Respondents Are Good In Speaking Among The Macro Skills

2020. 1. 22. 23:28카테고리 없음

Respondents Are Good In Speaking Among The Macro Skills

AnswersStudentsTeachersNumber of respondentsPercentage (%)Number of respondentsPercentage (%)Always1216.4-Often1317.8-Sometimes4257.54100Rarely56.9-Never11.4-Total7310044The table 5 reveals that a small percentage of 16.4% ofstudents is always interested in using English in real-life communication andonly 17.8% of the students use it often. However, a great percentage of 57.5%represents a number of students who are sometimes interested in using Englishin real-life communication; then, 6.9% and 1.4% represent a number of studentswho are rarely and never respectively interested. On the other side, a hundredpercent of teachers agreed that students are sometimes interested in usingEnglish in real-life communication.From these findings it is noticed that students are poorlyinterested in using English in real-life communication. However, Littlewood(1984, p.53) says that, «In second language learning as in every other ofhuman learning, motivation is the crucial force which determines whether alearner embarks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and howlong he perseveres». Therefore, it is to be mentioned that this students'poor interest in using English in real-life communication should be caused bythese students' lack of motivation in using foreign languages in general andEnglish in particular.4.2.2 Students' Feeling whenSpeaking English Out of Classroom SettingThe feeling of a language learner when he is speaking thatlanguage has a great relationship with his communicative competence. Therefore,the following table shows how E.L. Learners feel when using English in theiroral communication.

May 9, 2014 - the consistency among these variables of four basic language skills and higlight the. These four language skills are sometimes called the 'macro-skills'. Participants will report that they are better in writing in English than in reading in. Respondents were from age group ranged from 17 to 27 years old. The Importance of Speaking Skills. 2.2.1 Language is a tool for communication. We communicate with others, to express our ideas, and to know others’ ideas as well. Communication takes place, where there is speech. Thus it is imperative to develop, nurture, and engage strategic thinkers at all levels—critical, creative, broadgauged visionaries with the intellect to dissect the status quo, grasp the big picture, discern important relationships among events, generate imaginative possibilities for action, and operate easily in the conceptual realm.

That is, whether they feel proud or shy when speakingEnglish.Table 6: Students' feelingwhen speaking English out of the classroom setting. AnswersStudentsTeachersNumber of respondentsPercentage (%)Number of respondentsPercentage (%)They feel proud4460.3-They feel shy2939.74100Total731004100As it is shown in table 6, 60.3% of students said that theyfeel proud when speaking English out of classroom setting while 39.7% representthe number of students who are shy. On the other side, a hundred percent ofteachers confirmed that students feel shy when they are speaking English outside of classroom. This contradiction between students and teachers' answersshould be due to the fact that some students did not want to reveal theirweakness especially thinking that their schools would be negatively criticizedthereafter.Then, relying much on the teachers' assertion, one can saythat students are generally shy when using English outside the classroom. Thisobservation relates to `problems with speaking activities' stated by Ur (2002).These problems are the following: inhibition, nothing to say, low or unevenparticipation, and the mother tongue use.

This means that, if an E.L. Learnerfinds himself inhibited, dominated by the use of his mother tongue, etc. In theclassroom, it would always be difficult for him to use this language outsidethe classroom where he encounters different people he is not familiar with.4.2.3. Students' Choicebetween Accuracy and Fluency when They Are Speaking in English.As say Richards, Platt and Platt (1992, p.65) cited in Kilfoiland Walt (1997, p.12), the communicative competence is «The ability notonly to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to formgrammatically correct sentences but also, to know when and where to use thesesentences and to whom». Therefore, to be communicatively competent, alanguage learner needs to be both accurate and fluent when he is speaking. Thefollowing table shows what students prefer from accuracy, fluency and themixture of accuracy and fluency.Table 7: Students' choicebetween accuracy and fluency. AnswersStudentsTeachersNumber of respondentsPercentage (%)Number of respondentsPercentage (%)Accuracy3243.84100Fluency1013.7-Both accuracy and fluency3142.5-Total731004100The table 7 above presented shows that 43.8% of studentsprefer to be more accurate than fluent in their speech.

