Kenitra - This study relies on a questionnaire that was given to two sample groups: 1st year math science BAC stream and 1st year experimental science BAC stream. The first consists of 31 student participants and the second consists of 29 student participants, 60 participants in total. (To read about the finding of the study click here)
Class streams can have an effect on attitudes and thus we sought having two different streams. The questionnaire consists of bi-polar adjective scale, likert scale, open-ended questions, and closed-ended questions. Another questionnaire was designed for teachers. This questionnaire serves to provide insights from the perspective of teachers. It consists of bi-polar scale questions, likert scale, closed-ended questions (multiple choice questions), and open-ended questions. The students’ questionnaire was administered on May the 19th and 20th, 2014, starting from 3 P.M. on both days at Mohamed V high school in Kénitra. With the help of the host teacher and one of my classmates, we were able to fill in 31 questionnaires the first day. Then in the second, we were able to fill in 29 questionnaires. Students were enthusiastic about filling in the questionnaires. Many volunteered that we could not have them all participate in the study.
Research variables
Many variables have been considered so as to observe and understand their role as well as to ensure having different perspectives to our dependent variables, namely oral proficiency. It is imperative that at this point to state the complex nature of the research problem. We have two main variables, an independent and a dependent one. Oral proficiency is the dependent variable. Attitudes are the independent variable. However, our independent variable (attitudes) is in itself dependent when we consider some other sub-independent variables such as age, sex, motivation, teachers’ influence, media influence, self-image, culture, and so on and so forth. So we have three layers of variables. First, we have the various independent variables that shape the general concept of attitudes students have towards English. Second, we have attitudes towards English as an agent in itself, which can be seen as dependent and independent variable depending on which lenses one choses to look from. Third, we have the ultimate dependent variable which is the speaking skill or oral proficiency. The goal is to, hopefully, relate the speaking skill proficiency to personal attitudes and to relate the personal attitudes to what determines their nature.
Given the scientific-inexactitude nature of this research, we tried to make it representative in other regards. For this particular study we opted for the 1st year BAC. The BAC final exam can have huge repercussions on students’ attitudes towards English although attitudes could still be relative to the wider circumstances students are in. The reason behind this choice is that 2nd year BAC students are more preoccupied with the final BAC exam. This in itself is a variable that should be eliminated. 1st years BAC students’ contributions to this study should be more spontaneous, instinctive, natural, transparent, reliable, unaffected, uninfluenced and mostly undisturbed as much as possible. We also tried to avoid subjects’ selection bias by having two different classes instead of one in order to avoid any preexisting similarities between students belonging to one class and to ensure a normal distribution of data. This would, hopefully, strengthen the internal validity of the research.
Research design
A true experimental study in cognitive and social sciences is a fictitious concept. Researchers in these fields try their best to approach the ideal or laboratory conditions. Attitudes, being a mental phenomenon, are not easy to study for they are vulnerable to almost anything and their operational definition is fluid. Student’s mood can be a factor affecting their judgment and attitudes in the moment of filling the questionnaires. Random selection was possible for teachers’ questionnaires given that the number of English teachers at Mohamed 5 high school is very limited, so we resorted to other high schools in the Gharb-Chrarda-Béni Hssen region.
For this particular research, the research design we opted for is the Ex Post Facto design. It follows that the research endeavor is but to find relations and correlations between the dependent and independent variables. Proving causal relationships is beyond reach. However, the direction and strength of the correlation between variables are possible in this research design and they provide significant explanations. Also, this design does not experiment attitudes but simply reads facts and makes associations. The variables are not controlled but filtered. The data drawn from the research is mostly numerical and relies on frequency distribution, and thus this is a quantitative research (only 2 open questions in student’s questionnaire and 3 open ones in teacher’s questionnaire) and descriptive in its type.
