Abstract
Thailand as the country which never been colonialized by any foreign countries has both the advantage and the weakness. One of the shortages is that inadequate skill, ability and knowledge in learning the other language such as English as the lingua franca. Thailand is now focusing on improving their English language skills because English currently more commercial in ASEAN. They want to be more competitive in integrating the students’ English education skills. But in fact, the influence of English is apparently still low in Thailand. This paper conveys the reason why most students in Thailand have difficulties in speaking English. Oral language skill is one of the four skills in English which could be the most difficult process for student to make a deal with. There are many factors which affect Thai student to be difficult in concerning with English especially in speaking.
Keywords: Speaking English, oral language communication, teaching and learning speaking, speaking related problems.
Introduction
English becomes the international communication since it has successfully dominated the world of globalization. This language spreads automatically and has made big changes over the centuries. As an International language, English has the crucial factor to handle the language instruction in many fields, including education, economics, business, social, culture, and others. Thailand, then, is to be mindful to the influence of English. As Nguyen (n.d) stated that “English, a mandatory subject in secondary school, is widely used in commerce and government, particularly in Bangkok and other major cities.” Government steadily tries to increase the English education throughout regions, either in urban or in rural area but it’s apparently not as easy as it seems. Sureepong (2014) said that “While the demand for English is high with its greater role in Thai society, however, the standard of English teaching and learning at Thai schools and universities has been widely criticized.” Both of government, teachers and students should elaborate the English language learning strategy in which the government as facilitator through the school, teachers as the mediator and the students as the learner could increase English language proficiency. There are many factors which affect the students’ English language skill. Not only from the individual aspect of the students, but also the teacher’s point of view. Thai English teacher usually gets use the conservative method to make a deal so much with translation, reading, and writing; while speaking is less taught because they themselves also have some reasons to avoid this skill. They learn how to speak but they hide to perform speaking. The problems will be discussed deeply in the next discussion.
Factors that affect Thais’ oral communication
According to Richard and Renandya (2002: 201-225), there are some aspects which affect Thais’ English language skills: age or maturational constrain, aural medium, socio cultural factor, and affective factor. When those factors are linked to the situation and condition in Thailand, it would be some crucial factors which affect Thais’ oral communication. In the first, age or maturational constrain is the base aspect for Thais in learning language. As I stated above that historically, Thailand had never been colonized for ages. So, that’s why most of Thais are rarely faced to involve in other language, especially in English which becomes the strange and difficult language to learn because they need to over train in order to get fluency in speaking. The aging process shows that it influences Thais’ pronunciation in oral communication and how far they could utter the target language as native. Secondly, the aural medium which relate to the other skill is that listening. In oral communication, between two or more communicants are also supported by listening comprehension because it impresses to the success of communication. Therefore, native teachers easily find in Thailand because Thais are lack of English proficiency. Next, socio cultural factor could be investigated through how Thais learning English in the on-going classroom. They prefer to listen on the teachers’ lecturing and take a note rather than practicing the language. Besides that, teachers local do the same things. They require their students to memorize and memorize. As the consequences, students are afraid to ask question, or even performing English to communicate (Nguyen, n.d). Afterward, the affective aspects of emotions, self-esteem, empathy, attitude, and motivation have correlation with Thai students’ affective sides such as, anxiety, feeling of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, and apprehension. All of them are explained more in the following discussion based on their psychological factor of individual.
Psychological factor that hinder students from speaking
In other references, Juhana (2012) explained that fear of mistakes, anxious, shyness, lack of confid