USING MINIMAL RESPONSES TO IMPROVE EFL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY TRAN THI NGAN USING MINIMAL RESPONSES TO IMPROVE EFL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Nghe An, 2017 J MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60140111 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: Dr Tran Thi Ngoc Yen Nghe An, 2017 [ Ì1 if First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr Tran Thi Ngoc Yen, who directly supported and encouraged me during the preparation of this study I am truly grateful to her for her professional advice, invaluable support and guidance she offered to help me carry out the study I would also like to thank to the students of the two classes I worked with in order to gather data for my study I am also indebted to my friends for proofreading the first draft of the thesis Last but not least, I would like to express my special heartfelt appreciation to my parents without whose unceasing support, patience and understanding I could not have been able to complete my study ABSTRACT The main goal in this study is to find out if using minimal responses has any effect on EFL learners’ speaking ability In order to achieve the mentioned goal, a study was carried out among forty 10th graders 10 at a high school in Ha Tinh province The participants were divided into two groups, each of which had 20 students One served the control group and the other treatment group Before the treatment, all participants did a general English test Then both groups were asked to sit the pre-test before participating in the speaking sessions A post-test was administered after the treatment to measure the participant’s speaking fluency and accuracy The collected data were analyzed in terms of fluency (number of words per minute) and accuracy (number of errors per 100 words) The data indicated that the students’ speaking fluency and accuracy improved to a great extent than that of the control group Based on the findings, some implications for teaching English speaking were proposed Limitations of the study were also pointed out and further research was suggested Page Table 4.14 Means and standard deviations of error in the first session and the last This chapter consists of the following five parts which offer a general outline of the study: rationale, the aims and objectives, research questions, scopes and design of the study 1.1 Rationale Nowadays, the tendency of globalization has brought about a great demand of intercommunicating In order to meet this demand, English has become an international language for global communication and a compulsory subject at schools As a result, in Vietnam, in recently years, English has been most widely taught from primary schools to universities in both private enterprises and state offices In addition, it has become even more important because the students have to take English exams Therefore, they are required to acquire various skills and language items In the light of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), students are required not only to have a good grammatical competence, but also welldeveloped language skills, especially for speaking skill In any second language teaching and learning, speaking is always believed to be the most vital skill Consequently, improving speaking skill is very important and necessary to students, even for their exams This will help them to have a good job in their future and enable them to communicate with foreigners successfully However, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking in particular does not come up to the study aims Although at many high schools all the teachers have been trying their best to provide language learners with opportunities to develop their communicative skills, they cannot speak English fluently and accurately It is mostly seen that in Vietnam learners still lack confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral interaction After five years teaching, I see that most of my students cannot speak English fluently and accurately in a meaningful way They have a lot of problems during speaking skill periods or oral tests The students are afraid of speaking or they not want to express their ideas, and they often listen in silence while others the talking The teachers find it difficult to motivate students This condition demands teachers to find the best way to improve students’ language speaking ability With a good speaking skill, he or she is able to show his or her ideas more easily Leaners can communicate naturally Therefore, the author has decided to conduct the study entitled “ Using minimal responses to improve EFL high school students' speaking ability” with the hope teachers to help their learners get out of the always silent moment in class, and thereby, improve their speaking ability 1.2 Aims of the study The study was conducted with the aims to investigate the effect of minimal responses 1.3 Research questions This research was set out to seek the following questions: How does the use of minimal responses affect EFL high school students’ speaking accuracy? How does the use of minimal responses affect EFL high school students’ speaking fluency? 