Curriculum and Speaking Skill

Dessy Atika Suri Hutasuhut

19178009
Magister of English Education Department

Abstract

This article presents some literatures about curriculum and speaking skill which it
means how the speaking skill is integrated in the curriculum. The relation both of them are
seen in the three different countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Kenya. Then, the result
of the speaking skill in those countries are mentioned in this article. In addition, the causes of
issues in curriculum and speaking skill are also explained by the writer so that the solution
can be gotten by understanding the causes of issues related to curriculum and speaking skill.

I. Introduction
There are four types of skill in language that are taught to the learners, they are
listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Listening and reading are included in receptive
skills while speaking and writing are included in productive skills. In this article, speaking
skill will be discussed. It is known that speaking is one of productive skills in English and it
is taught at almost every level of school. According to Torky (2006), speaking can be defined
as a medium for people to express their idea orally, coherently, fluently and appropriately
with the result that the purpose of people’s utterance can be conveyed to the listener. If this
definition is brought to the realm of education, it means that the students’ can express their
feeling or idea by speaking ability to their friends as of their purpose in speaking can be
conveyed well to their friends.

Speaking skill is integrated in the curriculum with three other skills of language.
Usually, it is integrated in the English subject by providing the conversation materials in
certain topics. Relating to speaking skill, the teachers obtain some obstacles in the process of
teaching speaking skill and these obstacles can come from the students or the teachers.
Saldaria, Ariawan, and Cahyani (2019) states the teaching speaking’s problems on their
journal which the problems occured in Indonesia. The first problem is the teacher takes most
of the part in the teaching and learning process so that this situation can give impact to the
students’ braveness in expressing their speaking ability. The second problem is the students
may have lack experience in listening the English conversation that is uttered by native
speaker. This can give impact to the students’ difficulty in catching the information from the
teacher that is conveyed by using English. The next problem is the teachers do not pay
attention to the different speaking skill of students. It is related to the lesson plan of the
teacher, if the teacher can identify the students’ characteristic and also the weaknesses, the
teaching speaking skill can be better. Other issues about teaching speaking skills occured in
Saudi Arabia which is pointed out by Alharbi (2015). The issues are the students use their
mother tongue in the inside and oustide the class, the status of English in Saudi Arabia is not
high, the students have negative attitude toward English, the teachers use their mother tongue
when they have to explain the difficult concept, and the teaching-learning methodology tends
to be teacher-centered.

It is stated above if speaking skill is integrated in the curriculum. Some countries have
done it, but the result still does not satisfy or it can be said the students’ speaking skill is still
low. Indonesia, Thailand, and Kenya are the examples of countries which integrate the
speaking skill in their curriculums. Some problems arise within speaking skill and
curriculum, it can be seen from the curriculums from the countries that have been mentioned
before. Poedjiastutie, Akhyar, Hidayati, and Gasmi (2018) says that the issues in Indonesia
curriculum are top-down approach, the absence of Needs Analysis (NA) studies, and there is
no curriculum evaluation. In Thailand, Ulla and Winitkun (2017) also found the issue in
English curriculum. They writes that Needs Analysis needs to be done for ESP/EAP
curriculum because the general curriculum is not appropriate for certain schools. The next
country which has problem in English curriculum is Kenya, Gudu (2015) writes that the
curriculum in Kenya does not provide the sufficient time for the students to practice their
English which is related to context. By seeing the situation that happens in Kenya, it can be
concluded that poor situation can give impact to the level of students’ spoken English
language.

