Speaking in EFL Classrooms

Speaking is often viewed as a fundamental ability in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) lessons, but it is also one of the most challenging skills. Unlike receptive skills such as listening and reading, speaking requires learners to produce language in real time, respond to others and keep the interaction going. They need a basic control of vocabulary and grammar, but they must also use this knowledge spontaneously and appropriately in real situations. Harmer (2007: 123) points out that speaking is more than producing sounds or isolated words; it means using language actively in communication.

In EFL environments, stronger speaking skills help learners express their views, ask relevant questions and take part in discussions. Spoken performance often shows how well they can participate in academic tasks, professional exchanges or informal social situations where English is needed. (Brown (2001: 267)) links this to communicative competence, understood as the ability to use language appropriately across different social contexts. Spoken proficiency is a key part of this competence. For many EFL learners, being able to speak with some fluency is therefore considered a main indicator of success.

Speaking is also closely connected to language acquisition. Interactionist perspectives suggest that using the target language in meaningful conversation supports learning because learners notice gaps in their knowledge, test hypotheses and adjust their expressions. (Thornbury (2005: 4)) argues that confidence and fluency do not come only from learning vocabulary and grammar rules, but also from repeated speaking practice in situations that are similar to real life. In this sense, speaking is both a goal of instruction and a means through which learners internalise language structures and patterns.

Speaking in a foreign language classroom is usually described as a language skill. However, for learners, speaking is more than producing correct sentences. When learners speak, they do it in front of others. Their classmates and the teacher listen to them and react. For this reason, speaking often feels personal. Learners may feel confident, unsure or nervous when they speak. They also bring their past classroom experiences with them. As Gregersen and MacIntyre point out, these personal factors influence how comfortable learners feel when using a foreign language in class ((Gregersen & MacIntyre, 2014: 32–42)). This helps explain why learners with similar language knowledge do not always participate in speaking activities in the same way.

Speaking acts as a bridge between learners' knowledge of the language and their ability to use it in practice. It turns passive knowledge into active use. When learners engage in conversation, they test their language with other people and receive immediate feedback. Nunan (2003, pp. 55–56) recommends that speaking allows learners to interact with their environment and offers many opportunities for negotiating meaning, which is essential for second language development.

When learners use English to express ideas or tell short personal stories, they must select vocabulary, apply grammar and organise their thoughts into a coherent message. In this process, they are not only repeating what they have learned; they are also restructuring and strengthening their knowledge. Bygate (1987, pp. 5–7) notes that speaking is more than producing separate utterances. It involves planning, negotiation and some improvisation. These processes help learners deepen their understanding of the language and move towards more automatic use.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) gives a central place to oral interaction. Oral production and oral interaction are seen as key parts of communicative competence ((Council of Europe, 2020)). Learners are expected to express ideas clearly, participate in conversations and adapt their speech to different situations and purposes.

Even though speaking is essential, many EFL learners find it the most difficult skill to develop. Various factors can limit oral proficiency, including linguistic, psychological and contextual barriers. Language anxiety is a major psychological obstacle. Learners who feel anxious about speaking may avoid participation or only say very little. MacIntyre and Gardner (1991, p. 96) found that foreign language anxiety is negatively related to speaking performance, especially when learners must speak spontaneously or in situations that feel high stakes.

Limited exposure to authentic speaking situations creates another problem. In many EFL contexts, learners have few chances to talk with native speakers or to use English outside the classroom. They may depend heavily on scripted dialogues or textbook phrases, and some errors can become fossilized. Harmer (2007, p. 387) argues that short, enjoyable fluency activities can help students become more confident about speaking, which suggests that regular communicative practice is important for developing fluency and confidence.

Speaking tasks can also cause cognitive overload. Learners need to remember words, apply grammar rules, control pronunciation and organise ideas at the same time, often under time pressure. For learners at lower proficiency levels, this can lead to many pauses, broken flow or even complete avoidance of the speaking task. Brown (2001, pp. 270–271) explains that speaking involves both automatic and controlled processes and that building automaticity takes time and focused practice.

Cultural and educational backgrounds can create additional difficulties. Many learners come from systems that focus strongly on grammar-translation and memorization, while communicative practice receives less attention. In classrooms where risk-taking is not encouraged and emotional support is weak, learners are less likely to participate. Gregersen and MacIntyre (2014, p. 231) imply that learners are more willing to participate when tasks are relevant, meaningful and appropriately demanding for their level.