However, a smallpercentage of 13.7 represent the number of students who prefer to be morefluent than accurate in their speech. Then, 42.5% of students said that bothaccuracy and fluency are the main goals in their speech. On the other side, ahundred percent of teachers said that all students consider much more accuracythan fluency when they speak. The fact that there is a small number ofstudents who regard fluency as an element of great importance in their speechallows the researcher to confirm that students' communicative competence inconversational English is low. This point of view goes hand in hand with thatof Richards et al (1985, p.107) who say that «Fluency is the featureswhich give speech the qualities of being natural and normal, including the useof pausing, rhythm, intonation, stress, rate of speaking, and use ofinterjections and interruptions».4.3. Availability of LanguageTeaching Aids in Schools and the Use of these Latter to Develop OralCommunicative Skills among E.L. LearnersTalking about the language teaching aids, the researcherwanted to know the extent to which schools access on audio-visual equipment,how schools use this equipment and the extent to which teachers and studentsjudge audio-visual equipment important in E.L.

Availability ofAudio-visual Equipment in SchoolsAll secondary schools do not possess or access on audio-visualequipment equally. Therefore, the table below shows the extent to which schoolsown the equipment such as radio, video player, CD player and computer.Table 8: Availability ofaudio-visual equipment in schools. Answer «Yes»frequencyEquipmentStudentsTeachersNumber of respondents%Number of respondents%Radio5676.74100Video player5575.3375CD player3750.7-Computer5879.5375A glance at the above table shows that 76.7% of students and100% of English teachers agreed that their schools own radio cassette player.In addition 75.3% of the students and 75% of teachers confirmed that videoplayer is available in their schools. Then, only 50.7% of students said that CDplayer can be found in their schools. Moreover, 79.5% of students and 75% ofteachers stated that their schools own computers.

However, no English teacheragreed that CD player is available in his school. The reasons for this may bethat they are not interested in using such equipment, hence they cannot knowwhether they are available or not.In this light, it is clear that all schools own sufficientaudio-visual teaching aids.

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This sufficient ownership of the teaching aidsshould result in students' sufficient practice of English language forcommunicative purposes. These findings go hand in hand with the idea ofLocatis and Atkinson (1984) who say that audio media such as radio, recordplayer and tape recorder are available in most households and many people havesophisticated audio equipment in their homes. However, the potential of audiomedia as an educational tool is too seldom realised. Therefore, it is worthknowing whether the available equipment is used for language teaching purposes.4.3.2.

Schools' Use ofAudio-visual Equipment in E.L. Teaching and LearningAs all schools do not access on audio-visual equipment, allschools that have that access do not use this equipment in language teachingpurposes.

Therefore, the table below shows the extent to which schools useaudio-visual equipment in language teaching purposes.Table 9: The E.L. Teachers'use of audio-visual equipment in teaching. Answer «Yes»frequencyEquipmentStudentsTeachersNumber of respondents%Number of respondents%Radio3750.7250Video player811-CD player68.2-Computer1621.9-The above table shows that 50.7% of students and 50% ofEnglish teachers said that radio is used for English language teachingpurposes. 11% of students asserted that video player is really used. Then, only8.2% of students said that CD player is used.

Moreover, 21.9% of studentsresponded that computer is sometimes used for E.L. Teaching purposes.No English teacher said that Video player, CD player andcomputer are used for E.L. Teaching purpose while some students responded`yes'.

The reason for this may be that students use this equipment outsideEnglish class in their spare time for example or in other courses. However,this poor use of audio-visual equipment in language teaching is very dangerousin development of students' communicative competence in conversational English.This is not far from the writings of Lonergan (1984) saying that with videoplayer, the combination of sounds and vision is dynamic, immediate andaccessible. Therefore, the communication can be shown in a context and variousfeatures of communicative language can be perceived easily by the learner.Then, it is to wonder whether both teachers and students are aware of theimportance of using audio-visual equipment in language teaching.4.3.3. Importance of UsingAudio-visual Equipment in E.L. Teaching and LearningStudents and teachers do not have the same view on theimportance of using audio-visual equipment in English teaching and learningprocess. The following table shows the level at which students and teachersagree that using audio-visual equipment in E.L.

Teaching is important.Table 10: The importance ofusing audio-visual equipment in E.L. Teaching and learning. AnswersStudentsTeachersNumber of respondentsPercentage (%)Number of respondentsPercentage (%)Strongly Agree3243.84100Agree2534.3-Disagree1317.8-Strongly Disagree34.1-Total731004100From the result of this table, it is clearly shown that 43.8%of students and 100% of English teachers strongly agreed that audio-visualequipment is of a paramount importance in E.L.

