The impact of video recording in EFL oral production tasks with college students

Introduction: Video recording tasks have been adapted to practice oral productive skills in English language. This type of assignments has allowed learners to have more opportunities to develop their speaking skills while they are learning English. Productive language skills like speaking are as important as the other skills since it helps to communicate ideas in different contexts. Objective: This study was designed to get students point of views about the use of video-recorded tasks as language practice complement. Methodology : College students from level A1 and A2 complete five tasks during the academic period October 2021 – March 2022. There were 74 participants in this study. At the end of the academic period, the students responded a questionnaire which aimed to get information about in their perceptions of creating video-tasks instead of written assignments. Results: The results of the survey demonstrated that there is a positive attitude towards the use of this strategy. Conclusions : Participants concluded that video


Introduction
Speaking is an oral production skill which is develop during a language learning. Qureshi (2007) states that speaking is as important in communication as writing skills because without a speech the language production will just remain in a script. Communication and language are developed in a social context. It will depend on the situation, setting, culture and other factors that could affect the tone, vocabulary use and formality. However, training is necessary to produce a language with fluency and accuracy. Al-Jamal & Al-Jamal (2014), also mention that part of human being life is communication which must be mastered through practice in context and a foreign or second language teaching must consider these important facts. Meaningful learning occurs when the learner is exposed to real situations and contextualized. The researchers conducted some research to understand how students face problems with speaking skills in a foreign language context (EFL) and the results indicated that students did not feel uncomfortable with their communicative competences. There were distinct reasons, but the main reasons were the class size, L1 use and lack of speaking practice and motivation. In other words, speaking skills are essential, but the misunderstanding or misuse of the strategies cannot help students to develop their communicative skills. Furthermore, Hanifa (2018), considers the improvement of speaking skills is important in these days but communicative competence is difficult to develop in an EFL context for some reasons. For example, anxiety is one important issue to consider since the effects on students' oral performance is evident.
In addition, Rao (2019), concludes that communication is an essential part to be successful and the language is the tool which allows it. So, English as a universal language has been used to develop different tasks in different fields and situations. Although English speaking is apparently the most difficult skill to develop, today´s jobs opportunities are bigger when people dominate English and demonstrate its knowledge through discussions. It is known that candidates are measured according to their oral communication performance.
Students are aware of their need to develop of speaking skills in order to establish communication, among others. Nazara (2011) concluded in a study that students understand the importance of developing speaking skills even though they found out different problems to reach the main goal. For instance, students stated that it is necessary ISSN: 2600-5859 Vol. 5 No 3.1, pp. 119 -128 , julio 2022 www.concienciadigital.org to have more time to practice it and surpass fears. The author suggests that it is essential to create a classroom environment where students feel confident to speak in English. Rao (2019) states that regular practice helps learners to deliver speeches, but confidence is also an important element to start speaking in English. On the other hand, teachers also consider the need to improve this skill in the language learning.
Speaking has been considered as an important skill to be developed while learning a language. It is necessary to understand how this skill can be developed while learning a new language. According to Rao (2019), there are 3 kinds of speaking situations. First, an interactive speaking can be a conversation which can take place face to face or using technology such as a smartphone or a computer. While the partially interactive speaking is a lecture or a speech where there is an audience and probably there will be a short interaction at the end like asking or answering questions. Finally, the non-interactive speaking is when the speaker is limited to record his or her voice and send it, so the audience can hear it later. Generally, this type of speaking is done for podcasts which are trending in these days.
The questions arise when language instructors try to find the most suitable strategies to help learners to produce the languages. Rao (2019) suggests using the latest techniques and forget those ones that are old-fashioned. In other words, games, fun activities, role plays, group tasks and storytelling can be introduced during instruction to get students involved in speaking tasks. However, there are other strategies such as video recording tasks where students can record themselves and send the final product, so they can receive the language instructor´s feedback. For instance, Wicaksono (2017), mentions that speaking ability can be developed through video recording. The researcher conducted a study with college students, and they considered that this strategy helped them to identify their deficiencies while speaking and their attitude towards the use of video recording was positive. This study was conducted under the action research spiral which consisted in four steps: plan, act, observe and reflect. Students concluded that this technique was useful since they did not have enough time to practice speaking in class while recording a video helped them to feel comfortable and did not feel embarrassed when making mistakes. Additionally, they confirmed that they could correct their own mistakes and helped them to improve their speaking skills. Putri & Rahmani (2019), also conducted a study to understand students' perceptions in the use of video recordings to improve accuracy and fluency in oral language production. The study demonstrated that students increased their ability in speaking. Furthermore, students mentioned that it was significant and interesting because they trained their speaking skills. Suadi (2020) concluded that speaking video recording helped students to be motivated and interested. The study aimed to know students speaking improvement since they demonstrated some weakness with this skill. At the end of the study, the results ISSN: 2600-5859 Vol. 5 No 3.1, pp. 119 -128 , julio 2022 www.concienciadigital.org showed that students improved their speaking sill and they mentioned that their interest, curiosity, and motivation increased. Azkiya & Rahayu (2018) applied video recording tasks with a group of 85 junior high school students during 8 meetings and the video length was from 2 to 3 minutes. The results of this study demonstrated that improved their oral productive skills. The researchers suggest applying this strategy in different contexts and using other research methodology to get more undemanding of the impact of videorecorded speaking tasks.
Arroba & Acosta (2021), conclude in their study that using technology to promote speaking skills is new for some teachers and students. The study suggests that teachers should implement more strategies such as authentic digital storytelling, so students can record while they are listening to their voice, they can see themselves in the videos or images. The findings of this study determined that recording videos encouraged students to practice communicative skills. Furthermore, it is necessary to look for tools that are going to allow students to create their videos. For instance, Dzakiah et al. (2020) conducted a study in which it was demonstrated that students' performance in terms of fluency and comprehension improved through the use of cell phone video recording. Students had to record videos speaking about past events and activities. Lestari (2019) states that video blog creation is effective to promote speaking skills because the study showed that students improved their vocabulary, accent, pronunciation, and culture knowledge.
Another crucial point to consider is feedback process. A task assessment not only finishes with the revision of the task, but it is essential to provide correct feedback, so learners are aware of their learning process. According to García & Martinez (2018), providing students feedback has been beneficial because they understand their weaknesses and try to figure out other strategies to improve their oral productive skills. Muhsin (2016) also conducted some research about providing feedback to speaking tasks and the researcher concluded that students were eager to receive their teacher´s explicit correction. In other words, students find useful to have some correction about their speaking tasks. For that reason, using video-tasks requires more than sending as a single task. It requires planning, reviewing, and providing feedback to get the best results.

