Research in English and Education (READ), 2(2), 119-126, June 2017

E-ISSN 2528-746X

Investigating English Speaking Skill Problems Encountered by Students

at Islamic Modern Boarding School

Misna Amelia*1 and Endang Komariah1

1Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

*Corresponding author: misnaamelia17@gmail.com

Abstract

This research is intended to analyze English speaking skill problems

encountered by students. The sample of this research was 26 students from XI-
MIA 1 class who have learned English for five years. They were chosen
purposively. The data of this research were collected through speaking test and
interview. The interview was conducted to see the students who got very low
score from the speaking test. The findings from the speaking test showed that
the students faced the problems in five aspect of speaking skill; pronunciation,
grammar, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. The most dominant
problems are pronunciation, grammar and fluency. The findings from the
interview showed that the students they faced many problems such as
inhibition, nothing to say, law participation and mother tongue used. To
conclude, the students of Babun Najah Islamic Modern Boarding School faced
the problems in speaking.

Keyword: Speaking skill, Problem in speaking, Boarding school

1. INTRODUCTION
English is one of international languages in the world, so it is taught in any
levels of school, including in senior and junior high school. In senior and junior
high school, English becomes one of the subjects of national examination. That is
one reason why English must be taught more intensively to the students.
In the process of teaching and learning, the four language skills (listening,
speaking, reading, and writing) are simultaneously performed. Normally,
learners in an EFL context do not use the language in authentic situations. They
possess inability in communicating appropriately and correctly. This leads to
learners’ lack of self-confidence and avoidance when communicating with
native English speakers. Languages have a central role in intellectual, social, and
emotional development. Learning a language is expected to help student know
themselves, their culture, and others’ cultures. In addition, learning a language
also helps students express their ideas and opinions through the language.

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In learning a foreign language, students not only learn grammatical and

semantic rules but also the knowledge of how native speakers use the language
accordance with the context of language communication. So, it is difficult for
EFL, learners, especially adults, to speak the target language fluently and
appropriately.
English speaking ability is very important for people to interacte with each
other. In this global era, many people use English as a media of communication
and it makes people who come from different countries are easier in making
interaction and communication. As one of international language, English is
taught in Indonesia both in Islamic school and public school. As institution of
education, Islamic boarding school also has a program of learning English as the
way of communication in daily conversation.
Islamic Modern Boarding School is educational institutions, where the
students usually stay in the lodge (dormitory) with Islamic teaching materials of
classical books “kitab” and general books of scientific knowledge, aiming to
master the science of the Islamic religion in detail and along with general
sciences such as mastery of foreign language and apply it as well as guidance in
daily lives by emphasizing the importance of morality in social life (Depag,
2005, p. 4).
The different between modern and non modern in Islamic school relies on
curriculum. The Modern Islamic Boarding School curriculum is from
Department of Education. Meanwhile, the Islamic Boarding School has a
curriculum from its own institution. In Islamic Modern Boarding School,
students should speak English in their daily conversation. Therefore, it was
different from Islamic Boarding School.
Speaking is one of the compulsory subjects for the students Senior of Babun
Najah Boarding Islamic Modern Boarding school. This subject is taught for six
semesters since the freshman enter and start studying at Babun Najah Islamic
Modern Boarding School. The students should speak English and Arabic for two
weeks of each month. Students are forbidden to speak Indonesian and their
mother tongue as long as they are in boarding school. Although the students’
senior of Babun Najah Islamic Modern Boarding school have learned English for
five years and practiced English in every two weeks a month, they are still
unable to speak English.
The causes of students’ speaking problems in speaking English, as observed
by Fitria (2003, p. 52) at English education department, state institute of Islamic
studies Sunan Ampel, Surabaya, related to inhibition, nothing to say, low or
uneven participation and mother tongue used. It is because they do not master
the three primary elements of speaking namely, vocabulary, grammar, and
pronunciation. As a result, students were not active in practicing speaking
English.
According to Al Hosni (2014, p. 28), he said that students were unable to
speak in English because they lack of necessary vocabulary items, lack of
grammar, lack of sentence formation skills which result in using their mother
tongue. The result also showed that the students perceived the pronunciation,
grammar and fluency are very difficult for students in speaking English. In
addition, Doan (2011, p. 216) mentions there were some problems faced by
students in speaking, there are the students unable to remember words or
phrases, making grammar mistakes when speaking, making pronunciation

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error, thinking in mother tongue and then translating into English, and unable
to express their ideas well. Therefore, based on the explanation above, the
research question can be formulated as: What are the difficulties of the students
at Senior of Babun Najah Islamic Modern Boarding school in speaking skill?

