Some strategies to motivating students to speak English
published in Vidia Karya, 2004, Universitas Lambung Mangkurat, Banjarmasin.
1. Introduction
In this globalization era, the need for English to communicate with people from other countries is tremendous given the nature as the world language. This is one of many reasons why the Indonesian government has set up the policy to provide English teaching from early ages; from grade 4 or 5 in primary school. Though the inclusion of English in primary schools is only an ‘optional’ and local component of the school curriculum, this will prolong the period of English learning for the students, which used to start from the first year of junior high school. By doing so, it is expected that students will have more exposure to English which in turn will make them more capable of using English for communication.
The policy together with the emergence of many English courses and improved qualifications of the teachers absolutely helps the school to create students with capabilities to communicate in English. However, to same extent students’ speaking skills are still not as good as their abilities in grammar and reading. This is probably the result of too much emphasis on the teaching of grammatical items and reading while less time is given to the teaching of speaking, listening, as well as writing. Students are exposed to more grammar and reading comprehension (vocabulary) sessions since at the end of the program they are supposed to be evaluated by a set of tests which is really grammar and reading comprehension oriented, such as the English section in the university entrance examination test – books. Consequently, school and even college graduates are capable of solving a variety of grammatical problems or expressing themselves through writing, but they seem to have problems expressing themselves in speaking, in other words, they become passive users of English.
The communicative approach for the teaching of English which has been in operation for almost two decades in Indonesian National Education Curriculum does not seem to be effective in the sense that it has failed to help students develop their speaking skill. As a matter of fact, this failure may be caused by a number of factors, such as less supportive environment (both outside and inside the classroom), lack of qualified teaching staff, inappropriate syllabus, and students’ motivation to speak English, which is indeed the focus of this study. Their lack of motivation to engage in English speaking activity may be due to the fact that this skill will not be tested in the final exam. In other words, students do not see any immediate need for English speaking ability. This condition leads them to the study of English in the forms of memorizing English vocabulary for reading comprehension section and familiarizing themselves with necessary grammatical items. The reasons above have inspired us to write some strategies to improve students’ motivation to speak English.
2. Communicative Competence and Speaking Ability
Among the four language skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing to most people mastering the art of speaking is the most important aspects of learning a second language whose success is measure in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the language (Nunan, 2000). Communicative competence is believed to be the capacity to use language appropriately in communication on the basis of setting, the roles of the participants, and the nature of the transaction (Richards, 2000). Furthermore, Savignon (1983) offers five characteristics of communicative competence. First, communicative competence is not a static concept, but a dynamic one – it depends on the meaning negotiated between two or more people having a shared – symbolic systems. The next feature of communicative competence is its context – specific nature – in order to understand the context, possess related prior experience, and select appropriate registers and styles. Fourth, competence is not the same as performance; competence refers to a presumed underlying ability, while performance is the overt realization of that ability; competence is what one knows, but performance is what one does; competence is unobservable, while performance is observable; and competence can only be developed, maintained, and evaluated through performance. Finally, communicative competence is relative, not absolute, and it is dependent on the participants’ cooperation involved in the communication. Therefore, it makes sense to speak of degrees of communicative competence.
3. Motivation and Second Language Speaking
There are four main categories of variable associated with second language or foreign language learning; affective variables, cognitive variables, pedagogical variables, and environmental language – relevant variables (Gardner, 1990). The first category is concerned with individuals’ emotional or predisposition characteristics affecting their perceptions and impressions of the language learning context and their opinions of the language itself. Affective variables cover a variety of personality features i.e anxiety and empathy, attitudes and motivation, as well as some types of language learning styles and strategies. The second category refers to the intellectual and verbal skills that learners bring to the language learning situation; these skills help learners acquire and put in retention language material. Intelligence, language aptitude, and proficiency in native language belong to this category. The third category relates to those features of the language learning context involved in the sending of material to the language learners, such as teaching techniques and procedures, teaching aids, teaching materials, and teachers’ characteristics. The fourth category refers to the socio-cultural milieu where the language learning occurs, such as community-shared beliefs about language learning, and the chance to use or experience the language outside the classroom setting. This study will put emphasis on one of the component affective variables, that is, motivation.
Motivation plays a vital role in one’s success in doing something as in learning a second language or foreign language. Motivation greatly affects the degree to which learners take advantages of opportunities to use the language. Whether or not they will personally engage in any learning activity depends on to what extent they are interested or motivated since “motivation decides the extent of learners’ active personal involvement in learning” (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992). Ur (1996) proposes motivated learners as those who are willing and eager to make effort in learning activities and to progress; the presence of motivation in learners will certainly affect the teaching and learning in terms of ease, pleasantness as well productivity.
Researchers in linguistics and psychology have made some distinctions concerning the type of motivation in second language learning. Gardner (1985) distinguishes integrate motivation from instrumental motivation in second language learning: the former refers to the desire to learn in order to integrate oneself with the target culture and the latter is concerned with the wish to learn the language for the sake of getting a better job or meet the language requirements (pass the test). He claims that integrate motivation is a crucial factor and more influential than instrumental motivation in language learning. According to Beebe (1988), the drive to be integrates with the target culture is closely related to Speech Accommodation Theory which states that language learners will gain benefit socially and communicatively from closer identification with the target group – the group that communicates in the target language.
