A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Award of the degree"Licencié en Pédagogie Appliquée, Agrégé de l'enseignement secondaire en Anglais"

RÉSUME,

Learning English has always been a difficult task fo foreign learners, especially when referring to the improvement of the speaking skill. This study is the result of a work carried out in basic schools of Bujumbura Municipality with teachers and pupils of grade 9. This reasearch analyses the problems often encountered by teachers and learners of grande 9 and proposed solutions to overcome the challenges faced by learners with to the development of English speaking skill. It also investigates students' motivation and attitude during this process. Even though some studies in the field of English speaking skill teaching/learning have been achieved, this research shows specific problems to grade 9 classes in Bujumbura Municipality. Twenty four schools out of seventy three (excluding the ones included in the pilot study ) were sampled in the study. A pilot study was carried out on five of the seventy three schools whereby respondents (teachers and pupils) answered to their respective draft questionnaires. The data achieved from the pilot study providemore information to improve on the quality of questions includes in the questionnaires (on for teachers and another for pupils). THe results reveal that teachers of English need to discuss much about the impotance of speaking skill and allot to it enough time in the English classes; The same results reveal that teachers need to improve their technical knowledge with regard to methodologies and techniques to use in order to develop speaking skill in learners. The pupils need to be more sensitized about the importance of speaking skill in the learning process and use of a foreign language. This study also supplies information on the activities students need to emphasize in order to improve the speaking skill. Furthermore, the Government needs to provide schools with necessary didactric materials to help teaching/learning speaking skill. It also. It also needs to give more space to speaking skill in national exams ans further motivate teachers to emphasize the speaking skill in the English classes.