Dara Analysis: Attitudes towards Western Culture
Students’ attitudes towards the Western culture are relatively balanced (positive 38%, negative 23%, indifferent 38%). This seems to suggest that Moroccan students have mixed feelings about Western culture. Parents do hold relatively similar attitudes (positive 30%, negative 32%, indifferent 38%). This indicates that students, to some extent, inherit their parents’ attitudes towards Western culture. For example, all parents that hold negative attitudes towards Western culture (13 parents) have children (students) who hold either negative or indifferent attitudes towards Western culture and they consist 92% (12 out of 13). Therefore, the influence of parents is observed. However, students appear to have more positive attitudes and less negative ones compared to their parents. This suggests that the younger generation is more accepting of foreign cultures than their parents. This observation is backed up with peers and friends’ attitudes. 58% Participants think that their friends and peers have positive attitudes in contrast with their parents (30%) and themselves (38%). Only 22% think their friends and peers have negative attitudes in contrast with parents (32%) and themselves (23%). This is a clear indication that the younger generation is more open to Western culture.
Attitudes towards the English language
With respect to the language, students, parents, and students’ peers and friends seem to agree on having more positive attitudes towards the English language than towards Western culture (students: 65%, parents: 62%, peers and friends: 72%). This suggests that Moroccans are more accepting of the language than of the Western culture despite the late appearance of English teaching in Moroccan schools. It is further noticed in this study that the stream of math science have 0% negative attitudes towards English and the same goes for their parents. This is probably due to the growing awareness of hardworking students towards the importance and the practical use of English as a lingua franca of the world. This is also seen in the fact that majority of the sample students learn English because they feel they need it (41%) whereas the rest learn it because either they like it or simply because it is in the curriculum. Students learn English also because of their intrinsic motivation. 40% learn it because they like it.
In addition to that, less students, parents, and friends and peers have negative attitudes towards the language compared to the high percentage of those who hold negative attitudes towards Western culture (Students: 10%, parents: 17%, peers and friends: 18%). This openness towards the English language might be a local characteristic belonging to the inhabitants of Kénitra due to the presence of Americans in the middle of the 20th century. In 1942, the U.S. government made the military airport in Kénitra its military base. By 1950, nearly 10,000 Americans occupied the base making it one of the largest overseas aggregations of Americans at the time (NARA[1]).
Social status of English language in Morocco
English enjoys a high social status in Morocco. It is invading all aspects of life. According to the present findings, 17% of the teacher population think that students’ main motivation stems only from the social status of English in morocco. Besides, a great deal of sample students in their turn feels proud when they utter phrases and words in English when with their friends. 68% like to learn English in particular as being a foreign language. All this makes English a privileged language in a country where French is an official one. 50% of students prefer learning French instead of English among whom 97% (30 out of 31) either have an average level or good level in French. It is unclear whether this means that they like learning French because they are good at it or they are good at it because they like learning it? Some of them explain that they like learning French “because I have studied French for 14 years.” or because “its weighing is greater than that of English.”
We also have the other 50% of students who like learning English instead of French. 50% is not bad for a language that is considered ‘foreign’. The participants present different sorts of reasons. Some of them are:
“English is an international language.”
“English is easier.”
“I am not good at French”
“I lack basics in French.”
“French is difficult.”
This has huge implications. The English language seems to have different advantages over French. The majority of students seem to agree that English is easier than French which explains the modern tendency towards English among Moroccan students, and those who claim that French is easier generally have negative attitudes towards English and they consist 84% (5 out of 6) of the remaining 37%. So, do they have negative attitudes because they think English is difficult or they think it is difficult because they have negative attitudes? In addition to that, students who prefer to learn English instead of French seem to have a low level in French. Filtering the results shows that 100% of students who claim their French is no good are the same ones that claim their bad experience with French is what, as a result, pushed them to give more importance to English.
In general, 28% of students give more importance to English as a result of their traumatic experience with French. So why is it the case that almost one quarter of the sample students seek refuge in English? Could this be a matter of methods and approach to language teaching? Using outdated and mechanical methods can generate frustration among students that may lead to giving up learning the language. Given that most of the teaching literature and the latest researches in the domain are published in English, English teachers seem to have access to the latest theories and approaches to teaching whereas French teachers have to look for translated works. So maybe English teachers are well situated and more up-to-date. On the other hand, those students who have had a good experience with the French language feel that French helped them understand English more since the two languages are close in vocabulary. This segment consist 53% of the sample population whereas those who think that their French is good and suffices them English consist only a minority of 12%. This indicates that English is appreciated among those students that are good at French and those who are not. In general, English is well reputed in Morocco and that in itself is a source of
positive attitude.
