Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS developing supplementary materials to teach speaking skills for first year english major at phuong dong university

Rationale

English has attained greater importance throughout the world in general and in Vietnamese in particular This worldwide expansion has increased the demand to acquire good communication skills in English That is the reason why the teaching and learning English has been paid more attention recently in Vietnam Of four major language skills, the mastery of speaking skills in English is put on the first priority by many Vietnamese learners This is because the success of learners in language learning is often evaluated on the improvement in their spoken language proficiency (Richards, 2006) In order to aid teachers and learners in their teaching and learning speaking skills, there is a variety of speaking course books available in the market At English Division of PDU, the course book ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ (by Leo Jones, 2002) has been used as a core textbook to teach speaking skills for first year English Majors However, this textbook has not been undergone any official evaluation to test its relevance to the students‘ needs and interests

After being used for a while, the ineffectiveness of this textbook has posed some considerable problems Some teachers in English Division who have to directly work with the book complain about spending a lot of time compiling and adapting materials so as to meet their students‘ needs and make the speaking lessons more interesting and motivating

A potential remedy for this situation, in the opinion of the researcher, is applying supplementary materials to go with the textbook in speaking lessons It seems to be a better solution than choosing another new textbook since there is no textbook that perfectly fits in a particular teaching and learning environment (Ansary & Babaii, 2002); and it is hard to use a commercial textbook without some form of adaptation to make it more suitable for the particular context in which it is used (Richards, 2005)

Furthermore, in the process of learning speaking skills, the first year English Majors at PDU often express a feeling of stress, nervousness or anxiety In addition, their results in the final speaking examinations are usually low and under syllabus requirement

This fact can be triggered to many difficulties the students have to face in their learning process It seems that the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ which is designed for a wide international audience, cannot cater for every specific need of individual learner in such a particular local learning and teaching environment as Phuong Dong University Several students claim that the textbook gives them little help to overcome their difficulties in learning speaking skills According to Williams (1983, p.81), ―the textbook can present examples of common difficulties, but there are problems specific to different language groups which are left for teacher to deal with‖ In order to help the first year English Majors at PDU overcome their specific difficulties in learning speaking skills, the option of selecting or designing supplementary materials comes to the research‘s mind as a first and foremost choice

With the supplementary materials, the gap between the textbook and students‘ needs can be narrowed down Choosing the most suitable and relevant supplementary material, however, necessitates careful research In addition, in Phuong Dong University, research to date of this topic is inadequate There exist some researches about developing supplementary reading and writing materials for first year English Majors, but there is no research concerning speaking skills This has inspired the author to conduct a research entitled ―Developing supplementary materials to teach speaking skills for first year English Majors at Phuong Dong University‖.

Scope of the study

As this is only a small-sized scale study, it is only concerned with providing necessary information to help teachers at PDU choose suitable supplementary materials for first year English Majors in their speaking lessons of the second semester The matter of applying such materials in real teaching and examining their effectiveness is beyond the scope of this small study Furthermore, in this study, the course book ―Let‘s talk 1‖ is evaluated in order to identify the gap between it and the students‘ needs However, this evaluation is only concerned with the content of the textbook By the words ―contents‖, the author means the language input, the speaking topics and the speaking activities.

Aims of the study

Firstly, it is an attempt to figure out students‘ difficulties in their process of learning speaking Once the teachers realize the difficulties that their students have to face, they can work out what should be selected as supplementary materials for their students

Secondly, this study aims at examining the evaluation of the teachers and students towards the course book ―Let‘s talk 1‖; then, based on that evaluation, the author hopes to identify gaps between the course book and the needs of students The last aim is investigating teachers and students‘ attitudes as well as their preferences to the choice of supplementary materials

In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the study is designed to answer the following questions:

(1) What are the difficulties of the first year English Majors at PDU when learning speaking skills as perceived by themselves and by their teachers?

(2) How do the teachers and first year English Majors at PDU evaluate the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ in terms of its content?

(3) What are the attitudes and preferences of the teachers and first year English Majors at PDU to the supplementary materials going with the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ in the speaking lessons?

Significance of the study

This study is of great importance to the author herself as well as to teachers teaching speaking in that it will provide teachers with necessary and important information to help them choose the most suitable speaking supplementary materials that have high applicable value in practice.

Methods of the study

This study focuses on developing supplementary materials for teaching speaking skills to first year English majors A survey method is employed to collect quantitative and qualitative data In order to seek answers to the above research questions, two sets of questionnaire were designed and delivered to the teachers and the first year English Majors Besides, with the hope that the reliability of the obtained information from the questionnaires will increase, semi-structured interviews with first year English Majors were carried out.

