USING TED TALKS AS OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES TO FACILITATE ELT SPEAKING COURSES FOR PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS
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Embedding speaking skills courses to open educational resources (OERs) can be a successful way to help learners improve their speaking skills and motivate them to do so. After all, OERs are considered resources that enhance and support teaching and learning practices (Bradshaw et al.,2013). The use of TED talks in speaking skills courses can be regarded as a beneficial tool to activate students’ background knowledge and influence the attitudes of the learners who usually avoid speaking English in class. Thus, this study aims to discover the perceptions of English Language Teaching (ELT) preservice teachers about integrating TED Talks into their speaking courses. The study adopted a qualitative research design, specifically phenomenology. 50 ELT preservice teachers participated in the study. 33 of them completed the questionnaires. For five weeks, TED talks were integrated into the speaking course in line with the topics of the current topic-based syllabus. The participants were asked to complete an open-ended questionnaire before and after using the TED talks. The prequestionnaire focused on the usual application of the course and the post-questionnaire included questions related to their experiences using TED talks in their speaking skills courses. After the analysis of the questionnaires, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants for a deeper understanding of their experiences. The data were analyzed through thematic coding. The findings showed that TED talks could be a channel to motivate and improve students’ speaking skills. They can be used to activate the schemata so that learners can feel less anxious while speaking. TED talks can be a way to improve learners’ speaking skills inside and outside the classroom. Also, it was found that using TED talks in speaking skills courses motivated future teachers to use similar resources in their own teaching.