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 . Definition of Speaking
Speaking is more than making the right sound, choosing the right words or
getting the construction, it needs habit to make a real communication. It is
supported by Campell (1999, p. 39) who says speaking is an activity on the part
of one individual to make oneself understood by another. It can be concluded
that speaking skill is a process of people communication. Speaking skill itself
can be stated as the skill to use the language accurately to express meanings in
order to transfer or to get knowledge and information from other people in the
whole life situation.
2.2 .The Difficulties in Speaking Skill
There are two important speaking difficulties concept in English speaking
there are common speaking problem and speaking aspect. According to Ur
(1995, p. 121) Speaking problems that are usually occur in the language
classroom: students are often inhibited about trying to say something in foreign
language in the classroom because they are worried about making mistakes and
losing face, or fearful of criticism, or simply shy of the attention that their
speech attracts. Even if the students are not inhibited, you often hear they
complain that they cannot think of anything to say. It means that students have
no idea and less of motives to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that
they should be speaking.
Several students have little time for talking. This problem is compounded by
the tendency of some learners to dominate, while others speak very little or not
at all. The students are commonly less disciplined or less motivated classes to
speak English. The students who have similar mother tongue will have a
tendency to use it because it is easier to express, easy to understand and moral
natural.
There are many students have difficulties in English speaking skill of
speaking aspects: grammar, pronunciation (accent), vocabulary, fluency and
comprehension (Brown, 2003, p. 140). Most of students are not able to be
master the aspect above because they think it’s so hard to be learned in
speaking English. So, that was made the students are not able to speak English
fluently and accurately.

2.3 . The Ways to Cope With Speaking Problems

The ways to cope speaking problems, Lundquist (2008, p. 14) said that there
are four simple rules or ways to follow when learning a second language. To
learn to speak the language correctly, the learners must speak it aloud
To make the English language is easy to say, the leaner should speak English
loudly and clearly. When the learners speak loudly and clearly, it can train the
learner’s mind and focus when practice to speak English with good
pronunciation. It is important to the learners. They should focus to think in the
target language when they speak English. The learners’ mind must be actively

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involved in syntax development. However, the more actively the mind involved
the more affective the learning process become.
When the learners start to speak their mother tongue, they just speak
without thinking about the way of the words sound or produced, it is a
spontaneous process (Fata, 2014). Otherwise, when the learners try to speak
foreign language, they think a lot, such us how to say the word or how to
pronounce it. Some words are hard to say, some word are not. In conclusion, the
learners have to speak as often as possible in order to be a fluent speaker.
When the learners are learning a language using this statement, they are
strongly reinforcing the learning process each time they speak. However, when
the learners construct a sentence incorrectly, they have not only wasted the
learning time used to construct their faulty sentence, but they must now invest
even more time retraining their mind, mouth, and hearing so they can construct
the sentence correctly. The more the learners use a sentence structure
incorrectly, the longer it will take for their mind, mouth, and hearing to identify
the correct syntax. Ideally, if the learner used only correct syntax and
pronunciation, the learners could restrain their speech in considerably less
time. Consequently, the learners could learn to speak the target language more
quickly.

3. METHODS
This research is in the form of descriptive qualitative. The researcher used
descriptive qualitative approach because the research is aimed at portraying the
difficulties which are faced by the senior Babun Najah Boarding school students
in speaking and the English learning activities that students provide to solve the
problems.
The researcher gave a test for the students with a topic “ The Best Experience
you ever felt”. The test conducted in four minutes for each student. The speaking
test given for the students was about recount text (KD 3.9) of syllabus class X.
The researcher gave a test for students by using recount text because it was
easy to test and the students have learned about recount text in second
semester in class X MIA 1. The researcher scored the test by using the oral
proficiency scoring categoried by Brown (2003, p. 172-173). Then, the
reseacher interview the students. The researcher asked a few questions for five
students of XI MIA 1 at senior high school who have got the lowest score in
speaking test by researcher and teacher. The researcher asked some questions
related to the students’ speaking problems.
To collect the data, the test was given to the 26 students. And after the test
was given to the students, the researcher interviewed 5 students who got the
lowest score in speaking test. And for the interview, the result data of interview
was transcribed in narration.

