Những khó khăn trong việc dạy và học kỹ năng nói đối với giáo viên và sinh viên không chuyên ngành quản lý văn hóa trường cao đẳng văn hóa nghệ thuật thanh hóa

So what are the speaking difficulties for the teachers and non- English major studentsof Culture management at THCCA?. Once problems have been identified, it will be possible to give sol

Part A: Introduction

1 Rationale

Learning English is becoming a need that most students are aware of and that thesociety demands, especially in the process of industrialization and modernization inconnection to the open door policy of Viet Nam Therefore, the idea that only Englishmajor students have priority in enhancing their skills becomes backward In fact, everylearner must be taken care of so that they can benefit from the modern educationalopportunities It is confirmed that both English major students and non- English majorstudents should be given good consideration and education to improve overall Even fornon- English major students, the four skills as speaking, listening, reading and writingshould be stimulated

According to Dong Xiaohong (1994.31) speaking is "one of the most necessarylanguage proficiency" Speaking, thus, seems to be the most important skill that should bepaid attention to in the process of teaching and learning Likewise, today's world requiresthat the goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because,only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social andculture rules It is true for the non- English major students of culture management of Thanhhoa college of Culture and Art (THCCA) where learners are future office secretaries orculture managers who learn English in order to be able to communicate with the foreignersand to work as secretaries in the offices But in fact there are a large number of studentswho find it difficult to speak in English When most of the students are required to talk inEnglish, they often stand speechless or they have to think for a long time about what theyintend to say

Moreover, when poor speaking competence is reported, one tends to blame thestudents for having poor ability or making insufficient effort Nevertheless, there are otherimportant factors in the teaching and learning process that should be taken intoconsideration It could be unsuitable teaching materials, inappropriate attitude of theteachers and students toward the subject, teachers' inappropriate teaching methods orinsufficients class time allocated to speaking

So what are the speaking difficulties for the teachers and non- English major students

of Culture management at THCCA? This is the question that the following study attempts

to investigate Once problems have been identified, it will be possible to give solutions tothe teachers and students to improve the teaching and learning of speaking skill atTHCCA

2 Aims of the study

The study has been carried out with the following purposes

- To identify the students' attitude toward speaking skill

- To investigate the teachers and non- English major students' areas ofspeaking difficulties

- To give some suggestions and solutions to reduce difficulties and improvethe teaching and learning of speaking skill

In other words, the aims of the study are to answer the following questions

1 What are the difficulties encountered by non- English major students whoare learning speaking skill in the English course book “English for officesecretaries" at THCCA?

2 What are difficulties for the teachers in teaching speaking skill?

3 What are feasible solutions to overcome the identified difficulties?

3 Scope of the study.

Dealing with speaking problems of all current materials used for non major students

of culture management is too broad for a study of this size Therefore, the focus of thisstudy is to investigate speaking difficulties experienced by teachers and non- English majorstudents of culture management at THCCA when using the course book “ English foroffice secretaries” designed by the teacher at THCCA, then give solutions to the problems

in order to help students improve their speaking skill

4 Methods of the study.

To fulfill the above aims, a study has been carried out on the basis of materialcollection and two survey questionnaires

- For the theoretical basis, many materials on speaking are collected,gathered, analyzed and synthesized considerately for the content of the intended thesis.

- For the practical basis, the researcher chooses the survey research with twosurvey questionnaires for teachers and non- English major students of culture management

at THCCA

5 Design of the study.

The minor thesis is devided into three parts: Introduction, Development andConclusion

Part A (Introduction) presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methodology and the

design of the study

Part B (Development) consists of five chapters

Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical background, which is relevant to the

purpose of the study

Chapter 2 gives a brief introduction on the materials and current situations of

teaching speaking at THCCA

Chapter 3 describes the research methodology, which focuses on the context

of the study, participants, the instruments and data collection procedure

Chapter 4 deals with data analysis and some suggestions

Part C (Conclusion) summaries the study and offers some suggestion for further research.

