Practical Significance The Significance of the Study
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.
11
According to Nunan 1989: 32 successful oral communication involves: 1
the ability to articulate phonological features of the language comprehensibly
2 mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns
3 an acceptable degree of fluency
4 transactional and interpersonal skills
5 skills in taking short and long speaking turns
6 skills in the management of interaction
7 skills in negotiating meaning
8 conversational listening skills successful conversations require good
listeners as well as good speakers 9
skills in knowing about and negotiating purposes for conversations 10
using appropriate conversational formulate and fillers. In conclusion, speaking is a productive skill in which the activity includes
two or more people have interaction in order to transfer or to get message and information. Speaking skill is always related to communication. Thus, a speaker
needs to use appropriate words and correct grammar to convey meaning accurately and precisely based on context.