Lost for Words
Why Speaking Skills Lag Behind Other Language Abilities
By Hanyu Tales (17th April 2025)
For most language learners, their speaking skills tend to lag behind their reading, writing, and listening skills. This can be for a number of reasons which this study puts in the following categories:
“Personal problems, linguistic problems, social problems, and environmental problems.”
However, despite numerous possible reasons and a wide-spread awareness of the difficulty that students find while trying to speak fluently in a foreign language, it is often neglected by language programs, as highlighted in this paper from the Sino US English Teaching journal: “In conclusion, the present paper has gauged how though speaking is a very complex and challenging skill in nature, it is not afforded importance and remains a dormant skill in EFL classes.”
In this article, will look at why speaking is so challenging, why it is often neglected, and why it is completely normal to feel that the gap between your speaking abilities and your other language abilities continues to widen. Active Vocabulary vs Passive Vocabulary
This journal article points out that foreign language learners know more words than they can actually use. Words that we simply know are known as “passive vocabulary”, while words that we can effectively use can be considered “active vocabulary”. To speak well, we need to be able to use the words we learn, meaning we need a wide active vocabulary—this takes time.
In a study in Applied Linguistics looking at the results of a year of school instructions given to English Foreign Language (EFL) students, passive vocabulary progressed very well—more so than active vocabulary. Why is this? The answer is simple: building passive vocabulary takes significantly less effort. Passive skills of listening and reading are much easier to squeeze into your daily routine than active skills such as writing and speaking, especially with the wealth of resources which the internet provides. This applies in a classroom setting too, as this paper revealed that teachers use oral language more than the students do, meaning students spend much more time listening than speaking. You get better at what you do more of; if you engage in passive vocabulary acquisition more than active vocabulary acquisition, you will acquire less active vocabulary and in turn have less tools available when writing and speaking.
In a study in Applied Linguistics looking at the results of a year of school instructions given to English Foreign Language (EFL) students, passive vocabulary progressed very well—more so than active vocabulary. Why is this? The answer is simple: building passive vocabulary takes significantly less effort. Passive skills of listening and reading are much easier to squeeze into your daily routine than active skills such as writing and speaking, especially with the wealth of resources which the internet provides. This applies in a classroom setting too, as this paper revealed that teachers use oral language more than the students do, meaning students spend much more time listening than speaking. You get better at what you do more of; if you engage in passive vocabulary acquisition more than active vocabulary acquisition, you will acquire less active vocabulary and in turn have less tools available when writing and speaking.
No Time to Think
Learners, may, however, highlight their superior ability to write as a way of dispelling the notion that a lack of active vocabulary is to blame for their speaking struggles. While strong writing skills are certainly a testament to having a solid active vocabulary, there is a huge difference between using words in real-time during a conversation, and using them with as much time to think as required while texting a language partner. To use your active vocabulary effectively during conversation, you also need to train active recall, so that the word comes to you fast enough to respond in real-time. To achieve this, using an SRS flashcard system alongside both speaking and writing sentences with your target vocabulary is a solid approach.
Anxiety
While widening your active vocabulary and improving active recall will aid you in speaking well, linguistic proficiency is not always (or even often) the cause of poor speaking. A study on Chinese EFL learners revealed:
“Learners have speaking problems that relate more to psychological factors like anxiety, fear of mistakes, unwillingness, and fear of negative evaluation than linguistic factors such as lack of vocabulary, pronunciation, insufficient knowledge of grammar rules, reading and oral presentation.”
The reality is that for some, anxiety gets in the way of them speaking fluently. This anxiety may come from learners not wishing to make mistakes in front of other students, or from the added pressure speaking to natives brings, which this study on Turkish EFL students found led to the most anxiety. Irrespective of the reason for the anxiety, students need to get comfortable with speaking out loud in front of others. A great way to heighten confidence is to start with an AI tutor—perhaps using ChatGPT’s voice functionality—then move on to practicing with humans via a tutoring platform or a language exchange platform. As mentioned, you get better at what you do more of, but more importantly, you get more confident about the things you get better at. Practice Opportunities are Limited
Speaking with natives, or in any real-time situation with others watching you, simply requires practice. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford a teacher, and even those who are in school may lack speaking opportunities too, as discussed in Kathleen B. Egan’s article in the CALICO journal:
So what is the result of these issues? Kathleen M. Bailey, shares that:
“Speaking was until recently largely ignored in schools and universities, primarily for logistical and programmatic reasons, such as emphasis on grammar and culture and unfavorable teacher-student ratios”
The reality is that speaking activities are difficult to orchestrate in large classrooms, meaning a lack of oral language skill development is inevitable. On the other hand, even students who have access to speaking practice opportunities may not take advantage of them, as this study discusses the flaw of students using their own language during group work. So what is the result of these issues? Kathleen M. Bailey, shares that:
“Learning speaking skills is very challenging for students in [Foreign Language] contexts, because they have very few opportunities to use the target language outside the classroom. Sometimes foreign language learners travelling in other countries where their target languages are spoken find that they can neither understand native speakers nor be understood.”
Whether students do or do not make the most out of limited speaking opportunities within the classroom, supplemental practice outside of the classroom is indispensable. As for students being disappointed when they are unable to communicate with native speakers while travelling, this is to be expected. Most native speakers are not trained teachers and they bring a wide vocabulary, fast talking speed, and possibly a strong accent. However, you can consider fluent communication with natives to simply be the final boss of speaking practice, meaning improving your speech in general is what is required to eventually become competent enough to confidently converse with natives. It is not essential to always find other native speakers to practice with—just speak as much as possible! Speaking Involves Many Skills
As already discussed, competence increases confidence, so understanding that speaking involves multiple skills is important. While anxiety is a factor, it is not the main factor for everyone. A study on Indonesian students found:
“Nonetheless, language-related barriers (vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and fluency) seemed to be the main obstacle for the participants to speak in English. All the participants revealed that they faced these issues whenever they wanted to get involved in English conversation”
This quote contradicts the earlier study that suggested psychological reasons may outweigh linguistic deficiencies. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, meaning linguistic competence and lots of confidence are both key pieces of the speaking puzzle. Given the real-time setting of conversations, it can be seen as the ultimate test of your grasp of the language in general. Although speaking practice is a great use of time, improving your language proficiency as a whole will no doubt also have a direct effect on your speaking. This means that neglecting reading, writing, and listening in favour of putting all of your eggs in the speaking basket is not necessary, nor practical. You Are Not Alone
Here is the good news: struggles with speaking are not necessarily indicative of your overall skill, as this paper points out that both high and low achieving students struggle to improve their speaking. There is a high probability that the anxiety you feel while engaged in real-time conversation is causing you to slip up, and the only way to get past this is to simply engage in these nerve-wracking situations more often, while continuing to heighten your general language proficiency so you can one day access the confidence that can only be brought by true competence.
If you want to read about the ways you can practice your speaking without spending any money or needing another human to help you, click here!