Problems and Solutions to Overcome Speaking Activities

Modul PLPG Bahasa Inggris Rayon 113 UNS Surakarta 31

4. Teaching Speaking Skill

a. Problems and Solutions to Overcome Speaking Activities

Teaching speaking is not an easy job. There are many problems in teaching speaking. In teaching speaking, teacher or lecturer should recognize the difficulties and problems encountered by learners in following the speaking activities. Ur 1996: 121 mentions that there are four common problems dealing with speaking activities faced by learners, they are as follows: 1 Inhibition Differs with other skill activities, in speaking activities, learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in another language in the classroom because of afraid of making mistakes, fearful of criticism or loosing face, shy, etc. 2 Nothing to say Sometimes learners cannot produce any utterances because of they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking. 3 Low or uneven participation The tendency of domination of minority learners who are good in speaking in the activities will make the others have little time or chance to participate. 4 Mother-tongue use In a class where the learners share the same mother tongue, they tend to use it since it is easier for them to do that. Ur 1996: 121-122 also mentioned some ideas to overcome those problems, here are the ideas: 1 Use group work It is increases the sheer amount of learner talk going on in a limited period and lowers the inhibitions of learners who are unwilling to speak in front of the full class. 2 Base the activity on easy language Generally, language used in a discussion is lower than the language used in intensive language-learning activities, the language should be easily recalled Modul PLPG Bahasa Inggris Rayon 113 UNS Surakarta 32 and produced by participants. This is useful to let them speak fluently with minimum hesitations. 3 Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest The clearer the purpose of the discussion, the more motivated participants will be. 4 Give some instruction or training in discussion skills If the task is based on group discussion then include instructions about participation when introducing it. 5 Keep students speaking the target language Teacher has to monitor how well the group teamwork is run. Teacher has to be as close as possible to the group to keep the students talk speaking in the target language.

b. Principles in Designing Speaking Techniques