Resumen de Think aloud technique with intercultural topics to promote more student´s speaking and develop the intercultural competence

Carlos Humberto Chancay Cedeño, María Dolores Chávez Loor, Karina Luzdelia Mendoza Bravo

• The present study was focused on how the technique think aloud could help students to get strategies to improve their reading and speaking skills, relating cultures around the world and compare them with the local culture. The study was conducted with the research-action methodology, having a population of 18 students from second semester. As results, the study showed that students did not have reading strategies to handle short reading (for their level, A2). They also had problems in speaking. They could not express their opinion from what they had read and bad habits of translating words not according to the context.

  Students were trained into some reading strategies. The readings selected were based on cultural aspects in order to develop cultural awareness. At the end of the study, students could improve their reading skill, express their opinion from the text they had read and develop awareness with the cultures discussed in the readings. They also could learn how to guess the meaning of the words in context, which was the most difficult part for the students.