Part B: development Chapter 1: Literature review1.1 The nature of speaking

1.1.1 Definition of speaking.

It is obvious that speaking is the key to human communication Though speakingtakes many definitions, following are some of the definitions by the most famous

researchers According to Byrne (1976:8), “speaking is a two-way process between the speaker(s) and the listener(s) involving the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding.” Both the listener and the speaker have a positive function to

perform: the speaker has to encode the message to be conveyed in appropriate language,while the listener has to decode the message The message itself in normal speech usuallycontains a great deal of information that the listener needs And at the same time, thelistener is helped by the speakers’ prosodic features such as stress and intonation whichaccompany the spoken utterances and form part of its meaning, and also by his facial andbody movements

Brown (1983) also states that “speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information.” Its form and

meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participantsthemselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes forspeaking It is often spontaneous, open ended and evolving However, speech is not alwaysunpredictable Language functions that tent to recur in certain discourse situations(declining and invitation, requesting time off from work) can be identified and charted.Speaking requires not only that learners know how to produce specific points of language,such as grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also that theyunderstand when, why and in what way to produce language (sociolinguistic competence)

Scott (1978) reveals that “speaking can be typified as an activity involving two or more people in which the participants are both hearers and speakers having to react to what they hear and make their contribution.” Each has an intention or a set of intentions

that he wants to achieve in the interaction and an ability to interpret what is said to himwhich he can not predict exactly either in terms of form or in terms of meaning

Chaney (1988:13) defined that “speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use verbal and non-verbal symbols in a variety of contexts”

Different researchers have different concepts of speaking but they all agree withone very important feature of speaking, that is a two way process between the speaker andlistener

1.1.2 Spoken language and communication:

It would be pointless to talk about the importance of language if we ignore relationbetween language and communication as language is a means of communication

According to Broughton (1980:25), “all living creatures have some means of conveying information to others of their own group, communication being ultimately essential for their survival;” Man can use various means of communication, but mainly through spoken language Today, it is commonplace to say that “language is never used for its own sake, but always for the sake of achieving an objective, or to perform a function, to persuade, in form, inquire, threaten, etc.” (Ur, 1981:3).

Brown and Yule (1983:23) believe that spoken language has two main functions:

“The primary function of spoken language is interactional, to establish and maintain social relations.” Most people spend a lot of their daily lives chatting with others The

purpose is to express their emotion and concerns to the person they are talking to Not only

do they chat with their relatives or friends, but also they spend a lot of time talking withstrangers so that they can remain social relations Moreover, another important function ofspoken language is transactional to convey information This deduction is again confirmed

by Broughton (1980):

Thoughts

Figure 1: Spoken language and communication

He explains that thanks to spoken language, we can produce a sequence of vocalsounds in such a way that listeners can reconstruct from these sounds an approximation toour original meaning thus understands the thought

According to Wright (1987), we speak because of the following reasons:

- Giving or asking for factual information

- Expressing what we think and find out what someone else thinks

- Expressing what we feel and find out what someone else feels

- Expressing what we think is right or wrong,…etc

In order to exchange information, a man has to talk with other people and thus heuses spoken language to take part in communication.

Dialogue

A dialogue, conversely, means interacting between two or more speakers fortransactional and interactional purpose There are turn takings to change the roles ofspeakers and listeners in this type Idea exchanges occur directly and quickly as well

Donne Byrne (1986) also says: “Dialogues seem to be best suited to the teaching of the spoken language” Using a dialogue to speak spoken English to non-major students of

culture management is one of effective techniques which will be discussed in this study

1.1.4 Speaking skill

According to Martin Bygate (1987:5), there are two basics ways in which speaking

can be seen as a skill

He distinguishes between motor-perceptive skills, which are concerned with correctlyusing the sounds and the structures of the language and interactional skills, which involveusing motor-perceptive skills for the purpose of communication

