The Difficulties of Effective English Speaking in Higher Secondary Level: An Empirical Study on City Area Colleges in Dhaka

Bahasa Inggris tidak dapat dihindari digunakan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari dalam periode persaingan global yang ketat ini. Namun karena berbagai alasan, siswa di tingkat menengah atas sering kesulitan mengembangkan keterampilan berbicara yang memadai. Dan hambatan-hambatan ini mempengaruhi dalam studi mereka yang lebih tinggi, pergi ke luar negeri serta dalam karir masa depan mereka. Studi ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis hambatan yang dihadapi siswa tingkat menengah atas dalam berbicara bahasa Inggris secara efektif di kelas mereka. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kuantitatif dan bersifat deskriptif. Responden penelitian ini adalah peserta didik tingkat menengah atas yang dipilih dengan pendekatan random sampling. Total 100 responden diambil, 25 siswa dari masing-masing sekolah dari tiga kelompok, Sains, Seni dan Studi Bisnis berpartisipasi. Survei dilakukan langsung kepada responden dan durasi survei adalah satu minggu. Studi ini menunjukkan dengan tepat semua masalah ini dan menyajikan rekomendasi yang mungkin


INTRODUCTION
Traditional techniques of English language teaching are translation, mother tongue passage are given to the examinee to be translated into the foreign language.Dictation has also been a favourite device with traditionalist, both as a teaching and testing device.Here also mentions that there are two main types of test items, which can be further subdivided (Nguyen & Habók, 2021;Skwarchuk et al., 2014).Open ended, selective type, multiple facers, mating type, rearrangement type, and supply type.For speaking skills tests recognition of sounds can also be tested with the help of pictures, pronunciation testing should require the learner to speak in everyday situations (Kallinikou & Nicolaidou, 2019;Somdee & Suppasetseree, 2013).Stress can be tasted with those words which are identical in segmental sounds and differ only on stress, grammatical structures with normal fluency.Vocabulary can be easily tested by means of picture fluency can be tested by giving some topic of common interest and making the examinees participate in conversation with the examiner (Durbahn et al., 2020;Hu et al., 2022;Pratiwi, 2016).Speaking testing and developing procedure, in the classroom students can practices three minutes presentation, discussion, question and answer test may play an active role.For this environment is necessary, arrangement is necessary, methods are important for evaluating speaking (Darmuki et al., 2017;Huda & Ma'mun, 2020;Somdee & Suppasetseree, 2013).Previous study has focused social stratification & proficiency in English, Language teaching theories & their implication and a review of testing scheme & evaluation policy of English language teaching in Bangladesh (Sultana, 2019).Students are still for away from the expected level of proficiency.Inconsistencies were mostly found at the classroom implementation level.The teacher of English somehow failed to adhere to an appropriate methodology to carry out teaching and learning.
Previous study mentions that extraversion may not help in developing either linguistic skills or even communicative skills in such an Iranian EFL Situation where there is no exposure to English and where non-communicative teaching methods are used in English classes (Kiany, 1997).This preliminary research led to the main study which includes three different sub samples-no English exposure, exposure to English only in classes, and exposure to the language in a natural English -Speaking environment -as well as a much wider variety of measurements of English proficiency (Ha, 2021;Janebi Enayat & Derakhshan, 2021;Ramsin & Mayall, 2019).The students also have hardly any opportunity to use English in their real life.They have hardly any supplementary reading materials to reinforce their knowledge and skills they learn from their textbooks.Textbooks are, therefore, the only means for teaching and learning English (Charalambous, 2011;Hsu, 2014;Orfan et al., 2021).So, the English language teaching and learning situation in Bangladesh is an unfavourable one.In such an unfavourable situation, where textbooks are the only materials easily available, they (textbooks) should be so developed as to help both teachers and students with sufficient examples and a variety of materials for practice in communicative use of language (Gunantar, 2017;Hanifa, 2018;Puspitasari et al., 2021).
Previous study expresses that communicative English, one of the major objectives of which is to emphasize on speaking skill, was introduced in the national curriculum more than a decade ago in order to enhance our students' overall skills, especially speaking skill, that were neglected in our curriculum since independence (Howarth, 2016).Bangladesh, of course, is a country with limited resources and economic constraints that inevitably hamper the efforts and motivation of local ELT practitioners.They point out some factors that the teachers face in implementing the principles of communicative language teaching at a higher secondary level.The factors are infrastructural limitations, cultural conflicts, seating arrangement in class-room, lack of standard testing system etc.The national curriculum and syllabus have underscored the need for developing all the four English skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing, the existing examination system is heavily based on writing and reading skills only (Büyükkarci, 2014;Latif, 2017;Lee et al., 2019).Unfortunately, the two important skills, listening and speaking are being completely left out in the English examination system (Gizatulina et al., 2020;Mokshein et al., 2019).
As a result, the teachers and students do not feel encouraged to teach and learn these two skills in the classroom.But ELTIP is working to ensure balanced and integrated development of all the four skills among the learners.However as there are no marks allocated for speaking and listening skills in the examination system, students are not motivated to practice speaking and listening.In any internal as well as public examination on English there must be a component on speaking and listening and at least 10 to 20% of the total marks can be allocated for these two skills (M. A. Amin & Greenwood, 2018;R. Amin, 2022;Hawlader, 2020).Students will have to face a viva board where they will be asked to speak in English.If this system of oral testing will be incorporated in all tests from class 6 to 12 the learners will get the avenues to make himself confident as well as fluent in English after completing HSC/ Alim.In Bangladesh, English is taught as a compulsory subject from primary to the higher secondary level.Nonetheless, most of the students of this higher secondary stage are not fluent in speaking (M.Amin, 2019;Liu & Jackson, 2008;M., 2018).
This study mainly explores which hindrances are faced by the students of higher secondary level of different colleges under Dhaka city and how those obstacles can be overcome.Thus, this study analyzes the actual condition of teaching, testing and the problems they really face at the higher secondary and how we can overcome these barriers.This research is an authentic scenario of the higher secondary learners in Dhaka city, Bangladesh.The problems of learners that they face for speaking fluently have been investigated in this research.The result of this study may be the basis to investigate the total condition of secondary level students of the country.Importantly, the Ministry of Education, National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB), and different educational institutions would benefit from this study.

