An Investigatigation of Approaches and Strategies That Enhance the Speaking Skills: Alge Secondary School Grade Nine in Focus

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to investigate teaching approach and strategies of speaking skill in government school Alge Sachi District, Alge secondary high school grade nine. The researcher focused mainly on the teachers’ role, students’ role, the teaching approach and strategies used by the teachers, the activities used to teach speaking skills and the way students participate in the classroom. To gather information on the above main objectives various instruments were used. These are: students’ questionnaire classroom observation, students’ and teachers’ interview. The data were collected from 367 (30%) and 4 (100%) students and teachers of English Language, and observation of 8 classrooms categorized and descriptively analyzed. The findings depicted that inappropriate teaching approaches and strategies of speaking skill were used in the mentioned grade level. Teachers were observed using the traditional way of teaching speaking which is dominated by reading model dialogues aloud. There has been little or no time given for the modern speaking skills teaching approaches and strategies such as group and pair discussions, oral report, drama, panel discussions and interviews. The consequences of inappropriate teaching strategies of speaking skill used have resulted in the weak performance of the students in learning of speaking. To that end, this research paper provides recommendations that could bring about a change in the strategies and teaching approaches of teaching and learning speaking in the grade level studied so that current strategies and approaches of teaching speaking could be employed.