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their understanding of the feedback which their teacher gives them will be greatly enhanced as their own awareness of the learning process increases. But, the
teachers have to realize that reacting to absolutely every mistake that student makes maybe it will be de-motivate that student. It means judging just the right
moment to correct or intervene. In conclusion, the meaningful materials and tasks that interest students to
promote their speaking autonomy, the students’ participation during activities in classroom, and the chance to have a feedback or correction in right moment are
some indicators in effective teaching speaking process.
e. Students’ Common Problems in Learning Speaking
Speaking a new language is especially difficult for foreign language learners. It is because effective oral communication requires the ability to use the
language appropriately in social interactions. In addition, the target language that the students have learned is not used in their daily life. It makes the students have
difficulty to develop their speaking abilities. Furthermore, Brown 2001: 270-271 proposes some characteristics of spoken language that can make speaking easy as
well as, in some cases difficult. 1
Clustering The common problem in speaking that is usually faced by students is lack
of vocabulary. So, they have difficulty when grouping of similar things that are close together in one sentence.
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2 Redundancy
The students have an opportunity to make meaning clearer so the message can be delivered well. When it happens, they speak over, uncontrolled, and
talk unnecessary more than is needed. 3
Reduced forms The special problems in teaching spoken English are contractions, elisions,
reduced vowels, etc. The students who do not know about those tend to speak too formal and talk in unnatural ways.
4 Performance variables
The other problem is a number of hesitation, pauses, backtracking, and corrections. The students keep silent in a long time and feel hesitate to
speak. 5
Colloquial language The students are not familiar with forms of idioms, and phrases of
colloquial language. 6
Rate of delivery The students still have a difficulty to maintain speaking in stable speed and
other attributes of fluency. The teachers need to play a number of different roles during the speaking activities to get students to speak fluently.
7 Stress, rhythm, and intonation
The students have obstacles in understanding the most important characteristic of English pronunciation like stress, rhythm, and intonation.
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8 Interaction
The students have difficulty to produce waves of language in the process of interaction with creativity of conversational negotiation. Therefore, the
teachers or language instructors should provide learners with opportunities for meaningful communicative behavior about relevant topics by using
learner-learner interaction as the key to teaching language for communication because communication derives essentially from
interaction Rivers in Richards and Renandya, 2002: 208. When looking at some realities that the students have many obstacles to
speak English well, the teachers have to think of some strategies to resolve the difficulty they are encountering. Some experts propose some solutions related to
problems in learning speaking. Harmer 2001: 249 states some solutions to deal with difficulty in speaking.
The first is improvising. The speakers sometimes try any word or phrase to convey the meaning at the time without having planned it. Such improvisations
sometimes work, but it is also difficult to understand for many people. The second is discarding. It happens when the speakers simply cannot find words for what
they want to say. The speakers may remove the thought that they cannot put into words. The third is foreignising. This happens when the speakers choose a word
in first language they know well and change it into the other word that will be equivalent to the meaning that they want to express in the foreign language. The
fourth is paraphrasing. It means that the speakers are using different words
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without changing its original meaning. For example, if the speakers do not know the word broom, they can talk about something for sweeping the floor.
In addition, Lloyd in Westwoods 2008: 45-46 tells about the most effective approaches for reducing student failure rates. The first is structured. It is
related to a great deal of teacher direction in the initial stages of learning. The second is objective oriented. It means that the students understand about what is to
be achieved. The third is emphasizing on practice. It means that new information and skills are repeated and applied many times to ensure acquisition and
maintenance. The fourth is independence oriented. It means that the learners are expected to acquire knowledge and skills that will enable them later to work
independently. In summary, there are some solutions that are offered to solve the common
problems in learning speaking. When the students have difficulty in speaking, the teacher is demanded to introduce them with the other ways to make speaking
easier and to give the students more confidence.
4. Cooperative Learning