METHODS
This is a quantitative study and descriptive in nature.The empirical data have been obtained by the questionnaire survey.Then, they are identified, classified, interpreted, analysed, and presented.For the study, four colleges under Dhaka North City Corporation were selected-Rajuk Uttara Model College (RUMC), Civil Aviation School and College, Uttara High School and College and Milestone College in a systematic manner.The respondents of this research were the higher secondary level learners in Dhaka city area by random sampling approach.Total 100 respondents were taken.25 students from each school from three groups -Science, Arts and Business Studies participated.
They were asked questions or statements about their present speaking performance, their classroom environment, teachers' cooperation and performance, their opinion about the contribution of HSC syllabus and textbooks to develop conversational skill and so on.This study is mainly based on primary data which were collected through a survey in October 2022 and secondary data were from many books, reports, articles, papers, journals and other published documents related to speaking skills for the basic and relevant information of the study.The survey was conducted directly going to the respondents and the duration of the survey was one week.They took around 8-10 minutes to answer the questions.

Results
The Effective speaking ability is a person's capacity to speak a language in order to communicate with others.Effective speaking skill refers to a person's ability to speak a language with maximal precision and fluency, as defined by the first question of the questionnaire.
Base on Figure 1, the results of the study indicate that 50% of students strongly agree, 42% agree, while just 1% strongly disagrees, and 5% do not express any opinion.Then respondents were asked about their ability in speaking to identify their degree of English proficiency in interpersonal communication.The result is show in Figure 2. Here, respondents were asked to identify their degree of English proficiency in interpersonal communication.As a consequence, 44% of respondents can speak English with a moderate level of proficiency, while just 6% can speak it well.On the other side, 30% of respondents speak English minimally, and 15% speak English very little.Also regrettable is the fact that 5% of respondents cannot speak English and are unable to communicate with others using the language.How Often Respondent Speak in English with Teachers is show in Figure 3.

Figure 3. How Often Respondent Speak in English with Teachers
Base on Figure 3 reveal that just 2% of respondents always talk English with their instructors, 6% of respondents sometimes speak English with their teachers, 38% of respondents sometimes speak English with their teachers, and 30% of students never speak English with their faculty members.It is quite disappointing that so few pupils speak English, when the majority of students should speak English.Conversation in practical life, context furnishes speaking skill properly.The important fact is that most of the time in Bangladesh particularly people circumvent of using English in everyday life as English is the foreign language here.In case of students, though they are bound to talk in English with the teacher in classes sometimes; they remain reluctant to talk with mates, peers, friends frequently.Respondent answer related to the frequency of speak English with their classmates is show in Table 4.The result of the data analysis as show in Figure 4 displays that 25% respondents never speak English with their classmates; a large percentage (55%) respondents rarely speak.On the other hand, only 5% respondents speak sometimes, 15% respondents speak often and none speaks English always.

