CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the review of literature related to the present study.

Related Literature

Speaking skills on a grading performance is needed for a comprehensive

interpretation of ideas and information that can be expressed and found in

human’s understanding of a knowledge. It is the reason that a skills bridge

evident resolution of wisdom and knowledge from people by communicating; a

means of interaction socially, economically and to learn other people’s

assessment and level of education.

-Speaking Skills on a Grading Performance. Luoma (2004) said

that as one of communication system, speaking play an important part in our

everyday lives. In any life aspect, either our social or personal interaction, the

ability to speak has been one of significant element of interaction process. In

language teaching and learning it speaking is an important part of curriculum.

Furthermore, he stated that that “being able to speak to friends,

colleagues, visitors and even strangers, in their language or in a language which

both speakers can understand, is surely the goal of very many learners” and the

success of learning English can be seen and measured from their performance in

speaking and how well they present their English in communication.

Gonzales (1998) where he stated that the system of public instruction in

English established in the Philippines gave rise for the Filipinos to successfully
 10

learned English in terms of career opportunities, government service and

participation in politics.

-According to psychologists, Blake, Leach, Robbins, Pike, & Needleman

(2013) the human beings need to communicate to have a healthy development.

Sociologists also agreed with the importance of communication in social life. If a

human does not communicate, the human will be isolated, and will lose his/her

mind.

-Whinney, Fahey, & Howard (2014) state that speaking skill is one of the

most difficult abilities to develop. The reality shows the importance of the

speaking in the communication process.

-Thornbury (2005) assert interactive communication refers to the ability of

a candidate to interact with the interlocutor and the other candidates by initiating

and responding appropriately and at the required speed and rhythm to fulfill the

task requirements.

-Brown (2001) supported that the most difficulties faced by students in

speaking are the interactive nature of communication. In speaking, especially

when they are having conversation they are engaging in a process of negotiation

of meaning. Thus, learners usually have problems in how to say things, when to

speak, and other discourse constants. Although they have difficulties in this

aspect, assessing students through the way they interact is good to train them to

have natural speaking.

-Schwartz and Thornbury (2005) argue that psychological factors such

as anxiety or shyness, lack of confidence, lack of motivation, and fear of

mistakes are the factors commonly that hinder students from speaking.

Furthermore, Brown (2002) claimed that no successful cognitive or affective

activity can be 20 carried out without some degree of self- esteem, self-

confidence, knowledge of yourself, and belief in your own capabilities for that

activity. Self-esteem represents the degree of one’s confidence and belief in

himself or herself. From the observation of classroom learning, we can find

that learners with high self-esteem manifest more confidence and give more

positive evaluations on themselves which will promote their language learning.

Some students fail in oral English learning or feel less willing and confident in

speaking English in class because they have a low self-esteem.

Constantino (1982) who stated that using English as a medium of

instruction greatly contributes to decline the Filipino student’s comprehend ability

specially those who are in their elementary years. Reports of the failure appeared

constantly in the press with reference to the perceived decline in the standard of

English in the schools. This is usually attributed to the time which needs to be

allocated to Filipino and the influence of Filipino linguistic structures upon English

usage.

-Park (2004) claimed that the analytic scoring schemes would be useful

for the process of learning speaking skill. During the process of the course, it was

noted that the students in the analytic groups improved their speaking

competence better than those in the holistic group through each speaking test,

especially the last four tests.

-Upshur (1999) in Language Testing, said that major differences exist in

two approaches to the study of second-language performance. Second-

language-acquisition (SLA) research examines effects upon discourse, and is

typically unconcerned with scores. Language-testing (LT) research

investigates effects upon scores, generally without reference to discourse.

Within a general framework of test taking and scoring, we report research from

these two fields as it relates to questions of systematic effects on second-

language tests. We then examine findings incidental to a test-development

project. The findings were consistent with LT research into systematic effects

of task and rater on ratings, and with SLA research into systematic effects of

task on discourse. Using empirically derived scales as indicators of salient

features of discourse, we infer that task type influences strategies for

assessing language performance. Explanations for these joint findings are not

afforded by either standard LT or SLA perspectives. There is no theory of

method to explain how particular aspects of method affect discourse, how

those discourse differences are then reflected in ratings and how task features

influence the basis for judgement. We conclude that a full account of

performance testing requires a paradigm that incorporates relationships that

are not specified in either the major language-testing research tradition or the

tradition of second-language-acquisition research.

