Speaking is one of the most important and essential skills that must be practiced to communicate orally. By speaking, people are able to know what kinds of situations the world. People who have ability in speaking will be better in sending and receiving information or message to another. Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the uses of verbal and non verbal symbol in various contexts.
The mastery of speaking skill is a priority for many second and foreign language learners. Learners often evaluate their success in language learning of English on the basis how well their improvement on speaking the language. In genuine communication, speaking is purpose-driven or it can say that to communicate is to achieve a particular end, expressing a wish or desire to do something; negotiating or solving a particular problem; or maintaining social relationships and friends, etc. Therefore, it can say that speaking as a skill is playing significant role for the learners who studied English especially as a foreign language. Speaking skill is one of the language skills that are very essential to support further oral communication especially in English, but it is the most difficult skill to develop. The environment in Indonesia provides less support or exposure for the learners, because English
is not spoken in the community. Consequently, owing to minimal exposure to the target language and less contact with native speakers, adult EFL learners in general are relatively poor at spoken English, especially regarding fluency, control of idiomatic expressions, and understanding of cultural pragmatics. Few can achieve native like proficiency in oral communication.
According to Kayi (2006) speaking refers to the gap between linguistic expertise and teaching methodology. Linguistic expertise concerns with language structure and language content. Teaching speaking is not like listening, reading, and writing. It needs habit formation because it is a real communication and speaking is a productive skill so it needs practicing as often as possible.
Traditional classroom speaking practice often takes the form of drills in which one person asks a question and another gives an answer. The question and the answer are structured and predictable, and often there is only one correct, predetermined answer. The purpose of asking and answering the question is to demonstrate the ability to ask and answer the question.
In contrast, the purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task, such as conveying a telephone message, obtaining information, or expressing an opinion. In real communication, participants must manage uncertainty about what the other person will say. Authentic communication involves an information gap; each participant has information that the other does not have. In addition, to achieve their purpose, participants may have to clarify their meaning or ask for confirmation of their own understanding.
Foreign language learners learning to acquire the oral proficiency in the target language may have some problems, both internal and external. Internally, they may experience the feeling of anxiety. They may feel reluctant to use the target language as they may be afraid of making mistakes. They may have the feeling of discomfort using the target language as “it deprives them of their normal means of communication” (Nascente, 2001, p.18). Therefore, these matters
become the main tasks for English teachers, and in order to provide the guidance to the teaching speaking of English and moreover to develop competent speakers of English, the teachers of English should consider about the problems that may occur in the process of teaching and learning of English as a foreign language and also the activities that give students opportunities to practice language use more freely.