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1. The Nature of Speaking Skill
Speaking is a basic skill that has a very complicated process. It is because learners need a long time to be competent speakers Luoma, 2004, p. 1. The students
need more experiences and practices to make their speaking ability fluently and naturally. Besides, in speaking learning, the students need to receive and convey the
message through oral form and verbal expression Khadidja, 2010, p. 40. For those students who are studying English as a foreign language, the students can activate
their speaking through the dialogues or conversation since the speaking skill requires the practice and experience to be developed.
2. The Principles of Teaching Speaking
A teacher should concern about the principles of the teaching speaking in order to improve the speaking skill. Nunan 2003, p. 54 notes five principles of
teaching speaking. First, students should understand the function of the second language and foreign language learning contexts. Second, students have opportunities
to practice English accurately and fluently. Third, students have opportunities to be centered. Therefore, a teacher has limited time to talk and the students have more
opportunities to talk in a group or pair work. Fourth, the material in the speaking tasks involves he negotiation for meaning. Fifth, the students obtain a design of the
classroom activities that involve the guidance and practice in both transactional and interactional speaking.
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3. The Characteristics of Successful Speaking Activity
Ur 1996, p. 120 emphasizes that “classroom activities that develop learners’
ability to express themselves through speech would therefore seem an important component of a language course”. The students might feel bored with the activities
run in the classroom. Most of them felt sleepy when the activities running and it might decrease their motivation to learn speaking. Therefore he provides some
characteristics of successful speaking activity. First, students talk a lot. As much as possible of the period of time provided to the activity so that the students can talk
more. Second, participation is needed. All of the students have to participate in the classroom discussion. They all need to get chance to speak, whether the students are
talkative or not. Teacher as contributor has to distribute the chance fairly. Third, high motivation supports the speaking activity to be successful. Students have willingness
to speak English because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to get a good mark in English course. Fourth,
language is in acceptable level. Students who learn to speak English can express what they want to say related to the material and they can understand what their friends
say.
4. The Strategies to Improve Speaking Skill
According to Grugeon 2005, p. 84, there are three aspects to improve students speaking skill:
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