Developing the speaking skills of architecture students through lateral thinking tools

Abstract

English Language teaching in the post-colonial scenario poses a range of challenges for teachers as well as students. Of all the four macro skills in English, speaking seems to be the most important skill required for communication. It not only includes face-to-face communication but also speeches, presentations and discussions. In English as a Second Language (ESL) context, increasing the oral competence and confidence among the tertiary level students is a crucial task for second language (L2) instructors. As English is a means of international communication, students need to develop speaking skills along with other skills, so that, these integrated skills will enhance their oral communication, enabling them to communicate with native speakers of English and other members of the international community. Speaking skills receive much higher attention from the recruiters in college placements than any other aspects like academic credentials work and experience (Zaremba 2006). The focus of this thesis is to develop the speaking skills of first year architecture students through Edward De Bonoand#8223;s five lateral thinking tools in an Indian University setting. The method used for this research is Classroom Experimental Design method. The samples of students selected for the study were the first year undergraduate students from the School of Architecture and Planning (SAP), Anna University, Chennai, India. The samples were divided based on Convenient Sampling method. One batch (CD) was taken as the control group and the other batch (EF) was taken as the experimental group. The study was conducted for one semester with 25 practice sessions. Five lateral thinking tools such as Design, Redesign, Plus, Minus, Interesting (PMI); Provocation(PO); and Ridiculous Statements (RS) were selected for this study. The Task- based Language Teaching (TBLT) method with interactive and cognitively challenging types of tasks was also chosen for this study. To make this research more authentic and quantitative in nature, a pre-test and a po