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*corresponding author
Abstract
This study aims to find out the students' English speaking difficulties at SMA Negeri 10 Gowa
and then to know the teachers’ strategies used. The researcher uses a case study method
through a qualitative approach. To achieve the research objectives, data were collected
through questionnaires and interviews. The participants who were included in this study were
twelve students from classes X and XI of SMA Negeri 10 Gowa who had met the applied
criteria (purposive sampling) and three English teachers. The results of this study indicate
that students have speaking problems which are divided into two types, namely psychological
problem and language problem. So, the role of the teacher as a facilitator in implementing
strategies to overcome student English speaking difficulties is very important based on needs.
Various strategies used by teachers to improve students' English speaking skills, such as
traditional method, mini dictionary, and role play.
INTRODUCTION
Spoken language production is still one of the most difficult aspects of language
learning (Brown, Gilllian, & Yule, 1983). In reality, until now there are still many students
who have difficulty expressing their though and what they feel when trying to speak English.
In English, the most common ways to identified four main skills of listening, speaking,
reading and writing, (Harmer, 1990).
Speaking skills are considered one of the most difficult aspects from language learner
this happens because many students find it difficult to express them verbally meanwhile if the
speaker cannot speak well then the messages to be conveyed cannot be understood or may
even make the listener misinterpret the actual meaning conveyed so the communication is not
achieved as expected.
Learning to speak English fluently and accurately is a huge task for students’ studying
English as a foreign language because of the importance of mastering English with various
needs, so that every element considers the development and learning of English, especially
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speaking, it is necessary to keep upgrade by knowing the problem first and then looking for
the right solution.
Speaking English learning needs direct interaction this is the same as the opinion
(Brown, 1983) spoken language is interactional, to establish and maintain social relationships,
it’s supported by (Khan, 2013) modern teaching is characterized by interaction,
communication, and participation. It is believed that an interactive class must incorporate
participation to assure learner-centered teaching and better results. So, it can be concluded that
the interaction between students and teachers affects the success of students' speaking learning
where good interactions and strategies between students and teachers in speaking English
produce good learning outcomes as well.
From that, to achieve the main goal of English language teaching in dealing with
students' difficulties, appropriate strategies are needed to minimize existing problems.
Teachers should prepare well strategies and methods before the learning process, thus teachers
have a good way of teaching English, especially speaking skills to help students minimize
students’ difficulties by applying learning methods that can make students enjoyable in
learning to speak English.
LITERATUR REVIEW
1. The Concept of Speaking
1.1. Definition of Speaking
According to Thornbury, (2005:1) interactive speaking and requires the ability to
cooperate with others in terms of speaking, so when people speak its means they are
exchanging information, ideas, and emotions. Speaking is used for a variety of purposes,
including expression, explanation dissatisfaction, persuading someone, and polite demands
(Richards and Renandya, 2002).
Based on the above definition, it can be concluded that speaking is the ability to interact
with others using language to exchange experiences, ideas, information, suggestions and
feelings in daily life.
1.2. Function of Speaking
Viewing its functions, Brown & Yule (1983), divide the functionality of speaking into
three partial versions, According to Richards, (2008: 21), they are three functions of speaking:
speaking as interaction, speech as a transaction, and speech as performance.
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Richards (2008), revealed that the main focus of transactional talk is on the message and
making oneself understood and the participants and how they interact socially with each other
is not considered. Speakers are talking to give and receive information or obtain goods and
services. For example, asking and giving an opinion, ordering food in a restaurant, checking
into a hotel, etc.
2.3 Speech as performance
According to Richards (2008), another function of speaking, this is talk as performance. It
refers to speaking which is performed in front of people. It can be group presentations,
classroom presentation tasks, and public speakers. This is usually done in monologue form and
is closer to written language than spoken language. So this performance function refers to
talking in public, announcements, speeches, and so on.
