Exploring Senior High School English Teacher's Strategies in Teaching Speaking

Abstract

Speaking is one of important skills that must be mastered in learning English as a foreign language, but many EFL students in Indonesia still find difficulties to speak confidently and fluently because of limited practice, lack vocabulary, and low motivation. Teachers play an important role in helping students overcome these difficulties by using good teaching strategies. This study aims to explore the strategies used by a senior high school English teacher in teaching speaking. A qualitative descriptive design was used, focusing on one female English teacher at a senior high school in Jember, East Java. Data were collected through three classroom observations in two classes (XPK-1 and XPK-2) and a semi-structured interview, then analyzed using Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-step thematic analysis. The findings show that the teacher uses three main strategies in teaching speaking: discussion, classroom presentation, and role-play. Discussion strategy asked students to share opinions in small groups before presenting them to the class, which helped them speak more and participate actively. Presentation strategy helps students' more confidence in sharing their ideas in front of the class. Role-play strategy, used in a news-reporting project uploaded to social media, helped improve students' fluency, accuracy, and pronunciation while also making them more confident when speaking in front of others. These findings show that using a combination of teaching strategies significantly contributes to students' active participation and confidence in speaking English. It is suggested that teachers continue to innovate their strategies even when class time is limited, and that future researchers should look into students' perceptions about the methods, especially students who are lower in speaking skill, to better understand how effective these strategies really are.