Teaching Speaking: an Exploratory Study in Two Academic Contexts

Abstract

This paper analyses the teaching of speaking in secondary education (SE) institutions and state language schools (EOI) in Spain. Eighty teachers participated in the study. The research instrument was a questionnaire which focused on the time devoted to the teaching and practising of spoken English, the assessment of speaking, the type of activities they used and frequency of their use. A Wald-type test was used in the data analysis. Findings indicate that EOI teachers devote more time to the teaching and practice of speaking, focus more on pronunciation and interaction in the assessment of speaking, and prefer lesscontrolled tasks.