The teacher
The evidence suggests that the role of the teacher is decisive in determining students’ attitudes towards the language. 88% of sample students claim they have had a teacher that influenced their attitudes towards English. This emphasizes the central role teachers have in learning the language. The evidence also suggests that the majority of these teachers have had a positive influence on their students. It seems that three quarters of English teachers are doing a good job at influencing their students’ attitudes in a positive way for only a quarter that have a had negative influence on their students. This could also be due to the way English teachers teach English, for example the frequent use of the communicative approach, which is something the findings support. According to the findings, most teachers, in teaching the speaking skill, use the communicative approach and here are some of their responses to the question: ‘how do you go about teaching speaking?’:
“Motivate students to speak at random occasion.”
“Student to student interaction.”
“Communicating within a context.”
“Free communication practices that is preceded by setting the scene.”
“Activities that allow students to speak their mind freely."
“Stimulating them to randomly speak in class.”
The use of the communicative approach is less monotonous and less boring unlike the direct or audio-lingual method.
“Among criticisms of the audio-lingual method have been the slowness and monotony of oral drills and the overemphasis on memorization and mimicry.” (Lawrence, 1966:48)
In general, and based on the results, the Moroccan English teacher, in their turn, participates in giving positive attitudes to students by their savoir-faire (managerial/management skills) and savoir-être (interpersonal skills).
Peers and friends
Peers and friends have huge influence in affecting students’ attitudes. The findings show that almost one quarter of students would utter phrases and words in English just because their friends and peers do so. This indicates that students’ behaviors are unconsciously driven by the inclination towards being identified and assimilated with the group regardless of one’s intrinsic inclinations. In social psychology, this phenomenon is called assimilation and it is, according to Bogardus, the "process whereby attitudes of many persons are united and thus develop into a unified group." (quoted in R. K. Sharma and ?R. Sharma 1997:230). As seen earlier, 72% of students think their friends and peers have positive attitudes towards English. This, probably, would eventually make the minority fuse within the majority.
All in all, the present data show that students’ attitudes towards the English language are positive. The data also show that the socials status of English in Morocco, the influence of teachers, the influence of the media, and that of peers and friends have a relatively positive influence on students’ attitudes towards the language. This makes English an appreciated language along with its native-speakers’ community.
Students’ attitudes and the speaking skill
The rest of the data interpretation is devoted to the influence of attitudes on the speaking skill. Following the inductive approach to research, it is safe to assume, based on the previous findings, that Moroccans, in general, have positive attitudes towards the English language. It follows that they also have positive attitudes towards the speaking skill in particular. As seen earlier in the literature review, the most important skill for the learner is the speaking skill (Frey & Sadek, 1971; Harlow & Muyskens, 1994; Houston, 2005; Rivera & Matsuzawa, 2007; Tse, 2000; Walker, 1973). The case of Moroccan students is no exception. The survey shows that the majority (48%) of teachers’ participants see that speaking activities are the most enjoyed by students whereas only 39% enjoy listening, 13% enjoy reading, and 0% writing.
Thus, the findings seem to confirm previous studies and researches in this regard. The positive attitudes towards speaking among Moroccan students is partially due to media influence since, according to the present study, the majority of teachers think that the main source of motivation in learning English is Media (49%). This is highly probable since this study shows that students are exposed to a high number of American movies per week; 50% watch between 6 and 20 movies weekly. Moreover, in learning a foreign language, students think that the speaking skill is more crucial than writing. Only 17% think that writing is crucial to language learning. This 17% watch no more than 5, if not 0 movies weekly. 100% of those who watch between 6 and 20 movies a week claim that speaking is vital to language learning (after filtering the data). This confirms the high importance given to speaking and its correlation with media influence. This also supports the literature review; that speech is the most salient feature of a language and thus the learner may be more concerned with being able to make themselves noticed orally than in the written form.
