Challenges in teaching speaking to EFL learners

Abstract

This preliminary study aims to describe the challenges that the teachers face in teaching English speaking to their students in Aceh. Speaking is perceived as the most fundamental skill to acquire since the onset of the communicative era is treated as the ultimate goal of language teaching, and its proper development has become the attention of both teachers and learners. However, it is also a commonly recognized fact that achieving proficiency in foreign language speaking is not an easy task. Thus, it is important for teachers to be aware of the challenges in teaching speaking so that they can seek for solutions to them. Accordingly, this preliminary study collected data by interviewing two teachers from a public senior high school in Bireuen, Aceh. These teachers have been teaching English for the past ten years in the school, respectively. They revealed that the challenges they encountered most in teaching speaking are students’ lack of vocabulary, pronunciation problems, nothing to say, lack of motivation and the use or interferecnes of the mother tongue. Thus, the teachers do their best to overcome these challenges along the process of their teaching in the classroom, and some of their efforts are also discussed in the paper. Future studies are suggested to collect data from other sources such as observations in the classroom during the teaching and learning process and gather information from students themselves through interviews and questionnaires.