Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions

Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by firstyear English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITYENGLISH FACULTY

-GRADUATION PAPER

A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS ENCOUNTERED BY FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED

SOLUTIONS

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, M.A

Student: Nguyen Ngoc Tram

Class: K53N5

Student’s number: 17D170280

HANOI - 2021

English is becoming more and more popular and necessary in Vietnam Peopleuse English to find high-income jobs, to communicate with friends, colleagues orforeign partners, to get closer to the world market In particular, English speakingskill is one of the important skills in learning English and in daily communication.However, speaking English is still a large obstacle for everyone in general andlanguage learners in particular

The study “Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by

first-year English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions”

would provide basic background about English speaking The study also indicatessome difficulties that freshmen have to encounter when speaking English Based ongiven theories and previously related studies, the graduation paper usesquestionnaire and interview as two instruments to collect data After the datacollection process, the result of the research showed the reality of learning speaking

of first – year English majors Moreover, the study also proposed some solutionsfor students and for teachers to overcome the difficulties and enhance student’sspeaking skills The researcher hopes that these solutions would help first-yearEnglish majors in particular and English learners in finding suitable measures todevelop speaking competence

Throughout the process of completing this graduation paper, I have receivedmany valuable suggestions, helpful support and guidance from my teachers, family,and friends This is the motivation and encouragement that helped me complete thisgraduation paper

First of all, I would love to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Mrs.Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc for giving me whole-hearted assistance, thoughtful advice

in the course of completing the graduation paper She has readily suggested andgiven me valuable advice and detailed comments about my thesis Without herencouragement and assistance, I could not have finished this thesis

I also would like to show my deepest thanks to all teachers at the Faculty ofEnglish at Thuongmai University for their useful lectures and enthusiasticinstructions during the four years which helped me very much in finishing thisstudy

I also want to thank the cooperation of first-year students of the EnglishDepartment at Thuongmai University who have helped and supported me to collectdata

Last but not least, I would especially thank my family, my close friends and

my classmates who supported me to complete this graduation paper

Hanoi, 16th April, 2021 Student

Nguyen Ngoc Tram

TABLE OF CONTENTS

i

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.2.1 International studies 2

1.2.2 National studies 3

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study 4

1.4 Research subject 4

1.5 Scope of the study 5

1.6 Research methodology 5

1.6.1 Data collection instruments 5

1.6.2 Data collection procedures 5

1.6.3 Data analysis methods 6

1.7 Organization of the study 6

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Speaking skill 8

2.1.1 Definition of speaking skill 8

2.1.2 The importance of speaking skill in modern society 8

2.1.3 The types of speaking 9

2.2 Difficulties in learning speaking skill 10

2.2.1 Linguistic factors 11

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH FINDINGS 17

3.1 Data analysis 17

3.1.1 Results from questionnaire 17

3.1.2 Results from interview 26

3.2 Some conclusions about English speaking skills of major freshmen at TMU 29

CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 31

4.1 Limitations of the study 31

4.2 Suggestions for further studies 31

4.3 Recommendations and suggestions to overcome students’ difficulties 32

4.3.1 Recommendations and suggestions to students 32

4.3.2 Recommendations and suggestions for teachers 34

CONCLUSION 35 REFERENCE

APPENDIX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1 Table 2.1 Language learning strategies useful for speaking skills

2 Chart 3.1 The importance of speaking skill

3 Chart 3.2 The students’ assessment of speaking skill

4 Chart 3.3 The real situation of students practicing speaking English in class

5 Table 3.4 Difficulties related to linguistics

6 Chart 3.5 Students’ assessment on the influence of pronunciation

7 Table 3.6 Students’ assessment on the influence of vocabulary

8 Chart 3.7 Students’ assessment on the influence of grammar

9 Table 3.8 Difficulties related to psychology

10 Chart 3.9 The reasons of causing anxiety and lack of confidence

11 Chart 3.10 The reasons of causing lack of motivation

12 Table 3.11 The suggestions for improving speaking skills

13 Table 3.12 The students ‘answer of the first interview question

14 Table 3.13 The students ‘answer of the second interview question

CHAPTER I: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

This chapter is divided into seven sections, namely the rationale, the previous studies, the aims of the study, the research subject, the scope of the study, the research methodology, and the organization of the study.

