A Step Toward Effective Verbal Proficiency: An Insight into the Influence of Task-Specific Self-Efficacy in EFL Learners’ Evolvement of Speaking Skills on Enhancing Employability

Abstract

The information revolution along with globalization and other social and economic changes in the new millennium have increased the importance of speaking skill. Speaking pervades the entire range of social and professional relationships and plays a key role in our life. In the world of English as a Foreign Language pedagogy, the efficacy of role play situations particularly task based activities, has garnered increasing attention. Various studies show internal factors play important roles in speaking. One of the important factors is self-efficacy (SE). Therefore, the comprehensive study involves examining the relationship between self-efficacy (SE) and speaking ability among students. Therefore, this research intends to find out the relationship between the student's self-efficacy and speaking skills of the Amrita School of Agricultural Sciences, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore. The researchers used the quantitative methodology to analyse the report. For this research, we used 2 types of assessments. Internal Assessment (IA) and External Assessment (EA). For IA, we used the random sampling. 120 students from 3 practical batches consists of 40 each were given self-efficacy questionnaire and speaking test based on their semester syllabus experiments for the course -19ENG101-Comprehension and Communication Skills in English & 19AEX113 - Communication Skills and Personality Development. For EA, we took 16 students those who participated in Model United Nations’2024 (MUN’24), which was conducted in our university from 24 to 26, July’ 2024. Model United Nations is an educational simulation of the United Nations where students’ role play as diplomats, representing different countries and debating global issues. Data from 16 participants were collected during a 3-day Model United Nations (MUN) simulation. The analysis of correlation revealed that there is a significant correlation between the students’ self-efficacy and the students’ speaking skills. Empirical findings revealed a significant enhancement in the experimental group's task based activities and a three-day Model United Nations (MUN) participation simulation. We investigate to what extent self-efficacy development can be explained by the individual characteristics of students. This study further contributes to the field by including perceived student cohesiveness as a social aspect of the simulation.