II. Literature Review

a. Curriculum
Curriculum is known as based for the education practitioners in planning the next
activities and teaching material in the classroom. According to Su (2012), the definition of
curriculum can be classified into four types, they are curricula as a set of obejctive, curricula
as courses of study or content, curricula as plans, curricula as documents, and curricula as
experiences. The explanations can be seen as follow:
- Curricula as a set of objective
Curriculum can be viewed as a methods for accomplishing explicit instructive
objectives and destinations. In this sense, an educational plan can be viewed as an agenda of
wanted results. In the educational plan improvement process, as a rule, the goals are clear and
explicit in social and detectable terms. The accentuation on purpose is the portrayal of a
targets educational program model. In this sense, the emphasis is on items or closes, and is
additionally instructor orientated or managerial situated.
- Curricula as courses of study or content
A curriculum depicts or recommends the substance and objectives of formal guidance
yet lays the methods for guidance out of the closer view of core interest. Despite the fact that
this utilization of the educational plan seems like the previously mentioned definition
Curricula as a Set of Objectives as far as the consideration of objectives, actually, there is an
alternate core interest. The main definition accentuates the particular and remedy of
instructional destinations though the definition here spotlights on course content instead of
learning targets.
- Curricula as plans
A curriculum can be viewed as an arrangement, or a kind of outline for deliberately
executing instructive exercises. This feeling of the term joins content with instructional
techniques and consequently has a more extensive degree than the previous two curricular
ideal models on account of the incorporation of strategies.
- Curricula as documents
Curriculum has become related with the authority composed projects of concentrate
distributed by services or divisions of training, nearby specialists or sheets of instruction, and
business firms or groups of instructive pros taking a shot at uncommonly subsidized
activities. This perspective on the visual composed record appended to curriculum gets from
the need that, especially in the periods of curriculum advancement and execution, a
composed structure must be made to incorporate an announcement of targets, substance,
strategy, and evaluation.
- Curricula as experiences
The experiences mean the conceivable learning experiential experiences that students
would connect with themselves in inside or outside the study hall. All associations that
understudies are presented to, in a scholastic situation, can be viewed as a major aspect of
their curriculum. Thus, the entire scope of encounters understudies are probably going to
experience over the span of their instruction, for example, school clubs, congregations,
outings, fetes, and scholarly rivalries, are portions of the all-encompassing educational
program.
From five definitions above about curriculum, it can be concluded if curriculum have
many defintions from some perspectives, it can be a set of objective, courses of study or
content, plans, documents, and experiences. The definitions of curriculum from Su can
support the first definition from the writer if the curriculum is a planning for the teachers in
arranging the teaching and learning activities. Another definition about curriculum comes
from Chen (2007), he points out that curriculum is an intuitive procedure created among
students, educators, materials, and the earth. It works as a mirror that reflects social
convictions, social and political qualities and the association. Thus, curriculum is a set of
objective in the realm of education in order to reach the goal of education which the culture is
included in the objective of curriculum.

b. Speaking
Speaking is one of skills in English that taught at the school, this skill is taught orally
by the teacher and has purpose to create the students have capability in speaking English.
Rivers in Torky (2006) claims that speaking is utilized twice as much as reading and writing
in our correspondence. It is said that because speaking is the most used by people, people will
speak in conveying the idea and opinion to others. Afterwards, Ladouse in Nunan (1991) says
that speaking is depicted as the action as the capacity to convey what needs be in the
circumstance, or the movement to report acts, or circumstance in exact words or the capacity
to banter or to express a grouping of thoughts easily. It means that students can express their
idea or or their act by speaking. The opinion from Ladouse about speaking is supported by
Chaney and Burke in Resha, Said, and Waris (2015), they tell that speaking is the way toward
building and sharing significance using verbal and non-verbal images, in an assortment of the
specific circumstance. The definition from Chaney and Burkey means that human can share
the information to others by using speaking. Thus, it can be concluded that speaking is one of
skills in language, especially in English, which has characteristic such as sharing or
conveying the feeling, idea, or information orally.

III. Method
Library researches are used in this article to look for the problem between speaking
skill and curriculum. Some of literatures about speaking and curriculum are analyzed and
synthesized. Then, the literatures do not only focus on speaking and curriculum but also the
speaking and curriculum from some countries. In looking for the articles, the writer searched
them in Google’s search engine by typing the keywords “Journal about curriculum and
speaking skill”. After found some articles related to curriculum and speaking skill, the writer
read it to find the problem between curriculum and speaking skill from some countries.

III. Result and Discussion

Speaking as one of skill in learning English should be taught properly by the teacher
so that the students can have good ability in practicing their speaking ability. However, this
statement resists the reality because speaking skill has been taught by the teachers and it is
integrated in the curriculum but the result does not satisfy. This condition can be seen in
some countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Kenya.

In Indonesia, speaking skill has been integrated by the government in the curriculum,
but the ability of students in speaking do not show satisfactory result. It can be seen the result
of study from Poedjiastutie, Akhyar, Hidayati, and Gasmi which the title is “Does Curriculum
Help Students to Develop Their English Competence?”. The result is the curriculum which
designed by the government does not fulfill the the need of teacher and students in running
the teaching-learning activity. This is due to the absence of Needs Analysis for teachers and
students so that the need of teachers in teaching speaking ability and the need of students in
learning speaking ability cannot be fulfilled well. Whereas, according to Poedjiastutie and
Oliver (2017), Needs Analysis is critical advance in the improvement of educational plan for
it can recognize students' objective circumstance course. It means that Needs Analysis is
needed to do in evaluating the curriculum in order to get better development in the
curriculum. Then, the authors of this article suggest that the previous curriculum needs to be
evaluated so that the teachers can have the evaluation which this evaluation can lead the
teachers to teach better than before in teaching speaking skill. By seeing this problem, it is
reasonable if the speaking ability of Indonesian students is still low because it can be seen
from the curriculum itself which it still needs the evaluation.