Motor-perceptive skills are developed in the classroom through activities such asmodel dialogues, pattern practice, oral drills, etc Until relatively recently, it was assumedthat mastery of motor- perceptive skills was what one needed in order to communicatesuccessfully We now know that this is not necessarily the case and that learners can

benefit from direct classroom practice in communicative interaction Bygate suggests that,

in particular, learners need to develop skills in the management of interaction and also inthe negotiation of meaning The management of interaction involves such things asknowing when and how to take the floor, when to introduce a topic or change the subject,how to invite someone else to speak, how to keep the conversation going, when and how toterminate the conversation and so on Negotiation of meaning refers to the skill of makingsure the person you are speaking to has correctly understood you and that you havecorrectly understood them

Speaking, therefore, can be considered as a skill for many reasons: the first is that wedon’t know how to assemble sentences in the abstract The second is that we have toproduce them and adapt depending on circumstances

1.1.5 Stages of teaching speaking.

1.1.5.1 The role of the teacher and students in teaching and learning speaking

The role of the teacher

According to Breen and Candlin (1980), the teacher has three main roles in aspeaking class The first is to act as a facilitator of the communicative process, the second

is to act as a participant, and the third is to act as an observer In addition, Donn Byrne(1976:3) has a clearer explanation for the teacher’s roles as follows:

* The teacher acts as an informant at the presentation stage

He/ she knows the language items, selects new materials and presents them in such away as to make its meaning clear and understandable and as memorable as possible Thestudents listen to the teacher’s introduction and try to understand The major thing is howthe teacher will present the lesson so that the limited time of one lesson is not affected andthe students get enough time to practise the new language items themselves

* The teacher as a conductor and monitor at the practice stage

At this stage, the teacher talking time is less It is the students’ turn to do most of thetalking The teacher’s main role is to provide students with the maximum amount ofpractice which must be both meaningful and practical He/she becomes a skilful conductor

of an orchestra giving each performer (student) a chance to take part

* The teacher as a guide at the production stage

The lesson finishes when the students are given enough new language items But atany level, students need to be given regular opportunities to use language freely.Furthermore, they want to put what they have learned into real life And through theseopportunities they can use the language as they wish to express their own ideas so that theywill become aware that they have learned something useful to them and are encouraged topursue learning Therefore, the teacher takes the role of a guide or an adviser in providingthe students with activities for free expression even if they occasionally make mistakes.

The role of the learners

The aim of teaching speaking is to enable learners to communicate effectively andsuccessfully in real life In Nunan’s view (1998: 80) To meet this aim the learners havetake the following roles :

- The learner is the passive recipient of outside stimuli

- The learner is an interactor and negotiator who is capable of giving as well

as taking

- The learner is a listener and performer who have little control over thecontent of learning

- The learner is involved in a process of personal growth

- The learner is involved in a social activity, and the social and personal roles of the learner cannot be divorced from psychological learning process

inter The learner must take responsibility for their own learning developingautonomy and skills in learning how to learn

1.1.5 2 Stages of teaching speaking

According to Methodology course 1- Teaching the skills (Ha Noi 2002: 42-43) aspeaking lesson should have three stages: pre-speaking, while- speaking, and post-speaking Obviously, each stage has it own characteristics

The Pre-speaking stage

This stage plays an essential role in the whole process of a speaking lesson because

it is difficult to ask students to speak without preparation which involves such activities aspre-speaking questions, brain storming, discussion tasks or vocabulary tasks It iscommonly found in every course book that oral materials are written into different forms:dialogue and prose Byrne introduced the procedure in which the ten steps to presentdialogue are included

- Establish the setting: Pictures are made use of and drawn if simple Use English asmuch as possible at this stage