Given that speaking is highly appreciated among students, what is then the concern of students when they speak in class? 64% of teachers think that their students do not listen in order to understand but only to give a quick response and be the first to participate or give answers. This is very significant for it implies that students’ main concern is to please the teacher. It appears that speaking just for the sake of speaking, in students’ view, is a sign of successful language learner, and thus it does not matter what students speak as much as they are able to speak. This is not surprising seeing that the majority think that speaking is crucial to language learning.
Another concern of students when they speak is to impress the teacher. The present study shows that no teacher claims that their students do not try to impress them when they speak (0%). All of the teachers claim that they get the impression of their students trying to impress them but they do, however, differ in frequency. 34% claim their students try to impress them either ‘usually’ or ‘always’. 65% (with 1% missing) claim their students try to impress them ‘sometimes’. Although the majority of teachers think their students do not frequently try to impress them; nevertheless, this concern is not nonexistent among students. Another thing to be mentioned here is that how can they impress their teachers if they are not good at English? Had students had a good level in English, which the present data does not indicate (The mean= 3.55 which is just a little above average), the frequency of impressing the teacher would have been higher.
The findings also show another concern of students. Clean language is one of students’ main preoccupations when speaking in class. The survey shows that 82% of students experience uneasiness with making mistakes when speaking in class. Additionally, in question 8 (see appendix) some teachers attribute students’ uneasiness with speaking to their preoccupation with language accuracy. Here are some of their responses:
“One should encourage students not to worry about grammatical mistakes or communication breakdown.”
“The problem with speaking is that students are reluctant to speak due to fear.”
“Students are shy. Some are afraid of making mistakes.”
“Students do not dare to speak for their lack of vocabulary and making mistakes.”
“Students are afraid of making mistakes.” “Some students refuse to speak in public. It takes me time to lower their affective filter. I try to choose a topic that matches their interests. I never interrupt them when they speak. I don't correct their mistakes.”
“Students fear their peers to laugh at their mistakes. Make them aware that mistakes are the first step in learning.”
Additionally, and still with teachers’ responses, students give more importance to accuracy than to sounding native. In a scale from -3 to 3, in which -3 means too much emphasis on sounding native and 3 means too much emphasis on accuracy and 0 is equal emphasis for both. The mean is 0.95 which is inclined towards accuracy. Therefore, and based on the above responses, it seems that the concern of accuracy is muffling students, especially female ones. Those who are bothered with mistakes just ‘little’ or ‘not at all’ (after filtering the data) are mostly males and they consist 65% (20 out of 31). This suggests that females are more vulnerable to mistakes than males due to, maybe, their self-esteem and fear of embracement in front of their male peers. In general, this could be due to students’ unawareness of the natural and gradual order of the process of learning. This may make them impatient to speak correctly and thus they may not see the vital role mistakes play in the process of learning and may deem them harmful. For a healthy language learning process in terms of speaking proficiency, accuracy should not be a central focus for students and teachers.
According to the (Irish) National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, accuracy in speaking is appreciated but it should not be the objective. The main motivator for students in speaking is not accuracy but the achievement of communication at any cost, even using gestures if necessary for that matter. Accuracy should be reinforced along without actually putting students off communication. Here comes the role of writing in doing the reinforcement of structure such as sequencing and tenses (NCCA, 2004:13). Prioritizing communication and making accuracy secondary is an acquired attitude that teachers can teach and instill in their students.
Another interesting concern of students is meaning and content. According to the present study, students show interest in making themselves understood. They seem to be aware of the importance of content and meaning in speaking. When contrasting content and meaning with accuracy, students divide themselves into two relatively equal halves. The goal of 48% students is to get their message out and be understood, whereas 52% see that uttering clean language is their main goal. This indicates that students are not neglecting the content and meaning when they speak although some may have the goal to impress their teachers. The survey also shows that teachers are aware of content-based instruction.