Another issue that becomes the result of this article is the top-down process in
developing the curriculum. Indonesia has changed the curriculum for many times and the
process that used is top-down process. Top-down process in the developing curriculum
means that the school (the headmaster, the teacher, or other staffs) cannot join in the process
of curriculum development because only the government who arranges the curriculum
whereas the government does not know fully the problem in the field. In developing the
curriculum, the government should invite the school in order to know the real problem in the
field because the school is involved in the school environment everyday directly. As Okoth
(2016) claims, the teachers or educators are allowed to arrange their lesson plan which based
on their needs in teaching. If it is related to the teaching speakig skill, the role of English
teachers in arranging the lesson plan is needed because they more recognize the ability of
their students and they also know what they need for their teaching so that they can reach the
goal of teaching speaking which the goal is the students have good ability in speaking and
can be used for communicative purpose.

Afterwards, Thailand is the next country which has low ability in speaking English
although the teaching speaking skill has been integrated in the curriculum. Ulla and Winitkun
found the problem when they conduct the research and the problem was the curriculum did
not provide the linguistic needs and language skills for the students. The engineering students
were studied by the authors and they found that the English curriculum for engineering
students were not appropriate fully for them. This problem was the obstacle for them to study
abroad because they wanted to have good ability in speaking but the condition of their
curriculum as like mentioned before.

Actually, the problem that occurs in Thailand is almost same with the issue in
Indonesia. The absence of Needs Analysis in curriculum is the main issue for this situation
because the government does not analyze the need in the curriculum for specific purpose or it
can be said as curriculum for ESP (English for Specific Purpose). In ESP, it is crucial to
analyze the needs of students and also teachers because the curriculum of ESP cannot be
generalized as the general English curriculum. This statement is supported by Paci (2013), he
points out that the reason for a necessities investigation is for the EAP/ESP course teachers to
find out about their understudies' inclination in language learning. By seeing and
comprehending the theory from Paci about the Needs Analysis for ESP, the teachers can
design the curriculum, lesson plan, the material which are suitable to their students needs. If
this Needs Analysis is absent in developing the curriculum, it is no wonder if the engineering
students in this article do not good capability to fulfill the requirement to study abroad
because their curriculum does not provide the skill or competence that they need, especially
their need in speaking skill. They need to have good ability in speaking skill because they
believe that English (especially speaking skill) can help them for the better future, for
example, in getting the scholarship and job in abroad.
 Later, Kenya is last the country that discussed in this article about speaking skill and
curriculum. It is known that English should be used in the medium of instruction in the
classroom. However, this is merely stated in the curriculum, not in the reality. It can be seen
from the result of Syomwene’s article which the title is “The Teaching of Oral
Communication Skills in the English Curriculum in Primary Schools in Kenya”. She found
that the students performance in English is still low or under the average even though English
has been integrated in the curriculum and stated as the medium of instruction in the class.
Evidently, this issue comes from the teachers because Syomwene found the causes of this
issue. The first cause is the teachers sometimes do not teach the material which does not fully
emphasize on listening and speaking, but tend to emphasize on reading and writing. The
second issue is related to the time allocation for the students to study, even though the
material is suitable for the students, the time is not enough for the students to enhance their
ability in speaking. The last issue is the teachers avoid the material which related to the
speaking activity, for example, pronounciation and conversation. By seeing this issues, it can
be understood the reasons of the lows of students ability in speaking although English has
been integrated in the curriculum and established as the medium instruction in the classroom.
To reach the goal of the curriculum about English especially speaking skill, the environment
around the students have to support them, for example, their teachers. It is supported by
Chomsky’ theory about Language Acquisition Device (LAD), Chomsky (1986) mentions that
Language Acquisition Device must be aware in the interactive environment. It can
comprehended that if the environment of the students is not interactive in practicing speaking
skill, it is hard for them to have good ability in speaking although it has been integrated in the
curriculum.

IV. Conclusion and Suggestion

The curriculum and speaking skill have close relationship in the realm of education.
Some countries have integrated the speaking skill into the curriculum, but the result still does
not reach the goal the integration itself. This situation occurs because of two factors which
the first factor is absence of Needs Analysis in the curriculum development and the second
factor comes from the willingness of teacher in teaching the students. Thus, the government
needs to do Needs Analysis of curriculum so that the teacher can teach the students based on
the teacher and students’ need, and they can reach the goal of curriculum without dealing
with some of obstacles.
V. References

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