1.4 Scope of study This study limits itself to investigating the use of minimal responses in improving EFL students’ speaking ability at a moutainous high school in Ha Tinh It dealt with the use of minimal responses to improve EFL high school students’ speaking accuracy and fluency 1.5 Organization of the thesis The thesis is consisted of five chapters Chapter 1: The Introduction is a brief overview of the study with more details of rationale, aims, research questions, scope of study as well as design of the study Chapter 2: Literature review This chapter presents the theoretical background of the research which contains four main issues: speaking ability, assessing speaking ability, teaching speaking to EFL learners and minimal responses in language teaching Chapter 3: Methodology In this chapter, the focus will be on background information of the subject of the study, the instruments used to collect data and the procedure of data collection Chapter 4: Findings and discussion This chapter presents a description of data analysis and discussions Chapter 5: Conclusion The focus is devoted to the summary of the findings and some suggested pedagogical recommendations to help teachers and students in upper secondary schools to overcome difficulties in learning and teaching English pronunciation This chapter also provides the limitations of the study as well as some recommendations for further study 2.1 Speaking ability It discusses the definition of speaking, the nature of speaking, the function of speaking, the aspect of speaking ability, and macro and micro skill of speaking ability 2.1.1 Definition It has long been recognized that speaking skill is very important in learning a language, since the success of using a language especially second and foreign language in real life situation can be measured through speaking For example, someone can be told that he or she is capable of speaking English if he or she is able to show his or her English by practicing it through speaking Finochiaro in Sukrianto (1974, p 22) claimed that speaking is a real language, which means that the capability to communicate in a language that can be shown through the skill of speaking The skill of speaking refers to the students’ ability to express mind or feeling orally One function of speaking is to communicate ideas in situation where the other person is listening to words and can be in front of the speaker, looking at the gesture and facial expression In other words, we can say that speaking is the skill or capability to deliver messages directly speaking skill Based on the result of the experiment, we could find that the fluency for the participants had some positive changes It means that the minimal responses were useful for EFL learners through the different comparisons of number of words per minute and number for both groups Firstly, the comparison between the pre test and the post test of both groups Secondly, the average total wpm of sessions was made Thirdly, the comparison between first session wpm and the last session wpm was also completed The last, the comparison between the second half session wpm and the first half session wpm was made First of all, these results indicated that the participants in the treatment group have demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in the number of words from the pre test to post test Next to the results of the comparison between the average total wpm of sessions presented that the experimental speakers increase higher than the control speakers In other words, the mean of the experimental group was found to be higher than that of the control one In addition, the median of the experimental group was higher than the control group These results indicated that using minimal responses will help the speakers with the fluency development Before doing the treatment I had a general test of English for students of two groups which made them have mean total wpm seemed to be equal However, after the treatment period, the difference between two groups was greatly different For experimental group, the participants made increase considerably For the control group, the participants made increase but it was not considerable Even some participants made no improvement or had negative results This means that