HARAMAYA UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

(POST GRADUATE PROGRAMME)

A STUDY ON GRADE NINE STUDENTS’ ORAL PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING

ENGLISH LESSON AT BOSET SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BOSET WOREDA AT
WOLLENCHITY TOWN

BY

HAILU DEJENE

ADVISOR: JELAN WOLYIE (Prof.)

APRIL, 2020

HARAMAYA, ETHIOPIA

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 HARAMAYA UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF SOCAIL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES

DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH

(POST GRAGUATE PROGRAMME)

A STUDY ON GRADE NINE STUDENTS’ ORAL PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING

ENGLISH LESSON AT BOSET SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BOSET WOREDA AT
WOLENCHITI TOWN

BY

HAILU DEJENE

A THESIS PROPOSAL SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH

IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS (MA) IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
(TEFL)

APRIL, 2020

HARAMAYA, ETHIOPIA

Table of Content
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 s

Chapter One.....................................................................................................................................1

Introduction......................................................................................................................................1

1.1. Background of the Study.......................................................................................................1

1.2. Statement of the Problem......................................................................................................2

1.3. Objectives of the Study.........................................................................................................4

1.3.1 General Objective............................................................................................................4
1.3.2 Specific Objectives..........................................................................................................4

1.4. Research Questions...............................................................................................................4

1.5. Significance of the Study......................................................................................................4

1.6. Scope of the Study................................................................................................................5

1.7. Definition of Key Terms.......................................................................................................5

Chapter Two 6

Review of Related Literature 6

2. Introduction..................................................................................................................................6

2.1. Definition of Speaking..........................................................................................................6

2.2. The Importance of Speaking Skills.......................................................................................6

2.3. Nature of Speaking................................................................................................................7

2.4. Basic Concepts of Speaking..................................................................................................8

2.5. Purpose of Speaking..............................................................................................................8

2.6. Definition of Oral Participation............................................................................................9

2.7. Theories of Oral Participation.............................................................................................11

2.7.1. Need Hierarchy Theory................................................................................................11

2.7.2. Life Transition Theory.....................................................................................................11

2.7.3. Social Participation Theory..........................................................................................12

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 2.8. Factors Affecting the Students’ Oral Participation in Speaking Lesson.............................12
2.8.1. Teachers-Related Factors.............................................................................................12
2.8. 1.1. Teachers’ Speaking Tasks Designs-Related Factors................................................12
2.8.2. Student-Related Factors...............................................................................................18

2.9. Learning-Environment Related Factors............................................................................21

2.9.1. Positive Learning-Environment...................................................................................22
2.9.2. Negative Learning-Environment..................................................................................22
2.9.3. The Role of Classroom Setting to Enhance Students’ Oral Participation....................23
2.9.4. The Role of English outside Classroom or School.......................................................25

2.10. Oral Activity-Related Factors...........................................................................................26

2.10.1. Oral Activities and Communicative Language Teaching..........................................26

Chapter Three................................................................................................................................31

Research Methodology..................................................................................................................31

3.1. Methodology of the Study...................................................................................................31

3.2. Research Design..................................................................................................................31

3.3. Participants of the Study.....................................................................................................31

3.4. Sampling Techniques and Sample Size..............................................................................32

3.5. Sources of Data...................................................................................................................32

3.6. Methods of Data Collection................................................................................................32

3.6.1. Questionnaire................................................................................................................33
3.6.2. Interview.......................................................................................................................33
3.6.3. Classroom Observation................................................................................................34

3.7. Piloting Questionnaire of the Study....................................................................................34

3.8. Procedure of Data Gathering...............................................................................................34

3.9. Methods of Data Analysis...................................................................................................35

3.10. Reliability and Validity of the Study................................................................................35

3.11. Ethical Consideration........................................................................................................35

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4. Budget Break Down...................................................................................................................37

4.1. Time Schedule of the Study................................................................................................39

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 Chapter One

Introduction

This chapter explains the background of the study, statements of the problem, objectives of the study,
research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study and definition of key terms of the study.

1.1. Background of the Study

Oral participation is one of the important skills in language teaching and learning. As a result, being able
to participate in English language classroom is very essential for a learner to be successful in academic
activities. Cunning Worth (2004) states:

The ability to participate effectively through spoken English enables a learner to be 'proficient'
in various language skills. For example, when we see students' academic performance, it is
highly dependent on their ability to ask questions, to discuss and to understand concepts from
their teachers and peers during teaching-learning process in the classroom (p.43).

Besides this, there is also strong evidence on the importance of oral participation in classroom activities
(Lyons, 1998). Oral participation is also a way to bring students actively into educational process, and to
assist in enhancing our teaching and having self- reported gains in character when they are prepared for
class, and participate in discussion; the more they participate, the less memorization they do, and the
more they engage in higher levels of thinking, including interpretation, analysis and synthesis (Smith,
2007). Students who participate also show improvement in their communication skills (Berdine, 2010;
Dancer and kawvounias, 2005). In addition, Fassinger (2001) notes that both students and teachers can
see the benefits of students’ oral participation, and it is found that students think oral participation is
‘essential’ to their own learning, and students have been found to earn higher grades as their participation
increases.

However, students’ oral participation can be affected by several factors that enervate their learning
activities in speaking lesson, and it is vital that these factors will get emphasis because they affected the
activities in the classroom and eventually impacted the quality of education as a whole.

Accordingly, in Ethiopian context, the practice of participating in English language starts from Nursery
schools, and then becomes the medium of instruction from elementary school onwards, but the level of

1
students' oral participation in English language has not been found to be sufficient enough to help them to
study. Aberash (2005) indentifies that the English language proficiency level of students in Ethiopia was
low that it did not seem to allow them to participate in their studies during their preparatory school and
university years.

In attempt to improve students’ oral participation or communication in the classroom, the Ethiopian
government has introduced some reforms to advance the teachers with different methodologies that
initiate their students to share their ideas since 1994 (MOE).

These reforms gave attention to communicative language teaching which gives more opportunities for
students to participate well in their classroom activities; however, there are teachers who use the
traditional approach that focused on an explicit grammar instruction with the abundant use of local
language that affect the students’ oral participation in their classroom activities.

Thus, understanding the factors that hinder students’ oral participation in speaking lesson will help
teacher trainers how to use appropriate teaching methods that help teachers to present their classroom
lesson in an engaging way.

Therefore, this study is going to discover several factors that affect students’ oral participation in English
speaking lesson in grade nine of Boset Secondary school at Welenchity Town.

1.2. Statement of the Problem

Oral participation in English language plays a great importance in education and business activities.
Regarding the importance of oral participation, Baker and Westrup (2003) state that more and more
educators, governments, ministry education and employers, need people who can speak English well.
Even companies and organizations probably need students who can speak English in order to
communicate within the international market places. Particularly, English language speaking skills
encourages both teachers and students in their teaching-learning activities. For instance, it likely helps
them to communicate effectively, to understand easily, and to participate actively in their teaching-
learning process.

But, what the researcher observed at Boset Secondary school of grade nine during his teaching
experience is an inverse to the above importance of English language skills. In his teaching experience,
the researcher observed insufficient participation of students in English language in the classroom. This

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means, the students did not participate actively in speaking English. Some of the students kept silent all
the time and sat passively. Similarly, they did not speak English in classroom; even sometimes, while
they tried to answer a simple question, they did not speak in English. Furthermore, when students are
asked to discuss some issues in pairs or groups, they shift the medium of instruction from English to their
mother tongue language. To sum up, the researcher observed that, in English classroom students failed to
ask and answer questions, participate in group discussions and classroom presentation.

On the other hand, most grade nine students of Boset Secondary school seemed not to have to take part in
oral activities that teachers present to them. That may be due to several factors which this study is going
to discover.

In line with this problem, few local researches were conducted, for instance, Yenenesh (2005) and
Sintayehu (2007) conducted research on ‘Factors affecting academic participation of female students’ and
‘teaching-learning speaking skill in group work’ respectively. Yenenesh strongly revealed psychological,
socio-cultural and personal factors were the results for her study. Despite Yenenesh (2005), Sintayehu
(2007) investigated situational factors; language anxiety and low self-esteem were the main factors. On
the other hand, Kedir Abda (2009) assessed the factors that affect teaching speaking skills of second year
students of Robe Teachers’ College, and his research results shortage of vocabulary, poor background
experience, and lack of motivation and fear of making mistakes were the main factors for the problem.
On the other hand, Efa Tadesse (2009) made the study on classroom participation of first year students of
Samara University, and he revealed seating situations, lack of active learning methods, lack of incentive
methods and language barriers were the major factors. Besides this, Gatachew (2008) conducted research
on some major factors that can affect EFL learners’ verbal participation in group activities of plasma TV,
and his study reveals that the time given for group work activities, the size of a group, composition of
students within the group, and seating arrangements were the major factors that affect the students’
participation in group work activities particularly in English classes. Tella (2007) conducted research on
‘a comparative analysis of the product and process of writing on students’ communicative proficiency’,
and he argued that students’ language level is different; their attitude towards learning English is also not
similar; some of the students work hard, but some of them are just the opposite; they always feel shy and
keep silent during the classroom activities.

