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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Rationale
Since English is a foreign language in our country, most students

especially high school students are not familiar with it. An expert said that

English language more frequent use only inside the class and less frequent

outside the class. Whereas students’ have limited time to learn English in

class, and they still do not have enough encouragement to practice English

outside the class in order to get familiar with English. To help students

enhance their speaking skills, the teacher must help students improve their

grammar, enrich their vocabulary, and manage interactions in terms of who

says what, to whom, when, and about what (Nakhalah, 2016).

In Indonesia, previous studies revealed that only 25% of students

speak English. It shows that the analysis of students’ difficulties in speaking

English are the student’s difficulties in grammar are the ambiguity and the

interference of the first language. As an EFL country, learning English

language in Indonesia has been challenging. Moreover, the study revealed

that high achievers tend to use approximation methods, to get help and turn to

a mother tongue. In the area of communication strategies, investigated the

strategies deployed by Indonesian high school students in overcoming

speaking problems. Even though Indonesia as an EFL country, English's

position as a medium of international communication is a avoidable. By

considering the importance of English. The government put the English as a

mandatory subject at school started from junior high school to college.

However, in reality many students still cannot speak English fluently although

they have been studying English for how many years many of the students

feeling anxiety when speaking English even some of them don't know how to

speak English properly (Azmi et. al 2021; Garda et. al, 2022).

In China the study revealed that the factors affecting the speaking

performances of Chinese EFL learners are more psychological than linguistic.

This result answers the question of what factors affect the speaking

performance of Chinese EFL learners. It agrees with the research finding of

who posits that anxiety and unwillingness are factors that cause speaking

difficulties among Turkish EFL learners. It agrees also with the findings of who

argued that several factors contribute to learners speaking difficulty (Amoah et

al., 2021).

In the Philippines, the Senior High School of Taytay, Rizal performances

in speaking and writing tasks are both in the problematic stage. The study

underscored those learners nowadays are not interested in speaking and

writing. There is a negative correlation between the learners’ performance in

reading and writing, and the amount of attention they give in practicing to read

and write in English. This only means that the lack of self confidence and self-

esteem are the common factors which contributed to the difficulties in English

learning. Based on the results, the learners’ self confidence and self-esteem

are in problematic stage which is needed to be addressed (Ragudo et

al.,2018).

In Davao De Oro, particularly in Bongabong National High School, based

on our observation and personal experiences, there are many students

struggling in speaking English language. The factors associated with these

problems are cause of shyness, lack of confidence, fear of mistake, afraid of

public speaking and lack of vocabulary. Previous researchers in BNHS have

not yet come to investigate the difficulties of students in speaking English. It

only shows that the present study shall make a specific contribution on how

the students manage the challenges as they speak in English language. It is

important to study this issue to have new knowledge and discover new

strategies on how to practice speaking the English language inside the

classroom and how to improve it by the help of the teachers and the students

as well. Through this study, it will also help the teachers to find out new

strategies in order to motivate the students to put in practice in speaking

English and how to boost their self- confidence in performing it. It is in this

context that the researchers are interested to know what the barriers of the

students are in speaking the English language. Thus, there is a need to

conduct the study.

Purpose of the Study

The objective of this phenomenological study is to explore and understand

the difficulties of students in speaking English language. In this study, we

focus on how students experienced difficulties and challenges they faced in

speaking English language, and it is proven that many students are

experiencing this kind of phenomenon. As researchers we are interested to

determine and understand their various experiences, how they cope up with

the challenges they encountered and what are their insights as a student who

struggled in speaking the English language.

Research Questions

1. What are the experiences encountered by the students in speaking the

English language?

2. How do students cope with the challenges they encountered in

speaking the English language?

3. What are the insights of students encountering difficulties in speaking

the English language?

Theoretical Lens
This study is anchored on Language Acquisition Theory of Chomsky

(1960), which states that the ability to learn languages is an innate skill.

