Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE............................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Background of the Study.....................................................................................................................1
Statement of the problem............................................................................................................................2
The Objectives of the study................................................................................................................4
General Objective........................................................................................................................................4
Specific Objectives......................................................................................................................................4
Research Questions.....................................................................................................................................4
Significance of the Study............................................................................................................................4
Delimitation of the Study............................................................................................................................5
CHAPTER TWO...........................................................................................................................................6
LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................................................................6
Definition of Oral Communication (Speaking Skill)..................................................................................6
Importance of Oral Communication............................................................................................................7
The Role of Teachers in Teaching Speaking Skills............................................................................7
The Role of Students in Learning Speaking Skills.............................................................................8
Some factors that affects Students oral communication (speaking English language)...............8
Society attitude towards speaking English language..................................................................................8
Learners educational background................................................................................................................9
Learners attitude towards speaking English language................................................................................9
Lack of students Background knowledge...................................................................................................9
Knowledge of Vocabulary and grammar...................................................................................10
Lack of Students participation...................................................................................................................10
Teachers Methods and strategies of teaching............................................................................10
The relation between Motivation and Success...........................................................................10
CHAPTER THREE.....................................................................................................................................11
RESAERCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES....................................................................................11
Research Design........................................................................................................................................11
Subjects of the study..................................................................................................................................11
3.3 Sample and Sampling Techniques.....................................................................................................11

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 Data Collection Instruments......................................................................................................................12
Classroom Observations............................................................................................................................12
Questionnaire.............................................................................................................................................12
Interview....................................................................................................................................12
3.4.5. DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURES.........................................................................................13
3.4.6 Methods of Data Analysis...........................................................................................................13
CHAPTER FOUR........................................................................................................................................14
TIME SCHEDULE AND BUDGET...........................................................................................................14
Time Schedule...........................................................................................................................................14
Budget...............................................................................................................................................15
REFERENCE...............................................................................................................................................16

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 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The research for more active ways of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contributed
rise to different teaching methods/approaches in all over the world. From those, the
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach emerged as the one adopted by most
practitioners, marking a major paradigm shift within language teaching in the twentieth century
(Rodgers and Richards, 2001). This indicates that in the present day more emphasis is given for
communicative competence while teaching English as a foreign language.

Similarly, in the communicative language teaching era, assessing the learners’ oral production is
the central concern in English language classrooms (Louma, 2004). According to Brown et al.
(1989), great consideration has been given to speaking skills since it is an influential skill on
second/foreign language teaching-learning since the late of 1970s. This indicates that in the
communicative language teaching approach, speaking skill has got a great attention from
language experts. Brown (1985) also claimed that during the last fifty years the aforementioned
view prevailed and became widely accepted.

In reality teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) requires mastering speaking as one of
the most important aspect of learning a language and claims have been made that speaking is
also the most frequently used mode of communication to express opinions, make arguments,
offer explanations, transmit information, and make impressions upon others. Students need to
speak well in their personal lives, future workplaces and political endeavors. They may have
meetings to attend, presentations to make, discussions and arguments to participate in, and
groups to work with (Yang, 2010). He argued that the ability to keep conversation in natural
setting in real working or daily life setting is undoubtedly the fundamental determination of oral
English training. Given this fact, there have been efforts made by scholars in the field to come
up with a well-designed classroom teaching procedures and techniques to promote the learners’
language skills development (Richards and Rodgers, 2001).

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The core purpose of Oral communication/spoken/ is to exchange the idea or information with
each others. The exact status of learners’ achievement might be obtained by assessing the
learning progress continuously. Similarly, Birhanu (2013) confirmed that Educational
Assessment provides the necessary feedback that requires in turn maximizing the outcomes of
educational efforts. The assessment of learners’ learning provides objective evidences in the
decision-making process in education. Students receive feedback from their teacher based on
their performance and this allows them to focus on topics they have not yet mastered. Besides,
teachers also identify which students need review and remedial teaching and which learners are
ready to begin complex lessons.

Generally, students to speak (to communicate English) can be influenced by various factors. This
may show that the efficiency of the students in speaking English skill is low. Therefore, this
study attempted to explore the challenges teachers face when engaging students to oral(spoken)
communication.