1.1 Rationale

In the era of Industry 4.0 and international integration is a popular trend ofcountries around the world and Vietnam is no exception Therefore, in order toensure that people around the world can connect with each other more easily, weneed an international communication tool to express thoughts, feelings and desires

anywhere and anytime Dale Carnegie also said that “There are four ways, and there are only four ways in which we contact the world We are judged and highlighted by four touch points: what we do, how we look, what we say and how

we speak.” Therefore, English becomes a global language and is gradually

becoming the official language of many countries English is an important andconvenient tool for connecting people, sharing information and knowledge,developing culture and economy

In Vietnam, English is also considered a second language, Vietnamesechildren can access and learn English at the primary level, and even manykindergartens also start to teach English Moreover, English is gradually becomingone of the essential conditions in the recruitment process of many companies inVietnam People who know English have many job opportunities and it is easy tofind a job with an average - high salary

However, using English fluently is still difficult for many people, includingEnglish learners Especially, in four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing,speaking is a big obstacle Although students can do grammar exercises very well,can master many new words and structures, they cannot apply them in Englishspeaking skill very well This is the reason to urge the researcher to conduct the

study with the title “A study on the difficulties in learning speaking skills

encountered by first-year English majors at Thuongmai University and some

1.2 Previous studies

The researcher read some studies related to this study, which are done by otherauthors to find out inspiration and collect a foundation of knowledge aboutspeaking, learning and teaching speaking skill, solutions to improve and learnspeaking effectively I found that these studies would be useful during completing

my graduation paper

1.2.1 International studies

Rababa’h (2005) in a study “Communication problems facing Arab learners

of English” stated that there are many factors that Arab learners encountered in

speaking English These difficulties are often related to the learners themselves, thecurriculum, the teaching strategies and the environment In conclusion, he said thatusing communication strategies is very useful to cope with these difficulties

Lukitasari (2008) in “Student’s strategies in overcoming speaking problems in speaking class” focused on the students’ strategies in overcoming speaking

problems in speaking class at the first semester students of MuhammadiyahUniversity of Malang in Indonesia The results of her study suggested that inspeaking class, the students faced some speaking problems including inhibition,lack of ideas, fear of speaking, low or uneven participation and mother tongue use.Besides the study also showed that the students’ speaking skill was not goodbecause they did not master the three elements of speaking skill namely vocabulary,grammar and pronunciation

Regarding the obstacle in speaking, Lejla Basic (2011) in a study “Speaking anxiety: An obstacle to second language learning” studied the anxiety faced by

learners when speaking This study was made with the participant of the Japaneseforeign students at a graduate school in America He pointed out the reason whichcauses fear of speaking is anxiety In his study, he also highlighted the anxiety oflearners when speaking and anxiety is the reason why they cannot have a goodspeaking skill

Kamonpan Boonkit (2010) carried out a study “Enhancing the development of speaking skills for non-native speakers of English” This study aimed to enhance

the development of the participants’ speaking performance and also provide more

insight for teachers into alternative activities to develop speaking skills for EFLlearners either in Thai or other EFL/ESL contexts The results represented that agood preparation for speaking is an effective strategy to decrease anxiety andincrease speaking confidence The results also revealed that the freedom of topicchoice urged the participants to feel comfortable, persuaded to speak English amongEFL learners Moreover, listening to English materials frequently such as listening

to music, watching movies, listening to the radio … is also a solution to improvespeaking skill

1.2.2 National studies

I would like to mention the study of Doan Thi Hoang Yen – a student of

Thuongmai University She studied “The factors affecting English speaking competence for the first-year English majored students at Thuongmai University”.

