Factors affecting gia lai high school students english speaking fluency = những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến sự lưu loát khi nói tiếng anh của học sinh THPT ở gia lai

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

DUONG TIEU LINH

FACTORS AFFECTING GIA LAI HIGH SCHOOL
STUDENTS’ ENGLISH SPEAKING FLUENCY

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching
Code: 8140111

Supervisor: Assoc, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien


BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

ĐƢỜNG TIỂU LINH

NHỮNG YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƢỞNG ĐẾN SỰ LƢU LOÁT KHI
NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH THPT Ở GIA LAI

Ngành: Lý luận và phƣơng pháp dạy học bộ môn Tiếng Anh
Mã số: 8140111

Ngƣời hƣớng dẫn: PGS. TS. Nguyễn Thị Thu Hiền


i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I, DUONG TIEU LINH, declare that this thesis is my own work and
has been generated by me as the result of my own original research. The
thesis title is “Factors Affecting Gia Lai High School Students’ English
Speaking Fluency”.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree at any
university.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my thesis
deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and
research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the
librarian for the care or reproduction of the thesis.
Quy Nhon, 2022

Duong Tieu Linh


ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis supervisor
Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien for her invaluable instructions, helpful
suggestions, critical comments, various sources of reference and precious
corrections on my writing. This research work would not be possible without
her stimulation inspiration and cooperation.
I also would like to express my sincere thanks to the lecturers of the
Faculty of Foreign Languages of Quy Nhon University for their wonderful
and meaningful lectures and profound background knowledge, which played
an integral role in my completion of this thesis.
I am very grateful to the English teachers and students at four Upper

Secondary School in Gia Lai who have enthusiastically participated in my
research. But for their participation, my thesis could not be completed.
Also, I extend my thanks to all my colleagues at Y Don Upper
Secondary School for their continuous encouragement and support during the
course.
Finally, I wish to thank all my beloved family who always encourage
and support me in the process of doing this thesis.


iii

ABSTRACT

In terms of English language learning, speaking is known as one of the
most important skills to be developed and improved continually as means of
effective communication. However, in fact, a majority of Gia Lai high school
students find it difficult to express themselves in spoken English fluently.
Therefore, this research was conducted with the aims to investigate prominent
factors affecting fluency of Gia Lai high school students in speaking skills.
The study used mixed research methods with two data collection instruments
namely survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The official
participants taking part in the survey questionnaire included 150 eleventh
grade students from four high schools in Gia Lai province. The semistructured interviews were carried out with participation of 8 out of 150
students chosen randomly. The findings revealed four main factors affecting
students’ fluency. Automation was the most influential one, and then
followed by performance conditions, teacher’s correction and feedback and
affective factors.

The study also investigated the different levels of the

impacts of those factors in terms of subfactors on oral fluency of the students.
Moreover, the research proposed a number of implications, focusing on
aiding the students to improve their speaking fluency.

Keywords: English speaking skills, speaking fluency, prominently affecting
factors, high school students, Gia Lai.


iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. iv
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................... vii
LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................ viii
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale ............................................................................................... 1
1.2. Aim and objectives of the study............................................................ 3
1.3. Research questions ................................................................................ 3
1.4. Scope of the study ................................................................................. 3
1.5. Method of the study .............................................................................. 3
1.6. Significance of the study ....................................................................... 4
1.7. Organization of the sudy ....................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................... 6
2.1. Speaking skills ...................................................................................... 6
2.2. Speaking fluency ................................................................................... 7
2.3. Factors affecting speaking fluency ....................................................... 9