As seen earlier in how teachers influence their students’ attitudes, question 6 (see appendix) supports the use of both the communicative approach and content-based instruction. The mentioned responses clearly show that teachers, too, have the concern of prioritizing the content over the language. Unlike students’ concern with accuracy, having meaning and content as a goal is healthy for language learning and the literature supports that. According to Krashen & Terrell’s acquisition-learning hypothesis, language is a means and not a goal or an end in itself. It is best learnt when it is regarded by the learner as a tool to carry meaning but not a focus (1983:19).
Further, content-based instruction is of paramount importance in language learning (Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989). It increases students’ motivation since students are highly influence by teaching instruments (Gardner, R.C. & MacIntyre, P.D.,1991). It also makes learning meaningful. According to (Ausubel 1968), leaning is meaningful when it is related to what we already know and thus new knowledge is easily inserted and fitted within the already existing cognitive structure. This notion, which is derived from cognitive psychology, is further elaborated in relation to language learning (Asher, 1982; Ellis, 1990; Krashen & Terrell, 1983; Lewis, 1993; Richards & Rodgers, 1986; Savignon, 1983; Wilkins, 1976).
Giving high priority to speech over other skills and to impressing the teacher is not without costs. Speech in general has always had priority over writing although “the traditional grammarian tended to assume that the spoken language is inferior to and in some sense dependent upon the standard written language.” (Lyons, 1968:38). The written language is but a symbolic representation of speech and it is a real loss of meaning if one follows Derrida’s line of thought. Moreover, speech is older and widespread (ibid).
“all languages are primarily spoken and only secondarily written down, that the real life of language is in the mouth and ear and not in the pen and eye” (Jespersen 1922:23)
Nevertheless, the concern of this study is not to undermine in any way the importance of speech but to expose the intricate relation between (positive) attitudes and the speaking skill. Speaking is undoubtedly important and it is pointless to argue otherwise, but if it is given more importance than it actually deserves, the process of learning this skill may go off course and becomes disoriented. Having positive attitude towards the language is favorable, having positive attitudes towards the speaking skill is favorable as well, but how these positive attitudes are implemented is equally important, and if the learner forgets how much important communication strategies, prosodic features[2], and paralinguistic features of speech are, they become insensitive to the intelligibility of communication which is of very great importance as seen in the literature review. Teachers are equally responsible for this inattention. One of the teachers expresses that:
“Teachers are not competent in teaching communication strategies and they do not speak fluent English since they are not natives”
In going about teaching speaking, no teacher, according to current findings, mentions teaching sub-skills like the mentioned above. Some teachers even think that they do not even have time to teach speaking since the program of high school is tight and speaking is not tested in the final BAC exam, which (the exam) is the main objective of students and teachers alike. Additionally, No one mentions the use of fun stories, rhyme, poems, or songs in teaching their students speaking when this sort of activities are vital for teaching students the speaking sub-skills. The use of these activities is, however, questionable with the 1st year BAC since students might be considered ‘too old’ for this sort of activities. This is a call to rethink at what age should the English language be introduced to students in Moroccan public schools.
As seen in the literature review, accent is of paramount importance to students. Regardless of their English level, students are able to distinguish between a native and a none-native accent (Kelch & Santana-Williamson) and of course they show preference for native accent (C. L. Chen, 2003; C. P. Chen, 2002; Chou, 2004; Chuang, 2002; Liao, 2004; Wei, 2003; Yo, 2003). The issue of accent and communication intelligibility, which is the heart of this research, is explored in 3 questions in teachers’ questionnaire and 2 question in students’ questionnaire appearing at the end of both questionnaires. As seen earlier, the sample population gives importance to accuracy, content and meaning, and accent and pronunciation. We also saw that teachers think that their students focus more on accuracy (A) than accent and pronunciation (B) and when it comes to content (C) and accuracy, students focus on content more. So if A is more important than B, and C is more important than A, is then C more important than B?[3] Following formal logic, yes it is. But is it really the case? Is accent and pronunciation more important than meaning and content for students? Question 17 divides students into three segments. Surprisingly, C is not after all more important than B. It appears that C and B have equal percentages. This seems to suggest that, for students, accent and pronunciation are not less important than content and meaning. Accuracy seems to be students’ least concern when it is contrasted with content and meaning plus accent and pronunciation.
