Why is teaching students to speak English difficult?

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.