Abstract
Speaking is the most difficult as well as the most complex of all the four skills, as it requires expertise in, and exposure to, the target language. Different factors are found responsible for poor speaking skills among EFL learners in general and Saudi EFL learners in particular. The current study investigates the influence of various factors related to teachers, learners, and learning environment on the students’ attitude towards learning speaking skills. The questionnaire survey was employed to elicit responses from 184 undergraduate EFL male and female students in Taif University. Data analyzed through SPSS reveals that out of five variables only one was insignificant, whereas all other variables showed significant positive effect. In the light of the findings, it could be inferred that lack of measures on the part of teachers and learners as well as the classroom setting/environment do not fully facilitate both the male and female students to learn speaking skills in a better way. The poor level of their skills in English is attributed to the variety of teachers’, learners’, and environment related factors. And these factors affect negatively on the attitude of learners towards learning speaking skills.
Highlights
Communication in L2 teaching and learning is becoming the focal point as both a process as well as the main objective of L2 learning (Yashima, 2002). MacIntyre et al (1998) supports this idea by remarking that the ultimate objective of L2 learning should be to prepare the language students to be able to utilize the language for the purposes of communication as per demand of leaners who consider the ability to speak English as a main objective in L2 setting. Richards & Renandya (2002) maintain that a large numberof the language learners in the whole world come to study with the intention of developing proficiency in speaking English
In the light of the findings, it could be inferred that lack of measures on the part of teachers and learners as well as the classroom setting/environment do not fully facilitate both the male and female students to learn speaking skills in a better way
The low competence in all skills of English language as a foreign language in general and speaking English in particular could be attributed to several factors in the EFL context of Saudi Arabia
Summary
Communication in L2 teaching and learning is becoming the focal point as both a process as well as the main objective of L2 learning (Yashima, 2002). MacIntyre et al (1998) supports this idea by remarking that the ultimate objective of L2 learning should be to prepare the language students to be able to utilize the language for the purposes of communication as per demand of leaners who consider the ability to speak English as a main objective in L2 setting. Richards & Renandya (2002) maintain that a large numberof the language learners in the whole world come to study with the intention of developing proficiency in speaking English. MacIntyre et al (1998) supports this idea by remarking that the ultimate objective of L2 learning should be to prepare the language students to be able to utilize the language for the purposes of communication as per demand of leaners who consider the ability to speak English as a main objective in L2 setting. Leaners face a great deal of difficulty in developing this ability In this regard, Celce-Murcia & Olshtain (2000) mention that speaking is the most difficult as well as the most complex of all four skills as it requires expertise in grammatical patterns, vocabulary retrieval and sociocultural competence. The language anxiety does affect learners, it affects the teaching skills of non-native teachers of English who get very anxious about speaking, they skip conversational activities and don’t adopt communicative teaching methods (Li, 1998; Littlewood, 2007). There is growing interest in the debate about which method is better/best to teach speaking skills
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