Why is teaching students to speak English difficult?

By John Phillips

This is the first of two articles on the teaching of English in Indonesian state schools.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): An recent article in The Jakarta Post (July 6, 1995) referred to obstacles to the teaching of English at schools in Indonesia.

E.V. Surardjo, the principal of an English course was quoted as saying that schools were ineffective in encouraging pupils to speak English as a result of an overemphasis on grammar and overcrowded classes.

He suggested solving the problem by changing the method of teaching and, at the same time, reducing the size of the classes.

Surardjo is substantially right in his observation but his remedy for the problem may not work.

First, he has quite rightly pointed out that public school classrooms often have 30 or more students, which makes the teaching of communication skills extremely difficult to manage. But, in English-speaking countries where such crowded classrooms also exist, the problem is overcome through the many opportunities (and requirements) for practicing speaking skills outside of class.

In Indonesia there are few such opportunities, and therefore almost all speaking "practice" must occur inside the classroom. Thus, Surardjo should also have commented on the relatively few hours per week in the busy regular curriculum schedule during which English is taught.

A few hours per week of instruction without other opportunities to practice means that, even if class size could be greatly reduced, the teacher would hardly have adequate time to provide the kind and quality of guided practice and monitoring students need in order to learn.

Secondly, Surardjo also did not mention that many public school teachers may not be able to speak English well themselves, because they may not have sufficient opportunity to practice.

It is not surprising that Indonesian teachers may choose to teach grammar, because grammar is what they most probably learned; it is a skill that can be practiced and maintained without others, and it is what they feel most comfortable teaching.

In other words, many teachers are part of the same cycle of English instruction in schools as their students. Even if their teacher training stressed the most recent English curriculum, they probably do not live in an environment which provides opportunity to practice speaking sufficient to maintain language fluency. As a result, it is highly questionable that even those trained in communicative techniques actually use them.

Major curriculum reform was instituted in the late 1980s to make English instruction in IKIP Teacher Training Colleges and schools more communicative. But this reform has not been enough to overcome the many barriers to students' learning to speak.

The question that must be answered is: Why don't Indonesian school students learn how to communicate better in English? Furthermore: Why hasn't changing methodologies to one that emphasizes "communication" over correctness solved the problem? And, finally: Why would reducing class numbers or changing methodologies -- both desirable pedagogically -- not have much of an effect on the students' ability to speak English well?

The short answer to these questions is that currently Indonesia lacks the proper conditions for learning a language. These conditions can be summed up in three words: purpose, opportunity and practice (POP).

Unfortunately, school is the place least likely to be a POP environment, for reasons which are obvious to anyone who has studied a foreign language.

First of all, speaking is not like reading or writing. It is not a solitary pursuit, but a social activity involving two or more people, but not 30 or 40. So even if class size could be halved and a teacher used "communicative" techniques, most students would still not have much opportunity to have monitored practice communicating in class.

These conditions suggest that learning to speak English well is not an achievable objective in larger classrooms with limited time, because students do not get enough guided communication instruction or practice.

And, as Surardjo noted, teachers have problems getting students to speak freely in class for fear of making mistakes. In my experience Indonesians are not excessively fearful about speaking freely; this is, after all, a very "oral" culture. I would argue instead that this fear has little to do with teachers' teaching grammar "correctness," since copying language forms is not conducting an 'unstructured' conversation. And, this is but one necessary condition for learning to speak well.

Secondly, outside of the classroom it is rare for most students to have the regular opportunity to practice speaking English. There are just not that many non-Indonesian people in most communities and most of these people are wise to learn and use Indonesian.

In addition, in normal discourse outside the classroom English speakers do not usually "correct" the errors of others. Although conditions in the global village are changing as cross-cultural interactions occur more frequently and information becomes a widely traded commodity, most Indonesian students still have few opportunities to speak and improve their English skills.

Indeed, it is a testament to human persistence that despite so many negative factors, so many people are successful. The answer seems simple -- those who want and need to learn and who practice in real communicative situations do in fact learn.

Thus, students who succeed to do so largely because they have a very strong motivation for learning. When such motivation is combined with the appropriate instruction (communicative) with guided practice (correction and feedback), and there is sufficient opportunity to practice and use their language skills outside of class (real, interactive communication), it creates an irresistible learning environment. But, it remains to be seen whether Indonesian schools can achieve these conditions in the absence of such conditions in the general environment?

The most crucial element in the learning process is the student's motivation to learn. It is somewhat obvious to say that language learners must "want and learn" in order to learn, but what does this really mean? In school, English as a Foreign Language situation means having extremely strong, personal and long lasting need for learning in order to be able to persist over the relatively long period of time it takes to learn to speak well.

The old adage that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is fundamentally true, because old dogs (and new ones) don't have the desire to learn something that they don't think they have any need or use for. Even though speaking English conveys some status to the speaker, in the absence of any other reason for learning to speak English such motivation is weak and insufficient.

And, while students can still be persuaded for a period of time to learn something which is not immediately useful, this usually means, for a short period of time, studying for an upcoming test.

So, as soon as the test is over, the learner quickly forgets. In addition, as student lives become more complex and they are exposed to massive amounts of information, they become more selective in what they attend to. So, students reject any input which is not immediately and apparently useful. Foreign language input not used for any real, immediate purpose is certainly a strong candidate for rejection.

So, how can public school teachers expect students to learn to speak when most students have no immediate need or use for doing so?

At the same time, modern media training has spawned a generation of learners with limited attention spans, with a penchant for "being entertained" over being informed, with a desire to be told exactly what and how to do something without thinking and with a strong need to conform by not 'risking' behaviors which might be embarrassing.

This is hardly a description of good language learners.

Finally, Surardjo correctly suggested that grammar is not perceived by the students as being interesting but that speaking is. Needless to say, learning how to speak well also implies learning some grammar, but I think his point is well taken.

Certainly, most students express a desire to learn to speak English rather than other language skills. According to him, if such desires were harnessed, then it would lead to better speaking ability. Maybe, but maybe given the language-learning environment here this "desire" to learn is quickly extinguished.

This leads to another old adage that fits this situation -- "use it or lose it". I have repeatedly "learned" the first two years of Spanish, including one time under optimal language learning conditions: I was in a Spanish-speaking country, with trained native-speaker teachers, and I spoke only Spanish inside and outside of school.

In truth I did indeed "learn" to speak Spanish while in this environment; and then, I forgot it -- quickly, because I had no purpose or need to speak it, because I had no opportunity to use it to improve, and because I did not continue to practice it regularly.

POP! So, until the triple moons of purpose, opportunity and practice are in perfect alignment in Indonesia, instruction in English-speaking skills is likely to remain ineffective. On the other hand, maybe language educators in Indonesia should approach the problem in another way.