Assessing Problems Related To Students’ Speaking Skills As A Foreign Language; Dembi Secondary School Students In Focus

Abstract

The study was conducted to investigate problems related to students speaking proficiency in English language at Dembi Secondary School. To achieve this research goal, a descriptive research design was employed. The required data were gathered from 162 students and three English language teachers of Dembi Secondary School using three data gathering instruments: questionnaire, interview and observation .The questionnaire consists of 45 close-ended questions while the interview and observation have 4 and 15 semi structured questions respectively. The data collected through the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics while the data gathered through interview and classroom observation were qualitatively analyzed. All these data were collated and presented in the discussion to arrive at conclusions regarding problems related to students‟ poor speaking skills in English. The data analyzed indicates that there were student related, methodology-related, teacher-related and situation-related problems that contribute to students‟ low speaking proficiency in English. Based on these major conclusions, possible recommendations have been forwarded. For instance, it is recommended that the school EFL teachers should preserve themselves from dominating the students‟ talking time, avoid excessive use of mother tongue and avoid harsh way of students‟ error correction practice. In addition, lack of basic language elements, lack of motivation, and high level of anxiety, excessive use of mother tongue and giving due attention for mastery of language rules were identified to be the main student-related problems that contribute to students‟ low proficiency in EFL speaking classes. Moreover, dominating the talking classes, immediate error correction and overuse of mother tongue were identified to be the main teacher-related problems that contribute to the development of students‟ spoken language in EFL speaking classes. Finally the implementation of language teaching as the mastery grammatical rules was found to be methodology-related problems that contribute to students‟ low speaking skills Based on these major findings (conclusions), possible recommendations were forwarded. Finally, suggestions for further research were recommended.