-Grading Performances in using their speaking skills. -Bachman (2004)

explained that language tests have become a pervasive part of our education

system and society. Scores from language tests are used to make inferences
 13

about individuals’ language ability and to inform decision we make about those

individuals. Language assessment takes place in a wide variety of situations,

including educational program and real-world settings. In educational

programs, the results of assessment are most commonly used to describe

both the process and outcomes of learning for the purposes of diagnosis or

evaluating achievements or make decisions that will improve the quality of

teaching and learning and of the program itself

-Communication Education (1989) provide communication feedback to

students in order to improve subsequent performance. However, students may

interpret feedback in non‐productive ways. Two studies examined the effects

of trait anxiety on production of and attributions about feedback comments. In

Study One participants generated their own feedback in response to a

hypothetical performance. Categories of feedback replicated work conducted

by Book and Simmons (1980). Anxiety was associated with negative

comments for most categories, but with positive comments concerning

content. Trait anxiety was also related to negative external attributions. In

Study Two all participants were given identical feedback. Their attributions

indicated a self‐serving effect where positive comments were attributed

internally and negative comments externally. Anxiety was not related to

negative attributions, but was associated with more internal interpretations.

Grade expectations were more strongly related to the feedback than to the

trait.
 14

According to Nation & Newton as cited in Tuan & Mai (2015), students

perform a speaking task under a variety of conditions, and they believe that

performance conditions can affect speaking performance. They suggest four

types of performance conditions include time pressure; planning, the standard

of performance, and the amount of support.

Similarly, Lazaraton (2004) discussed that the current practice in oral skills

pedagogy in terms of how to structure an oral skills class and determine its

content, along with implementing a variety of classroom activities that promote

skills development and understanding issues related to classroom evaluation of

speaking skills and testing via large-scale oral examinations.

Furthermore, according to Gonzales (1998) the school must be the first

source of information on the most basic aspect of provision for English, namely

the number and distribution of English lessons for each class to enable them to

develop the necessary skills and competencies in using the language as means

of communication.

Gonzales (1998) when he discussed that children in the intermediate

grades and even boys and girls in the secondary years can hardly express

themselves, because they do not have an adequate supply of words. Though

students have in mind a lot of ideas they cannot say it for the fear of using

English. With that, he suggested that to enhance the students’ level of English

speaking proficiency, the primary instruction of teachers should give so much

time in the form of conversations because this form of oral expression is an ideal

means of improving speech because it is easy and natural.

-A study conducted by Koichi Sato (2003) finds that students of English

are not highly competent in speaking because of their fear of making

mistakes. The same finding is also shared by another research conducted by

Ballard (2007) who finds that students fail to join in the English discussion

because of their vocabulary problems and fear of making mistakes resulting in

their inability to speak English well. In addition, she says that students find

speaking English a stressful activity especially if they have to perform

something using English.

-Jinks and Morgan (2000) stated on The Clearing House that social

learning theorists define perceived self-efficacy as a sense of confidence

regarding the performance of specific tasks. For example, Bandura (1986)

defines the construct as “people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize

and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of

performances. It is concerned not with the skills one has but with the

judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses”.

-In addition, Zimmerman, Bandura, and Martinez-Pons (1992)

performance self-efficacy influences several aspects of behavior that are

important to learning. Among these are choice of activities, effort, persistence,

learning, and achievement. The most frequently cited self-efficacy theorist,

Bandura, theorizes that individuals develop general anticipation regarding

cause and effect based on their experiences. Furthermore, he suggests that

individuals develop particular beliefs about their ability to cope with situation-

specific constructs. If such theories are applied to the study of children’s

beliefs about learning, it would be logical to predict that children with high

academic self-efficacy would be likely to demonstrate greater success in

school. Although literature speaking directly to children’s academic self-

efficacy is rather sparse, what does exist supports the link between self-

efficacy and academic performance.

Brooks and Wilson (2014) say that the students' language skills in

sharing ideas may be developed if the teachers use poster presentation in

classroom. They argue that the students' oral presentations can enhance

speaking skill in English classrooms since the learners will be able to listen to

others’ presentations and acquire English structures used in their oral

presentations.

-Turner (2002) in TESOL Quarterly, he said that performance tests

typically require raters to judge the quality of examinees' written or spoken

language relative to a rating scale; therefore, scores may be affected by

variables inherent in the specific scale development process. In this study we

consider two variables in empirically derived rating scales that have not been

investigated to date: scale developers and the sample of performances used

by the scale developers. These variables may affect scale content and

structure and (ultimately) final test scores. This study examined the

development and use of scales using two samples of ESL student writing and

three teams of rating scale developers to construct three empirically derived

scales. A comparison of the scale content showed considerable variation even

though all development teams used similar constructs of writing ability. Each
 17

team used its own scale to rate a different set of compositions. Comparison of

the ratings showed that scale development team had a minor effect on ratings

and that scale development sample had a major effect. We present

implications of these findings on the nature of empirically derived rating

scales, focusing particularly on how such scales are developed.