Figure 4. Frequency Speak in English with Classmates
A classroom convenient circumstance helps to test properly.Sufficient space, moderate class size, adequate lighting and a room with acoustics that is neither too hot nor too cold are important for teaching.Most important things for the successful teaching and learning are fewer tangible conditions, plenty of opportunities for learners to practise in class and an atmosphere in which they feel motivated to learn.The teaching arrangement should be organised in such a way that the learners would be enthusiastic in the activities and interactions which take place in the classroom without constraints.However, one of the questions of study was whether the classroom provides students with a congenial atmosphere to practise speaking skill or not.The situation related to proper atmosphere to practise speaking skill is show in Figure 5.This analysis as shows in Figure 5 found that 48% respondents agree with the statement, only 4% respondents strongly agree, 35% respondents disagree with the statement, 6% of them strongly disagree, and only 7% of them are neutral.To develop English speaking, learners are supposed to be involved in speaking in the classroom to integrate their conversational skill through practising by role play, group discussion, talk show etc.Most importantly, teachers can expedite it for students to talk in English with them.The frequency of teacher using English in Classroom is show in Figure 6.Base on Figure 6, though 1% respondents answer that their teachers never speak in the classroom, more than half (60%) of respondents express their opinion on the option of sometimes.Again, 4% respondents speak rarely but 20% respondents think that their teacher speaks often.Further, only 15% respondents affirm that their teacher always speaks English in the class.Then Instructors or teachers can motivate the learners to learn English.Indeed, they can remove students' fear and teach them in an interesting way.How often teachers encourage students to speak in English is show in Figure 7. Base on Figure 7 show that 51% of respondents claim that their teachers always encourage them to speak in English inside and outside the class; 30% respondents assert that their teachers sometimes encourage them to speak in English.Only 6% respondents answer for the option of rarely where 13% respondents contend for the choice of often.It is a very positive sign that all of the teachers encourage the respondents to speak in English.Thus, the percentage for never option is zero.The textbook that is prescribed by NCTB for the higher secondary level is not designed to emphasis on the four skills equally.Only reading and writing skills are practised in the classroom in most of the time.Respondent answer related to all the four language skills of syllabus are needed to give importance equally is show in Figure 8. Base on Figure 8 show that about 45% of the whole respondents agree that all the four skills are obligatory to be taught effectively in Bangladesh including 40% respondents strongly agree.Side by side, 6% of them disagree.None of them strongly disagree and 9% respondents remain neutral.International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is essential for transcribing sounds that occur in a language, whether oral or sign.If the learners know these symbols, they would be able to transcribe English words phonemically.This question of the questionnaire was whether the student knows the IPA Symbols and transcribes English words phonemically or not.The result is show in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Students Ability Transcribe English Words Phonemically
Base on Figure 9 show that 3% respondents agree wherever 66% respondents disagree but only 1% respondents strongly agree, 24% respondents strongly disagree and 6% respondents remain neutral that they are familiar with IPA symbols and transcription.Speech sounds help the learners to acquire English pronunciation correctly through simulation and practice.If the learners can disinter the speech sound; they can ameliorate the intonation, stress, rhythm of their pronunciation of any language.The result of data is show in Table 10.

Figure 10. Students Knowledge about Speech Sounds
Base on Figure 10 show that only 8% respondents agree that they have enough knowledge about it where more than half of the respondents (60%) disagree.Besides, 2% respondents strongly agree, 20% respondents strongly disagree, and 10% respondents are natural about the information that they have good command on the ornaments of speech sounds like stress, intonation, and rhythm.In Bangladesh, testing methods of English in HSC level only focus on reading and writing without any mark allocation for listening and speaking tests.Here one hundred marks are designed for English First Paper by dividing into three parts.Part A includes two reading comprehensions and there are four questions on each comprehension.Each question is of five marks.There are two questions on vocabulary in part B and each question contains ten marks.In Part C, there are 3 questions like a substitution table of twelve marks, a rearrangement of fourteen marks and a paragraph of fourteen marks.Again, a test of one hundred marks is allocated for the English second paper which aims at testing grammatical and writing skills of the learners.There are two parts in this question paper.Part A includes eight grammatical questions each contains five marks where part B includes questions on writing skill i.e., letter, application, dialogue, and composition writing.Thus, the learners face various obstacles on the way to speak effectively.The seventh question of the designed questionnaire was whether the current testing system for evaluating students' speaking skill is appropriate or not is show in Figure 11.11, show that about 8% respondents agree, 60% respondents disagree, 2% respondents strongly agree, 20% respondents strongly disagree and 10% respondents are neutral about the information that the current testing methods are sufficient to assess student speaking ability.In Bangladesh, with the exclusion of the speaking test, only partial assessment forms on the basis of grammar-translation oriented tests never bring the equal result as skill-focused assessment occurred in English language assessment.The current national examination system is not consistent with the curriculum goals and objectives.The Current Testing System for Evaluating Students' Speaking Skill is show in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Testing System for Evaluating Students' Speaking Skill
Base on Figure 12, 12% respondents agree that the current testing system for evaluating students' speaking skill is the appropriate one, 44%respondentsdisagree, 8% respondents strongly agree but 26% respondents strongly disagree, and 10% respondents are neutral about the information that the current testing system for evaluating students' speaking skill is the appropriate one.The Existing Syllabus is helping the Learners to Improve Their Speaking Skill is show in Table 13.