Oxford and Shearin (1994) claims that the impacts of attitudes and motivation on language acquisition may vary depending on whether students are learning a second or a foreign language. For example, based on his research, Horwitz (1990) concluded that successful language learners in the Philippines have more predictive instrumental motivation than integrative motivation, while in English-speaking Canadian populations instrumental motivation is less influential than integrative motivation. Furthermore, Oxford, Talbott, and Halleck (1989) as cited by Scarcella and Oxford (1992) note that in an American university, ESL programs are successful because they are instrumentally motivated by career concerns rather than by a burning desire to get to know U. S citizens and culture. Therefore, it is important to consider to the role of geographical as well as geopolitical factors in shaping language attitude and language learning motivation (Dornyei and Clement, 2001).
Another distinction is made between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, both of play an important role in classroom motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to the urge to be involved in the learning activity for its own sake, while extrinsic motivation is derived from internal incentives (Ur, 1996). Global intrinsic motivation comes from the learners’ previous attitudes towards the target language; is it worthwhile to learn the language?, or do they like the language and its cultural, political and ethnic associations?. It is obvious that attitudes towards the second language are closely related to motivation to L2 learning as described by Emmitt and Pollock (1998):
Negative attitudes towards the speakers of a language, the language and culture will be detrimental to the learning process. The learner who is positively predisposed towards the second language and culture is more motivated to become like its speakers and is likely to experience greater success that the learner with negative attitude towards the language and its speakers. The learners who feel positive about the language and speakers will actively seek interaction with the speakers, which is basic to language learning.
Brown (1987) classifies motivation in L2 learning into three types: global motivation, situational motivation, and task motivation. The first one is concerned with the learners’ overall orientations towards the learning the target language, the second one is related to the context where learning the target language takes place i.e. classroom and total environment. The third one is one has to do with how the learners approach the specific task in hand. Ur (1996) argues that though learners’ previous educational background and a great number of social factors strongly determine their global motivation, teachers’ attitude may also affect it either unconsciously or consciously through explicit information and persuasion. Furthermore, Ur suggests that teachers invest great efforts so that learners will be motivated in the task by making it as attractive as possible and encouraging them to participate in it, investing efforts and succeeding.
4. Strategies to Motivate Learners to Speak English
Knowing the importance of motivation for learners’ success in language learning, teachers should take into account a great deal of factors that may arouse learners’ motivation. This can be achieved through teaching materials and activities that can give excitement, challenge, and stimulation to learners. In other words, when the teacher presents the material uninterestingly or asks the students to perform boring and monotonous tasks, they will lose their motivation; and consequently they will be prevented from taking advantage of any learning opportunity. Therefore, the teaching of spoken language in the classroom is often perceived as a very difficult task for both the teachers and the students (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000).
A number of strategies can be used to motivate students to participate in the classroom speaking activities. Ur (1996) suggests using topic- and task-based activities. Concerning the topic, she claims that “a good topic is one to which learners can relate using their own experience and knowledge,” and that learners are grouped based on their ability prior to the discussion of the selected topic. According to her, a task based activities should be goal-oriented, requiring the group to achieve an objective usually expressed by an observable result. Comparing the two activities, she advises that oral fluency activities should be based on tasks because tasks create more talk, more even participation, and more enjoyment.
5. Strategies in Developing Learners’ Speaking Skill
As mentioned earlier, speaking skill, the ability to perform oral communication effectively, is concerned as the most important skill of all the four language skills. Therefore, learners’ ability to express themselves through speech needs to be developed by means of appropriate classroom activities. Successful classroom speaking activities are characterized by four components: more learners’ talk, participation, high motivation, and an acceptable language level (Ur, 1996). Furthermore, Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000) argue that providing students with an authentic opportunity to express their individual views and apply their knowledge of L2 and foreign language is the most important characteristics of the classroom speaking activity.
According to Scarcella and Oxford (1992), the development of learners’ speaking ability is influenced by three factors: opportunity to interact with more proficient peers and native speakers, fluency and accuracy activities designed to develop their speaking ability, and strategy training. In relation to interaction opportunity, learners need to be introduced to various model speakers through films, visitors/guess speakers, team teaching, and peer teaching. Meaningful and interesting interaction can also be increased by means of paired and small group activities which can greatly multiply the number of chances to speak English. While fluency can be developed by giving learners opportunity to speak out their ideas in unstructured conversational situations, learners’ accuracy can be developed by interaction with more knowledgeable peers and native English speakers as well as certain conversation and group skills. As for the strategies of training of speaking, learners’ speaking skill can be developed by teaching them such strategies as taking turn talking, interrupting, asking for clarification, requesting repletion, slowing down the pace in conversation, and so on (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992).
Finally, Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000) state that presenting speaking activities on a continuum from easier to more difficult tasks will certainly help the development of their speaking ability.
For young or beginning-level learners, the teacher may begin with guessing games that require only one-word answers and gradually increases the complexity so that the learners have the opportunity to express themselves using longer discourse units as soon as possible.
They further elaborate two classrooms activities and some important elements that teachers should consider while attempting to develop learners’ speaking skill. Two classroom activities are role-plays and group discussions and the crucial elements cover the use of target language outside the classroom, the use of learners’ input, appropriate feedback, and the analysis of authentic speech via written transcripts.