1.3 Types of Speaking
Nunan in Brown (2000: 250) said that there are two commonly spoken languages:
monologue and dialogue. According to Brown (2000), a monologue is a speech in which the
speaker uses spoken language for any period, like speech, lecture, reading, newscast, etc., and
the listener must process the information uninterrupted whether the speech listener
understands the meaning of the speakers. On the other side, a dialog is a conversation
involving two or more speakers, and there may be interruptions in the middle of the
conversation if the listener does not understand what the speaker is saying.
1.4 The Components of Speaking
According to Hughes (2003), there are five components of speaking, they are:
pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.
4.1 Pronunciation
Pronunciation is a way for people to express their speech more clearly. According to
Kline (1989), pronunciation is a way of producing words clearly when they are spoken. It
means that even if someone speaks with incorrect grammar and vocabulary because it is said
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with the right pronunciation, the meaning of the message to be conveyed is easier for listeners
to understand. Pronunciation covers all aspects of pronunciation. Fraser (2001) said it can be
concluded that in speaking the right pronunciation with aspects of intonation, articulation,
rhythm, phrasing, gestures, body language and eye contact are very important in conversation
so that the actual meaning conveyed is understood well by the listener.
4.2 Grammar
Grammar is the arrangement of words into correct sentences in both spoken and written
speech. The same thing was said by Nelson & Greenbaum (2018), Grammar refers to the set
of rules that allow words to be combined into larger units of language. This is done with a set
of language rules to produce a complete and meaningful sentence form.
4.3 Vocabulary
According Richards and Schmidt (2002:580): A vocabulary is a set of lexemes containing
single words, compound words, and idioms. Vocabulary is a very important basic asset for
language proficiency. In speaking, knowing a lot of vocabulary will make it easier to express
ideas, feelings, and what they think expressed in written or oral form.
4.4 Fluency
Fluency is defined as the ability to speak fluently and accurately. Fluency is the ability to
express speech freely without interruption. A small example is process learning in class, the
teaching and learning process is when teachers want to check the fluency of their students.
Teachers let students express themselves without interruption to practice their fluency.
4.4 Comprehension
Comprehension is the ability to comprehend and process the meaning of sentences.
Understanding a foreign language is considered very difficult as it must be completed in the
form of direct observed, as well as verbal and non-verbal responses. Thus, language
comprehension refers to understanding what the speaker is saying to the listener so that the
message being conveyed is not misunderstood, whereas comprehension refers to the ability of
the listener to obtain correct information from the speaker more easily.
2. The Concept of English Speaking Difficulties
English peaking is not as easy as it seems. In mastery of speaking skills as previously stated
that speaking skills have a fairly important meaning among other language skills but behind
the importance of mastering English, it turns out that learning to speak is not an easy thing to
master because students face many problems in the process of mastering it. According to Ur
(1996:121) four parts covering psychological and language problem, there are several students
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problem in speaking that teachers may face when getting to talk in the classroom. These are
inhibition, lack of topical knowledge, low or uneven participation, and mother-tongue use.
First, inhibition the students are often worried about making mistakes, afraid of being
criticized or laughed at by others so they are embarrassed and end up not speaking at all.
Second, lack of topical knowledge where students often complain that they cannot think of
anything to say and they don't have no any ideas or knowledge to express, this can happen in
the classroom because the teacher has chosen an inappropriate topic and students' knowledge
of the topic discussed is less or not familiar at all so when the teacher asks it is very difficult
for students to answer.
Third, low or uneven participation, this problem occurs to students usually because some
students in the class tend to dominate while others do not speak at all or even very little. The
last, mother-tongue use, a problem that occurs in the classroom is the use of the mother tongue,
this happen when teachers are asked to discuss a topic that has been chosen in class but students
are unable explaining it well in English because of the habit of using their mother tongue so
students choose to use their mother tongue to speak and explain the topic in their native
language because it is easier for them.
Furthermore, the students’ problem in students speaking is anxiety. Brown, (2000: 151) also
found that anxiety is related to emotion of uneasiness, such us frustration, self-doubt,
apprehension, or worry. The others Hinkel (2005) argues, communication problems occur
because learners find words they don’t understand, from words they find don’t know how to
use or find that they cannot express the intended meaning.
