CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. The Review of Speaking

Definition of speaking ability Speaking is one of the most significant skills

to be developed as means of effective communication. The teaching and learning

of speaking skill are a necessary component of any language education classroom.

Spoken language presents affordances for learning as the main communicative

means of the classroom and it is a significant part of syllabus content and learning

outcomes. In this review paper, the researcher define the term speaking, explain the

features of speaking, clarify the stages of teaching speaking skill, discuss the

strategies for improving speaking skill, and finally offered some useful suggestions

for teaching and learning speaking skill. The findings of this review paper indicated

that through using appropriate strategies, FL teachers can provide a friendly

environment for EFL learners to improve their English speaking ability effectively

and efficiently. Introduction Bueno, Madrid, and McLaren (2006) said that

speaking is one of the most difficult skills that EFL learners encounter. Despite this,

it has been forced into the background while EFL teachers have spent most of their

classroom time attempting to teach their learners how to write, read, and listen in

the second language. According to Efrizal (2012), speaking skill is more important

for people interaction where they speak everywhere and every day by English.

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A lot of people use English as a means of communication and it makes

persons who come from several countries to be easier in making interaction and

communication. Speaking is one way of communicating opinions and messages

orally. If we are going to persuade learners to communicate, we should use the

Efrizal (2012) expressed that speaking involves speech or sentences with the aim

of having intention to be identified by speaker and the receiver processes them to

understand their purposes. According to Bailey and Savage (1994), the ability to

speak English language is equivalent with knowing that language. In spite of that,

speaking in English language has been regarded as the most challenging of the four

language skills. Brown (1994) stated that speaking is one of the most demanding

skill for EFL learners because of contractions, vowel reductions and elision.

1. Aspects of Speaking

In teaching speaking, there are some aspects which need to be considered

by the teacher. Brown (2001: 268-269) proposes four aspects of speaking skills,

namely fluency, accuracy, pronunciation, and vocabulary. They become the main

requirements that must exist for the teacher to design the speaking activities for

his/her students. Therefore, a good speaking activity has to cover all these four

following aspects.

a) Fluency

A speaker is considered as a fluent speaker if he/she can use the language

quickly and confidently, with few hesitation or unnatural pauses, false start, word

searches, etc. (Noonan, 2003: 55). Speakers need to know where he/she has to pause
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and stop his/her speaking in appropriate place. Furthermore, it can be said to speak

fluently if a speaker does not produce word per word at a time in his/her speaking.

Therefore a good speaker is demanded to be able to produce words in his/her speech

into groups of words that form a meaningful unit (phrases or clauses).

b) Accuracy

Noonan (2003: 55) states that accuracy happens when students‟ speech

matches what people actually say when they use the target language. Specifically,

accuracy deals with the grammatical structures which cover some aspects like part

of speech, tense, phrase, sentence, etc. Thus in order to achieve the level of accuracy

the students are demanded to use the correct grammatical structures in their speech.

c) Pronunciation

At the beginning level, the goal of teaching pronunciation is focused on clear

and comprehensible pronunciation. Furthermore at the advance level the

pronunciation goals can focus on elements that enhance communication which will

cover stress pattern, intonation, voice quality, etc.

d) Vocabulary

Vocabulary becomes a very important part of language learning which can

be used to determine students‟ English speaking fluency. They can generate

sentences only by using words so it is impossible to speak fluently without having

an ample site of vocabulary. In fact, some students have only limited vocabulary so

they meet some difficulties in speaking. Therefore, it is necessary for the English
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teacher to put some effort in order to enrich the students‟ vocabulary. Noonan

(2003) proposes four principles for teaching vocabulary:

1) Focus on the most useful vocabulary first.

The most useful vocabulary that every language learner needs whether they

use the language for listening, speaking, reading or writing or whether they use the

language in formal and informal situations is the most frequent 1000 word families

of English.

2) Focus on the vocabulary in the most appropriate way.

The teachers need to clearly distinguish the way they treat high frequency

words from the way they treat low frequency words.

3) Give attention to the high frequency words across the four strands of a

course.

High frequency vocabulary should get attention through teaching and study

and should be met and used in communicating messages in listening, speaking,

reading and writing.

4) Encourage learners to reflect on and take responsibility for learning. The

learners need to realize that they must be responsible for their own learning.

3. Classroom Speaking Activities

Speaking should be taught in attractive and communicative activities. There

are many types of classroom speaking activities. Harmer (2001: 348-352) proposes
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six classroom speaking activities. They are acting from script, communication

games, discussion, prepared talks, questionnaires, simulation, and role play.

