English Language Learning Issues

LANGUAGE LEARNING ISSUES ARISING FROM SCHOOL BASED LEARNING

Introduction

Speaking is the utterance of intelligible speech while public speaking is delivering an address to a public audience. Speaking is an adjective and capability of speech. It is an expressive and telling story from a person to another. This skill is a very important because it is one of a way to communicate with each others. However, it is difficult to learn this skill and many problems encountered towards learning this skill at school.

Speaking Skill Problem Identified At SK XXXXX XXXXX (1)

Speaking is one of the skills that is identified as one of the major problem among pupils at SK Xxxxx Xxxxx (1) during the English lesson. Speaking skill is a very important because it is one of a way to communicate about learning the language. There are four problems that clearly observed during the learning process at that school.

1. Using Textbook As Source of Learning Material

Textbook is the only source used by teachers in the school during English lesson. There are no teaching aids used to make the lesson more interesting. Teachers only chalk and talk to the pupils based from the textbook.

2. English Is A Classroom Language

There are many factors that contribute to the speaking problems among pupils in school. The most clearly caused arising during the lesson is a limited use of the language. The language is only a classroom language. Pupils only speak English in the classroom during the lesson taught. They do not use English outside the classroom. English language interaction among the pupils was practically non-existent. There is no English speaking at home as same as in the outside of school is also not widely used. In this skill, the teacher and pupils both play an important role to develop speaking skill. However, the barriers encountered from both part make the lesson not working so well. The problems faced by the teachers are a poor response from pupils during the lesson. The silent during the lesson with no participation between teacher and student will limit the communication among the class. The pupils are prejudice against English language subject.

3. No Examination Orientation Based on Oracy

Literacy is concerned than the oracy skills. There is no test or examination in oral for primary school therefore the skill is like neglected by the pupils. The ELT curriculum explicitly states that the oral (listening and speaking) skills should be focussed in the primary education, especially in the early years. (KPM, 1995). The pupils would be able to pick up and learn the language in a meaningful way, and later they could be able to use that in reading and writing. It is important therefore that pupils should be provided with the language before they are expected to produce it. They must also be given opportunities to try out the new language in controlled practice sessions where they have very little opportunity to make mistakes. Gradually control can be released as they are given the opportunity to use the language freely. (KPM, 1995).

However, as oral skills (listening and speaking) were not tested in the examinations the skills had practically been neglected in the schools. The ESL teachers claimed that the school and education authorities did not bother with the development of oral skills in the primary schools. What counted were the literary skills, which constituted major components in the UPSR English language paper.

4. Low Confidence Level Among Pupils

Generally, most of the pupils are lack of confidence in using English. The pupils felt embarrassed when using the language in front of their peers and teachers. In addition, pupils are facing a few problems during English lesson. Pupils have lack of opportunities for oral practice. The situation is due to the monopoly by the teacher’s control in class. They are also lack of motivation on speaking English widely. There is a poor model for them to follow for spoken English. The main problems in speaking for the pupils are vocabulary and sentence-construction and confidence. It was found that, the pupils had difficulty expressing themselves in English. They found that it is difficult to fluently speak and there were numerous inappropriate words use and grammatically incorrect sentences.

Strategies and Ways Overcome the Speaking Skill Problem

There are various types of activities on how to teach activities skill. Teacher can do a conversation by creating a dialogue and ask the pupils to act with the dialogue. It also can be a role play. The two students create spontaneous dialogue based on the lesson taught by teacher. Other than that, a story-telling also can be done among the pupils by using different tone of voice, intonation, stress and pause. The retelling activities can be included after the story telling by asking other class member to retell the story that has been read before. Teachers also can do some simple instructions between pupils and ask them to practice eg. Sit down, Come here. There are lot of practical activities can be done to improve the speaking skill. A taped short stories and new casts that involved listening skill also can be done and conduct the question session after the listening activities based on the what the material they are listening. Besides, a riddles can be used for starting lesson. Pupils are become interested and try to give an answer. Songs will also attract pupils to get involved by create enjoy rhymes and jingles.

1. Create Creative Activities And Use Teaching Aids

News Time

This is an activity that can be used in the learning. Pupils will gather together sitting in front of teacher and exchange news. Pupil in pairs or groups can exchange news and after the hearing each other’s news change group and retell.

Storytelling

Pupils love to hear interesting story. Through storytelling, try to make sense out of experiences and give coherence to live through talking. Puppets can serve as a particularly useful prop in order to help along the telling of story.

Games

To overcome as many of the problems as possible, the following strategies can be adopted whether indoor or outdoor activities. By improving the proficiency and confidence with oral interesting activities in class will attract pupils to involve the speaking and listening activities.

a) Oh, Nonsense!

Divide students into three groups. Tell the groups that they all have a common goal to put together a jigsaw puzzle in a limited amount of time. However, each group speaks a different language from the other groups. Each group’s language consists of only one word. Assign each group a nonsense word.