Design of the study

An overview of speaking skills and teaching speaking skills

1.1.1 Definition of Speaking and Teaching Speaking Skills

Of the four macro skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, speaking is complementary as Byrne (1991, p.9) proves ―if one man is good at speaking skill, other skills will be much supported‖ Defining the term ―speaking‖, Florez (1999, cited in M.Bailey, 2005) states that speaking is ―an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information‖ In this process, there are five elements involved including pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, gesture and mimics, fluency and accuracy (Harmer, 2001) In the process of teaching and learning a foreign language, teaching speaking skills means helping students develop the ability to produce grammatically correct and logically connected utterances that are appropriate in specific contexts with acceptable pronunciation (Fararwati, 2010) Besides, Vicka (2008) define teaching speaking skills is the instruction of the teacher to the students to encourage them in using the language orally to express their ideas, feeling and opinions to someone else

Despite expressing in different ways, it can be inferred from these two definitions that the most important goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency

1.1.2 Principles for Teaching Speaking Skills

When teaching speaking, there are some principles that teachers should follow to ensure the effectiveness of speaking lessons Such principles are discussed in the work of Nunan (1991) and Brown (1994) in which Nunan (1991) suggests five principles and Brown (1994) proposes six ones (see Appendix 1) Despite the difference in their lists, both of them share one common thing that teachers should focus on both fluency and accuracy when teaching speaking skill This opinion is supported by Brown and Nation

(1997) saying that communicating effectively in a language requires both the knowledge of the language as well as the ability to use the language in real time interaction; thus teachers should provide students with form-focused speaking, meaning-focused speaking and activities that aim at fluency development The researcher of this study totally agrees with this principle and also believes that fluency and accuracy are two most important elements in speaking process In the definition of Richards (2006, p.14), ―Fluency is natural language use occurring when a speaker engages in meaningful interaction and maintains comprehensible and ongoing communication despite limitations in his or her communicative competence‖ while ―accuracy focuses on creating correct examples of language use.‖ Thus, it may not be too much to say one can speak fluently without accuracy or vice versa, and accuracy as well as fluency is necessary for successful communication

In teaching speaking skills, various scholars (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997) suggest a common approach adopted in speaking lessons which follows this sequence of instruction: Presentation, Practice and Production In line with this view, Burkart (1998) states that teachers can help students develop their communicative efficiency by using a balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output and communicative output In the view of Burkart, language input may be content-oriented which focuses on different topics and information, or form-oriented which emphasizes on appropriate ways of using the language The amount of content-oriented or form-oriented input given in a lesson depends on each teaching and learning context as well as on students‘ competence levels Structured output serves the role of a bridge between the presentation and practice stage of a speaking lesson in which students are required to produce controlled responses correctly using specific forms or structures introduced in the presentation stage Communicative output is the final stage whose purpose is learners completing a task through communicative output activities At this stage, unlike structure output stage, accuracy is not a main consideration unless the lack of it interferes with the messages In summary, structured output activities are those focusing on developing learners‘ accuracy while communicative output activities give students opportunities to develop their language fluency In the following section, the author will introduce some popular speaking activities that can be used as either structured output or communicative output activities

1.1.3 Structure output and communicative output speaking Activities

A large number of existing speaking activities can be found in resources However, due to the limitation of this small study, some applicable ones will be introduced The researcher prefers the list of speaking activities proposed by Harmer (2001) Harmer

(2001) recommends some examples of structured output activities are practical situation, guessing game, information gathering activities and jigsaw; for communicative activities such as role play, discussion, opinion sharing activity, and prepared talks

 Practical situations: Students can practice requesting and providing information in situations such as asking for directions in a city and ordering meals in a restaurant

 Guessing games: Students can do guessing activities in pairs or groups There are many variations For example, one student chooses a famous person, and the others ask yes-no questions until the identity of the person is determined

 Information gathering activity involves conducting interviews and searches in which students were required to collect information Students can practice a set of structures and language repeatedly but in a meaningful way

 Jigsaw activity: in a jigsaw activity, each partner has one or a few pieces of the

"puzzle," and the partners must cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture The puzzle piece may take one of several forms It may be one photo from a set that tells a story It may be one sentence from a written narrative

 A Role-play involves teachers giving role cards to students for pair work Using role cards is a good support especially for students at lower levels as cards help them remember their roles A whole class brainstorming can be helpful as well to help them predict what vocabulary, grammar, and idiomatic expressions they might use

 A discussion activity: students are given a topic that usually provokes more than one opinion Students are asked to discuss the issue in group and give their opinions and the reasons why they think so

 Opinion sharing activity involves identifying and articulating a personal preference, feeling, or attitude The activity may require using factual information, formulating arguments, and justifying one's opinions For some topics, there may be no right or wrong responses and no reason to expect the same answers or responses from different individuals or different groups

 Prepared talks: a popular kind of activity in which students make a presentation on a topic of their own choice with or without agreement with the teacher Such talks are not designed for spontaneous conversation and more ―writing-like‖ Prepared talks represent a defined and useful genre of speaking and if properly organized, can be greatly interesting for both listeners and speakers

In short, there are many authors discussing the issue of speaking activities in language teaching and learning A variety of speaking activities do exit and they can be exploited effectively in different ways depending on particular teaching and learning contexts However, in this small study, the researcher only prefers to address those eight speaking activities discussed above.

