Exploring EFL Graduate Students' Perspectives and Strategies to Improve English Speaking Skills

Abstract

Even though Indonesian EFL learners have been studying English since elementary school, many may still consider speaking one of the most challenging language skills. Consequently, when they move to the advanced level, they are required to master more complex speaking skills. Indonesian EFL graduate students faced some problems during learning that can contribute to their speaking performance. Therefore, it is urgent for this study to investigate EFL graduate students' perspectives on their speaking challenges and strategies used to improve their speaking skills. This study used a qualitative method and a semi-structured interview to obtain deep insight into participants' perspectives. The participants were EFL graduate students who are taking an English Education Master's Program. Results showed that some factors influenced their speaking skills in an academic context, such as a lack of accurate pronunciation and lack of vocabulary knowledge and that they used effective speaking strategies for improving their ability in speaking. It is expected that the findings would assist EFL graduate students in uncovering their speaking challenges so that they could perform better when using their spoken English.

Teachers’ Challenges and Students’ Response to Project-Based Learning in English Subject

“…Other studies also prove similar results (Karyawati & Ashadi, 2018;Limeranto & Bram, 2022;Sari & Prasetyo, 2021;Sirisrimangkorn, 2018). Implementing PBL has posed challenges and problems that could be handled and solved.…”

Teachers’ perspectives on teaching EFL speaking virtually: A case study of COVID-19 pandemic survival

“…We claim that most teaching and speaking intentions or objectives, such as acquisition (Derwing, Munro, & Thomson, 2022) or reproduction of information. Mukhtoraliyevna and Madaminkhonqizi (2022) synthesizing (Soleymanpour, Johnson, Soleymanpour, & Berry, 2022) elaborating (Dong, Gui, Zhang, & Zhong, 2022) creating (Esmaili & Mohammadi Rakati, 2022) exploring (Limeranto & Bram, 2022). In addition to being insightful, transactional communication helps in recognizing and expanding our understanding of the implicit or indirect significance of what is said.…”

Teaching Strategies Strengthening EFL Learners’ Self-Confidence in Speaking Learning Dynamics

“…The first study was conducted by Aprianoto (2023) uncovering that the majority of Indonesian EFL learners were highly desirous of finishing various types of speaking tasks promptly after being equipped with robust self-confidence growth wherein they could overcome various kinds of speaking obstacles hindering their conducive speaking learning processes. Limeranto and Bram (2022) unveiled that with incessant enlightenment of strong self-confidence, Indonesian EFL learners progressively shifted into more proficient target language speakers possessing a decent mastery of vocabulary levels, laudable pronunciation skills, and expansive knowledge of specifically assigned speaking topics. Mbato (2020) highly advocated second language educationalists in Indonesia's EFL teachinglearning contexts start immersing their learners in multiple speaking activities by which they learn extensively how to resolve various speaking learning barriers distracting their ongoing speaking learning enterprises.…”