Statement of the problem

In English classroom speaking is widely considered to be the principal skill that stands for an
overall knowledge of foreign language (Mirsotaw, Ewa and Jan, 2011). In other words speaking
is a productive skill that involves putting a message together communicating the message and
interacting. It is a demanding task for language teachers to provide sufficient input for students to
be competent speakers of English. Usually students feel insecure about their level of English and
they face problems communicating as well as expressing themselves in English language.
Learning speaking skill is one of the most important skills which should be implemented in the
language classroom.

The series consideration as decisive skill on second foreign language teaching learning can be
generally dated to the subsequent years of the second world war (Brown et al. 1989) when a
fewer enthusiasts began to insist on its inclusion in foreign language teaching. But it is only
during the last forty-five years that this view has prevailed and become widely accepted (Brown,
1985).

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Scholars who have been able to see the importance role of speaking on foreign language teaching
have pointed out that the written language alone could not give the necessary competence in
foreign language as the students have been devoid of the sort of speaking skills which are highly
valued with in the educational system (Brown et al,1984). Teachers too, have begun to give
recognition to the learning potential the speaking skill has and hence have started to assign a
certain place for it in their class room activities.

This means engaging to oral communication includes assessing learners’ ability to communicate
with that particular language when we can to English language, in most of school in our country
the engaging conducted on oral communication is not adequate. For instance, grade 7 of JAWE
BURI primary school of English teachers usually focus on only on written forms of activities.
They also do not utilize the various ways of oral communication. They have lack of vocabulary,
pronunciation problems, nothing to say, lack of motivation and the use or interferences of the
mother thank and lack confidence. In addition, students text book itself doesn’t provide enough
activities and strategies which can be used to oral communication. Engaging of students on oral
communication therefore the one that needs attention in order to achieve its role in education.

Related to oral communication (speaking skills), different researches have been conducted in to
the teaching of the speaking skills internationally, but little have been done in relation to the
present topic in Ethiopia. For instance, Abdisa (2011) conducted research on the practice of
teaching speaking skills. His finding shows that teachers where using only text book activities
which are dialogues, questions/answers and sometimes telling stories. It was seen that the
activities in the text book where even not adopted to meet the need of the learners. Arega(2010)
conducted a research on the major problems hindering learners oral communication(speaking
ability). He concluded that so as to minimize the problems and improve the confidence to speak
English, teachers at school and parents at home mast allow their children to make free
communication with everyone in the target. Similarly Sintayehu(2015) investigated on factors
that affect the practice of teaching learning speaking skills in group work. His questionnaire
reported that, there are some factors that impacted the effective practice of learning speaking
related to students, teachers and course designers.

Based on the above information none of these studies tries to fill the gap related to the challenges
of engaging students on oral communication(spoken). Therefore, having identified the research

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gap, the researchers are initiated to exploring the challenges English teachers face when
engaging students to oral (spoken) communication in order to come up with feasible solutions in
this school

The Objectives of the study

General Objective
The general objective of the study is Exploring the Challenges English Teachers Face when
Engaging Students to Oral (spoken) Communication: The Case of Grade 7 Students at Jawe Buri
Primary School.

Specific Objectives
The specific objectives of this educational research will be:
1. To explore the challenges English teachers face in teaching oral communication.

2. To investigate the strategies grade 7 English teachers use when teaching speaking skill.

3. To identify how teachers implement the methods given in the teacher’s guide in teaching
oral communication

Research Questions
The present study aims to answer the following research questions:

1. What are the challenges English teachers face while engaging students into
oral(spoken) communication?

2. What strategies do grade 7 English teachers use when teaching speaking skills?

3. How do teachers implement the methods given in the teacher’s guide in teaching oral
communication?

Significance of the Study

The present study focuses on the exploring of learning speaking skill in a grade 7 English
language classroom at Jawe Buri primary school. Therefore, the finding of this study may have
the following benefits. Basically, the study is expected to help the students to have a clear view
of the problem. Moreover, the result of this study may be an input for curriculum designers and
policy makers to put spoken English into consideration in designing the curriculum. Finally, it
may be a base for further researches.

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 Delimitation of the Study
The researcher believe that the study would have come up with more generalized results had it
included many classes or schools throughout the country. However, it will be delimited in
Oromia Regional State, West Shewa Zone, Dendi District at Jawe Boru primary school with
particular attention to grade 7 students. Similarly, the researchers believe that if the study area is
manageable, validated and substantial data can be obtained in such a short period of time. The
study is also delimited only to exploring challenges that teachers face while engaging their
students in to oral/spoken communication. This is because it is difficult to demonstrate all
aspects of speaking skills within a short period of time so that the study is limited to raise only
the practices and challenges of assessing speaking skills.

