The aim of the current study is to uncover the challenges encountering Iraqi students in the secondary school classrooms. Five students in a public secondary school located in Misan province participate in this investigational study. The study explores the challenges the students face in the learning process; particularly in the acquisition of oral proficiency. However, oral proficiency, even as used by the teacher, hardly ever functions as a means for students to acquire knowledge and explore new ideas. This paper attempts to identify the challenges or problems that students encounter in teaching English oral proficiency. Data collection methods used in this study include students’ interviews and classroom observations. After collecting information and taking notes on the students’ oral proficiency. Data collected demonstrates that the acquisition of the students’ oral proficiency is associated with several challenges and problems that inhibit their pursuit to interact and express themselves in real-life situations. In sum, the study concludes that when learning English oral proficiency, several challenges prevent the students’ oral performance or progress such as improperly trained teacher, government policy, assessment systems, exposure to English, and less use of audio-visual aids etc.

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Investigating the Challenges Facedby Iraqi SecondarySchoolStudents in EnglishOral
Proficiency
Abstract
The aim of the current study is to uncover the challenges encountering Iraqi students in the
secondary school classrooms. Five students in a public secondary school located in Misan
province participate in this investigational study. The study explores the challenges the
students face in the learning process; particularly in the acquisition of oral proficiency.
However, oral proficiency, even as used by the teacher, hardly ever functions as a means for
students to acquire knowledge and explore new ideas. This paper attempts to identify the
challenges or problems that students encounter in teaching English oral proficiency.
Data collection methods used in this study include students’ interviews and classroom
observations. After collecting information and taking notes on the students’ oral proficiency.
Data collected demonstrates that the acquisition of the students’ oral proficiency is
associated with several challenges and problems that inhibit their pursuit to interact and
express themselves in real-life situations. In sum, the study concludes that when learning
English oral proficiency, several challenges prevent the students’ oral performance or
progress such as improperly trained teacher, government policy, assessment systems,
exposure to English, and less use of audio-visual aids etc.
1. Introduction
Language is a tool for conveying message. People communicate with others, to express their
thoughts and feelings, and to know others’ ideas as well. Communication takes place, where
there is speech. Without speech we cannot communicate with one another. The importance
of speaking skill or oral proficiency, hence is enormous for the students to learn. Without

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speech, a language is reduced to a mere script. Of the four English language skills, speaking
enjoys a greater position. Accordingly, it should be given a high significance in teaching
English. As it has been mentioned, people communicate and understand each other through
speaking. Hence, lots of attention should be given to teaching oral proficiency
Communicative language teaching has been introduced in Iraq after 2003. Though the
influence of communicative language teaching to developing forms of oral proficiency
practice in the language classroom can hardly be overestimated, there is a settled tendency
among researchers, practitioners and methodologists to criticise it for its inadequate
appreciation of the involvedness of speaking as a psycholinguistic process and of placing too
much an emphasis on information gap criterion as leading to artificial or impractical tasks
(Rose and Galloway, 2019: 95). Teaching oral proficiency is not an easy task. It requires a
lot of effort on the part of the teacher and the student as Ahmed (2018: 97) mentions that one
of the major challenges for EFL teachers is oral proficiency.
At the present time, in spite of the inescapable criticism of existing methods, techniques or
resources, speaking is largely perceived as the most essential skill to acquire. Teng (2019:1)
comments that oral proficiency has been treated as the ultimate aim of language teaching and
its appropriate development has become the focus of attention of both teachers and students.
Aleksandrzak (2011: 38) stresses that nowadays speaking is generally observed as the most
major skill to acquire.
However, it is also a commonly acknowledged fact that achieving proficiency in foreign
language speaking in classroom conditions is not an easy task, as mentioned above. Even
good students often finish a language course with the belief that they are not sufficiently
prepared for speaking out-class; their speaking activities are still within the limitations of in-
class. This problem results basically from the class atmosphere and inadequate frequency of
speaking opportunities in the classroom in comparison to the abundance of natural varieties
and genres of oral communication. Price and Neslon (2019: 144) comment that choosing the
most suitable types of spoken discourse or oral performative skill for classroom practice in a
particular language course is a very hard judgement which, unfortunately, hardly ever
reflects the natural occurrence and distribution of communicative situations.
The recognition of low proficiency in oral skills can be related to several challenges in Iraqi
secondary schools. Speaking or oral proficiency must be exphasised over the language skills
(listening, reading and writing) because it is a conversational activity through which students
can perform in-class and out-class interaction. Ur (2012: 117) claims that “Of all the four
skills, speaking seems intuitively the most important: people who know a language are
referred to as “speakers” of that language, as if speaking included all other kinds of