However, to the researcher’s knowledge, none of these studies has disclosed factors affecting students’
oral participation in secondary schools. And the above researches were also different from the current

3
research in setting, methodologies and contexts. Therefore, the researcher believes that this area needs
attention and will be researched. So, the current study is likely hoped to fill the existing gap in this
particular area of the research in the country. Hence, this heavily initiates the researcher to investigate
and fill the gap by assessing factors affecting the students’ oral participation in speaking lesson at grade
nine of Boset Secondary school at Wolenchity Town.

1.3. Objectives of the Study

1.3.1 General Objective

The main objective of this study is to assess factors that affect students’ oral participation in English
speaking lesson of grade nine at Boset Secondary school.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives

The specific objectives of this study are to:

1. identify the teachers-related factors that affect students’ oral participation in English lesson.
2. find out the students-related factors that affects their oral participation in English lesson.
3. investigate the learning-environment factors that affect students’ oral participation in English
lesson.
4. identify factors related to oral activities that affect students’ oral participation in English lesson.

1.4. Research Questions

The study is able to answer the following research questions:

1. What are teachers-related factors that affect students’ oral participation in English speaking lesson?
2. What are students-related factors that hinder their oral participation in English speaking lesson?
3. What are learning- environmental factors that affect students’ oral participation in English lesson?
4. What are oral activity-related factors that enervate the improvement of students’ oral participation in
English speaking lesson?

1.5. Significance of the Study

The results of this study is tended to provide different people with vital information about the factors that
affected students’ oral participation in English speaking lesson, and it probably helps teachers how to
handle the problems with their classroom activities, and it may also be important for policy makers,
curriculum designers, and supervisors in order to have some kind of adjustments. It likely also provides
4
more suitable methods of teaching for the students and teachers to teach different speaking lessons in the
classroom. Moreover, interested researchers may use the result of this research as starting point for
further studies. Even the study may contribute something relatively new to the already established
research interest, in terms of variation in the research context. Lastly, different stakeholders could get
appropriate information to increase students’ oral participation in speaking lesson and give more training
for English language teachers to develop their professional skills.

1.6. Scope of the Study

This study is confined to assessing factors that affect students’ oral participation in speaking lessons in
English classroom, with particular reference to grade nine students of Boset Secondary School in East
Shoa Zone of Oromia Region. The study will be focused on assessing factors that affected oral students’
participation such as asking and answering questions, participating in individual, pair and group
discussion and oral presentation in speaking English lesson.

1.7. Definition of Key Terms

Participation is a way to bring students actively into educational process, and to assist in enhancing our
teaching and bringing life to the classroom, (Cohen 1991: P 699)

Oral participation refers to a two way communication process between the speaker and listener and
involves the productive skills of speaking and the receptive of understanding. It is considered to be
helpful in improving learning (Staab, 1992).

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 Chapter Two

Review of Related Literature

2. Introduction

This chapter provides a theoretical background of speaking including definition of speaking, the
importance of speaking, nature of speaking, basic concepts of speaking, purpose of speaking, and it also
explained definition of oral participation, theories of oral participation, factors affecting students’ oral
participation in speaking lesson, speaking activities and communicative language teaching and
environmental-related factors.

2.1. Definition of Speaking

In this section issues relate to definition of speaking are presented. Similarly, speaking is a skill which
language teachers, quite rightly, believe is particularly important. Through speaking, individuals can
express needs, opinions and feelings, understand and ask questions. According to Mc Donough and Shaw
(1993), speaking is a skill which enables people to produce utterances when communicating to achieve a
particular end. This may involve expressing ideas, wishes or opinions, negotiating or solving problems,
or establishing or maintaining social relationships. Speaking is “the process of building and sharing
meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts” (Chaney, 1999:13).

Thus, speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving,
and processing information. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs
including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment and
importance of speaking. In the next section, the importance of speaking skill is mentioned as follow.

2.2. The Importance of Speaking Skills

In this section some important issues, which can support oral participation in speaking English lesson are
presented. According to Joanna and Heather (2006) many teachers worldwide have to teach mainly
grammar and vocabulary; because these areas are tested in examinations. This means that speaking is
a neglected language skill in many English classrooms. Students may have a good knowledge of
grammar and a wide vocabulary because they can use the knowledge to pass examination, but
they face challenges to speak English outside the classroom.

6
According to Baker and Westrup (2006) speaking English helps students to convey their information or
to get message in any fields of study. He further states that good English speakers will be in a good
position to contribute for the improvement of their community’s socio politics and socio-economic
issues. This means, by practicing speaking English, students gain valuable skills which can help
students in their day to day communication through the use of new vocabulary, grammar or
functional language like: greeting, introductions (self-introduction and introducing others).

Therefore, in order to minimize this problems English language teachers need to develop
learners’ self-confidence by involving the students in role play, so that students would able to
share their role and try to be responsible for their own role in any simulation.

This means, self-confidence has a very important place in building one’s speaking skills when teachers
teach speaking English language, even though, students lose their confidence when they are attending
English as second/foreign language, unlike they do in their mother tongue language (Baker and
Westrup,2006).

2.3. Nature of Speaking

Under this topic, the nature of speaking which has been discussed by many researchers is explained. For
instance, (Byrne and Bygate, 1999) clarify, “speaking is a two-way process between speakers and listener
involving the productive skills of understanding, which gives a diagram to show what happens in a
speech situation.’’ Another author, Ur (1996) shows that in order to be able to speak a foreign language,
learners not only need to understand some grammar, vocabulary but also know how to use knowledge as
well as language on deciding what to say and how to say.

One more thing concerning the ability to speak is that of fluency and accuracy. These can be took place
in a successful speaking activity. There are four characteristics for a successful speaking activity. First,
students talk a lot. Secondly, participation is even. Thirdly, motivation is high. Finally, language is of an
acceptable level (Ur, 1996).

Not only knowing the nature of speaking but also understanding its concept is used to improve students’
oral participation. Similarly, the basic concept of speaking is as follow.

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2.4. Basic Concepts of Speaking
It is necessary to know the difference between knowledge and skill when using a foreign language since
it is essential in teaching speaking. To explain this distinction, Park and Lee (2005) provide an example
to clarify the meaning of these concepts. They said, “What knowledge does a car driver need? Clearly he
or she needs to know the names of the controls, where they are, what they do and how they are operated.
However, the driver also needs the skill to be able to use the controls to guide the car along a road
without hitting the various objects that tend to get on the way.” It is exactly the same situation that
students experiment when they put into practice a foreign language, specifically when they speak, as a
result, it is not enough to know and accumulate sentences in the abstract.
On the contrary, what learners should do is to produce and contextualize sentences according to the
different situations that they have to face in the real circumstances.
Likewise, knowledge and skill should work together, because it is impossible to speak without previous
comprehension of the grammatical structure, the meaning of words, and the correct pronunciation of the
language (Baker and Westrup, 2006).

Though, memorizing should not be the unique aspect that students should work in the learning process of
the target language, as Shumin (2002) argues speaking is an interactive process, in which students
construct meanings that involves them to produce, to receive and to process information, and its form and
meaning depend on the context in which it occurs. In addition, it is necessary that learners not only know
how the language is structured (grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary) that are linguistic competences,
but also they could understand when, why and in which way the language is produced, bearing in mind
that this aspect is related to the sociolinguistic competence.

Based on English language curriculum, the students are intended to have the English ability in listening,
speaking, reading, and writing. Meanwhile Wade (1994) defines that speaking is the physical
embodiment of abstract system which involves the manifestations either of the phonologically system or
of the grammatical system of the language or both. According to Wade (1994), speaking ability is
complicated because it covers various language components like grammar, vocabulary and
pronunciation. It refers not only to the grammatical system of the language but also lexical system.

2.5. Purpose of Speaking

Under this topic the importance of developing speaking in English lesson, as pointed out by Little
Wood(2007),sometimes, teaching speaking is undervalued as a result of traditional education´s aftermath
8
in which students only memorized grammatical structures without giving importance to the development
of oral communication.