when comparing the first lesson wpm with the last session score, the data showed that the participants who received the treatment made greater improvement in oral proficiency while over a half of the participants who did not receive treatment made less improvement and the second half kept the same level or had a negative result In addition, the data from the comparison between the second half of the course and the first half of the course showed that for the experimental group, most participants made slight increase in the four initial sessions’ s wpm and reached their 1 highest increase in the final sessions For the control group, most participants made no improvement in the course Therefore, it can be clear that for the participants of the experimental group, they had an improvement thanks minimal responses In conclusion, the experiment showed that the speaking fluency is increased 4.2.2 The effects of minimal responses technique on EFL learners’ speaking accuracy The experiment also found that participants’ speaking accuracy constantly increased during the course This was done by the comparison between the average total error of pre-speaking test and post-speaking test for both groups It showed that the number errors per 100 words of experimental group’s speakers got smaller than those of the control group’s speakers The means and the standard deviations of the two groups were compared From the result of that comparison we can see that the performance of the experimental group was better the control group In other words, the numbers of errors 100 words of the treatment group decrease greatly while the number of errors of control group also reduced but it is not considerable From the results above, we can see that the result of speaking accuracy of the experiment group does make a great higher than the control group’s one In brief, most EFL learners’ errors are improved after this research period The errors in speaking decreased because the minimal responses let speakers know that they have been heard and also encourage them to continue speaking CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of findings Speaking skill is a significant part of foreign language learning The ability to communicate in a second language fluently and accurately contributes to the success of the learner in school as well as in life It is not many students are lack of confidences in speaking English with reasons Therefore, the writer of this study implemented using minimal responses in speaking ability to EFL students to improve students’ speaking competence The study was carried out among 40 students at grade 10 th at Ham Nghi high school From the treatment through the tests, it can be seen that there was a 1 statistically significant difference in means score and standard deviations of the eight tests for both groups From the general test score, the participants had started at the same level This means that the participants who use minimal responses made more significant improvement in their overall compared to those who did not use it The results of this work also reveal that the application of the minimal responses in teaching speaking can bring about desirable benefits to both listeners and speakers Listener makes responses while the current speaker is talking and listener makes responses after the current speaker finishing talking A good way to let a speaker know listeners are paying full attention and are listening to what they are saying as well as know that they have been heard and also encourage them to continue speaking So they naturally speak in conversation Besides the practice of speaking fluency is simultaneously increasing the accuracy of grammar Therefore, the development of speaking fluency through communicative language learning either links the EFL learners’ motivation and the opportunity of speaking In short, the study mainly focused on improving students' speaking ability at Ham Nghi High School when they learned speaking skill The main aim, as stated in the study, the teachers helped their learners get out of the always silent moment in class, and thereby, improve their speaking skills 5.2 Implications The results of the study presented the effect of using minimal responses on improving speaking Based on findings from the study, these following recommendation can be made for instructional practice These pedagogical implications need to be taken with a great awareness by instructors As this method showed in this study which has proved its effectiveness in making significant improvement students’ speaking ability on fluency as well as accuracy One possible implication points out to the teachers use minimal responses applied appropriately, if they are given too