Enhancing Students' Communicative Skills through Classroom Interaction in Iraqi EFL Classes

K. Fahad, Ahmed

	Enhancing Students' Communicative Skills through Classroom Interaction in Iraqi EFL Classes
Journal of Univesity of Thi-Qar
Article 1, Volume 9, Issue 2, 2014, Pages 1-7
Author
Ahmed K. Fahad
Abstract
Oral Proficiency and communicative skills have always been a benchmark of ELT all over the world. In Iraq, the level of EFL learners has always been unsatisfactory and it is very usual to find that graduates of Iraqi University English Departments face real difficulty in gaining proficiency skills. There is an apparent lack of exposure to the target language in Iraqi classrooms and the focus has always been on the grammar and form. There is no real classroom discourse between teachers and learners and according to the researcher's knowledge, there has been no one single study conducted to investigate the social construction of classroom talk in Iraqi EFL classes and its importance. Discourse which is defined by Renkema (1993, 5) as the relationship between form and function in verbal communication proved to be an effective language learning strategy and this article is meant to show the importance of this strategy and how it could be applied in the Iraqi context. In Iraq the three classroom factors (i.e. Teachers, learners and textbooks) are bound with classical framework. Teaching is teacher-centered where teacher has to do the majority of tasks and learners are merely passive receivers of information. EFL Curriculum is centralized by the Education ministry and is not oriented to use the target language in class and students mainly work on tasks centered on the drilling and grammar exercises of the homework. Recently, however, the interest in the English language in Iraq has increased. After 2003, Iraq has been opened up to the international community and English has become an important qualification for those seeking jobs, students willing to pursue their graduate studies and for those aspiring for academic self achievement. To satisfy this need, Private language institutes emerged rapidly.

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