Why Students Fail To Speak English after Getting Sixteen Years

Education
Aqsa ArshadLaiba.aqsa@gmail.comShakra Younas
B. S. English 4th semester
Department of English University of Sargodha
Abstract
This present article deals with issues faced by Master level students in
speaking English.
The aim of this study is to investigate factors that become students
obstacles to speak English. Furthermore, the causes of the factors and
the possible solutions to overcome the obstacles are also covered in this
study. To analyze this hypothesis, a quantitative survey is used having
ten questions as an instrument for obtaining data from students of
university. According to results, majority of students have failed to speak
English properly. They have fallen victim of linguistics disorders such as
grammar, lack of vocabulary, syntax, pragmatic, lack of fluency in
speaking, lack of understanding grammatical pattern and lack
of pronunciation. This article tries to give valuable suggestions in order
to solve their speaking problems. It aims to invite more researches to be
done on present study agenda.

INTRODUCTION
English is the language of science, technology and global
communication. English plays a vital role in developing the status of
a country. Besides its importance as an international language it is also
called the major window on the world, which means that English gives us
the view of the various progresses taking place in the world. It also

provides us distilled essence of advance and up-to-date knowledge in all

fields of human developments and activities. In order to compete with
the modern world, Pakistan needs to focus English language learning. In
Pakistan, English language is being taught from nursery to tertiary level
of education. But the problems remain growing as students are unable to
communicate properly in English. To find out the problems related to the
English Language Speaking skill, we must find out the problems and
then solve them accordingly.
Statement of the Problem:
This present article deals with issues faced by Master level students in
speaking English. The aim of this study is to investigate factors that
become students obstacles to speak English.
Furthermore, the causes of the factors and the possible solutions to
overcome the obstacles are also covered in this study.
Objectives:
1: To prove this hypothesis that students are fail to speak English
properly.
2: To highlight factors which are causes of their failure in speaking
English.
3: To highlight methods that are adopted by teachers in order to learn
English to their students.
4: To draw attention of students and teachers on this matter.
5: To provide research based guide to solve problems that are faced by
students in order to speak English.
Resources detail:

Previous researches such as online articles and journals have been

examined as resources in order to identify and analyze the issues
minutely. The detailed description of used resources is provided in the
reference section.
Literature Review
To explore the university students difficulties in learning English
language skills Kanwal, &Khurshid, (2012) conducted a study. In order to
highlight the language difficulties they developed a 27 items
questionnaire was developed and it was administered to 200 randomly
selected students of department of English. Collected data was analyzed
and percentages. Results showed that overall university students require
extra help in improving their English listening, reading and writing skills.
Moreover university students are not fully satisfied with their present
course contents of English language and teaching methodologies. We all
know that when Pakistan came into being on 14 August, 1947, there was
resistance to the study of English. Generally speaking, there were
two groups of people - one was in favor of learning English language and
the other was against it. The second group of people did not want to see
English in their motherland. Although this resistance to learning and
using English is now heavily subdued, mastery of the English language
differs from region to region and from one socio-economic status to
another. Listening and reading are known as receptive skills while
speaking and writing considered as a productive skills. These skills are
better learned and mastered through actual practice. In order to become
fluent in English language, learners must develop the habit of using the
language frequently. Trudgill, 1992 suggests the following processes: (i)
Collect ideas (ii) arrange them in the best sequence and (iii) choose the
language in which he has to communicate with others. Learners apply
these habits in the mother-tongue and face their audience with
confidence. These habits will also help them in the case of foreign

language use. In our educational institutions in Pakistan, at

the elementary level teachers give some instruction in writing and
reading skills but at the secondary level these skills are not taught in the
same way. In many rural areas of Pakistan the primary education is
provided through the native languages such as Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto,
Sindhi, etc., with not much emphasis on learning and using English.
There are several factors which affect students performance in speaking
English fluently. They are scared about committing mistakes while they
speak. They cannot also express themselves well or adequately because
they lack adequate and appropriate vocabulary. Another factor that
makes students to hesitate to speak in English is that they are shy and
nervous. They feel fearful to speak English in front of other people
because they lack confidence about their own competence in English.
So, it is important to help the learners overcome their anxiety,
nervousness and fear with encouraging words. Good atmosphere and
suitable environment can also help students to speak actively, correctly
and fluently (Mueen, 1992).The study tries to uncover all
perceived difficulties assumed in the learning English language skills
among the university students. The study was descriptive in nature.
After going through the relevant literature, a questionnaire was
developed for the university level students. All the students of the NUML
University in the English department FC/GS were considered as
population of study. In order to check the reliability and validity of
research 27 items questionnaire it was administered to 30 students from
the population to check the reliability and validity of research
questionnaire. Various statistical analyses were performed such as
alpha coefficients and items total correlation. The Alpha coefficient
yield .79 and correlation of entire 31 items ranged from .54 to .89 which
means that all items have significant correlation to include in
the questionnaire for present sample.