However, according to Leo John sited in Little Wood (2007), the aim of speaking is to encourage
students, to exchange ideas and opinion to each other. It means that speaking can change and transfer
ideas and opinion from one person to another. From the statement above, the writer knows that mastering
English speaking skill is very important. It can also be said that speaking is used to persuade other people
to mean the speakers must have a good language skill in order to convey the inattentive message
correctly and clearly. To be a skillful speaker, someone needs to improve a well-modulated voice, utter
clearly, and use correct pronunciation and appropriate diction.

2.6. Definition of Oral Participation

Students’ oral participation has discussed widely as a key part classroom learning recently. Similarly, it
has been conceptualized differently in several studies. For example, Weaver and Jiang(2005) mention six
different ways of conceptualizing, accessing, learning environments, quality writing, writing and
learning, actual and perceived writing and taking parts and joining in a dialogue.

After analyzing other related studies in the literature, the researcher proposed the following definition of
oral participation.

Thus, participation is a process of learning by taking part and maintaining relation with others to express
ideas freely and developing communication skills or it is a complex process comprising, doing,
communicating, thinking, feeling and belonging which occur in the classroom activities. Cohen (1991)
expresses participation is taking parts, contributing ideas, involving and sharing ideas in religious,
political, economic and educational activities.

Though professors all tend to recognize “class participation’’ and many use it in calculating students’
grades, what may or may not be counted as ‘’participation’’ varies slightly with individual instructors and
researcher participation can be seen as an active engagement process which can be sorted in to five
categories: preparation, contribution to discussion, group skill, communication skills and attendance.
Lyons (1989) has shown that faculty perceives six levels of participation from students, moving from
simply attending class through giving oral presentation (Nunan, 1991).

9
Participation is also defined as the number of unsolicited responses volunteered. It has different forms
including students’ questions and comments (Fassinger, 1995), and Wade (1994) considers participation
as the ” ideal class discussion” in which almost all students participate, and are interested in learning
and listening to others comments and suggestions (P.237).

Several authors have proposed specific ways to measure participation. Melvin and Lord (1995) suggested
having both students and professors evaluate participation, and it was found that those ratings were quite
similar to each other.

The ways of evaluation of participation in class can either be recorded each day or by waiting until the
end of the semester (which can be problematic because of the reliance on memory and the increased
likely hood of biases (Armstrong and Boud, 1984).

Another concept that assists the definition of participation is active learning. Active learning is, in short,
anything that students do in a classroom other than merely passively listening to an instructor’s lecture.
This includes everything from listening practices which help the students to absorb what they hear, to
short writing exercises in which students react to lecture material, to complex group exercises in which
students apply course material to real life situations and/or new problems. The term ‘cooperative
learning’ covers the subset of active learning activities which students do as groups of three or more,
rather than alone or in pairs; generally, cooperative learning covers the subset of active learning
activities which students do as groups of three or more, rather than alone or in pairs; generally;
cooperative learning techniques employ more formally structured groups of students assigned complex
tasks, such as multiple- step exercises, research projects, or presentations. Cooperative learning is to be
distinguished from another now well defined term of art, ‘collaborative learning’. Which refers to those
classroom strategies which have the instructor and the students placed on an equal foot working in, for
example, designing assignments, choosing texts, and presenting material to the class? Clearly,
collaborative learning is a more radical departure from tradition than merely utilizing techniques aimed at
enhancing student retention of material presented by the instruction (Armstrong and Boud, 1984).

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2.7. Theories of Oral Participation
2.7.1. Need Hierarchy Theory
The main line of argument here is that participation depends on the extent to which a person has been
able to meet a range of primary and secondary needs (Miller, 1994) and the influence of positive and
negative forces.

For example, as basic primary needs are met (as one economic and social position ‘improves’), higher
needs are activated, and the balance between and positive forces shifts. As a result people are prepared to
take part in educational activities, (Miller 1994).

Congruence Model: In this model, it is suggested that people are more likely to participate in
educational activities where there is some congruence between their perception of themselves (their self-
concept) and the nature of education program .One of the key findings in North American literature
which has driven the correlation between the number of years spent in school and college, and the
likelihood of taking part in educational programmers’.

Force-field Theory: This approach draws heavily on the work of Tylor (2006). Miller (1994), in
particular, sought to draw together Maslw’s and Lewin’s theories to explain why socio-economic status is
linked to participation in adult education.

Miller (1994) argues that education, like work, is an achievement-oriented activity, ‘meaning that people
who want to get ahead will put effort into personal achievement (Cross 2001). Revell (1991) suggested
that motivation emerges from the inter action of two factors: expectancy and valence.

2.7.2. Life Transition Theory

The notion of ‘Transition’ has assumed a much larger role in thinking about the take up education. This
has been reflected, for example, in shifts in UK research concerning young people’s participation in
further education. In North America populist accounts of the impact of “life-changes” have had
significant impact. The basic hypothesis involved is that participation in education projects is frequently
linked to changes in life circumstances such as changes in job, the break-up of relationships, having
children, bereavement and retirement.

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 2.7.3. Social Participation Theory
This approach has now been developed at some length (Courtney, 1991). He argues that significant
learning often takes place in organizational settings (schools, community groups, and works).

Thus, to seek motivation for learning, ‘we might seek for those factors which motivate people to join or
part of organizations or for reasons why organizations compile as well as encourage forms of voluntary
participation(Ibid :99).

2.8. Factors Affecting the Students’ Oral Participation in Speaking Lesson

2.8.1. Teachers-Related Factors

In language learning, the goal for learning is to communicate. Oral participation is one of the basic skills
that everyone has to master in the classroom. But, there are teacher -related factors that affect students’
oral participation. Gashaw (2007) believes that ‘the teachers are not aware of their students desire to
improve their English pronunciation and the challenges they face in communication. This maybe
because there is almost no provision of pronunciation points in examinations and in the material designed
for them to teach. Or maybe they know little about pronunciation and what it entails’ (p. 27).

In addition to the above, no enough time is given to various exercises and opportunities for the
improvement of students’ oral ability in the classroom. Students often complain of scolding, and
discouraging by their teachers for not speaking correctly. Although both teachers and students are
responsible for the poor speaking ability of the students, the teachers who have the professional
knowledge and skills bear a greater responsibility.

2.8. 1.1. Teachers’ Speaking Tasks Designs-Related Factors

When we design speaking tasks, one important consideration is the language proficiency level of the
students. If we ask them to do the tasks that are above their level, they will simply become frustrated and
de-motivated. In successful speaking tasks, the students can talk a lot in the foreign language. One
common problem in speaking activities is that students often produce one or two simple utterances in
the EFL and spend the rest of the time chatting in their native language.

Another common problem is that the teacher talks too much of the time, thus taking away
valuable practice time from the students (Ur, 1996).

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 2.8.1.2. Teachers Use of the Speaking Strategies
On the other way, students often think that the ability to participate in the classroom is the product of
language learning, but participation is also a crucial part of the language learning process. In line with
this, effective teachers teach students speaking strategies: using minimal responses, recognizing scripts,
and using language to talk about language, and that they can use to help themselves expand their
knowledge of the language and their confidence in using it. These teachers help students’ learning to
speak so that the students can use speaking to learn (Ur, 1996).

2.8.1.3. Using Minimal Responses

Similarly, language learners who lack confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral
interaction often listen in silence while others do the talking. One way to encourage such learners
to begin to participate is to help them build up a stock of minimal responses that they can use in different
types of exchanges. Such responses can be especially useful for beginners (Ur, 1996).

Minimal responses are predictable, often idiomatic phrases, conversation that participants use to indicate
understanding, agreement, doubt, and other responses to what another speaker is saying. Having a
stock of such responses enables a learner to focus on what the other participant is saying, without
having to simultaneously plan a response (Ur, 1996).

2.8.1.4. Recognizing Scripts

On one hand, some communicative situations are associated with a predictable set of spoken
exchange scripts. Greetings, apologies, compliments, invitations, and other functions that are influenced
by social and cultural norms often follow patterns or scripts. So, doing the transactional exchanges
involved in activities is used to obtain information and make a purchase. In such scripts, the relationship
between a speaker's turn and the one that follows it can often be anticipated Park and Lee (2005).

Teachers can help students develop speaking ability by making them aware of the scripts for different
situations so that they can predict what they will hear and what they will need to say in response.
Through interactive activities, teachers can give students practice in managing and varying the language
that different scripts contain Park and Lee (2005).

