THE FACTORS AFFECTING EFL COLLEGE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING FLUENCY

1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN MINH THIEN THE FACTORS AFFECTING EFL COLLEGE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING FLUENCY Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60 14 01 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR A/Prof Ngo Dinh Phuong Nghe An, 2017 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis, entitled “The factors affecting EFL college students’ speaking fluency” Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis does not contain material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis Vinh City, August 2017 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The researcher would like to extend his deepest gratitude and immeasurable joy to those who guided and supported him during the accomplishment of this research Vinh University for the olden days and for providing programs for the graduate students; and Long An University of Economics and Industry for the important endorsement to participate in the program; Prof Dinh Xuan Khoa, Vinh University’s President, for his dedicated leadership in this university; A/Prof, Dr Ngo Dinh Phuong, Vinh University’s Vice-President, his supervisor, for the generosity, great help, advice and motivation to fulfill this undertaking and guidance from the earliest stage of the conduct of this research; Dr Tran Ba Tien, the former Dean of Foreign Language Education for his valued assistance and unceasing moral support in the completion of this work and for the additional professional growth and quality education; The defense panel members for their expertise, patience shared and for notable suggestions for the improvement of this study; To his colleagues, friends and relatives for their moral support despite the pressure of work, more so for their prayers and encouragement; The researcher’s family, for their full moral and financial support and everlasting love NGUYEN MINH THIEN (TOMMY) ABSTRACT This study was conducted to determine the factors affecting EFL college students’ speaking fluency of the third year English major students at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Dong Nai University of Technology, Vietnam during the second academic school year 2016 – 2017 Descriptive in nature, five (5) questions were posited in this study utilizing mean, standard deviation, and Pearson r with the some findings The respondents of the study were forty five third year English major students from Faculty of Foreign Languages and ten teachers who were teaching English at in there, Dong Nai University of Technology (DNTU) For teachers, in the study, or 60% of the teachers are male while or 40% are female For the students, the student variables include self-mmotivation, perception of the English Language, and the English learning environment The findings focus on the teacher variables such as motivation, teaching methods and techniques, use of teaching aids, and the difficulties encountered in teaching speaking The student variables include self-motivation, perceptions on the English language learning and the learning environment, and the speaking proficiency in terms of prosody, fluency, accuracy, grammatical features, and pronunciation CONTENTS Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction At the present, the fluency of speaking a foreign language represents one of the essential requirements of today´s society Besides other skills and knowledge, it is considered as one of the most influencing factors while applying for a job or sustaining in a particular work position under the condition of advancing the language level Based on the work experience, it can be confirmed that knowing a foreign language is a necessity for everyone in general, mainly for the students with the main major in English These people are required to reach a sufficient level in a foreign language in order to teach English for their future generations or to find a good for them Teaching foreign languages, mainly English, for these teaching purposes is provided by the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Dong Nai University of Technology (DNTU) where the researcher has been working as an English teacher for almost two years The principal goal is to provide the students with efficient English lessons as possible because it will be them who will have to deal with international relationships and take measures for solving various situations in teaching as well as other fields related to English Therefore, many foreign language learners study a foreign language such as English wishing to become fluent and accurate, including using a range of sophisticated structures and vocabulary Yet second language acquisition (SLA) specialists are still unsure of what makes up the myriad factors that contribute to second language (L2) fluency To establish a baseline view of the complex interactions amongst traits, the researchers (Iwashita, Brown, McNamara, & O’Hagan, 2008; Adam, 1980) focused on four key traits: prosody, fluency, accuracy, and grammatical features However, measures for these four traits vary from study to study, as the diverse definitions of traits used by different researchers An additional problem is that most investigations have concerned the acquisition of English Because of this, it is not clear to what extent research findings from English may be applicable to languages which are typologically distant from English According to Chaney (1998), English spoken language 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 crucial part of learning and teaching language Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should be to improve students' communicative skills so that they can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance People live in the global world in which English language has rapidly become an international language To meet this requirement, English has been taught almost everywhere in Vietnam, especially in schools, colleges, universities Of course, English is a compulsory subject For Vietnamese students, learning English is becoming the utmost concern of them However, how to speak English well is a problem for many learners of English, especially for the students of colleges and universities Despite the fact that most of the students have been learning English since they were at secondary or high school, they were deficient in English spoken language fluency As an English lecturer of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Dong Nai University of Technology, Vietnam, based from observations and teaching experiences, it has been seen that during the speaking lesson classroom interaction is restricted Only some