2.3.1. Affective factors .............................................................................. 9
2.3.2. Performance conditions ................................................................ 11
2.3.3. Automation.................................................................................... 13
2.3.4. Teacher’s Corrections and Feedback during speaking activities ......... 14
2.3.5. Topical knowledge ........................................................................ 15
2.4. Review of Previous Studies Related to the Topic............................... 15


v
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................. 19
3.1. Research method ................................................................................. 19
3.2. Participants .......................................................................................... 19
3.3. Instruments .......................................................................................... 20
3.3.1. Questionnaire ................................................................................ 21
3.3.2. Semi-structured interview ............................................................. 23
3.4. Data collection procedures .................................................................. 23
3.5. Data Analysis Method ......................................................................... 24
3.5.1. Coding ........................................................................................... 24
3.5.2. Reliability and Validity ................................................................. 25
CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ........................................... 30
4.1. Gia Lai high school students’ perception of the importance of
speaking skills ................................................................................................. 30
4.2. Gia Lai high school students’ evaluation of their English speaking
fluency ........................................................................................................ 32
4.3. Factors affecting students’ speaking fluency ...................................... 34
4.3.1. Automation.................................................................................... 36
4.3.2. Performance conditions ................................................................ 38
4.3.3. Teacher’s feedback and correction ............................................... 40
4.3.4. Affective factors ............................................................................ 41
4.4. The levels of impacts of these factors on Gia Lai high school

students’ speaking fluency ......................................................................... 44
4.4.1 The levels of impact of automation, performance conditions,
affective factors, and teacher’s feedback ................................................ 44
4.4.2. The levels of impacts of detailed factors ...................................... 45
CHAP TER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS................................. 49
5.1. A Summary of the Key Findings ........................................................ 49
5.2. Recommendations ............................................................................... 50


vi
5.3. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies ................................ 53
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 54
APPENDICES


vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1. The information of the students participants for the survey. ......... 20
Table 3.2. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ......................................................... 26
Table 3.3. Reliability test of all 21 Likert scale questions .............................. 27
Table 3.4. Item-total Statistics ........................................................................ 27
Table 4.1. The students’ perception of the importance of speaking skills ..... 31
Table 4. 2. Students’ self-evaluation of their speaking skills ......................... 33
Table 4.3. Factors affecting students’ speaking fluency ................................. 34
Table 4.4. Automation affecting students’ speaking fluency ......................... 36
Table 4.5. Performance conditions affecting students’ speaking fluency ...... 38
Table 4.6. Teacher’s correction affecting students’ speaking fluency ........... 40
Table 4.7. Affective factors affecting students’ speaking fluency ................. 42

Table 4.8. The levels of impacts of these factors on Gia Lai high school
students’ speaking fluency in terms of automation, performance
conditions, affective factors, and teacher’s feedback ................... 44
Table 4.9. The levels of impacts of these factors on Gia Lai high school
students’ speaking fluency in terms of the subfactors .................. 45


viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4. 1. Students’ evaluation of the importance of speaking skills .......... 31


1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter starts with the rationale that provides the reasons for the
researcher to carry out the study. Furthermore, the aims and specific objectives of
the research, the research questions, the method of the research, the significance and
the scope of the research are also stated. The organization of the study is then
provided in the last section of the chapter.

1.1. Rationale
In the race of globalization and modernization of society, being capable
of using English has become one of the most vital factors connecting people
from different regions, cultures, religions, and nations. Many people are
expected to be verbally competent to communicate fluently in English.
Accordingly, the primary objective of any English language teaching should

be to provide learners with the ability to communicate effectively in English
(Davies & Pearse, 1998) or, in other words, to achieve communication target.
During the process of teaching English, I realize that one of the four
skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) that most English learners
wish to master as soon as possible is speaking, which Ur (1996) emphasizes
to be the most important to make learners become English speakers. Thus,
speaking skill is a means of thinking, academic learning (Goh, 2007) and a
crucial component of communication (Shumin, 2002). Similarly, according to
Anggryadi (2014), many speakers believe that making speaking a success is
the primary goal of learning English as a foreign language.
Despite the fact that the English learners, particularly Vietnamese high
school students are aware of such great importance of speaking skill, they are
always struggling to speak or give any utterances in English. In fact, it is clear
that a great number of high school students frequently have difficulties in
speaking, especially, speaking fluency. Many students even burst into tears or


