Exploring the Difficulties Facing EFL Students' Participation in Oral Expression Course

Abstract

The present study deals with some obstacles affecting EFL learners’ participation in oral expression courses at the English department, University of Biskra. Throughout this study, we hypothesize that students do not participate in oral courses due to psychological problems (anxieties, fear, shyness…), and linguistic problems; for example, lack of vocabulary, mispronunciation and grammatical mistakes, and also due to bad attitudes towards the topics and the lack of motivation. To confirm these hypotheses, we investigated the case of third year students (LMD) at the department of English, University of Biskra and teachers of oral expression at the same level. Our work is divided into two parts. A theoretical part, it includes two chapters in which we made a general overview about speaking skills and then we discuss in a detailed way the various obstacles that hinder the students’ participation. From the other hand, we suggest some techniques and activities that teachers of foreign language have to apply as solutions for the stated difficulties. Therefore, the practical part deals with the methodology adopted to conduct the research in which we analyze the questionnaires that are administered to both students and teachers of oral expression in English department at University of Biskra. The data obtained from the two questionnaires indicate that there are some factors affect the students’ participation in oral expression course. Furthermore, the data suggests some techniques and activities that EFL students need to work with to get rid from these obstacles.