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 CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of Oral Communication (Speaking Skill)
Hedge (2000) defines speaking as a skill by which people are judged while first impressions are
being formed. That is to say speaking is an important skill which deserves more attention in
language learning because it manifests peoples’ thoughts and personalities. Speaking involves
interaction with one or more participants. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in
which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical
environment, and the purposes for speaking. In other words, speaking is a means to persuade
others to do something, to clarify unclear thing, and to express opinion, feeling etc. In broader-
spectrum, speaking is a means of communication and its purpose is to communicate what is in
one’s mind to the other party. It is not limited to the case when people simply open their mouths
and speak the words and sentences. Speaking is a means by which people are doing the purpose
required of the interaction, which may be a conversation, or a task in a context that bring them
into a relative degree of status and power.

From the four skills, Speaking is the productive oral skill. It requires a lot of effort and faces a
plethora of difficulties if the target language learners intend to develop their speaking skill as it
cannot be achieved with in a short period of time. According to (Nunan, 2003) speaking needs
systematic verbal utterances as it conveys meaning. He added that the success of learning any
language is mostly credited how much learners interact in that target language. Besides, speaking
stands significantly among the four skills i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing in a target
language (TL). So, developing English speaking is a must to make L2 learners competent for the
world ahead. Speaking is directly or indirectly concerned with communication as well as
interaction and in this regard, Brown (2001) stresses on interaction. As to him interaction is not
only the heart of communication, it is also what communication is all about.

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 Importance of Oral Communication
There are many situations in which communications makes sense to choice oral over written
communication. Oral communication is more personal and less formal than written
communication. If time is limited and business matter requires quick resolution it may be best to
have a face to face or telephone conservation, there is also more flexibility oral communication;
you can discuss different aspects of an issue of and makes decisions more quickly than you can
be writing. Oral communication can be especially effective in addressing conflicts or problems.
Talking things over is often the best way to settle disagreement or miss understanding.

Finally oral communication is a great way to promote more and maintain energy and enthusing
with in a team (Kang sham, 2003:2).

The Role of Teachers in Teaching Speaking Skills

Learner responsibility can develop if teachers allow more room for learner involvement (Scharle
and Szabo, 2000). In autonomous learning, the teacher is a facilitator of learning, an organizer of
learning opportunities, a resource person providing learners with feedback and encouragement,
and a creator of the learning atmosphere and a learning space.

Nunan (1991) suggests that a number of factors should be considered in order to develop the
speaking skills. He emphasizes the consideration of the size of the class, the arrangement of the
classroom and the number of hours available for teaching the language.

Furthermore, Nunan (Ibid) writes the role of the teacher at the presentation stage as informant-
selecting the new material to be learned and presenting this in such a way that the meaning of the
new language is as clear and memorable as possible. The role of the learners in this stage is
listening and trying to understand. He mentioned that the teacher is the center of the stage,
presenting the new language item systematically in an attractive way. He also warns not to spend
too much time presenting.

At the practice stage, he assigns the teacher as the conductor and monitor. To him, at this stage it
is the students who do most of the talking. The teacher’s role is to devise and provide the
maximum amount of practice (which is meaningful and memorable). The teacher is there to
monitor the performance of the learners.

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 The Role of Students in Learning Speaking Skills
Besides the teacher’s role, students play a great role in assigning teaching speaking skills. 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). He 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 that 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.

Some factors that affects Students oral communication (speaking English

language)
Society attitude towards speaking English language
Society that the learners come from has it is own factors on the learners’ achievement. There is
may be parents who encourages or discourage their children when they are learning the target
language. Wilkians (1994) a comprised is made between language learning achievement in those
countries were the knowledge of one foreign language is regarded very favorable and these
where it is regarded with in difference or even hostility it is clear that social and cultural attitude
have every deep influenced on individual learners.

If social attitude is negative the overall achievement can be relatively poor; no matter learning
may be proceeding even where teaching is not particularly efficient. The achievement will be
highest where attitude and teaching to gather promote effective learning and lowest where
attitude is negative and teaching is weak.