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knowing; and many if not most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning
to speak”
2. The Aims of the study
There are two primary aims of the current study:
- To examine the main challenges that influence the teaching and learning oral proficiency in
the Iraqi secondary Schools in Misan city.
- To recommend certain answers that may improve the quality of teaching and learning of
oral proficiency in English in Iraqi secondary schools contexts.
3. Challenges of Teaching English Oral Proficiency
The following challenges or problems prevent the learning of students’ oral proficiency:
Challenge 1: Time Module
The time allocated for speaking activities is not enough in case all students need to share
their thoughts in order to bring productivity on their part. As Garton and Copland (2019:
124) maintain that interaction in the target language needs more time than that allotted to the
class. Filho (2018: 157) adds that one of the main obstacles the students suffer from is the
number of hours specified for students in teaching English at schools or time constraints.
Challenge 2: Keeping Pace with Teaching Methods
Teachers are still regrettably using the grammar-translation method of teaching. The
communicative approach is not prevalent or widespread with our teachers. Parsons and
MacCallum (2019:286) mention that keeping pace with the rapid change in English teaching
methods ensures blameless and flawless teaching, learning and assessment.
Challenge 3: Assessment Systems
The system of examinations in Iraq is unreliable and defective. One of the main defects of
the examination system in English that it does not test the students’ ability to understand
spoken English. Nikolov (2016: 245) notes that testing of the speaking skill is not an easy
task to carry out on the crowded classes, henceforth assessment systems do not include it.

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A major factor that may account for the failure of the EFL programmes is the official
assessment policies adopted by the ministry of education. General secondary school exams,
for example, have a “fixed format” or “template” on which students can be trained within a
short period of time and pass the test easily without the need to study the requirements of the
prescribed textbook. Furthermore, the oral proficiency is not tested in the third and sixth
secondary schools, and that may explain the poor quality of the students’ oral proficiency in
English. The focus is mainly on grammar, reading comprehension passages, compositions,
spelling, and punctuations with little attention on vocabulary knowledge.
Challenge 4: Less Use of Audio-Visual Aids
In our schools, audio-visual aids and realia (real objects) are hardly used. Due to lack of
funds, expensive aids that cannot be purchased. Price and Nelson (2019 :7) confirm that such
audio-visual aids are very useful in presenting new ideas and knowledge in the development
of oral proficiency.
Challenge 5: Lack of Pronunciation Laboratory
Language is mainly spoken; hence students need to speak and pronounce words and
sentences correctly by the use of laboratory. But our schools do not contain such laboratories
because the schools are not supplied by the ministry of education. Gavela (2015: 5) states
that the use of textbook without any complementary resources does not typically meets the
students’ needs or interests.
Challenge 6: Lack of Effective and Well-Trained Teacher
Teachers are not trained properly and scientifically at the BA stage, most of the time the
focus is given to the prescribed textbooks or the compulsory books and handouts than to the
method of teaching currently used in Iraqi secondary schools; i.e., communicative language
teaching. It can be assumed that teacher preparation courses are not able to equip the Iraqi
teachers with adequate knowledge, skills, and abilities that qualify him/her to teach English
effectively. In general, teachers do not know totally the prominent aim of the material he
teaches inside the classroom. He divides the lesson into many fragments such as reading,
writing, grammar, translation, dictation and composition.
The most commonly reported obstacles are English language teachers’ lack of knowledge in
English and the teaching method they adopt in teaching English (Cochran-Smith, 2008:
609).
Challenge 7: Over-Crowded Classes

