Abstract:
This study was aimed to assess the relationship between the expected and the actual roles of
students in learning English speaking skills and challenges they face: grade eleven students at
first Koto secondary school in focus. To this end, the correlational research design was
employed. The population of the study was one hundred sixty-six grade eleven students. The
researcher took 50% as the sample of the study using the simple random sampling technique.
The instruments used to collect data for the study were semi-structured interviews, classroom
observations and questionnaires. In order to analyze the data, the researcher used mixed
methods whereby both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. The data which were
collected by semi-structured interviews and the classroom observation were analyzed
qualitatively while the data which were collected by using questionnaire were analyzed
quantitatively. The quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS version 26 software in descriptive
statistics and Spearman correlation (inferential statistics). The result revealed that the
relationship between the expected and the actual roles was strong and the value of the range is
found between 0.40 and 0.69 which means r=0.511. The result also revealed students face
several challenges like the influence of their mother tongue, lack of background knowledge, and
lack of motivation. Based on the findings, appropriate recommendations were forwarded.
