Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University

Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University

1 ABSTRACT It is undeniable that nowadays English has become the main communication means of a great number of non- English as well as native English speaker English is no longer the language used solely in English speaking countries, rather it is internationally used Undoubtedly, people around the world use English as the global language In the era of globalization, as the English language has become an essential factor in strengthening trade and culture exchange in many countries, the demand of knowing and using this communication through modern technology and media communication devices such as mobile phone, email and social networks also increased In fact, with the spread of globalization and the rapid expansion of information technologies, there has been an explosion in the need for English worldwide Therefore, more and more people are learning English with the desire to keep up with the advances of science and technology and globalization trends English is most widely taught not only at schools and universities but also at many language centers Among the basic skills of English: listening, speaking, reading and writing, speaking skills are considered to have the greatest impact on learners Most of them agree that speaking is always on the top of demand because it is the necessary tool which help them pass the oral examination at schools or have a good position in a foreign company Therefore, it is important for them to be able to speak English fluently Speaking is one of the important subjects for students majoring in English in general and students of the English Faculty, Thuongmai University in particular However, students studying at the Faculty often encounter some speaking problems which directly impact on their learning achievement Therefore, I decided to conduct a survey to identify common difficulties in learning speaking skill in order to find effective strategies to help students learn better in this module Research is limited to the area and research object within the second year students of English Faculty, Thuongmai University This is the researcher’s proposal, has not been specifically applied in practice I would like to be given the steps to conduct the research, and at the same time predict the results of the research Due to the limited implementation time, there are unavoidable errors in the implementation process, the researcher sincerely hopes to receive the sympathy of the teachers ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS No one can make their success without the help of others, no matter how small or big is it In the process of completing this graduation paper, I have received a great deal of help, guidance, and encouragement from many teachers, friends and my family I have faced to many difficulties, but thank to your help, I overcame all troubles and completed my graduation paper First of all, I would like to express my grateful thanks to Mrs Hoang Thu Ba M.A – my supervisor – for her constant and tireless support throughout this study During my studying process, she has willingly and readily, suggested and given me valuable advice and detailed comments about my study Furthermore, my sincere thanks also go to other teachers in English Faculty who have taught me subjects in the English major in the past semesters The knowledge and experience I learned from the teachers during the time at school play an important role in completing this essay Especially, I am profoundly grateful to all the members in my family and friends, who have always been by my side and been a positive encouragement to help me complete this essay Finally, I would like to thank all those who have kindly given their advice and helped me with source material during the writing of this graduation paper Sincerely, Nguyen Thi Thuy TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS No Abbreviation ESL EAL English meaning English as a Second Language English as an Additional Language Vietnamese meaning Tiếng Anh ngôn ngữ thứ hai Tiếng Anh ngôn ngữ bổ sung LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale Speaking skill is one of the most important factors in evaluating an individual's English proficiency Samuel Johnson once said: Language is the dress of thought In international relationships, good English communication ability is a valuable key which can open the door of working advancement Language is the direct means of showing education level as well as personal behaviour A student mastered English, in any case,will have quick reflexes, good brainstorming to solve the problem This fact makes parents ask their children to study English harder But in fact, it is not easy to learn well a foreign language like English, because each individual's level of cultural absorption is different Most students find it difficult to learn a new language, including linguistic students Culture originates from sound, and language is the prerequisite for human civilization When writing was not created, humans used voice to transmit information Indeed, learning English should also start from improving speaking skills - the most basic skill, which forms the background of communication Although learning English communication has gradually become saturated, but how to learn well still is a difficult problem Most of the first and second year students are still quite shy when speaking English because they have many mistakes such as: incorrect grammar, stuttering, squash, wrong pronunciation, etc These errors often come from weak communication skills and some external environmental impacts It has become the psychological barrier of language students in general and students of English Faculty at Thuongmai University in particular From the above reasons, I decided to choose the topic: Strategies of learning speaking skill by second year English majors at Thuongmai University Through this research, I want to find out the difficulties that students are facing and propose many effective strategies to help