Materials Development in Language Teaching

1.2.1 Definition of Language Teaching and Learning Materials

It is widely acknowledged that language teaching and learning materials constitute a key component in most foreign language courses Language teaching and learning material is defined by Tomlinson (1998, p.2) as ―anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a language‖ He also gives a list of various things which can be considered materials such as cassettes, videos, CD-Roms, dictionaries, grammar books, readers, workbooks or photocopied exercises, etc In line with this definition, a more elaborate description of materials was given by Ian McGrath (2002) This linguist describes materials not in broad sense as Tomlinson, but only in terms of text materials:

Text materials include those that have been either specifically designed for language learning and teaching (e.g textbooks, worksheets, computer software); authentic materials (e.g off-air recordings, newspaper article) that have been specially selected and explored for teaching purposes by the classroom teacher; teacher-written materials; and learner-generated materials (p.7) From this definition, it can be implied that teachers can use their homegrown teaching materials to achieve teaching objectives in their particular and unique teaching and learning situation In this study, the researcher prefers to understand materials in broad sense as in the definition of Tomlinson

1.2.2 Effective Language Teaching and Learning Materials

Discussing the effectiveness of materials, Tomlinson (1998) spends one chapter in his book providing a detailed list of fourteen characteristics that effective language teaching and learning materials should have Following is the summary of four main features that the researcher considers most important Firstly, materials should attract and sustain learners‘ motivation through novelty, attractive layout, appealing content as well as a variety of texts, tasks and activities This wide range of tasks and activities can cater for learners‘ differences in learning styles and affective attitudes Besides, what is covered in materials should meet learners‘ needs Thirdly, materials should provide exposure to rich and varied authentic input Lastly, materials should help learners feel confident and at ease

Among a number of ways to make learners feel ease and develop confidence suggested by Tomlinson (1998), the researcher finds two most interesting suggestions namely providing appealing, challenging but achievable classroom tasks, and not forcing premature speaking in the target language ―until they have gained sufficient exposure to the target language and sufficient confident in understanding it‖ (p.19) This can be done by devising activities which introduce new language points before asking students to speak

In short, effective materials can inspire teachers and facilitate the learner‘s process of foreign language acquisition It is made clear by Cunningsworth (1979, p.31) that

―course materials are not intrinsically good or bad- rather they are more or less effective in helping students to reach particular goals in specific situations‖ Therefore, when a teacher evaluates that a particular material is good, what he/she really means is its effectiveness in facilitating foreign language acquisition and learning Referring to materials used in most language courses, whether it is a skill-based course or an integrated skill basic series, there is a core coursebook According to McGrath (2002), the term ―coursebook‖ refers to a textbook on which a course is based Therefore, these two terms ―coursebook‖ and

―textbook‖ will be used interchangeably by the researcher in this minor thesis The following section addresses the roles and limitations of textbooks

1.2.3 The Roles and Limitation of Textbooks

The undeniably important roles of textbooks have been discussed widely by many linguists in different books and articles For instance, Hutchinson & Torres (1994, p.135) state that ―no teaching –learning situation, it seems, is complete until it has its relevant textbook‖ Likewise, Sheldon (1988) concludes that ―textbooks represent the visible heart of an ELT program‖ Furthermore, Schmidt, McKnight and Raizen (1997, cited in Kulm, Roseman and Treistman, 1999) underline the dominant role of textbook saying textbook makes ―the leap from intentions and plans to classroom activities, by making content available, organizing it, and setting out learning tasks in a form designed to be appealing to students‖ Sharing similar views, Crawford (2002) states that it is not necessary for a textbook to control all things teachers and learners do in the language classroom; however, it can support them by giving the structure and predictability needed for acceptable and suitable communicative activities The learning content packaged professionally in a textbook can help achieve teaching and learning purposes

On the other hand, textbooks may have several potential limitations Richards

(2005) argues that textbooks may deskill teachers in a way that teachers primarily follow everything prepared in textbooks without any change or creativity The researcher totally agrees with Richards‘ (2005) opinion that no matter how important a textbook is in language teaching and learning, it should only serve the supporting role rather than dominating role In order to ensure the facilitating role of textbooks, there is a necessity for teacher to develop skills in evaluating, adapting as well as supplementing published materials These skills will also help teacher deal with another limitation of textbook, namely the mismatch between a commercial textbook written for international markets and unique needs of a particular group of learners Richards (2005, p.47) states ―Since commercial materials are generally intended for a wide audience, they typically focus on very general needs and cannot address the specific needs of individual learners‖ This limitation implies that finding a textbook among an enormous diversity of commercial textbooks available in the market nowadays that perfectly fits a particular teaching and learning situation is rather impossible One textbook which can be effective in one teaching and learning context might be a wrong choice in another context

In conclusion, the necessity of textbook cannot be neglected, yet problems do exist

The situation implies that in order to choose an effective instructional material for a particular group of learners, as teachers, it is essential firstly to well-understand the background, level and learning needs of their learners; and then to make careful evaluation of such material to ensure its relevance and suitability for students‘ learning needs as well as for their particular teaching and learning context with the final aim of maximizing learning potentials This implies that textbook evaluation has an important and special role in teaching and learning process The following section addresses the literature review of textbook evaluation