The study is aimed at finding out which factors affecting to English speakingcompetence for freshmen and suggesting solutions to improve their speakingcomprehension After analysis of data from the questionnaires and interviews, shefound that there are many factors that affect the students’ speaking performance.She listed out listening ability, emotions, topical knowledge and linguisticcomponents of language and teacher’s feedback Besides, she suggested someappropriate methods for students and teachers to improve freshmen’s speakingcompetence

In another study, Nguyen Thi Dieu Huyen (2009) examined “How to improve English speaking skill through extra-activities for the first-year English non-major students in Hai Phong Private University” In her thesis, she shows that a majority

of first-year students at HPU have poor English speaking skill and suggests helpfultechniques and activities with the hope to improve their speaking skill However,the study stops at suggestions for teachers and a few simple activities for thestudents Moreover, this study just focused on non- major students so the difficulties

in this study are not particular for every student

All the studies mentioned above are related to speaking skill, the obstacles in

seem to go into detail yet With the attempt to help students improve their English

speaking skill, the study “Difficulties in learning speaking skills encountered by

first-year English majors at Thuongmai University and some suggested solutions” is carried out to find their difficulties in learning speaking skills and

provide suggestions which are believed to be most suitable for them

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study

The research is carried out with the expectation of identifying the difficultiesfacing the first - year English majors at TMU in learning speaking skills In order to

meet the aim, the study focuses on resolving the main question: “What are the difficulties they are facing when speaking English?”

Besides, after analyzing difficulties in learning speaking skills, the researcher will

find the answer for the following question: “How do the first-year English majors solve those difficulties in their speaking?” to help students overcome those

difficulties and learn speaking skills effectively

1.4 Research subject

This study will focus on the difficulties faced by the first - year students (inthe 2020-2024 curriculums) of the English Department at TMU when learningspeaking skill Freshmen of English Department have a total of more than 200students divided into 5 classes: K56N1, K56N2, K56N3, K56N4, and K56N5(about 53 students/ class) However, due to time constraints, I focused on thedifficulties that 106 students of K56N5 and K56N6 classes encounter when learning

to speak English

Freshmen have just passed an important exam and are still unfamiliar with theuniversity environment Furthermore, in high school, they mainly learn aboutgrammar and have little opportunity to practice speaking English Therefore, I thinkthere will be some difficulties for students in learning the speaking skill For thisreason, the researcher would like to conduct this study to find out the difficultiesthat first-year students face in learning speaking skills, thereby finding solutions toimprove those problems

1.5 Scope of the study

In fact, there are lots of various problems related to speaking skill However,this study only focuses on the difficulties in learning the speaking skill of first –yearEnglish majors because of limited time, resources and knowledge For this samereason, the researcher selected only 106 English major freshmen for the survey

1.6 Research methodology

1.6.1 Data collection instruments

In this Graduation Paper, the researcher used a combination of the twofollowing instruments: questionnaire and interview

According Brown (2001, cited in Markey & Gass, 2005), “Questionnaires are any written instruments that present respondents with a series of questions or statements to which they are to react, either by writing out their answers or selecting from among existing answers” Markey & Gass (2005) said that

questionnaire is a useful instrument which allows researchers to gather information

in such a short time For that reason, the author decided to use the questionnaire toaccess information The questionnaire is designed in Vietnamese with 11 questions

so that student can easily choose their answers and ensure they understand exactlywhat the researcher has mentioned

According to C.R.Kothri, the interview instrument collected data related to anoral answer The interview requires the interviewer to ask questions regarding theresearch problem in the form available to collect information The interview aims toincrease the practicality of the questionnaire Therefore, the researcher useinterview instrument to gain a more objective and realistic result The interviewconsists of 3 questions in Vietnamese to help students have a clearer and morespecific understanding, avoiding confusion