- Arouse students interests and experience related to the situation

- Explain some selective words

- Set a listening task by asking key questions of the dialogue

- Ask the students to listen without looking at their books

- Ask the students to look at their books while they are listening

- Ask the students to listen and repeat

- Deal with any difficulties in the dialogue

- Ask the students to practise the dialogue

- Ask the students to dramatize the dialogue

What’s more, the presentation of prose massage suggested by Byrne (1991: 26)includes the nine steps

- Introduce the topic by asking the students to have a quick look at the picture or byasking them about a related book, film, or TV programme they have seen

- Introduce the text including new words or new structures However, there is noneed to explain all things in the text

- Provide relevant language practice, for example, train the students withpronunciation drill so that they can speak English easily, fluently and also helpthem remember the new words

- Set the reading task by making questions

- Ask the students to read the silently

- Read the passage aloud

- Explain any difficulties faced by the students

- Do silent reading again

- Get the students to talk about what they have learned

The two above produces could be said that they are perfect for presenting a dialogueand prose However, depending on the students’ level and time allocation, some of thesteps can be left out In addition, before delivering activities for this stage, the teacherneeds to pay careful attention to the object of each lesson, the situation of teaching andlearning and the student’ needs as well

The while- speaking stage

Unlike the pre-speaking stage, it is the student’s turn to do most of the talking Theteacher, at this stage, lets students work with each other without interfering or correctingany mistakes in order not to stop students from speaking fluently The teacher only givesassistance if necessary The specific aim of the while- speaking stage is to developstudents’ speaking skill so the teacher does the minimum amount of teaching and talkingsince the students will be working on the while- speaking task by themselves, individually

or in groups Instead, the teacher will have to do a lot of monitoring and assisting weakerstudents who have difficulty completing the task

The post- speaking stage

It is the last phase of a speaking lesson so it is the time for the students’ production.What they produce will reflect their speaking skill, interests or views A real show ofEnglish speaking takes place when the students are able to use English for themselves.Also, when they reflect upon their performance, they can recognize what they have donewell and where they require improvement

The post-speaking stage is like the follow up stages After students have practisedspeaking skill in the while- speaking stage, they do an extension speaking activity Thishelps students take the information from other groups or whatever they have produced inthe while- speaking stage and do something meaningful with it Accordingly, getting thestudents to report their work and the whole class may be invited to comment can berecommended to be the most effective at this stage Thus, the teacher in this stage musttake on the role of a manager or a guide in order to give feed back, correct seriousmistakes, give students marks and set personal goals for improving their speaking abilities Byrne (1988:2) comes to a conclusion that to develop oral ability, the three stages:pre-speaking, while- speaking and post- speaking should be followed orderly.Nevertheless, due to time constraint, purposes of a speaking lesson, types of students andmaterials in use, this sequence might not always be applied mechanically on everyoccasion However, teachers ought to pay attention to what has been spoken by thestudents during the while and post speaking stages so that they can see how far studentsimproves their speaking ability, what mistakes they might produce, what problems theyencounter Then appropriate techniques, particularly technique to deal with students’

mistakes and problems would be mapped out These questions are explained clearly in thestudy.

1.2 Problems with speaking and speaking activities

1.2.1 Problems with speaking

Everything has bad and good sides Speaking also has its own problems

According to Brown (1994:256), the characteristics of spoken language can makeoral performance easy as well as in some cases difficult There are following problemswith speaking

* Colloquial language

Colloquialism appears both in monologues and dialogues If learners are onlyexposed to standard English and / or “ text book” language, they sometimes have difficulty

in understanding and producing words, idioms and phrases of colloquial language

* Stress, rhythm and intonation

This is the most important characteristic of English pronunciation because the timed rhythm of spoken English and its intonation patterns convey important massages.But the fact that learners of English often find it difficult to pronounce English words, tostress the right syllables, to follow the stress- timed rhythm and intonation patterns ofspoken English

stress-* Affective factors

In the process of learning speaking, students often encounter the risk of saying outthings that may be wrong, stupid and incomprehensible At those times, they tend to beanxious because they do not want to be judged by other learners.