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In Iraqi secondary schools, the classes are so crowded that it is hardly impossible to make all
students share or participate to express their feelings or needs. Large classes affect the
implementation of the prescribed English curriculum. Ebong (2004: 112) asserts that
crowded classes “are a very serious problem.”
Challenge 8: Lack of Student’s Motivation
Student’s impetus plays an essential role in learning oral proficiency. Many studies have
dealt with this aspect. Kheider (2013: III) confirms that “the lack of motivation is considered
as one of the basic problems that English learners encounter while communicating.”
Actually, there is no real learning of oral proficiency without the existence of student’s
stimulus; through motivation, students are capable of understanding what teacher wants
them to do. Mazouzi (2013: 70) reports that motivation acts as a progressive reinforcer that
boosts the students’ self-esteem and increases self-confidence in them. Therefore, teachers in
communicative classes are required to praise their students to make them participate with
each other to be fluent speaker of English.
Challenge 9: Teacher-Centred rather than Student-Centred Tasks
Previously, class focus was mainly around teacher’s authority. Teacher’s control of class
activities prevent students’ participation and students remain inactive or passive.
Consequently, students’ non-participation in class activities inhibit them to acquire oral
proficiency. Thus, Cunningham (2019: 256) declares that teacher-centred pedagogy reflects
a colonial and oppressive mindset and should be replaced with student-centred model.
The swing of the pendulum, or the improvement of student-centred style in language
teaching, suggested a reorientation of teacher roles to share the power with students and to
provide them with the opportunities to produce better control over their learning (Teng,
2019: 21). In order for students’ oral proficiency to be acquired in the educational process, it
has to value each student’s needs, interests and desires. Each student matters, and a good
educational system need to develop the lives of its students apart from their abilities.
Teachers are the authority of the class; they control the class where they talk most of the
class time and they hardly ever give students an opportunity to speak or ask questions or
make groupings. This practice can be ascribed to the fact that the teachers need to uphold
punishment in the class by not allowing the students to talk or interact with each other.
Accordingly students get bored and less motivated to learn oral proficiency, and thus they
become passive listeners.

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Challenge 10: Compartmentalisation versus Whole Language Approach
EFL teachers in Iraqi schools, due to their inadequate pedagogical preparation, as many
studies confirm this point, still believe that language can be better taught as a number of
discrete or disconnected rather than integrated skills or holistic approach. For example,
grammar is taught independently of reading and writing. Moreover writing is not related to
reading. Fareh (2010: 3603) asserts that this compartmentalisation diminishes the oral
proficiency of students.
Challenge 11: Lack of Emphasis on Developing skills Rather Emphasis is on Rote
Learning
For the most part, lots of secondary school students outperform when examinations
emphasise mainly on memorization and rote learning. Conversely, they do not do well when
exam questions involve students’ developing skills; i.e., creativity, critical thinking, or
problem solving like reading comprehension passages and meaning based questions etc.
They always complain and, unfortunately, they find some who listen to them without trying
to do any modifications somewhere in the educational system. Thornbury (2007: 100)
recognizes that the procedures of developing oral proficiency includes three steps:
1. Awareness: Teachers implant ideas that learners are entirely aware of the features of
the use of target language which is used as a channel of communication, conversation
and commitment of something.
2. Appropriation: The features of target language ensure appropriation and integration
into the language the learners use for day to day conversation.
3. Autonomy: In turn, learners earn autonomy and capacity to use those features of
language in real life situation like interview, social interaction and classroom
environment.
Challenge 12: Textbook and Teaching Materials
Based on the data collected about the textbooks, the overall evaluation of Iraqi English
secondary schools textbooks could be:
1. Teaching materials are culturally incompatible with Iraqi students’ culture and this
may alienate learners and initiate them to develop negative attitudes towards learning
of English.

