LYCEUM-NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Tapuac District, Dagupan City

Institute of Graduate and Professional Studies
Master in Education – Main Campus

LUKITASARI (2008) “FOCUSING ON THE STUDENTS’ STRATEGIES IN

OVERCOMING SPEAKING PROBLEMS IN SPEAKING CLASS”

English is taught as an integrated subject to develop the students’ language competences.

It is learnt by the students in order to be utilized in communication. The ability to communicate,
including the ability to speak English is important because it enables the students to interact with
others. To increase the speaking ability, the students should practice it regularly.

This study focused on students’ strategies in overcoming speaking problems at speaking

class at first semester students at English department, at university of Muhammadiyah Malang.
Consequently, the purpose of this study was to know what problems of learning speaking are and
to know what the strategies to cope such problems are. There were nine classes of speaking and
the researcher took two classes as the sample of this study.

The result of this study showed that the students had problems with their speaking ability,
particularly, inhibition, nothing to say, low or uneven participation, and mother tongue used. It
was because they did not master the three primary elements of speaking namely, vocabulary,
grammar and pronunciation. As a result, many students’ speaking ability was not really good.

According to Lukitasari (2003) study, EFL students face some speaking problems
including psychological problems, (anxiety, fear, shyness, inhibition, and lack of motivation). His
study and Sarudin, Zubairi and Ali’s study (2009) also reveal that students’ speaking performance
is not good because of linguistic problems (lack of vocabulary, mispronunciation and grammatical
mistakes.)

Furthermore, the result of this study also revealed the strategies used by students to cope
with the problems:

1. The problem of inhibition was solved by increasing their English by speaking English out
of class with their friends. When the students had nothing to say, they were drilled to be
more active and confident in speaking in class and tried to understand about the difficult
topic.

2. The problem of low or uneven participation was solved by preparing the material at home.

3. The problem of mother tongue used was solved by practicing their English not only on
English day but they usually spoke English with their friends every day.

4. To cope with the problem related to speech act, they joined some English clubs in campus
and also practiced it every day by speaking with their friends. They also often listened to
native speaker conversation.

5. To cope the problem related to pronunciation, they tried to pronounce a new word every
day and often asked and answered questions in class.

6. To cope the problem related to grammar, they studied hard about tenses in order to make
their speaking better.
 7. To cope the problem related to vocabulary, they memorized the vocabulary and often used
dictionaries if they found a new difficult word.

8. In order to cope the problem related to oral communication, they often listened to western
song and also watched western movies in English as language. They also tried to speak
with native speaker.

Reflection:

Nunan (1991) wrote, "success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation
in the (target) language." Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or do not get any
opportunity to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest
in learning. On the other hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class
can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom
a fun and dynamic place to be.

These are just some of the problems that teachers with large classes face when teaching
speaking activities in the classroom. These problems are not new nor are the solutions offered
above. Teachers all over the world continue to face the same hurdles, but any teacher who has
overcome these difficulties and now has a large class of energetic students talking and working in
English in groups together will tell you it is worth all the trial and error and effort at the outset.

Submitted by:

Francis Edward L. Camba

Vincent R. Capanang

Desiree H. Espinoza

MED-English

Submitted to:

Maria Martha Manette A. Madrid, Ed.D.