1.6.2 Data collection procedures

First of all, I will collect secondary data resources from the previous studies ofmany different authors to identify useful information for my study Then, I willsynthesize and select the suitable factors to use for research

 Questionnaire

Step 1: Design questionnaires based on theories in chapter 2 The content ofthe questionnaire consists of 11 sentences Questionnaire is designed in Vietnamesehelp students understand exactly what they are doing

Step 2: Distribute questionnaires to 106 students of K56N5 and K56N6classes

Step 3: Collect the survey results from students, prepare for data analysis step

Step 3: Conduct an individual interview and record the interview

1.6.3 Data analysis methods

 Questionnaire

The number of questionnaires to be expected is 106, but due to a number ofstudents who refuse to participate, are absent, and inappropriate sheets, only 100sheets are collected.All questionnaires made in Vietnamese are then translated intoEnglish Based on the collected data from questionnaire, I will synthesize them inthe form of tables, percent rate and charts to easily analyze the difficulties theyoften encounter and some solutions are also given to point out

 Interview

After the interview, the researcher based on the interview results to analyze thedata The researcher will listen to the recording and write the transcription for eachquestion The transcription is set for reference The researcher will analyze eachinterview question by statistically the answers

1.7 Organization of the study

The study consists of four main chapters, conclusion, references and appendix

Chapter 1: Overview of the study This chapter is divided into 7 sections,

namely the rationale, the previous studies, the aims of the study, the research

subject, the scope of the study, the research methodology, and the organization ofthe study.

Chapter 2: Literature review This chapter provides an overview of theory

such as the definition of speaking, the importance of speaking and the types ofspeaking Besides, concepts related to difficulties in learning speaking skill andspeaking learning strategies are also given and analyzed

Chapter 3: Research findings Chapter three gives discussions about research

results, analyze data and results through data collected through questionnaire andinterview

Chapter 4: Recommendations and suggestions Chapter four gives some

helpful suggestions to teachers and students to help them develop and improve theappropriate methods for teaching and learning speaking skill

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides an overview of theory such as the definition of speaking, the importance of speaking and the types of speaking Besides, concepts related to difficulties in learning speaking skill and speaking learning strategies are also given and analyzed

2.1 Speaking skill

2.1.1 Definition of speaking skill

After researching, I realize that there are many definitions of speaking skill.According to the Oxford dictionary, speaking is defined as the action ofconveying information or expressing one's thoughts and feelings in spokenlanguage Speaking is words to state and gives ideas and feelings Speaking is ameans for communicating ideas This arranged and develops with the listener’sneed (Webster, 1980)

According to Brown (1994) and Burn & Joyce (1997), speaking is aninteractive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receivingand processing information Chaney (1998, p 13) said that speaking is the process

of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols,

in a variety of contexts

Speaking is a productive language skill It means that speaking is a person’sskills to produce sounds that exist at the meaning and be understood by otherpeople, so that able to create good communication (Siahaan, 2008:95)

Although the above definitions are given by different authors, I find that theyall have the same idea Speaking is a way of expressing emotions, thinking outward

by using meaningful words so that others can understand what you want to express

2.1.2 The importance of speaking skill in modern society

Speaking is one of four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing and is

an important part of learning a foreign or second language According to Ramelan(1992: 13), all human being whenever they live always speak the language,although they do not have any writing system to record their language Thus,speaking is of significant value in mastering a foreign language Communication

helps us to express thoughts, convey information and opinions with people around

us Speaking makes life easier, people can interact more and understand each otherbetter

When talking about the importance of speaking, Bygate (1987: 7) stated that:

“It is the vehicle of social solidarity, of social ranking, of professional advancement and of business” It means that good speaking skills will show the bravery,

intelligence and position of the speaker themselves

Speaking skills are also very important at work An effective speaker canattract other people's attention and direct the conversation according to their desiredpurpose It makes the audience forget everything around and put their completeconcentration on the speech Therefore, speaking skills play a vital role aseverything depends on the way how people communicate their messages withothers This not only helps the speaker to be successful at work but also helps thecompany negotiate smoothly and receive multiple contracts

