The Effectiveness of Communicative Language Teaching Combined with Unscripted Role-Play Activities in Developing Business Speaking Skills among Third-Year Undergraduate Students

Abstract

  The objectives of this research were to: 1) compare students’ business speaking ability before and after instruction based on the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach integrated with unscripted role-play activities, and 2) examine students’satisfaction with the instructional approach based on CLT combined with unscripted role-play activities. The sample consisted of fourteen third-year English majors from the Faculty of Humanities at Mahamakut Buddhist University who were enrolled in HU 2047 Business English. The participants were selected through purposive sampling.The research instruments included: 1) five lesson plans designed to enhance business speaking skills; 2) a pre- and post-test for measuring business speaking ability; 3) an analytic rating scale for assessing business speaking performance; and 4) a satisfaction questionnaire measuring students’ perceptions toward the use of unscripted role-play activities in the instructional process. The basic statistical methods used for data analysis were mean, standard deviation, and the dependent t-test.

The research findings revealed that: 1) the business speaking ability of third-year students after receiving instruction through the CLT approach integrated with unscripted role-play activities was significantly higher than before the intervention at the .05 level; and 2) the students’ satisfaction with the CLT-based instruction incorporating unscripted role-play activities for developing business speaking skills was at the highest level.