Some suggestions for teaching english speaking skill to the non english major students at vinh university

MINISTRY OF EDUCATIONAND AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY
HOANG THI CHUNG
SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING
ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL TO THE NON-ENGLISH
MAJOR STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY
MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION
Nghệ An, 2014
MINISTRY OF EDUCATIONAND AND TRAINING
VINH UNIVERSITY
HOANG THI CHUNG
SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING
ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL TO THE NON-ENGLISH
MAJOR STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY
Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
Code: 60 14 01 11
MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION
Supervisor: Phan Thi Huong, M.A
Nghệ An, 2014
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I declare that this dissertation represents my own work, and that it has
not been previously submitted to this University or to any other institutions
for a degree, diploma or other qualifications.
Hoang Thi Chung
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest thanks to M.A Phan Thi Huong, my
supervisor for her immense encouragement as well as her detailed guidance she
gave me while I was doing my research, without which the study could not have
been completed.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to FLD’s Dean,

Dr Tran Ba Tien, without his support, motivation and consideration, it would not
have been possible for me to complete the course.
I would also like to express my thanks to the teachers of English at Vinh
University who helped me in providing the materials, answering the survey
questionnaire, taking part in the interviews actively and making constructive
comments in the process of writing this thesis, without their help the thesis would
not have been successful.
I am also thankful to my first-year students of K53 from two classes NN1-111:
NN1-112 for their whole-heated participation in the study.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my friends and my family for their
understanding, patience and support during the entire period of my study.
Hoang Thi Chung
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ABSTRACT
This study is aimed at investigating the reality of teaching the speaking skill to
non-major students of English at Vinh University but only focuses on difficulties
experienced by the teachers of English and some recommendations and classroom
techniques and activities for them to minimize those difficulties. Specifically, some
classroom activities are made with the hope that they would be helpful for teachers in
their teaching English speaking skill to non- English major students of English at VU.
The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the thesis.
Chapter 2 includes the review of related literature, methodology used in the research
study. The findings and discussion of relevant difficulties in teaching speaking skill
caused by teachers themselves, students and objective factors are all presented in the
chapter 4. The final chapter is the conclusion of the study, which discusses the
overview that can be drawn from the study, concurrently suggests some classroom
techniques and activities with the hope that they can add interest to each lesson and
serve different learning styles. Teachers can find sample games and activities in this
part for getting their students more involved in speaking in class and can feel free to
change their content or degree of difficulty to suit their needs, or use them as a

springboard to create specific activities.
It is hoped that this thesis will be useful for teachers at VU in teaching the
speaking skill to their non-English major students.
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LIST OF TABLES
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY xxxiii
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION xlii
Table 4.4: Teachers’ English communicative competence xlv
CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION lviii
REFERENCES lxxx
APPENDICES I
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ELT: English Language Teaching
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
ESL: English as Second Language
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
STT: Student talking time
TTT: Teacher talking time
TM: Translation Method
ESP: English for Specific Purposes
No of Students: Number of Students
No of Teachers: Number of Teachers
VU: Vinh University
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LIST OF TABLES
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY xxxiii
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION xlii
Table 4.4: Teachers’ English communicative competence xlv
CHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION lviii

REFERENCES lxxx
APPENDICES I
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
We are living in the global world in which English language has rapidly
become an international language. To meet this requirement, English has been
taught almost everywhere in Vietnam, especially in schools, colleges, universities,
English is a compulsory subject.
However, how to speak English well is a problem for many Vietnamese
learners of English, especially for the students of colleges and universities. Despite
the fact that most of the students have been learning English since they were at
secondary or high school, they can not speak English fluently, or some cannot speak
any English at all. As a teacher of English at Vinh University, from our observation
and our own teaching experience, we see that during a speaking lesson students can
hardly use English for communicative objectives even in the simple form. Some
explain that they want to talk but they do not know what to say. Some are in poor
participation in speaking activities in the classroom.
In fact, there is a large number of non-English major students who may be
good at reading, writing but find it difficult to speak in English. I often encourage
my students to talk in English in class but they keep silent during the lessons.
Perhaps, there is a variety of reasons for their poor participation, including such
large classes, lack of ideas, lack of motivation, lack of confidence when
communicating or poor knowledge of English language. In addition to those
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mentioned above, equipment and teaching methods of teachers can make the
situation worse.
There have been numerous studies on this situation and various solutions,
recommendations and suggestions have been proposed, including innovating
teaching methods, changing syllabus or textbooks, upgrading teachers’
qualifications, changing formats of speaking tests and so on. At Vinh University,