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 2.8.1.5. Using Language to Talk about Language
Language learners are often too embarrassed or shy to say anything when they do not understand
another speaker or when they realize that a conversation partner has not understood them. So, teachers
can help students to overcome this reticence by assuring them that misunderstanding and the need for
clarification can occur in any type of interaction, whatever the participants' language skill levels.
Teachers can also give students strategies and phrases to use for clarification and comprehension check.
By encouraging students to use clarification phrases in class when misunderstanding occurs and by
responding positively when they do, instructors can create an authentic practice environment within
the classroom itself. As they develop control of various clarification strategies, students will gain
confidence in their ability to manage the various communication situations that they may encounter
outside the classroom Nunan and Lamb (1996).

2.8.1.6. The Role of Teachers to Help Students

Teachers’ role in promoting foreign language acquisition is very important, as they are
responsible for providing students with appropriate contexts to foster communicative situations that allow
students to express themselves and interact in the target language. The roles of the teachers can be
categorized from several points of view, for example, according to the type of the activity, stage of the
activity, or the interaction pattern selected for the particular activity.

Nunan and Lamb (1996) point out that “the roles that the teachers adopt are dynamic, not static, and are
subject to change according to the psychological factors brought by the participants” (p.134). In
addition, Byrne (1991:13) compares the teacher to an actor claiming that the teacher ‘will have to play
different roles at different times. Byrne divides the roles of the teacher according to the type of
interaction activity distinguishing between fluency and accuracy activities. During fluency activities
the teacher most frequently adopts the roles of stimulator, manager and consultant, reminding that
the main reason for taking part in such activities is to get students to interact, set up the
activities and to be available for help and advice if students need and ask for it. On the other hand,
the roles that the teacher carries out during accuracy activities will primarily include the roles of
conductor, organizer and monitor.

Teacher’s main task will therefore be to make sure that the students know what to practice, and that they
practice effectively, together with organizing the activities and checking while students are
performing (Byrne, 1991).
14
Based on the reflection of the students’ behavior in the classroom, Nunan and Lamb grade the roles of
the teacher from the most problematic, in terms of participants’ roles and behavior.

They include the roles of: controller, entertainer, disciplinarian, and a developer of a sense of
independence and responsibility. The teacher continually establishing control, giving directions,
threats and punishment, is labeled as ‘controller’. Still noisy but positive atmosphere, where the
teacher introduces games and recreational activities, or reading stories, shows the teacher as ‘entertainer’.
The ‘disciplinarian’ establishes rules to be followed and is quick to notice any misbehavior; while the
teacher who spends time by teaching, not requiring a close supervision and in case of noise providing
only a simple reminder with effectiveness, Nunan and Lamb label as ‘developer of a sense of
independence and responsibility’ (Nunan and Lamb 1996, pp. 135-136)

In relation to fluency speaking activities, Harmer (2001) mentions three basic roles that teachers take on
including: prompter, participant, and feedback provider. While taking the role of a prompter, the teacher
offers discrete suggestions or lets students struggle out of a difficult situation (when students get lost,
cannot think of what to say next, lose fluency), which can stop the sense of frustration when coming to a
‘dead end’ of language ideas. A teacher acting as a participant prompts covertly, introduces new
information to help the activity along, ensures continuing students’ engagement, and generally
maintains a creative atmosphere. Harmer (2001) warns that when acting as a participant, the teacher
should be careful not to participate too much, thus dominating the speaking and drawing all the
attention to himself or herself. Finally, feedback provider, Harmer says, may inhibit students and take the
communicativeness out of the activity by over-correction; therefore, the correction should be helpful and
gentle getting students out of difficult misunderstanding and hesitations. (Harmer, 2001, 275-276).

As regards the roles of the teacher, methodologists do not remain united in labeling the different
roles that the teacher can take on when conducting activities focused on the development of
speaking. There are several approaches to be taken when describing teacher’s roles, e.g. according to its
type, stage, interaction pattern or even behavior during activities as Nunan and Lamb present.

2.8.1.7. Provision of the Feedback

Harmer (2001) says that the decision about how to react to students’ performance will depend
upon the stage of the lesson, the activity, the type of mistake made, and the particular student who is
making that mistake. Different methodologists look at providing feedback from several aspects; most

15
often, however, feedback is seen from the viewpoint of accuracy (form of the language used) and fluency
(content of spoken production) activities. Lockhart(1990), Byrne( 1991), Richards(1999), and
Harmer(2001) gave feedback on students’ spoken language can be either positive or negative and may
serve not only to let students know how well they have performed but also how bad they have performed
to increase motivation and build a supportive climate. They distinguish between the feedback on
‘content’ and on ‘form’, suggesting strategies and decisions to be considered for both kinds. The
techniques that they suggest for feedback on content/fluency includes: it is important that the teacher
does not interrupt in ‘mid-flow’, since it interrupts the communication and drags the activity back to the
start. So, using gentle correction, such as prompting students forward, reformulating what a
student has said, acknowledging a correct answer, indicating an incorrect answer, praising,
expanding or modifying a students’ answer, repeating, summarizing, or criticizing and recording
mistakes with further analysis.

On the other hand, they suggest several ways of giving feedback or correcting students during accuracy
work of spoken production, among which they include: decisions about ‘whether learners’ errors
should be corrected, which kinds of learner errors should be corrected, and how learner errors should be
corrected, or asking the student to repeat what he or she said. Pointing out the error and asking the
student to self-correct. Commanding on error and explain why it is wrong, without having the student
repeat the correct form, or asking another student to correct the error. Use a gesture to indicate that
an error has been made. The teacher may provide feedback immediately on how well or badly students
have done, or make a note of mistakes and shift the feedback onto a future lesson. In addition, teacher
should not forget that the students may want to ask some questions or say what they think of the
activity. It is also necessary to point out and correct the mistakes the students are making, but at the same
time the correction should not be too intensive, because it can be just as unpleasant as during fluency
work. Show incorrectness by repeating, echoing, giving statement and question, making a facial
expression, or hinting. Most of the teaching specialists agree that providing feedback during spoken
performance depends on several aspects of which the most important are the type of activity and
the kind of mistake that is made (Lockhart (1990).

2.8.1.8. The use of Mother Tongue

Nunan (1996) and Lamb (1998) note down that it is almost impossible to know when and how frequently
to use students’ first language; however, agree that the first language use to give brief

16
explanations of grammar and lexis, as well as for explaining procedures and routines, can greatly
facilitate the management of learning. Harmer (2001) agrees with Nunan and Lamb pointing at the
fact that it is not wise to stamp out the mother tongue use completely. Harmer thinks that such
an approach will not work and what is more, it may discourage those students who feel the
need for it at some stages. Therefore, it should be a teacher’s duty to try and insist on the use
of the target language. On the other hand, it is appropriate to be more relaxed about using the
target language in other pedagogic situations, though the teacher should continue to encourage
students to try to use it as often as possible. Teachers are a principal source of comprehensible input
playing an important part in language acquisition, therefore, the teacher should speak in the target
language as much as possible in the class, especially since if he or she does not, students will
not see the need to use the target language either. At lower levels, the use of mother tongue may
help both the teacher and students, such as in an explanation or discussion of methodology or giving of
announcements to communicate the meaning more easily (Harmer, 2001, p. 132).

In relation to mother tongue use, Byrne (1991) says that it is natural for students to use their mother
tongue if they want to communicate, especially if they get too excited. In addition, Ur (1996) concludes
by admitting the fact that it can be uneasy to persuade some students ‘particularly the less disciplined or
motivated ones’ to make use of the target language (p.121). In order to avoid students using their mother
tongue, (Harmer, 2001) suggests several actions to promote the use of the target language. Firstly, the
teacher needs to ‘set clear guidelines’, making it straight forward when mother tongue is permissible and
when it is not. Secondly, it is important to ‘choose appropriate tasks’, i.e. tasks which the students, at
their level, are capable of doing in the target language. Harmer points out that it is not wrong to
‘stretch’ students ‘with Challenging activities which engage them, but it is clearly counterproductive to
set them tasks they are unable to perform.’ Furthermore, it is advisable to create an English
atmosphere, giving students names in the target language and making English the classroom
language as well as the language to be learnt. Using friendly encouragement persuasion might also play
its role, such as going around to students and saying things like: ‘Please, speak English!, Stop
using Turkish/Arabic, etc.’ In case these strategies do not work, stopping the activity and telling
students there is a problem, which might change the atmosphere so that students go back to the activity
with a new determination (Harmer, 2001, pp. 132-133). Nevertheless, the best way to keep students
speaking the target language is, Ur says, simply to be at students’ hand as much as possible,
reminding and modeling the language use because ‘there is no substitute for nagging!’(p. 122).

