Formerly, the English curriculum at all levels in the Thai education mainly focused on
reading and grammar rather than speaking (Karnpanich & Pulphol. 1997). The aim of the
study was to enable students to read and comprehend English texts with less practice in
speaking and writing. Thus, the students lacked confidence and courage to speak, and
consequently they might develop negative attitudes towards learning how to speak English.
Later in 1978, the former English curricula was reformed and it had to be revised again in
1999 because “foreign languages learning, especially in the English language fails to build
up competencies in using language for communications.” (Ministry of Education. 2002: 2).
The new English curricula implemented in 1999 have been in use since then. Thus, the
teachers of English have been experimenting with new teaching techniques for successful
communicative ability, particularly speaking.
Types of classroom speaking performance
Scholars have defined speaking in a second language as “an interactive process of
constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information”
(Brown. 1994; Frorez. 1999: 1; citing Burns & Joyce.1997). Speaking requires not only that
learners know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation
or vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also that they understand when, why and in what
ways to use the language (sociolinguistic competence) (Ur. 1996). Therefore, speaking is