Foreign language teachers' oral proficiency and its impact on classroom usage

The purpose of this study was to explore the linguistic experiences of a group of foreign language teachers, examine the effect of a foreign language oral proficiency program designed to improve their oral skills, and ascertain the impact that language proficiency has on a teacher's classroom usage of foreign language. Specifically, the study addressed four research questions: (1) What are the actual experiences that a group of Upstate foreign language teachers have engaged in over the past five years to improve their foreign language skills? (2) Based on their actual experiences, what are the ideal experiences as perceived by these teachers to improve teachers' foreign language oral skills? (3) What is the relationship between a teacher's completion of a 12-month program of experiences designed to improve his or her foreign language oral proficiency and improvement in the teacher's foreign language oral proficiency level? (4) What is the relationship between a teacher's foreign language oral proficiency and the amount of his or her foreign language oral use in the classroom?;The results suggest that the actual and ideal experiences that teachers engage in to improve oral proficiency are shaped by the practicalities of time, income, and availability. Furthermore, the experiences that teachers perceive as ideal are not necessarily the experiences that are most effective in bringing about actual oral proficiency improvement. Improvements in oral proficiency realized by teachers tend to be influenced by the degree of motivation of the learner as well as a willingness to take advantage of opportunities for oral improvement. The study shows that foreign language teachers with more advanced oral proficiency skills report higher levels of classroom usage of the target language than do teachers with less advanced skills.;Finally, the oral proficiency program study provides a professional development design for foreign language teachers who are motivated to improve their oral proficiency skills. The need for improvement in oral language skills is an important one, given both the general linguistic level of some inservice teachers and the potential impact that linguistic improvement may have on classroom usage.