however, no research on suggesting communicative activities for teaching speaking
skill to non- English majors has been done before. The author, as a teacher of
English at VU, is more than aware of the situation and she herself has encountered a
number of difficulties in helping her students improve their speaking skill. This
actually drives her to this research, entitled “Some suggestions for teaching
English speaking skill to the non-English major students at Vinh University”.
1. 2 Scope of the study
To improve speaking skill for non- English major students at VU, various
methods can be made used of. However, within the framework of this thesis, the
author only intends to give an overview of the current situation of teaching and
learning speaking skill for non-English major students at VU and suggest
communicative activities to help teachers improve their students’ speaking skill and
achieve the objectives of each unit of the course book as well. The suggested
activities will serve as a reference for teachers to teach effectively speaking topics
in New Headway Pre-intermidiate the third edition.
1.3 Aims of the study
Within the framework of a thesis, the study aims at suggesting classroom
activities with the hope that they would be helpful for teachers in their teaching
English speaking skill to non- English major students at VU.
To achieve this aim, the objectives are (i) to investigate the current situations
of learning and teaching of speaking skill to non- English major students at VU in
order to find out the reasons for students’ unwillingness to speak English as well as
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difficulties experienced by the teachers of English in teaching speaking skill; (ii) to
suggest some classroom activities to be used in speaking class for non-English
majors.
1.4 Research questions of the study
The researcher wish to raise the questions as follows:
1. What difficulties do the teachers at VU encounter in teaching the skill of
speaking to non-English major students?

2. What should be done to minimize the difficulties in teaching the skill of
speaking to non-English major students experienced by the teachers of
English at VU?
1.5 Organization of the study
The study consists of the following parts:
Chapter 1: Introduction
This part will introduce the problem leading to the study, rationale, purpose,
scope, and organization of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature review and theoretical background
Presented in this chapter are the concepts relevant to the study: Review of
previous studies ; The Nature of Language skills; The nature of speaking skill;
What is speaking?; What are components of speaking?; What skills and knowledge
does a good speaker need?; What is speaking Skills; Characteristics of Speaking
Skills; Teaching Speaking Skills; Aims of Teaching Speaking Skills; Development
approach of speaking skills; How speaking skill has been taught to adult ESL
learners.
Chapter 3: Methodology
This part presents the detailed procedure of the study: the methodology,
population selection, data collection and analysis.
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Chapter 4. Findings and Discussions. The part deals with the findings drawn out
from the analysis of data. The chapter also proposes some suggestions to make
teaching English speaking more effective.
Chapter 5. Conclusion
Main points and contents of the study will be summarized based on the results of
the study.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Review of previous studies
For many years, language teaching was seen as helping learners develop

linguistic competence, many researches around teaching speaking such as
“Appropriate error-correction stratigies in speaking lessons”, “ Some suggestions to
conduct effectively English speaking activities”, etc , proved very effective as the
inspiration for students to study. Recently, communicative language teaching (CLT)
with its emphasis on meaning and communication in the target language and its
learner-centered approach has served as the dominant approach to language
teaching.
Recently, in their minor study, Julie Mathews- Aydinly and Regina Van
Horne (2006) have pointed out that multilevel classes can present challenges to
teachers as it is very difficult to design or organize speaking activities for many
learners with different level and interests. The suggested solutions are also
presented in their study. With the fact of teaching speaking skill to non-English
majors at VU, I would like to study more about speaking activities with the hope
that I can contribute to teaching English speaking successfully.
2.2 What is speaking?
Speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves
producing and receiving and processing information” (Brown, 1994; Burns &
Joyce, 1997). Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs,
including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical
environment, and the purposes for speaking. Speaking requires that learners not
only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar,
pronunciation, or vocabulary, but also they can understand when, why, and in what
ways to produce language.
Bygate, Martin (1987) believes that speaking is the skill by which they are
most frequently judged and thought. Learners often need to be able to speak with
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confidence. Speaking skill is regarded as the vehicle of social solidarity, of social
ranking, of professional advancement and business. It is also a medium through
which much language is learnt”.
In Brown and Yule’s point of view (1983) spoken language consists of short,

fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciation. There is often a great deal of
repetition and overlap between one speaker and another and speaker usually use
non-specific references. They also point out that spoken language is made to feel
less conceptual dense than other types such as prose by using the loosely organized
syntax, and non-specific words and phrases.
2.3 What are components of speaking?
This section examines the components of spoken English, drawing on a
model proposed by van Lier (1995). It is necessary for teachers to understand
fully these interrelated components in order to help adult learners improve their
speaking skill.
Figure 1: Units of spoken language (van Lier, 1995, p. 15).
distinctive
feature
phoneme
syllable
morpheme
word
phrase
clause
utterance
text
PHONOLOGY
MORPHOLOGY
SYNTAX
STRESS
RHYTHM
INTONATION
DISCOURSE
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The figure depicts the many elements involved in teaching speaking to adult

ESL learners. The left column lists four traditional areas of linguistic analysis
(which teachers must understand), and the center column labels the units of spoken
language (which learners must master).
Beginning at the pyramid’s base, text refers to stretches of language of an
undetermined length. Texts can be either written or spoken, but here the focus is
exclusively on spoken discourse. Spoken texts are composed of utterances: what
someone says. A clause is two or more words that contain a verb marked for tense
and a grammatical subject. Independent clauses are complete sentences that can
stand alone (“Tuan went to work”), whereas dependent clauses cannot (“While
Tuan was going to work . . .”). In contrast, a phrase is two or more words that
function as a unit but do not have a subject or a verb marked for tense. These
include prepositional phrases (“in the hospital” or “after school”) and infinitive
phrases (“to drive” or “to move up”). Clauses and phrases do not usually appear
alone in formal writing, but they are quite common in speech. Both clauses and
phrases can be utterances, as can individual words, the next level in the pyramid.
A word is called a free morpheme—a unit of language that can stand on its
own and convey meaning (bus, apply, often). In contrast, bound morphemes are
always connected to words. These include prefixes, such as un- or pre-, as well as
suffixes, such as -tion or -s or -ed. Often, during the pressure of speaking, it is
difficult for Vietnamese learners English to use the expected suffixes because
Vietnamese language does not utilize these kinds of morphemes as grammatical
markers.
A phoneme is a unit of sound that distinguishes meaning. Phonemes can be
either Consonants (like /p/ or /b/ in the words pat and bat) or Vowels (like /i/ and
/æ/ in bit and bat).
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In the top levels of the figure, the word syllable overlaps the levels of
morphemes and phonemes because a syllable can consist of a morpheme or simply
one or more phonemes.
Consonants and vowels are called segmental phonemes. Sometimes a spoken