1.2.4.1 Definition of and Reasons for Textbook evaluation

Textbook evaluation plays a key role in education and it is important for the teacher since it can provide valuable information for the future going of classroom practice; for the planning of courses and for the management of learning tasks and students Tomlinson (1998) defines materials evaluation as the systematic judgment of the value of materials in relation to the aims of the materials and the learners who are using them In addition, Hutchinson & Waters (1987, p.96) see evaluation as ―a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose‖ They share with Tomlinson that

―the evaluation process should be systematic‖ and add that it ―is best seen as a matching exercise: matching your analyzed needs to available solutions‖ (1987, p.105) The essence of this definition is its attention to the students‘ needs in evaluating materials and therefore is adopted in this thesis

Reasons for textbook evaluation activities are also numerous and varied One of the major reasons is the need to adopt new coursebook In other words, the evaluation helps to select a relevant and appropriate textbook for a language course

Another reason as Cunningsworth (1995) emphasizes is to identify particular strengths and weaknesses in a coursebook which is already in use Such activities, in turn, will let teachers make optimum use of the textbook‘s strong points and strengthen the weaker areas by adapting and substituting materials from other books As the definition and significance of textbook evaluation have been discussed, the researcher is now concerned with the methods and criteria being followed in the process of evaluation

In general, three basic methods can be discerned in the literature on textbook evaluation For convenience, McGrath (2002, p.25) refers them to the impressionistic, the checklist, and the in-depth method As indicated in their names, impressionistic analysis is concerned to obtain a general impression of the material while the checklist and the in- depth are two methods of close evaluation As used in isolation each of these methods has its limitations as well as its specific benefits However, in the opinion of the researcher, the checklist method triumphs over the others due to its numerous advantages, some of which are clearly stated by McGrath (2002, p27) as following:

 It is systematic, ensuring that all elements that are deemed to be important are considered

 It is cost effective, permitting a good deal of information to be recorded in a relatively short space of time

 The information is recorded in a convenient format, allowing for easy comparison between competing sets of material

 It is explicit, and, provided the categories are well understood by all involved in the evaluation, offers a common framework for decision-making

Even though ―an ―off-the-shelf‖ checklist is likely to need tailoring to suit a particular context‖ (McGrath, 2002, p.27), for these above advantages, the checklist method is chosen as the major method to evaluate the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖

When the concern is the evaluation of materials, the selection of the criteria is quite subjective Prior studies on checklist evaluation have been carried out broadly with various focuses (Williams (1983); Hutchinson and Waters (1987); Sheldon (1988);

Supplementary materials in teaching language skills

According to Tomlinson (1998), supplementary materials are such ―materials designed to be used in addition to the core materials of a course They are usually related to the development of skills of reading, writing, listening or speaking rather than to the learning of language items‖ (p.13) As discussed above, ―textbooks represent the visible heart of an ELT program‖ (Sheldon, 1988); however, Ansary and Babaii (2002) argue that

―no textbook is perfect; therefore, teachers should have the option of assigning supplementary materials based on their own specific needs in their own specific teaching situation‖ (p.6) In line with this idea, Biemer (1992, p.25) claims that teachers must realize that ―textbook is not the only tool in classroom, it is a tool to be used It may be the major tool, but there are other materials that can be used too‖

The reasons for teachers to use other materials beside textbook have been identify by McGrath (2002) as follows Firstly, they wish to bridge the gap or mismatch between textbook and official syllabus or public examination or students‘ needs Secondly, teachers use supplementation because they think that students need to expose a wide range of textual materials or have more practice of particular kinds, and lastly teachers need to supplement a coursebook in order to cater for various language competence levels or different needs of specific individuals in a class Another reason for using supplementary materials is raised by Brown (1994, p.152), that is, to promote learners‘ motivation, which is one of the key factors in learning Furthermore, Richards (2005) underlines the importance of supplementary materials by claiming that when a textbook has some limitations, it should be modified or supplemented to help teachers use them more suitably and effectively The researcher agrees with these opinions and also thinks that in the process of choosing suitable supplementary materials for a language course, the role of teachers is really significant Teachers are those who directly use a textbook and directly work with students; accordingly, they are the most likely to recognize different backgrounds, experience and learning styles that students bring to class, as well as the gap between the textbook and students‘ needs This makes the researcher believe that teachers are only ones who can choose suitable ways to supplement a textbook The researcher‘s idea is supported by Williams (1983) saying that ―the textbook can present examples of common difficulties, but there are problems specific to different language groups which are left for teachers to deal with‖ Tomlinson (1998) considers supplementing a sub-type of material adaptation while McGrath (2002) distinguish adaptation and supplementation as two different ways to bridge the gap of a textbook and a particular teaching and learning context Despite this difference, both of them agree one common thing that supplementary materials are of great importance to maximize learning potentials In this study, the researcher prefers the view of Tomlinson

