Problems Faced by Secondary Level Students in Developing English Speaking Skills in Community Schools: A Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

This study aimed to uncover the experiences of secondary level students regarding their difficulties in developing English speaking skills.  Based on the narratives with the teachers, the study identified real classroom learning problems of the community school students as experinced by the teachers throughout their supports and the strategies that the teachers applied to address those problems. The interpretative paradigm has been applied in the study, in which four teachers from four different schools were asked to share their personal experiences using a narrative inquiry method. The main tool utilized in this study was a set of interview guidelines for teachers. They were asked to narrate their real-life experiences of teaching English speaking skills and the perceived difficulties associated with the secondary level students. The findings show that the students had problems with vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency, background knowledge of the text, inferencing the key ideas, understanding the technical texts, and expressing the meaning in context. The results from this study can be applied to provide insights for the teachers and teacher educators to set new strategies/activities of learner engagement in English speaking.