National Standards for A2 EGB certification and the active learning

Abstract

The research proposed as National Standards for A2 EGB Certification and Active Learning aimed to determine that the use of active learning strategies improves oral communication skills in the English language, as required by the Ecuadorian National Curriculum (EFL). The active learning methodology offers a wide range of strategies that encourage critical thinking, debate, research, creativity and communication. For this reason, it has been considered appropriate to incorporate the following strategies: think pair share, group information exchange, debate, information gap, poster section, and role-play into the curriculum planning and use them to increase oral ability in English as a foreign language. In the present study, 40 students from 10th EGB at Unidad Educativa Milenio Guano, classes A and B constituted the population. The research was developed under a quantitative approach, since the results arose from the participants’ opinions and their levels of oral performance in the English language. The design of this research was quasi-experimental, since it worked with a control group and an experimental one. The research modality responds to a documentary and field process. Scientific articles and books related to the subject were used in the construction of the theoretical framework. These concepts were applied during a part of the school period with the students who were part of the experimental group and were evaluated before and after the intervention. The instruments for data collection were a standardized A2 Key pre and post test from the Cambridge University, scored under a rubric for oral skills, and a questionnaire to determine the participants level of satisfaction in relation to active learning in class. Finally, three levels of research are presented, starting with the descriptive level, then moving to an application level and finally to a correlational level to measure the relationship between variables. The results of the t-test reflected a correlation of 508 and a significance of 0.02, which indicates that the variables are correlated. This correlation demonstrated the influence of the active learning variable on the national standards for A2 Certification variable. A positive trend was observed regarding the support of oral skills with active learning, more than 50% of the students surveyed gave affirmative answers to the questions referring to the influence of Active Learning on the A2 speaking skill.