INSTITUTES OF LANGUAGE STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGNHN LANGUAGE

AND LITRATURE
(GRAGUATE PROGRAM)
‘‘Exploring Factors that Influence the Development
of Students’ Speaking Skill: Fiiq Secondary and
Preparatory School in Focus’’

By: Mamma Tuna

Submitted to: Anwar

Nov, 2014
Haramaya
 Chapter One

Introduction

1. Background of the Study

The English language is an international language. It serves as a language of diplomatic
relationship, trade, travel, literature and medium of many world Media, etc. In Ethiopia too, it
plays great roles in social, political and economic system of the country. Furthermore, it is a
medium of instruction both in secondary and tertiary level of education. Teaching this language
as a foreign language has a very long history. Within this history, various approaches and
methods have been used having different goals. Before the 1960s, traditional language
teaching, whose goal was linguistic competence, represented the major British approach to
teaching English as a foreign language (Richard and Rodgers, 2001). Greater emphasis was given
to teaching writing and other grammatical rules. Speaking was not considered as a subject, so in
many ways speaking was an undervalued skill (Baygate, 1987).

From the late 1960s onward, the former approaches to language teaching were changed
due to many reasons. One of these reasons is the communicative needs of European language
learners. And the new approach called ‘communicative language teaching’ (CLT) came to exist.
Its origins are to be found in the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from
the late 1960s. (Richard and Rodgers 2001:153). The goal of this approach is communicative
competence – the ability to use the linguistic system effectively and appropriately.

In this recent approach, language teaching includes teaching the four macro skills.
Speaking as one of these skills is taught as one part of English course. The intention of the
spoken English course is that the student be able to express himself or herself in the target
language, to cope with basic interactive skills like exchanging greetings, thanks and apologizes,
and to express their ‘needs’ –request information, services etc. (Brown and Yule 1983 :27). In
Ethiopian educational setting, the goal of teaching English language in general and of the
speaking skill in particular is to make students competent communicatively. So developing
students’ oral communicative skill is one of the goals in language teaching in our country. As it
is stated by Harmer 1991, the learners in English class are expected not only to learn to
construct grammatically correct sentences, but also they need to develop the ability to use the
language they learn for various communicative purposes.

To help students achieve this goal, teachers play great roles. For instance, in speaking class,
they are informants and facilitators. In the later role, they are responsible to establish situations
that promote speaking. In other words, to develop learners’ speaking skill, teachers are
expected to creating good opportunity for students to practice the target language since
learning to speak demands a lot of practices. They can do this by giving each student a chance
to speak both in and out of the classroom. Children’s oral language development requires
providing them with skills and opportunities to communicate their ideas and experiences
(Bearne, 1998). In addition, using methods like role play and information gap, that favor the
development of speaking skill, and preparing good communicative tasks in relation to students’
real life situation are another roles the teachers play in order to help them achieve the goal of
language teaching in general and of the speaking course in particular. Richard, 2006 stated that
fluency, which occurs when the speakers engage in meaningful interaction and maintain
comprehensible communication despite of their limitation in communicative competence, is
developed by creating classroom activities in which students must negotiate meaning and work
to avoid communication breakdowns by using communication strategies.

Because role plays give students an opportunity to practice communication in different

social contexts, they are very important in communicative language teaching (Freeman, 2000).
Furthermore, teachers in English class are prompters, motivators, need analysts and feedback
providers. They are not only the teachers who play roles to achieve the goal of teaching
speaking skill, but also the students. As Breen and Candlin cited in Richard, 2000, learners in
English class are negotiators. It’s their role to negotiate between the self, the learning process
and the objective of learning. They are also expected to have various numbers of roles like
participating actively, interacting with one another and completing the given tasks meaningfully
using the target language. Communicative use is not only the goal, but also a means of learning
a foreign language (Littlewood 1981). It enables the learners to develop oral fluency, which is
the goal of speaking. Byrne, (1986:9), defined oral fluency as the ability to express oneself
intelligibly, reasonably, accurately and without too much hesitation. If the learners develop this
ability, they become competent, and can use the language for various communicative purposes
like apologizing, complaining, greeting and persuading etc, in accordance to the contexts.

