Abstract:
This research was aimed at investigating factors which affect English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
students’ speaking skills in Jimma teacher Education College. The subjects of the study were second
year EFL students and EFL teachers in the college. Among the 200 second year English Language
students in the college, the researcher took 50% as the sample of the study using the simple random
sampling technique. To take EFL teacher informants, the researcher employed comprehensive
sampling since the number of the teachers was not large. The instruments used to gather data for the
research were questionnaire, focus group discussion (FGD) and classroom observation. Among the
students, 10% was involved in the FGD. In other words, two FGD consisting of ten students each was
done with the EFL students. FGD was also conducted with EFL teachers. The researcher conducted
one FGD in which 8 English language teachers participated. Classroom observation in which 5 EFL
teachers were seen two times while they were teaching speaking skills was also conducted. The total
number of observation conducted was 10. It was intended to investigate what the real speaking
classroom looked like, how the students performed speaking skill tasks, to observe motivational
strategies used by the EFL teachers in the speaking class/lesson, and to observe the type of speaking
tasks used by the teachers to teach the skills. In order to analyze the data, the researcher used mixed
approach whereby both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilized. The data which were
collected by using questionnaire were analyzed quantitatively while those from FGD and the classroom
observation were analyzed qualitatively. The results of the study indicated that speaking skill was the
skill in which the students faced more problems. It had been found out that the main causes of the
students’ speaking problems were lack of exposure and opportunities to use English in and out of
school, learners’ poor background, lack of opportunities to practice, lack of confidence and motivation,
and fear of speaking in front of their classmates and fear of making mistakes. On the basis of the
findings of the study, the researcher had forwarded some recommendations.