2
cannot say anything or express their ideas during their speaking performance
(Khong, 2019). As a result, their achievements in speaking English at school
are usually limited compared to other skills such as reading, listening or
writing (Khong, 2019). This is also a big problem faced by high school
students in the mountainous areas.
In reality, up to now, it is undeniable that many studies as to the factors
causing this speaking problem have been conducted in the world in general
and in Vietnam in particular. For example, MacIntyre, Clément, Sezgin, and
Noels (1998) explored the effect of self- confidence on oral performance.
Park and Lee (2005) studied the links between anxiety, self- confidence, and
speaking performance in second language learners. Tanveer (2007)
investigates the elements that cause language anxiety in twenty language

learners learning to speak and the influence of anxiety on communication in
the target language, and his findings are equivalent to those of Park and Lee
(2005). Furthermore, Bozorgian (2012) did a study to evaluate the
relationship between listening skill and other speaking talents. Besides, in
Vietnam, Khong (2019) investigated the internal and environmental factors
that impact students' fluency development at a secondary school.
However, those studies only concentrate on elements or groups of
factors that impact learners' oral fluency separately or jointly in various
circumstances. Therefore, there is a shortage of research on factors affecting
speaking fluency for high school students in Vietnam, particularly in
mountainous regions where English has lately been taken into account by
learners. For this reason, I conducted a study on the topic "Factors affecting
Gia Lai high school students’ English speaking fluency", which may address
the gap that decides which aspects are much more significant in order to
develop learners’ speaking fluency and, as a result, to find the most appropriate
teaching methods to help improve high school students' English speaking skills


3
in general.
1.2. Aim and objectives of the study
This study aims to find out factors affecting high school students’
English speaking fluency in Gia Lai province. After investigating the factors,
it also offers some solutions to improving students’ Engish speaking ability
and speaking fluency.
To fulfill these aims, the specific objectives of the study include:
- Investigating what factors affecting Gia Lai high school
students’ English speaking fluency.
- Finding out to what extent these factors affect Gia Lai high
school students’ English speaking fluency.

1.3. Research questions
In order to reach the above aims and specific objectives, the research is
expected to answer the following questions:
1. What are factors affecting Gia Lai high school students’ English
speaking fluency?
2. To what extent do these factors affect Gia Lai high school students’
English speaking fluency ?
1.4. Scope of the study
This research was carried out with participation of 150 eleventh grade
students from four high schools in Gia Lai province in the second semester of
the school year 2021-2022. The researcher did not analyze factors affecting
all aspects of speaking skills but only focused on factors perceived to
influence their speaking fluency through the descriptive study with two main
instruments, consisting of the questionnaire and interview.
1.5. Method of the study

The current research was designed as a descriptive study using both
quantitative and qualitative methods to find the answers for the research


4
questions. Due to the safety during the Covid-19 pandemic, data was
collected through a set of the survey questionnaire which was delivered online
to the eleventh-grade students from four classes at four high schools in Gia
Lai province via Google form. Besides, in order to collect more information
to reinforce the findings found from the survey questionnaire and to make the
study more reliable, the informal interviews with 8 out of 150 students from
these high schools were also carried out. Finally, based on the study's
findings, comments, recommendations, and conclusions were provided.
1.6. Significance of the study

By doing this study, the researcher hopes that the high school students
will be assisted in improving their speaking ability in general and speaking
fluency in particular. Moreover, the research aims to serve as a beneficial
resource for high school students to be more aware of the importance and
necessity of fluent English speaking. Besides, through the findings of the
study, the students may select the most appropriate methods for themselves
for their speaking enhancement and English teachers can adapt and develop
the best curriculum for their own students with a major aim of bettering their
students’ speaking fluency. The findings of the study might be also utilized as
a starting point for additional research on relevant topics.
1.7. Organization of the study