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2. The level of teaching material is higher than that of students; a matter which
discourage many students and slow or decreases their enthusiasm.
3. Textbooks are written by native speakers who have no satisfactory and reasonable
background about the students and their needs or their linguistic background.
4. Unconnected topics that may cause the students to lose their interest in learning
English. Diversity of presenting cultures may cause deficiencies and shortcomings in
learning language oral proficiency.
5. Lack of several activities that are not intended for students’ oral proficiency. Such
activities may not be stimulated by the educational policy of the country, no
requirements of such oral activities such as CDs or Audiotapes, nor are they
favourably adopted by teachers. This creates a state of negative distance among both
students and teachers.
6. The size of the book is usually large and cannot be covered in a semester or a year.
This may distract and disturb teachers and embarrass them before their administrators
and before students’ parents.
Challenge 13: Little Exposure to English
Roughly speaking, Iraqi secondary school classrooms suffer from excessive use of Arabic
language. Exposure to English is rather minimal. This can be attributed to the undesirable
teaching practices and to the improperly prepared teachers. Arabic is frequently used in
classes most of the time of the class. The teacher talking time is much more than the students
talking; teacher-centred,. The class size is usually large; a matter which make it difficult for
teachers to involve students in debates or oral interaction in oral proficiency. Markee (2019:
390) comments that “One persistent problem for language teaching is to provide students
with sufficient opportunities to interact in the target language with their peers.” That means
much more time should be given to the language being taught through providing in-class
activities and tasks. In addition, group-work and pair-work should be supplied to allow the
students interact in English to enhance and improve students’ speaking proficiency.
Educational systems in teaching English in Iraq are classical and traditional. They focus very
much on memorization and rote learning. Although some claim that they aim at augmenting
students’ creativity and critical thinking. They very often do not put these goals into
outcome. This is obvious in the general examinations that ministry of education prepare for
students at the end of the year (third and sixth classes). Rich exposure is necessary to be
done otherwise learning English can be poorly supported concerning achieving the
communicative aim of learning language.

8. 8
Challenge 14: Communicating with Parents
Another problem that teachers notice is the lack of communication with students’ parents.
Parents hardly visit their sons in the Iraqi secondary schools. According to the observations,
the teacher perceived that he was not able to communicate effectively and efficiently with
parents in order to support the students and appreciate their home problems.
Cortiella (2006, as cited in Boyle and Scanlon (2019: 87) provides a useful checklist for
parents to facilitate active home-school communications. Schools could share the checklists
with parents as one way of demonstrating they are open to parents involvement.
Challenge 15: Students’ Anxiety and Lack of Confidence
Students’ anxiety and nervousness affect their progress in oral proficiency. Alhmadi (2014:
26) agrees with Goh and Burns (2012: 16) that anxiety plays an essential role in student’s
current level where it has a destructive effect on the achievement of the student’s speaking
the target language. Ellis (2019: 77) adds that the problems of students’ anxiety has two
stages. Frist, there is students’ fear about the testing system. Second, there is their worry
about the fact that feel fear.
On the other hand, in speaking, confidence occupies a great place in improving students’
proficiency. Generally, students who are self-confident can learn better because they believe
in their abilities. (Peters, 2001: 163 and Quigley, 2016: 31)
Challenge 16: Supervision and Evaluation
Teacher’s abilities and skills need to be enhanced and improved continually by holding
educational sessions, symposiums and instructional courses and also to develop their
teaching principles and procedures by the English supervisors.
Any teaching method to be applied effectively should be strictly supervised and evaluated
for it to reach its intended aims. A difficulty therefore arises because there is little
supervision currently in Iraqi secondary schools. This is because the large numbers of
teachers need guidance on how to teach English and particularly oral proficiency.
Yet there are few supervisors to provide guidance because they visit the teachers of English
twice a year. This low rate of observation and evaluation by the supervisors has many
delimits for teachers. Teachers may ignore many things they do not know in the curriculum
including the updates or the new versions. Supervisors usually seek to shape compact system
of support for English language students services, evidently, calls for professional progress

