Guevara and Ordoñez mention in their study that "the imlementation of authentic performances led to considerable improvement of oral skills [...]. Communication, vocabulary and grammar were used in context and, so, with meaning and without actual specific lessons on them.".
It is very interesting that, in a playful and meaningful way, children developed a lot their oral skills, knowing how and when to use a varied of repertoire.
In Brazil we always hear that learning must be fun and significant for students, however, may times English classes for children are paper based (just activities in books), which makes it boring and not related to their reality.
Furthermore, in our country, there is a strong belief that no word in Portuguese must be spoken, ignoring the authors idea that "the effective, conscious use of the students' knowledge of their first language is a must in helping our monolingual children become good consecutive bilinguals". It is hard for children to like and learn English if they don't even know what they are doing and saying in the foreign language.