Factors That Cause Poor Academic Performance of Sudanese Students in Speaking Skill: A Case Study of Secondary Schools of the Gezira State- Sudan (Published)

This study is conducted to assess factors that affect teaching and learning speaking skills at the Gezira State secondary schools. The researcher uses direct observations and close-ended questions interview as most appropriate tools for collecting the data and evaluating ideas about factors that cause students’ poor academic performance. Then the researcher uses the descriptive method to analyse the data. Furthermore, he uses the SPSS programme to compute it. Some of the findings of the study are as follows: Students do not get good exposure to practice speaking skills when they are in lower grades. There are personality factors like; lack of motivation and self-confidence. One of the researcher’s recommendations is that, English language teachers- in the above mentioned schools- should use a lot of efforts to solve the problems of teaching speaking skills by; motivating the students, giving them opportunities of speaking activities, providing appropriate speaking materials and giving additional classes.

Keywords: Factors, Poor Academic Performance, Self-confidence, spoken English