionnaire and the rubric formed by the researcher to determine the CMC out-of-class activities' impact on learners' WTC. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis from the interviews and the criteria indicated that participants perceived positive pedagogical and academic contributions from these digitalized out-of-class speaking activities. Also the study showed that there was a significant contribution to the students' WTC in the target language as they become more confident as well as more comfortable speaking English. Key words: Willingness to communicate (WTC), speaking anxiety, technology in L2 and computer-mediated communication (CMC).