Exploring the effect of voip tools as a foreign language instruction on learners' English speaking errors

This study aims to compare the effects of two different environments, i.e. Skype and face-to-face (F2F), on learners' speaking performance by assessing the frequency of errors (e.g. verb tense, verb form and sentence structure) occurring in the learners' oral productions during role playing. Fifty-two young adult English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) learners recruited from a business college were randomly and equally assigned into the experimental or the control group. Oral interviews were used as the pretest and post-test in this study. The participants were required to complete the given tasks in pairs after the instruction. The experimental group undertook the tasks via Skype and the control group performed the tasks in an F2F environment. Verbatim data from the students' recorded utterances in two environments were analysed. The results indicated that the experimental group showed more improvement than the control group in their oral performance.