1.3.2 Forms and Process of Supplementation

Drawing upon the literature on supplementation, discussed in the following section, the present study seeks to investigate some ways to supplement a course book and the process of designing supplementary materials McGrath (2002) suggests two supplementing ways namely utilizing items from other published materials and devising teacher‘s own materials According to McGrath, using materials from another published source is the most common form of supplementation This may be because it is easier and more convenient to borrow something, ―even if some form of minimal adaptation is involved‖ (p.83) It can be inferred that when some items from published materials are used to supplement a core book, teachers can follow exactly what has been professionally prepared or can make a little adaptation to such materials The research er believes that in most case, minimal adaptation is necessary to increase the suitability of supplementary materials for a particular teaching and learning context The second supplementation way, using teacher-own designed materials, has its own benefits In case that the suitable published supplementary material that is available needs large- scale adaptation, preparing their own materials is a better choice for teachers (McGrath,

2002) Moreover, teacher-prepared materials are likely to be more up-to-date and more relevant to students‘ needs and interests than equivalent coursebook materials since teacher know their own students well (Block, 1991, cited in McGrath, 2002) Despite these merits of teacher-owned designed materials, the researcher of the present study prefers supplementation using published materials This preference lies on the assumption that ―materials are best prepared by professionals and by publishing houses which can ensure a high level of production‖ (Sheldon, 1988)

Concerning the process of choosing supplementary materials, McGrath (2002) classifies two types namely syllabus driven process and concept driven process The former states that teachers choose or design suitable supplementary materials after they have identified what they need to supplement Furthermore, teachers choose materials with a particular class or particular group of learners in mind The latter states that teachers choose some interesting materials accidentally with the hope that they can use such materials as supplementation in their future teaching Unlike syllabus driven process, in concept driven process, teachers have no class or no learn groups in mind when choosing materials In this present study, the researcher follows syllabus driven process

In summary, the relevant literature for this small study has been presented Firstly, a variety of ideas on materials development have been viewed in order to provide foundation knowledge to supplement the currently-used textbook ―Let‘s Talk1 ― Secondly, definitions and characteristic of speaking skill as well as the process of teaching speaking skill have been discussed Furthermore, two most important elements in speaking process, fluency and accuracy, along with the speaking activities used to develop either fluency or accuracy are also the concern of the literature review The following section will devote the literature on related studies about supplementary materials in order to prove the suitability of the present study in the research area

1.4 Related Studies on Supplementary Materials

Research on supplementary materials has sought to mainly focus on using authentic materials to supplement a coursebook (Rogers and Medley, 1988; Senior, 2005; Huong Do, 2008), developing supplementary material for reading skills (Thuy Le, 2009; Thuy Pham, 2007; Hoa Dao, 2010) For example, Thuy Pham (2007) does a study on developing supplementary materials to improve reading skills for the first year English Majors at Military Science Academy with the aim of bridging the gap between the textbook ―Cause and Effect‖ and students‘ needs The findings of the study indicate the unsuitability of the textbook to the students with regard to their needs, levels, learning styles and learning techniques; and from those findings, the researcher presents some suggestions on selecting appropriate supplementary materials for students to use in their self-study with an aim of enhancing students‘ reading ability In addition, to the researcher‘s best knowledge, there are two theses outside Vietnamese context studying on supplementary materials The first one is ―Brighten your English classroom with unconventional supplementary materials‖ by Lydie (2007) and the second one entitled

―Adopting supplementary materials to enhance listening and speaking strategy use by Taiwanese college EFL learners‖ is conducted by Chwo, G S., Jonas, A., Tsai, C &

Chuang, C (2009) The former aims at special population - children with specific learning disabilities This thesis raises the important role of supplementary materials in increase children‘s motivation and the author from his experience gives a list of unconventional supplementary materials that can be used to help children with learning disabilities learn English According to Lydie (2007), the best practice for Czech primary school teachers is in the interconnection of textbooks and supplementary materials The latter investigates if supplementary materials can be adopted to enhance college EFL learners‘ listening and speaking strategy use Unlike Thuy Pham‘s study

(2007) which only stops at giving suggestions on how to choose suitable supplementary reading materials, this study focuses on finding the effectiveness of using supplementary materials in real teaching situation The participants of this study are non-English majors This study‘s findings indicate the effectiveness of adopting supplementary materials to enhance strategy use as well as learning outcome It is then suggest that in order to expand students‘ learning capacity, more and diverse materials should be used to supplement the existing textbook in the listening and speaking course

In summary, there are studies on development of supplementary materials; nonetheless, little has been documented concerning the development of supplementary speaking materials, especially in the context of Vietnam This study fills this gap by developing supplementary speaking materials for first year English Majors at Phuong Dong University who are using the textbook ―Let‘s talk 1‖ in their speaking lessons

More specifically, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the textbook and then from that evaluation, the researcher hopes to figure out the mismatch between that textbook and students‘ needs so that she can suggest ways to choose suitable supplementary materials to be used in the speaking lessons

This chapter is covered with information about the context, the textbook in use, the subject under investigation and then the research methods and the instruments are followed More importantly, data collection and data analysis procedures are presented

