ENGLISH SPEAKING DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS

Abstract

For EFL students, especially those studying at faculty of teacher training, speaking skill is an evitable skill to master. In fact, the skill should be above that of those who are not going to be a teacher. However, some students’ performances are not as good as expected despite the fact they have studied English for several semesters. This paper reports on the findings of a questionnaire survey of the English speaking difficulties experienced by a group of thethird year university students at from Indonesia. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the students' perceived difficulties are analyzed in relation to linguistic deficiency, oral language processes, conversational skills and academic speaking conventions, affective influence as well as affordance of opportunities to use English for spoken communication in the students' learning contexts. Important implications of the results for pedagogical practices that foster development of EFL speaking skills are discussed.