Students are not fully satisfied with the learning outcomes of this course.
So teachers should work hard and try to improve students writing
as well as speaking skills through extra reading or computer assisted
programs. On the basis of the research findings, it is concluded that
students are hesitant in speaking English and using reading skill. It is
recommended that the exercise part should be improved and exercises
should be added in order to improve the reading, writing and speaking
skills of the students. Findings show that many students still prefer to
write in their native languages (Urdu, Punjabi)so in order to develop
literary writing skills students can asked to for creative writing, may be
ask to write poems or essays daily just to overcome hesitation of writing.
Finally it was concluded that students are not fully satisfied with existing
teaching methodologies so methodology of teaching English should be
revised and A.V aids should provide in all English teaching classroom.
Start speaking English and do it more and more. You can do this by
standing in front of mirror. This will inculcate the confidence in
speaker and hesitation will be reduced. Start reading English newspaper
and involve other people to rectify your mistakes and correct them.
Listening to the English news or even watching the English movies will
also help as listening improves confidence in speaking. Problems of
feeling inexpressive in target language are commonly expressed by
majority of second language learners in learning to speak a second
language. These problems are always considered to hinder the
communication in the target language. This paper most commonly
highlight the struggles that students of Sardar Bahadur Khan Womens
University Quetta make during the process of learning English as a
second language. It brings forward to limelight the ways in which lack of
fluency in English complicates the process of learning and also
negatively affects their academic growth. Major focus is on the
inadequate input of language rules i.e. grammar, vocabulary and
pronunciation which leads to poor production of fluent oral speech full of

mistakes and pauses due to hesitation. This paper also attempts to bring
forward the reasons that why students are unable to use automatic,
smooth and rapid language production. This study uses a qualitative
interview approach which is later on turned into quantitative format of
data. The data collection is done through simple random sampling. The
research participants consist of total fifty students, randomly selected
from each department of the University. The findings suggests that
verbal fluency is always correlated and affected by the components of
oral proficiency i.e. grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The greater
number of students in SBK Women University believes that the
production of their fluent oral speech is dependent upon their knowledge
of grammar of the target language; many others believe that it depends
upon vocabulary and very few thinks that it is related with the
pronunciation. It is considered highly essential to know the language for
communicative purposes. In general, the most popular language is
English, which has attained the status of a global language. It plays a
role of second language for those who learn it after their mother tongue
and plays a role of foreign language for those who migrate from
their country to foreign country for purpose of studies or settlement. One
of the most challenging difficulties in learning a second language is
finding ways to improve ones oral fluency. This is most commonly true
in countries like Pakistan where the learners share a common mother
tongue and have very little or no exposure to the second language
outside the classroom. Most of the linguists believe that language is just
like a habit formation. In their view language is learnt through use and
practice. According to them, the more one is exposed to the use of
language, the better one learns. In Pakistan though English is used with
great emphasis in educational context but still within their institutions
students have very limited understanding and exposure of English. As a
result when they speak to express their thoughts they find it difficult to
put their ideas into proper words and as a consequence produce influent

speech embedded with mistakes and pauses. In the correlation study it

is evident from the results that all independent variables have positive
relation with dependent variables. This shows a directional relationship
among those variables. As in the results two variables i.e. grammar and
vocabulary are highly correlated with the pauses due to hesitation and
word repetition and the remaining variables pronunciation is least
correlated with the dependent variable. It is therefore clearly understood
that grammar and vocabulary is producing direct impact upon the
dependent variables pauses due to hesitation and word repetition.
Frequency distribution clearly shows that 40% of the population is facing
oral fluency problems due to limited grammar and 39% is facing the
problem due to lack of vocabulary and 20% are facing problem because
of pronunciation. Whenever these students are given some verbal
task in group, they just start talking in their mother tongue. Although
they may want to express their ideas orally in English but they find
themselves unable to do it. The major reason behind all this is that they
do not have proper knowledge of a target language. From the results of
this study it is evident that the oral fluency of a student is most of
the time affected by grammar. If they dont have proper knowledge of
grammar rules and their automatic application in verbal speech, they
wont be able to speak fluently. After grammar, the second factor which
affects the verbal fluency is lack of vocabulary. While speaking whenever
students get short of appropriate words; supposed to be used in relation
with particular context, they start feeling hesitation or start repeating
words and lines which they had uttered before. This thought is proved
with evidence in correlation study where word repetition has a strong
relationship with vocabulary mistakes.
You can never speak a language by just studying it no matter how
much you study. Studying will never help you speak a language, but (as
long as you do it right) studying will help you speak a language better.

You have to speak it.

Any foreign language cannot be learnt without practice. So you have to
speak it in order to learn it. Because a language is a set of habits so
habit will be formed with practice. If students today graduate from high
school or even from university without being able to speak English, it
is simply because we are not giving them enough practice in speaking.
Ask students to give you feedback or to explain their wishes, and they
will inevitably say, More speaking in class.
Methodology and population:
Present research have been done, interpreted, reviewed and
examined by four members of resent research group. A questionnaire
comprised of ten questions is used for survey through random sampling
method. For this purpose, two fifty students are selected from university.
The person who are voluntarily agreed to give the data needed for the
study was taken as sample. The data collected by this survey was
entered into MS Excel and MS word in order to present figures and
graphical explanation. The questionnaires were distributed one by one
and get back at the same time after they finished.
Data Analysis
As it is stated that two fifty students were selected from University for
survey, as a result the diversity of response is there. The results are
given below along with discussion.
Note:
The students who marked Neutral can be due to two possible reasons.
Either they could not understand the question or they were not
explained about questions.