{"pk":49099,"title":"Practical Strategies for Developing Speaking Skills in Asynchronous L2 Courses","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>This article presents a curricular model designed to strengthen oral production in asynchronous second language (L2) instruction. Developed within a Spanish L2 program at a large public university in the southern United States, the model responds to a persistent pedagogical challenge intensified by the post-pandemic shift toward remote learning: fostering communicative competence without real-time interaction. Grounded in Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the Output Hypothesis, Sociocultural Theory (SCT), and the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, the model integrates two complementary asynchronous oral activities: (1) Video Conversation Threads and (2) structured, proctored Oral Description Tasks. The first promotes interaction, confidence, and social presence through multimodal, low-stakes exchanges, while the second reinforces grammatical accuracy, lexical control, and procedural familiarity with formal assessment formats. These tasks establish a scaffolded progression that supports both communicative fluency and linguistic precision. Implementation across multiple course levels followed two sequencing configurations: a Sequential Scaffolding Model emphasizing gradual skill development and a Cyclical Scaffolding Model reinforcing iterative learning. Preliminary observations from instructors and students suggest increased learner engagement, confidence, and digital competence, as well as reduced anxiety in high-stakes oral assessments. This framework demonstrates that meaningful oral communication can be effectively cultivated in asynchronous environments through intentional design, iterative practice, and reflective feedback. It offers a transferable, theory-informed approach to integrating oral production into online and hybrid language courses.</p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives  4.0","short_name":"CC BY-NC-ND 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\r\n\r\nNonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.\r\n\r\nNoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.\r\n\r\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0"},"keywords":[],"section":"Teachers' Forum","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9wt6c9p7","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Jonathan","middle_name":"","last_name":"Malacara","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Houston","department":"Hispanic Studies"}],"date_submitted":"2025-07-23T08:11:53.237000Z","date_accepted":"2025-11-04T20:40:29.963000Z","date_published":"2026-01-08T19:39:00Z","render_galley":{"label":"galley final","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/l2/article/49099/galley/47886/download/"},"galleys":[{"label":"Galley v1","type":"other","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/l2/article/49099/galley/47386/download/"},{"label":"galley final","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/l2/article/49099/galley/47886/download/"}]}