An Action Research on Developing English Speaking Skills through Asynchronous Online Learning

This action research aims at developing an action plan to alleviate foreign language speaking anxiety, and accordingly improving speaking performance. The study, which is a collaborative action research type, was carried out of 19 prospective Chemical Engineering students at the CEFR-A1 level at Ege University School of Foreign Languages (EUSFL). The research took place over 12 weeks and the participants created WhatsApp groups; the researchers sent them written or voice messages with English speaking tasks; and they performed these tasks and sent their voice messages to their groups. Data were gathered through the Turkish form of Second Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (SLSAS) developed by Woodrow (2006), participants' speaking exam grades, and semi-structured interviews. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test elicited a statistically significant change in English speaking anxiety of students; that is, their anxiety level decreased. The students' speaking exam grade average was found 84.56% success rate. Also, the results obtained from the qualitative data matched with the results of the quantitative data indicating that the asynchronous online English speaking group (AOESG) worked well to alleviate students' English speaking anxiety and to enhance their speaking performance.