1) Acting from script

Playing scripts and acting out the dialogues are two kinds of acting scripts

that should be considered by the teacher in the teaching and learning process. In

playing scripts, it is important for the students to act out it as real acting. The role

of the teacher in this activity is as theatre directors, drawing attention to appropriate

stress, intonation, and speed. This means that the lines they speak will have real

meaning. By giving students practice in these things before they give their final

performances, the teacher ensures that acting out is both a learning and language

producing activity. In acting the dialogue, the students will be very helped if they

are given time to rehearse their dialogues before the performance. The students will

gain much more from the whole experience in the process.

2) Communication games

Games are designed to provoke communication between students. The

games are made based on the principle of the information gap so that one student

has to talk to a partner in order to solve a puzzle, draw a picture, put a thing in the

right order, or find similarities and differences between pictures. Television and

radio games, imported into the classroom, often provide good fluency activities.
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3) Discussion

Discussion is probably the most commonly used activity in the oral skills

class. Here, the students are allowed to express their real opinions. According to

Harmer (2001:272) discussion range is divided into several stages from highly

formal, whole-group staged events to informal small group interactions. The first is

the buzz groups that can be used for a whole range of discussion activities. The

second is instant comments which can train students to respond fluently and

immediately. This involves showing them photographs or introducing topics at any

stage of a lesson and nominating students to say the first thing that comes into their

head. The last is formal debates. Students prepare arguments in favor or against

various propositions. The debate will be started when those who are appointed as

„panel speaker‟ produce well-rehearsed „writing like‟ arguments whereas others,

the audience, pitch in as the debate progresses with their own thoughts on the

subject.

4) Prepared talks

Students make a presentation on a topic of their own choice. Such talks are

not designed for informal spontaneous conversations because they are prepared and

more „writing like‟. However, if possible students should speak from notes rather

than from a script.

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5) Questionnaires

Questionnaires are very useful because they ensure that both questioner and

respondent have something to say to each other. Students can design questionnaires

on any topic that is appropriate. As they do so the teacher can act as a resource,

helping them in the design process. The results obtained from questionnaires can

then form the basis for written work, discussions, or prepared talks.

6) Simulation and Role play

Simulation and role play can be used to encourage general oral fluency, or

to train students for specific situations. Students can act out simulation as them or

take on the role of completely different character and express thoughts and feelings

as they doing in the real world.

4. Types of Classroom Speaking Performance

In designing speaking activities or instructional materials for second

language or foreign language teaching, it is necessary to recognize the different

functions speaking performs in daily communication and the different purposes for

which the students need speaking skills. They are imitative, intensive, responsive,

interactive, and extensive. In imitative speaking performance, learners imitate or

parrot back a word or phrase or possibly a sentence. The purpose of imitation is not

for meaningful interaction but for focusing on some particular elements of language

form. Drilling is the example of imitative speaking performance. An intensive

speaking performance is related to the production of short stretches of oral language

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to demonstrate the competence such as grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or

phonological relationship (prosodic elements: intonation, tress, rhythm, juncture)

(Brown, 2004: 273). Another type of classroom speaking performance is called

responsive, short replies are the example of speaking performance which does not

extend into dialogues, for example standard greetings, simple requests and

comments etc.

The stimulus is always a spoken prompt in order to preserve the authenticity

with only one or two follow up questions (Brown, 2004: 141). Interactive speaking

performance consists of transactional and interpersonal dialogues. Transactional

dialogue is carried out for the purpose of conveying or exchanging information.

This type of speaking performance is an extended form of responsive language. A

conversation is the example of transactional dialogue. Another extended form of

performance in interpersonal dialogue. Compared to the purpose of transactional

language, interpersonal (dialogue) tends to maintain social relationships better than

exchange information. Some elements may involve in a dialogue such as casual

register, colloquial language, emotionally charged language, slang, ellipsis,

sarcasm etc. The last speaking performance is extensive (monologue). Extensive

oral production can be in the form of reports, summaries, and speeches. It can be

planned or impromptu.
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B. Types of Speaking

Two Types of Speeches

- Informative: Informative speaking generally centers on talking about

people, events, processes, places, or things.

- Persuasive: Persuasive speaking is the type of speaking that most people

engage in the most. This type of speech can involve everything from arguing about

politics to talking about what to eat for dinner.

1. The Informative Speech

An informative speech may be a five minute overview of an object or an

event, a three hour seminar covering an abstract concept, or anything in between.

But it's true that virtually any informative speech will benefit from good supporting

information. General Reference resources are a good place to start.

2. The Persuasive Speech

Nothing makes an argument more persuasive than a solid factual base. Use

the library's collections to get statistics, research, and other information to craft the

best possible argument.

