EFL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate into the difficulties when speaking English that many EFL students face during their learning courses at university. It will also hope to provide possible solutions or directions to counter or at the very least mitigate these problems for EFL students on their process of becoming future fluent English speakers. A survey was conducted on 43 students ranging from freshmen to senior students at the School of Foreign Languages at Can Tho University in order to identify the the core of their problems when it comes to speaking English. The results show that the primary cause leading to unfluent speeches in English is the lack of vocabulary needed to convey thoughts and ideas. Fortunately, the key to solving this problem is quite simple and can be applied to every EFL students at any level to better their speaking skills. Based on the findings, the solutions seem to be an increase interaction with the language itself and also the improvement of other essential English skills. These solutions can be practiced by EFL students themselves or with the help of English instructors and teachers from various institutions.