Teaching/ learning process. Only34.3% of students agreed with this assertion. Conversely, 17.8% of studentsdisagreed and only 4.1% of students strongly disagreed that audio-visualequipment is important in E.L. Teaching/learning process.Therefore, it is to be mentioned that both students and E.L.teachers are aware of the importance of using audio-visual equipment in E.L.teaching/learning process. It means that the poor use of this equipment is dueto others factors but not to the fact that they ignore the importance ofthis.4.4. Teachers' Focus onOral Skills when TeachingAs far as the E.L. Teachers focus on oral skills is concerned,the researcher wanted to know, the rank given to oral language skillscomparatively to other language skills, how much time teachers prepare andteach the lesson on oral skills, and then which oral skill is insisted on.4.4.1.

Writing, Reading,Speaking and Listening Skills as They Are Emphasised on by E.L. TeachersWriting, reading, speaking and listening are known as fourtraditional language skills and all language learners are supposed to havesufficient knowledge on each of these skills. However, some language teachersdo not take these skills at the equal footing in their teaching activity.Therefore, two tables below show respectively students and teachers' views onthe extent to which E.L. Teachers emphasise on these skills differently.Table 11: The views ofstudents about their teachers' emphasis on some of the four skills. SkillsFrequencyWritingReadingSpeakingListeningRespondents%Respondents%Respondents%Respondents%Always1723.31723.379.6-Often2432.7.8912.3Sometimes2534.1.134.1Rarely45.1.94764.4Never34.122.779.61419.2TotalThe table above shows that 23.3% of respondents agreed thattheir teachers always emphasise writing skill in E.L. Teaching process. 32.9%said that writing is often emphasised, 34.2% confirmed that it is sometimesemphasised.

Studies about speaking skills

However, 5.5% said that writing is rarely emphasised while 4.1%responded that writing is never emphasised. As far as reading is concerned,23.3% of respondents agreed that reading is always emphasised by theirteachers. The same percentage said that reading is often emphasised.

Respondents Are Good In Speaking Among The Macro Skills

In thesame way 32.9% confirmed that reading is sometimes emphasised. Conversely,17.8% said that it is rarely emphasised and only 2.7% said that reading isnever emphasised in E.L. Teaching/learning process.Concerning speaking skill, 9.6% of respondents said thatspeaking is always emphasised and 17.8% confirmed that it is often emphasised.A great percentage of 41.1% confirmed that it is sometimes emphasised in theirlanguage learning. On the contrary, 21.9% responded that speaking is rarelyemphasised and 9.6% answered that speaking is never emphasised in E.L.teaching/learning process. For the listening skill, 12.3% said that it is oftenemphasised and 4.1% said that it is sometimes emphasised in their languagelearning. Conversely, a great percentage of 64.4% of respondents confirmed thatlistening is rarely emphasised and 19.2% said that it is never emphasised.Table 12: The views ofteachers about their emphasis on some of the four skills.

SkillsFrequencyWritingReadingSpeakingListeningRespondents%Respondents%Respondents%Respondents%Always250125-Often125125-Sometimes125250375-Rarely-1254100Never-Total004100From the results of this table 50% of respondents agreed thatthey always emphasise writing skill in E.L. Teaching process. 25% said thatwriting is often emphasised, 25% confirmed that it is sometimes emphasised. Asfar as reading is concerned, 25% of respondents agreed that reading is alwaysemphasised. The same percentage said that reading is often emphasised. In thesame way 50% confirmed that reading is sometimes emphasised.Concerning speaking skill, a great percentage of 75% confirmedthat it is sometimes emphasised in their language teaching.

On the contrary,25% responded that speaking is rarely emphasised. As far as listening skill isconcerned, 100% of E.L. Teachers said that it is rarely emphasised in theirlanguage teaching process.From the findings in table 11 and table 12, it is clear thatthe most emphasised skills are writing and reading while speaking and listeningare neglected. This implies that students' communicative competence inconversational English cannot be well developed.4.4.2. The Frequency at whicha Lesson on Oral Skills Is PlannedThe researcher wanted to know the extent to which the lessonon oral skills is prepared and taught by E.L.

