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One of the difficulties in teaching English as a second language is teaching speaking. Speaking is one of the major skills beside reading, writing and listening. Most second language or ESL learners can master reading and writing throughout a lot of practices and tasks overtime but the same thing never or rarely happened to speaking skills.
Speaking skills required not just the commitment but also determination from second language learners. First students need to overcome negative attitudes for example shyness (feeling afraid of being laughed by their friends), refusal (not willing to try at all) and denial (switching off/ not motivated to learn to speak). These attitudes will block the learning even before it starts. And it will be very difficult for the ESL teachers to give once was a well- planned instruction specifically for the target skill.
On the other hand teachers’ task would be the motivators to second language learners. Teachers can come out with interesting, authentic and essential topics that students can discuss or talk about especially in the target language. The related topics should be easy and understandable. As a start ESL teachers can relate the topics with students’ interests before moving to serious topics like national issues or the world politics.
As an ESL teacher I realized teaching speaking is not as easy as it may sounds like. From my experience it actually started within the students, as long as they are willing to try, usually and normally they will succeed by the end of the day with flying colors. In learning speaking, the motivation and determination can only come from the second language learners most of the time. Teachers are just the facilitators and examiners. The process itself is like a trial and error but it really worth to try something which will become a very important skill in the global future.
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