Abstract:
The goal of this paper is to investigate English oral communication inabilities that faced by Sudanese oil and gas employees, (A case study of Sudanese Petroleum Corporation). It is also intended to throw some light on communication strategies which are used as a means to compensate for the lack of linguistic knowledge. The writers employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches in this study. They collected the data by the means of questionnaire and interviews. The data was analyzed by the SPSS computer program. The results show that the major problems that hinder oil and gas employees’ progress in spoken English are: Inappropriate methods of teaching English in secondary schools and universities, lack of target language environment, negative attitude towards English language, and some psychological factors. Top of them are fear of making mistakes and lack of confidence. Depending on these results, the paper provides these recommendations: First, more emphasis should be laid on speaking activities such as debates, role play, dialogues, drama scenes and conversations. Second, an activity that helps in developing the learners’ speaking skills (English Discussion Clubs” is beneficial. Third, to encourage learners to use communication strategies to compensate for the lack of linguistic knowledge.