Therefore, thefollowing table shows the time during which E.L. Learners have the lesson onoral skills.Table 13: The frequency atwhich oral skills are taught. AnswersStudentsTeachersNumber of respondentsPercentage (%)Number of respondentsPercentage (%)Always79.6-Often811-Sometimes2534.2250Rarely2230.1250Never1115.1-Total731004100The above table reveals that 9.6% of students confirmed thatthey have always a lesson on oral skills. 11% said that they have such lessonis often given. In the same way, a great percentage of students and teacherssaid that the lesson on oral skills is sometimes given. That is 34.2% forstudents and 50% for teachers. Nevertheless, 30.1% of students and 50% ofEnglish teachers answered that the lesson on oral skills is rarely planned.15.1% remaining students said that a lesson on oral skills is never given.In fact, taking into consideration the importance of oralskills in developing students' communicative competence, insufficient frequencyof planning a lesson on oral skills may result in serious problem to thedevelopment of communicative competence in conversational English.

This is notin disparity with the findings of Ur (2002) who says that speaking seemsintuitively the most important of all the four skills. That is, people who knowa language are referred to as `speakers' of that language.4.4.3. Emphasis on eitherSpeaking or Listening in E.L. Teaching and LearningA language teacher may be interested in developing hisstudents' oral skills but have difficulty to balance the emphasis to be givento each of these skills.

That is why the table below is used to show theemphasis on either speaking or listening in E.L. Teaching and learning process.Table 14: Emphasis on eitherspeaking or listening in E.L. Teaching and learning. RespondentsAnswersStudentsTeachersNumber of respondentsPercentage (%)Number of respondentsPercentage (%)Speaking4156.14100listening2128.8-None of them1115.1-Total731004100The above table shows that 56.1% of students and 100% ofteachers said that speaking is emphasized. 28.8% of students agreed thatlistening is more emphasised than speaking. Contrary to this, 15.1% of studentssaid that none of both speaking and listening is emphasized in E.L.teaching/learning process.This cannot help in developing communicative competencebecause the latter involves the development of both proactive and receptiveskills.

In this light, emphasizing speaking which is one of the productiveskills, and ignoring or neglecting listening which is one of receptive skills,is a serious problem in language learning for communicative purposes. In thisway, these findings derive support from Byrne (1976) who states that oralcommunication is a two way process between speaker and listener involving theproductive skills of speaking and receptive skills of understanding4.4.4. Factors InfluencingTeachers in Deciding which Skills to Insist on when Teaching EnglishLanguageHaving remarked that some language skills are given muchemphasis while others are neglected, the researcher wanted to know the factorsinfluencing teachers in deciding which skills to insist on when teachingEnglish. He used the table below to show the extent to which teachers agreethat each of these factors affects the teachers' decision on the skills to givemuch emphasis in the language teaching process.Table 15: Factorsinfluencing teachers' choice of language skills to emphasise. Teachers' answersFactorsStrongly AgreeAgreeDisagreeStrongly DisagreeF%F%F%F%Instructional aids125375-National exams4100-Formation in E.L.

Teaching-4100-As it is presented in table 15, 25% of teachers stronglyagreed that the availability of instructional aids for language skillsdevelopment, is a a factor influencing their choice of skills to emphasise.Then, a great percentage of 75% agree with this assertion. 100% of respondentsstrongly agreed that the construction of English national exams is the factorinfluencing their decision on which skills to insist on when teaching.Conversely, 100% of these teachers disagreed with the assertion that theirchoice of the language skills to insist on, is influenced by having gotformation in E.L. Teaching or not.From these findings, it is to be confirmed that the wayEnglish national exams are constructed is the main factor influencing theteachers' choice of the skills which they put emphasis on. The second factor isthe availability of instructional aids. That is, having seen that that writingand reading are skills that are given much emphasis in E.L.

Teaching andlearning, English national exams are prepared to measure only students'communicative competence in writing and reading skills. Then, it may be thatinstructional aids that are available in schools are not put on E.L.

Teachers'disposal so that they may be used to develop students' communicative competencein oral skills and, then, in conversational English. If teachers are stilldeciding what to teach in accordance with what are likely to be the mainconcern of the national exam and if they do not use modern instructional aidseffectively, students will always be unable to use English language inreal-life communication.4.5. The Ability of Studentsin Using E.L. In Friendly Communication SituationsLittlewood (1984) says that the learner should have access tosituations where the language is used as a natural means of communication.Therefore, according to him, more fortunate learners may avoid anxiety whenusing the second language, by establishing friendly contacts in that languageenvironment. Based on this the reseacher designed a test intending to knowwhether E.L.

Learners are able to use different functions of the language toestablish a friendly communication in English.The following table shows the mean and the standard deviationcalculated from the students' marks in the test. Then, these marks are used toillustrate the students' ability to use E.L.

