Challenges Of Speaking English By Zanzibar Government Secondary School Students: A Case Study Of Wete District

ABSTRACT

The study has concentrated in investigation of challenges of speaking English to Zanzibar secondary school students in Wete district in Pemba Island, with the following specific objectives: To identify and describe the kind of challenges facing students on speaking English language, to identify and explain causes facing students towards poor English speaking, finally, to assess the strategies which would be employed for helping students to speak English language fluently.

The study has involved 115 respondents whereby 100 were students from which 60 filled in the questionnaires and 40 were involved in focus group discussion. 14 were English teachers from seven secondary schools where by 2 teachers from each school and finally 1 English subject inspector was interviewed. The instruments used for data collection were questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussion and documentary reviews where by Statistic Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 16 was used for data analysis.

The study findings from the first objective are; lack of enough vocabulary, poor knowledge of English grammar, interference of mother tongue, overgeneralization and poor word order and sentence construction. To the side of causes, there is lacking of English exposure, lack of enough English qualified teachers, poor English back ground, shortage of teaching and learning resources, lack of confidence and students anxiety.

Hence, the study recommended that students should be maximized English exposure, restructuring of curriculum through language educational policy that English should be the medium of instruction from primary schools, teachers should be more emphasized using English as a medium of instruction in the English classes, Introducing of regularly both inter-class debate competition and intra-school competition, English teachers should use teaching and learning materials.