Factors affecting speaking performance
In order to help students overcome problems in learning speaking, it is necessary for the teachers to figure out factors that affect their speaking performance. Students’ speaking performance can be affected by the factors that come from performance conditions (time pressure, planning, standard of performance and amount of support), affective factors (such as motivation, confidence and anxiety), listening ability and feedback during speaking activities.
Performance conditions
Students perform a speaking task under a variety of conditions. Nation & Newton (2009) believe that performance conditions can affect speaking performance. The four types of performance conditions that Nation & Newton (2009) suggest include time pressure, planning, the standard of performance and the amount of support.
Speaking problems
For Ur (1996), there are some speaking problems that teachers can come across in getting students to talk in the classroom. These are: inhibition, lack of topical knowledge, low or uneven participation and mother-tongue use. The first problem that the students often encounter is inhibition. When students try to say things in a foreign language in the classroom they are often inhibited. They are worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face. They are shy of the attention that their speech attracts. Littlewood (2007) asserts that a foreign language classroom to can create inhibitions and anxiety easily. Secondly, learners often complain that they cannot think of anything to say and they have no motivation to express themselves. Rivers (1968) believes that the learners have nothing to express maybe because the teacher had chosen a topic which is not suitable for him or about which he knows very little. It is difficult for many students to respond when the teachers ask them to say something in a foreign language because they might have little ideas about what to say, which vocabulary to use, or how to use the grammar correctly (Baker & Westrup, 2003). Another problem in speaking class is that participation is low or uneven. In a large group, each student will have very little talking time because only one participant can talk at a time so that the others can hear him/her. There is a tendency of some learners to dominate while others speak very little or not at all.