The effect of reading a text on the speaking of advanced learners of English as a Second Language

This work reports the results of a study of the effects of reading a text on the speaking of advanced learners of English as a second language. Under investigation is the language of spoken presentations that are prepared and planned in advance. The study includes 35 graduate students, native speakers of Polish studying English for specific purposes.; To elicit data of spoken language in the most natural setting, the subjects were asked to make spoken presentations under the two conditions: (1) reading a text, followed by planning and delivering a spoken presentation based on the text; and (2) planning and delivering a spoken presentation without a text.; The spoken presentations were evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitatively, two types of t-tests were used: paired and standard to analyze the count of linguistic features occurring in the presentations under text and no-text conditions. The following linguistic features were taken into consideration: number of words, use of terminology, length of intonation units, nominalizations, attributive adjectives, attributive nouns, participles, and prepositional phrases. In addition, I examined the syntactic complexity through the count of coordinate structures, subordinate clauses, relative clauses, and complement clauses. The two-tail t-test analysis was used to detect any significant differences between the means of these linguistic features in the presentations under text and no-text conditions. In the qualitative analysis I have examined the discourse organization in terms of sequence of topics, introductions, evaluations, and the use of discourse markers.; The results of the quantitative analysis pointed out lack of statistically significant differences in planned speech under text and no-text conditions. The qualitative analysis, however, demonstrated that the speakers referred to text and used it as a model in the organization of content and special terminology. The study offers several implications for second language research and teaching. It would be interesting to research in depth the effects of reading on speaking at various levels of second language proficiency. In second language classrooms, teachers could design tasks integrating reading and speaking in which learners would be required to use text in planning a spoken production.