In everyday-life communicationconsidering different categories in which they are; that is, the category ofsex, that of residence area, and the one based on students' family level ofliteracy.`Table 16: The mean ofstudents' marks from the test. Sex of studentsNMeanFemale students216.8Male students525.8The table 16 reveals that the mean calculated from 21 femalestudents' results is 6.8. On the contrary, the mean calculated from 52 malestudents' results is 5.8. From these findings, it is to be mentioned thatneither female nor male students are communicatively competent inconversational English because none of these groups got the mean of 10 out of20. However, a significant difference exists between the mean of femalestudents and that of male students who sat for the test.Even though there is no clear reason for this differencebetween girls and boys' results in the test, one can try to guess the reason:It may be that a great number of boys who did the test do not like to useEnglish when conversing with their friends. They may have difficult to findparticular words or phrases to use appropriately to a given situation orcontext. This is so because boys like freedom more than girls.

Factors Affecting Speaking Skills

Boys may like tospeak paying less attention on the appropriateness of their speech. Therefore,the researcher has the reason to reject the first hypothesis saying that«Sex is not a significant factor influencing E.L. Learners' communicativecompetence in conversational English».4.5.2.

Students' ResidenceArea and Their Ability to Use E.L. In their Everyday-lifeCommunicationThe following table shows the mean and the standard deviationcalculated from marks obtained respectively by students from rural residencearea and those from urban residence area.Table 18: The mean ofstudents' marks according to their residence area. Students' residence areaNMeanRural residence area436Urban residence area306.2The above table shows that the mean calculated from theresults of 43 students from rural areas, is 6. However, the mean calculatedfrom the results of 30 students from urban areas, is 6. A glance at thesefindings allows the researcher to say that there is no significant differencebetween students from rural areas and those from urban areas in using Englishin real-life communication. This assertion is proved by the fact that none ofthese two groups got 10 out of 20.This poor communicative competence between both students fromurban areas and those from rural areas is a serious problem which may be due tothe fact that all of them find it easier to communicate through the mothertongue that to use English. However, students from urban areas should be morecommunicative competence in conversational English than counterparts becausethey have some facilities that should enable them to overcome this problem.

Forexample, those facilities are: they frequently encounter people who do not useKinyarwanda to communicate, they have sufficient access on radio, televisionand video in their homes, and they can use these series of equipment forlanguage learning; many of them may have also learning evening programmes wherethey speak English their home tutors. Hence, relying on these findings, thesecond hypothesis is retained. It says that «There is no significantdifference of communicative competence in conversational English between E.L.learners from rural area and those from urban area».4.5.3.

Students' FamilyLiteracy and their Ability to Use E.L. In Their Everyday-lifeCommunicationThe following table shows the mean and the standard deviationcalculated from marks obtained by students from families with different levelsof literacy.Table 19: The mean ofstudents' marks according to their families' literacy.

Respondents Are Good In Speaking Among The Macro Skills Pdf

Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process.Listening is key to all effective communication. Without the ability to listen effectively, messages are easily misunderstood. As a result, communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated.If there is one communication skill you should aim to master, then listening is it.Listening is so important that many top employers provide listening skills training for their employees. This is not surprising when you consider that good listening skills can lead to better customer satisfaction, greater productivity with fewer mistakes, and increased sharing of information that in turn can lead to more creative and innovative work.Many successful leaders and entrepreneurs credit their success to effective listening skills. Richard Branson frequently quotes listening as one of the main factors behind the success of Virgin. Based on the research of: Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L. And Proctor, R.

(2001)Interplay: the process of interpersonal communicating (8th edn), Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt.The Purpose of ListeningThere is no doubt that effective listening is an extremely important life skill. Why is listening so important?Listening serves a number of possible purposes, and the purposeof listening will depend on the situation and the nature of the communication. To specifically focus on the messages being communicated, avoiding distractions and preconceptions.

To gain a full and accurate understanding into the speakers point of view and ideas. To critically assess what is being said. (See our page on for more).

To observe the accompanying what is being said to enhance understanding. To show interest, concern and concentration. To encourage the speaker to communicate fully, openly and honestly.

To develop an selflessness approach, putting the speaker first. To arrive at a shared and agreed understanding and acceptance of both sides views.Often our main concern while listening is to formulate ways to respond. This is not a function of listening. We should try to focus fully on what is being said and how it's being said in order to more fully understand the speaker.

Respondents Are Good In Speaking Among The Macro Skills