Misra Putrilistieni 83651 / 07 Writing 3 Fluency: does it still place the main concern in speaking English?

1. Introduction In learning English there are four skills, they are speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Speaking is one of the skills, which has more important role in learning. Speaking seem to have the first priority because the purpose of learning actually to enable the students to communicate in the language. Beside that, in speaking learning, students can express their ideas, opinion, feeling, ad also respond to others. However, in fact most of the students can not express them in English. Many students have the problems in speaking English. Usually the students dispose to be and also afraid to make mistakes. They often keep silent and sometime pretend to take a note while the teacher asks them some questions. Based on the writer experience, there are some factors why the students are unable to talk in English. The first factor is they can not answer the question fluency. It can be caused they are still not good in vocabulary or dont understand what question means because lack of knowledge. The second is most of the think and conclude that English too difficult to learn. So they dont have spirit and motivation to study language. The third factor is the materials of study are not interesting and it is making them bored. The next factor is they do not input or

support to speak English in their environment. Because of that, the students do not get enough practice for improving their speaking ability. For the problem like these, the students need some solutions to prepare the way to study English, especially for speaking subject. So this paper is written to discuss about does fluency still place the main concern in speaking English? Furthermore, usually in speaking, the students should have competence in communicative, because the acquisition of someone in speaking ability also determined by their competence in communicative. Savignon in Jusmawati (1998: 9) says that communicative competence is what someone knows about the language in true communication. The students who have communicative competence can perform a good oral production than the students who do not communicative competence. In speaking class, it is often found that many students cannot perform well because they are still not fluency in speaking English.

II. Fluency: does still place the main concern in speaking English? A. Define of Speaking Speaking can be defined in several ways. According to Widows in Zulmanidar (1994: 4) speaking is the active productive skills and makes use of oral communication. And communication through speaking is commonly performed face to face and occurs as part of dialog or other form of verbal change. Cox in An Amanta (2001: 17) says that speak is used more than reading and writing. Speaking is the activity which is totally important in delivering the ideas of communication naturally. Especially in education environment and also supporting

the teaching learning process and the students thinking process. Samoar in Marlina defines speaking is the oral communication as follow: Communication is two ways process; it is involves more than one person in any act of communication. Communication seeks to elicit a response. The speaker communicates to accomplish the purpose. Idea and feeling are materials of communication that must be specifically designed to accomplish the purpose. Communication is a real life process, it depends on how well we adopt to the environment, which surround and involve the situation. The receivers response is the effectiveness of communication act. If there is no response from receiver, it means that there is no communication. B. Speaking Ability Most of people think that a person who learns a foreign language should be able to speak fluency. The speaking skill is used to test ones ability in using foreign language for the purpose of the communication. In the business world, many employers require the people to perform not only in good writing English but also in good spoken English. But in fact, many students can not speak English fluency even though they have learned English since they were at junior high school. According Tunaboylu (1993), that problem can be possibly influenced by the class atmosphere (the lack of confidence), and the technique and strategy used (the material chosen).and also for the problem like these, the main problem is impossibly because of the lack of 3

confidence of the students to speak actively. The materials of teaching also influence of the students fluency in speaking English. In fact, the materials given by the teachers are probably not interesting enough to be studied by the students. The materials probably could not catch the students interest to speak in English. It is because the materials are probably not closely related to them, or they are not familiar with the topics. In the speaking class, there are some materials that are used for oral class activities; telephone conversation, identifying activities, the topic about technology, science, real-life, etc. If the materials are very familiar for students, it can be supported to make the students have strong willing to speak more and fluency. Concerning the previous ideas, the teacher has to create the new classroom solution, especially the solution for setting up the speaking activities for communication actively; for example by using quizzes, games, puzzles, pictures, role plays or various materials. The students speaking ability in the classroom is an important factor of their learning experiences outside the classroom. In conclusion, the main goal of speaking subject is to enable to communicate in the target language. And fluency is one thing that very important in delivering something in speaking or speech. Speaking fluency also supported by good in grammar, vocabulary, and also pronunciation. It all will make good in the oral communication naturally in human communication.

C. Developing Speaking Fluency

As we know that speaking is a complex skill. When someone is speaking, it is not enough for him/her just knowing the sounds, structures, and vocabularies system of language. As finocciaro in alrukni (2001: 6) stated: The speakers must think of the ideas he wishes to express; he must change the position of tongue and jaw in order to articulate the appropriate sounds; he must consciously aware the grammatical, lexical and cultural feature needed to express his idea; he must be sensitive to any changes in register or stile necessitated by the person to whom he is speaking on the situation in which the conversation in taking place. D. Speaking as Communicative Competence Rivers in Hervina (2005: 5) states communicative competence as the ability to function the language in truly communicative setting; that is, in a spontaneous transaction involving one or more other persons. It means that the learner will be considered competent if they know how to use the language based on its function communicatively and in appropriate situation. Furthermore, Hymes in shumin (2002: 207) identifies four competences should that are included in communicative competence, and these four competences should be mastered and understood by the learners in order to be able to produce communicative spoken language. The four competences are grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence. Grammatical competence refers to the ability to recognize the lexical, morphology, syntactic, and phonological features of words. Sociolinguistic competence means the ability to understand the appropriate meanings in social and 5