9. 9
and cooperation time for teachers to empower them to plan for responsive education. Uskov
et al. (2018: 148) argue that “It is important to enhance teachers’ skills for teaching.”
4. The Research Question:
Is there any relationship between oral proficiency and the challenges students face in
learning process?
5. The Research hypothesis
There is no relationship between oral proficiency and the challenges students face in the
learning teaching process.
6. Methodology
6.1 Settings and Participants
The study took place in a public secondary school located in Misan province. In qualitative
method, the researcher is purposeful in choosing participants and settings. He selects specific
subjects to provide deep insight and thorough understanding of what he is going to study. In
this study, five students, whose ages range from sixteen to eighteen, were selected. The
students represented different levels.
6.2 Data Collection Procedures
The study adheres to qualitative research therefore the collection of the data can be obtained
from different methods. In order to accomplish the objectives of the current study, the chief
methods used were face-to-face interviews and classroom observations. The present study
lasted eight weeks and took place during school hours. To ensure trustworthiness, data was
collected using several different sources. The use of different data collection sources allowed
the researcher to get a perfect representation of the subject under investigation. In order to
gather the exact information on the current study and analyse such information based on
scientific ways to know precisely what challenges hinder the students’ development in oral
proficiency in Iraqi secondary school classrooms. The researcher uses three methods of
collecting data, namely, interview with five students, observation and parent survey. The
following is a detailed description of each data source that was used in this study
6.2.1 Students’ Interview
For the sake of the present study, the researcher conducted individual interview with five
students. The interview questions with the selected students were practically and rationally
constructed and reviewed on the basis of the research purposes. The interviews were

10. 10
recorded via mobile phone, in order to decrease the chance of data loss by the side of taking
notes. The interviews with the students were carried out in Arabic as a consequence of their
low English proficiency. The interview took place in different sites including the school
library and the counselor’s office.
The places were chosen for their conduciveness for the participants and the research as well.
The interviews were recorded then precisely transcribed based on the exact words and
opinions of the students. In semi-structured interviews, the participants provided further
information and comprehensive descriptions of their feelings, opinions, experiences etc. In
this way, the interviewer can acquire all-encompassing data. During the interviews, verbal
and non-verbal communications were noticed comprehensively. This includes the students’
facial expressions, gestures, voice level, hand movements etc. Right after the interview, the
researcher wrote down the notes about the setting, duration of time and how the interviews
went on. These notes help very much in writing clear summaries of the current educational
situation.
6.2.2 Classroom Observations (Field Notes)
In relation to the interviews presented above with the five students, classroom observations
were also used to permit the researcher gain a complete description of the classroom
atmosphere including the association between the teacher and the students. In spite of the
position of video-recording especially in classroom observations, the researcher was not able
to record video the observations because he was not granted the permission to do.
Nevertheless, the checklists which the researcher used and their detailed notes provide him
with a vivid picture of the whereabouts which take place in the classroom. Five classes were
observed from secondary classes. The checklist the researcher adopted included oral
proficiency or speaking skill activities. In order to make the observation checklist harmonise
with the objectives of the current study, the researcher included various crucial points related
to the strategies of teaching oral proficiency and the ways of managing speaking tasks.
Besides, the checklist included the use of the educational resources in teaching oral
proficiency, due to their significant role in making the lesson easy to present. Additionally,
notes were made about the teacher’s procedures of teaching oral proficiency, his contact
with the students as well as the classroom activities and the teacher’s ability in English oral
performance.
6.3 Data Analysis

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Creswell (2009, as cited in Akasha, 2013:10) notes that data analysis is an ongoing process
that includes reflection, organisation and coding in order to make an appropriate
interpretation and have greater understanding of the data.
6.3.1 Students’ Interview
For the sake of analysing the interviews, the students’ interviews were translated into
English, and then transcribed. The translations were revised and the English transcriptions
were read several times in order to get the exact meaning of what the participants said. After
reading the participants’ answers, the researchers entirely observed each piece of
information in order to make sense of the data as a whole. They narrowed down the
collected data to develop the codes that precisely described the participants’ answers. While
coding, the researchers asked questions, made comparisons, examined words, phrases etc.
Finally, the research used their background knowledge, experiences and opinions to interpret
and represent the findings of the study. Almost all the four students were novice and only
one appear to be intermediate; while advanced and superior levels were extremely hidden in
their oral performance.
6.3.2 Classroom Observations
Students’ interviews have been analysed completely according to the students’ replies. In the
analysis of students’ observations, the researcher arranged the notes and the checklists and
read them many times in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the data collected.
After he reduced the number of categories they extracted from the data collected, he
developed the final central themes. Like interview analysis, the researcher did not follow
sequential steps. Rather, he went back and forth between the stages. This extended the
researchers’ knowledge and enhanced their understanding of the data collected. After
comparing the coding, the researcher made the final decision on the main themes. The
observational data were also compared and contrasted with the interview data in order to
support the results obtained. It is worth mentioning, that the analysis of the data collected
followed the process of inductive coding which helped the researcher generates the most
important themes. Accordingly, the data collected were narrowed down into specific
segments of information in order to create initial themes and come up with the most
important codes. During the coding process, the researcher asked questions, made
comparisons and examined repetitive expressions. According to the items of the checklist
suggested by the researcher, both of the teacher’s oral language was poorly introduced;
hardly ever he speaks the target language. The students’ oral activities were also not enough
to share and complete oral tasks.