Children are born with a language learning tool that he called a language

acquisition device. A language acquisition device a theoretical tool. It is used

to explain how children learn and understand language quickly. Now this is

not a physical part of the brain like hypothalamus, or the medulla oblongata.

The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is a general term used to explain the

many complex processes that brain has for learning languages. Compared to

other species, humans have developed a complex language with structure

and rules.

This study was supported by Oxford (1990) stated that teachers should

motivate learners to practice English in the class and out of the class with

their friends. Some of the students also pointed out the lack of motivation from

the teachers' side and peers. They believe that lack of motivation or

encouragement in the language is a must and teachers should play that role
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in the classroom. Friends make ridicule a person who tries to speak in English

said by the participants. Based on their responses, it was found that neither

teacher nor friend motivate them to speak in English. In this way, the study

found the lack of motivation as a causal factor of speaking difficulty. Teaching

methods are also taken as the important factors in developing learning

efficiency. The way the teacher delivers the contents in the classroom has a

great influence on the learning strategies of learners.

Furthermore, according to Brown (2007) the affective factors can be

one of the major obstacles to speak English fluently, because of the language

ego that informs people that “you are what you speak”, so it makes students

afraid of the judgment of the hearer. Very often, we can recognize whether

someone is educated or uneducated from the way she or he speaks and the

content of the speaking itself. The interaction effect is also very important in

speaking, the hardest part is because the learners must recognize the

multiplicity of sounds, words, phrase, and discourse forms that characterize

any language, at the same time the learner must create interactive

communication. In other words, one learners’ performance is always colored

by interlocutor he or she is talking with. In real life, we will be very glad if we

can speak to an interactive interlocutor rather than the silent one. Because

speaking is two ways communication, where there must be at least a speaker

and a listener, so that it can be a communicative dialogue.

Significance of the Study

This study is significant for the purpose that the students, parents and

teachers, future researchers would benefit from it.

Students. This study would serve as reminder to the students to know

their difficulties in speaking English language, so they can prepare in order to

have a good ability in speaking.

Parents. This study would serve as a guide and awareness in dealing

with their children to teach and monitor on how to enhance their speaking

ability in the English language.

Teachers. This would serve as a motivation to always guide and teach

the students in speaking English and consistently practice it inside the

classroom.

Limitations and Delimitations of the Study

This study was delimited to the students who have difficulties in

speaking English language and how they cope up with the difficulties they

faced, and what are their realizations in their difficulties in speaking English.

The participants of this study were the nineteen (19) students of Bongabong

National High School, which compose of seven (7) students for in-depth

interview, another seven (7) students for focus group discussion and five (5)

students for researcher’s personal observation.

Organization of the Study

Chapter 1- This introduces the study, its purpose and significance. The

researcher questions are posed, and the relevant terms used are operational

and technically defined. The limitations of the study are articulated in this

section.

Chapter 2- This discusses different studies and reference and other

related literature on the demystifying barriers of the students in speaking

English language, we gather data to find concepts on which our study in

anchored.

Chapter 3- We decided on what research methodology to use and fit our

purpose of the study. A research proposal was presented to the panelist for

the approval of the study .After the panelist approve the study we asked

consent through a letter to the administrator of the school particularly the

principal and teachers to conduct the study an interview guide was submitted

to Mrs. Floramie Gato then submitted and examined by the expert affirmation

and was being used as a tool for data gathering from our research participant

were picked randomly and before the interview informed consent was given to

the participant.

Chapter 4- We started our pre analysis which specified on advance on

how we analyzed the gathering data followed by data analysis in which is

used to cover and understand the struggle of the students in speaking English

language using the data to describe their experience insights and coping

mechanism of the students it also conclude by validating the accuracy of the

gathered information through member checking generally we presented the

result of our analysis of the collected data in the formed categorization and we

use the corresponding core idea and codes to describe.

Chapter 5- Discussed the essential themes that emerged from the

ideas of the research participants. It provides literature coming from the

authors cited and acknowledged. We also include here the implications as a

student implication as a student implication for further researchers, and finally

the concluding remarks.