cultural contexts. Discourse competence related with the ability to interpret the communication of a series of utterances to form a meaningful whole. Strategic competence refers to the ability to use strategies to compensate the imperfect communication runs well. In communication in the classroom, usually the students explain the language usage is a sub-aspect of the language performance where the learners demonstrates their knowledge of linguistic rules, together with the language use as another aspect of the language performance. Thus, Hymes and Gunsper in Hervina define communicative competence as what speaker needs to know to communicative effectively in a culturally significant setting. In conclusion, the communicate competence is the ability to communicate appropriately in social settings. It is the knowledge of what, when, where, why, how, to whom it is appropriate to use certain functions of the language. In order to develop the students communicative competence in the communicative classroom, the teaching process should decrease the time to explain about the language and its rules but provide opportunities for the students to use language in real-life situation. E. The Teaching of Speaking Brown and Yule (1983: 27) say that the aim of language teaching is to help the students to have ability to express themselves in the target in all aspects of their lives, such as in greetings, expressing their gratitude, share their feelings, asking people or doing negotiations. Hence, the teaching of speaking should not be ignored because the purpose of language learning and teaching is to enable students to communicate in the target language. 6

Accordingly, English as foreign language teachers should pursue their students ability to speak in that language. Brown (1980: 4) suggests that any good English teachers should be creative in maximizing the learning process and utilized with the up to date grasp of language teaching. In short, they should be able to improve students oral production by maximizing the opportunity for the students to speak freely and communicatively. So that, the students can practices the language inside and outside of the classroom. Dealing with the teaching of speaking, brown and Yule (1983: 25) agree that teaching speaking is the most difficult task compared to the teaching of other language skills such as listening, reading, and reading. In line with their ideas, Nunan in Kayi (2006: 1-3) believes that teaching speaking is to enable the students to acquire the six important language abilities. First, to enable the students use the English speech sounds and the sound pattern, it is dealt with pronunciation activities. Second, to enable the students to arrange the words and sentences, its stress, intonation pattern, and the rhythm of the language sound. Third, to enable the students selecting the appropriate words and sentences based on social setting, audience, situation and the subject of the matter. Fourth, to enable them to organize their thought in meaningful and logical sequences. Fifth, to enable them to use the language as a mean of expressing values and judgments. Finally, to make the students able to use the language quickly and confidently with few natural pauses, this called fluency. After acquiring these aspects, the students can produce the meaningful and effective spoken English. Teaching spoken English is not an easily task. It is more

complicated than teaching other aspects of language. It is not only about how to make the students able to pronounce some words appropriately or grammatically correct, but to use the language by combining all the language aspects in certain situation in order to produce effective and communicative oral production. In conclusion, the main goal of teaching speaking is to enable the students to communicate in the language. So, good English teachers should be creative in maximizing the opportunities for the students to practice the target language freely and communicatively.

III. CONCLUTION and SUGGESTION A. Conclusion Speaking is one of the subjects that learn by many students especially for students in the university have important roles in our daily life. With speaking the people can communicate with others. Beside that, they can express the ideas, opinion, and responds to others. As oral communication, the people must have foundation to tell something. For speaking well in the education environment, especially in the university has a subject named public speaking, it is a part of speaking subject. In public speaking the students learn one aspect is speech. They learn about four kinds of speeches: impromptu speech, manuscript speeches, memorized speeches, and extemporaneous speeches. Through speech students can also mastering their other skills, such as listening, writing, reading, pronunciation, spelling of word, and also structure of

language. And one important thing that students get from learning of speech in public speaking is developing self-confidence. B. Suggestion Based on the conclusion above, in order to successful in speaking English, the students must mastering many vocabularies, good in pronunciations and also spelling, mastering a concept to speech through writing. Students must also have enough knowledge to deliver something to other people, so reading has important rules to speak well. Actually speaking is relationship with listening because good in listening means that someone also good in speaking. In writer experience, we can learn from performances of other people, and we can take best sample. It can make us to be careful if we speaking in front of the audiences.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, H. Douglas. 2002. Strategies for Success: A Practical Guide to Learning English. San Francisco State University: Longman. Widdowsom, H. G. 1978. Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Savignon, Sandra J. 1983. Communicative Competence: Theory Classroom Practice. Weslay. Adison Weslay Press. Travers, Molly.1991. Talking With Confidence. Cambridge. Finocchiaro, Mary and Bonomo. 1987. The Foreign Language Learner: A Guide For The teachers. New York: Regent Publishing Press. Zufri. 2001. Building Students Confidence to Speak Through Group Activities. Unpublished Thesis. IKIP Padang. Nida, Eugene A.1957. Learning A Foreign Language. New York: Committee on Missionary Personnel. Kock, Arthur.1991. Speaking With A Purpose. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs. Rooks, George. 1983. Cant Stop Talking. Cambridge: Newbury House Publishers. Rubin, Joan and Thompson, Irene. 1983. Be A More Successful Language Learner. Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

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