Regarding students, speaking skills play a very essential role while they are atuniversity English is chosen as one of the graduation criteria not only for Englishmajors but also for non-major students It usually will be 6.5 IELTS or 800+ TOEICfor English majors and 650+ TOEIC for non-major students In addition, there aremany foreign students studying in Vietnam If students are not good at speakingskills, they can’t communicate, get more experience from foreign friends, or work

in a team in particular

2.1.3 The types of speaking

Brown (2004) stated that there are some basic types of speaking as follows:

a Imitative

At one end of a continuum of types of speaking performance is the ability tosimply parrot back (imitate) a word or phrase or possible a sentence While thispurely phonetic level of oral production, a number of prosodic, lexical, andgrammatical properties of language may be included in the criterion performance

b Intensive

The production of short stretches of oral language designed to demonstratecompetence in a narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or phonologicalrelationships

c Responsive

Responsive include interaction and test comprehension but at the somewhatlimited level of very shorts conversations, standard greetings and small 4 talk,simple requests and comments This is a kind of short replies to teacher or student-initiated questions or comments, giving instructions and directions Those repliesare usually sufficient and meaningful

d Interactive

The difference between responsive and interactive speaking is in the lengthand complexity of the interaction, which sometimes includes multiple exchangesand/or multiple participants Interaction can take the two forms of transactionallanguage, which has the purpose of exchanging specific information orinterpersonal exchanges which have the purpose of maintaining social relationship

e Extensive (monologue)

Extensive oral production tasks include speeches, oral representations, andstorytelling, during which the opportunity for oral interaction from listeners is eitherhighly limited (perhaps to nonverbal responses) or ruled out together

As far as I know, students use all of the above types of speaking in theirclassroom studies Students use in discussions, presentations, individual/pairspeaking practice Therefore, the study focused on studying all the above types ofspeaking to show the difficulties faced by students

2.2 Difficulties in learning speaking skill

According to Bueno, Madrid, and Mclaren (2006: 321), “Speaking is one of the most difficult skills language learners have to face Speaking is considered the most important of the four language skills of English Even the learners learn the language for so many years; they find it difficult to speak in real time situations when it is demanded” There are many reasons why speaking English is difficult

and many researchers have also conducted research with related topics to find outthese difficulties According to Mahripah (2014), Elhadi Nasr Elhadi Mustafa

(2015), there are two main factors that make learners difficult in speaking Theseare linguistic factors and psychological factors

2.2.1 Linguistic factors

According to Mahripah (2014), learners are influenced by a number oflinguistic components such as phonology, syntax, vocabulary and semantics Astudy carried out by Juhana (2012) about students’ obstacles in practicing speakingEnglish, shows that the main obstacle faced by students in practicing English istheir ideas easily due to the limitation in the three aspects (vocabulary,pronunciation and grammar)

 Vocabulary

Mahripah (2014) says that vocabulary is one of the essential elements inlearning language in general and speaking in particular According to Willis (1990:42) stated that if we do not know the grammar we can still convey a little butwithout the vocabulary we cannot convey anything In other words, the moreamount of vocabulary you have, the better you will be at communicating Hetrakul

(1995, p.76) also states that “Vocabulary is a component in speaking In speaking English, students need to master a lot of vocabulary, because by mastering many words, they would study way of speaking easily Sometimes, students felt difficult when they were learning because they had limited vocabulary” We need to use and

choose the right vocabulary to convey the message or the desire that the listener canunderstand

Regarding the difficulties in learning vocabulary, Rohmatillah (2017) pointedout several problems such as pronouncing and spelling words (written and spokenforms do not match most of the time), choosing appropriate meanings of words(complexity of vocabulary knowledge), inflections of word forms and the lack ofwords

