Self-Recording Practice and Speaking Fluency: A Correlational Study Among English Education Students

Speaking fluency is an important component of oral communication for English Education students. Self-recording may provide repeated opportunities to speak, replay, review, and reflect on oral performance, but prior research has largely examined recording as a researcher- or lecturer-assigned activity. This study examined the association between students' existing self-recording practice and speaking fluency among fifth-semester students of the English Education Study Program at Tadulako University. Existing self-recording practice was defined as self-recording already used by students at the time of measurement, including both course-related recording and voluntary independent practice, rather than a recording intervention introduced by the researcher. Forty-five eligible volunteers were recruited through criterion purposive sampling across seven classes, with approximately six to seven participants represented from each class. Self-recording practice was measured with a 20-item four-point Likert-type questionnaire, and speaking fluency was assessed through an individual speaking task scored with an analytic fluency rubric. Because both variables were non-normally distributed and the score pattern was approximately monotonic, Spearman rank correlation analysis showed a strong positive association between self-recording practice and speaking fluency, rₛ = .767, p < .001, N = 45. Participants with higher self-recording practice scores tended to have higher speaking fluency scores. The result indicates a significant association between the two variables; however, because this study employed a correlational design, the finding does not demonstrate that self-recording practice causes improvement in speaking fluency.