Problems experienced in speaking skills by students in German language and literature undergraduate program: Fırat University example

Speaking skills have an important place in foreign language teaching. Using speaking skills means being able to communicate in the target language. When we consider that the main goal of those who want to learn a language is to gain the ability to communicate in the target language, we can see how important this skill is in a foreign language. However, speaking skills are among the skills that students have the most difficulty with in foreign language teaching. Although this situation is seen at every level of foreign language teaching, it is even more important in higher education. Because students who study in a foreign language department and will teach the target language when they graduate are expected to master all the skills of the foreign language. Ignoring the problems experienced in speaking skills will also affect the development of other skills, so full learning in the target language will not occur. An individual who has difficulties in speaking skills will also have problems teaching this skill and the teaching action will be incomplete. Having an idea about the problems students experience in German speaking skills will help to turn this skill from a difficult skill into an easily learned skill. In this context, this study examined the problems experienced by Fırat University German Language and Literature Undergraduate Program students in German speaking skills and tried to determine which factors affected the study group while using German speaking skills. In this context, it was tried to determine the students' thoughts on speaking skills and asked whether they attach importance to this skill or not. Phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in this study. Data were obtained from a total of 88 teacher candidates with semi-structured interview technique and the analyzes were interpreted with descriptive analysis method.