Problems with speaking
Although the significance of the spoken language is an indisputable matter, in fact, teaching speaking often fails as students simply refuse to use spoken English. There are many reasons why EFL learners remain silent during speaking practice. As Brown (2001: 217) rightfully suggests, making mistakes can threaten a learner’s ego, he can be critical of himself or think that others are critical about him. The reason may lie in psychological factor as it often happens that the presence of peer make our students feel uncomfortable. They are just afraid of making mistakes in front of their classmates. In Komorowska’s view (2001: 133), the success in learning a foreign language is related not only to the ability of speaking but the attitude towards the language and the community who speaks this language.
It has to be taken into consideration that students tend to avoid speaking claiming they have no reason for speaking as well as they have nothing to say. As an excuse they say that they do not need it in their everyday life. It is the teacher who is forced to deal with the lack of purpose among students, who often attend English classes as it is put in the school curriculum (Ur 1991: 8).
Another problem is “low or uneven participation”. The problem comes from the fact that teachers have to organise lessons into large groups. It means that a student has little chance to speak or some students are dominated by others (Ur 1981: 19). Moreover, learners have a tendency to use their mother tongue, because the second language is too artificial or difficult (Ur 1991). It is common that students often use their native language rather than the foreign language during the class activities, because they want to share their opinions and it is easier for them to say in their own language than struggle with other language (Harmer 1998: 129).
Students’ natural shyness is a very common reason for the failure of speaking activities which often do not work. Each group has got outsiders who stay calm and quiet at the speaking stages worrying that they can make fool of themselves. That is why, while planning speaking activities teachers should always organise the work in that way so as to involve all the students into completing task (Ur 1981: 121).
Even though attitudes to speaking vary significantly, it is obvious that oral practice should take place in the classroom as often as possible provided that teachers are able to motivate and encourage students to speak. As Tunaboylu (1993: 47) underlines “it is only our tongue that builds a communication bridge between the listener and the speaker”. To achieve this, different tools and methods should be used.

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