Table 13. The Existing Syllabus in Helping Improve Students Speaking Skill
This question of the research questionnaire was whether the current syllabus for higher secondary level gives emphasis on speaking skill with other three skills or not. Figure 13 shows that about 20% respondents agree that the existing syllabus is helping the learners to improve their speaking skill.All the same 35% respondents disagree and 3% of all respondents strongly agree.Furthermore, 27% respondents strongly disagree yet 15% of them remain neutral about the information that the current syllabus for higher secondary level gives emphasis on speaking skill with other three skills.The materials and contents emulate indispensable function in teaching and learning of a language.On account of that the textbooks in the HSC level are highly needed to consider like how sufficient and efficient they are for developing learners' speaking skills.The respondents were asked to opine with the statement that the textbooks in the HSC are not sufficient for developing English skill as show in Figure 14.Base on Figure 14, 3% respondents strongly agree with the statement that the textbooks are not sufficient for developing students' speaking skill.Again, 35% respondents agree with the proclamation where 15% respondents are neutral and 35% respondents disagree.Additionally, 27% strongly disagree with the statement.Main reasons for lack of competency in english is show in Table 15.

Table 15. Main Reasons for Lack of Competency in English
The aim of the question is to find out the general causes of students' inadequacy in English in the higher secondary level.Base on Figure 15 show that among all the participants 45% respondents think that nervousness is the main reason for lacking competence in English.Then, 10% respondents observe that lack of practice makes students inefficient in speaking.Further, 27% of students face a lack of proper words.Teachers' cooperation is important in language class, but 3% respondents are coming unstuck in speaking for instructors' non-cooperative attitude.Then, 15% respondents believe that the HSC syllabus does not emphasise speaking properly on speaking.Again, 8% of total respondents cannot do well in speaking because of the lack of a favourable environment.

