In English, there are four skills that should be mastered, they are: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
The
most important one of them is speaking. Mastering in speaking is the most important aspect of learning
English and success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in language. Ur (1999:120)
states of the all four skills, speaking is considered to be able to be the most important skill. Therefore, learning
speaking becomes the greatest interest for foreign language learners.
Speaking ability becomes the competence for people interaction and communication. Speaking also as the
way of communication and it makes people who come from different countries to be comfort in making
interaction and communication. As stated by Richards and Renandya (2002:210) that speaking is one of the
central elements of communication. It means that speaking is very essential, and someone can express his or
her feeling, emotion, and idea by speaking. In addition, according to Brown (2004:140) argues that speaking is
an interactive process of constructing meaning that involve producing, receiving and processing information.
When someone speaking they should be able to make meaning depending on the context of the information.
Basically the main goal of the speaking is to communicate, to be able to convey your thoughts effectively
The Philippines is considered one of the largest English-speaking nations in the world. In fact, English is one of
the official languages in the Philippines. But throughout the years, a gradual deterioration in English language
proficiency can be observed among Filipinos based on the EF English Proficiency Index, Test of English for
International Communication (TOEIC), and the average score of Filipino IELTS takers. This paper aims to
discuss the different factors behind the descending Filipino English proficiency, such as learners’ motivation,
parental involvement, learning environment, teaching strategies, comprehensive input, learners’ socio-
economic status, and learners' age.
Listening and speaking: these two skills are highly interrelated and work simultaneously in real life situations.
So, the integration of the two aims at fostering effective oral communication. This integration will assure real-
life and purposeful communication
Through daily activities, teachers provide learners with opportunities to develop each skill: students listen (to
the teacher use the target language, to a song, to one another in a pair activity), speak (pronunciation
practice, greetings, dialogue creation or recitation, songs, substitution drills, oral speed reading, role play),
read (instructions, written grammar drills, cards for playing games, flashcards) and write (fill-in-the-blank
sheets, sentences that describe a feeling, sight or experience, a dialogue script, a journal entry)
The Kind of the Problem There kind of the problems in speaking English, the researcher would like to mention
the kind of the problems when students applying English in the activity. Some students are unable to speak
English well although they have applied the language. This may be caused by many factors, such as: 1)
Inhibition 2) Nothing to say 3) Low participants 4) Mother tongue use 5) Low motivation 6) Environment
factors 7) Lack of confidence
SPEAKING is very important in people‟s everyday life. Speaking is one way to communicate which ideas and
though a message orally. To enable students to communicate, we need to apply the language in real
communication. According to Gert and Hans (2008:207), speaking is speech or utterances with the purpose of
having intention to be recognized by speaker and the receiver processes the statements in order to recognize
their intentions.
Speaking is the ability to produce word, to express, to deliver thought, idea and feeling. In learning foreign
language, speaking is one of basic skills besides listening, reading, and writing. It is not an instant skill to be
acquired. It is need a long process
Speaking is a productive skill which is used to convey meaning (Cameron,2001:40) and it consists of producing
systematic verbal utterances (Nunan,2003 :48). The purpose of teaching speaking is to get competence on grammar,
sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic skill (Brown,2007). Based on high school current Indonesia curriculum (curriculum
2013), the purpose of teaching speaking is to get students be able to express their ideas, opinions or thoughts through
spoken and written language
However, mastering speaking skill is often difficult for some reasons. Ur (1996) states some students’ problems in
speaking such as; worry to make mistake, fearful of criticism, shy to speak and lack of vocabulary
As speaking functions, Richards (2008:21) states that the functions of speaking are classified into three; talk as
interaction, talk as transaction and talk as performance. Talk as interaction it means about conversations used
in daily activities in social interaction; When people meet, they exchange greetings, engage in small talk,
recount the experiences, and soon. While talk as transaction is about the situation focusing on the meaning
delivered or the message for instance, like teachers teach students, etc. On the contrary, talk as performance
refers to public talk which transmits information to an audience, such as classroom presentations, public
announcements, and speeches. From those definitions above, speaking as activities by which human beings
try to express thought, feeling, opinion, and to exchange information by using utterances in the form of
communication.
Among the four skills, speaking skill is a difficult one to assess with precision, because speaking is a complex
skill to acquire. Lado (1977) says that four or five components are generally recognized in analysis of speech
process as the follows:
1) Pronunciation is the way for student‟s to produce clearer language when they speak. It deals with the
phonological process that refers to the component of a grammar made up of the elements and
principles that determine how sounds vary and pattern in a language.
2) ) Grammar It is needed for students to arrange a correct sentence in conversation. It is in line with
explanation suggested by Heaton (1978) that student‟s ability to manipulate structure and to
distinguish appropriate grammatical from in appropriate ones. The unity of grammar also learns the
correct way to gain expertise in a language in oral in oral and written form.
3) 3) Vocabulary One cannot conduct communication effectively or express their ideas both oral and
written form if they do not have sufficient vocabulary. So, vocabulary means the appropriate diction
which is used in communication.