syllable consists of one phoneme (/o/ in okay). Syllables also consist of combined
sounds (the second syllable of okay), and of both free and bound morphemes. For
instance, the free morpheme hat consists of three phonemes but only one syllable.
The three other labels in the figure—stress, rhythm, and intonation represent
the suprasegmental phonemes. When we speak, these phonemes carry meaning
differences “above” the segmental phonemes. For instance, the sentence “I am
going now” can convey at least four different meanings, depending on where the
stress is placed. The differences are related to the context where the utterances
occur. Consider these interpretations:
I am going now. (You may be staying here, but I choose to leave.)
I am going now. (You may assert that I’m staying, but I insist that I am
leaving.)
I am going now. (I insist that I am leaving, rather than staying.)
I am going now. (I am not waiting any longer.)
It is critical to know how these levels of spoken language relate to the
speaking skill of Vietnamese learners. Two key points derive from a substantial
review of the research on foreign accent by Major (2001). First, he says that really
learning the sound system of a language entails mastering (a) the individual
segments (the V and C phonemes), (b) the combinations of segments, (c) prosody
(stress, intonation, rhythm, etc.), and (d) “global accent, or the overall accent of a
speaker” (p. 12). He adds that a global foreign accent is the result of a nonnative
combination of (a), (b), and (c).
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Second, Major (2001) notes that “both the learner’s age and the age of
learning (when the learner was first exposed to the language) have been found to be
important variables in governing whether and to what degree a learner can acquire a
native like accent” (pp. 6–7). He concludes that “the vast majority of the research
indicates that the younger the learner the more native like the pronunciation” (p. 11).
To conclude, it can be seen from the Pyramid that all the levels of language
operate when we speak, and conversation is not really simple at all. It is impotant

for language teachers to understand these units of language and how they work
together.
2.4 Characteristics of Speaking Skill
Bygate, M (1987) states that: “In most speaking the person to whom we are
speaking is in front of us and able to use right if we make mistakes”. Unlike readers
or writers, speaker may need patience and imagination, too. While talking, speakers
need to take notice of the other and allows listeners chance to speak it.
Brown (1983) and her colleagues point out that a listener helps speakers
improve their performance as a speaker because being a listener gives learners
models to utilize when acting as speaker. Besides, being a hearer first helps
appreciate the difficulties inherent in the task. It is clear that giving speakers
experience in hearer’s role is more helpful than simple practice in tasks in which a
speaker is having real difficulties in appreciating what a particular task required.
Richards (1985) states that Communicative Competence includes:
a) Knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language.
b) Knowledge of rules of speaking (e.g. knowing how to begin and end
conversations, knowing what topics can be talked about in different types of speech
event, knowing which address, forms should be used with different person one
speaks to and in different situations.
c) Knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts such as
requests, apologies, thanks and invitations.
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d) Knowing how to use language appropriately (quoted from Nunan, David,
1999: 226)
According to Nunan, David (1999) what are needs to know and be able to do
in order to speak in another language is to know how to articulate sounds in a
comprehensible manner, one needs an adequate vocabulary, and to have mastery of
syntax.
The socio linguist Dell Hymes (1974) proposed the notion of communicative
competence as an alternative to Chomsky’s linguistic competence. Communicative

competence includes linguistic competence, but also a range of other socio
linguistic and conversational skill that enable the speaker to know how to say what
to whom.
2.5 Aims of Teaching Speaking Skill
As for Widdowson H.G (quoted from Brumfit C.J & Johnson K:117), “ the
problem is that students, and especially students in developing countries, who have
received several years of formal English teaching, frequently remain deficient in the
ability to actually use the language, and to understand its use in normal
communication, whether in the spoken or the written mode” (1979:117)
Therefore, objective of teaching speaking skill is communicative efficiency
or in other words is to teach learners the way to communicate “appropriately” and
efficiently. It can be seen from the example give by Newmark of a man who is good
at structures but fails in utterance competence.
So, to help learners develop communicative efficiency in speaking, teacher
can use balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured
output and communicative output.
Language input comes in the form of teacher talk, listening activities, reading
passages, and the language heard and read outside of class. It gives learners the
material. They need to begin producing language themselves.
Language input may be content oriented or form oriented.
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Structured output focuses on correct form. In structured output, learners may
have options for responses, but all of the options require them to use the specific
form or structure that the teacher has just introduced.
Structured output is designed to make learners comfortable producing specific
language items recently introduces, sometimes in combination with previously
learned items.
In communicative output, the learners’ main purpose is to complete a task,
such as obtaining information, developing a travel plan… To complete the task,
they may be use the language that the teacher has just presented, but they also may