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7.The Students’ Extracts of Oral Proficiency Challenges
The following are the students’ extracts after being translated by the researcher:
One student comments that: “The teacherinsists that we have to speak English after the
class ends. After the class finishes, we speak Arabic because it is easier. Also, when I
speak with my classmates in English, he switches off to Arabic so I have to speak
Arabic.”
Another student notes that: “Most of the class time, the teacher keeps focusing on
teaching grammar, so we think that English is merely a language of grammar in
principle. The teacher should vary in the topics or skills to break the boredom”. He
adds: “our best students get full marks in English examinations; but if you ask them to
utter one complete and meaningful sentence, they fail.”
“The third student mentions that: “the listening is rare. The recorded-voice students
listen or hear in the classroom is different from what they hear in our real-life
situations. The recordings often use a standard language and identify some grammar
or words since the main aim of listening exercises is to help students solve an exercise
or do some tasks. Such listening exercises familiarise the student with real and
spontaneous dialogues.”.
One reason for the relative failure of teaching oral proficiency in our curricula, as it comes
on the tongue of one student-participant in this exploratory study, is that it is not included
within the items of assessment system, “To make oral proficiency successful in our
secondary schools, the ministry of education must include the speaking skill in the
assessment sections through oral interviews and it must be allotted high points to
provide motivation on the part of both the students and the teacher.”
One student-participant firmly stated that:
“One reasonbehind the students’ novice low level in oral proficiency is the assessment
system. We teach the four skills in the secondary school classes, but we never, test
listening and speaking, so no marks for listening and speaking. The regulations and
obligations made by the Ministry of Education controls the assessment, and you cannot
set marks for speaking you only have written quizzes, and final term tests. So without
speaking, students can achieve the full marks 100.”
This was also confirmed by the second student-participant. The student said: that:
“ The problem is that the textbook controls the teacher. I mean, the teacher has to
abide by the textbook. For example, the textbook includes very limited listening and

13. 13
speaking practices which are not effective enough to improve the students’ spoken
ability.”
Another student added that We are usually tested in reading, grammar, writing and
vocabulary but no tests for listening and speaking. Students only participate and speak when
the teacher discusses the lesson.
Either for textbooks used, Ali comments that: “Textbooks aren’t supplied with the
supplementary teaching materials such as audios, posters, flashcards etc. and this
makes teaching speaking activities a difficult task. There are no listening lessons here
simply because there is no listening material.”
Another one adds that “If we see Qatar and Emirates, students have the ability to
communicate effectively in real-life situations though their ages are young.”
Concerning language laboratory, the third student argues with a small extract: ”Actually we
don’t have an English lab, so how could we speak without listening and correct
pronunciation”
8. Proposed Solutions to the Iraqi Students’ Oral Proficiency Challenges
The researcher usually suggests some useful, practical and possible solutions through which
both students and teacher may develop the teaching and learning process. If they are
implemented thoroughly and methodically, a great success is going to be in the
learning/teaching process in general and students’ oral proficiency in particular. They will be
discussed in details as follows:
8.1 A proposed solution to the Challenges on the Part of the Teacher
Based on the students’ interviews and field-notes (observations), teachers are highly advised
to improve the students’ oral proficiency. To improve teaching, Iraqi EFL teachers can make
their classes student-centred by supplying the students with more oral techniques in which
they work in pairs or groups to achieve the objectives of the speaking activities. Unlike
individual tasks, group work make the most of the students’ opportunities to perform a
specific communication function such as requesting permission, explaining a process, giving
an opinion and offering a suggestion.
During the activities, the teacher’s role is to encourage the students to practise English and
provide them with positive feedback. Iraqi students here are really shy, so teacher has to
handle this problem by making the students share information among them through group-
work or brainstorming technique. Ur (2007) lists a number of communicative activities and