* Interaction

The greatest difficulty that the students face in learning to speak originates from theinteractive nature of most communication Engaged in the process of negotiation ofmeaning with many discourse constraints, learners have to do the complex task of choosingwhat to say, how to say, when to say, etc Learners are also affected by their interlocutors’performance

1.2.2 Problems with speaking activities

In order to know more clearly about the problems in learning and teaching speakingthat students and teachers often meet, we should concern some problems with speakingactivities suggested by Mr Luu Qui Khuong (2000:56, 57)

 Inhibition: Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some

degree of real time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibition abouttrying to say things in a foreign language In the classroom: worried about makingmistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that theirspeech attracts

 Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain

that they cannot think of anything to say, or that they have no motive to expressthemselves beyond the guilty feeling

 Lows or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is

to heard; and in a large group this means that each one will have only very littletalking time This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners todominate, while others speak very little or not at all

 Mother- tongue use: In classes all, or a number of the learners share the same

mother tongue for many reasons: firstly, they may tend to use it because it is easier.Secondly, they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language andlastly because they feel less “exposed” if they are speaking their mother tongue Ifthey are talking in a small group it can be quite difficult to get some class-

particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones to keep to the target language.(Cited from practical Course for Teaching English as a Foreign Language 2000: 56).

Through two sections above, we can know most of the difficulties that students often

encounter in learning speaking skill Basing on these views, my research intend toinvestigate what difficulties the teachers and non major students at THCCA encounter inteaching and leaning speaking skill with the purpose of giving solutions to the identifiedproblems and improving the students’ speaking skill

Chapter 2: An overview on the materials and current situation of teaching speaking at THCCA

2.1 Brief introduction of Thanh Hoa College of Culture and Art.

Thanh Hoa College of Culture and Art has been in operation for 18 years At thebeginning, its duty was to train only teachers of Art and Music, so English serves as ameans that provides students with basic knowledge about grammar and vocabulary Since

2005, many new branches have been opened such as Tour Guide and Hotel Receptionists,

Informatics Library, and Culture Management studies Accordingly, English has become amajor subject for the students of these fields.

Every year our college admits more than 700 newly enrolled students for a course of 3 yearstudy, of whom 100 students are trained in the Faculty of Culture which is the biggestsection at THCCA After graduating students of this field will become culture managers oroffice secretaries because they are granted an additional certificate specialized in officesecretary Therefore, the authority in our college has decided that English is the mainsubject with the purpose of helping these non-major students to develop their Englishcommunicative skill to meet the demand of their future employment

2.2 Teachers and teaching methods

Our college has got 8 teachers of English language aged from 24 and 50 Seven ofthem had formal ELT training in different universities inside Viet Nam, and only one had

an in-service ELT training course The oldest teacher has more 20 years of teachingexperience and the youngest teacher has got one year None of us have ever participated inrefreshment courses abroad not even in some domestic workshops in language teaching

In terms of language teaching, an information exchange among these teachersshows that they usually employ the traditional method of teaching even though the teachersare always aware of the importance of the new trend in teaching method nowadays:learner- centered approach, communicative approach when teaching English to thestudents of the specific field They try to give their students independence in studying byasking them to work through the text or discussing subject matters in groups, giving themsome instructions before asking them to make presentation or role play in front of the class,students at the time play the key role in the lesson and they feel highly motivated inlearning However, only one or two teachers can sometimes do these and the amount oftime spent on such activities is not much

Actually, all teachers in our college, myself included have to work harder and makeour best effort to respond to the requirement of the new teaching situation

2.3 Teaching facilities

Teaching facilities are considered significant and may have positive and negativeeffects on the teaching process At THCCA, English teaching and learning activities aremostly carried in fixed classrooms that make it difficult for teachers to make a change in

applying new ideas of new teaching methods in language teaching What’s more, there are