frequently, the students will become intrusive and will be distracting Conversely, if they are not included frequently enough the students may believe that the teachers are not really attending to what is being said It is also possible that the students will wonder whether they speak 1 correctly or Furthermore, language learners who lack of confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral interaction, so they often listen in silence while others the talking Therefore the teachers should encourage their students to practice more and more in class under their guidance via minimal responses A combination of these methods which insures the better growth of EFL learners’ speaking abilities 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research 5.3.1 Limitations Although the study has accomplished the aims set at the beginning, it can not avoid some limitations Some are due to the methods undertaken to conduct it; others are due to the measures adopted for evaluation Firstly, a main limitation is related to the duration of the treatment Developing speaking fluency and accuracy would be achieved in a long time However, the duration of the treatment is limited in a short time In addition, limitation is the size of the experiment, the study involves two groups of 40 participants In the study, there were only twenty students participated, so there might have been more problems that I did not investigate Further more, the researcher needs time and efforts to calculate speaking speed and speaking effectively for each participant It is not easy to make sure whether or not the similar effect can happen to a bigger size of students 5.3.2 Suggestions for further research In this study, I am expected to give contribution to both teachers and students who are teach and learn English Although the findings show that there is a significant differences of the students who were taught with minimal responses and the students who were taught without using minimal responses, there are some issues that have not been studied Basing on the findings and the limitations of the study, I would like to give some recommendations for further studies as followings: First, for the replication of this work of research it is advisable to create the opportunities for their learners to develop fluency and speaking the target language 1 through real communication at a maximum rate Students should get used to the collaborative learning environment as learning is not only from their teachers in communicative language teaching, but also from their classmates and the other techniques and facilities Secondly, as I stated in the first part that Ham Nghi High School is located in a mountainous area in Ha Tinh province where there are many particular characteristics, it can not be generalized into all other schools in our country although speaking ability is a generally popular problem in teaching and learning English in our many schools Therefore, further study on this issue in many other schools located in different areas should also be conducted REFERENCES Amin, Fatimah Hidayahni, (2006.) Improving the Students’ Performance Through Team Made Question Technique Unpublished thesis Makassar Graduate Program UNM Alexander, (1998) Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (New Edition) London: Longman Group UK Burns, Joyce, (1997) Focus on Speaking Sydney: National center for English Language Teaching and Research Brown, H, Douglas, (2004) Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices New York: Longman Carol J, Orwig, (1999) Speaking Skill Internet Tessol http://w.w.w Sil org Clark, H H., and Krych, M A (2004) Speaking while monitoring addressees for understanding Journal of Memory and Language Fauzi, Ahmad (2012) Productive Vocabulary Mastery and Speaking Ability for the Ten Students of MA NW Pancor in the School Year 2011/2012 STKIP Hamzanwadi Selong Unpublished S-1 Thesis Fulcher G (1996a) Invalidating validity claims for the ACTFL oral rating scale System 24/2: 163-172 Fulcher G (1996b) Does thick description lead to smart tests? 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In B.Freed (Ed.), Second language acquisition in a study abroad context (pp 123-48) Amsterdam: John Benjamins Harmer, Jeremy, (2001) The practice of English language teaching Harlow: Longman Hasselgren, A (1998) Smallwords and valid testing Unpublished doctoral thesis Department of English, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Islamiyah, SuaibatuL (2007) Teaching Speaking Through VCD for the Second Year Students of SMPN Labuan Haji in the School Year 2006/2007 STKIP Hamzanwadi Selong Unpublished S-1 Thesis Krashen, S.D (1982) Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition Oxford:Pergamon Press Kendon, Adam, Harris, Richard M & Key, Mary Ritchie (1975) Organization of Behavior in Face-to-face Interaction Walter de Gruyter.