 Grammar

According to Opele's statement (2009), he said that grammar provide studentswith the structure they need in order to organize and put their messages and ideasacross Therefore, for foreign language learners in general and English speakinglearners in particular, grammar is a necessary part and also a difficult part that theyhave to face because some people speak quite arbitrarily and have a lot of wronggrammar, even basic errors in speaking

According to the surface structure taxonomy of Dulay, Burt, and Krashen(1982 cited in Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005), the common grammar errors of students

in speaking English are divided into four categories Those categories are:

Addition is indicated by the presence of an ‘unwanted’ item in sentences Thishappens when the learners overuse certain grammatical rules of the target language.E.g John didn’t to come (Correction: John didn’t come)

Omission is when a learner is leaving off necessary items that must emerge in

a well-performed utterance E.g John new student (Correction: John is a newstudent)

Misformation is indicated by the use of wrong forms of certain morphemes orstructures E.g Me don’t like (Correction: I don’t like)

Misordering is indicated by the incorrect placement of certain morphemes.E.g She fights all the time her brother (Correction: She fights her brother all thetime)

James (1998) suggested one category is added: Blends occurs when two ormore morphemes that have the same function appear in a sentence E.g The onlyone thing I want (Correction: The only thing I want)

 Pronunciation

Mahripah (2014) said that phonology is a difficult aspect of language learningfor learners According to Thornbury (2005), it is defined that pronunciation is theability of each person to create an easy-to-understand way of speaking in response

to requirements

According to Mohammed Abdulgalil Abugohar (2018), he listed three factorsthat make it difficult for students to pronounce First, pronouncing specific soundssuch as syllabic sounds as in (bottom, people, unbelievable), /ʒ/ as in (pleasure), and/ŋ/ as in (sing, singer) Second, stress and intonation are considered as the secondfactor Last, difficulty with liaison was deemed a challenge for EFL speakers.Kenworthy (1987:4-8) also stated some factors affecting pronunciation such asnative language, age, exposure, phonetic ability…

2.2.2 Psychological factors

According to Elhadi Nasr Elhadi Mustafa (2015), psychological factors are thebiggest factor in the learning process There are a number of affective elements thatcontributes to second language acquisition In particular, the three mainpsychological factors that cause difficulty learning speaking skills are anxiety, lack

of motivation and lack of confidence

 Lack of confidence

He and Chen (2010) stated the main cause of students' lack of confidence istheir low ability in speaking English According to Brown (2001), the other cause ofstudents' lack of confidence also deals with the lack of encouragement from theteacher Unconfident people are easily affected by external factors and they easilygenerate the mentality that they cannot speak English even though their speakingability is quite good

 Anxiety

Speech therapist Margaretha Lanerfeldt (1992, p.53-54) said that the anxiety

of having to talk affects a person's confidence because anxiety makes the speakernervous and can easily forget what they want to say Besides, Horwirtz (1986) alsostated that students seemed to be fairly comfortable responding to a drill ordelivering prepared speeches in foreign language class but they tended to “freeze”

in a role-play situation Most of anxious students are afraid of being evaluatednegatively and to be less competent than the other students

Regarding the causes of anxiety, Cope (2007) cited Horwitz (1986) that thereare three main cause of students’ anxiety: the low ability to communicate in thetarget language, test anxiety and the fear of negative evaluation Besides, the fear ofmistakes is one of the factors that made students nervous to speak English.According to Aftat (2008), this fear comes from the problem of corrections andnegative reviews Besides, the fear of being laughed at, criticized by teachers Welearn lessons from mistakes but students fear that they look stupid in front of othersand are afraid of them judging us

 Lack of motivation

Motivation can influence and be influenced by the components of languagelearning It can push someone to complete a course of work and is also a passion to

do something Therefore, motivation plays a very important role in language

learning Littlewood (1984, p.53) say that “Motivation is the crucial force which determines whether a learner embarks in a task at all, how much energy he devotes

to it, and how long he preservers”

According to Ortega (2009), motivation is what students want in a language Thedesire is not enough to start learning; they need to prepare efforts to achieve theirgoals In fact, if learners have an unfriendly attitude towards learning English, theyjust learn English because it is compulsory All of these things make you less good

at English, no interest in English Without positive attitudes towards the speakingperformance, the aim of speaking will not be obtainable for learners Littlewood

(1981) also stated that “The development of communicative skills can only take place if learners have the motivation and opportunity to express their own identity and relate with the people around them”.