students overcome that situation From there, students will have a solid foundation of knowledge to prepare them for the future 1.2 Previous studies To complete this research, the researcher has consulted a lot of articles, scientific reports, dissertations, which are related documents to the thesis topic, in order to identify the basic knowledge, study the hypotheses as well as reinforce the argument for this content Over time, there have been quite a few different studies focusing on aspects of speaking skills Samer Al Zoubi, Abdel Rahman Al Eiadeh, Mahmoud A Al.Sobh, Fadi Al Khasawneh (2016) conducted a survey about oral communication skill which aimed to enhance the speaking skill of Ajloun National University students The results also showed that the most frequent problems were the limited amount of vocabulary among students, while the least frequent problems were the difficulty in understanding questions This study also presented some of appropriate solutions to overcome the weakness in speaking skill, such as practicing speaking English inside and outside the classroom effectively, using the modern social media to communicate in English and to express the student’s feelings and needs Backlund, (1990) also assigns three aspects of knowledge that influence directly oral communication effectiveness: social knowledge, self-knowledge, and content knowledge If any one of these areas is weak, the communicative result will be decreased Besides, there are some other problems that hinder oral communication are: dominating the conversation, using inappropriate volume and pitch, using excessive small talk ignoring someone and constantly interrupting people He emphasized that only when students overcome these barriers will the problem be solved Lopez (2011) research aimed to find out which speaking strategies are mostly used by students of five Mexican public universities, which used a self-designed questionnaire with 14 speaking strategies The results showed that the three speaking strategies were most used by students in their language learning, including a complementary strategy (using paraphrasing or a synonym for unknown words) in the direct strategy and two social strategies (requiring for repetition and clarification) in the indirect strategies His research also emphasized the position of strategic training and encouraged teachers to apply and impart predetermined strategies in communication classes This implies that the more strategies students use, the more successful they got in learning to speak To explore the use of students' learning strategies in developing their speech, Gani, Fajrina, and Hanifa (2015) conducted a survey on 16 students who has speaking performance being low and high at a high school in Indonesia Data was collected through a 53-item questionnaire and interviews The results acknowledge that the high-performing speaking students are more likely to balance in using all kinds of learning strategies developed by Oxford (1990) to enhance their speaking skills The low ow-performing students focus on only two learning strategies: compensation and social strategies In contrast, high performing students knew how to use more appropriate learning strategies than low achievers Besides, there are few domestic studies that are remarkable Dinh Thuy Linh ( 2011) discovered the reason why existing student’s laziness in speaking period Then she pointed out that motivation is considered to be one of the key factors to success on mastering foreign language Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long- term goals, and there are no appropriate curriculum and good teaching to ensure student achievements Each student needs to know how to motivate themselves to learn English Tran Thi Thuy (2013) proposed using role play activities to improve speaking skills of the students because this action can help learners enhance reflex ability Role playing is something which can be included in language teaching to help make classes the dynamic, energetic, harmonious, speaking focus – experiences These activities are effective methods to create a vibrant learning atmosphere, as well as exploiting the potential of each student Moreover, Truong Minh Hoa, Phan Thi Mien Thao (2020) study a research aimed at exploring speaking learning strategies employed by 82 English-majored 10 3.1.3.3 Compensation strategies Chart 3.7: Student’s use of Compensation strategies As mentioned in Table 3, compensation strategies are used in overcoming barriers, guessing based on clues Almost participants (86%) asserted that “When I cannot think of a word during a conversation in English, I use gestures to express myself better” In many cases, gestures or any non-verbal forms also turned out to be the useful tool for many learner speakers to overcome the uncomfortable situation when they were incapable of seeking a word during a conversation in English The same practice in employing non-verbal communication forms such as mimes, gestures, and facial expressions to rescue them and overcome linguistic or topical limitations and gain their self-confidence if any Answering the question, 33 students (accounting for 66%) chose the strategy “If I forget an English word, I explain the word in Vietnamese or use synonyms” They revealed that they often utilized synonyms, antonyms or circumlocution to express what they intended, especially when they could not recall those words exactly The least used strategy is: “I make guesses when I meet unfamiliar words in conversation” (up to 42%) Responding an interview, two students admitted that during communication, because of their limited vocabulary, sometimes they not understand the word’s meaning, and the offered solution is employed either contextual or linguistic clues to understand what was being uttered by others Both of them pointed out that this strategy was really helpful to get the general messages from a string of utterances involving too many unfamiliar words or phrases Through qualitative results, it is inferred that this strategy was really helpful to get the general messages from a string of utterances