Speaking activities in EFL classes can take many different forms. Some tasks focus more on accuracy, while others allow more room for fluency and creativity. In this thesis, special attention is given to activities that are related to learners' Willingness to Communicate (WTC) and that can be repeated as part of the speaking activity set in the empirical study. Broader classroom activity types were operationalised through a repeated speaking activity set including Free-topic Speaking, Information-gap, Supported Role-play, Planning Time, and Structured Turn-taking.

Group discussions are a common way of practising speaking in EFL classrooms. In pairs or small groups, learners share ideas, respond to each other and negotiate meaning. Compared with whole-class question-answer sequences, pair and group work give more learners a chance to speak and can help reduce anxiety because learners talk to peers rather than in front of the entire class. Harmer (2007, p. 386) notes that pair-work and group-work give everyone a chance to speak and can feel less pressurized for many learners. Brown (2001, p. 267) argues that pair and group work also promote communicative competence by encouraging spontaneous speech and interaction strategies. Bygate (2001, pp. 14–20) adds that group discussions help learners practise turn-taking, polite interruption, asking for clarification and reacting to others' opinions.

Role-playing activities create situations that resemble everyday encounters, such as asking for information, dealing with a small problem or speaking to a shop assistant. Learners take on different roles and use language that fits the situation and the relationship between speakers. Role-plays can reduce personal pressure because learners speak as characters rather than as themselves. Harmer (2007, pp. 392–393) explains that simulation and role-play can be motivating and allow hesitant students to be more confident because they can "hide" behind the role. Role-plays also allow some creativity and improvisation, which can make speaking practice more engaging and memorable.

Communication tasks are designed so that learners must use language to exchange information or reach a non-linguistic goal, such as solving a problem or making a joint decision. To complete the task, learners need to ask questions, clarify meaning, check details and sometimes persuade others. The main focus is on meaning, although form can be addressed before or after the task. Nunan (2004, pp. 1–3) explains that tasks connect classroom learning with real-world language use and give learners a communicative purpose beyond practising language forms. When learners feel that what they say has a clear purpose, they may become less worried about making mistakes and more willing to speak.

TBLT supports the use of meaningful classroom tasks with clear communicative outcomes. This is relevant to WTC because learners may be more willing to speak when tasks are meaningful, manageable, and interactive. Le and Tran (2019, pp. 253–255) also show that task types, topics, teacher support, classroom atmosphere, and interlocutors can influence students' WTC in speaking classes. Their findings further suggest that preparation time, pair/group work, meaningful tasks, games, role-play, and positive feedback may encourage students to speak more actively ((Le & Tran, 2019, pp. 258–261)).

Theoretical perspectives on speaking in EFL highlight both cognitive and communicative dimensions of the skill. Researchers such as Thornbury, Harmer, Bygate and Nunan underline the need for automatisation, interactional skills and purposeful task-based practice.

Thornbury (2005: 4) argues that speaking draws on knowledge, but this knowledge must be used under time pressure. Learners need a certain level of automatisation so that they can retrieve and combine language without thinking too slowly about each form. Without chances to use the language in real-time interaction, this automatisation is difficult to achieve.

Harmer (2007: 123) distinguishes between controlled, guided and free speaking activities. Controlled activities, such as drills, focus mainly on accuracy. Guided activities allow some creativity within a structured frame, as in many information-gap tasks. Free activities, such as discussions and debates, encourage fluency. A balanced speaking programme includes all three so that learners can develop both accuracy and communicative confidence.

Bygate (1987: 5–7) makes a useful distinction between motor-perceptive skills, which involve producing and perceiving sounds, and interaction skills, which involve managing turns, clarifying meaning and responding to others. In many EFL classrooms, learners spend much time on motor-perceptive practice, such as repeating sentences or practising sounds, but have fewer chances to develop interaction skills. As a result, some learners know many words and structures but still find it hard to participate in spontaneous conversation.

Nunan (2004: 56) supports the use of task-based work to develop speaking. He argues that learners should engage in tasks that mirror how language is used in real life, for example by planning an event or exchanging information needed to complete a joint product. In such tasks, speaking is treated as a tool for doing things with others, not just as a subject to be tested.