From several theoretical reviews and previous research findings, it can be said that the
majority of students' difficulties in speaking English are caused two-aspect they are
psychological aspect and the language aspect. The previous study discusses students’ speaking
difficulties related to psychological problem in the classroom; such as worried about making
mistakes, lack self-confidence, anxiety, lack of motivation, negative psychological reactions,
shyness, and lack of pronunciation. Furthermore, the second aspect of students’ difficulties in
speaking English is language aspect; they lack vocabulary, mother tongue used, and nothing to
say. This then becomes a big task for the teacher to find out what strategies are appropriate to
be applied so that students' speaking problems can be overcome at least the problem is
minimized so at the end that learning objectives can be achieved.
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ensure students of each group contributed to the discussion. Another way is participation in
discussions keeping students speaking the target language is important so the best way to keep
students in English speaking is: to try to be a model for them by using English as the target
language, always reminding them to use the target language and the most important is to
monitor the activities of students in class.
The others study Ur (1996: 120), Students should aim to speak more than teachers do,
and if possible the students speak about for 80% STT (student talking time) to 20% TTT
(teacher talking time). Some characteristics of successful speaking are; learners speak a lot and
teachers as facilitator. Much of the time allocated to the activity is occupied by the learner's
conversation so must have high motivation and students like to talk. So, they are interested in
a topic and need to express something new about it, because they want to join achieve the task
goal.
METHODS
1. Research Design
The research design of this research is case study research. Yin (2002) stated, case study
research is a general knowledge process by knowing and examining phenomena that occur in
real life, this case study can be used when there are phenomena that have vague or blurred
boundaries. The type of case study used in this study is an intrinsic case study, which is a type
of case study that focuses on objects of interest that describe the case itself. This case study
design is used to describe an intervention or phenomenon and the real-world context in which
it occurred. So, this study focused on the point of interest where something is a specific topic
or unit that is the subject of research attention in this study.
2. The Subject and Sampling of the Research
The subjects of this study are three English teachers and the students of class X and XI by
using purposive sampling. This study used purposive sampling technique to collect the data. In
purposive sampling researcher determine the sampling based on certain specific characteristics
that are suitable for the research purposes so to answer research question, researcher select
students that is expected to answer the research problem in which the researcher chose students
in each category based on achievement were each two students with high, medium, and low
ability in English speaking from the Tenth and Eleventh grade.
3. Data and Data Sources
The data used in this study are primary data. Primary data is data obtained directly from
the source. In this research, primary data was obtained from questionnaire and interviews.
The researcher used a questionnaire to gather data the data collection, while this questionnaire
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is self-made. The purpose of this questionnaire is to set a quick result to gain the students’
difficulties when they speak English while to gain the strategies from the teachers the
researcher using the in-debt interview.
4. The Procedure of Data Collection
The procedure for collecting the data, related of the object of the studied using
predetermined techniques. First, the researcher used a questionnaire for the students to
investigate their problems with English speaking after that the researcher used an interview
with the English teachers by asking several questions related to the research question to know
the teachers' strategies used. Furthermore, at the last stage, researcher collected a variety of
supporting documents related to conducting teaching and learning processes to support data
collection.
5. Data Analysis
Data analysis techniques were performed using the data analysis technique proposed by
Miles, Huberman, and Saldana, (2018) which included data condensation, data display,
conclusion, drawing and verification.