[ Online] http://books.google.com/books?id=rNy1hVGq2sMC&hl=zh-CN[Accessed : November 25,2008] Koponen, M (1995) Let your language and thoughts flow! Is there a case for fluency in ELT and applied linguistics? Paper presented at the Language Testing Forum, Newcastle, UK, November 1995 Lennon, P (1990) Investigating fluency in EFL: A quantitative approach Language Learning, 40, 387-412 Luoma, S (2004) Assessing speaking Reid, Julie Gender Differences in Minima/Responses [Online]http://www.latrobe.edu.au/linguistics/LaTrobePapersin Linguistics/Vol %2005/0 8Reid.pdf [Accessed: Nov.30, 2008] Reppen, Randi, Fitzmaurice, Susan M & Biber, Douglas (2002) Using Corpora to Exp/ore Linguistic Variation John Benjamins Publishing Company [Online]http://books.google.com/books? id=nMjptmcSYUcC&printsec=frontcover& Nov.30,2008] 1 h l=zh- CN [Accessed: Revell, (1979) Teaching Techniques for Cunicative Eng/ish London:MacMillan Publisher LTD Richards J C and Theodore S R (2001) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd ed) Combridge, Combridge University Press Sharna, Robina Macro Ski// of Speaking Intrenet Tessol, http://w.w.w Ehow Com Shumin, (1997), Factors to consider Developing Adult EFL Student's Speaking Abilities English Teaching Forum, Vol 35, No 3, Underhill, (1987) Testing spoken language A handbook of oral testing techniques Cambridge: Cambridge University Press UR (2000) A course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Stoval, Grace, (19980 Modules for Professional Preparation of Teaching Assistants in Foreign Language Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistic Widdowson, H G (1985) Teaching Language as Communication Oxford: OxfordUnivesity Press Zimmerman, D.C & West, C (1975) Sex Roles, Interruptions and Silences in Conversation [ Online1http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/zimmermanwest1975 pdf [Accessed:Nov.28,2008] GENERAL ENGLISH TEST Time: 45 minutes I Listening Listen to Rebecca and Adam planning a night together For each question choose the correct answer Rebecca and Alan decide to meet on A Wednesday B Thursday C Friday They decide to A stay in and watch a DVD.B go out for a drink C go out for dinner The Orange Tree is on 1 A Church Road B Love Lane C Potter Street They will meet at A Ten past seven B Twenty to seven C Seven twenty Rebecca met Charlie A at a party B on a skiing holiday C at the sports centre II Choose the best answer A, B or C The room is a bit hot Let’s turn on the_ A heating B air conditioning C cooker There is a spacious where we can cook and eat our meals A dining room B kitchen C living room The men very busy A am B is C are I’m afraid our hotel is _booked A very B totally C fully Where you live when you were a child? A did B were C The master bedroom has a(n)bathroom 1 A rooftop B separate C en suite car is that green one there? A Who B Who’s C Whose III Read the article about Jim Kendrick’s commute* Choose the best word to fill the spaces *commute = a journey to and from work (1) day, Jim Kendrick leaves home at five o’clock in the morning and drives to work That’s not unusual lots of people get up early to drive to work But Jim Kendrick’s work is 320 kilometres away from his home It (2) him three and a half hours to get from his home in San Antonio, Texas to his job at the port in Houston In the evening, he does the journey (3) ., and gets home at nine o’clock (4) the evening Recently, Jim won a competition - ‘America’s Longest Commute’ He won $10,000, enough to pay for his fuel for one year Reporters asked Jim why he drives so far to work He replied, ‘I have a lovely house in San Antonio I (5) want to leave it And I like the drive too It gives (6) energy I’ll probably (7) journey for another five or ten years Then I’ll look for a job (8) home A All A takes B Every B gets C Most C makes A again A on B still B at C enough C in A don’t B didn’t C can’t A me A this B my B those C mine C these A nearly B nearer C nearest IV Writing Read the information about a school theatre trip Complete Emma’s notes Join us in a school trip to Stratford-on-Avon on Saturday th June Dear Students, Our Stratford-on-Avon trip is very popular Unfortunately we cannot get You can spend the morning shopping For lunch we will have a picnic near the river enough tickets to see „Macbeth So we have tickets for „As you like it’ In the afternoon we will see William Shakespeare’s play „Macbeth’ instead The tickets are a little more Price: £15 person Meet at River Road car park: 8.30 a.m Return: 6.30 p.m Arrival and departure times are the same so the trip will now cost £18 per