Project-Based Learning (PBL) has become a widely advocated approach in English Language Teaching (ELT) because it promises to cultivate authentic communication, collaborative problem-solving, and learner autonomy. Yet its specific effects on speaking—fluency, accuracy, complexity, and interactional competence—vary across implementations. This article develops an evidence-informed account of how PBL influences speaking outcomes and the conditions under which gains are most likely to occur. Using an integrative review of research from task-based language teaching, second language acquisition, and PBL in language education, the study synthesizes mechanisms that plausibly link project work to oral proficiency: increased pushed output and negotiation of meaning, richer opportunities for planning and rehearsal, heightened motivational investment due to authentic audiences and public products, and expanded discourse functions beyond display talk. The article proposes a design framework that aligns project purpose, communicative demands, language focus, scaffolding, and assessment with targeted speaking outcomes. In this framework, speaking development depends on a disciplined alternation between meaning-focused project activity and strategically timed language-focused episodes, supported by modeling, rehearsal, feedback, and explicit criteria. The discussion surveys recurrent challenges—imbalances among fluency, accuracy and complexity, diffuse assessment practices, and teacher workload—and offers solutions such as analytic rating scales, staged deliverables, micro-presentations, and peer-response protocols. The article concludes that PBL can reliably improve fluency and interactional competence and can also yield accuracy gains when projects embed planned form-focused instruction and iterative feedback; conversely, projects that privilege product over language learning tend to produce superficial oral performance. Practical implications are detailed for secondary and tertiary ELT programs seeking to deploy PBL as a vehicle for systematic speaking development.  

Project-based learning, speaking skills, EFL/ESL

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