-Aspegren (1999) said on Medical teacher that a literature search for

articles concerning communication skills teaching and learning in medicine

was done. The search yielded 180 pertinent articles, which were quality

graded into the three categories of high, medium and low quality, using

established criteria. Only those of high and medium quality were used for the

review, which thus is based on 31 randomized studies, 38 open effect studies

and 14 descriptive studies. Communication skills can be taught in courses, are

learnt, but are easily forgotten if not maintained by practice. The most effective

point in time to learn these at medical school is probably during the clinical

clerkships, but there is no study that has specifically addressed this question.

After a short period of training, doctors can be effective as teachers. The

teaching method should be experiential as it has been shown conclusively that

instructional methods do not give the desired results. The contents of

communication skills courses should primarily be problem defining. All

students should have communication skills training since those with the lowest

pre-course scores gain the most from such courses. Men are slower learners

of communication skills than women, which should be taken into account by

course organizers. As there is only one really long-term follow up into the
 18

residency phase of communication skills training at medical school, those who

have done randomized studies in the field should if possible, carry out further

follow-up studies.

-Dickhäuser et al. (2009) they stated on Learning and Individual

Differences the present article analyzed, how need for cognition (NFC)

influences the formation of performance expectancies. When processing

information, individuals with lower NFC often rely on salient information and

shortcuts compared to individuals higher in NFC. We assume that these

preferences of processing will also make individuals low in NFC more

responsive to salient achievement-related cues because the processing of

salient cues is cognitively less demanding than the processing of non-salient

cues. Therefore, individuals lower in NFC should tend to draw wider ranging

inferences from salient achievement-related information. In a sample

of N = 197 secondary school students, achievement-related feedback (grade

on an English examination) affected changes in expectancies in non-

corresponding academic subjects (e.g., expectation of final grade in

mathematics or history) when NFC was lower, whereas for students with

higher NFC, changes in expectancies in non-corresponding academic

subjects were not affected.

-Jin and Mak (2013) in Language Testing for Chinese as a second

language (L2 Chinese), there has been little research into distinguishing

features (Fulcher, 1996; Iwashita et al., 2008) used in scoring L2 Chinese

speaking performance. The study reported here investigates the relationship

between the distinguishing features of L2 Chinese spoken performances and the

scores awarded by raters to the performances using holistic scoring. Seven

distinguishing features – representing four major categories of Pronunciation,

Fluency, Vocabulary and Grammar in the L2 Chinese speaking construct – were

employed. An L2 Chinese speaking test was developed to assess the overall

communicative ability in L2 spoken Chinese within an academic context. Speech

samples of 66 candidates on the speaking test (i.e. 9 minutes’ speech length for

each candidate) were analyzed in terms of the seven distinguishing features, with

correlations and standard multiple regression being employed. Results showed

that, first, each of the seven distinguishing features was significantly correlated to

the scores, producing large or medium effect sizes; second, 79% and 77% of the

variance in the scores could be explained by the distinguishing features

(incorporating word tokens and word types respectively) in two regression

analyses. The current study has established a link between distinguishing

features and scores, contributing empirical evidence of candidate performance to

the validation of assessing speaking proficiency in the L2 Chinese context.

Synthesis

The literature presented by the researchers are considered significant

because it will help future researchers understand how speaking skills develop

through grading performance of the grade 12 students. It will help them

assess the different factors that will lead to develop their skills. Most of the

literature came from reliable sources that conducted researches and is in line

with the skills enhancement which is found beneficial to the study.

The related literature mentioned different advantages and

disadvantages that grading performances brings to both the students and

teachers. The present researchers stated what the future hold for the

development of speaking skills through grading performances for both the

student and teacher, like on schools, and the participation from graded

performances.

The present study was found similar to the study conducted by

Gutiérrez (2005) entitled “Developing Oral Skills through Communicative and

Interactive Tasks” because both studies are made to know the perception of

the students to the grading performance and how it can affect the

development of their speaking skills.

Although there are similarities from the present study, this study

contributes not only for the Grade 12 students but also to their teachers which

sometimes serves as an instrument that will guide them to develop their

speaking skills from using graded performances. It will make them

knowledgeable on graded performances that will affect their own convenience

of using their skills at speaking the language and satisfaction from

development.