An Assessment of 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

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.