2. Statement of the Problem

English language is a medium of instruction especially from secondary up to university level.
Currently, one of the central aims of teaching this language is to develop students’ oral
communicative competence: the learners’ capability to understand and use the target language
appropriately to communicate in different contexts including school. In fact, ability of oral
communicative competence plays vital roles for the overall developments of students’
academic performance, societal relationship and their real-life situation in general. Learners
regard speaking ability as the measure of knowing a language. They seem it as the most
important skill they can acquire, and they assess their progress in terms of their
accomplishments in spoken communication. In Ethiopian context, even the speaking ability or
oral performance is one criterion to determine ones knowledge and experience.

Despite these, Ethiopian students in general and grade ten students of Fiiq secondary and
preparatory school in particular have a very big problem in oral communication (speaking).
They can hardly express their ideas in English. There is no interaction between students in
English class. He is only the teacher who speaks even though it is speaking class. They only
speak when the teacher use repetition drill, which is the traditional means of language learning.
Byrne, 1987 suggested that, to attain the aim of teaching speaking (oral fluency), the learners
should be transferred from the stage where they merely imitate and drill the language to the
stage where they can use the language to express their own ideas and opinions meaningfully.
There were only two students who tried to interact with each other.

Even those learners use their mother tongue at the middle of the speech and deliberately
quit their interaction. The researcher noticed this problem from his own teaching experience
and the observation he made while normal teaching-learning process was on going in English
class of speaking lesson. Freeman, (1986:126), states that memorizing grammatical rules seems
very simple. However, the more challenging is successfully using these forms for
communication purposes. In addition, speaking a language is especially difficult for foreign
language learners because effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language
appropriately in social interactions.

Some studies have been carried out in the local context in relation to this topic. For
instance, Tigilu Geza (2008), states that learners’ oral proficiency in English language in Ethiopia
schools is much lower than the level required of them. At high school level, they are expected
to have good oral fluency (At least they had to express their opinions easily in English in specific
contexts). However, what is seen in English class at Fiiq secondary and preparatory school is not
this. In similar way, Mekonon Dissasa (1998) states that speaking is the most difficult skill for
most of the Ethiopian students, and this shows that particular attention and help should be
given to the students to develop this skill.

Even though these people conducted research around this topic, students have great deal
of problems in speaking yet. These problems enabled the researcher to hypnotize that there
are other different factors influencing the development of students’ speaking skill. Besides,
there is no any study held in oral communication in Somali regional state at Fiiq secondary and
preparatory school. Thus, the current poor capability of grade ten students’ oral
communication, the effect of speaking skill on students’ academic performance and their future
life, and the existing gap between the learners’ low level of fluency that the researcher
observed and the fluency required of them at high school level initiated the researcher to
conduct this research having the aim of exploring factors influencing the development of grade
ten students’ speaking skill at Fiiq secondary and preparatory school.

Therefore, the following research questions were answered:

1. What do you think are the factors influencing the development of students’ oral
communication?
2. How are classroom speaking activities implemented in English class?
3. Objectives of the Study
1. General Objective
The general objective of this study was to explore the factors affecting students’ English
speaking skill at Fiiq secondary and preparatory school.

2. Specific Objectives
The specific objectives of this study were:

 To assess the factors that hinder students to communicate orally in effective and
appropriate way in accordance to the given contexts.

 To find out whether the teachers create opportunities for the learners both in and out of
classroom to practice speaking in English or not.

 To investigate the attitude of English teachers towards oral communication lesson.

3. Significances of the Study

The findings of this study were hopped to have the following contributions:

 Provide a better understanding for both teachers and the students about those
factors that influence the development of learners’ oral communication.
 Enable the Ethiopian students in general and Fiiq secondary and preparatory
school learners in particular to improve or develop their speaking skill.
 Enhance English teachers to have positive attitude towards teaching oral
communication and the development of students’ oral communicative
competence.
 Enable the leaders of educational bureau and minister of education to strive
their best in order to improve the situations.
 Offer information for the researchers who would like to conduct a study in
relation to this topic.
4. Scope of the Study
 The study was confined to exploring the factors influencing the development of grade ten
students’ speaking skill at Fiiq secondary and preparatory school. Hence, the study was
delimited to Fiiq secondary and preparatory school, which founds in Somali regional state.
Besides, all grade nine and ten English teachers and some representative students from grade
ten were the subjects of the study.