The distribution of accuracy, content and meaning, and accent and pronunciation
It is unclear, on one hand, as to why teachers think that students give more importance to accuracy as opposed to sounding native. This mismatch between students’ responses and teachers’ may hint at other factors. It could be evidence for teachers not knowing their students well enough. Or maybe it is a matter of perspective. On the other hand, teachers’ responses to questions 9 seem to highlight the difficulty teachers encounter when it comes to accent. Only 4% claim they never experience misunderstandings with their students caused by accent, and only 9% claim they ‘rarely’ do. This indicates that it is a rarity for accent not to get in the way of communication. Accent not only can get in the way of communication but it actually does. The majority of responses aggregate in the frequencies of ‘always’, ‘usually’, ‘often’ and ‘sometimes’[4].
Now, seeing that students hold speaking in high regard, and that accent and pronunciation are important to students, as important as content and meaning, it probably is the case that students harm meaning by their manufactured accent which is a faded attempt to simulate natives. If accent can distort meanings to cause misunderstandings it means that accent is wrongly practiced. It may lack the phonemic features that help escort meaning. One thing to be mentioned here is that this phenomenon does not hold for all students. It should represent only the 30% of students that think accent and pronunciation should be the goal. That 30% is still uncertain given that misunderstandings do always occur and they are not always attributed to accent. Some misunderstandings may even be caused by students’ accentless speech. Another aspect of speech that harms communication is pronunciation. If words are not pronounced the way they should, that may worsen the accent. However, pronunciation seems less of an issue compared with accent. Teachers experience misunderstandings caused by pronunciation less frequently[5].
This confirms the crucial role of accent over pronunciation in conveying meaning. Now, is it possible that B is more important than C? The last question in the teacher questionnaire settles this matter. The question is as follow: do you think students prioritize sounding native over content and meaning? 61% say yes and 39% say no. The percentages seem to support the claim that accented speech interferes with communication intelligibility as seen earlier in the literature review. Moreover, the last question in students’ questionnaire asks students to rate the importance of sounding native-like. No student rates its importance as ‘not at all important’. Only 12% and 14% think it is ‘quite unimportant’ and ‘less important’ respectively. It appears that only the minority deem sounding native-like as unimportant whereas the majority consider it as important (27%), quite important (20%), and very important (27%).
Discussion of the Findings
The observed impact of attitudes on the speaking proficiency in the data is in the expected direction. The rates that have been observed seem to be consistent with previous studies. However, it has been noticed that there is an attraction towards positive attitudes but those with positive attitudes are neither consistent with good nor low level of English. 28% (17 out of 60) of students with positive attitudes that have a low level [6] in English (Levels 1, 2, and 3) and 36% (22 out of 60) have high level[7] in English. In contrast, 13% (8 out of 60) of students with negative or indifferent attitudes do actually have good level in English and 22% (13 out of 60) of the same category have low level of English. This indicates that there is not a strong impact of attitudes on students level though a slight correlation might be noticed in the percentages.
Moreover, we have seen that prioritizing content is vital to communication, and, surprisingly, students with either negative or indifferent attitudes, that claim that content should be prioritized, are greater in number than those who claim accuracy or accent and pronunciation should be prioritized (17% (A) for content whereas accuracy 7% and accent and pronunciation 7%). This seems to support the view that positive attitudes are not all it takes to be a good speaker. Those with positive attitudes exhibit an interesting fact. They seem to prioritize accent and pronunciation over the message and accuracy (27% (B) in favor of accent and pronunciation, 17% in favor of accuracy, and 22% in favor of the message). Similarly, 58% of students with positive attitudes think that sounding native is important[8] whereas those with negative or indifferent attitudes (17%) think sounding native is not important[9]. This is significant for it shows how attitudes influence students’ vision of what should be prioritized in language learning and speaking.