Discussion
Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information.Speaking or conversation means a multifaceted activity (Agholor et al., 2017;Howarth, 2016;Khromchenko & Shutilo, 2021).It is a matter of great concern that most second language learners, especially students of higher secondary level, feel the necessity of effective communication skill, but they are unable to communicate properly.They face a number of hindrances in the ways of developing speaking skill.The result of the survey shows that the higher secondary level of the testing system for evaluating students' speaking ability is not appropriate.Here only written tests are emphasised.Only few students at these colleges refer to viva voce, interview, presentation and other oral tests.The major focus in the English class is on the two basic skills namely reading and writing.Little or no systematic attention is paid to speaking and listening.
It is a matter of sorrow that no college has a language laboratory and modern equipment for practising oral skills.They depend on only a sound speaker.In most of the colleges visual aids are not used.Thus, students cannot get the opportunity to understand the native speakers' pronunciation, organ of speech, production of sounds, phonetics and phonological transcription, etc. Regular and frequent practice enables a person to have mastery over speaking (Arroba & Acosta, 2021;Usman et al., 2018;I. A. Zahra, 2019).In this case, students need to converse with their teachers and classmates in English.Students hardly practise it.Even so, several students never speak English with their peers.Such a phobia for speaking on the part of students reduces their ability.English skill is the interference of mother tongue.In the case of higher secondary level, the learners try to transfer different elements from their mother tongue to English (Domogen, 2021;R. Zahra & Arianti, 2022).But most of the time they cannot speak spontaneous English though they speak their mother tongue Bangla naturally.Again, they mix both Bangla and English, popularly known as Banglish.But Bangla is even spoken in the English classroom, and it hampers their English learning.The existing syllabus at higher secondary level prescribed by the NCTB is not suitable to develop speaking proficiency.HSC syllabuses seem to be less effective in developing communicative competence.It is not consistent with the Communicative Language Teaching Method.English first paper of HSC level some contents follow this method but the second paper does not.This only includes grammatical and written items.It is a matter of hope that CLTA (Communicative Language Teaching Approach) has been introduced more constructively, but still dialogue making and other conversations are memorised (Maamuujav et al., 2019;Swan, 2005;Yundayani et al., 2019).The textbooks instruct the teachers for natural and contextual conversation such as situational talk, greetings, dialogue making, pair work etc.But they are followed neither by our teachers nor our students.The objectives of the textbooks are to enable the students to use the most common form of expression of the language freely and spontaneously.Sometimes students are forced to memorise because they need to pass in the examination, and they can do it without much effort and even their minds reside elsewhere.Again, for time limitation teachers arrange traditional types of questions which are not indeed proper for the speaking test.Our public examinations fail to put equal emphasis on all the four language skills (Nahari et al., 2020;Singh et al., 2021).Even, questions in the public examinations are set on reading and writing but listening and speaking are excluded.
Further, higher secondary level students do not have good command on suprasegmental features of English language such as stress, intonation, rhythm etc.Most of the students do not have enough knowledge about English speech sounds and do not any idea about IPA symbols and transcription of it.Consequently, students fail to internalise the necessary amount of vocabulary and try to memorise vocabulary without any reference of context and when they are needed, they can hardly use those properly which is an obstacle to fluent speaking (Lin et al., 2022;Tresnawati & Musthafa, 2016).In Bangladesh, people trying to speak English are not cordially appreciated; rather they are scorned and laughed at.For this reason, Bangladeshi EFL learners, basically higher secondary level students, do not find their environment congenial to the development of the speaking skill.Few students feel shy and fear that their local dialects affect their pronunciation.In addition, many college teachers are not concerned about their responsibility and act as rulers over the students.Such kind of non-cooperation on the part of teachers highly contributes to the lack of competency in conversational skill in English.To overcome the obstacles to effective speaking skill at higher secondary level in Bangladesh the following suggestions can be taken into consideration, 1.)The testing system should be planned in such a way that students' command of the language can properly be judged.It is appropriate to give speaking and listening skills some credit.2.) The existing HSC syllabus should be modified.It must be introduced in accordance with the demand of the Communicative Language Teaching Method.3.) In order to overcome the obstacles to excellent speaking ability, students require extensive practice.In a foreign nation, students are surrounded by native speakers.Expression and conversation around them strike their ears continuously.
Due to scheduling constraints, the limitation of this study is just looking at students' perspectives; teacher interviews have not been done.The students who participated in the data collection came from four separate institutions in Dhaka, but they nonetheless serve as a representative sample of all Bangladeshi students.It is possible that some respondents did not really disclose their level of skill.When asked about the classroom atmosphere and teachers' performance, they were also asked whether they would feel threatened if their teachers learned the results.Some students had no experience conducting research, thus they perceived the survey as a time waster.The only skill discussed in this study is speaking.This paper puts a way for future researchers to investigate the effects of hindrance in speaking like psychological, perceptual, and so on.Additionally, this study emphasizes the shortcomings of the speaking testing system in Bangladesh, lack of proper content in textbooks for practicing speaking, and the requirement for syllabus modification, such as adding English speaking courses to the current syllabus, which can assist the authorities of our educational system in rethinking it.

CONCLUSION
To the end, the effective English speaking skill has become crucial to express oneself and to extend the connectivity to global networks .The ultimate result of this survey is that most of the students face the barriers like the interference of mother tongue, fossilisation, anxiety, Emotional Barrier (shyness), Cultural Barrier (local accent), lack of practice, vocabulary, immersion, student-teacher interaction, Physical Barrier (environment noise), Attitude Barrier (lack of motivation), Psychological Barrier (consciousness, emotions), etc.In these circumstances, conversational competence in English students must be improved from the initial stage.The higher secondary level is the most tactful-transit stage of the educational system of Bangladesh.After passing this level students enter into higher study in the country or overseas.If they cannot develop their basic skills of language, personal communication, and interaction, at this level, they become unable to succeed in higher education and career most of the time.

Figure 1 .Figure 2 .
Figure 1.Effective Speaking Skill Refers to a Person's Ability to Speak a Language with Maximum Accuracy, Interaction, and Fluency

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Classroom Provides Students with Proper Atmosphere to Practise Speaking Skill

Figure 6 .Figure 7 .
Figure 6.The Frequency of Teacher Using English in Classroom

Figure 8 .
Figure 8.All the Four Language Skills of Syllabus are Needed to Give Importance Equally

Figure 11 .
Figure 11.Teacher Test to Check speaking skill

Figure 14 .
Figure 14.The Textbooks In HSC Sufficient For Developing Speaking Skills