A Thisis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree "Licence en Langue et Littérature Anglaises"

Résumé,

The purpose of the study is to investigate the factors affecting the speaking performance of English learners. Depending on the speaking environment where any learner finds themselves (rural or urban), they can improve or fail to communicate effectively, It is in this perspective that this study aims at comparing the factors affecting fluency for the pupils of the 4th form Lycée Notre Dame Rohero in Rohero Zone and those from Lycée Technique Communal Makebuko in Gitega province. The research questions that guided this study are : 1, What are the major factors that could facilitate pupils from urban area in being more fluent than those from the rural? 2. How could those urban factors be effective in fluency for rural area pupils? Methodologically, the subjects of the study were 40 among 80 pupils. The research instruments used in this study were questionnaires administered to both pupils and their respective teachers and classroom observation. Quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted to analyze the data obtained. The results from the findings have revealed that pupils from rural area show a certain degree of failure when it comes to produce oral language. This is caused by the lack of adequate exposure to English inside and outside the classroom, lack of some grammatical and pronunciation components, lack of retrieving the suitable vocabulary during oral communication, they feel embarrassed of making mistakes. On the contrary, pupils from urban area have a good educational background as far as speaking English is concerned, So, the study found out that their fluency has attained a suitable degree due to the English speaking environment where they evolve in inside and after classes. Indeed, teaching/ Learning strategies are among other influencing factors. Based on the research findings, recommendation are suggested to course designers, to the Ministry of Education, to teachers, to learners and to further researchers.