involving too many unfamiliar words or phrases It is clear that in speaking learning, students will meet several difficulties negatively affecting their speaking performance like their paucity of linguistic resources, scarcity of topical knowledge, or deficiency in listening comprehension 34 To rescue themselves from these common problems, the students need to exploit compensation strategies effectively (Hendriani, 2013) 3.1.3.4 Metacognitive strategies Metacognitive strategies aimed to help learners to regulate their own cognitive abilities and to plan, monitor and evaluate their speaking progress as they move toward communicative competence (Gani, Hanifa (2015)) Similarly, these metacognitive strategies can facilitate student’s speaking activities through planning and monitoring, and improve their speaking performance not only this time but also other times via self-evaluating (Oxford, 1990) Chart 3.8: Student’s use of Metacognitive strategies Among five strategies proposed by the researcher, two strategies that students use the most are "Setting up a goal to push up motivation" (accounting for 80%) and "Planning schedule to have time to practice speaking" (up to 72%) In general, most students have a sense of self-consciousness to build a suitable learning plan as well as know how to motivate themselves to study Besides, there are also quite a few students who chose reflex training strategies such as “While speaking, I pay attention when someone is speaking English” and “When I hear myself making a mistake, I correct it immediately” An excellent language learner is person with a good responsiveness, which can adapt to their surroundings However, there is a rather important strategy that only 12% of the participants chose, which is “I check my progress in learning English speaking” Many students admitted that they were actually unconcerned about using metacognitive strategies after their speaking like self-evaluating They argued that it is difficult to assess their speaking proficiency, so they just their homework, and the assessment should be handled by the teacher Obviously, this is a misconception, resulting in student consciousness going down Thus, the students in this study need to use selfevaluation more frequently to see where their mistakes and flaws are in terms of 35 fluency, accuracy or appropriacy, and then they can avoid them and make better subsequent speaking performance 3.1.3.5 Affective strategies Chart 3.9: Student’s use of Affective strategies In a simple way, affective strategies are methods to release, relax as well as improve learners' spirits According to Chart 3.8, nearly three quarters of the questionnaire reported that they try to relax so as to reduce their anxiety before producing English orally (about 74%) In a similar vein, 62% of English-majored sophomores also frequently encouraged themselves that they could accomplish the speaking task well Nevertheless, it is apparent that not many students preferred the other affective strategy that they needed to share their feeling with their friends to increase their self-confidence when speaking (at only 34%) However, the strategy “I not feel shy when making mistake” is used only by 22% of sophomores This tendency, concomitantly, was found in the interviews Specifically, ¾ of the interviewed people admitted that they frequently confronted affective problems They are often embarrassed when asked to speak or present in front of class Therefore, they used the deep breathing method before orally producing words, releasing themselves with body language to overcome this psychological barrier Likewise, a girl showed her low self-efficacy in oral productions With her expectation of relieving this negative factor, she also usually breathed deeply and encouraged herself that she could complete the speaking tasks successfully Sharing your feelings with others is also an extremely effective way to relieve pressure The encouragement, useful advice of friends will bring back a positive energy source However, the big problem here arises from the last strategy Many poor speaking performance students stated that because of the scary of herd mentality, they are always quite stressed out in front of better friends Although they tried to get rid of their shame, the results were not so good Students need to quickly find some useful solution 36 It means that these students highly approved of utilizing affective strategies to manage their negative feelings and psychological states In addition to these strategies, the qualitative results showed that smile, body language movements and even self-talk with a mirror also enabled speakers to get rid of anxiety and raise their self-confidence 3.1.3.6 Social strategies Social strategy is the way in which students using surrounding conditions, cooperating with other individuals to improve their mutual understanding The author has proposed some popular strategies used by sophomore English faculty in the chart below Chart 3.10: Student’s use of Social strategies Among the strategies suggested by the author, the most used one is: If I not know how to say something, I ask a more proficient speaker for help (76%), the second one is If I not understand something in English, I ask the other person to slow down or repeat (66%), ranked 3rd is strategy When my friends speak English in class, I try to check their errors and correct them mentally (54 %), and at the bottom is I speak English with my teacher and friends after class (only 20%) Qualitatively, all the interviewees highly applauded that social strategies significantly enhanced their speaking performance, and in reality, they used social strategy group at high frequency rate Most students admitted that when they cannot find the right words which suitable to context, instead of looking up the dictionary, they often describe the Vietnamese meaning then ask their better classmates, because it saves time and establish the long- term memory In addition, during communication or learning process, in case the speaker talks too quickly or whispers, students not hesitate to ask them to