3. Factors influencing speaking ability

Speaking is one of the most important skills to be developed and enhanced

as means of effective communication. Speaking skill is regarded one of the most

difficult aspects of language learning. Many language learners find it difficult to

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express themselves in spoken language. They are generally facing problems to use

the foreign language to express their thoughts effectively. They stop talking because

they face psychological obstacles or cannot find the suitable words and expressions.

The modern world of media and mass communication requires good

knowledge of spoken English. This paper aims at establishing the need to focus on

the factors affecting on language learners’ English speaking skill. This review paper

traces out the body of research concerning the term speaking, the importance of

speaking, and characteristics of speaking performance, speaking problems, and

factors affecting speaking performance. According to the review of literature,

appropriate speaking instruction was found to be the learners’ priority and a field

in which they need more attention. This study can be useful to teachers and

researchers to consider their language learners’ speaking needs in English language

teaching and learning context.

4. Intralexical factors of speaking

Speaking is one of the main skills in language learning and it is utilized as

a means of transferring the speaker’s knowledge to the audience. It is also agreed

that speaking is a highly complex and demanding process. The ability to speak well

is not naturally acquired except by practicing and learning through experience. This

study has been devoted to investigate whether there is any relationship between

pronunciation and reading knowledge and English as a foreign language (EFL)

learners’ speaking performance.

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After getting the scores of reading, Pronunciation and Speaking, the

researcher analyzed the score. To analyze the data of this study, the ‘correlation

analyses and ‘multiple- regression’ were run to measure the degree of relationship

among variables. The results revealed that there is a high and significant correlation

between reading and pronunciation and the learners’ speaking performance. In

other words, reading and pronunciation can assess speaking scores. Furthermore,

the findings suggested that pronunciation can assess learner’s speaking

performance more than reading.

5. Teaching Speaking

a. Principles of Designing Speaking Techniques

Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite

its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and

English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of

drills or memorization of dialogues (Noonan, 2003: 49). However, today’s world

requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students to use language

communicatively to follow the social and cultural rules in each communicative

circumstance. Richard (2006: 9) says that what is needed to use language

communicatively is communicative competence which involves: grammatical

competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, and discourse

competence.

According to Brown and Yule (1983: 27) the objective of teaching speaking

is to enable the learners to express their feelings, opinions, and ideas in the target
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language (English), use. English expressions, such as greetings, apologizing,

introducing, etc. However, learners in EFL situation learning speaking is very

challenging because they have limited opportunities to use the target language

outside the classroom (Noonan, 2003: 54). In relation to the teaching of speaking,

Noonan (2003: 54-56) proposes some principles for designing speaking teaching

techniques. They are presented as follows:

The first principle for teaching speaking is being aware of the differences

between second language and foreign language learning contexts. In many schools

in Indonesia, English is taught as a foreign language because the target language is

not the language of communication in the society. Therefore, teacher has to work

harder in teaching the students. The second principle for teaching speaking is giving

students practice with both fluency and accuracy. Fluency and accuracy are

important aspects in speaking. Therefore, in teaching speaking the teacher has to

make sure that his/her students get adequate practices to develop both their fluency

and accuracy. Teacher should not interrupt his/her students in the middle of their

speaking, even though it aims to correct the students speaking mistake. The students

could not develop their fluency if they often get interruption in their speaking. The

third principle is providing opportunities for students to talk by using group work

or pair work, and limiting teacher talk. The students are usually reluctant to speak

because they are afraid to make mistakes in their speaking.

They think that they will take the responsibility alone if they make mistakes,

so they choose to keep silent in order to be safe. However, it will be different if they

do the speaking activities in group. They will have partners in group activities, so
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they will be not alone if they make a mistake. Therefore, teacher should not start

the speaking activity by asking the students to have a single speaking performance

but he/she can start it in a group performance. Furthermore, the teacher has to

realize that the main role of a teacher in speaking activity is as feedback provider.

It means in speaking activities teacher should not dominate the classroom talk.

He/she has to encourage and provide more opportunities for the students to practice

speaking and give correction if he/she finds the students make mistakes.

The fourth principle is planning speaking tasks that involve negotiation for

meaning. Being able to understand and make ourselves understood are two crucial

points in communication that the speakers must take into account. These two points

show us that there is a process of negotiating meaning in communication. In relation

to the speaking activity, the teacher is demanded to design the speaking task that

can cover the practice of negotiating meaning. It involves asking for clarification,

repetition, and explanation. Therefore, at the and of the lesson the students can have

the ability to clarify their understanding and confirm that someone has understood

about they have said during the communication in the target language. The fifth

principle is designing classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in

both transactional and interactional speaking. Interactional and transactional speech

is an effective inside-classroom practice to improve spoken language. Interactional

speech is a form of communication for social purposes such as establishing and

maintaining social relationships. This kind of communication is relatively

unpredictable in nature. In contrast, transactional speech is a form of

communication for certain purposes to get something done such as the exchange of
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goods or services. This kind of communication is highly predictable in nature like

telephoning for a taxi. The two types of oral production skill enable to put into role

play as the possible practice conducted by students.