The study is divided into the chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 – Introduction – presents rationale, aim, objectives, the
research questions, the scope, significance and organization of the study.
Chapter 2 – Literature review – presents the concepts relevant to the
speaking skills, speaking fluency, factors affecting English speaking skills
and a review of previous studies related to the topic.
Chapter 3 – Research methodology – presents research method,
participants, instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis


5
method.
Chapter 4 – Findings and discussion –focuses on presenting,
analyzing and discussing the results obtained from the survey questionnaire
and interviews. Besides, the chapter also presents some discussions and
interpretations of the findings of the study.
Chapter 5 – Conclusion and implications- is a review of the study,

and points out implications for the improvement, its limitations and
suggestions for future research.


6

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews theoretical background as for definitions of
speaking skills, speaking fluency and factors affecting speaking fluency.
Additionally, the review of the previous studies related to the speaking
fluency is also indicated as the last part in this chapter.
2.1. Definitions of speaking skills
There are many definitions of speaking that have been proposed by
some experts in language learning. According to Spratt, Pulverness &
Williams (2005, p.34), speaking is a productive skill, like writing, it involves
using the organ of speech to express meanings to the other people. Speaking
is an important skill as it is considered the bridge that connects people talking
the same language. Thus, it helps people express their thoughts, ideas,
feelings and emotions to others. EI-Basel (2008, p. 74) argues that speaking
skills have been found a fundamental skill necessary for a person’s success in
life. Speaking skills cover a wide range, from engaging in simple
conversation to formal public speaking. Speaking skills play a vital role in
communication process and an active part in their daily life or a tool of
learning (Dorgham, 2011, p. 1). Accordingly, developing speaking skill helps
in creating an effective connection among the individuals’ society. Besides,
Brown (2001, p. 9) argues that speaking is not a single skill but an interactive
process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and
processing information.
Additionally, the term of speaking is defined in other ways. According

to Chaney “speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through
the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts.”
Widdowson (1978) specifies that speaking has two meanings including


7
how language is used to convey meanings and how effective the language use
is regarding the achievement of the purpose of communication.
Richards (2009, p. 19) states that “in speaking we tend to be getting
something done, exploring ideas, working out some aspects of the world, or
simply being together.”
Based on those theories above, it can be concluded that speaking is the
active, productive skill that is used to express ideas in the form of speech
sounds of the language. It can be said that speaking is a skill that commonly
used in daily life between speakers and listeners in performing the idea,
feelings or thoughts. Especially, Harmer (2001, p. 15) also points out that
speaking includes two categories: accuracy and fluency. This means that
developing speaking skill involves not only the correct use of vocabulary,
grammar, pronunciation but also having the ability to speak spontaneously.
2.2. Speaking fluency
It's crucial to define what the term " speaking fluency" means before
diving into research of factors affecting speaking fluency. One of the most
crucial factors which students need to enhance in the process of learning to
speak English is speaking fluency. Mastering speaking skill in general and
developing oral fluency in particular are regarded as the goals of high school
students because these advantages help them become more confident in
communication.
In fact, the definition of fluency has the Latin origin meaning as
“flow”. It can be the same as other language define about fluency as flow or
fluidity as stated by Kopponen and Riggenbach (2000, cited in Jamatlou,

2011).
This term is also related to "communication" (Harmer, 2007, p. 142). In
a conversation, for example, a student may make a grammatical error yet still
be able to speak fluently (Crowther et al.,2015). Then, the student can


8
communicate

without

searching

for

words,

allowing

his

or

her

communication to be comprehended quickly. In fact, speaking fluency has
been defined as the “automaticity and speed of speech production” (Brand &
Götz, 2011, p. 256). However, automaticity and speed of speech production
may not always make a speech comprehensible, comprehensibility being “a
measure of listeners’’ perceived ease or difficulty of understanding L2