Divide the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle among the three groups. Tell groups they have two minutes to plan how they want to communicate with the other groups to put together the puzzle. During this planning phase, group members may communicate freely with one another. When the groups join together to build the puzzle, the only words that may be spoken are the nonsense words assigned to each group. Students must rely on varying the variety, quality, rate, and volume of their vocal communication in order to accomplish their goal.

Give groups five minutes to try to put the puzzle together. Remind them to only use their assigned word and to try to communicate by varying their vocal characteristics. Ask students to share their insights on what happened during the activity. Discuss how students were able to communicate vocally, even when the words they used were nonsense.

b) I See What You Are Saying

Divide students into groups of three. Near each group, place two chairs back to back. Ask two students to sit in the chairs. Tell the third student to face one of the sitting students. Ask the sitting student facing the standing student to describe a funny situation he or she has experienced. The person sitting with his or her back to the speaker should listen closely. The person facing the storyteller should carefully observe the speaker’s facial expressions, gestures, and other nonverbal movements.

Tell the person who sat with his or her back to the speaker to report to his or her group what the story was. Tell groups to compare perceptions of the student who watched the speaker and the participant who only listened. Discuss the following questions with the entire group:

“Did the observers tend to see and hear the same message as the listener? Why or why not?”

“How did the speakers feel knowing that their words and actions were being closely monitored? In real-life situations, how do you handle feelings of being watched by others as you speak?”

“How does nonverbal communication affect communication with employees with disabilities such as visual impairments or hearing impairments?”

c) What’s In It for Me?

Before the class session, choose a short article from a newspaper, magazine, or journal to share with the class. The subject isn’t important, but the article should have a lot of details in it. Casually mention at the beginning of a class period that read an interesting article and would like to share it. Read the article to the class. After finished reading the article, give a few questions based on the article just heard. Whoever gets all the questions right give some rewards. Ask each student take out a blank sheet of paper. Ask students eight to ten questions based on details from the article. Ask them to write their answers on the sheet of paper. Then ask students switch papers and then tell them the answers. Ask if anyone knew the answers to all of the questions. It is unlikely that any one person will have answered all of the questions correctly. Give the reward to the student with the most correct answers. Discuss how they could improve their listening skills and whether they would have listened more attentively if they had known ahead of time that there would be a prize.

d) Game Shows

Divide students into three teams. Ask Team A to prepare a six-question short-answer quiz on vocal communication. Allow five minutes. Ask Teams B and C to review their class notes on the topic while Team A prepares its quiz. Tell Team A to ask Team B one of its questions. If Team B cannot answer the question or answers incorrectly, Team C may try to answer the question. Team A directs its next question to Team C first and repeats the process. Team A continues to ask questions until the quiz is done.

Ask Team B to prepare a similar quiz on verbal communication. Ask Teams A and C to review their class notes on verbal communication while Team B prepares its quiz. Repeat the quiz process from above. Ask Team C to prepare a similar quiz on listening skills while Teams A and B review their class notes. Repeat the quiz process again.

e) Listening in Motion

Divide students into pairs. Ask partners to take turns explaining a concept learned in one of their other classes. For example, they might explain the theme of a book they read. Spend a minute or two with each pair to make sure they are using active listening skills correctly. Offer praise or suggestions for improvement when necessary. Ask each pair to demonstrate to another pair their effective use of active listening skills.

f) Listen to What I Hear

Ask two volunteers to give you directions to their homes. Practice good listening techniques with the first person and poor listening techniques with the second. Ask students what you did that showed you were a good listener in the first example and what you did that showed you were a poor listener in the second.

2. Conduct Speaking Culture In School

Teacher can conduct a speaking culture in school. There are various activities can implement on the English week in school. Speaking can be start by asking the pupils using a simple conversation or instruction to their friend. Teacher should also be involved and participate toward this culture.

3. Curriculum In Oracy Based On Examination Orientation

The main important to overcome in the learning process, teachers should enhance the role of speech in the learning process by active learning and develop the teaching of oral communication skills. English curriculum also can develop methods of assessment of and through speech including assessment for public examination, improving pupil’s performance across the curriculum, enhance teacher’s skill and performance and promote recognition of the value of oral work in schools and increase its use as a means of improving learning.

4. English Camp

An outdoor activity like English camp will increase confidence to pupils. The camp is one of good approach to expose the pupils in speaking skill. This program is very interesting and can be done in school. The programme will start at 8.30 in the morning until 9.30 at the evening for each day. Every morning, the pupils read the bulletin board first to find out whether there were any changes in programme or special instruction. In this camp, pupils will talk and communicate with each other and their teachers. Activities like group works, presentation, sing a song or poem and discussions will improve both speaking and listening skill.

Conclusion

Speaking skill is important to pupils because they can communicate more easily and effectively. In addition, when they improve their speaking skill, it will develop their self-confidence. Nowadays, it is important to speak fluently in English. By developed the skills from the root at primary school, they will have basic foundation before go to the new level of learning. An interesting learning process towards the learning process will enhance and attract pupils to love the English subject. A creative and enjoyable lesson also can change pupil’s perception that English is not a dull subject. As a conclusion, teachers are the main role to improve the ability and performance through their lesson.