33 students in each class It is not easy to carry out a communicative task in a mixed abilityand large classroom

In THCCA at this time, for example, there are just a few small tape recorders, nolanguage laboratories and no videos Many classes are equipped with a LCD projector,however most of the teachers are untrained to use these machine and the teachingtechniques, so they can not make full use of these facilities In addition, English and musicclasses are not situated in two different places; the noise from next- door music classesaffecting the English learning process is unavoidable

In terms of materials, there is only one small library at THCCA, thus English booksfor reference and self- study are not available and enough to meet the students andteachers’ need The problem is that due to the book shortage and limitation in the library,students are required to read in the library instead of taking books at home

As a consequence, together with the limitation of teaching method, the teachingaids, students have almost no exposure to the real language that they are learning It is notaltogether surprising then that some difficulties occurred

2.4 Students and their background

Students of THCCA come from all parts of Thanh Hoa province (Thanh Hoa city,districts and mountainous areas) Most of these students commonly spent most of timelearning three subjects: literature, history and geography in order to pass THCCA entranceexam So, they are real beginners at English when entering the first year of college and ofdifferent language proficiency levels Some of them have learned English for 7 years atsecondary and high school some have only learned English for 3 years and some othershave never learned English before Students from Thanh hoa city and towns (Bim Son,Sam Son) seem better at English However, during the years at secondary schools as well

as at high schools, these students are trained under the strong influence of the Translation method, the emphasis of which is on the learning of the rules of the language,not on the acquisition of language skills, especially those in speaking skill As a result, theycan not speak fluently and most of them do not feel confident in communicating inEnglish

Grammar-Another element that should be taken into consideration is that many students don’thave the habit of learning independently and tend to depend mainly on the given text books

and the teachers for knowledge These facts call for teachers to provide students withlanguage teaching methods in order to motivate them in speaking lessons.

2.5 Materials used for non- major students of culture management at THCCA 2.5.1 The objectives of the course

After graduating a 3 year course at THCCA, students get a college degreespecialized in culture management and an office secretary certificate This certificate hastwo functions: it can be used for their future job application Moreover, this certificate ismore valuable and credible than other normal English certificate since its purpose is veryappropriate to their job requirement while other English certificates only prove languageproficiency of the applicant Therefore, those who take part in this course may have morethan one choice to apply for the job as office secretaries or culture managers

The objective of the course, first of all is to provide students with generalknowledge of English Secondly, the course aims at improving the professional knowledge

of English to adapt their future job requirement

By the end of the course, students will be able to improve their speaking skill andenrich their useful vocabulary relating to the field of study Besides, they will be suppliedwith intensive knowledge of the job of an office secretary and related terms in thehospitality industry so that they can use English confidently as a tool in their future job

2.5.2 Syllabus and materials

At THCCA, the teaching of English is divided into two stages During the firststage (consisting of the first three terms), students study general English with four microskills namely: speaking, listening, reading and writing The second stage lasts one term inwhich students learn English related to their field That means ESP is introduced only afterthe students have studied GE for 3 terms

The first stage is considered to be the most important to student’s development ofthe four macro language skills since they have more time and chances to practice theirskills basically than in the second one

As far as the materials are concerned, “Lifeline Elementary” text book andworkbook are chosen in GE classes The time devoted to GE is 135 periods (each periodlasts 45 minutes)

The 2nd stage is time for students to study English for their professional field Atthis stage, those who want to have an additional office secretary certificate study the course

book “English for office secretaries” designed by teachers working in English group atTHCCA The ESP course book covers 8 units dealing with different topics “Receivingvisitors: visitors with appointments, visitors without appointments and special visitors;Telephone calls; Telephone messages; Writing a letter; Writing a notice and fax; Dealingwith complaints; Making arrangement; Acceptance, Negotiation and Refusal ” The ESPsyllabus is meant for one semester with the length of 75 periods and fulfilled within 15weeks, thus students will have 5 periods per week Each units lasts for 5 to 10 periodsdepending on the length and difficulty of its content.

