Factors that influence high school students' English oral communication skills in Ecuadorian face-to-face learning environments

Abstract

Abstract: This study aims to find out the speaking difficulties, in high school students English oral communication skills in face-to-face learning environments. As well as, this research sheds lights on linguistic or emotional factors, which mostly affect the English learners oral communication. This research was carried out in a public educational institution, in Santa Elena province. The participants of the study were 58 students of first year of high school and an English teacher. The study employs the mixed-method approach. To obtain the data, a questionnaire about linguistic and emotional factors was administered to the participants. A semi-structured interview was applied to five students. Four observations of speaking classes were made. The findings reveal that emotional factors, namely, anxiety, fear of making mistakes and nervousness, mostly influence in the students speaking performance. However, the study also reveals that linguistic factors, namely, vocabulary, grammar, fluency and pronunciation are difficulties of utmost importance in the oral communication proficiency. This paper suggests that teachers should encourage their students to participate in speaking activities and conscious them that making mistakes is normal when learning English.