17 Firstly, speaking activities provide rehearsal opportunities-chances to
practice real-life speaking in the safety of the classroom. Secondly, speaking tasks in which students try to use any or all of the language they
knowprovide feedback for both the teacher and the students. And finally the more students have opportunities to active the various elements of the
language they have stored in the brain, the more automatic their use of these element becomes p. 127.
From the explanation above, speaking practices done by the students in the
class give opportunities for them to speak English in real-life. Having practice everyday, the students can improve their speaking skill. Having reflection is also
needed because it helps the students recognize their problems in speaking. Thus, the students will be accustomed to using the language sand speak spontaneously.
b. The Aims of Teaching Speaking
Brown 2007 states that “the benchmark successful teaching speaking is there is demonstration of an ability to accomplish pragmatic goals through
interactive discourse with their other speakers of the language” p. 322. It means
that teaching speaking will be considered successful if the learners in speaking class can show their ability to speak and reveal their idea.
Nunan 2003, p. 56 notes that the goals and the techniques for teaching speaking are extremely diverse, depending on the students, teachers, overall
contexts of techniques in the interactive classroom. The teacher can deal with both interpersonal interactional and transactional dialogue. In brief, the aim of
teaching speaking is to help the students to use the language in oral communication.
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c. The Problems in Teaching Speaking
Many problems in the teaching and learning English are faced by the teacher and students. Before discussing the problem in teaching speaking, the
researcher will show the reason why speaking looks difficult. Brown 2003 states eight reasons of what makes
speaking difficult. They are “clustering, redundancy, reduced forms, performance variables, colloquial language, rate of delivery,
stress-rhythm-intonation, and interaction ” pp. 270-271.
On the other hand, Gebhard 1996, p. 186 states three main problems usually faced by the students and teachers in the teaching and learning speaking.
They are the students’ unwillingness to speak, the teachers’ errors on giving feedback and the perception that native speaker can teach speaking better.
1 The Students’ Unwillingness to Speak
There is the fact that the students in any classes, beginners or even some students who are in advanced level do not have willingness to speak. There are
two reasons why the students do not want to speak. The first reason is the students are shy, anxious and not confident. Most of them are afraid of making mistakes.
The possibility to improve their confidence is by giving them trust. The students must have feeling that the teacher is on their side. In this case, the teacher can start
using some warm-up activities. The second reason is the students only have limited time to practice speaking English. They are not accustomed to speaking
English. Therefore, students must have many opportunities to practice speaking in the class to solve this problem.
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The Teachers’ Errors on Giving Feedback Feedback from teacher is very important for students to improve their
speaking ability. However, the fact shown by Gebhard 1996 is not all the teachers agree with that statement. Many teachers also believe that the students
learn the grammar of a language by their own. There are many types of feedback that can be given to the students. Gebhard 1996 describes two types of feedback.
The first feedback is direct feedback, which is given directly to the students. In giving this feedback, the teacher will interrupt the students’ speech and correct the
oral errors. The second feedback is delay feedback, which is given later after the student finish their speaking.
The teacher should know which feedback is the best for the students. Gebhard 1996 emphasizes that the most effective feedback is the most needed
by the students. Teacher has to give the feedback in the careful and meaningful ways in order to make the students pay attention to the feedback given to them
and help them not to do the same mistakes. 3 The Perception that Native Speaker Teaches Speaking Better
Many people consider that all native speakers can teach speaking in English. However, people should be careful. Gebhard 1996 notices that native
speakers can be the standard on how to use the language naturally although sometimes they are not qualified as teachers. Not all native speakers are
guaranteed to have good ability in teaching. They need to improve the ability on the variety of skills in classroom management.
