Problems of English Speaking Skill that University Students Encounter from Their Perspectives

Abstract

A language is a group of skills which ultimately lead to a communication between individuals. Speaking skill is considered as the most important means of communication. For this reason the study aims at finding out the problems that the students of southern region universities in Jordan encounter in English speaking skill. The population of the study consists of the students of Mu'ta university, Al-Husein Bin Talal university, and Tafila Technical university. The sample consists of (239) male and female students. The instrument includes 27 items divided into 4 domains. The results indicated that there are statistically significant differences to the variable of university for all the domains of speaking problems. Those differences were in favor of Tafila Technical University. The results also indicated that there are statistically significant differences at level (P = .05) attributed to the variable of gender definitely in social domain, where females were mostly affected than males in English language speaking skill.