17
To sum up, students’ use of the first language often presents a difficult obstacle for many teachers,
however, not in all cases this ‘problem’ has to be perceived as a drawback, as Harmer or Byrne suggest.
The recent theories suggest that in certain phases, such as giving instructions or providing explanations,
the mother tongue use may play an important role for a better communication between students
and the teacher; on the other hand, where the language is the target point of learning, the mother tongue
use should be avoided (Byrne, 1991).

2.8.1.9. Teachers’ Teaching Style and Lack of Modified Inputs

The most cited factors mediating student silent behavior is teachers’ lecturing styles .According to Mason
(1994) lectures provide ‘’ the setting where the subject matter of a course explained, discussed or
otherwise taken up in a meeting between lectures and students. Some teachers explain the materials for
more time (for about 35 minutes) and want every students to share five minutes to speak so students have
limited learning opportunity provided by excessive teacher talk time.

In addition, one way to facilitate active students’ involvement is teacher modified input. Indeed; teachers’
modification strategies are significant aspect of teachers’ classroom talk. Teachers need to be aware that a
response to the question is not forth coming; the question needs to be modified (Tsui, 1996).

Teachers’ lack of techniques in modifying, the question might result in reluctance to venture. Richard
(2006) states fear of being wrong is one of the significant factors causing student silent in classroom.

2.8.2. Student-Related Factors

Although students are aware of the importance of participating in class activities, they leave the
responsibility of interaction to the teacher whose presence is necessary to maintain the use of the target
language in the activities’ (Ramirez, 2010).

Students are reluctant to speak inside and outside classroom in the target language, for example, they
feel afraid of using English outside class, and in some way, they are unenthusiastic to use English inside
classroom (Lin, 1998) showed that students are reluctant to actively participate in class, they still
consider the teacher as the authority figure. The findings of Chowdhury (2001) explain that
students are facing themselves to a new world, since they received passive grammar translation
method where the teacher is the centre of the class; they encounter themselves with new
experiences that in some cases could be frustrating. Some students are not willing to speak in English;
however, this can badly affect their speaking skills. Moreover, as a rule, being willing to communicate is
18
part of becoming fluent in a second language, which often is the ultimate goal of language learners. For
example, Julius Kuhl's theory of action control is introduced as an expansion of the conceptual
framework for the study of Willingness to Communicate (WTC). Kuhl proposed three key concepts:
preoccupation, volatility, and hesitation, which form part of the base from which WTC in the second
language is built. Other factors dealing with willingness to communicate can be divided into
individual differences in the linguistic and non-linguistic outcomes of language learning, such as
motivation, aptitude, language learning strategies, language anxiety, and others (Dörnyei, 2005).
They have been a key focus of second language research for over 50 years (Gardner, 2009). Macintyre
(2003) states some language learners habitually choose to remain silent.

2.8.2.1. The Role of Students to Help Themselves

Besides the teacher’s role, students play a great role in improving their oral participation. They are
expected to participate in teaching-learning process in different ways. One of the most important
outcomes of the movement towards more communicatively oriented language learning and teaching has
been the enhancement of the role of the learner in the language learning process (Wenden,1991).
Macintyre (2003) believes that in formal educational contexts the most successful learners are
autonomous (they accept responsibility for their learning; they constantly reflect on what they are
learning, why they are learning, and with what degree of success of learning). Scharle and Szabo
(2000) point out autonomous learners are those who accept the idea that their own efforts are crucial to
progress in learning language and behave accordingly. When doing their homework, or answering a
question in class, they are not aspiring to please the teacher, or to get a good mark. They are simply
making an effort in order to learn something. They are willing to cooperate with the teacher and other in
the learning group for every one’s benefit (Ibid).

Hedge (2000:76) agrees that an autonomous learner is one who is self-motivated, one who takes the
initiatives, one who has a clear idea of what he/she wants to learn and one who has his/her own plan for
pursuing and achieving his goal. She also characterized autonomous learners as those who: know
their needs and work productively with the teacher towards the achievement of their objectives, learn
both inside and outside the classroom, take classroom based material and can build on it, know
how to use resources independently, adjust their learning strategies when necessary to improve
learning, and manage and divide the time in learning properly. Within the context of education,
Wenden (1991: 142) also characterized autonomous learners as those who are motivated to learn,

19
good guessers, choosing material, methods and tasks, selecting the criteria for evaluation, taking an
active approach to the task and willing to take risks. Furthermore, Dickinson (1995: 127) characterizes
autonomous learners as ‘those who have the capacity for being active and independent in the
learning process; they can identify goals; formulate their own goals, and can change goals to suit their
own learning needs and interests; they are able to use learning strategies, and monitor their own
learning”. Kohonen et al. (2001: 36-37) insists that learners need to develop the following kinds of
capacities:

Confidence: sense of control and mastery of one’s body, behavior and the world.

Curiosity: desire to find out about things.

Intentionality: capacity to work with persistence and develop a sense of competence.

Self-control: ability to modulate and control one’s action appropriately.

Relatedness: ability to engage with others.

Communication: ability to exchange idea, feelings and experiences with others, developing
trusts in others.

Cooperation: balancing one’s needs with those of others in group situations.

However, students will never learn a language unless they aim to learn outside as well as during class
time. This is because language learning is too complex to learn in a classroom (Harmer, 2001).
Besides, she claims that to compensate for the limits of classroom time and to counter the problem of
learning language, students need to develop their own learning strategies so that as far as possible they
have to be autonomous learners. To develop their autonomy, teachers need to facilitate learners to
increase their self-understanding and awareness of themselves (Kohonen et al, 2001).

2.8.2.2. Learners’ Speech Habit-Related Factors

A speaker's skill and speech habits have an impact on the success of any exchange (Duzer, 1997).
Speakers must be able to anticipate and then produce the expected patterns of specific discourse
situations. They must also manage discrete elements such as turn-taking, rephrasing, providing feedback,
or redirecting (Burns & Joyce, 1997). For example, a learner involved in the exchange with the
salesperson, must know the usual pattern that such an interaction follows and access that knowledge as

20
the exchange progresses. The learner must also choose the correct vocabulary to describe the item sought,
rephrase or emphasize words to clarify the description if the clerk does not understand, and use
appropriate facial expressions to indicate satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the service. Other skills and
knowledge that instruction might address include the following (Burns & Joyce, 1997): Producing the
sounds, stress patterns, rhythmic structures, and intonations of the language, using grammar
structures accurately, assessing characteristics of the target audience including shared knowledge or
shared points of reference, status and power relations of participants, interest levels, or differences
in perspectives.

Selecting vocabulary that is understandable and appropriate for the audience, the topic being discussed,
and the setting in which the speech act occurs, applying strategies to enhance comprehensibility
such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing, or checking for listener comprehension, using
gestures or body language, and paying attention to the success of the interaction and adjusting
components of speech such as vocabulary, rate of speech, and complexity of grammar structures
to maximize listener comprehension and involvement (Brown, 1994).

In general, learners and teachers should monitor students' speech production to determine what skills and
knowledge the students already have and what areas need development. Bailey and Safage (1994) and
Lewis (1997) offer suggestions for activities that can address different skills.

2.9. Learning-Environment Related Factors

Learning environment refers to the diverse physical locations, contexts, and cultures in which students
learn. It encompasses the culture of a school or class, its presiding and characteristics, including how
individuals interact with and treat one another as well as the ways in which teachers may organize
an educational setting to facilitate learning. For instance, conducting classes in relevant natural
ecosystems, grouping desks in specific ways, decorating the walls with learning materials, and utilizing
audio, visual, and digital technologies are the main factors. The qualities and characteristics of a learning
environment are determined by a wide variety of factors, school policies, governance structures, and
others features may also be considered as elements of a learning environment. Learning environments
have both a direct and indirect influence on students learning, including their engagement in what is
being taught, their motivation to learn, and their sense of well-being, belonging and safety. For example,
an environment filled with sunlight and stimulating educational materials would likely be considered
more conducive than to learning environment filled with drab spaces without windows or decorations,

21
as would schools with fewer incidences of misbehavior, disorder, bullying and illegal activity.
How adults interact with students and how students interact with one another may also be considered
aspects of a learning environment (Byrne, 1991).

2.9.1. Positive Learning-Environment

A positive learning environment is a learning setting filled with a wide variety of resources such as
classroom management/structure and climate that support academic achievement of students. Classroom
management is based on good discipline, effective routines, smooth transitions, and ownership of the
environment. Effective teachers implement good classroom management to establish order, engage
students, and elicit student cooperation, all for the purpose of creating an efficient learning environment
(Cornell and Mayer, 2010, p.1).

Another aspect of classroom management is the structure of the classroom involves physically orienting
the classroom, preparing and organizing the materials, and framing lessons in a logical, coherent manner.
A classroom with quality management and structure helps a student to participate safely in learning
activities (Wender, 1991).