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(S.2) “yang membuat saya kesulitan berbicara bahasa inggris adalah kekhawatiran
membuat kesalahan, saya khawatir akan kritikan dan ditertawakan orang lain saat membuat
kesalahan dalam berbahasa inggris,” what makes it difficult for me in speaks English is the
worried of making mistakes, I worry about being criticized and laughed at by others when
I make mistakes in English”
(S.10) “tidak adanya motivasi yang di dapatkan dari lingkungan sehingga membuat saya
jadi malas untuk mempelajari bahasa inggris, the lack of motivation that comes from the
environment makes me lazy to learn English”
(S.12) “Ya saya mengalami kesulitan berbicara bahasa Inggris karna tidak percaya diri
dengan pengetahuan kosa kata saya yang terbatas. Saya juga cemas ketika salah
pengucapan bahasa Inggris, Yes, I have difficulty speaking English because I am not
confident with my limited vocabulary knowledge. I also get anxious when I mispronoun ce
English”
The second, language problem, the students answered lack of vocabulary, this is mostly
students’ problem, and this is because students admit that their main problem in speaking
English is that they don't know the vocabularies and others language problem is lack of
pronunciation, the students admitted that pronunciation is one of the main problems in their
English speaking. They admit that actually fear, shyness, and anxiety arise because their
English pronunciation is still lacking and much stammered. The students answered can be seen
below:
(S.1)“saya merasa bahwa pengucapan saya di dalam berbahasa inggris belum cukup baik
dan saya juga belum terlalu banyak mengetahui kosa kata bahasa inggris, I feel that my
pronunciation in English is not good enough and also I don't know much English
vocabulary”
(S.10) “masalah saya dalam berbahasa Inggris tentang bagaimana saya berbicara tetapi
saya masih belibet atau terbata-bata, my problem in speaking English is I still stutter or
stammer”
So, based on the result of the students' difficulties above the teacher's strategy is needed to
minimize existing problems. According to Hamruni (2009) “the teaching strategy is defined as
a plan, method, or set of activities designed to achieve specific educational goal.”
The researcher found that each English teacher has different strategies used in English-
speaking classes to achieve learning objectives. The strategies often used by the English teacher
are traditional method, mini dictionary, and role play.
The first, in teaching English speaking using the traditional method with the procedure
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is the first step of giving the text while the students are reading the entire text then looking for
at least 10 words that are difficult or whose meaning is not known of the students, written and
interpreted with the help of a dictionary in addition also searching through ask and discuss
with the others student, so the students are also directed to interact with other friends to discuss
the difficult word together, and last memorized.
The second is mini dictionary, The steps of this strategy are; first the teachers direct
students to make a mini dictionary before the learning process begins, after that the teacher
starts learning by displaying a text then directs students to look for words that students do not
know, then write them down in their mini dictionary made by students before, then look for the
meaning of the word and finally memorize it, so that students understand the contents of the
whole story in the text.
The third is role play, with the steps directing students to pair up about 2 people, then
asking students to make a dialogue or monologue then inviting students to play the dialogue or
monologue in front of the class.
In addition the other parts of strategies used by the teacher in the classroom, it provides
motivation before the class starts, and continues to be a model in speaking English so that
students do not feel pressured and experience psychological problems so that the previously
planned learning can run well on qualifications as well achieved by students.
T.1 “When I want to teaching in the class, especially for the skill of speaking just
memberitahukan kepada students to active in speaking it’s means of don’t worry in speaking
even the students’ make false in speaking but so I motivated them to don’t be worry or don’t
be afraid to make a mistakes or nervous because the mistakes atau berbuat salah itu adalah
human being apatah lagi in learning English, dan yang kedua adalah try to give models
dalam berbicara how to pronounces the words.”
Based on questionnaire and interview, we can concluded that the students are having
difficulties in English speaking they are two aspects namely, psychology and language
problem, including worried of making mistakes, lack self-confidence, anxiety, lack of
motivation, shyness of criticism and laughing by others, lack of vocabulary, nothing to say,
lack of pronunciation, lack of topical knowledge, and the teachers strategies are using
traditional method, mini dictionary and role play, and addition the parts of teachers strategies
are giving motivation for students so that students do not feel pressured and psychological
problems so that the previously planned learning can run well.
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2. Discussions
According to Ur (1996), students’ difficulties with English have two aspect;
psychological aspect and language aspect. Based on the results of the research findings the
researcher found that the students face difficulties they are worried of making mistakes, lack
self-confidence, anxiety, lack of motivation, shyness of criticism and laughing by others, these
is the students problem in their psychologies aspect, furthermore; lack of vocabulary, nothing
to say, lack of pronunciation, and lack of topical knowledge are the students language problem.
