Language Learning Strategies Used by Secondary Schools Students in Enhancing Speaking Skills

Abstract

Mastering English as the second language has been a constant challenge for speakers of other languages. Malaysians, especially school students who are from sub-urban and rural areas are persistently struggling to fulfill the demands of becoming competent English language speakers. Students’ low self-confidence and unfamiliarity with language structures hinder their potential to improve their speaking skills. Hence, there is a need to discover the students’ most preferred strategies to enhance their speaking skills and refine the strategies to be further employed by the students. In this study, the researchers aim to: 1) identify the most frequently used strategies among secondary school students to enhance their speaking skills and, 2) analyse if there is any difference on the use of strategies among genders. Mixed-method approach was employed to answer the research questions. 60 secondary school students from a sub-urban area participated in the survey and six students volunteered to be the participants in a semi-structured interview. Oxford’s SILL Questionnaire was adapted and translated into the respondents’ native language and SPSS 7.0 version was used for data analysis. Results in this study revealed that practicing strategies are the most frequently used strategies and female students showed higher tendency to employ the strategies to enhance their speaking skills. The study suggests more integration of other strategies to be employed in language classroom such as metacognitive strategies, compensation and communication strategies to improve their language competency.