The study is conducted at Phuong Dong University, one of the most famous private universities in Hanoi In this university, Department of Foreign Language takes an important position, especially English Division that has the most numbers of students yearly enrolling The strength of English Faculty lies in the teaching staff with 25 teachers permanently employed 13 of them have Master Degrees in TESOL or TEFL, five are studying master courses and 7 already have B.A degrees Most of them are active, enthusiastic, and full of inspiration for teaching though they are very busy due to heavy workload In English Division, all English Majors have to spend the first two semesters focusing on learning four language skills and pronunciation, each of which is taught separately and counts for 2 credits This means there is one lesson per week during the 15 week course for each language skill There are only four classes of fresh students and each one has from 25 to 30 students In English Division, the teaching facilities are inadequate

Cassette players are the most popular equipments There are only two rooms equipped with projectors and two lab-rooms which are not in good conditions because almost of the computers are out of date and vulnerable to viruses Besides, there is only one small library for the whole Foreign Language Department with some sorts of materials for reference but not enough to satisfy the demand of students

Background to the study

The study is conducted at Phuong Dong University, one of the most famous private universities in Hanoi In this university, Department of Foreign Language takes an important position, especially English Division that has the most numbers of students yearly enrolling The strength of English Faculty lies in the teaching staff with 25 teachers permanently employed 13 of them have Master Degrees in TESOL or TEFL, five are studying master courses and 7 already have B.A degrees Most of them are active, enthusiastic, and full of inspiration for teaching though they are very busy due to heavy workload In English Division, all English Majors have to spend the first two semesters focusing on learning four language skills and pronunciation, each of which is taught separately and counts for 2 credits This means there is one lesson per week during the 15 week course for each language skill There are only four classes of fresh students and each one has from 25 to 30 students In English Division, the teaching facilities are inadequate

Cassette players are the most popular equipments There are only two rooms equipped with projectors and two lab-rooms which are not in good conditions because almost of the computers are out of date and vulnerable to viruses Besides, there is only one small library for the whole Foreign Language Department with some sorts of materials for reference but not enough to satisfy the demand of students

For the past five years, the book ―Let‘s talk 1‖ has been used as a core book to teach speaking skill for first year English majors The book was written by Leo Jones and published by Cambridge University Press in 2002 It is an English Language Textbook for foreign speakers The book consists of 16 units and 2 review puzzles Each unit contains two lessons, each of which includes pair work and group work, listening exercises and communication tasks At the end of the book, from page 114 to 121, there are grammar references, which summarize some basic grammatical knowledge In this published textbook, both accuracy and fluency are focused In English Division, this textbook is learnt in two different semesters The speaking course of the first semester covers all the units from number 1 to number 7 In the second semester, rather than covering every single lesson in the last half of this book, the syllabus only focuses on 14 out of 18 lessons left

Following are the 14 lessons from the book selected as the materials to teach speaking skill in second semester for first year English Majors:

Unit 8- A Let‘s see a movie Unit 11- B There‘s plenty to do Unit 8- B A good read Unit 12- A Festivals and holidays Unit 9- A A healthy life Unit 12- B Mind your manners Unit 9- B Sleep and dreams Unit 13- A I know that name Unit 10- A Can you remember Unit 14- A My dream home Unit 10- B Take my advice Unit 15- A The good old days Unit 11- A Out and about Unit 16- B Wishes and dreams

The study is carried out with the participation of 12 (out of 25) teachers and 94 (out of 108) first year English Majors Participant selection was based on their availability, capacity and desire to commit their time to the research The teaching staff of English faculty has 25 females however only 12 of them have already dealt with the textbook

―Let‘s talk 1‖ during their teaching time at PDU Of the total number of 108 students in four classes under investigation namely 510701 A1, 510701 A2, 510701 B1, 510701 B2, 4 were absent on the days of the questionnaire delivery and 10 did not return the questionnaire they had received Therefore, the total number of students who participated in the research was 94 The age of participants ranged from 18 to 22 The students come from different regions of Vietnam, mostly the North and a few are from Hanoi City

Despite of the diversity in background, it can be said that their English proficiency is lower than the syllabus requirement According to syllabus requirement, the level that the students should be in is pre-intermediate level However, based on their results in the final examination of the first semester, it can be concluded that a majority of the students are only at or a little bit above elementary level Their typical learning style is rote learning and in learning English, they prefer everything being translated In the process of learning speaking skill, whenever being asked to say something in English, most of them tend to think in Vietnam first and then try to translate word by word into English.

Research method

In this small thesis, the survey method was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data According to Babbie (1973), the survey is a non-experimental, descriptive research method Surveys can be useful when a researcher wants to collect data on phenomena that cannot be directly observed Data are usually collected by questionnaires, although sometimes researchers directly interview subjects In this study, the researchers used both questionnaires and interviews to collect qualitative and quantitative data Of two basic survey‘s types, cross-sectional surveys and longitudinal surveys, this small study followed cross-sectional survey, which is used to gather information on a population at a single point in time.