Another aspect of feeling safe comes from a positive classroom climate where risk-taking is welcome,
engagement is the norm, and authentic conversations occur. The classroom climate is the shared
perceptions of the learners, which can range from warm and welcoming to cold and indifferent. Teachers
who make the effort to engage in positive interactions with students, who use authentic conversation to
learn about their students, and who establish a classroom based on mutual respect have a tremendous
impact on student success. Characteristics of a nurturing, positive or healthy learning environment for
students include: psychological safety, a positive self-image and feelings of belonging, purposeful
behavior, and a sense of personal competence (Cornell and Mayer, 2010, p.1).

On the other hand, a positive learning environment is opposite to that of negative learning environment.
It encourages the learning positively. It is a kind of learning environment which engage learners,
has good relationship, clear communication, and trust between all participants (Wender, 1991).

2.9.2. Negative Learning-Environment

Macintyre (2003) states learning environment need to be filled with the wide variety of resources. The
teachers need to be provided with adequate resources, the greater the inadequacy, the more
problems the students tended to have:
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  stress crossover’, if teachers are stressed from the demands made on them or feel a lack of
support, they are not as effective as teachers.
 trickle-down effect, which happen between teachers and students. If teachers are frustrated,
overworked or disrespected, they may offer little patience or kindness when interacting
with their students. This stress can then transfer to students.
 inadequacy of resources such as, books, computers, materials for students with disabilities, proper
heating and air conditioning.
 internal interferences like anxiety, fear, low self-esteem, loneliness, sadness, happiness etc.
 external interferences like walking, noise, arguing, disturbing on-going activities, acting
spontaneously, etc.
 it does not instill a self-perception of success; it can inadvertently discourage the learners.
 a negative environment creates actual neurological dysfunction and discourages the development
of learning.
The best way to improve negative learning environment is not changing the curriculum, but
recruiting effective educators.

2.9.3. The Role of Classroom Setting to Enhance Students’ Oral Participation

Generally speaking, there are two factors that affect students' English speaking in the classroom.
One is they fail to find suitable words to express themselves and the other is they are afraid of making
mistakes. Sometimes they make mistakes when they are speaking because they are shy and nervous. So
good environment helps the students speak actively and correctly (Ur, 1996).

On the one hand, the teachers should try to ease students and remove their nervousness, fear and anxiety
with encouraging words. In this way teachers have tried to build a free and lighted-hearted environment.
1) Teachers try to arrange the seats of my classroom in a circle or in groups with the students
facing each other not in rows and lines. 2) Let the students speak English sitting in their seats not
standing. They will not feel uneasy this way. 3) At first stage, teachers allow the students to play their
tape recording they have prepared for a certain topic beforehand. 4) Try to divide the students into pairs
and groups according to the different topics, if you can and also you can let them prepare their "opinion",
and then have a group spokesman deliver the opinion. It is essential to try to build an atmosphere where
the students no longer feel shy, where they will voluntarily raise their hands to ask a question and where
they will freely voice their own opinions (Gutiérrez, 2005).

23
Cotter (2007) explains that the role-play activities enable the teacher to create a supportive,
enjoyable classroom environment in which students are engaged and motivated to effectively learn the
target language. Furthermore, it is important to create a positive environment in order to encourage the
learners’ interaction. As such, they can express their ideas, feelings and opinions without feeling afraid
of making mistakes. Students can also carry out communicative tasks in an effective way. Gutiérrez
(2005) suggests that creating a low stress atmosphere and using the language for real purposes are ways
to get meaningful communication and through interaction learners have the chance to acquire discourse
skills. Gutiérrez also highlights the essential conditions for effective language learning, such as
exposure, use, and motivation.

With this view of language, task-based learning offers many advantages in the designing of
communicative activities and the development and improvement of oral skills. A supportive
environment is built by the teacher on several grounds. These situations provide important social and
practical bases for students, especially EFL students Gutiérrez (2005).

2.9.3.1. Techniques to Motivate Students’ Participation

In order to give students a structured class where they can interact with each other, the teacher should
organize his/her class with the Presentation, Practice, and Production method (PPP), Cotter (2007)
proposed this method in his work and says that there should be three stages in any language classroom
and they are: Preparation: Allow the students to prepare for the tasks ahead with an effective warm-up.
This gives everyone in the class ample opportunity to get their English wheels turning.
Presentation: Next present the topic for discussion, target grammar, or any vocabulary selected for the
lesson. Practice: After the presentation, ESL / EFL students need to practice the new material. It's unfair
to expect them to make use of the new language without adequate practice. And free use: You should
always work towards real use of the language. Cotter (2007) states that when teachers prepare their
classes, they should constantly have in mind what the objective is in each of the oral activities they
propose to the students in order to achieve certain oral skills ‘the purpose of the conversation affects the
process, as does the place and the people involved’. Mastery of English as a foreign language comes
down to how well a student speaks. Students may write well, get high marks on tests, or even have an
accent nearly identical to a native speaker; but if they cannot express ideas, opinions, or instructions
clearly in a conversation, few would call them proficient. Learning English is often related to learning
how to speak the language. As Ur (1996) states of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and

24
writing), speaking seems intuitively the most important: people who know the language are
referred to as ‘speaker’ of that language, as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing; and many
if not most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak.

Ur (1996) in practice, however, many learners feel frustrated as they find that speaking in a
foreign language is a complex matter. It is because speaking involves many factors: the ability to
speak fluently presupposes not only knowledge of language features, but also the ability to
process information and language ‘on the spot’ (Harmer, 2001). Nowadays, some different
methods, approaches, and techniques are employed in order to encourage students to speak
English. Well prepared lesson and clear instruction during the lesson are considered motivating.

Some techniques used by the teachers recently are the ones characterized as communicative
techniques. This emphasizes on the ability of the students more in negotiating the meaning rather
than thinking much on the form of the sentences uttered during a conversation. Brown (1994) proposes
some principles for designing speaking techniques as follow: 1) Use techniques that cover the spectrum
of learner needs, from language based focus on accuracy to message-based focus on interaction, meaning,
and fluency. 2) Provide intrinsically motivating techniques. 3) Encourage the use of authentic
language in meaningful contexts.4) Provide appropriate feedback and correction.5) Capitalize on
the natural link between speaking and listening.6) Give students opportunities to initiate oral
communication. 7) Encourage the development of speaking strategies.

The above techniques suggest that English teacher has bigger responsibility not only to teach the
structure of sentences (then ask the students to speak with that grammar thing) but also to prepare the
lesson well in order to encourage the students to speak and to be more communicative. Besides,
teachers need to create the speaking class environment, adopt many ways and encourage the students to
open their mouths to speak (Brown, 2001).

2.9.4. The Role of English outside Classroom or School

Practicing any language outside the classroom has never been easier. Most students need little
encouragement to use English outside the classroom. They just need to be reminded of the opportunities
that are out there. We need to harness the amazing power of learning outside the classroom. Song lyrics,
rather than being vulgar and meaningless representations of a world, we as teachers do not inhabit,
provide a wealth of practical language. Blocking the use of social networks at schools under the guise

25
of student protection is counterproductive. Instead, we should help them to learn the rules of safe
engagement, and exploit social media for all the learning opportunities it provide (Harmer, 2001).

2.10. Oral Activity-Related Factors

When we design speaking tasks, one important consideration is the language proficiency level of the
students. If we ask them to do task that are above their level, they will simply become frustrated and de-
motivated. In successful oral activities, the students talk a lot in the foreign language. One common
problem in oral activities is that students often produce one or two simple utterances in the foreign
language and spend the rest of the time chatting in their native language. Another common
problem is that the teacher talks too much of the time, thus taking away valuable practice time
from the students (Ur, 1996).

