International SAMANM Journal of Marketing and Management ISSN 2308-2399 Vol. 1, No.1, 2013 25 The Effect of Background Knowledge on Speaking Ability of Iranian EFL Learners Mohammad Bagher Shabani Imam Khomeini International university of Qazvin,Qazvin-Iran E-mail: Shabani_m_b@yahoo.com Abstract Speaking is a fundamental and yet demanding skill to be mastered by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Compared to other language skills, speaking has been given less attention in second language acquisition, research, teaching, and assessment. The present study explored the effect of background knowledge or topic familiarity on speaking ability of Iranian students. In so doing, the study carried on a Pre-university class including 10 students. Since there was just one class available, a Quasi-experimental design was employed. First, in two successive class meetings, the subjects were required to talk on the spur of time about topics they were not familiar with. The researcher evaluated their performance as pretests. Then, they were given three topics for the following sessions to work on before attending the class. They could get information about the selected topics through the Internet, magazines, newspapers, books, and the like. In this way, they became familiar with the topics and their background knowledge was activated. Consequently, could talk more easily and for longer periods of time on the familiar topics compared to those topics they were not familiar with. Their performance was regarded as posttests. A statistical analysis of the results obtained from Paired-Samples t test provided some evidence in support of the positive effect of background knowledge on speaking ability of Iranian EFL learners. Keywords: background knowledge, speaking ability, EFL learners, Quasi-experimental design, and Paired-Samples t test 1. Introduction Speaking in the foreign language has always been considered the most demanding skill to develop in the learners of the target language compared to such other skills as listening, reading, and writing. This is in part due to the fact that it involves more than simply knowing the linguistic components of the language. Of course, knowledge of the linguistic components such as vocabulary and grammatical structures seems essential but not sufficient. What makes Speaking distinct from the other skills is that the speaker needs to have a quick access to all the relevant knowledge required to produce the appropriate language in relatively short lags of time, whereas in other skills the learners normally have enough time to either match the input with the existing knowledge, e.g., in reading or writing or to search for the accurate forms to produce the