Communication Challenges Facing Soran University Students in Speaking English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to identify the reasons behind students’ weakness in speaking and determine the challenges of oral communication that some students face in English Department of the Faculty of Arts at Soran University. Quantitative research was used as a method of data collection of this case study to achieve the goal. The population of the study was undergraduate students at Soran University. A five-level Likert-scale questionnaire with closed-ended items was distributed among 121 English Foreign Language students to investigate participants’ views on this issue. The instrument comprised twenty-eight items classified into three main domains of linguistic, psychological, and sociocultural factors with different sub-aspects in each domain. The data were analysed using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS, version 24). The findings showed that linguistic factors were the primary cause for English speaking difficulties with 36.42%, followed by affective and sociocultural factors with 35.63% and 27.95 % respectively.