Major Linguistic Difficulties Encountered by EFL Learners

Foreign language learners generally face difficulties to use the foreign language to express their thoughts effectively; therefore, they completely avoid talking in order not to be embarrassed. This research attempts to explore the sources of EFL students' difficulties in oral expression courses at the English Department, University of Biskra. Throughout this study, we hypothesize that students do not participate in oral courses due to linguistic problems. For example, the lack of vocabulary, mispronunciation and grammatical mistakes; moreover, there are other pedagogical problems such as shortage of time, overcrowded classes, lack of interest in the subject or poor listening practice. The research work analyses the case of second year students at the Department of English, University of Biskra; and teachers of the oral expression courses. The research method adopted in this study is a descriptive one. It involves two variables: affective factors as the presumed independent variable and foreign language speaking as the presumed dependent variable, and to identify their relationship.