Teaching speaking skills to secondary-school EFL studentsTratar, Teja (Avtor) Skela, Janez (Mentor) English as a foreign language (EFL)speaking competenceteaching speaking skillsspeaking activitiessecondary-school studentsLearning English as a foreign language equips students with skills that broaden their horizons, encourage personal and professional growth, and contribute to interculturality. Teaching English as a foreign language can be challenging, especially when teaching speaking skills. While all language skills (listening, reading, writing) are important, speaking is often the goal of language learners as it empowers them for life. Therefore, creating a positive and stimulating learning environment is one of the main factors in teaching speaking. Namely, when developing speaking ability, students often face many problems, such as fear of making mistakes, lack of confidence, nervousness, peer pressure, lack of opportunities to speak and negative past experiences. In overcoming such difficulties, teachers can help their students gradually overcome their fears and become more confident and skilled English speakers. For the teaching of speaking skills in English as a foreign language to be as effective as possible, it is necessary to choose appropriate activities, as these directly affect the engagement, motivation, skill development and overall learning experience of the students. This MA dissertation introduces the theoretical explanation of what speaking is, how one should teach it and practical activities for teaching speaking skills to a foreign language class or with English as a foreign language. As part of the empirical part of the master's thesis, a questionnaire was distributed to students from one of the Slovenian secondary schools. We wanted to find out whether the students think they have enough opportunities to speak in English lessons, how comfortable they feel in class, and which topics they find the most interesting.20232023-12-03 07:45:22Magistrsko delo/naloga152663VisID: 542002COBISS_ID: 181775363sl