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Referring to the above elaboration, in assessing speaking skill the researcher has to pay close attention to two main skills as essential substances of
speaking skill namely micro-skill and macro-skill. The micro-skill is concerned to produce the smaller chunks of language such as phonemes, morphemes, words,
collocations, fluency and phrasal units. While, the macro-skill implies the speaker’s focus on the larger elements such as accuracy, discourse, style,
cohesion, nonverbal communication, and strategic option. Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that speaking is one of
language skill in which it is an activity to express or communicate opinions, thoughts, and ideas orally involving two or more people. The aspects of speaking
skill are content, organization, grammar, pronunciation, and fluency. The indicators of those aspects are as follows: 1 content, to understand everything
without difficulty; 2 organization, to use language in the term of well-designed; 3 grammar, to make few noticeable errors of grammar or word orders; 4
pronunciation: to have standard of English accent; 5 fluency, to have fluent speech without hesitation.
d. Factors Influencing the Students’ Speaking Ability
According to Richards and Reynanda in Http.www.proffessor- jackrichard.comdepeloping classroom speaking activities.pdf, p.1.November 1,
2007, there are four factors that affect students’ oral communication ability namely age or maturational, aural medium, socio-cultural factors and affective
factors. Below are the explanations of the four factors that affect students’ speaking ability.
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1. Age or maturational constraints
Age is one of the most commonly cited determinant factors of success or failure in foreign language learning. Several experts such as Krashen and
Scarcella argue that learners who begin learning a second language in early childhood through natural exposure achieve higher proficiency than those
beginning as adults. Many adults fail to reach native-like proficiency in a second language. Their progress seems to level off at certain stage. This fact shows that
the aging process itself may affect or limit adult learners ability to pronounce the target language fluently with native-like pronunciation.
2. Aural medium
The central role of listening comprehension in foreign language acquisition process in now largely accepted. It means that Listening plays an
extremely important role in the development of speaking abilities. Speaking feeds listening, this precedes it. So, speaking is closely related to or interwoven with
listening which is the basic mechanism through which the rules of language are internalized.
3. Socio-cultural factors
Many cultural characteristics of a language also affect foreign language learning. From a pragmatic perspective, language is a form of social action
because linguistic communication occurs in the context of structured interpersonal exchange and meaning is thus socially regulated. Thus, to speak a language, one
must know how language is used in a social context. It is will be known that each
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language has its own rules of usage as to when, how, and what degree a speaker may impose a given verbal behavior of their conversational partner.
In addition, oral communication involves a very powerful nonverbal communication system which sometimes contradicts the messages provided
through the verbal listening channel. Because of a lack of familiarly with nonverbal communication system of target language, EFL learners usually do not
know how to pick up nonverbal cues. So, it is an important point to understand the socio-cultural factor as another aspect that great affects oral communication.
4. Affective factors
The affective side of the learners is probably one of the most important influences on language learning emotions besides self-esteem, empathy, anxiety,
attitude and motivation. Foreign language learning is a complex task that is susceptible to human anxiety which is associated with feeling of uneasiness,
frustration, self-doubt and apprehension. Speaking a foreign language in public, especially in front of native speakers, is often anxiety-provoking.
These four factors play an important role in determining the success and the failure of students in learning speaking skill. Learning to speak a foreign
language requires more than knowing its grammatical and semantic rules. Factors’ affecting adult EFL learners’ oral communication is the thing that need to be
consider by EFL teacher in order to provide guidance in developing competent speaker of English. Once the EFL teachers are aware of these things, they will
teach in more appropriate way and it will help them to develop students’ speaking skill.
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2. The Teaching of Speaking
