TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE OR SECOND LANGUAGE (EFL/ ESL) IN INDONESIA: TO IMPROVE THE SPEAKING SKILL

1). Introduction

Nowadays, along with the strengthening position of English as a language for international communication, the teaching of speaking skill has become increasingly important in the English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) context. The teaching of speaking skill is also important due to the large number of students who want to study English in order to be able to use English for communicative purposes. A large percentage of the worlds language learners study English in order to develop proficiency in speaking). Moreover, students of second/foreign language education programs are considered successful if they can communicate effectively in the language (Riggenback & Lazaraton, 1991). The new parameter used to determine success in second/foreign language education programs appears to revise the previously-held conviction that student’s success or lack of success in ESL/EFL was judged by the accuracy of the language they produced. Thus, the great number of learners wanting to develop English speaking proficiency and the shift of criteria of learning success from accuracy to fluency and communicative effectiveness signify the teaching of ESL/EFL speaking.

2). Objectives

This essay presents a review of the teaching of EFL speaking in the Indonesian context within the broader perspective of ESL/EFL language teaching methodology. It aims to examine whether or not the teaching of EFL speaking in Indonesia has been informed by the theoretical framework of the ESL/EFL speaking pedagogy. It also provides an account on which areas of teaching EFL speaking have not been much investigated or explored in the literature. In order to achieve these purposes, the following section will firstly discuss ESL/EFL speaking within the historical perspective of the methodology of language teaching.

3). Review of Related Literature

ESL/ EFL speaking and Language Teaching

The modern history of language teaching started with the adoption of the approach used for teaching Latin in European countries. Under the approach, known as the Grammar Translation Method, the purpose to learn a language is primarily to read the literature published in the language. As reading and writing considered to be the focus of language teaching, the ability to speak a foreign language was regarded as irrelevant. Speaking was then made the primary aim of language when the Direct Method came. In the era of this method oral communication became the basis of grading the language teaching programs. However, the Reading Approach that followed believed that reading was the only language skill which could really be taught within the available time. Thus, the essence of the teaching of speaking or oral communication in the earlier days of language teaching history depended on the approach which was in fashion during those days.

The primacy of speech was once again insisted on in the era of the Audiolingual Method (ALM). Based on the structural analysis of spoken language, this new, scientific Audiolingual Method (Savignon, 1983) came to be known, won the day, and was popular for many years. It believed that mimicry and memorization are the most efficient route to second language use and it relied on active drill of the structural patterns of the language. This view on language learning is reflected in its conviction stating that language behavior is not a matter of solving problems but of performing habits so well learned that they are automatic. In short, the primacy of the oral language in the ALM was unquestioned regardless of the goals of the learner. In other words, the mastery of the fundamentals of the language must be through speech. The ALM was later criticized for not providing language learners with the spontaneous use of the target language. The mimicry, memorization, and pattern manipulation were said to have questionable values if the goal of language teaching and learning was the communication of ideas, the sharing of information. This has led to the idea of communicative competence in language teaching which was emphasized by another approach to language teaching coming later, that is, the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).

The Nature of Communication

Communication is an important part of human civilization and it is a means of cultural transformation. Communication using languages can be conducted in two ways: orally and in a written form. In the context of language learning, it is commonly believed that to communicate in a written form (writing) is more difficult than orally (speaking), suggesting that writing is a more complex language skill than speaking. However, in reality, although the complexity of spoken and written languages differs, the differences do not reveal that one is easier than the other.

Unlike written language, spoken language involves paralinguistic features such as tamber (breathy, creaky), voice qualities, tempo, loudness, facial and bodily gestures, as well as prosodic features such as intonation, pitch, stress, rhythm, and pausing. Thus, spoken language which employs variability and flexibility is in fact as complex as written language, meaning that each is complex in its own way. Additionally, the two means of language communication are equally important. It is speech, not writing, which serves as the natural means of communication between members of community (Byrne, 1980), both for the expression of thought and as a form of social behavior.

Writing is a means of recording speech, in spite of its function as a medium of communication in its own right. According to Harmer (1991:46-47), there are three reasons why people communicate. First, people communicate because they want to say something. As Harmer explained, the word want refers to intentional desire the speaker has in order to convey messages to other people. Simply stated, people speak because they just do not want to keep silent. Second, people communicate because they have some communicative purpose. By having some communicative purpose it means that the speakers want something to happen as a result of what they say. For example, they may express a request if they need a help from other people or they command if they want other people to do something. Thus, two things are important in communicating: the message they wish to convey and the effect they want it to have (Harmer, 2001:46). Finally, when people communicate, they select from their language store. The third reason is the consequence of the desire to say something (first reason) and the purpose in conducting communicative activities (second reason). As they have language storage, they will select language expressions appropriate to get messages across to other people.