4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Findings
To know the findings of this study, the researcher displayed the result by
describing the data in the qualitative way. Furthermore, this finding was based
on the score of speaking test and interview for students who got the lowest
score in speaking test. The speaking test and interview were conducted in class
XI MIA 1 at Babun Najah Islamic modern boarding school, Banda Aceh.

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Afterwards, to answer the research questions in this research, the speaking test
and interview were analyzed to identify the problems faced by the students in
speaking skill.
The test was conducted in class XII MIA 1 at Senior of Babun Najah Boarding
School on October 24th, 2016. The main focus of the test was to find out the
problems faced by students in speaking English. Based on the result of test with
26 students, the researcher found 5 problems that are faced by the students in
speaking English. They were erroneous in grammar, lack of vocabulary, unfluent
in speaking English, poor accent (pronunciation) and comprehension.
Furthermore, the result indicated that 15 students seemed to have problems
in speaking English. The students’ biggest problems in speaking English were
grammar (11.54%) and pronunciation (30.77%). Another problem was to
fluency (23.07%). Both of vocabulary and comprehension have the same
percentages (3.84%).
In order to have a reliable data, the researcher interviewed five students
who got the lowest score in speaking test. The researcher interviewed the
students a day after the process of speaking test. The questions were related to
the problems faced by students in speaking skill. The interview was conducted
in Indonesian and the results were translated into English. The researcher
recorded the interview process that showed the problems faced by the students
in speaking English. The detail information from the data of interview could be
seen in explanation below.
From the recording, the students said that they got difficulties in 4 aspects of
speaking skill. The students’ biggest problem in speaking English was
pronunciation. Then, other problems were grammar, vocabulary, and fluency.
Inhibition is the students’ fear of making mistake and losing faced to speak in
front of many students. Inhibition was also an obstacle faced by students based
on the interview result. It was the second problematic component experienced
by the students. Three out of five students approved this component was a
problem (S1, S2, S5). In fact, the students fear of making mistake when they
speak English in front of many students in the class. The students said that they
were less confident and felt not as good as other friends. Therefore, the student
losing faced to speak in front of many students in the classroom.
Nonetheless, three more students (S1, S2 and S5) asserted that they were
afraid to speak English in front of their friends. S3 and S4 disagree this
declaration become a problem for them. Nothing to say was the third
problematic component faced by the students based on the interview result.
The interview showed that all students agreed the problem of nothing to say
was another problem faced by them. This problem was as the biggest problem
faced by them in speaking English. The students also mentioned that, the lack of
idea and motivation to speak made them got difficulties to speak English in front
of many students.
Low participation means some students often caused by the inclination of
other students who actually dominate in the group. Low participation has
similar percentage with nothing to say (Muflihatun, et al, 2016). All students
faced this problem in speaking English. This problem actually occurred because
they are not confident and feel not really good in speaking English. So, they
think that they are not as good as their friends who can speak English better
than their friends.