Instruments of data collection

In this study, the main means of data collection is questionnaire that is a relatively popular instrument to collect data, especially with high number of participants To obtain data for the study, two written questionnaires with a mixture of close and open-ended questions were administered to the subjects The questionnaire for students consisted of 14 items, and the one for teachers has 13 items; some of which were adapted from an established questionnaire (Thuy Pham, 2007), and some were developed by the researcher based on the review of literature on material evaluation and supplementary materials In order to establish content validity, the two questionnaires were reviewed by two English professors The researcher then clarified the wording and grammar

The questionnaires mainly aimed at surveying (1) students‘ difficulties in learning speaking skills, (2) the teachers‘ and students‘ evaluation of the currently used textbook‘s content and (3) their opinions and preferences towards using supplementary materials in speaking classes There is a question about motivation of the students in learning speaking skills, which is not in the questionnaire for teachers In order to avoid misunderstandings, the questionnaire for students was written and administered in Vietnam

Beside the two sets of questionnaire, the researcher also conducted semi-structured interviews with students in order to collect in-deep information and be able to explain the quantitative data received from the questionnaire Five students were interviewed to further understand their perspectives on three main categories of the questionnaire The interview posed 3 main questions:

1 What are your difficulties in learning Speaking skills?

2 How do you think about the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ regarding to its speaking topics, speaking activities and language input (vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation)?

3 Do you think it is necessary to use supplementary materials in speaking lessons?

Which aspects should be supplemented and when do you want the supplementary materials to be used?

Data collection procedures

From May 15 th to 20 th , 2011, the questionnaire for students was administered to 104 first year English majors during their regular English speaking lessons Before delivering the questionnaire to the students, the researcher gave clear explanation of the survey questionnaire‘ purpose Then, the students were encouraged to read all the items in the questionnaire and raise questions if they were not clear During this time, the researcher was present in the class to directly explain some difficult terms such as grammar-based communicative activities, structure output activities and communicative activities; answer any upcoming questions and clarify any misunderstandings After ensuring that all the participants understood the questionnaire, the researcher asked them to bring it home and return it one week later with the hope that the students would have enough time to response the questionnaire carefully The students‘ response rate was 96% because 10 students did not return the questionnaire they had been given Secondly, the questionnaire for teachers was delivered on the Division‘s monthly meeting The researcher was always ready to answer any questions raised by the teachers Unlike the case with the students, the teachers‘ responses were collected immediately after they have finished There was a return rate of 100 % from the teachers In short, there were 94 responses from students and 12 responses from teachers being coded for statistical analysis Besides, the semi-structured interviews with 5 volunteered students took place on two days, 26 th and 27 th of May, 2011 The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese in order to eliminate the effects of a possible language barrier The interviews were audio taped, and transcribed for further analysis.

Data analysis procedures

The analysis of data is presented in two forms, that is, numerical and non-numerical data in this section Quantitative statistics were calculated for the analysis of the data coming from the questionnaires Participants‘ answers to each question were calculated in terms of frequency and percentages To aid analysis of the data and interpretation of the results, points 1 and 2, and points 4 and 5 of the five-point Likert-scale were sometimes combined during the data analysis procedure Regarding the qualitative data from the interviews, all the interview sessions were audio recorded and transcribed

Transcriptions were analyzed and categorized in the light of the research questions of the study The main categories defined from the data coming from student interviews were (a) students‘ difficulties in learning Speaking skill, (b) the ―Let‘s talk 1‖ textbook‘s evaluation in terms of content, (c) things they want to be supplemented

To sum up, this chapter has presented the study context, the participants, instruments and procedure of data collection and data analysis To get data for the research, two sets of questionnaire and a semi-structured interview have been designed and delivered to the teachers and students The information obtained from these instruments is processed thoroughly The following chapter will devote to data presentation and analysis as well as finding discussion and some recommendations

CHAPTE THREE: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS DISCUSSION AND SOME

Presentation and analysis of data

This section of the paper presents the results of the study Results from the questionnaire are reported in terms of frequencies and percentages The results are presented within the following parts: Students‘ motivation and difficulties in learning Speaking subject during their first semester; the evaluation of the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ by teachers and students, students and teachers‘ preferences of supplementary speaking materials

3.1.1 Students’ Motivation and Difficulties in Learning Speaking Subject during their Second Semester

To the question about students‘ motivation and difficulties of learning English, more than one option is acceptable; therefore, the results in the following charts are presented in percentage that the options are chosen

3.1.1.1 Students’ motivation in learning English

1 Want to pass tests and get good marks

2 Feel interested in learning English

3 Want to learn for future job

4 Other motivation Chart 1 Students’ motivation in learning English

Most students stated at least one motivation for their learning English According to Chart 1, students‘ most frequent motivation of learning English is found to be ―want to learn for future job‖ (68 %) 24.4 % of these students are motivated by their love of English while only 17 % of them responded that their motivation to learn English is only getting good marks and passing tests Interestingly, 10 students did not choose any option among the motivation list given in the questionnaire but gave their own motivation 6 out of these 10 students share the same opinion that they are motivated by English as the growing international language They reported that if they learned English well, they could go travelling and talk with many people around the world 2 students indicated that learning English is the preparation for their future study abroad Sadly, the rest 2 students wrote that they learned English because they had no other choice It means that they hardly are motivated in learning English From this result, it seems that extrinsic motivation outweighed intrinsic ones in the participants‘ responses The students‘ motivation for learning English may influence their attitudes and learning styles in the learning process

