Basic Speaking Skills Essay

Over the last three decades, English has become the most important foreign language in the world. At present, English is the language for international communication; science; commerce; advertising; diplomacy and transmitting advanced technology. (Coury & Carlos,2001). As a matter of fact, English has become an important base for anyone seeking employment in business, industry or technology in Egypt. Accordingly, the main purpose of teaching English in our secondary schools is to enable students to communicate in English in order that they become able to enroll in the labor market and to cope with the challenges of higher education as well. Thus, eventually the need for providing Egyptian EFL secondary stage students with basic speaking skills, as the most important means of communication has arisen and more focus is given to spoken English at the

Teaching speaking requires the focus on each individual student who might have his own phonological and linguistic weaknesses and problems. This makes speaking teaching a time-consuming process. Unlike other skills, speaking does not lend itself to tangible evidence so it is crucial for feedback (Scarcella &Oxford, 1994: 165 ). Therefore, assessing speaking is time consuming and not practical (Miller, 2001: 25). As for problems faced by learners, psychological, social and linguistic obstacles can be explained . According to Scarcella & Oxford, 1994: 165 and Florez, 1998, these are as follows: Fluency and accuracy: Though a student may gain confidence in using the new language by being let uncorrected, his language will continue to be inaccurate/ incorrect. Lack of confidence: some students feel uncomfortable in their first hesitant attempts at speech in the second language. Pronunciation: such as: phonetic confusion, interference from the written form, interference from the mother language and failure to use the weak forms. (Miller,