Self-Assessment of high school students’ Oral Performance in a Public Institution

In learning English as a Foreign language, one of the skills that requires attention is speaking. The participants of this study has difficulties and participated very little when they had to speak in English. Thus, the aim of this study is to establish how self-assessment enhances speaking performance in A1 leveled students of a public high school. This action research with a quasi – experimental design lasted six weeks. The number of participants were 25, they belonged to two different classes, one of them was the control group and the other the treatment one. The purpose of this investigation was to measure the oral performance of these two groups and establish the impact self- assessment has in the treatment group. The participants recorded audios at the beginning and at the end, they served as pretest and a posttest. A rubric was implemented to evaluate the recordings and determine the result of the study. Descriptive statistics were used such as the mean, the standard deviation and the p value. Also, a questionnaire was applied to know the students’ perspectives about the use of self-assessment and their oral performance. The main findings were that self- assessment improved students’ oral performance. It lowered their affective filter as a result of knowing what specifically to improve. All of the students recognized the benefit of using self-assessment and recommended its use in class. To conclude, this technique should be applied to increase students’ self-assurance and get better results in oral performance in a second language.