draw on any other vocabulary, grammar, and communication strategies that they
know. In communicative output activities, the criterion of success is whether the
learner gets the message across. Accuracy is not a consideration unless the lack of it
interferes with the message.
In a balance activities approach, the teacher uses a variety of activities from
these different categories of input and output. Learners at all proficiency levels,
including beginners, benefit from this variety, it is more motivating, and it is also
more likely to result in effective language learning.
2.6 Difficulties in teaching English speaking skill
Language teaching is a complex process involving many interrelated
factors. Larsen-Freeman points out that language teaching can be summarized into
three fields: language learner/learning (How to learn); language/culture (What to
Learn); teacher/teaching (How to teach). Basing on Larsen-Freeman’ views,
difficulties in language teaching in general and difficulties in teaching English
speaking skill in particular are examined from teachers, students together with
objective factors affecting the teaching process.
2.6.1 Difficulties from teachers
Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices
a. The amount of Teacher Talk
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According to second language acquisition theories, both teachers and students
should participate in language classes actively. Teachers have to face two tasks in
language classrooms: (1) offer enough high-quality English language input; (2) offer
more opportunities for students to use the target language. So the distribution of teacher
talk time, as an important factor that affect language learning, has been concerned by
many scholars . An important issue is whether the amount of teacher talk influences
learners’ L2 acquisition or foreign language learning. A great number of researchers
have testified this. Researches in language classrooms have established that teachers
tend to do most of the classroom talk. Teacher talk makes up over 70 percent of the total
talk. It is evident that if teachers devote large amounts of time to explanations or

management instructions, student talk will be indeed severely restricted. Teacher-
initiated talk will dominate the classroom, allowing little opportunity for extended
student talk. In such an environment, students have little opportunity to develop their
language proficiency. Harmer points out that the best lessons are ones where STT is
maximized. Getting students to use the language they are learning is a vital part of a
teacher’s job (Harmer, 2000:4).
b. Teacher's Correction
Inevitably learners will make mistakes in the process of learning. “A learner’s
errors are significant in (that) they provide to the researcher evidence of how
language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is
employing in the discovery of the language” (Brown, 2002: 205). It is a vital part of
the teacher’s role to point out students’ mistakes and provide correction. In
correction, some specific information is provided on aspects of the learners’
performance, through explanation, or provision of better or other alternatives, or
through elicitation of these from the leaner (Ur, 2000). Correction helps students to
clarify their understanding of meaning and construction of the language.
One of the crucial issues is how correction is expressed: gently or assertively
supportively or as a condemnation, tactfully or rudely. Ur (2000) points out that
we should go for encouraging, tactful correction. The learner has reliable intuitive
xvii
knowledge about what kind of correction helps most, that is, learner preferences are
on the whole reliable guide. So teachers have to be careful when correcting, if
teachers do it in an insensitive way, the students will feel upset and lose their
confidence.
c. Krashen’s Input Theory
Input plays a critical role in language learning. There is no learning without
input. The language used by the teacher affects the language produced by the
learners, the interaction generated, and hence the kind of learning that takes place.
The problem is what type and how much of input is appropriate and useful for
language learners in classrooms.

In Krashen’s view, learning only takes place by means of a learner’s
access to comprehensible input. Humans acquire language in only one way - by
understanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input. Learning will
occur when unknown items are only just beyond the learner’s level. It is
explained in detail “i+1”structure. “i” stands for the learners’ current linguistic
competence, and “1” stands for the items the learners intend to learn. The Input
Theory also has two corollaries (Krashen, 1985: 2):
Corollary 1: Speaking is a result of acquisition, not its cause; it emerges as result
of building competence via comprehensible input.
Corollary 2: If input is understood and there is enough of it, the necessary
grammar is automatically provided. The language teacher need not attempt
deliberately to teach the next structure along the natural order it will be provided in
just the right quantities and automatically reviews if the student receives a sufficient
amount of comprehensible input.
By examining the idea of comprehensible input and the two corollaries, one
can find that comprehensive and right quantity input is the central concern with
which learners are able to learn language. It is the foundation or premise of the
occurrence of learning. This provides implications for language teaching: teacher
talk should be comprehensible in different forms and in right quantities. But how
xviii
could teachers know whether their input is enough or not? How could they make their
input comprehensible? Krashen describes two ways: the linguistic resources are
insufficient for immediate decoding. Simplified input can be made available to the
learner through one-way or two-way interaction, with the former including listening to a
lecture, watching television and reading, and the latter occurring in conversations.
Krashen stresses that two-way interaction is a particularly good way of providing
comprehensible input because it enables the learner to obtain additional contextual
information and optimally adjusted input when meaning has to be negotiated because
of communication problems.
In Krashen’s view, acquisition takes place by means of a learner’s access to

