Spoken Communication Problems of Aden University EFL Undergraduate Students. Causes and Solutions

Abstract or Introduction

This study was designed to investigate the spoken communication difficulties encountered by the fourth year EFL (English as a foreign language) students of some rural faculties of Aden University and the factors that might negatively contribute to their poor acquisition of spoken communication proficiency during their learning of English in these faculties. The goal is to reach some suggestions and solutions that may help in changing the current situation and enabling the concerned EFL programs to produce proficient speakers of English. The data were collected through varied instruments, namely students’ questionnaire (n = 120), teachers’ questionnaire (n = 23), students’ interviews (n = 30), speaking skill teachers’ interviews (n = 4), students’ spoken communication proficiency assessment rubric (n = 42), classroom observations (n = 6), and an assessment of speaking skill syllabi. The collected data were analyzed by using the SPSS 21st version and manually. The results revealed that the majority of students encounter fluency and automaticity related difficulties and lack of communication strategies. Moreover, some students also share one or more difficulties with these two major ones, such as phonological difficulties, comprehension difficulties, sociocultural difficulties, lack of discourse knowledge, affective difficulties, and lexical and grammatical difficulties, respectively. Though most students seem to have mastered a somehow sufficient level of grammar and vocabulary, many of them cannot put their lexical and grammatical knowledge into use orally.