slow down or repeat the important information At the same time, there are a part of sophomores who often repeat the speaker's words as a habit, not only to catch keywords but also to check grammar, 37 as well as avoid making similar mistakes The strategy I speak English with my teacher and friends after class that seems to be the most effective one, however, is applied the least To find out the cause of this issue, a student answered interview that: “If I seek my partners for speaking practice and consequently I can improve my speaking ability, especially in terms of fluency However, after school due to geographical distance, time schedule, and many private jobs, my friends and I are unable to meet much In the class, I just only can ask the teacher a few key problems, because after this lesson the teacher has to teach another class If I want to practice pronunciation, going to an English center is the best choice." In general, social strategies can provide increased interaction and more empathetic understanding for speakers Some past research has documented that learning from different resources like from teachers, friends, classmates, can maximize the learner’s learning outcomes Thus, social strategies need to be more frequently practiced in EFL speaking classrooms 3.1.4 Students' use of speaking learning strategies is based on individual competencies After completing the questionnaire, the researcher continued to interview indepth with small questions There are 10 selected respodents, divided into two groups: students with high speaking performance (having summary scores are A and B+) and students with low speaking performance (having summary scores are D and D+) Then, the author surveyed the interest level of each group in all of speaking strategies In 10 people, there are excellent students and poor students The following table is obtained Collected data is handled entirely by qualitative and conjecture methods 38 Speaking strateies Memory strategies Cognitive strategies Compensation strategies Metacognitive strategies Affective strategies Social strategies High achieving learners Usually used Usually used Usually used Usually used Usually used Usually used Low achieving learners Sometimes used Sometimes used Usually used Sometimes used Sometimes used Usually used Table 3.2 :Strategy inventory language learning results 3.2 Discussion From the table result, we find that weak performing students focus on using two strategies are social and compensation strategies Meanwhile, the remaining four strategies including memory, cognitive , metacognitive and affective are not used very often On the contrary, high achieving students know how to balance these six strategies, using them with much the same degree of frequency This cannot be found in poor speaking students This means that successful language learners demonstrated greater consistency in applying more effective strategies The results of current study are in line with the previous research of Gharbavi and Mousavi (2012) and Pei-Shi (2012) which showed that the higher the level that learners are at, the more of learning strategies they will be used Oxford (1990) also claims that all language learners‟ use learning strategies, but more successful learners use them more consciously, more appropriately, more purposefully and more frequently These results indicate that high achieving students are more likely to be more aware of their language needs; therefore, they tend to use strategies that help them master the target language through practicing, reasoning and analyzing, as well as strategies that allow them to control their learning through planning strategic and calcultating outcome Furthermore, these learners spent a lot of time improving to set control their emotions and attitudes through increasing their motivation standards The data also indicated that low performance students sometimes applied strategies that were not very effective for completing certain language tasks such as enhancing pronunciation by reading a dictionary and improving fluency by 39 memorizing a sentence They often try to offset gaps in knowledge by asking for help from others On the other hand, high speaking performance students used a larger number of strategies appropriately so that they could accomplish various language tasks The findings of the study correspond with that of O’Malley and Chamot (1990) who state that more effective (high speaking performance) students generally use a greater variety of strategies and use them in more ways to help them complete language tasks more successfully; conversely, less effective (low speaking performance) students not only have fewer strategies but also frequently use strategies that are inappropriate to the task at hand and which does not lead to successful task completion In brief, the use of appropriate language learning strategies gave a greater contribution for the development of competence in speaking To sum up, the English-majored sophomores at Thuongmai University should use appropriate language learning strategies more consciously, purposefully, and frequently to be more successful in developing their speaking skills In fact, the students may encounter different speaking problems, and if they only possess a limited range of speaking strategies, they fail to sustain their simple communication Since communication is a complicated process, summoning different components, students are required to utilize different strategies flexibly so that they can survive in any given communicative situation 40 CHAP 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 4.1 Suggestions Firstly, both the quantitative and qualitative results implied that background knowledge was not prioritized by almost all the participants in their speaking learning In fact, many students found it difficult to continue their oral production due to their lack of topic knowledge It is recommended that they should take advantage of this knowledge source since it helps oral communication more interesting, persuasive and realistic Specifically, students can exploit this knowledge