speech” (Crowther et al., 2015, p. 81)
Richards (2009, p.14) mentions brave definition about fluency,
“natural language use occurring when a speaker engages in meaningful
interaction and maintains comprehensible and ongoing communication
despite limitations in his or her communicative competence”. And nowadays,
the definition of fluency itself closer to simple definition of the term in
applied linguistics also seem to share at least one feature resembling
“fluidity”.
Fillmore (cited in Richards, 1990, p. 75) identifies four abilities that
might be subsumed under the term fluency as follows “the ability to fill time
with talk, the ability to talk in coherent, reasoned and semantically dense
sentences” showing “a mastery of these mantic and syntactic resources of the
language”; “the ability to have appropriate things to say in a wide range of
contexts” and the ability to be creative and imaginative in language use.
The more recent study about fluency (Jamatlou, 2011) shows that
fluency might be rapid, smooth, accurate, lucid, and efficient translation of
thought or communicative intention into language under the temporal
constraints of on-line processing. This earlier concept of fluency has been
acceptable by most of the teachers and researchers since they have to realize
that fluency is different in nature from other components of oral proficiency
such as range of vocabulary and complexity of syntax which are associated
with linguistic knowledge of accuracy.


9
In simple words, according to Riddel (2001, p. 118) "fluency is the
ability to talk freely without too much stopping or hesitating". The good
English speaker should be able to use English language fluently with no
difficulties. Brown (1994) stated that “fluent speakers can participate in any
conversation with a high degree of fluency”. He explains that their speech

should be accepted and well understood by native speakers. Students who do
not care about making mistakes/errors and who have an idea in their minds of
what they want to communicate, and they say it with whatever words and
language feel the most natural. They make frequent mistakes, sometimes in
every sentence; their grammar can be a mixture of English and their native
language. They either do not know or do not care if they are making errors or
mistakes. In this case, these learners have high fluency, but low accuracy.
In the context of language teaching and learning, fluency is defined as
the ability to speak communicatively, fluently and accurately. Fluency usually
refers to express oral language freely without interruption. In teaching and
learning process, if the teacher wants to check students’ fluency, the teacher
allows students to express themselves freely without interruption. The aim is
to help students speak fluently and with ease. The teacher does not correct
immediately whereas the idea being that too much correction interferes with
the flow of conversation (Pollard, 2008, p. 16).
To sum up, there are various definitions mentioned above. In this study,
English speaking fluency is regarded as an ability to speak English without or
with scarcity of hesitation, repetition or breaking in a sentence or in a
conversation.
2.3. Factors affecting speaking fluency
2.3.1. Affective factors
One of the most important influences on language learning success or
failure is probably the affective side of the learner (Oxford, 1990).


10
The affective factors relate to moods, feeling, and attitudes towards
language learning (Meng & Wang, 2006) especially towards learning
speaking fluency which is researched in this study. Krashen (1985) views that
affective variables are one of the most important factors which may impede

students from learning. Therefore, there is a so called “affective filter” or a
mental block” that correlates negatively with learning. When this block or
filter is high, learning will be low and vice versa. Thus, the emotional aspect
of the learner is undoubtedly one of the most important impacts on language
acquisition success or failure (Oxford, 1990; Dornyei and Ryan, 2015).
Besides, according to Krashen (1982), three out of many categories belonging
to affective factors which have been proven to be associated strongly with
second language learning success in research over the previous decade are
motivation, confidence, and anxiety. However, within the scope of this study,
overall, the affective factors are regarded as anxiety, motivation and fear of
making mistakes, which are the primary factors influencing high school
students’ speaking fluency.
2.3.1.1. Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of tension, apprehension

and nervousness

associated with the situation of learning a foreign language (Horwitz et all
cited in Nascente, 2001). Furthermore, Nascente writes that among other
affective variables, anxiety stands out as one of the main blocking factors for
effective language learning. The fact that anxiety plays an important role in
students’ learning is also shared by other researchers like Horwitz (1991) as
cited in Sylvia and Tiono (2004). He believes that anxiety about speaking a
certain language can affect students’ performance. It can influence the quality
of oral language production and make individuals appear less fluent than they
really are. Additionally, too much anxiety leads to low willingness to
communicate fluently (Wu & Lin, 2014).