2.10.1. Oral Activities and Communicative Language Teaching

As Brown (1994) describes, it has been the philosophy CLT for many years to teach foreign languages
through communicative approach which focuses ‘on speaking and listening skills, on writing for specific
communicative purposes, and on authentic reading texts’ (p.226). The most important features of CLT
then Brown define by means of four characteristics: 1) Classroom goals are focused on all of the
components of communicative competence and not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence.
2) Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of
language for meaningful purposes. 3) Organizational language forms are not the central focus but
rather aspects of language that enable the learners to accomplish those purposes. And 4) Fluency
and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying communicative techniques. At times
fluency may have to take on more importance than accuracy in order to keep learners
meaningfully engaged in language use. In the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use
the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed context (Ibid. p. 245)

In addition, Harmer (2001, pp.84-85) when suggesting features of CLT implies that ‘the language
learning will take care of itself’ and agrees with Brown that the accuracy of the language is less important
than successful achievement of the communicative task. In relation to communicative language
teaching, Revell (1991) reminds that ‘theories of communicative competence imply that teachers
must do more than just supply learners with a number of language structures to manipulate’ and
suggests that it is necessary to make a link between ‘linguistic competence’ and ‘communicative
competence’ (p.5). At this point, Little Wood (1991, p. 8) proposes a solution for bridging the gap
26
that Revell (1991) demands by categorizing activities into two groups: pre-communicative activities,
and communicative activities. The aim of the pre-communicative activities is, apart from producing
certain language forms in an acceptable way, as LittleWood suggests, to ‘help the learners to develop
links with meanings that will later enable them to use this language for communicative purposes’
(p.8). Pre-communicative activities are therefore divided into two subcategories: ‘structural
activities’, such as mechanical drills or verb paradigms, for producing accurate and appropriate language
forms, on one hand; and, ‘quasi-communicative activities’, such as question-and-answer activities,
giving directions to a stranger basing learner’s replies on, for example, a town plan, or questionnaires,
which bear a potential functional meanings of the language. Little Wood (1991, pp. 9-14) indicated
the second category forms a group of ‘communicative activities’, which Little wood divides into
two further categories: ‘functional activities’, and ‘social interaction activities’. The aim of the
functional communication activities is to practice students’ ability to get meaning across as effectively as
possible. Little wood includes here activities based on sharing information with restricted and
unrestricted cooperation (identifying pictures, discovering sequences, locations, missing information,
‘secrets’, differences, etc.), sharing and processing information (reconstructing story sequences,
pooling information to solve a problem, etc.), or processing information (for example, groups must
decide what they will take for a trip). On the other hand, social interaction activities, in addition to
overcoming an information gap or solving a problem, extend the social meanings of the language
through, for example, simulation and role-play activities, discussions or conversations thus developing
also social acceptability in the language use (Little wood 1991, 16-36).

When classifying activities focusing on the development of speaking skills, (Byrne, 1991) besides
taking into consideration organizational forms to be involved in the activities and their focus either on
accuracy or fluency of the language, also considers their teacher or learner centeredness. Teacher
controlled whole-class activities that focus on the accuracy of language involve making drills and
controlled conversations, while fluency activities give space for conversations, discussions or
story-telling. On the other hand, learner directed pair-work, or group-work activities that focus on
accuracy involve role-plays, controlled conversations or working with questionnaires, while fluency
activities make use of project work, various games, and also discussions carried out within groups or
pairs (Byrne, 1991, pp. 10-12).

27
As regards speaking, providing students with as many opportunities to practice the language orally as
possible is, from my point of view, an essential aspect of teaching of this productive skill. It is
important to avoid purely grammatical lessons and follow the principles that communicative
language teaching offers, with the primary focus on activities that aim at overcoming an
information gap and developing the social meanings of the language. All of these will lead to a
better communication of students’ ‘thoughts and feelings more clearly and fully as well as being
confident in their own ability to verbally tackle new situations and challenges’ (Fontana, 2003).
Both kinds of activities that aim at either communicative or partially communicative purpose will
inevitably be connected with the use of different organizational forms. There are primarily three
organizational forms that methodologists describe: group-work, pair-work, and whole-class teaching.

The term communicative competence (CC) was coined by Savignon (1983, p.967), a sociolinguist who
was convinced that Chomsky’s (1965) notion of competence was too limited.

According to Savignon (1983), communicative competence (CC) accounts sufficiently for the social and
functional rules of language. So, Savignon referred to CC as that aspect of our competence that enables
us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts.
In Canale and Swain’s and later in Canale’s (1983) definition, four different components , or
subcategories, made up the construct of CC. The first two subcategories reflected the use of the
linguistic system itself; the last two defined the functional aspects of communication. 1)
Grammatical competence: is that aspect of CC that encompasses “knowledge of lexical items and rules
of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar, semantic, and phonology” (Canale and Swain,
1980,p.29). It is the competence that we associate with mastering the linguistic code of the
language, the “linguistic” competence of Hymes and Paulston, referred to above. 2) Discourse
Competence: the complement of grammatical competence in many ways. It is the ability we have to
connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterances.
Discourse means everything from simple spoken conversation to lengthy written texts (articles, books,
and the like). While grammatical competence focuses on sentence-level grammar, discourse competence
is concerned with inter-sentential relationships. 3) Sociolinguistic Competence: this is the knowledge of
socio-cultural rules of language and of discourse. This type of competence “requires an understanding of
the social context in which language is used: the roles of the participants, the information they share, and
the function of the interaction. Only in a full context of this kind can judgments be made on the

28
appropriateness of a particular utterance” (Savignon, 1983, p.37). 4) Strategies Competence: a construct
that is exceedingly complex. Canale and Swian (1980, p.30) described strategic competence as “the
verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for
breakdown in communication due to performance variables or due to insufficient competence.” Savignon
(1983, p.40) paraphrased this as “the strategies that one uses to compensate for imperfect knowledge
of rules or limiting factors in their application such as fatigue, distraction, and inattention.” In
short, it is the competence underlying our ability to make repairs, to cope with imperfect
knowledge, and to sustain communication through “paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, hesitation,
avoidance, and guessing, as well as shifts in register and style,”(pp.40-41).

29
30
 Chapter Three

Research Methodology

3.1. Methodology of the Study

The aim of this study is to assess factors that affect students’ oral participation in English speaking lesson
of grade nine at Boset Secondary school. This section presents methodology which helps the researcher
to manage research process and yield intended results. It also described the research design, participants
of the study, sampling techniques and sample size, sources of data, instrument of data collection,
procedure of data collection, methods of data analysis and ethical consideration.

3.2. Research Design

To achieve the intended objective of the study, a descriptive survey involving both quantitative and
qualitative methods will be used. Wear and Olson (2006) describe that descriptive survey is helpful to
indentify present conditions and points to the present needs. In line with this point, the researcher will use
descriptive survey to generate views and opinions of respondents in order to indicate a clear picture of
situations, practices, and experiences. In addition, the researcher will choose quantitative and qualitative
methods because quantitative research methods intend to indicate a large number of data describing and
sampling respondents in order to synthesize the independent data pertaining to numerical analysis, while
qualitative research methods are useful in developing a feel for the research findings and a holistic picture
of depth understanding of a problem. Therefore, quantitative data will be collected from students using
both close and open-ended questionnaires while qualitative data will be collected from teachers using
semi-structured interview, and semi-structured classroom observation checklist.

3.3. Participants of the Study

As stated earlier, the purpose of this study is to assess factors affecting students’ oral participation in
English speaking lesson in Oromia Region, East Shoa Zone Boset Secondary school. The participant of
the study is grade nine students which are 12 sections with 600, and 6 English teachers who are teaching
the language at this grade. Grade nine students will be selected based on the following reasons. First, the
researcher is intention that these students learn through their own local language of instruction at their
junior school, and as a result, they would have certain sort of factors that affect their oral participation in
speaking lessons in grade nine. Second, grade nine English teachers complain about the participation of

31
students in speaking lesson. Finally, the researcher believed that grade nine students cooperate with
researcher to give authentic and enough data for the study. In addition, grade nine English language
teachers are also the subject of this study since it was believed that teachers intended to know factors
affecting students’ oral participation in speaking lesson.

3.4. Sampling Techniques and Sample Size

In Boset Secondary school, there are 12 sections of grade nine which comprises 600 in academic year of
2012 E.C. According to Shamy (2005), it is not possible to include all units of participants in a study in
order to arrive at valid conclusion. Moreover, the size of participants is often so large in most of
educational phenomena that the study of all units will not only be expensive but also cumbersome and
time consuming. Therefore, from twelve sections of grade nine, which consists 600, 10 students from
each section, and (20%)/ 120 students will be selected using simple random sampling technique. The
researcher will use this technique because this method insured each element in the participant an equal
probability of being selected as a sample unit and all choice are independent of one another (Samy,
2005). Using purposive sampling technique, 6 grade nine English language teachers will be selected for
the study for interview. This is based on the view that when we find a small number of members of a
participant possessing the required characteristics, we include all of them in the study (Kothari, 2004, p.
59).

3.5. Sources of Data

The main sources of data for this research will be 120 grade nine students and 6 English teachers of Boset
Secondary school. Therefore, the type of data that the researcher will be collected from the participants is
primary data.