Harmer (1991) added that when two people communicate, each of them normally has something that they need to know from the other. The interlocutor supplies information or knowledge that the speaker does not have. Thus, in natural communication, people communicate because there is an information gap between them, and they genuinely need information from other people. In the context of EFL/ESL learning, the ability to convey messages in natural communication is of paramount importance. In order to communicate naturally, EFL/ESL learners need to acquire communicative competence, an issue which is discussed in the following section.

Communicative Competence in Language Teaching

The concept of communicative competence developed under the views of language as context, language as interaction, and language as negotiation. Learning to speak English requires more than knowing its grammatical and semantic rules. Students need to know how native speakers use the language in the context of structured interpersonal exchange. In other words, effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interactions. Due to the importance of the notion of communicative competence, a number of language and language learning experts (e.g. Canale & Swain, 1980; Hymes, 1971) elaborated the nature of this concept. Hymes s (1971) theory of communicative competence consists of the interaction of grammatical, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and probabilistic language components. For Canale and Swain (1980), communicative competence includes four components of competence: grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. In the context of second/foreign language learning, Canale and Swain s interpretation of communicative competence has been frequently referred to.

Speaking proficiency is influenced by all four components of competence. Grammatical competence, the first component, is linguistic competence, that is, the ability to perform the grammatical well-formedness. It is mastery of the linguistic code, the ability to recognize the lexical, morphological, syntactic, and phonological features of a language and to manipulate these features to form words and sentences. In the case of speaking activities, grammatical competence enables speakers to use and understand English-language structures accurately, which in turn contributes to their fluency. Another component is sociolinguistic competence, which requires an understanding of the social context in which language is used: the roles of the participants, the information they share, and the function of interaction. This competence helps prepare speakers for effective and appropriate use of the target language. They should employ the rules and norms governing the appropriate timing and realization of speech acts. Understanding the sociolinguistic side of language enables speakers to know what comments are appropriate, how to ask questions during interaction and how to respond nonverbally according to the purpose of the speaking.

In addition, students need to develop discourse competence. This is concerned with the connection of a series of sentences or utterances, or intersentential relationships, to form a meaningful whole. To become effective speakers, students should acquire a large repertoire of structures and discourse markers to express ideas. Using this, students can manage turn taking in communication. In their review of a discourse-based approach in the teaching of EFL speaking, the discourse-based approach enables students to develop and utilize the basic elements of spoken discourse in English involving not only a full linguistic properties but also the knowledge of proposition, context and sociocultural norms underlying the speech.

The fourth component of communicative competence is strategic competence, that is, the ability to employ strategies to compensate for imperfect knowledge of rules, be it linguistic, sociolinguistic, or discourse rules. It is analogous to the need for coping or survival strategies.

With reference to speaking activities, strategic competence refers to the ability to keep a conversation going. For example, when second/ foreign language learners encounter a communication breakdown as they forget what a particular word in the target language is to refer to a particular thing, they try to explain it by mentioning the characteristics of the thing, thus employing a type of communication strategies

The concept of communicative competence as explained above implies also the essential purposes of spoken language. Spoken language functions interactionally and transactionally. Interactionally, spoken language is intended to maintain social relationships, while transactionally, it is meant to convey information and ideas. Speaking activities involve two or more people using the language for either interactional or transactional purposes. Because much of our daily communication remains interactional, interaction is the key to teaching language for communication. In addition, as believed by the interaction hypothesis in second language acquisition, learners learn faster through interacting, or active use of language. It is also important to note that interaction requires understanding of the social background of those involved in communication. In her article addressing oral proficiency from the intercultural perspective, when two parties are interacting, they need to consider some sociocultural aspects that they bring with them, thus necessitating the importance of intercultural understanding.

