Teaching efl speaking skills : what status to grant to pronunciation and listening instruction

الملخص EN

The paper describes the speaking skills treatment at the tertiary level and more precisely with freshmen.

A basic assumption in this study is that EFL learners' aural/oral communication expertise draws necessarily on their mastery of speaking, listening and pronunciation skills.

To have a description of these skills treatment, a semi-structured interview is conducted with EFL teachers of Oral Expression and Phonetics from the University of Mostaganem, University of Oran and Ecole Normale Supérieure of Oran.

The results show that despite of listening skills importance to oral-aural communication, they are not given any room in the learners' training.

Teachers underestimate listening skills instruction believing that such skills can be acquired without any direct pedagogic treatment and are left to soak in through mere exposure.

The instruction of speaking is not based on a well-defined nor structured course.

The instruction of pronunciation follows a bottom-up approach failing to cover the suprasegmetal features.