The CEFR is a framework developed by the Council of Europe (2020) to support language teaching, learning and assessment. It offers a shared way to describe what learners can do at different levels. In the CEFR, communicative competence is presented as a combination of linguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic and strategic resources. Instead of focusing only on grammatical accuracy, the framework highlights what learners can do in real-life situations, such as starting a conversation, describing experiences or joining a simple discussion.

Speaking differs from writing because learners have less time to plan, revise, or check their language. During oral interaction, they need to choose words, organise ideas, monitor pronunciation, take turns, and respond to others almost immediately. This temporal pressure makes speaking demanding, especially for young EFL learners who are still developing basic vocabulary and sentence patterns. Bygate (2001, pp. 16–17) explains that speaking requires learners to manage planning, formulation, articulation, monitoring, turn-taking, and responses at the same time. Similarly, Thornbury (2005, p. 4) notes that spoken language knowledge must be used under time pressure. In classroom interaction, this pressure may become stronger because learners speak in front of teachers and peers.

In the focal Polish classroom, real-time speaking was visible during pair and group work. The four learners had to listen, take turns, and respond to classmates within a limited time. When a learner hesitated for too long, the interaction often moved on, or the teacher closed the activity. This shows that speaking opportunities in small-group work were time-sensitive and depended on learners' readiness to join the interaction.

Grammar correctness and a native-like accent were frequently associated with speaking success in traditional perspectives. This perspective has been expanded by more recent research on communicative competence, which emphasizes that competent speakers must accomplish their communication goals in context-appropriate ways. This comprises discourse competency, which involves effectively connecting concepts and indicating topic shifts, as well as social-linguistic awareness, which includes understanding how to approach a teacher as opposed to a friend.

Intelligibility — being understandable to classmates and, eventually, to foreign interlocutors — is frequently a primary practical objective for school-age EFL learners. Turn-taking behavior and intelligibility are tightly related in small groups. Even if their grammar is perfect, learners who talk very quickly, very quietly, or in fragmented phrases may discover that their turns do not go very far in the group. On the other hand, a student who has a small vocabulary but can articulate it clearly and is ready to repeat or restate can nevertheless make a significant contribution to group projects.

In the present classroom, the four focal learners showed different profiles of communicative competence. Some were stronger in vocabulary and grammar but hesitated to claim the floor. Others had more limited resources but were quicker to speak. These differences shaped how each learner was positioned in the group and how comfortable they felt when speaking English. Chapter 4 returns to these individual patterns in more detail, but they already point to a need for classroom activities that support both linguistic development and confident participation.

In many school systems, speaking has traditionally been taught through controlled drills and pattern practice. Learners repeat model sentences, substitute single words and practise short dialogues that closely follow the textbook. Such activities can help learners become familiar with key structures, but they offer limited chances for real decision-making or for adapting language to communicative needs.

Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and communicative techniques have focused on activities where learners use language to accomplish non-linguistic goals including transferring information, creating a collaborative project, or solving a problem. Even while form is still crucial during the planning and feedback phases of a task, learners are encouraged to concentrate primarily on meaning. Because it frames speaking as a tool for accomplishing things with others rather than as a test of grammatical knowledge, this viewpoint aligns nicely with the goal of encouraging WTC.

Speaking in school does not take place in a vacuum. It is shaped by classroom interaction patterns, especially the choice between whole-class work and small groups. In many EFL classrooms, the default format is still teacher-led: the teacher asks questions, selects students and evaluates their answers. This pattern can create order and a sense of safety, but it also limits the amount of time each learner actually spends speaking.

Small-group work, especially stable groups of about four learners (1:4), offers a different set of possibilities. In a group of four, there is enough variety of voices to keep the activity going, but still enough space for each learner to take several turns. Quieter learners may find it easier to speak to three familiar peers than to the whole class, and they can build up routines for asking questions, giving opinions and reacting to others. When tasks are clearly explained and partners are supportive, 1:4 groups can lead to more balanced participation and more frequent practice of turn-taking.

In the focal classroom, the four learners worked together regularly in a fixed group. Over time, certain roles became clear: one learner often initiated ideas, another often translated or explained in the first language, and others reacted more than they initiated. The set of tasks of speaking tasks gave multiple chances for these roles to be maintained or gently shifted. Observing these processes helps us see how classroom interaction and task design can support or restrict speaking.