The Effect of Oral-Written Dialogue Journals on Speaking in EFL Students

Research in the area of dialogue journals has shown that keeping oral or written journals can improve students' speaking performance. However, nearly no research has been done on the effects of doing oral-written dialogue journals in enhancing speaking English. This study quantitatively and qualitatively explored the impacts of the oral-written dialogue journals on the speaking performance of EFL university-level students. Specific research focuses were the influence of keeping oral-written dialogue journals on overall speaking proficiency and the effect on speaking fluency, grammatical accuracy, and vocabulary richness as well as the participants' perceptions of this activity. The oral-written dialogue journal activity was implemented for three months. The participants were eleven university students who were invited to join this activity. Findings composed of objective measurements and qualitative inquiry revealed that participants' overall speaking proficiency was enhanced through this activity. Their fluency, grammatical accuracy and vocabulary richness were also improved to some extent, particularly fluency and verb tense accuracy. The participants' perceptions of this activity were also positive. They not only became more confident in speaking English and more motivated to speak or learn English but also liked this activity. This study enabled us to understand in what aspects of speaking EFL learners had made progress as well as why they had improved their speaking performance. Based on the findings, pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research were made.