First, students are often worried about making mistakes, afraid of being criticized or
laughed at by others so they are embarrassed and end up not speaking at all its supported
Brown, (2000: 151) states that anxiety is related to emotion such as of uneasiness, frustration,
self-doubt, apprehension, and concern. When the speaking class does not go well because of
fear, worry, nervousness, and hesitation, the activities designed by the teacher in the classroom
do not go as planned by the teacher.
Second, lack of topical knowledge where Learners often complain that they have no
idea what to say and do not have the knowledge to express themselves., this can happen in the
classroom because the and students' knowledge of the topic are less and exacerbated by
students have limited vocabulary mastery. The result also supported Hinkel (2005),
communication problems occur because learners find words they don’t understand the
meaning, from words that don’t know to use or find that they cannot express the intended
meaning. The other language problem is lack of pronunciation; the students admitted that
pronunciation is one of the main problems in their English speaking. Meanwhile, according to
Kline (1989), pronunciation is a way of producing words clearly when they are spoken. This
becomes a problem because students feel afraid, anxious, and embarrassed when they are
wrong and don't know how to pronounce it correctly.
Good cooperation between students and teachers is needed, student participation and
the way from the teacher transfers knowledge or in other words the teacher’s teaching is also
very important, so that when students don’t have the courage to speak English, it can be ensured
that the speaking class cannot run as well. So, that why the teacher chooses the student center
learner as an option where the teacher involves students in the class as can be seen from the
teacher's answer as follows;
(T.1) “Jadi pendekatan yang saya pakai adalah 80% students centre learning dimana siswa
lah yang menjadi focus atau menjadi pusat perhatian yang artinya siswa terlibat secara
langsung but sometimes sekitar 20% itu teacher’s centric approach.”
(T.3): “Karena speaking adalah skill yang harus diterapkan oleh peserta didik itu sendiri.”
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This then supports the study of (Ur: 1996), the characteristic of successful speaking is
learner speak a lot. Much of the time allotted for activities is spent talking to learners. Students
should be speak more than teacher do, and if possible aim for 80-% STT (student talking time)
to 20% TTT (teacher talking time). So, the class aren’t dominated by the teachers but also
participated by the students.
Therefore, teachers' strategies to overcome the students' difficulties and increase
students’ participation are needed in English-speaking learning. The first way of teachers’
teaching English speaking are: first preparing the material based on the lesson plan and
syllabus, after that in the class started learning by giving positive affirmations in the form of
motivation so that students are no longer afraid to make mistakes and are more confident and
start trying to train themselves in speaking, next the teachers also had different ways as their
strategies in teaching speaking, they are: traditional method while being a good model that can
be imitated by students to speak, making a mini dictionary while in explained using the simple
direction in simple words, and the last role play by using dialog or monolog where students can
perform or play it in front of the class.
The aforementioned strategies are thus the set of plans, methods and activities used in
the teaching and learning process to control the means by which learning qualifications are
achieved.
CONCLUSIONS
Based on the result above the, the researcher concludes that students' difficulties are
influenced by two aspects, namely psychological aspects, and language aspects. The students
difficulties to speak English for several reasons, namely because students are worried about
making mistakes and feel anxious due to lack of vocabulary, lack of pronunciation, and lack of
topic knowledge, sometimes students want to try to speak but are hindered by lack of
vocabulary and messy pronunciation on the other hand because the topics discussed cannot be
understood so that students continue to feel insecure and afraid in trying speaks English in a
class to appear in the front their class by speaking English and the last students didn't have
motivation to improve it.
Therefore, teachers' strategies to overcome the students' difficulties are needed in
English-speaking learning. Teachers should be well prepared their self and their strategies for
dealing the students difficulties so the qualifications can be achieved. Where the teachers
teaching speaking strategies are traditional method while being a good model that can be
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imitated by students to speak, making a mini dictionary while in explained using the simple
direction in simple words, and the last role play by using dialog or monolog where students can
perform or play it in front of the class.
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