3.6. Methods of Data Collection

Data collection procedures for this study will be gathered from 120 students of grade nine and 6 grade
nine English language teachers of Boset Secondary school. In this study, data will be gathered using
questionnaire, interview and classroom observation. These research instruments will be used because the
researcher believes that these tools would be more effective in gathering information from the
respondents about factors affecting students’ oral participation in English speaking lesson.
Similarly, the close-ended questionnaire will be designed based on a Likert scale, which is adapted from
other research because this scale is the most common format that is used whenever respondents are asked

32
to make a judgment in terms of sets ordered categories such as strongly agree, agree, uncertain, disagree
and strongly disagree. These categories indicate the intensity of the particular judgment. The scaling will
be coded as strongly agree=5, agree= 4, uncertain= 3, disagree= 2, strongly disagree= 1.

Some open-ended questions are also be used along with the close-ended ones in order to make clear
information from respondents to avoid some influences by pre-determined set of response. Open-ended
questionnaires will be prepared based on research questions styles and interview is also planned
according to interview check- lists. Classroom observation is prepared within column correspond list that
are essential for the observation. Therefore, in these ways the data are gathered.

3.6.1. Questionnaire
The questionnaire contains both close-ended and open-ended questions for the sake of getting richer data
and help to answer the research questions. The close-ended questionnaires, with five-point Likert type
scale which are adapted from other research, will be distributed for students. The data that will be
collected through questionnaire are mainly quantitative. Questionnaires are used when factual
information is desired by the researcher to collect large amount of information at the same time
within a short period of time as Kuhl (1994). The factual information that the researcher needed to
collect is the existing factors affecting the students’ oral participation in speaking lesson at Boset
Secondary school. The researcher will contact those selected teachers to help him for the administration
of questionnaires. The questionnaires will first be tried out and filled by that section of students. Then,
students are asked to give comments on the questionnaires difficulty and clarity after they filled them.
Based on the obtaining comments, some of the questions will be revised or amended. Certain words,
sentences, and expressions modification will be made; that is, words that are difficult would simplified,
some long sentences are made shorter, and some technical words and expressions may be changed and
made clearer. The revised and amended questions will finally be administered to the sampled group. In
addition, the questions will be translated to students’ mother tongue (Afan Oromo) to make it more
clearly for students.

3.6.2. Interview
In the department of English, 6 English language teachers will be selected and interviewed by the
researcher in order to substantiate or verify the information gathered through the questionnaires. It is
involved a predetermined sequence and wording of the same set of questions that will be administered to
each respondents. This approach helps to minimize the possibility of biases (Dornyei 2007). The teachers
33
whose students filled the questionnaires, will be interviewed about their attitudes and feelings of the
factors affecting students’ oral participation in speaking lesson. The interview focuses asked on the
factors that affect students’ oral participation. The interview results will be paraphrased qualitatively for
the purpose of the analysis. The type of interview used in this study will be semi-structured interview
because the interviewer designed pre-planned guiding questions that encourage interviews and also
provided the researcher guidance to follow up the discourse of interviewees with in specified issue to
collect in-depth information from the teachers. As Dornyei (2007) states that people tend to be more
interested to talk than to write; hence, they are likely to provide detailed information when they are asked
orally. According to the above statement, such detailed information is gathered through interview.

3.6.3. Classroom Observation

Responses will be gained through questionnaire and interviews may not truly represent what the
respondents do in actual situations. The rationale behind preferring the above instruments is tied to the
subjective nature of participation in speaking lesson Good and Brophy (1996:209). Therefore, semi-
structured of observation check-list will be used to triangulate the responses of questionnaires and
interviews. Classroom observation checklist with the alternative which is in rating scale column will be
deployed.

3.7. Piloting Questionnaire of the Study

The researcher will be conducted a pilot study in Bole Nura Hera Secondary School on non-sample
respondents before collecting the actual data from students to check the reliability. It will be conducted
on a sizeable and representative number of respondents (Cohen et al, 2007: 243). Therefore, the pilot test
will be carried out on 50 students at Bole Nura Hera Secondary School using simple random method. The
data obtained will be analyzed using percentage to check the reliability. The piloting test is carried out
basically to increase reliability, validity and practicability of the questions. Following this, the feedbacks
from respondents will be collected. Then, the only some modifications on length of sentences and words
errors will be made.

3.8. Procedure of Data Gathering

Using questionnaires, interview and classroom observation helped to triangulate the data gathered.
According to Kothari (2004), this helps to attain more reliable data. Therefore, according to the given
schedule the closed-ended and open-ended questionnaires and interview will be given for students and

34
teachers respectively. Then, classroom observation is carried out at the end in order to triangulate data
collected through questionnaires and interviews.

3.9. Methods of Data Analysis

In this section, procedures of data analysis are explained. Similarly, the data obtained from students
through close-ended questionnaires will be analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS)
version 20 with frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation quantitatively. On the other hand,
the data obtained from grade nine English teachers’ interview is analyzed using narrative way or
qualitatively follows three steps. Firstly, listening to the interview cassette/video and writing down the
opinions stated for each questions. Secondly, reading through all statements and classifying the answers
of each interviewee. Thirdly, reviewing all answers will be given for each question.

To sum up, the researcher thoroughly read the data collected through questionnaires, interview and
classroom observation from the respondents to work out meaning in light of the research questions.
Generally, the data that analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively will be combined and summarized
together to reach appropriate conclusions.

3.10. Reliability and Validity of the Study

All instruments that are students’ questionnaire, teachers’ interview and classroom observation will be
revised by the information collected from students and English teachers in the sample school. Then
modification will be made based on the judgment and correction given. Moreover, pilot study will be
carried out and made adjustment based on the pilot test. Therefore, this will be believed to obtain
accurate information. Furthermore, to validate the results, long periods of observations will be used in a
real social situation to gain genuine information. Moreover, triangulation method will be used to check
the reliability and validity of the study.

3.11. Ethical Consideration

Ethical consideration will be made to secure the research process. As a result, the researcher will inform
the respondents about the purpose of the study. It will be introduced in the introduction part of the
questionnaires and interview guide to the respondents, and confirmed that participants' confidentiality is
protected, and their responses is used for academic inputs. In addition to this, participants are informed
that their participation in the study will be based on their consent. The respondents will be also informed

35
that the research should not personalize any of the respondent’s responses during data presentations,
analysis and interpretation.

36
4. Budget Break Down

No Items Quantity Unit/ Total

Price Price

1 Transportation costs

Taxi costs in the city from schools to 18 10 180.00

home.

From Boset Woreda to Addis Ababa 4 500 2000.00

University to find sources.

From Boset Wereda to Haramaya 4 500 2000.00

University to submit the research (if
connection is unavailable)

Total Cost 4,180.00

2 Stationary Costs

Flash disk 2 360 720.00

A4 Paper 2 230 460.00

Pens 10 10 100.00

Pencils 5 7 35.00

Typing proposal 50 7 350.00

(pages)

Typing research About 10 850.00

85
(pages)

Paper printing 85 4 340.00

Color printing 10 20 200.00

Binding cost 20 8 160.00

CD-row 5 40 200.00

37
 Internet, e-mail, etc 3025.00

Total 6,440.00

No. Items Quantity Unit/price Total price

3 Per-deem costs

Lunch cost (researcher) 4 250 1000.00

Supporters lunch cost 2 250 500.00

Respondents (Students) tea 120 10 1200.00

program
Interviewees lunch (teachers) 6 180 1080.00

Assistants cost 2 300 600.00

Total cost 4380.00

Total costs

No. Items Total cost

1 Transportation costs 4,180.00

2 Stationary Costs 6,440.00

3 Per-deem costs 4,380.00

Total cost 15,000.00

(Source: Ministry of Education)

38
 4.1. Time Schedule of the Study
No Time schedules

Activities July Feb.2 Mar. April May. June. July. Aug. Sept.
2020
2019 020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020

1 Topic Selection for the √

Thesis

2 Writing Proposal √

3 Submitting the Proposal √

4 Defending the proposal √

5 Collecting data for the √

Thesis

6 Analysis the data √

7 Submission of the first √

draft

8 Editing the comments √

9 Submitting the Final √

Draft

10 Thesis Presentation √

39
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 APPROVAL SHEET

HARAMAYA UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES

DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH

A STUDY ON GRADE NINE STUDENTS’ ORAL PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING

ENGLISH LESSON AT BOSET SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BOSET WOREDA AT
WOLENCHITI TOWN

BY

HAILU DEJENE

APPROVAL OF THE EXAMINATION BOARD

NAME SIGNATURE DATE

______________________________ _______________________ _________________

ADVISER

_____________________________ ______________________ __________________

EXTERNAL EXAMINER

_____________________________ ____________________ _________________

INTERNA EXAMINER

45