The majority of those who have either negative or indifferent attitudes towards English prefer focusing on content and meaning which is paradoxically vital to the speaking skill whereas the majority of those with positive attitudes prefer to focus on accent and pronunciation which is of minor importance in terms of oral proficiency and speech intelligibility and comprehensibility. Concerning teachers’ responses, it is noticed that there is a sort of correlation between students who prefer the speaking skill and those who prioritize sounding native over content and meaning. 79%[10] of students who enjoy the speaking skill prioritize sounding native over content and meaning which may indicate that having (excessive) positive attitudes towards the speaking skill may turn out to be harmful to oral proficiency. In that sense, there is a sort of impact of attitudes on the speaking skill but not strong enough to reject the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is still valid, but the alternative hypothesis is also valid for a population of 44% (A+B) of students’ population and 48%[11] of teachers’ population and it does actually represent a significant portion of the population and speaks of an existing phenomenon. The observed impact is not all altogether directional however; it is both positive and negative since we have a two-tailed hypothesis.
Implications of the Study
Speaking is not having a native-like accent or pronunciation. Speaking is tone, rhythm, pitch, intonation, stress, fluency, pausing, articulation, rate, and loudness. These features carry the emotional state from the speaker’s mouth to the ears of the listener. They are what make communication human and alive. Teachers and students alike should recognize the importance of these prosodic features and teach them along other aspects of language equally. The rationale behind this call is that writing will always remain secondary to speaking for language is more used in its spoken form, which is natural, than its written from, which is artificial.
Therefore, a shift from the writing-centered instruction to the speaking-centered instruction should take place. Learners are into this shift already and they are in a desperate need for guidance. In addition to that, in teacher trainings, attention should be paid to the macro aspects of speech. Teachers should also be warned against the “charlatanism and quackery” of the “accent reduction industry” (Derwing and Munro 2009) in order to generate competent teachers that would generate proficient speakers for the long run. Moreover, attitudes can be taught. If teachers recognize their (attitudes) importance, and recognize that they (teachers) can lead students astray from social tuning and instill harmless attitudes towards the spoken language, then students would acquire speaking more naturally and even less painfully.
Endnotes
[1] National Archives and Records Administration
[2] Suprasegmental, also called Prosodic Feature, in phonetics, a speech feature such as stress, tone, or word juncture that accompanies or is added over consonants and vowels; these features are not limited to single sounds but often extend over syllables, words, or phrases. In Spanish the stress accent is often used to distinguish between otherwise identical words: término means “term,” termíno means “I terminate,” and terminó means “he terminated.” In Mandarin Chinese, tone is a distinctive suprasegmental: shih pronounced on a high, level note means “to lose”; on a slight rising note means “ten”; on a falling note means “city, market”; and on a falling–rising note means “history.” English “beer dripped” and “beard ripped” are distinguished by word juncture.
The above examples demonstrate functional suprasegmentals. Nonfunctional suprasegmentals that do not change the meaning of words or phrases also exist; stress in French is an example. Suprasegmentals are so called in contrast to consonants and vowels, which are treated as serially ordered segments of the spoken utterance. (http://www.britannica.com/)
[3] A: Accuracy
B: Accent and pronunciation
C: Content and meaning
[4] Always: 23%
Usually: 17%
Often: 22%
Sometimes: 26%
[5] Always: 9%
Usually: 39%
Often: 17%
Sometimes: 26%
Rarely: 9%
Never: 0%
[6] Levels 1, 2, and 3
[7] Levels 4, 5, and 6
[8] Important 12 students (20%)
Quite important 9 students (15%)
Very important 14 students (23%)
[9] Less important 6 students (10%)
Quite unimportant 4 students (7%)
Not at all important 0 students (0%)
[10] 14 teachers think students prefer sounding native over content and meaning among whom we have 11 enjoy the speaking skill more than the other 4 skills. So 11 out of 14 is 79%
[11] 11 teachers think their students prefer speaking and sounding native over content. So 11 out of 23 which is N equals 48%
References
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