Talk shows and the speaking skill

Abstract

Talk shows are entertaining programs for teens and young adults nowadays. The purpose of this research work is to analyze the influence of talk shows on students from seventh semester of Pedagogía de Los Idiomas Nacionales y Extranjeros from Universidad Técnica de Ambato. This research work had a mixed approach which involves qualitative and quantitative approaches by analyzing both variables, researching their features, and measuring their impact based on statistical results. In addition, the participants were 16 students with an age range from 20 and 26 years of the seventh semester "A" from PINE major. There were ten interventions. The first and last interventions were carried out to take the pre-test and post-test based on the B2 First exam (FCE) speaking paper part 3 from Cambridge. Also, both exams were graded out of 20 points using the FCE speaking rubric. On the other hand, the other eight interventions involved implementing talk shows about different topics according to students' weaknesses based on the results from the pre-test. After the interventions, the results were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program to compare the averages between the pre-test and post-test. The average obtained in the pre-test was 6,95 out of 10, while the post-test presented an average of 8,41 out of 10. It was concluded that talk shows had a positive influence on students' speaking development because they could enhance their discourse management and interactive communication after watching and analyzing the conversations between the host and guests from different talk shows extracts.