source to compare, contrast, or illustrate what they are speaking In sum of this point, teachers should make students aware of the importance of background knowledge and create more opportunities for students to utilize their prior knowledge in their speaking performance Secondly, all the questionnaire and interview yielded the overlapped results that many English-majored sophomores did not frequently practice their listening skills and pronunciation On the other hand, they admitted that they were deficient of listening comprehension and sound vocalization Teachers should encourage students to so Once again, listening ability and the ways of producing sounds directly impact the quality of speech Thirdly, after speaking, most of the students neglected self-evaluating what they had done previously Based on this finding, the study suggests that teachers should guide students how to assess their own speaking performance From that, they can minimize or even eliminate these weak points and fortify their good points Fourthly, the results emerged from both instruments indicated that some students were much anxious and unconfident when speaking English Research has shown that such affective problems can negatively hinder thoughts and use of language and knowledge during their speaking activities Thus, it is the teacher’s role to facilitate a relaxing environment for students to be relaxed and motivated to gain pre-determined speaking goals 4.2 Recommendation for future researches Although the researcher tries to analyze the data in detail, there are still limitations and unexpected shortcomings due to shortage of time and the small 41 scope of the study The current study employed speaking strategy questionnaire to explore the use of speaking strategies and semi-interview to clarify information from the questionnaire The results would be more exact and convincing if there were more instruments involved in the research Therefore, this suggests that more instruments like observation and diary should be used to give more reliability of the findings in the further studies The study only considers speaking strategies used among a group of English sophomores Thus, the future research which looks at various of respondents would be helpful The present research aims at investigating strategies for learning speaking, not for all language skills This suggests that the future researchers could conduct the study on the larger filed 42 CONCLUSION It can be said that for language students in general and for second- year students of the English Faculty at Thuongmai University in particular, speaking is an important subject It both improves students' communication skills, and the student’s be equipped with flexible thinking ability and convey the meaning of fluency between English and Vietnamese However, there is a fact that many students have difficulty with this subject Recognizing that, the writer has researched with the desire to clarify what difficulties are affecting students' learning of speaking skill, and find the most useful learning strategies After doing the research, the researcher has found out main speaking learning strategies namely Memory strategies, Cognitive strategies, Compensation strategies, Metacognitive strategies, Affective strategies and Social strategies, which are explained in chapter Most students are aware of the importance of speaking skill in the learning English progress They have given a lots of different perspectives, stating the problems they are facing Then, using personal experience as a background to come up with a variety of strategies, based on individual abilities The positive news is that most respondents knew how to combine strategies together to improve speaking efficiency, only a small part of students used discrete strategies ineffectively Finally, this is the first time that researcher have conducted research, so there are still many limitations on qualifications as well as research tools and materials The research cannot inevitably have many errors, I hope to receive the comments of teachers and friends to make the research more complete I am a senior of the English department at Thuongmai University, so I hope that the results of this lesson can help students who are and will learn the Speaking subject easily overcome the above difficulties to get the best results 43 REFERENCES Foreign documents: Dornyei, Z., & Scott, M L (1995) Communication Strategies: An empirical analysis with retrospection In J S Turley & K Lusby (Eds.), Selected papers from the proceedings of the 21st Annual Symposium of the Deseret Language and Linguistics Society (pp 155-168) Provo: Brigham Young University Press Samer Al Zoubi, Abdel Rahman Al Eiadeh, Mahmoud A Al.Sobh, Fadi Al Khasawneh ( 2016), Improving English Language Speaking Skills of Ajloun National University Students, International Journal of English and Education Gani, Fajrina, and Hanifa (2015), Students' Learning Strategies for Developing Speaking Ability, https://www.researchgate.net Florez, M A (1999), Improving Adult English Language Learners' Speaking Skills ERIC Digest, ERIC Document Reproduction Service No ED: 43520 Harris (1974), Testing English as a Second Language, New York: McGraw Hill Book Company Heaton, JB (1978), The Components of Speaking Ability, http://beddebahhaterulez.