DEVELOPING YOUNG LEARNERS’ ORAL SKILLS: AN ANALYSIS OF SPEAKING EXERCISES IN AN INDONESIAN PRIMARY SCHOOL ENGLISH TEXTBOOK

Abstract

This study investigates speaking activities presented in Grow With English Grade 4 Student’s Book to understand how primary English textbooks support young learners’ oral communication development. Employing a qualitative descriptive design, the research examines task types, interaction patterns, communicative purposes, scaffolding strategies, and cognitive demands embedded in speaking exercises. Data were collected through systematic content analysis, where each activity was categorized according to its potential to promote meaningful communication, fluency development, and learner engagement. The analysis reveals that the textbook offers diverse speaking tasks, such as Look and Answer, Say, Let’s Talk, peer survey activities, and short question–answer exchanges. These activities are consistently distributed across units and supported by visuals, model sentences, and structured prompts that guide learners to produce simple spoken English confidently. Nevertheless, most activities are highly controlled and predictable, focusing more on accuracy, repetition, and vocabulary recall than on extended oral production or creative language use. Opportunities for spontaneous conversation, problem-solving interaction, and higher-order communicative practice remain limited. Therefore, although the textbook provides a strong foundation for beginner speaking practice, active teacher facilitation and task modification are required to foster communicative fluency and authentic language use. This study emphasizes the need to complement textbook activities with open-ended, interactive, and contextually meaningful speaking tasks. The findings provide practical implications for teachers, textbook writers, and curriculum designers in developing more engaging, communicative, and developmentally appropriate EFL materials for Indonesian.