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The last problem experienced by the students was mother tongue use. The
result of interview also showed that all the students agreed of mother tongue
use. The problem was also as the biggest problem faced by them in speaking
class. Besides, the students also said that using Indonesian or local language was
easier to express and understand each other.
Brown (2003, p. 172-173) mentions five aspects of speaking skills; grammar,
vocabulary, comprehension, fluency and pronunciation (accent). Based on the
finding of speaking test, it showed that the most dominant problems faced by
students in class XI MIA 1 of Babun Najah Islamic Modern Boarding school was
pronunciation, grammar, and fluency. This finding is in line with Doan’s finding
which showed that (2011, p. 216), there were some problems faced by students
in speaking, there are the students who are unable to remember words or
phrases, making grammar mistakes when speaking, making pronunciation
error, thinking in mother tongue and then translating into English, and were
unable to express their ideas well. In addition, According to Al Hosni (2014, p.
28) said that students were unable to speak in English because they lack of
necessary vocabulary items, lack of grammar, lack of sentence formation skills
which result in using their mother tongue. The result also showed that the
students perceived the pronunciation, grammar and fluency are very difficult
for students in speaking English. They think that the pronunciation is hard to
learn because the English words are different from the way it is pronounced.
While grammar is boring to learn and fluency was affected by their mother
tongue.
Based on two experts above, the vocabulary was the main problem faced by
students in speaking English. Meanwhile, in the result of this research, the
vocabulary aspect was not the main problem in speaking English. It is because
the students got three or more vocabularies every morning. In addition, the
comprehension was not also the big problem. It is because the students can
understand any speech in any contexts.
From the result of interview with five students of Babun Najah Islamic
Modern Boarding school, the most dominant problems faced by student was
pronunciation, nothing to say, low participation, and mother tongue use. It was
followed by other problems such as grammar, pronunciation (accent),
vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, inhibition.
Similar result was also congruent to the previous research about the cause of
students’ speaking problems in speaking English conducted by Fitria (2013, p.
52). She also found that inhibition, nothing to say, low or uneven participation,
mother tongue use, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation were the problems
faced by students of English education department, state institute of Islamic
studies Sunan Ampel, Surabaya. It is in contrast with Fitria (2013). The
researcher found a new problem that which was not found Fitria in her
research, namely; Fluency and comprehension. The researcher thinks the
students faced those problems due to lack of practice English. They only
practice English when the teachers are around. It means that when their
teachers are not around, they do not speak or practice in English.
It can be concluded that the problems that mostly encountered by students in
speaking skill were poor pronunciation, low participation, nothing to say and
mother tongue use.

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Based on the results above, the teachers can encourage the students to be
more confident in speaking English. Furthermore, making students speak
English in the classroom is not an easy job for teachers. It is not only a matter of
forcing them to speak. This requires a hard work and patience. The teachers can
guide the students to express their ideas and help them to reduce their feeling of
shy, nervous and fear of making mistake.

5. CONCLUSSION AND SUGGESTION

The aim of this research was to find out the problems faced by the student in
teaching English at Babun Najah Islamic Modern Boarding School, Banda Aceh.
Based on the findings from speaking test, it showed that all students faced the
problems in speaking skill, grammar, pronunciation (accent), vocabulary,
fluency, and comprehension. Furthermore, other problems showed from the
interview result. The students responded that they faced problems in speaking
such as inhibition (students fear of making mistake, losing face to speak English
in front of many student), nothing to say (students have no idea, less of motives
to speak), low participation (students less confident to speak English), and
mother tongue use (easier to express, easy to understand). Thus, the problems
above were not only caused by the students themselves.
Based on the conclusion above, the researcher provides some suggestions
which are directed to the following people. In the classroom, the teacher should
create the situation of learning process that can be motivated them to speak in
English. In addition, the teachers also have to help the students to express their
ideas to speak in order to avoid the feeling of shy, nervous and fear of making
mistake. The teacher also has to give the opportunity to all students to speak in
order to avoid the domination of some students. Furthermore, it is also expected
that the teachers have to help the students to overcome their problems in
speaking skill in order to achieve the purpose of learning speaking.
In this global era, it is very important for the students to learn speaking
English. As many people use English as media of communication and
information. The students should practice to speak English regularly inside or
outside classroom, they must learn to pronounce the words correctly, learn
more about grammar, try to use vocabulary they got every morning, and
improve themselves to be confidence.
This research focused on the analysis English speaking skill and problems
encountered by students in Babun Najah Islamic Modern Boarding School. Thus,
all research has debility; that debility is worth to be investigated further. For
instance, this research is limited in terms of subject being investigated and
observed. Therefore, it is expected that further research conducted in this
related field to boarder their subject of observation to gain more data and
substantiate the findings of this research. This research can be further used for
other researchers who are interested to know about the problems faced by
students in speaking English.

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