11
2.3.1.2 Motivation

Motivation is an essential factor to achieve proficiency in a second
language (Gardner & Lambert, 1972). Ausubel’s (1968) cognitive theory of
learning posited a circular relationship between learning and motivation:
“motivation can promote learning and learning can produce motivation again”
(Hong & Ganapathy, 2017, p. 17). Gardner and Lambert (1972) identify two
types of motivation when it comes to language learning: instrumental and
integrative. Instrumental motivation is the drive to learn the L2 for some sort
of material gain or advantage, such as improving their speaking skill for job
opportunities or an increase in salary or income; integrative motivation is
when people want to learn the L2 with a view to “participating in the culture
of its people” (Mahadi & Jafari, 2012, p. 232). Thus, motivation, which
derives from both external and internal sources, deeply influences students’
speaking skills or speaking fluency.
2.3.1.3 Fear of making mistakes

As argued by many theorists (Tsui in Nunan, 1999; Yi Htwe, 2007;
Robby, 2010), fear of making mistakes becomes one of the main factors of
students’ reluctance to speak in English. With respect to the fear of making
mistake issue, Aftat (2008) adds that this fear is linked to the issue of
correction and negative evaluation. Thus, the students’ fear of being laughed
at by other students or being criticized by the teacher when making mistakes
is one of the most common obstacles for students in speaking classes. As a
result, students commonly stop participating in the speaking activity (Hieu,
2011). Therefore, it is important for teachers to convince their students that
making mistakes is not a wrong or bad thing because students can learn from
their mistakes.
2.3.2. Performance conditions

Students perform a speaking task under a variety of conditions. Nation


12
& Newton (2009) believe that performance conditions can affect speaking
performance. Some types of performance conditions that Nation & Newton
(2009) suggest include planning time, time pressure, and the amount of
support.
2.3.2.1. Planning time

“It has been suggested that providing learners with more planning time
prior to conducting the task helps learners produce more fluent and
complex language” (Patanasorn, 2010). Planning time also helps students
improve not just their grammatical complexity but also their fluency (Yuan &
Ellis, 2003).
In a laboratory study by Wendel (1997), learners were asked to watch
two films and then retell them under two conditions: 10 minutes’ planning
and no planning. Wendel found that the speech rate under the planning
condition was significantly higher than that under the no- planning condition,
and concluded that planning benefited fluency.
In another study, Mehnert (1998) explored the effect of manipulating
length of planning time. The results were consistent with those of Wendel
regarding fluency. Sangarun (2005) explored the effects of guided pre-task
planning and found an overall positive effect of planning on fluency. Gilabert
(2007) found that planned conditions resulted in greater fluency.
2.3.2.2. Time pressure

Time pressure influences a speaker's decision to prioritize fluency over
correctness and complexity. Ellis and Yuan (2005) showed that under time
pressure, speakers spoke as fluently but with less syntactic complexity and

syntactic variety than without time pressure. Similar findings based on the same
data had already been presented by Yuan and Ellis (2003). Finally, Ahmadian
and Tavakoli (2011) found that under time pressure fluency was higher but
syntactic complexity lower than without time pressure. Speakers used the


13
available time to construct more complex sentence structures (more sentences
containing subordinate clauses, and more varied grammatical verb forms). This
did not slow down speech (e.g., fewer syllables per minute). Overall, in these
studies, time pressure did negatively impact syntactic complexity.
2.3.2.3. Peer support

