Abstract:
This study was conducted to assess factors affecting the development of speaking skills of grade
10 students in EFL classes at Wera Bera Secondary School in focus. Two teachers and thirty
students were the subjects of the study. The students were selected from seventy students of two
sections A and B using simple random sampling. Two teachers were also selected as the subjects
of the study using available sampling techniques. Questionnaires with close and open ended
items for students, semi-structured interview questions for teachers, and Classroom observation
check-lists with semi-structured items were employed as data collection instruments. These data
collection instruments were analyzed and interpreted by using both qualitative and quantitative
methods. For example, the data collected through close and open ended questionnaires were
reported using frequency and percentages quantitatively whereas the data those collected
through semi-structured interview and classroom observation were narrated qualitatively and
data from all sources were triangulated to increase reliability of the findings. The results
suggested that the students did not practice speaking skills both in and out-side classroom due
to: lack of motivation, fear of making mistakes, lack of self-confidence, poor background of
grammar knowledge, shortage of vocabularies, lack of exposure, and their poor back-ground
experience. Therefore, it is primarily suggested that students need to develop their self confidence, be aware of the role of mistakes in learning speaking skills, feel responsible for their
learning and build their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary; secondly, the instructors should
employ their maximum potential to assess and activate the students’ basic language skills and
increase students’ motivation and self-confidence in speaking skills; Thus, it is recommended
that English language teachers should employ their maximum effort to minimize the problems
that affect the development of speaking skills of students by motivating the students to speak in
the language, providing the students with various opportunities of speaking skills, providing
appropriate supplementary speaking materials and giving additional/tutorial classes for better
improvement of students’ speaking skills. Finally, it is hoped that the result of this study
encourages other researchers to conduct a research on the same or related issues so that further
research needs to be carried out in order to get a wider and deeper understanding of factors
affecting the development of students' speaking skills in English classroom.