students get involved in the activities conducted by the teacher while others keep silence or other things To find the answer to this question it is necessary to investigate what teacher motivation and students perception in English learning in general and in speaking in particular Many teachers and researchers now believe that motivation is one of the most important factors that determine the rate and success of L2 attainment It provides the primary impetus to initiate learning the L2 and later the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning process Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals, and there are no appropriate curricula and good teaching to ensure student achievement 1.2 Rationale of the Study In Vietnam, according to the plan 2020 of Ministry of Education and Training about the using English in Vietnam in 2020, all universities and colleges are forced to set up English as a compulsory subject for all students to graduate English abilities of students are evaluated during the academic study Especially, all schools focus on listening and speaking Then, students can use proficiently English to communicate together after graduation The requirement is mandated by the law in the development of the nation’s human resources through the advancement of knowledge to attain national progress In realizing these very important mandates, English becomes the most important subject for students However, speaking is difficult to develop among English as a Foreign Language learners It takes them lots of time practicing if they want to be skilful in it Sometimes the learners understand clearly the information they heard, but can not react to them, or, make the responses not understandable to the listeners This can be explained by the deficiency of speaking skill What are the reasons for these problems? It mainly because of some factor regarding to practice since “Practice makes perfect” For most people, the ability to speak a foreign language is synonymous with knowing that language because speech is for them the basic means of human communication English learners no longer expect the traditional approach of their teachers based on developing mainly the grammatical competence and using methodology popular in the past Today, teachers are expected to provide their students with useful active knowledge of the foreign language, not just theory about the language In Vietnam, this problem is even more serious Aside from the term of practicing, Vietnamese students always have to face with many other difficulties in speaking English Producing spoken language has often meant a difficulty and an obstacle for English learners There might arise a question why The answer is obvious In the natural spoken language students are required to be aware of characteristics of prosody, fluency, accuracy and grammatical features All of these have to be taken into consideration while practising speaking in class Without these, our spoken language would sound bookish and unnatural To avoid this, it is essential to introduce and practise “real” communication with the students within the learning process If it is neglected, it may be a reason why students are often shocked and disappointed when using a foreign language for the first time whilst interacting in foreign environment They have not been prepared for spontaneous communication and could not cope with all of its simultaneous demands Speaking English is difficult for foreign language learners because effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interactions Generally in Viet Nam, English has been teaching as a foreign language Reading and writing are given top priorities in the General Education Certificate (GEC) exam that is the most important written exam that evaluates the learners’ competence Speaking and listening are completely ignorable in teaching language for other serious reasons such as: lack of competent teachers, poor teaching material or no need for speaking skill 10 in the end – term tests and even in the GED exam Moreover, teachers often pay greater attention to lecture approach and forget how students can obtain it Therefore, most of students prefer working independently in analyzing, mastering exercises and taking part in activities They learn in passive way with a lot of imitation from given sample They prefer reading, writing and learning grammar because teachers focus more on them Vietnamese students are often shy and lack confidence when speaking in front of the crowd They seldom use foreign language in daily conversations English words are used as shortened responses in conversations Apparently, accuracy and fluency are both missing in the students’ use of spoken English Dong Nai Province where the researcher lives and works is located in the South of Viet Nam It is an industrial center of the South of Vietnam Therefore, there are a lot of foreign companies investing in the province Then, English is more necessary when working in the province In Dong Nai, there are five famous universities, about colleges and vocational colleges Especially in Dong Nai University of technology, there are total eight faculties with a certain major English has been teaching for all students as a compulsory subject for graduation In particular, there are about two hundred students who are learning English as a main major under the curriculum of faculty of foreign languages In the sum of these students, there are about forty five English major students who are studying as third year students Although the teaching facilities and method have been upgraded regularly, many students cannot speak English fluently As being known, when teaching English in the university, teachers not use English frequently and effectively In class, students tend to talk in Vietnamese in group work activities In speaking activities, students not have equal opportunities to participate The more proficient students have many chances to speak than the less proficient 63 Hoang TrungAnh (2000) How to manage with shyness in speaking of 10 th grade students Unpublished Master’s thesis, Foreign Languages University, Hanoi Jeremy Harmer (2005) How to teach English Longman Publish House America John (2001) Speaking skill and its relation with others New York Publication New York John Rosenwald (2000) Why are you shy?, Hanoi Newspaper, Hanoi, July, 2000 Johnson, Allen (2006) The Relationship Between Native speaker of Non-Native Pronunciation Koponen, M., &Riggenbach, H (2010) Overview: Varying Perspectives on Fluency In H Riggenbach (Ed.), Perspectives on Fluency (5-24) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press Kormos, Judith (2004) Exploring Measures and Perceptions of Accuracy in the Speech of Second Language Learners Luk, Gigi (2010) Effects on Language Fluency and Executive Control and Verbal Fluency Performance in Bilinguals McNamara, Tim (1996) Measuring second language performance London: Longman Nunan, D (1989) Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom New York: Cambridge University Press Nunan, D (1996) Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Ngo Hoang Nam (2002).Word stress- an obstacle for Vietnamese students Unpublished Master’s thesis, Foreign Languages University, Hanoi 64 Nhung, Nguyen Mai, (2003) Motivation and factors affecting motivation in learning English writing of the freshmen at the Department of English and Anglo-American Culture, VNU-CFL Unpublished M.A Thesis Nguyen Hoang Anh (2001) How to improve speaking skill Youth Publish House Hanoi Ong, Linda (2012) How to Improve youe English Pronunciation: Tips to Talk like a Native Perani, Pamela (2003) The Role of Age of Acquisition and Language Usage in Early High-Proficient Bilinguals: A Study During Verbal Fluency Schmidt, R (1995) Consciousness and foreign language learning: A tutorial on the role of attention and awareness in learning In R.Schmidt (Ed.), Attention and awareness in foreign language learning (pp 1-65).Manoa: University of Hawaii Press Skehan, P (1998) A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning Oxford University Press Stenhauer, Karsten (2011) Brain Signatures of Artificial Language Processing: Evidence Challenging the Critical Period Hypothesis Theodore V Higgs (Ed.) Curriculum, competence, and the foreign language teacher (pp 57–79) Lincolnwood, IL: National Textbook Company Ur, P (2006) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and theory (13 th Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 65 APPENDIX A DEFINITION OF TERMS Accuracy and precision are defined in terms of systematic and random errors Accuracy depends on how the data is collected, and is usually judged by comparing several measurements from the same or different sources Audio Visual Rooms.is the library room holds mainly music CDs, LDs, VCDs, DVDs, Slides, audio tapes, video tapes, microform's materials and maps used for teaching, self-learning or entertainment The faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of the university are free to use the collections in house, but only allowed to borrow the A-V materials by faculty, staff and students Books are a set of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of ink, paper, parchment, or other materials, fastened together to hinge at one side A single sheet within a book is a leaf, and each side of a leaf is a page A set of text-filled or illustrated pages produced in electronic format is known as an electronic book, or e-book Books may also refer to works of literature, or a main division of such a work In library and information science, a book is called a monograph, to distinguish it from serial periodicals such as magazines, journals, or newspapers The body of all written works including books is literature In novels and sometimes other types of books (for example, biographies), a book may be divided into several large sections, also called books (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, and so on) An avid reader of books is a bibliophile or colloquially, bookworm Exposure to English Environment is define various concepts that are key ideas include principles on the acquisition of language outside of a learning environment, and how this innate ability to acquire could be utilized within the classroom from a motivational perspective 66 Fluency.is a speech language pathology term that means the smoothness or flow with which sounds, syllables, words and phrases are joined together when speaking quickly "Fluency disorders" is used as a collective term for cluttering and stuttering Grammatical Features offered here are an attempt to put the notion of linguistic 'feature' on a sounder empirical and conceptual base It aims to provide evidence for the diverse content of features in the world's languages, as well as discuss some of their formal properties, particularly in morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure) Motivation to Students Motivation to students is that the teachers encourage students to prepare for class, and to allow the instructor to fine-tune the classroom activities to best meet students’ needs Perception of the English Language Perception of the English Language is the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted English There may be little correlation between degrees of learning in perception and production after training in perception, due to the wide range of individual variation in learning strategies Perceived Barrier in Learning English Each year thousands of students with limited English fluency enter schools around the world This enrollment brings the challenge of meeting students’ educational needs in such a way that students gain a working knowledge of the English language and are able to use that knowledge in other academic and social settings The process of learning English as a second or third language puts challenges in front of the student, including varied levels of anxiety in particular learning situations as well as how to individually cope with learning the language Perceived Difficulties in Teaching Speaking There are some problems in teaching speaking The problems come from internal and external Internal 67 problems are native language, age, exposure, innate phonetic ability, identity and language ego, and motivation and concern for good speaking An external problem is institutional context that puts English as second or foreign language in a nation Prosody (linguistics).is the characteristics of speech style In linguistics, prosody is concerned with those elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech These contribute to linguistic functions such as intonation, tone, stress, and rhythm Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance (statement, question, or command); the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of language that may not be encoded by grammar or by choice of vocabulary Pronunciation.is the way a word or a language is spoken or the manner in which someone utters a word If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect Self-Motivation Self-motivation is, in its simplest form, the force that drives you to things Self-motivation is ability to what needs to be done, without influence from other people or situations People with self-motivation can find a reason and strength to complete a task, even when challenging, without giving up or needing another to encourage them Speech laboratory can be an excellent means to give young people practice in public speaking, listening, and note-taking, as