Methodology
The participants of this study were 42 students from level A2 and 32 students from level A1 who take English as a compulsory class offered to undergraduate learners in an Ecuadorian university located in the Amazon region. There are five faculties, and they are majoring in Environmental Engineering, Mining, Information Technology, Zoothenics and Accounting, but there is no difference in their English learning topics even they are not studying in the same faculty. With this background, students took English classes, and some assignments were video recordings. Students recorded five ISSN: 2600-5859 Vol. 5 No 3.1, pp. 119 -128 , julio 2022 www.concienciadigital.org videos about the different topics stated in the syllabus. The researchers used rubrics to grade the videos and a survey at the end of the academic period was applied. Students attended a four-period class each week where students had to develop the languages skills with different activities. For that reason, this study focused on promoting speaking tasks outside the class to encourage learners to have a free speaking practice since they were not observed. Self-video recording can reduce anxiety and students feel more confident (Nguyen, 2021;Zahida, 2021). Learners were assigned to complete task outside the class which consisted of video recordings about the topics developed in the class.

Results
The students answered a questionnaire to understand their views about video-recorded tasks to develop speaking skill. The results of the questionnaire provided some information which is relevant to be informed about the positive and negative aspects of this strategy based on students' opinions. 74 students completed the survey at the end of the academic period and table 1 shows students' preferences about creating video tasks.  Furthermore, the survey analysis data shows that 62.2% participants have a positive perception that this strategy helps them to practice English outside the class. See table 3. While 20% students agree that it was a good opportunity to practice oral productive skills without the teacher guidance. According to the open-ended questions, some participants concluded that recording a video instead of doing writing tasks encouraged them to improve pronunciation and practice the target language. Moreover, students mentioned that they did not feel anxious while recording the video-tasks and they were able to feel more confident. On the other hand, students mentioned some drawbacks that language instructors need to keep in mind with this type of tasks. For instance, they consider that it is essential to know how to record videos since they had problems with video edition. Learners also mentioned that they had to repeat more than one time the recordings and it took time and effort.

Conclusions
 Video recording assignments are relevant for students because they get involved in oral production tasks that support their learning language process. The results of this study have determined that using other activities rather than only task competition help students to improve in diverse ways. For instance, students are more engaged in these tasks because they are practicing with real situation. Then students are not observed, and they feel more confident since do not worry about making mistakes. Furthermore, video-recorded tasks are essential in large classes since students do not have the opportunity to practice inside the class and this is a fantastic opportunity to speak and then receive the instructor feedback. For that reason, it is also recommended to provide the correct feedback when students produce their speech. Language teachers must help students to develop their speaking skills in a safe environment and motivate them to keep even outside their classes. This means that teachers must not limit their teaching practices inside the classroom, but they need to look for other strategies to help students to keep using the language in their daily basis. Finally, mastering speaking skill is vital for students who are learning English because it is a skill that requires effort and