To summarize, it becomes clear to us that speaking or oral communication has been considered an important language skill for second/foreign language learners even though, depending on the approaches and methods of language teaching, this skill was not treated as equally important to the other language skills. It is also apparent that, naturally, to speak is not only to convey a message that someone else needs or to get information which has not been known, but, more importantly, to interact with other people. The remainder of this article focuses on the discussion of the teaching of EFL speaking in the Indonesian context by using these two aspects (i.e., information gap and interaction) as the pedagogical basis in the analysis of EFL speaking instruction. The following section will first provide the background to speaking English in Indonesia before other aspects of the practice of teaching of EFL speaking such as activities, materials, and students oral proficiency, are discussed.

4). Analysis

Speaking English in the Indonesian Context

Considering the current status of English as a foreign language in Indonesia, not so many people use it in their day-to-day communication. However, in certain communities in this country English has been used for various reasons, leading to the fact that some people use it as the second language. For example, in the academic level, some of the scholars are quite familiar with English and occasionally use it as a means for communicating. Those involved in the main level of management such as bankers and government officials also use code-mixing and code-switching in Indonesian and English. The use of English among teenagers such as in seminars for youth or among middle-level workers in the workplaces and the use of English by radio announcers or television presenters can be easily found. Moreover, the development of tourism leads to the growing number of people from this sector, such as tour guides and hotel receptionists, who use English.

In spite of the fact that more Indonesians use English in their daily life, many consider that English instruction is a failure in this country. One of the reasons for the failure is that there has been no unified national system of English education and, therefore, improvements of English communicative ability are painstakingly made. In reality, as the world is changing very rapidly towards a global village, human resource development becomes a central issue and an ability to communicate internationally is an important quality of the manpower.

Global market places often require the ability to use English. The main challenge for this country thus is to develop an educational system resulting in human quality competitive at international level. This is relevant to the significant change that took place in the real needs for English in Indonesia. The need for English ability in the fifties and sixties was limited to academic purposes at the university level. Today, individuals need English in order to communicate with others at international forums. Accordingly, efforts need to be continuously made concerning quality improvements of English instruction in Indonesia. More particularly, curriculum of English education that can be effective to produce graduates who are able to communicate at international level is needed.

The challenge to compete at international level seems to have been thought of by some English language teaching researchers or specialists. Although an ideal curriculum may not be attempted in the near future, the challenge results in the application of some classroom activities in the teaching of EFL speaking. The following section examines the practice of teaching EFL speaking in the Indonesian context as the efforts of developing students’ oral English proficiency.

5). Summary and Recommendation

As one of the central elements of communication, speaking needs special attention and instruction in an EFL context like the one in Indonesia. Helping learners speak English fluently and appropriately needs carefully prepared instruction (e.g., determining learning tasks, activities and materials) and a lot of practice (i.e., either facilitated by the teachers in the classroom or independently performed by the learners outside the classroom) due to minimal exposure to the target language and contact with native speakers in the context.

We have attempted to review the teaching practice and the research of EFL speaking in the Indonesian context. The review indicates that various classroom activities and teaching materials have been created, selected, and implemented to promote Indonesian learners EFL speaking proficiency.

However, a number of linguistic and non-linguistic factors need to be considered in conducting speaking classes. Since there has been no unified national system concerning the development of oral proficiency in the English instruction, future programs and research should be directed toward providing rigorous guidance in developing competent speakers of English, involving considerations of components underlying speaking effectiveness, factors affecting successful oral communication, and ways of improving speaking abilities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

Cascadilla Press Somerville, MA 2005. Communicative Competence in Children: Spanish-English Bilinguality. http://www.lingref.com/isb/4/150ISB4.PDF. 27 Juni 2013.

English_as_a_second_or_foreign_language. 27 Juni 2013.

SOSIOHUMANIKA,4(2) 2011. The Teaching Constraints of English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia: The Context of School Based Curriculum. http://www.sosiohumanika-jpssk.com/sh_files/File/Karim.pdf. 27 juni 2013

Cahyono, B. Y. Communication Strategies. TEFLIN Journal, 2(2), 17-29.

Harmer, J. (1991). The practice of English language teaching. Essex, UK: Longman.

Lightbown, P. M. & Spada, N. (1993). How languages are learned. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Miller, K. S. (1998). Teaching speaking. In K. Johnson & H. Johnson (Eds.), Encyclopedic dictionary of applied linguistics (pp. 335-341). Oxford: Blackwell.

Musyahda, L. (2002). Becoming bilingual: A view towards communicative competence. TEFLIN Journal, 13(1): 12-21.

Name: Nafiah Nur Fitriana

SRN: 2201410130

Rombel: 205-206