Academy of Graduate Studies
School of Languages
English Department
Somme Problems Face Libyan Students
in Learning The Four Skills
Introduction
The teaching and
learning of receptive and productive skills face number of particular problems
which will need to be addressed because they affect communicative purposes of
language. This paper tries to provide some of these problems as well as their solutions as following:
Listening Skill
Problems
Listening skill
is a way in which people extract meaning from the discourse they hear. Libyan
students face many problems to overcome
this skill successfully. However, a study at the academy of graduate studies
titled "Teaching listening Comprehension in Garian Schools ", reveals
the following:
Problems
of the materials and activities used in teaching listening:
1-
The
audio tapes were not available for use.
2-
No
use of teaching aids in teaching listening.
3-
Most
of the schools lacked facilities such as recorder machines and electricity supplies
in class.
4-
The
time devoted to listening activities was not sufficient.
5-
Teachers
at the secondary level made no use for the authentic language in teaching
listening comprehension.
Teachers
preparation problems:
1- Most
teachers did not prepare materials for teaching listening comprehension in
advance.
2- Teachers could
not vary activities to suit their student level and interest.
3- Teachers did not teach their students how to monitor
their listening comprehension through guessing predicting, eliciting and
interacting.
4- Teachers did not prepare any evaluation tasks for
listening comprehension.
5- Teachers did not involve listening comprehension in
exams.
Presentation
of listening materials and activities problems are as the following:
1-
Most
of teachers did not use tape recorders
in teaching listening comprehension and
even those who used tapes did not use them effectively.
2-
Teachers did not use pre-listening during listening or post-listening
activities in teaching listening comprehension.
3-
Teachers did not do any modifications to the new syllabus tasks to suite
their students level and interest.
4-
Teachers were not aware of the importance of teaching listening and of
the use of the authentic materials in teaching English.
5-
Most of the teachers, as models, had problems in pronunciation, reading
and speaking especially in dealing with the tape script.
6-
Listening comprehension was not involved in exams.
7-
No specific courses for teachers to develop teachers towards the
importance of teaching listening.
In
addition, (-----, Testing of Listening Comprehension for Some Libyan School
Students), MA thesis, Academy of Graduate Studies, reveals the
following:
1- More time should
be given to teach listening skill. Two hours a week were insufficient for
teaching and testing listening.
2-
Some teachers did not have clear pronunciation and this might affect
students performance.
3-
Teaching materials were not available especially the authentic materials
which should be taught to secondary students. However, using authentic
materials might not be useful due to the students' English low level at this
stage.
4-
Marking the listening test was one of the problems that most of the
teachers faced. Hence, criteria for
making a listening test must be discussed between teachers.
5-
Crowded classes were an obstacle for the teachers to teach and test
listening, and the teachers were not able to give chance to every student to
participate. However, teachers need time to divide the students into groups to
make the process of teaching and testing listening as simple as possible.
6-
Teachers did not use visual aids which are very helpful in teaching and
testing, listening, they just used audio tape, but the sound quality was not
clear and this made it difficult for students to listen properly. Also
students' English level was really weak. Their pronunciation was really bad and lacked vocabulary except very few
students who did well on the test. teachers said that some activities such as
phoneme discrimination must have been mastered in preparatory school. However,
students' bad pronunciation was due to the way
they were taught in earlier stages. Labs were available but most of them
were not working.
7-
Some teachers did not introduce
the topic to the students and did not write down the new words on the board
of listening lesson which makes it
easier for the students.
8-
Only very few teachers motivated and encouraged their students by giving
them pair and group work.
Some solution and suggestions to
these problems
Not all the problems described above can be
overcome but the teacher can use a variety of techniques to improve comprehension
skills in Libyan schools
1-
The
teacher must encourage the students to develop their confidence in their
ability to deal with listening problems.
2-
It
is important for the teacher to give feedback so that s/he can judge where the
class is going and how it should be guided.
3-
Teachers
must teach students how to learn to understand that individual words can be
learnt best in context of sentences.
4-
Listening
materials, tasks and activities should be graded according to the students’
level, and provide authentic materials because the final aim of listening
classes is to understand natural speech in real life.
5-
Construct
the listening exercises round a variety of tasks to engage the students’
interest and help them learn listening skills subconsciously.
6-
The
teacher may try to find visual aids or draw pictures and diagrams associated
with the listening topics to help students guess or imagine actively.
7-
Different
kinds of input should be provided, such as radio news, films, TV, everyday
conversation, English songs, storytelling, and so on.
8-
The
teacher must give practice on the homonyms, cliché, liaisons, elisions and some
colloquial expressions which might be presented in the listening lesson to help
students get used to the acoustic forms and rapid natural speech.
9-
Ask
students to listen and imitate native speakers’ pronunciation so they will be
aware of different native-speaker accents.
10- Select short and simple listening texts
for lower level students and complicated authentic materials for advanced
learners.