4) ) Fluency Fluency can be defined as the ability to speak fluently and accurately. Fluency include a
reasonably fast speed of speaking and only a small number of pauses and “ums” or “errs”. These sign
indicate that speakers do not have spent a lot of time searching or the language items needed to
express the message.
However, sometimes spoken language is easy to perform, but in some cases it is difficult, Brown (2001:270).
When people want to speak fluently, sometimes they get difficulties to do it. In order that they can carry out
the successful speaking, they have to fulfill some characteristics of successful speaking activity such as: 1)
Learners talk a lot. As much as possible this activity is in fact allowed for learners talk. This may be obvious, but
often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pauses. 2) Participant is even. Classroom discussion is not
dominated by a monitory of talk active participants. All get a chance to speak and contributions are fairly
evenly distributed. 3) Motivation is high. Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the topic
and have something new to say about it, or they want to contribute to achieve a task objective. 4) Language is
of an acceptable level. Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easy comprehensible to
teach other and of acceptable level of language accuracy.
According to Brown (2001:272) there are five types of speaking activities: “Imitative, intensive, responsive,
interactive, and extensive (monologue)”. To make us clearer to understand each of type the writer will explain
one by one:
1. ) Imitative One of types of speaking performance is the ability to simply (imitative) a word or phrase or
possibly a sentence. Drilling is a part of the communicative language classroom offer students an
opportunity to listen and to orally repeat certain words of language that may cause some linguistic
difficulty, either the phonological or grammatical. They offer limited practice through repetition; they
allow one to focus on one element of a language in a controlled activity.
2. 2) Intensive Intensive speaking goes one step beyond imitative to include any speaking performance,
that is designed to practice some phonological and grammatical aspect of language. Intensive speaking
can be self initiated or it can even form part of some pair work activity, where learners are going over
certain form of language, Brown (2001:273). For example of intensive assessment tasks include
directed response tasks, reading aloud, sentence and dialogue completion, limited picture-cued tasks
including simple sequences, and translation up to simple sentence level.
3. 3) Responsive A good deal of student speech in the classroom is responsive; short replies to teacher or
student‟s initiated questions or comments. These replies are usually sufficient and do not extend into
dialogues, such speech can be meaningful and authentic. Responsive assessment tasks include
interaction and test comprehension but at the somewhat limited level of very short conversation,
standard greetings and small talk, simple requests and comments, and the like.
4. 4) Interactive The difference between responsive and interactive speaking is in the length and
complexity of the interaction. According to Brown (2004:142) states that interaction can take the two
forms of transactional language or interpersonal exchange. It means that, transactional language has
the purpose of exchanging specific information. Conversation for example may have more of a
negotiate nature to them than does responsive speech. While interpersonal exchange has more for the
purpose of maintaining social relationship than for the transmission of facts and information. These
conversations are a title trickier for learners because they can involve some or all of the following
factors.
5. 5) Extensive (monologue) Finally, students at intermediate to advanced levels are called on to give
extended monologues in the form of oral reports, summaries, short speeches, or perhaps story-telling,
during which the opportunity for oral interaction from listeners is either highly limited (perhaps to
nonverbal responses) or ruled out altogether. Language style is frequently more deliberative (planning
is involved) and formula extensive tasks, but cannot rule out certain informal monologues such as
casually delivered speech (for example, my vacation in the mountains, recounting the plot of a novel or
movie).
1.5.8 Problems in Speaking In learning English speaking, some students will make problems or errors when
they try to uttered words, phrases or sentences. Problems or errors in speaking can‟t correct themselves,
therefore it is need explanation. According to Ur (1991:121), there are some problems faced by the students in
speaking. The problems of speaking include student inhibition, nothing to say, the low of participation, the
theme to be spoken, and the use of mother tongue;
1) Inhibition The students usually inhibited when trying to speak some words in speaking activities. Because
they worry about making mistakes and simply shy in speaking English language.
2) Nothing to say The students cannot think of anything to say, because they have no motivation to express
themselves in speaking. Actually, the students often lack confidence and less of vocabularies in their speaking
ability. And they feel insufficient in language skills to express exactly what they want to say.
3) Low participation The students have low participant when they speak, this mean that they have only very
little talking time. This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate, while other
speaks very little or not at all.
4) Mother tongue use The students usually use mother tongue in speaking activities, because it is easier, and
also they feel less exposed if they are speaking their mother tongue. If they are talking in small groups it can
be quite difficult to get some classes – particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones-to keep to the target
language
Psychological Factors According to Juhana (2012:101) here, there are some psychological factor that faced by
the students in speaking English, they are;
1) Fear of Mistake As argued by many theorists, fear of mistake becomes one of the main factors of students‟
reluctance to speak in English in the classroom. With respect to the fear of making mistake issue, According to
Juhana (2012: 101) adds that this fear is linked to the issue of correction and negative evaluation. In addition,
this is also much influenced by the students‟ fear of being laughed at by other students or being criticized by
the teacher. As a result, students commonly stop participating in the speaking activity. Therefore, it is
important for teachers to convince their students that making mistakes is not a wrong or bad thing because
students can learn from their mistakes.
