English abstract
This thesis presents a research that aimed to explore the perceptions of Omani college students and their instructors of the difficulties that students face when speaking English. The research was guided by Bachman and Palmer's model of communicative competence as the main theoretical framework for the study. The research was conducted to answer questions from three levels of investigation. The first level explored the perceptions of Omani college students and their instructors. The second level investigated the factors that contributed to these speaking difficulties. The third level looked at the differences between male and female college students in their perceptions of the difficulties they faced when speaking English. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data for the study. A sample of 99 college students were invited to complete the questionnaires, while the interviews were conducted with a sample of 6 college instructors.
The analysis of data revealed that students and instructors believed that college students faced problems in both the organizational and pragmatic domains. The most problematic areas in the organizational domain were found to be vocabulary, syntax, grammar and phonology, while textual competence appeared to be the least problematic area. In the pragmatic domain, the perceptions of students and instructors revealed that the most important problems were language functions and conversational skills. These problems were in areas such as expressing apology, ability to ask questions, difficulty in narrating a story, expressing emotional and moral attitudes, and the ability to continue a conversation. The analysis of data further revealed that the factors that contributed to the students' speaking difficulties were either-student-related, teacher-related, or environment and curriculum related. Student-related factors included using Li, lack of conversational skills, lack of
ractice outside the classroom, shortage of topical knowledge, low motivation, lack of time for preparation and lack of learning strategies. The teacher-related factors involved teachers' perceptions of their students, interactions between teachers and students, teachers attitudes, and teachers' accents. The curriculum-related factors included a lack of communicative tasks, pronunciation and functional tasks, and authentic materials in the college programs. Lastly, the data analysis also showed a significant difference between male and female students' perceptions of their speaking difficulties with regard to grammar, phonology, textual competence, conversational skills, vocabulary, and language functions. However, it was found that the difference was fair in the knowledge of syntax.
Based on these findings, the study makes some recommendations on how to minimize college students' speaking difficulties in particular, and how to improve the English learning process in Oman in general.