Mrs Wentworth English Teacher Emma’s notes: School Trip Name of Town: (1) Name of the Play: (2) Cost: (3) Meeting place:(4) Return time: (5) PRE ENGLISH SPEAKING TEST Topics for speaking Introduce yourself Talk about your family Talk about your hobbies POST ENGLISH SPEAKING TEST Topics for speaking: Introduce yourself Talk about your school Talk about the kind of film you like O H L2 31 35 40 34 36 55 29 32 39 40 44 28 31 30 32 32 34 27 27 33 L3 31 37 42 35 40 58 34 34 42 42 48 30 34 33 32 35 38 30 33 35 L4 35 42 45 40 45 62 38 40 47 45 48 35 39 39 36 35 40 35 38 40 L2 12 11 13 12 10 11 14 12 11 13 11 15 12 13 15 10 12 13 11 10 L3 12 11 12 11 10 10 13 11 10 13 10 14 12 12 14 10 12 12 12 L4 11 11 12 10 10 12 10 12 13 11 12 13 11 12 11 O H P L1 A1 30 A2 33 A3 40 A4 35 A5 33 A6 55 A7 27 A8 32 A9 38 A10 38 A11 45 A12 25 A13 31 A14 30 A15 32 A16 30 A17 33 A18 25 A19 25 A20 29 P L1 B1 12 B2 10 B3 12 B4 12 B5 11 B6 12 B7 14 B8 11 B9 12 B10 13 B11 11 B12 15 B13 13 B14 13 B15 16 B16 10 B17 12 B18 13 B19 11 B20 10 PIC L5 39 47 50 45 47 65 45 46 55 50 55 40 45 45 40 40 45 37 45 45 PIC L5 11 11 12 10 9 12 10 11 12 11 12 13 10 11 11 10 L6 50 55 60 50 50 65 50 55 66 50 63 48 58 59 57 45 49 50 60 55 L7 60 60 68 60 55 75 60 60 70 52 69 50 58 62 60 49 52 69 72 65 L8 73 70 73 75 60 80 70 74 75 57 75 50 60 65 65 55 71 73 75 71 L6 10 10 11 10 10 12 8 11 10 12 11 11 13 10 13 11 L7 11 10 11 11 12 8 10 10 13 10 11 14 9 14 11 L8 12 10 11 11 12 8 11 14 11 11 15 10 11 13 11 O H O H P L1 B1 30 B2 34 B3 39 B4 35 B5 33 B6 51 B7 31 B8 33 B9 40 B10 38 B11 48 B12 24 B13 30 B14 29 B15 28 B16 32 B17 32 B18 26 B19 27 B20 28 PIC PIC L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 L4 L5 L6 L7 L8 10 31 30 30 31 30 13 13 11 35 36 37 38 37 11 11 40 41 42 45 45 38 40 42 44 45 14 13 10 33 33 30 33 32 11 11 9 50 52 52 53 55 13 13 12 10 32 35 37 37 37 14 13 12 10 35 37 37 37 37 13 12 10 40 40 39 42 45 15 14 12 40 40 40 42 43 6 44 44 47 50 50 12 10 30 28 28 28 28 7 32 33 32 31 30 15 15 10 30 33 35 36 37 13 11 11 8 29 29 28 29 28 8 31 32 33 NUMBER 34 40 TOPIC 10 10 7 34L2 35L3 38 L4 40 L5 40 L1 12 L6 10 8 27 27 28 28 28 12 1012 10 12 11 11 10 28 28 29 29 30 13 12 10 10 14 11 11 11 11 27 29 28 28 28 10 12 13 12 12 12 11 L2 A1 30 A2 33 A3 39 A4 35 A5 33 A6 50 A7 31 A8 34 A9 39 A10 38 A11 45 A12 25 A13 30 A14 30 A15 27 A16 30P A17 32 A18 25 B1 A19 27 A20 B2 28 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13 B14 B15 B16 B17 B18 B19 B20 L1 L3 10 30 14 33 12 40 36 14 32 12 50 14 32 13 34 14 40 15 38 10 45 13 26 10 31 15 29 14 26 10 31 11 34 14 26 10 27 14 28 12 11 12 14 12 10 11 14 11 10 10 13 11 12 13 12 11 13 11 10 13 11 15 13 13 11 15 12 13 16 10 12 13 11 10 15 10 12 13 11 10 10 14 12 12 14 10 12 12 12 10 10 12 10 12 13 11 12 13 11 12 11 10 9 12 10 11 12 11 12 13 10 11 11 10 10 10 12 8 11 10 12 11 11 13 10 13 11 L8 1 2 1 1 2 L 711 10 11 11 12 8 10 10 13 10 11 14 9 14 11 L 81 29 01 11 8 11 41 11 11 51 01 11 31 P A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10 A11 A12 A13 A14 A15 A16 A17 A18 A19 A20 Experimental P Treatment group (Number of words group per minute) Errors Words (Number ofB1 errors 32 per 100 words) B2 A1 34 B3 A2 45 B4 A3 40 B5 A4 35 P TreatmentB6 group A5 60 WordsB7 A6 30 A1 95 B8 A7 33 10 A2 70 B9 A8 43 A3 70 B10 A9 A4 38 75 B11 A10 A5 51 70 B12 A11 A6 25 90 B13 A12 A7 35 80 B14 A13 A8 30 73 B15 A14 A9 29 70 B16 A15 35 A10 65 B17 A16 A11 32 70 B18 A17 12 A12 39 65 B19 A18 29 A13 55 B20 A19 30 A14 78 A20 A15 A16 A17 A18 A19 A20 65 10 59 70 73 58 72 P Control group Control group (Number of words per minute) Errors Words 31 (Number of errors B1 35 per 100 words) B2 43 B3 38 B4 33 P B5 55 B6 30 B1 Control group Words 36 B7 30 B2 40 B8 45 B3 47 B9 B4 38 45 B10 B5 50 10 36 B11 B6 27 55 B12 B7 35 35 B13 B8 31 34 B14 B9 30 10 50 B15 36 B10 11 43 B16 B11 35 55 B17 B12 37 34 B18 33 B13 40 B19 30 B14 38 B20 B15 35 10 45 B16 B17 B18 B19 B20 40 40 35 34 P A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10 A11 A12 A13 A14 A15 A16 A17 A18 A19 A20 Treatment group Words 2 2 1 1 P B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13 B14 B15 B16 B17 B18 B19 B20 Control group Words 6 7 7 6 6 ... itself to investigating the use of minimal responses in improving EFL students’ speaking ability at a moutainous high school in Ha Tinh It dealt with the use of minimal responses to improve EFL high. .. questions: How does the use of minimal responses affect EFL high school students’ speaking accuracy? How does the use of minimal responses affect EFL high school students’ speaking fluency? 1.4 Scope... Therefore, the author has decided to conduct the study entitled “ Using minimal responses to improve EFL high school students' speaking ability? ?? with the hope teachers to help their learners get out