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 Learners educational background
It is obvious that students who is learning in different situation have different back ground.
Because the teacher that teach them where different knowledge and a way of teaching. Not only
teacher but also the society that grow up as it is own impact. The educational back ground of the
students helps to the efficient in the target language. McAllister (1996) explain that teacher lower
class performance as an impact on foreign language teaching if the teacher strategy of teaching
in lower class never given time to oral production parts(speaking) that will have an impact on
learners’ foreign language speaking ability. Speaking is skill that thrives through practice.
Therefore, students should be given enough time to practice speaking in both inside and outside
the class room.

Learners attitude towards speaking English language

The attitude of learners towards speaking English language learning has also a great influence on
the Students oral performance because learners have different customs, tradition and way of life.
Therefore, these different background of learners may be seen as a cause for ability or speaking
English language.

Concerning this ideas Digest (2000) cited in Mullet (2001) says the following language the
learners the paper groups, the school, neighbors hood and society at large can have an enormous
effect on the second language learning process both positive and negative.

Additionally, Wilkins (1974;49) state language learning will much influenced by attitudes
towards culture aspects of language. According to this idea experts, the attitude of learners
towards the culture were the language is spoken crucial in acquiring the target language or
English language.

Lack of students Background knowledge

Harmer (1991) pointed out the most speaking English involves interaction with one or more
participants this means that speaking also involves a good deals of listening and understanding of
low of other participant are feeling knowledge of low linguistically allow other to do so. Tasfaye
et al.(2003) say that learners ability to speak in the target knowledge is dependent on a number of
factors which are solely related to their knowledge of the language.

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 Knowledge of Vocabulary and grammar
Woods (2001) and Atkins(1995) pointed out the grammar is the study of language specially
words that are put together to create their meaning, there is a set of standard that one has to
follow in order to speak or written correctly.

Vocabulary is also one of the important element of language it would be learnt through new
experience, through reading and through other school subjects.

Lack of Students participation

Brow beat (1983) suggested that if students make effort to speak the will gradual develop
confidence and enjoys speaking English language students should talk themselves something in
English when they are allowing at home and also think in English as they come. If they practice,
they can speak much more easily and then it is not difficult to talk in group.

Teachers Methods and strategies of teaching

Dabson (1997) pointed that if the students do want to be involved in oral communication then
that communication will probably not be effective the students should have some kinds of
purpose. In other words, they should be using language is some way to achieve an object and this
objective should be done the most important part of the communication. One problem regarding
speaking is the way in which some teaches approaches discuss as an activity. If the students are
asked to express themselves fluently one the difficult topic in front of their peers in foreign
language, they may find themselves reluctant to do so.

The relation between Motivation and Success

Atkins et al. (1995) noticed that Students errors are considered as completely normal phenomena
in the development of communicative abilities. Students must be allowed to experiment with the
language and the teacher should persist in interfering to correct errors if learners have favorable
attitude towards the speaker of the language the desire more and more contact with them on the
other hand, where learners any reason for learning English is external pressure, internal
motivation may be limited and many students may be developing negative attitudes towards
learning the language. To some practicing in speaking and understanding a target language needs
a positive attitude towards the language positive attitude of an individually help him or her to
master the target language in an easy way. Because, the research show that acquiring foreign or
second language is a matter of attitude towards the language and its

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 CHAPTER THREE

RESAERCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES

Research Design
The study will be conducted on the challenges English teachers face in engaging students to oral
communication. Given this purpose, the design of the research is descriptive which is more
appropriate to assess the existing practices and found to be fitting to find out the teaching oral
communication (speaking) assessment and practices in the sample school. Accordingly, both
qualitative and quantitative methods will be used in this study.

Subjects of the study

The population of this study will be students of grade 7 at Jawe Boru primary school which is
found in West Shewa zone of Oromia region in Dendi Woreda in the academic year of 2014 E.
C. The total number of students at this grade is 152. However, due to its large number it may be
unmanageable to study each unit of this population. Therefore, the researchers will select
samples from the population in order to make the study manageable.

Sample and Sampling Techniques

The sampling technique the researchers will use to select data from the total of 152 populations
is simple random sampling technique. It is obvious that students have different educational back
ground. Consequently, the technique will provide every element in the population equal chance of
being chosen. Therefore 50%(76) students will be selected as a sample by using simple random
sampling. On the other hand, the total numbers of teachers who are currently teaching grade 7
English language are two. Therefore, the researchers will select both English teachers by using
comprehensive sampling techniques. This is because comprehensive sampling is used when all
manageable samples are selected.