The support from peers is an important component that may influence
student learning language achievement . When students perceive that they are
emotionally supported by their classmates, they tend to engage more actively
and make a greater effort in their speaking performance as an instance
(Goodenow, 1993; Wentzel, 1994). In addition, peer support should be
considered essential to language learners because students spend considerable
time together learning the language and encounter similar language-learning
challenges. Learners may receive support from their classmates not only in
the form of friendship but also in ways that facilitate learning. Peer support
has greater reciprocity because peers share equal status (Cauce et al., 1982;
Hartup, 1989; Wentzel, 1994).
To sum up, the quantity of peer support makes things simpler because it
is easier to convey a speaking topic with others than by themselves
(Thornbury, 2005).
2.3.3. Automation
According to Bohlke (2014), it will be difficult for language novices to
pay attention and create fluent speech if they lack automation. This is also

corroborated by Nguyen, H. T. et al. (2015, p. 52), who state that "fluency
also arises from automation".
Students can take up language spontaneously and subconsciously if
they are exposed to English environments such as teachers speaking English
all the time, English tapes, English books, and newspapers for them to use. A
positive mood and an appropriate environment can also help students to speak


14
actively, correctly, and fluently. Students may definitely automate to develop
fluency in their speaking if instructors place them under increasing time
constraint on a regular basis (Nguyen, 2015).
It is not practical to concentrate on speaking fluency and accuracy at
the same time due to restricted attentional capacity. As a result, during the
activity, the meaning may be the primary emphasis, and the linguistic form
can be highlighted later (Willis, 2005).
Maurice's (1983) 4/3/2 approach is also useful for progressively
improving learners' speaking fluency. The speaker first speaks for 4 minutes
about a topic, then repeats the theme for 3 minutes, and finally delivers the
same speech for 2 minutes. Obviously, talking about the same issue three
times increases learners' familiarity with the information, which decreases
fear and improves fluency in subsequent performances.
Arevart and Nation (1991) endorse this strategy, claiming that learners
speak faster and with fewer hesitations in the 2-minute talk than in the 4minute talk. According to Zhou (2006), the 4/3/2 approach significantly
improves Chinese EFL learners' speaking fluency. As a result, learners'
fluency may be steadily improved by talking about the same topic for 4
minutes, 3 minutes, and 2 minutes. Furthermore, because some set phrases
and expressions reduce cognitive stress (Lewis, 1993), free up attention
capacity (Skehan, 1996), and speed up speech processing (Goh, 2003), EFL
students must memorize a broad vocabulary and retrieve it automatically

when speaking.
Thus, automaticity can improve their speaking fluency (Wood, 2001;
Wood, 2004; Zhou & Wang, 2007).
2.3.4. Teacher’s Corrections and Feedback during speaking activities
Most students want and expect their teachers to give them feedback on
their performance. However, all speaking production should not be dealt with


15
in the same way. Harmer (1991) asserts that the decisions that the teachers
make about how to react to students’ performance will depend upon the
stages of the lesson, the activities, the types of mistake made and the
particular student who is making that mistake. If the teachers correct
whenever there is a problem, the conversational flow as well as the purpose of
the speaking activity will be destroyed (Harmer, 1991). If the students are
corrected all the time, they can find this very demotivating and become afraid
to speak. They suggest that the teachers should always correct the students’
mistakes positively and with encouragement (Baker & Westrup, 2003).
2.3.5. Topical knowledge
Topical knowledge is defined as long-term memory knowledge
structures (Bachman & Palmer, 1996). In other words, topical knowledge
refers to the speaker's understanding of relevant topical information. The
information provided by topical knowledge helps learners to utilize language
in context with the world in which they live. According to Bachman and
Palmer (1996), certain test tasks may be simpler for individuals who have
relevant topical knowledge and more difficult for those who do not. Topical
knowledge, according to Bachman and Palmer (1996), has an influence on
speaking performance in general and speaking fluency in particular.
2.4. Review of Previous Studies Related to the Topic
There were many different studies conducted significantly related to

speaking skills and speaking fluency.
MacIntyre, et al. (1998) investigated the impact of self- confidence on
oral performance. According to the findings of their study, the learners' desire
to speak was partly influenced by their level of self-confidence. Park and Lee
(2005) investigate the relationships between anxiety, self-confidence, and
speaking performance in second language learners. One hundred thirty-two
Korean college students engaged in English conversation lessons took part in