2) Shyness
is an emotional thing that many students suffer from at some time when they are required to speak in English
class. This indicates that shyness could be a source of problem in students‟ learning activities in the classroom
especially in the class of speaking. Actually, the students felt of shyness makes their mind go blank or that they
will forget what to say.
3) Lack of Confidence It is commonly understood that students‟ lack of confidence usually occurs when
students realize that their conversation partners have not understood them or when they do not understand
other speakers. In this situation, they would rather keep silent while others do talking showing that the
students are lack of confidence to communicate
4. Lack of Motivation Motivation is important to notice in that it can affect students‟ reluctance to speak in
English. In this sense, motivation is a key consideration in determining the preparedness of learners to
communicate. According to Juhana (2012:103) further adds that motivation is an inner energy. From the
motivation the students will enhance their study interest.
To get more reliable data, the researcher relied on the review of literature to find out several suggestions for
evaluating the speaking skill. Some of these suggestions are given by Al-Kailani & Muqattash (2008) as follows:
1. Students are asked to repeat sentences, recite a passage or a dialogue.
2. Students can be asked to play-roles in a dialogue or a situation.
3. Students are asked to answer questions orally. to make a request, or to read part of the passage, or even to
form oral questions based on a given text.
4. Students are asked to describe what they see in a picture or a diagram.
5. Students can be asked to give a summary of something read.
6. Students are asked to improvise a short story,
7. They can be asked to talk about charts, drawings, tables and the like.
8. They can be asked to give explanations, descriptions, make reports …etc.
9- Students are to be encouraged to engage in real conversations/debates…etc
As an English teacher, you will not get around the “boring stuff,” such as grammar drills and
vocabulary work. You also have to keep in mind that your students need to practice all four skills:
writing, reading, speaking, and listening.
However, keeping the drills and language exercises to a necessary minimum and including more
task-based learning in your curriculum can help students use the target language immediately and
retain words and grammar points more effectively.
Task-Based Learning (TBL) is all about your students creating, producing, or designing something in class… it
could be anything… anything at all. TBL includes the 21st Century skills of Communication, Collaboration,
Creativity, and Critical Thinking (4C’s) and can also be described as a short interactive assignment that results
in a finished product.
TBL is an approach to teaching that was originally used by second or foreign-language teachers. It is
an approach that stems from Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) – a language teacher
methodology – which emerged in the 1970s.
Language teachers originally adopted Task-Based Learning for a variety of reasons with the most
important being the desire to make their classrooms more student-centered, communicative, and
collaborative by incorporating more interactive tasks.
Task-Based Learning (TBL) is also known as Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Task-
Based Instruction (TBI). Its principal focus is on the completion of meaningful tasks
Advantages of Task-Based Learning
Students are at the center of learning.
Students are working on something that is personal and relevant to them.
Students gain practice in collaborating with others and making group decisions.
Students spend a lot of time communicating.
Students take on responsibility for engaged learning.
TBL is enjoyable, motivating, and a great place to start for teachers thinking about incorporating more
Project Based Learning at their schools or classrooms.
In teaching speaking, practice is very important. As for this case, Task-Based Learning is suitable method to be
implemented since this method provides speaking practices for the students. It emphasizes the students to use English
in class and discuss and negotiate their arguments during task accomplishment. Therefore, the students can practice the
target. Task-Based Language Teaching or Task-Based Learning (TBL) is a method where the students learn language
through some tasks (Richards and Rodgers, 2001). Task itself can provide opportunities for students to improve and
develop their speaking skill. Willis and Willis (2007) propose some criteria of communicative tasks which make them
different with common classroom activities. The tasks can be said communicative if they are engaging. It also should
concern to convey message of the language hence it can improve speaking as the outcome.
In this case, Task-Based Learning is assumed as good method to see the improvement of students’ speaking
since the activities includes communicative activities. The students will engaged to speak through
accomplishing task that related to students’ real life
Next, Albino (2017 :8) found that Task-Based Learning could increase fluency, grammar, utterances and
interactional language on transactional conversation. During teaching process, the students were engaged to
speak because the task promoted meaning making and focused on linguistic forms that use recasts as the
corrective feedback. Then, the students might be more fluent in speaking because the tasks were related to their
real life situation. Thus, the tasks that are communicative and authentic could influence the students’ speaking
improvement.
In current research, Anjum, [Link] (2019 :289) investigated that Task-Based Learning could help students to be
active in classroom activities. The students get speaking improvement in term of fluency, pronunciation,
vocabulary, communication skills and speech pattern. Then, it also helped the students to practice English
speaking skill with less anxiety.
According to Richards and Rogers, task-based learning strategy focuses on communication through
task completion. Students get engaged with a task they are truly interested in, and they aim to carry it
out only using the target language and its taught elements.