comprehensible input. He comments that the input, which is totally incomprehensible to
learners, is not likely to cause learning to take place. Teacher talk, actually serves as
main sources of input of language exposure in classroom learning, is more important
for foreign language learning, so teachers should make their input comprehensible
and in right quantities.
d. Teacher-learner relationship
The relationship between the teacher and students plays a part in evoking
problems in teaching speaking skill. A necessary prerequisite for creating a
favorable learning atmosphere in the class is to establish a good relationship
between the teacher and his students. One of the possible ways of pursuing this aim
is to talk with students about their feelings and help them rationalize their anxiety
about speaking, which results in difficulties in teaching speaking skill (Tsui, 1996).
The teacher may decide to talk to individual students outside the classroom, as
students may feel inhibited about discussing their feelings in front of their
classmates. This “step” may contribute to the creation of trust and “partnership”
between the student and the teacher. In addition, students always feel more
comfortable when learning with the teachers who have a good sense of humor,
friendly, relaxed and patient (Young, 1991). Such anxieties related to teacher-
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learner interactions are also investigated in a wealth of studies by Horwitz (1988),
Horwitz et al. (1991).
Teachers’ deficiency in English communicative competence
This can be another constraint in teaching speaking skill which is related to
teachers’ deficiency in English communicative competence. For many years,
language teaching was seen as helping learners to develop linguistic competence-
that is, helping students master the sounds, words, and grammar patterns of English.
The idea was that by studying bits and pieces of a language, students could
eventually put them all together and communicate.
In the 1970s and 1980s, however, our understanding of language learning
experienced a significant shift in focus. This shift was influenced by international

developments in linguistics, curricula, and pedagogy, as well as by sociolinguistic
research (primarily in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and
the United States). In addition, the numbers of refugees and immigrants resetting in
English-speaking countries made linguist and language teachers realize that
developing linguistic competence alone was not enough to be able to speak English
well and get along in society.
In the mid-1970s the notion of linguistic competence came to be viewed as a
component of the broader idea of communicative competence “the ability of
language learners to interact with other speakers, to make meaning, as distinct from
their ability to perform on discrete-point tests of grammatical knowledge”
(Savignon, 1991, p.264).
There are several important models of communicative competence (see
especially Bachman, 1990, Canale and Swain, 1980, Richards, Platt and Weber,
1985, Littlewood, 1994, and Hedge, 2000), all of which include some form of
sociolinguistic competence, or the ability to use language appropriately in various
contexts. Sociolinguistic competence involves register (degrees of formality and
informality), appropriate word choice, style shifting, and politeness strategies.
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Another important element of communicative competence is strategic
competence. In terms of speaking, this is the learner’s ability to use language
strategies to compensate for gaps in skills and knowledge. For example, if you don’t
know a word you need to express your meaning, what strategies can you use to
make your point?
A fourth component of communicative competence is discourse competence, “how
sentence elements are tied together”, which includes both cohesion and coherence
(Lazaraton, 2001, p.104). Cohesion includes reference, repetition, synonyms, and
so on. In contrast, coherence involves “how texts are constructed” (Lazaraton,
2001, p.104; see also Bachman, 1990, pp.84-102, and Douglas, 2000, pp.25-29).
These four components of communicative competence have several practical
implications for EFL and ESL teachers. Since communicative competence is a

