Using Lexical Phrases to Help with the Flow of Deliverance in Public Speaking

Abstract

Public speaking in Thailand especially in Thai youth who uses English as a second language still has lots of problems and needs some major development. The researcher noticed after weeks of observation that there were lots of problems in speaking of all the 45 students studying in the public speaking course since they paused too many times while speaking, each pause took a long time and they paused at the wrong places. This pausing manner made speaking sound unnatural even if it was accurate. Since the meaning of the message was disturbed by pausing wrongly, the researcher would like to try a new teaching method by teaching how to chunk their words while speaking by using lexical phrases as language input in order to help develop efficient lexical retrieval. This research aims at studying the effects that lexical phrases have on public speaking. The analysis of the study uses both quantitative and qualitative research by analyzing through a new teaching method in public speaking that is using lexical phrases as a means to keep the flow of deliverance in public speaking going. Lexical phrases were presented to language learners in several ways. Some are presented through mini lectures and some through simulated public speaking situations or activities. These include speaking connectors to buy time in speaking. There are three out of 45 research participants participating in this research because these three are advanced students which were chosen by their grades in the previous year in speaking class. The data were collected by individual elicitation interviews by using descriptive statistics. As a result, lexical phrases offer language learners the opportunity of fluent production. Furthermore, lexical phrases offer less likelihood of producing deviant language because lexical phrases come ready made.