14. 14
games, e.g. brainstorming and role play, which enhance the students’ ability to speak fluent
English. The classroom speaking activities can be taken and adapted from different sources
such as newspapers, magazines, textbooks and websites. In addition, teachers should
encourage the students while participating and doing the activities in order to develop their
confidence. The study showed that most students’ attitude towards speaking English was
positive. Unfortunately, this good attitude gradually declined because the oral proficiency
was totally neglected. The researcher proposed that the teacher should raise the students’
awareness of the significance of the oral proficiency in their future. For example, all the
secondary school students who are looking forward to joining international universities are
required have high proficiency of English (TOEFL or IELTS tests). Nowadays, an
international applicant has to accomplish the English language proficiency requirements for
admission without which his application would be abortive. In this way, the students’
motivation put great effort to achieve a high score in such tests in order to enter an intended
university. Finally, great effort should be focused by supervisors to ensure the teachers’ full
knowledge of teaching English skills.
8.2 A proposed solution to the Challenges on the Part of the Student
As the teacher has a vital role in raising the students’ oral proficiency, the students also has a
greater role. In order to speak well, the students should improve their linguistic knowledge
of grammar and vocabulary first. They should memorise new phrases and expressions in
order to help them in the class debate and their daily life as well. In the classroom, the
students should inspire and motivate their classmates by saying encouraging words and
phrases. Here comes the role of the teacher to increase the students’ awareness of the
negative effects of mocking and making fun of others. The teacher can pick some first-rate
students to stimulate and energise the weak ones. The teachers’ assistance, advice and
inspirational heart-to-heart talk can increasingly change the contemporary classroom
environment to a favourable one. Exposure to spoken English requires that a student uses the
sentences he knows in his daily conversations with others’ in and outside school. This
greatly influences learning a language and accelerates learners’ progress. The students are
similarly advised to follow online channels and programmes which are particularly intended
to improve listening and oral proficiency such as VOA Special English, BBC World Service
and English For You Videos and abundant other websites.
9. Recommendations

15. 15
Based on the results and the conclusions shown above, the researcher intentionally
recommends the following:
1. Only competent and proficient teachers should have the accessibility to teach.
Otherwise the results are going to be tragic and catastrophic.
2. The students-centrality should be emphasised over the teacher-one.
3. Creating the entertaining environment to students to break the boredom and express
their feelings and needs and bring the creativity that leads to students’ improvement in
his/her speaking performance.
4. Teaching oral proficiency should be based on the integrative approach not on the
discrete one.
5. Authoring the textbook and forming the syllabuses should be familiarize with the
students’ needs, interests and levels.
6. Assessment should be concentrated on spoken English in forming the items of the
testing system, not only on the writing and reading skills items.
7. Exploiting the students’ exposure to English in class by increasing the student talking
time and adopting interactive communicative teaching activities.
8. Stimulating creative and independent thinking skills.
9. Constructing realistic purposes for teaching English oral proficiency.
Conclusion

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Based on the study results, sixteen challenges are highlighted. For example, time factor,
teacher’s knowledge, textbook, etc. Lack of time can be a challenging task for students when
teaching speaking, especially if teacher speaks quickly so they cannot keep in touch with
him or if they do not have the support. Henceforth, teacher-student interaction should be
strengthening by using the negotiation of the activities so that students have appropriate time
and also students can get teacher’s feedback accordingly.
Most Iraqi teachers teach depending on the discrete approach; they teach each skill
(listening, speaking, reading or writing) and language aspect (grammar, pronunciation and
vocabulary) separately. In such case, the students’ ability to express himself in
communicative tasks or authentic situations will not be hands-on or tangible. Real
communication needs lots of opportunities and free-opening tasks through which students
can find themselves free and independent to express feelings and needs in whatsoever way
they like to be.
References
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