Theoretical Significance The Significance of the Study

9 Bailey and Savage in Celce-Murcia 2001: 163 state that for most people, the ability to speak a language is synonymous with knowing the language since speech is the most basic means of human communication. They add that speaking in the second or foreign language has often been viewed as the most demanding of the four skills. Supporting the above definitions, Brown 2001: 267 processes that when someone can speak a language it means that he can carry on a conversation reasonably and competently. In addition, Pinter 2006: 55 says that to be able to speak fluently, we have to speak and think at the same time. Thus, it requires plenty and careful sources of skills. As supported by Harmer 2001: 269, elements of speaking are the ability to speak fluently on purpose and the ability to process information and “language on the spot”. According to Richards and Renandya 2002: 204, effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interactions that involves not only verbal communication but also paralinguistic elements of speech such as pitch, stress, and intonation. Moreover, nonlinguistic elements such as gestures, body language, and expressions are needed in conveying messages directly without any accompanying speech. Brown 2007: 237 adds that social contact in interactive language functions is a key importance and in which it is not what you say that counts but how you say it what you convey with body language, gestures, eye contact, physical distance and other nonverbal messages. 10 In their discussion on the nature of spoken language, Brown and Yule in Nunan 1989: 26 distinguish spoken language from written language. The teaching of language has not been concerned with spoken language teaching. This language comprises short, often fragmentary utterances, in pronunciation range. On the contrary, written language is characterized by well-formed sentences which are integrated into highly structured paragraphs. Brown and Yule in Nunan 1989 also differentiate between two basic language functions, i.e. the transactional and the interactional functions. The former basically concerns the transfer of information. A spoken language has a number of forms which is also important to be covered in the language course. Nunan 1991 in Brown 2001: 250-251 divides spoken language into two types, monologues and dialogues. The first type is monologue in which a speaker uses spoken language for any length of time as in speeches, lectures, readings, news broadcasts, and the like. Planned and unplanned monologues differ considerably in their discourse structures. Planned monologues usually manifest little redundancy and are therefore relatively difficult to comprehend. While unplanned monologues exhibit more redundancy, which make for ease in comprehensions, but the presence of more performance variables and other hesitations can either help or hinder comprehension. As opposed to monologues, dialogues involve two or more speakers. The exchange can be interpersonal, which promotes social relationship, and transactional of which the aim is to exchange information.