The purpose of teaching ESP is to develop the students’ communicativecompetence so that they can communicate comfortably and confidently for their futurecareer Accordingly, speaking skill is paid attention to at this stage and it accounts for twothirds of the total time provided However, other skills including reading and writing aretaught integrated in those speaking class hours

In conclusion, this study is carried out at THCCA and limited to the second yearstudents of Culture management Once again, within the size and scope of the study,

“English for office secretaries" textbook is chosen to conduct the study

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter deals with the research methodology that has been employed for theachievement of the aims and objectives of the study The rationale for the method chosenfor the study presented in this thesis is also mentioned The data gathering method utilizingquestionnaires are discussed in terms of their purposes as well as how they were developedand used in the study

3.1 Research questions

The research is aimed to find out speaking difficulties encountered by teachers andnon-English major students of Culture management Study at THCCA Also the studyexplores the solution to deal with the problem In brief, its purpose is to answer thefollowing questions

1 What are the difficulties encountered by non- English major students whoare learning speaking skill in the English course book “English for officesecretaries" at THCCA?

2 What are difficulties for the teachers in teaching speaking skill?

3 What are feasible solutions to overcome the identified difficulties?

3.2 The subjects

The subjects of the study are 7 teachers of English who teach English to English major students at THCCA They range from 24 to 50 years of age Of the 7teachers, five have been trained from fulltime course at Hanoi Foreign language TeachersTraining College, the two others graduated from in-service course All of them have taughtEnglish to non-English major students at least 1 year

The second year, 80 students were randomly chosen from 100 students Their agevaried between 19 and 22 so they belonged to the same psychological age group However,their length of English learning at school (before entering our college ) was different :some have learned English for 3 years or six years, some others have never learnt Englishbefore

The reason for choosing the second year students for this study is as follow:

“English for Office secretaries” text book is chosen to provide insights into the area ofdifficulties in speaking skill of students of Culture management study Students only startthe ESP course in their second year after under taking the GE course

3.3 The data collection instrument

Richard and Lockhart (1994) state that questionnaires are an effective way ofyielding data quickly in respect of “effective dimension of teaching and learning as beliefs,attitudes, motivation and preferences” In addition, the administration of the questionnaireswas convenient for the data collection procedure So this study uses questionnaires as amain tool to get information to fulfill the aims of the study

* Questionnaire for the students

The first questionnaire, consisting of 8 questions, was delivered to 80 students atTHCCA The aims of this were to elicit:

(1) Students’ background of English ( question 1, 2 )

(2) Students’ attitude towards speaking skill ( question 3 )

(3) Students’ difficulties in learning speaking ( question 4, 5 ).

(4) Students’ interest in speaking activities ( question 6 )

With question 1, 2, 3, and 4 the students must only choose one answer while they canchoose more than one answers to question 5 and 6

* Questionnaire for the teachers

The second questionnaire which includes 8 questions, was delivered to 7 teachers atTHCCA The purpose of this questionnaire was to identify:

(1) Teachers’ experience of teaching English ( question 1)

(2) Difficulties confronted by the teachers when teaching speaking to non- majorstudents at THCCA (question 2)

(3) Teachers’ solutions to the difficulties faced by them (question 3, 4 , 5, 6,7, 8)

To answer the question 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 the teachers can choose more than one options

3.4 Data analysis

Data from questionnaires were sorted and analyzed statistically to get answers forthe research questions raised in the previsous part The information was then displayed informs of tables and charts

4.1.1 Questionnaire for the teachers

4.1.1.1 Their teaching experience

Table 1: The teachers’ experience of teaching

According to the data collected in table 1, three out of 7 teachers (42.9%) havebeen teaching English from 1-4 years, 28.6% have experience of teaching from 5-9 years.The rest (28.6%) have been teaching for more than 10 years It is concluded that more than

half of teachers at THCCA have been teaching English for 5 to 25 years, which is verysignificant in term of their language adjustment and experience in teaching speaking.