multifaceted construct, it is important for teachers to understand the complexities
learners face when they are speaking English.
One of those complexities is balancing fluency and accuracy. A proficient
speaker is both fluent and accurate. Accuracy in this context refers to the ability to
speak properly-that is, selecting the correct words and expressions to convey the
intended meaning, as well as using the grammatical patterns of English. Fluency,
on the other hand, is the capacity to speak fluidly, confidently, and at a rate
consistent with the norms of the relevant native speech community.
An important concept for teachers to understand is that while students are at
the beginning and intermediate levels of language learning, that is, while they are
still developing their proficiency, fluency and accuracy often work against each
other. Before grammar rules become automatic and while learners are still acquiring
essential vocabulary items, applying the rules and searching one’s memory for the
right words can be laborious mental processes, which slow the learners’ speech and
make them seem dysfluent. Likewise, language learners can sometimes speak
quickly, without hesitating to apply the rules they have learned, but doing so may
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decrease their accuracy (that is, the number of errors they make in speaking may
increase).
Below is Hedge’s description of communicative competence which probably
considered as the most elaborate.
Area The aims for learners
Linguistic
competence
- to achieve accuracy in the grammatical forms of the language
- to pronounce the forms accurately
- to use stress, rhythm and intonation to express meaning
- to build a range of vocabulary
- to learn the script and spelling rules
- to achieve accuracy in syntax and word formation

Pragmatic
competence
- to learn the relationship between grammatical forms and functions
- to use stress and intonation to express attitude and emotion
- to learn a scale of formality
- to understand and use emotive tone
- to use the pragmatic rules of language
- to select language forms appropriate to topic, listener, etc.
Discourse
competence
- to take longer turns, use discourse markers, and open and close
conversations
- to appreciate and be able to produce contextualized written texts in a
variety of genres
- to be able to use cohesive devices in reading and writing texts
- to be able to cope with authentic texts
Strategic
competence
- to be able to take risks in using both spoken and written language
- to use a range of communication strategies
- to learn the language needed to engage in some of these strategies, e.g.
“What do you call a thing that/person who…”
Fluency
- to deal with the information gap of real discourse
- to process language and respond appropriately with a degree of ease
- to be able to respond with reasonable speed in “real time”
From the description of communicative competence mentioned above, to teach
teaching speaking skill, teachers might have been required to have language
teaching competence including five interrelated fields, that is, linguistic
competence, pragmatic competence or sociolinguistic competence, discourse

competence, strategic competence and fluency. This can be understood that
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linguistic competence (syntactic structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation) is not
the only requirement of teaching speaking skill. However, in English oral classes
teachers only spend teaching time in providing the knowledge of linguistic
competence, which causes students’ failure to unsuccessfully communicate.
2.6.2 Difficulties from students
There exist many student-related problems in teaching speaking skill in
English classes. Many learners, as reported by studies into speaking (e.g. Tsui:
“Reticence and anxiety in second language learning”), are unprepared or unwilling
to speak. Their reluctance and reticence in English oral classes pose a big challenge
for teaching speaking skill.
First and foremost, many reasons for learners’ unwillingness to speak can be
enumerated. Burns and Joyce identified three groups of factors that are likely to
cause reluctance with learners. These encompass cultural, linguistic, and affective
factors (Burns and Joyce, 1997). Cultural factors follow from students’ prior
learning experiences and consequently from the expectations that are formed on
their basis. Examples of linguistic factors limiting speaking may be, according to
Burns and Joyce, difficulties in the phonetics and phonology of the target language,
poor knowledge of grammatical patterns or low awareness of cultural background
and social conventions that are necessary for processing meaning in the target
language. A low motivation level, timidity or anxiety in class, negative social
experiences, and culture shock are ranked among possible affective factors (134). In
discussing the methodology of speaking, Ur (1997) is also preoccupied with
learners’ problems with speaking activities. The difficulties she has encountered in
getting her learners to speak in the class correspond to some of the items such as
mother tongue, inhibition, no ideas to share and problems of participation. A
careful investigation into the nature of learners’ problems with speaking was
conducted by Tsui. She based her study on “the classroom action research project
reports of thirty-eight ESL teachers”. These were practising secondary school

teachers who enrolled to a two-year in-service teacher training at the University of
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