Investigating The Impact Of Using The Fish Bowl Discussion Strategy On Increasing The Efl Students’ Participation In Oral Class

Résumé: The present study is about investigating the impact of using the fishbowl discussion strategy on increasing students' participation in EFL oral classes. The suggested hypothesis is that the fishbowl discussion strategy as part of cooperative learning that encourages the use of group discussions for a fruitful learning can boost EFL students' participation in oral class. In order to check the validity of this hypothesis, a questionnaire was addressed to second year students at Laarbi Ben M'hidi University, and an experiment was conducted with the same mentioned sample. The analysis of the results shows that EFL students like oral classes, and they have the desire to increase their participation, but their obstacle is within the way they study oral classes and the lack of interest in topics being discussed during the oral sessions. A close attention should be given to the learning environment and to the choice of topics, and these are actually found in the fishbowl discussion strategy. It encourages more the use of group discussions for learning about new topics or developing new creative ideas rather than the individualistic learning. Moreover, the fishbowl encourages students to choose their topics of interest. The suggested hypothesis was confirmed throughout the experiment that was conducted during the academic year 2017-2018 and revealed the following results: the use of the fishbowl discussion strategy as a method of teaching can substitute the traditional methods of teaching EFL students. Furthermore, it can boost with great efficiency EFL students' participation in oral sessions.

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