11- Provide background knowledge and
linguistic knowledge.
Speaking Skill
Problems
All of the four
skills are equally important, speaking is one of the most interesting skills
for students to acquire. Chaney (1998 13) defines it as "the process of
building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols,
in a variety of a context.
However, Libyan students face considerable problems when they
learn English as a foreign language.
In a research paper, Zamzam (2011) points
that most of the
problems of speaking are related to the classroom procedure. Through speaking
activities these problems can be identified as:
1-
Student inhibition:
Speaking activities require a student to have all eyes on
him and exposure to an audience can often give students stage fright. They may
also be worried about making mistakes, being criticized or losing face in front
of the rest of the class.
2-
Some students do not have anything to say on a
particular topic:
In reality, they may be bored or feel that the topic is
unrelated to anything they know. If this is the case, they will have no
motivation to speak other than the fact that they know they should be
participating in the speaking activity. Libyan students often lack confidence
in their speaking ability and feel they have insufficient language skills to
express exactly what they want to say.
3-
Students interrupt each other:
There will always be dominant students in an English class
making it difficult for more reserved students to express themselves freely.
Dominant students who interrupt frequently or who constantly look for the
teacher's attention tend to create an environment in the English class where
more timid students are quite happy to sit back and watch the lesson unfolding
instead of participating.
4-
The use of the mother tongue:
Students who insist on using their mother tongue are
students who are fearful of criticism and need to be encouraged to speak
English. Students must understand that they cannot revert to their mother
tongue as this will take away precious speaking practice time during lessons
and slow down oral progress.
Some solution and suggestions to
these problems
There are a number of resources and activities available to
get round these common speaking problems:
Group work:
Group work increases the amount of time available for oral
practice and allows more than one student to benefit from speaking time.
Working in groups also lowers the inhibitions of shy students who are not
comfortable speaking in front of the whole class.
Easy language:
Simple language makes it easier for students to speak for
longer without hesitation and gives them a sense of accomplishment. Essential
vocabulary can be pre-taught or reviewed before the activity enabling students
to fill-out their speech with more interesting sentences and rich language.
Clear guidelines:
Stating clearly what is expected from each
student is essential in ensuring that everyone in the group contributes towards
the discussion. Appointing a chairperson to each group to regulate
participation is a way to make sure that dominant students leave discussion
opportunities open to more reserved students. Feedback reveals the results of
the discussion and motivates each student to follow the guidelines.
Rich mount of vocabulary
Teachers must help students to gain a good amount of vocabulary
that are needed to be able to form sentences and to help the students to
interact confidently and orally with other students and with the teacher.
Encouragement
The teacher must encourage the students to speak and to use
the language in and out the classroom room and teachers should help students to
build confidence by saying to students that if you make mistake you are not
criminal but if you make mistakes you can be corrected in a constructive way.
Correct use of Language
The teacher must teach students how to use language in its
appropriate way by showing and giving examples of what situations are best to
use some words and phrases.
Reading
Skill Problems
Among four
language skills , reading is very important in any language because it is not
only a matter of getting information or interest , but also for consol dating
and expanding the learner's knowledge of the language, such as vocabulary,
grammar, punctuation, and the way we construct sentences, paragraphs and texts
. reading text also provide good models for English writing (AI-Mutawa, and
Kailani,T,.1998 56).
Almansoury H,. (2010) investigates the
difficulties of reading at the third year of preparatory schools in Zwara. In her research paper mentioned that the Libyan students face lot of
problems and difficulties in learning reading skill and here are some of these
problems
as :
1- Lack
of knowledge of the different approaches to teaching reading which leads teachers
to adhere to only one approach such as grammar translation method.
2- The
teacher depended on reading aloud, which leads to focusing on pronunciation,
rather than silent reading which is much better for comprehension.
3- The
negligence of the practice of reading tasks (activities) provided in the course
and work books.
4- The
lack of teaching such as laboratories cassettes and recorders.
5- Some
students think that reading comprehension is the most difficult subject
A-
Difficult
words to pronounce
B-
Difficulty
in guessing the meaning of the words (vocabulary related difficulties).
C-
Difficulty
in understanding the whole meaning or the general idea of the given material to
read.
D-
Some
expression are difficult to understand
E-
Grammar
related difficulties.
F-
Usage
of long passages with difficult exercises.
6-
Boring
texts or material
Lack
of interest while reading the given material so some students do not like the
material provided as it is not interesting and useful.
7-
Motivational
factors
Students
are not motivated to read because they do not have an interest or reason to
read. Also some students feel shy because they are afraid of making mistakes.