Moreover, Kayi (2006) suggests some guidance for English language

teachers while teaching oral language:

1) Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language

by providing a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic

materials and tasks, and shared knowledge.

2) Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim,

practice different ways of student participation.

3) Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking

Time. Step back and observe students.

4) Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student’s response.

5) Ask eliciting questions such as “What do you mean? How did you reach

that conclusion?” in order to prompt students to speak more.

6) Provide written feedback like “Your presentation was really great. It was

a good job. I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient

use of your voice...”

7) Do not correct students‟ pronunciation mistakes very often while they

are speaking. Correction should not distract student from his/her speech.
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8) Involve speaking activities not only in the class but also out of the class;

Contact parents and other people who can help.

9) Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track

and see whether they need your help while they work in groups or pair.

10) Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking

activities.

11) Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing

themselves in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice the

spoken language. Both Noonan and Kayi propose almost the same basic principles

in the teaching speaking. Both of them suggest the English language teachers to

give their students enough opportunity to speak and have speaking practice to

empower their fluency and accuracy in speaking.

b. Teacher’s Roles during the Speaking Lesson

Teachers play an important role during teaching and learning process.

Students cannot learn English without teachers‟ guidance. Sometimes, a teacher

hold motivate the student to learn English. The students need their teacher’s

guidance in doing activities. According to Harmer (2001), a teacher needs to play a

number of different roles during the speaking activities. The following are the

teachers‟ role when we are trying to get the learners to speak fluently:
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6. Using guessing game

What we can get from games? Wright said that it attracts students’ interest

motivation, stimuli to involve in teaching learning process without any doubtless.

Students would not stuffy, boring, sleepy and similar problems, because they are

asked to take part during the lesson. Their attention would be focused on the

materials being presented without being making any other Negative action and

never miss the lesson (Wright, 1976: 228).

In a similar extent, there are several advantages of using games in the classroom

which can be summarized as follows:

-games are motivating a challenging;

-learning a language requires a great deal of effort;

-games help students to make and sustain the effort of learning;

-games provide language practice in the various skills (speaking, writing,

listening and reading);

-games encourage students of interact and communicate;

-games create a meaningful context for language use;

speaking games bring real world context in to the classroom, and increase

students use of English in a flexible, meaningful and communicate way, games

usually involve friendly competition and they keep students interested in learning
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the language; and games can help students to learn and hang on to new words more

easily.

7. Guessing Game

According to Case, guessing game is a game in which the object is to guess

some kinds of information, such as: a word, a phrase, a title, and the location object.

There are some kinds of guessing game:

a. Fruitland vegetables guessing

The teacher can give clues and/ or the students can ask question using the

language of colures (“It is red or green”), animals (“Monkeys eat/ like this”), shapes

(“It’s a circle”), or other adjectives of shape and size (long, round, medium-sized,

big, small etc.).

b. Animal guessing

Clues can consist of colors (“It is yellow and black”), numbers (“There are

three in this room/ on the flashcard”- if they know the cards already or can see them

all), sizes and shapes (“It is round/ big/ very small”), numbers plus body parts (“It

has eight legs”), sizes and shapes plus body parts (“It has a long neck”), or

personality and other adjectives (“It is quiet/ loud/ scary”).

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c. Actions guessing

Hints could be with the vocabulary of animals (“Dolphins do this”), times

(“I do it at 7 o’clock”), places (“People do it in the park”), or classroom objects

(“You can do this with a pen).

d. Body parts guessing

You can give clues including numbers (“I have two of these”), sizes and

shapes (“An elephant has a long one of these”), clothes (“You put your scarf around

this”), or classroom vocabulary (“A chair has one of these”).

e.Numbers guessing

Clues include sentences using animals (“A spider has this many legs”),

classroom language (“There are this many boys in the class”), actions (“I clean my

teeth this many times a day”) or transport (“A train sometimes has this many

engines”).

8. The Hypothesis

As an alternative answer of the research questions, the writer formulates the

following Hypothesis such as: the null Hypothesis (Ho). In which the null

Hypothesis indicated that the use of guessing game in teaching speaking is not

effective. While, the alternative Hypothesis (Ha) is” the use of guessing game in

teaching speaking is effective.