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-componentsof-speaking-ability.html Baker, J., & Westrup, H (2003), Essential Speaking Skills: A Handbook for English Language Teachers, London: Continuum Lai-Mei Leong (2016), An Analysis of Factors Influencing Learners’ English Speaking Skill, University of Guilan, Rasht, Iran Krashen, S D (1982), Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition, New York: Pergamon Press Oxford, R L (1990), Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know, New York: Newbury House Publishers O’ Malley, J M., &Chamot, A U (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition Cambridge University Press Doff, A (1998), Teach English: A Training Course for Teacher, Cambridge University Press Shumin, K (1997), Factors to Consider: Developing Adult EFL Students' Speaking Abilities, http://eca.state.gov/forum/vols/vol35/no3/p8.htm 44 Mahripah, S (2014), Exploring Factors Affecting EFL Learners' Speaking Performance: from Theories into Practices Proceedings of the 3rd UAD TEFL International Conference 2014 "Materials Development in Asia and Beyond: Directions, Issues, and Challenges." English Education Department, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Nation, I S P., & Newton, J (2009), Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Harmer, J (1991), The Practice of English Language Teaching The 3th Edition, Longman: London and New York Hedge, T (2000), Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom, Oxford: Oxford University Press Vietnamese documents: Dinh Thuy Linh (2011), Improving 11th grade students’ motivation in English speaking lessons at Vietnam – Poland high school by using communicative activities, https://123doc.net N H Tuan & T N Mai (2015), Factors Affecting Students' Speaking Performance at LE Thanh Hien High School, Asian Journal of Educational Research, 3(2), 8-23 Tran Thi Thuy (2013), Using Role-Play Activities to improve speaking skills in ESP for post clerk at PT&IT Highland Secondary school, Thai Nguyen, https://repository.vnu.edu.vn T.M.Hoa, P.T.M.Thao (2020), Speaking learning strategies employed by English- majored sophomores at College of Foreign Economic Relations, VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol.36, No.3 (2020) 82-100 T.T.N.Mai ( 2017) An investigation into the strategies for developing English speaking skill of non-major ethnic minority students at a teacher training college in the Northwestern area of Vietnam, https://repository.vnu.edu.vn 45 APPENDIX Questionare How long had you learned English before moving to college? o Less than years o - 10 years o Over 10 years How often you apply speaking strategies in learning English speaking? o Usually o Sometimes o Never How important is it for you to become proficient in speaking English? o Very important o Important o Not so important How you rate your proficiency in speaking English as compared with the proficiency of other students in your class? o Excellent o Good o Poor How much time you spend a week practicing speaking English? o Less than hours o 4- hours o More than hours The common difficulties students have to encounter when speaking English (You can choose more than one answer) o o o o o o Incorrect pronunciation Grammar mistakes Non-availability of words to express feelings Limitation of background knowledge Not being able to remember information Lack of confidence, shyness, nervous 46 o Noise from surrounding o Lack of audience interaction What strategies did you use to enhance your speaking skills? (You can choose up to answer) Memory strategies o o o o I think about what is most important to listeners so I can focus on it I use rhymes to remember new English words I learn new words by grouping them by their meanings with contexts I link my background knowledge to what I am going to say Cognitive strategies o o o o I try not to translate word-for-word I organize and take note main ideas before speaking I practice exercise to enhance listening ability and pronunciation I try to imitate the way native speakers talk Compensation strategies o When I cannot think of a word during a conversation in English, I use gestures to express myself better o I make guesses when I meet unfamiliar words in conversations o If I forget an English word, I explain the word in Vietnamese or use synonyms Metacognitive strategies o o o o o Before speaking, I set up a clear goal to push up my motivation While speaking, I pay attention when someone is speaking English When I hear myself making a mistake, I correct it immediately I plan my schedule so I will have enough time to practice English speaking I check my progress in learning English speaking Affective strategies o o o o I try to relax whenever I find I am stressful Before speaking, I often encourage myself I not feel shy when I make a mistake in using English I talk to someone else about how I feel when I am learning English Social strategies o If I not understand something in English, I ask the other person to slow down or repeat o When my friends speak English in class, I try to check their errors and correct them mentally 47 o If I not know how to say something, I ask a more proficient speaker for help o I speak English with my teacher and friends after class Semi- structured interview Question 1: Your speaking summary score is : A/ B+/ D+/ D ? Question 2: How often you use speaking learning strategies? Usually/ Sometimes? Question 3: Do you frequently use memory strategies for your speaking learning? If yes, specify your situation If no, why? Question 4: Are you frequently in favor of cognitive strategies for your speaking learning? Specify your response Question 5: When you encounter with communication breakdown, you often employ compensation strategies? If yes, how? If no, why? Question 6: Do you often exploit metacognitive strategies before, while and after speaking? If yes, specify your situation If no, explain Question 7: Do you frequently incur affective problems in your oral productions? If yes, name them In fact, what affective strategies you apply to manage your psychological states in speaking learning? Question 8: Do you often ask for clarification or cooperate with peers to accomplish speaking tasks? In yes, specify your case If no, explain 48 ... following strategies: Memory strategies, Cognitive strategies, Compensation strategies, Metacognitive strategies, Affective strategies and Social strategies In order to study the use of speaking learning. .. commonly used speaking strategies for second- year English majors at Thuongmai University • Proposing some suggestions to improving teaching and learning English speaking skill at Thuongmai University. .. cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, affective strategies, metacognitive strategies, and social strategies 23 Language Learning Strategies Description Memory strategies “Creating links