Some
recommendations may provided to these problems are:
Based on the
previous findings mentioned before, the recommendations of this study may
concerned with three elements of the education system:
Teachers
a-
They should introduce their reading lessons in a proper way and make their
students aware of what they are going to read, and practice prediction.
b-
The teachers should encourage their students to read silently as early as
possible and avoid using reading aloud which is usually employed for
pronunciation.
c-
The teachers should distinguish between teaching reading and pronunciation ,
and recognize that reading is mainly for comprehension.
d-
The teachers should establish reasons for reading to make the students more
active when they read and to make the reading process more effective and
efficient.
e-
The teachers should follow the procedures employed in the teacher's guide and focus
on achieving the objectives of each lesson.
f-
The new words of the lesson should be explained in English and taught through
the context and not separately, by providing good examples during the
discussion of the pictures of the lessons. Since many tasks are prepared to
train the students on the explanation in English, the
teachers should present the new words in English through the context and avoid
presenting them in isolation.
g-
Grammar translation method should be kept away from the class and the teachers
should try to reduce the use of the mother tongue as much as possible.
h-
The time allocated for teaching English should be increased , at least six
periods per week , to allow the teachers to have enough time to teach all the
language skills and to give remedial work for weak students. In addition, the
education authority should prepare some training
courses for the English language teachers to improve their knowledge about
general principles of English language teaching. The education authority should
also provide the schools with the necessary teaching facilities such as tapes
and labs which can be very helpful in teaching and learning English.
Learners
Learners
are partially responsible for the general weakness in reading. They should give
a lot of attention to the skill of reading and work hard, because the reading
skill is better learned than taught and so can be improved by the students
themselves.
Writing
Skill
Problems
According to
Al-Mutawa and Kailani (1989) writing is as an activity means of communication
ideas. Its functional role, is equated with speech where both are conveying
information. Libyan students are also face problems to overcome this skill.
Othman, R,.(2009) lists the most important
problems of writing skills as the following:
1-
Some teachers do not use dictation.
2-
There are some teachers do not ask their students to correct their own exercises.
3-
Some teachers do not ask their students to correct their wrong spelling words
three to five times for each.
4-
There are many problems which encounter the teachers from the part of students while teaching them writing
skills, these problems are the following:
a- Lack of back ground.
b- Poor vocabulary.
c- Difficult curriculum.
d- Lack of writing
principles.
e- Lack of reading
correctly.
5-
There are some common mistakes that were found by the teachers in the students' writing, these are :
a- Spelling mistakes.
b- Punctuation mistakes.
c- Joining sentences in
illogical order.
6-
Some students do not like writing in English.
7-
It has been noticed that the weakness of
students' writing, and the difficulty of writing skills from some students'
point of view, are referred back to some
reasons :
a- Few activities
introduced by teachers.
b- Lack of vocabulary.
c- Time is limited and
short.
d- Poor pronunciation by
teachers.
e- Some teachers do not
use dictation.
f- Some teachers do not
give training in writing.
Some
suggestions and recommendations for encouraging the students to write:
1-Teachers should encourage all students to
participate in the writing activities. By using suitable techniques which will
help the students in their learning of the writing skills such as
Group
work :-
Group work is very
important techniques in language teaching and learning. to increase the
opportunity for students to practice the
language. Group work is also good in releasing students from inhibition and it
activities introvert students.
-Pair work: In pair work, every two students work
together. Pair work is more beneficial than group work in that it can be formed
in a short time and it can be applied in situations where group work is
difficult to applied.
2- Teachers should prepare writing activities and tasks which
support students' ability of writing inside and outside the classroom.
3-
Teachers should familiarize their students with the writing technique and make
them used writing in groups and pairs from the beginning of the year to help
each other.
4-
Students should be encouraged to choose their own topics of writing because
they are aware of their needs of communication than the instructors.
5- Syllabus
designers should give more concentration in the text book on the element of
academic writing.
6- Giving the
students samples of essays to serve as models for writing is recommended.
Conclusion
To
conclude with, In general, there are mixed factors causes learning skills difficulties
in Libya, such as: the teachers' behavior, students' attitude, teaching
aids, and so on. However, this paper
tried to highlight the most important problems from different countries in
Libya as well as their solutions .
References
-----,
Teaching Listening Comprehension in Garian Secondary Schools. MA thesis,
Academy of Graduate studies.
-----,
Testing of Listening Comprehension for Some libyan Secondary Students.
MA thesis, Academy of Graduate Students.
AI-Mutawa N. and Kailani,T,. 1989. Methods of
teaching English to Arab student Harlow . Longman.
Almansoury H,. 2010.Probems and Solutions of Reading
Skills at the third year of preparatory schools in Zwara. A Research Paper
in Research Methodology Course. Academy of Graduate Studies.
Chaney, A.L.,
and Burk T.L,. 1998. Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8. Boston.
Othman R,. 2009. Writing Skills Problems Faced
Teachers and Learners in Ubari's Schools.
Research Methodology Course. Academy of Graduate Studies.
Zamzam, …(2011).
Difficulties Faced by Libyan Students in Learning the Four Skills.
Syllabus
Design Course. Academy of Graduate Studies.