With respect to the causes of lack of motivation, Gardner in Nunan (1999)elaborates the causes of the students’ lack of motivation e.g uninspired teaching,boring learning atmosphere, lack of perceived relevance of materials and lack ofknowledge about the goals of the instructional program

2.3 Speaking learning strategies

Speaking strategies are referred to as “communicative strategies, communication strategies, conversation skills or oral communication strategies, used by students to solve any communication problem when speaking in English”

(Lopéz, 2011, p 3) According to Hedge (2000, p.52), a competent speaker knows

how to make use of speaking strategies, which “come into play when learners are unable to express what they want to say because they lack the resources to do so successfully”.

Oxford (1990) claimed that 46 out of 62 strategies from whole strategytaxonomy are useful for the learning of speaking The strategies are summarized in

5 Formally practicing with sounds and writing systems

6 Recognizing and using formulas and patterns

15 Using mime or gesture

16 Avoiding communication partially or totally

17 Selecting the topic

18 Adjusting or approximating the message

19 Coining words

20 Using a circumlocution or synonym

21 Overviewing and linking with already known material

Metacognitive

22 Paying attention

23 Delaying speech production to focus on listening

24 Finding out about language learning

25 Organizing

26 Setting goals and objectives

27 Identifying the purpose of a language task

28 Planning for a language task

29 Seeking practice opportunities

35 Making positive statements

36 Taking risks wisely

37 Rewarding yourself

38 Listening to your body

39 Using a checklist

40 Writing a language learning diary

41 Discussing your feelings with someone else

43 Cooperating with peers

44 Cooperating with proficient users of the new language

45 Developing cultural understanding

46 Becoming aware of others’ thoughts and feelings

Table 2.1 Language learning strategies useful for speaking skills

(Source Oxford 1990)

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH FINDINGS

Chapter three gives discussions about research results, analyze data and results through data collected through questionnaire and interview.

3.1 Data analysis

The research was done with 100 first years English majors first year at TMU.Most of them have been studying English for at least 7 years so they have a certainbackground in English However, they learn mainly English grammar to meet theuniversity entrance exam requirements, so learning speaking skills is quite new and

a challenge for them I distributed the questionnaire sheets and conducted interviewthose students in order to investigate the difficulties facing the learning of Englishspeaking skills of the first year students at TMU

3.1.1 Results from questionnaire

3.1.1.1 Actual situation of English speaking of major students

Fairly importantVery important

Chart 3.1 The importance of speaking skill

58% of the students believe that speaking skill is very important to them; 25%

of them say that it is fairly important while the figure considering it important isquite equivalent, which takes 17%, and there is no student denies role of Englishspeaking skill

b The students’ assessment of speaking skill

Question: In your opinion, English speaking skill is………?

Chart 3.2 The students’ assessment of speaking skill

We can see clearly in the chart that the speaking skill is a difficult skill tolearn 51% of the students suppose that speaking is difficult For the students,speaking English and learning this skill is really a problem Moreover, the number

of students who suppose that learning speaking skill is very difficult took 27% It isthe same as the number of the students who think learning speaking normal (18%)

or easy (4%) In fact, as what can be seen in the chart, the students who confirm that

it is easy to learn the speaking skill are the best students

c The real situation of students practicing speaking English in class

Question: What activity you often do when teachers assign tasks for practicingspeaking?