well as a host of other skills It maximized the student’s ability to communicate effectively Through various trainings and activities, members of this club will improve in all aspects especially in social, intellectual, and emotional part Students’ Spoken Language Fluency 68 Semantic prosody is a reader/hearer expects a word to be associated with following words of positive or negative meaning (based on collocation) Teaching Method/Technique Teaching method or technique is the process of teaching by giving spoken explanations of the subject that is to be learned A teaching method comprises the principles and methods used for instruction lecturing is often accompanied by visual aids to help students visualize an object or problem 69 APPENDIX B SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES (For teachers) This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into the factors related to English spoken fluency of the third year English-major student’s Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated All the information provided by you is solely for the study purpose, and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Thank you very much for your cooperation Nguyen Minh Thien (TOMMY) –Lecturer in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Dong Nai University of Technology, Dong Nai province, Vietnam I Personal information Gender Age Male Female 24 to 35 years old Over 35 years old Years of Experience 1 to 10 years Over 10 years old Years of expericence English teaching about speaking skill From to 10 years old Over 10 years old Your gender Your age Years of expericence English teaching Years of expericence English teaching about 70 speaking skill II Your opinions on teaching English speaking and how to motivate students Legend: Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never 1 How often you motivate students in a speaking lesson in the following states? the warm-up state pre-speaking while-speaking post-speaking How often you usually use the following activities in your speaking class? Individual work Pair work Group work Do you often use these teaching aids to motivate your students? Pictures Slide projectors Cassette Boards Games Music How often you use the following techniques to motivate your students to speak? Creating a competitive atmosphere Combining text books and relevant materials Giving feedback regularly Giving rewards and punishment Giving classroom tests Taking students to visit tourist destinations 71 Providing students with vocabulary and structures to be used for the speaking tasks Brain storming ideas or making outline for the speaking the speaking tasks Interrupting students to correct mistakes Applying role play Do you often have any difficulties in teaching English speaking for rd English - major students? Students are lack motivation in learning speaking skills Students are lazy in pair work and group work Students have low English fluency Students’ participation is not equal The class is crowded You are lack of training in teaching speaking skill You not have enough time to carry all the activities -THANK YOU - 72 73 APPENDIX C SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES (For students) This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into the factors related to English spoken fluency of the third year English-major student’s Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated All the information provided by you is solely for the study purpose, and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Thank you very much for your cooperation Nguyen Minh Thien (TOMMY) –Lecturer in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Dong Nai University of Technology, Dong Nai province, Vietnam I Personal information Gender Age Male Female 24 to 35 years old Over 35 years old Years of Experience 1 to 10 years Over 10 years old Years of expericence English teaching about speaking skill From to 10 years old Over 10 years old Your gender Your age Years of expericence English teaching Years of expericence English teaching 74 about speaking skill Pleas tick () to evaluate the importance of factors in English spoken fluency Legend: Most important Very important Important Less important Not important Prosody Fluency Accuracy Grammatical Features Pronunciation Do you often have difficulties in leaning English speaking ? Legend: Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never Prosody Fluency Accuracy Grammatical Features Pronunciation Speaking mistakes Bad speaking topics Boring speaking activities in class Crowded and noisy class Less time to practice speaking activities in class 75 During your leaning English speaking, are these activities often used by your teacher to motivate your learning and what are your evaluation? Legend: Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never Role play Discussion Explanation about structures and vocabularies Making conversation in pair Practicing by yourself after class Correction about your intonation, grammar Games Correction about your pronunciation Teacher’s using English in class Teacher’s using Vietnamese to explain Teacher’s encourgement abour your achievement Teacher’s using interactive tools Outdoor activities Do the teachersoften make you uninteresting in leaning English speaking in the following factors? Legend: Always Often Sometimes Rarely 76 Never Teacher’s unenthusiasm Being uncomfortable and stressful Crowded Boring topics Your unhelpfulness in speaking English Difficulties in learning speaking Your disadvantages in speaking English Having no effective methods in learning English speaking Boring speaking activities, exercises, etc Having more information or idea in speaking English Having no purpose in learning English Limited learning in English speaking Lack of vocabularies Your opinions about your speaking topics in your third year major learning Legend: Very like Like Little like Dislike No concern Vietnam geography Vietnam history Vietnam animals and plants 77 Buddhism in Vietnam Vietnam pagodas Vietnam festivals Vietnam handicraft villages Customs and habits of VN Museums Vietnamese foods ... AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis, entitled ? ?The factors affecting EFL college students’ speaking fluency? ?? Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis does not contain... determine the factors affecting EFL college students’ speaking fluency of the third year English major students at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Dong Nai University of Technology, Vietnam during the. .. of the study Given the background together with its gap as identified and presented above, the researcher would like to conduct a study on ? ?Factors affecting EFL College Students’ Speaking Fluency? ??