Employment of Speech Acts Theory for Developing Oral Communication Skills in Iraqi Private Colleges

Abstract

This paper aims at: employing speech acts theory in conversational classes to develop students' oral communication skills in Iraqi private colleges. It discusses the problems in mastering speech acts and also the use of conversation techniques( brainstorming and imagination) and speech acts technique (role-play) as techniques that can be employed by EFL teachers to enhance EFL students mastery of oral skills . Besides, this paper also provides some benefits of employing role-play in English language teaching. There are also some points to consider when EFL students are learning conversation. Students should not only master grammatical competence but also communicative competence. Two sections have been selected randomly from the first stages .In the way , Al-Yarmouk college was selected randomly as an experimental group taught the conversation with employing speech act theory by using brainstorming, imagination and role play. The other (Al-Rafdain college) was the control group taught conversation by using classical method. The number of students in experimental group was (37), and the number of students in control group was (35). After excluding the repeaters from experiment group, the total number of the sample subjects were(70). (28) male and (42) female. The study concludes the following :- 1-Employing speech acts theory in conversational classes developing students' oral skills. 2-There are many techniques, strategies, and activities can be used to develop students' oral communication skills .