Others Talk with your friends

Sleep Keep silent and observe

Chart 3.3 The real situation of students practicing speaking English in class

Chart 3.3 shows that 51% of students actively participate in English speakingpractice activities On the contrary, some other students (47%) often keep silent andonly observe people practice speaking This may be because they feel a lack ofconfidence and dare not speak English in class Besides, there are still quite a fewstudents working separately during speaking practice such as talk with friends(27%) and sleep (11%) although the majority of students understand the importance

of speaking skills as well as the difficulty of this skill

a Students’ evaluation on the linguistics factor in practicing English speaking skills

Difficulties

Frequency

Percentages (%) Percentages (%) Percentages (%)

Table 3.4 Difficulties related to linguistics

 Students’ assessment on the influence of pronunciation

English pronunciation is quite difficult if we don't learn exactly from thebeginning We can see in the table 3.4, it can be assumed that 20%, 25% and 29%

of the students usually and often have difficulty Meanwhile, the percentages ofstudents who rarely make pronunciation mistakes is 16% and 10% of students have

no pronunciation problems.In order to analyze more about the reason why studentshave difficulty with pronunciation, the researcher comes up with a question below.Question: What difficulty do you have in English pronunciation?

Di

culty

with liaison

Influ

ence

of native

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Chart 3.5 Students’ assessment on the influence of pronunciation

From the results of the chart above, I find that the most mistakes are influence

of native language, accounting for 56% Some people tend to speak English based

on Vietnamese vocabulary to remember more easily, but this causes seriousconsequences if you do not give up this habit It makes your English speakingbecome Vietnamese-English and no longer like English Next is that don’t knowhow to correctly pronounce (45%) Difficulty with liaison accounts for 30% and notpay attention to ending sound is 24%.

 Students’ assessment on the influence of vocabulary

 Vocabulary plays an important role in learning English Therefore, inspeaking English, the vocabulary is like a component to make a statement The table3.4 shows that 38% of the students feel that they always have problems withvocabulary In addition, the percentage of students who feel that they often andsometimes make mistakes in vocabulary is 25% and 14%, respectively The number

of students rarely and never has difficulty with vocabulary is quite low I surveyedseveral reasons for students to rethink why the vocabulary hindered their Englishspeaking

Question: What problems do you encounter when learning Englishvocabulary?

Table 3.6 Students’ assessment on the influence of vocabulary

Based on the table above, we can see that the biggest reason why studentshave difficulty learning English is because of the lack of vocabulary The number ofstudents choosing this reason accounts for 87% This shows that students have notpaid attention to improve and improve their vocabulary In contrast to the lack ofvocabulary, it is the study of so many vocabularies that students find it difficult tochoose appropriate words for each context This reason is 62% Adding words toimprove vocabulary is a good thing, but the fact that students do not know how touse it will make it difficult to speak English Confused word form and other factorsaccounted for 51%, 31% and 2%, respectively

Grammar is an indispensable element when you speak English There aremany views that, when speaking English, grammar is not important This may betrue if you don't mistake too much for grammar According to chart 3.4, there are15% of the students who said that they always have difficulty with grammar Inother words, there are 15 English-majored students who always have difficultiesusing grammar when speaking In addition, the chart shows that 32% of the studentsrarely have difficulty with grammar and have the highest percentage And 25% ofthe students sometimes make grammatical mistakes.

Question: What difficulty does grammar make for you in learning speakingEnglish?

Chart 3.7 Students’ assessment on the influence of grammar

According to the results from the chart above, we can see that missingelements in the sentence (verbs, articles, prepositions….) is a quite large proportion

of 50% Excessing elements in the sentence (preposition, article ) is the secondfactor with 44% Arranging wrong sentences accounted for 31%, choose from thewrong type accounted for 16% Use two or more words with the same function in asentence and other factors, respectively 15% and 1%

b Students’ evaluation on the psychological factor in practicing English speaking skills