4.1.1.2 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking to students at THCCA

• Difficulties from the students

Difficulties related to the students are categorized into: Low English proficiency,limited motivation in learning, use of Vietnamese during pair work or group, passive style

of learning and students’ not participating in class

Students’ use of Vietnamese during pairwork or group work

Students’ passive learning stylesStudents’ not participating in classStudents’ low English proficiency

Chart 1: Difficulties from the students

As present in chart 1, only 14.3% of the teachers referred their difficulties tostudents’ not participating in class whereas all of the respondents confirmed that thestudents’ low English proficiency was a constrain for them Another problem arising fromthe students was limited motivation in learning Many of respondents (85.7%) acceptedthat their students’ lack of motivation was a trouble to them The students’ use ofVietnamese during pair work or group work was a hindrance to their teaching as well All

of the subjects affirmed this problem Lastly, the students’ passive learning style was aconstraint The fact that, students’ traditional learning style influenced their speaking skill.Students seem to depend on the teacher and use Vietnamese a great deal during their taskdue to their low English proficiency Consequently, the aim to enhance the students to be afluent communicator can not be reached

In brief, the four problems arising from the students as low English proficiency,low motivation in learning, use of Vietnamese during pair work and group work andpassive learning style created one of the barriers to the teachers in teaching speaking

• Difficulties from the educational system.

Chart 2: Difficulties from educational system

Regarding hindrances from the educational system reported by the teachers gave us

an interesting fact that 42.9% of the teachers complained large class size and lack offacilities were real obstacles to their teaching while 100% found it hard to teach speakingbecause of lacking authentic materials Additionally, the majority of the subjects (85.7%)assumed that multi-level classes prevented them from implementing speaking task andactivities The rest confronted by 28.6% of the teachers were unsuitable timetable and toolittle time to carry out speaking task and activities In my opinion, these are not only thedifficulties of teachers at THCCA but also the difficulties of English language teachers atalmost non- language major universities and colleges

• Difficulties from the teachers.

Lack of specialized knowledge of office secretaries 7 100Deficiency in strategic and sociolinguistic competence in

English

Table 2: Difficulties from the teachers

Among difficulties from the teachers, their lack of specialized knowledge of office secretaries appeared the problems to all of the teachers In addition, 57.1% claimedthat they had deficiency in strategic and sociolinguistic competence in English whenteaching speaking to non-major students for a longtime and none of the teachers thoughtthey lacked of training in teaching speaking skills

The result from survey questionnaire indicated that the causes of teachersdifficulties are related to partly the students factors and partly the education system and theteachers ourselves.

4.1.1.3 Teachers’ solutions to their difficulties in teaching speaking skills.

•Teachers’ solutions to multi-level class

Allocate easy questions to the less able students and more

difficult ones the more able ones

Give open ended questions that allow weak students to give

Table 3: Teachers’ solutions to multi-level class

From the above analysis, it can be concluded that the highest percentage of thesubjects (100%) favored giving open ended questions that allow weaker students to givetheir answers and encouraging collaborative work from the students But in fact, how toencourage collaborative work from the students is not easy to all the teachers In a multilevel class, it is very difficult for the less able students to catch up with the more able ones85.7% of the teachers, therefore, chose to give some prompts to the less able students.Another finding is that 71.4% agreed to organize pair work and group work including goodand weak students Praising weaker students more often and allocating easy questions(Yes/ no questions or tag questions: “ Do you find it easy or difficult to start conversationwith a visitor you have never met before?” ) to the less able students and more difficultones (Wh- questions: What do you do when you have to attend to visitors who’s waiting inyour office?) to the more able ones were the ways taken by the other teachers (42.9%)

• Solutions to students’ low motivation in learning