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 Data Collection Instruments
Classroom Observations
Classroom observations will be conducted by the researchers as a main data gathering
instruments. Observation is a key instrument in order to see what happens in the actual classroom
practices during teaching learning process. It also enables the researchers to record the while
teaching and to transcribe it later on. Therefore, video camera will be used for this particular
purpose classrooms.

To this end, the researchers will make at least two classroom observations for each class on
randomly selected lessons based on allocating equal periods to each sample section one period
has 40 minute. This means, each sampled section will be observed two times with in different
two speaking lessons.

Questionnaire
Questionnaire is one of the important means of collecting data because it is suitable for large
scale inquiry. Additionally, the reason behind using questionnaire is, it gives enough time for the
respondents to read and give well thought responses. Besides, it is economical in terms of time
and energy (Best & Khan, 2006). The items in this tool were designed in line with the objective
of the study, research questions and issue raised in the review of related literature.Both open and
closed ended questions will be included in the questionnaires. The questionnaire will be prepared
on the area of teachers’ practices of English language skills and what challenges they counter
during teaching and learning process. Closed ended questions will be presented for the students
with different options in order to get clear and detailed information. Students will mark their
choices from the given options. In general, the questionnaire for students will consist of 12 items.
The questions will be prepared in English and translated into Afan Oromo. The translation will
be done by Afan Oromo department teachers after they show their willingnessher

Interview
Ranjit (1996: 115) claimed that that when in-depth information is required, interviewing is the
preferred method of data collection. Depending on the nature of the study and the degree of
control, the semi- structured interview which is highly favored for its flexibility has been
selected for this study. In addition to this, interview is used in order to substantiate the data
obtained from the questionnaire. Interview questions will be prepared for 10 students from grade
7 in the same school. The interview questions will be translated in to Afan Oromo version for
students. The number of interview questions will be 6 questions for students.

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3.4.5. Data Analysis Procedures
The following procedures will be conducted to collect data. First, the questionnaire will be
administered to a sample of 75 students and 2 teachers after explaining the purpose of the study
to the subject in each section. Second, the observations will be made using a check list. Third, 2
teachers in the sample sections will be interviewed and the interviews will be audio-taped and
transcribed into interpretations and analysis.

3.4.6 Methods of Data Analysis

The data gathered through the questionnaires will be presented in tables. In order to organize and
facilitate the analysis of the data collected through the questionnaires, the researcher bring
similar items together before tabulating the responses under each item using simple descriptive
statistics such as frequency, percentage and mean. The responses gathered through the interviews
and observation will be discussed qualitatively separately. The responses obtained from both
tools will be analysed in order to triangulated with the questionnaire The responses of the
interviews and observation will first be transcribed before analyzed and interpreted. In addition
to this checklist will be used for observation. On the basis of the discussions that will be held,
summary, conclusions and recommendations will be drawn accordingly.

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 CHAPTER FOUR

TIME SCHEDULE AND BUDGET

Time Schedule
The time that will be planned to complete this research is mentioned in the following table.

Month February March April May June July

Data collection
Proposal writing
Results and
discussion
Submission

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Budget

Items Cost
Transportation 1500
Data gathering 2800
Printing and binding 3700
Total 8000

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 REFERENCE
Ambu, B. &Saidi, B., 1997. Issues in teaching English speaking in foreign language classroom:
A questionnaire study in Oman-Unpublished master’s thesis. ELT Curriculum and
Methodology: College of Education of Sultan Qaboos University.

Arega (2010). The Major Problems Hindering Learners’ Speaking Ability. Addis Ababa.Addis
Ababa University. Un published thesis

AsmaOunis (2017). International Journal of English Linguistics; Vol. 7, No. 4; 2017

Birhanu, M. (2014). Continuous assessment issues and practices in secondary schools of Oromia
Brown and Yule. (1983). Teaching the Spoken Language. Cambridge: CUP

Brown, 2nd ed. Pearson Education, San Francisco.

Bruton, A. (2009). The vocabulary knowledge scale: A critical analysis of language assessment.
Quarterly, 6(4), 288-29. Cambridge: CUP

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