3.1.1.2 Students’ difficulties in learning speaking skills

Chart 2 highlight students‘ difficulties in learning Speaking skill perceived by both of the students and teachers When being asked about their difficulties, many of the students chose all the items in the list given by the researcher Expectedly, nearly half of the students declared their fear of making errors as their difficulty in learning speaking skill It is noticeable that vocabulary shortage is the problem chosen by the highest number of the students (93.6%) Lack of grammar knowledge is the second most serious problem which was listed as one of the challenges by 63 % of the respondents The students also have serious trouble with several pronunciation aspects such as mispronouncing sounds and words (40 %); wrong word stress (62 %) and lack of intonation when speaking (58 %)

Only 4 out of 94 students stated that lacking speaking ideas causes them trouble in learning to speak Most of these difficulties fell into eight major problems identified by Richards

This chart also shows the teachers‘ perception of students‘ difficulties in learning speaking skill As can be seen from this chart, the teacher participants have quite similar opinion with their students in that they also considered lacking vocabulary is the most frequent difficulty that the students have to face (92 %) Secondly, about three fourth of the teachers agreed that their students had serious pronunciation problems However, the teachers seem to take the problems related to grammar less serious than their students with only 42 % of them listed lacking grammar knowledge in speaking as their students‘ problem

1 Fear of making errors; 2 Mispronunciation of sounds and words; 3 Wrong word stress (for example, `particular or parti’cular instead of par`ticular); 4 Lack of intonation in speaking; 5 Lack of grammar knowledge; 6 Lack of vocabulary; 7 Lack of speaking ideas (Don’t know what to speak)

Chart 2 Students’ difficulties in learning Speaking skill as perceived by themselves and their teachers

The interviews with the students corroborated the questionnaire results that lack of vocabulary is the most common difficulty that the students have to face All of 5 students in the interviews revealed that their fear and unconfidence when they speak English can be attributed to their lack of vocabulary items related to various topics 4 out of these 5 students showed their worry about the bad pronunciation of themselves and their classmates 2 of them also explained that even the shortage of grammar knowledge cause problems to them These difficulties can intrigue the teacher in the process of teaching speaking skill The teachers certainly have to take their students‘ difficulties into consideration when they choose supplementary speaking materials so that such materials can not only satisfy students‘ needs and interest but also help them overcome their problems

3.1.2 The Evaluation of the Textbook “Let’s Talk 1”

3.1.2.1 The students and the teachers’ general evaluation of the content of the textbook “Let’s Talk 1”

Chart 3a & 3b Students and teachers’ general evaluation of the textbook’s content

As can be seen from chart 3a and 3b, the students and teachers generally shared similar view about the textbook‘s content This statement is supported by more than half of the students (60 %) and 7 out of 12 teachers (58 %) reported that the textbook‘s content is fair It is not surprised that no one in both types of respondents evaluated the textbook‘s content to be excellent 18 students and 3 teachers underestimated the content of the currently used textbook; On the contrary, 20 students and 2 teachers indicated that generally, the content of ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ was good It can be inferred that although the book is not a perfect choice, to both of the teachers and students, the textbook‘s content is acceptable Following is the detailed evaluation of both teachers and students about the textbook‘s content which involves the speaking topics, speaking activities and the language input

3.1.2.2 The teachers and students’ detailed evaluation of the content of the textbook “Let’s Talk 1”

When asked about their opinions regarding the textbook‘s content, participants rated the measures on a 5-point Likert Scale—(1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree,

(3) undecided, (4) agree, or (5) strongly agree Table 1a, 1b and 1c shows the frequency and percentage of the student and teachers‘ opinions toward the textbook‘s content

From table 1a, it can be inferred that both of the teachers and students satisfied with the speaking topics of the textbook Two opinions related to the speaking topics received highest positive response from the participants among 8 ones listed in the questionnaires

93.6 % of the students and 83 % of the teachers thought that the speaking topics were interesting Similarly, 82 % of the students and 92 % of the teachers agreed and strongly agreed with the suitability of such speaking topics to students‘ English competence

Disagree Undecided Agree Strongly agree

Ss T Ss T Ss T Ss T Ss T

A The speaking topics in the textbook are interesting

B The speaking topics in the textbook are appropriate to English proficiency level of students

Table 1a The detailed evaluation of the students and teachers about the speaking topics in the textbook “Let’s talk 1”

On the other hand, from table 1b, it is shown that the three opinions about the language input amount in the textbook ―Let‘s talk 1‖ agreed by the smallest number of participants Regarding to the vocabulary input, although the majority of the students (86.5

%) and of the teachers (83 %) seemed to satisfy with the relevance and appropriateness of the vocabulary items to students‘ level, the above table indicates the biggest proportion of the students (91.5 %) and of the teachers (92 %) were against the opinion that each lesson supplies students with enough vocabulary work to help them prepare their speaking

Regarding to the grammar input, 84% of the students and 75% of the teachers agreed and strongly agreed with the clarity and the suitability to students level of the grammar work; however, most of the students and teachers (78.7% and 75% respectively) did not satisfy with the sufficiency of grammar work in this textbook Furthermore, the students and teachers shared similar evaluation of the pronunciation input in the textbook 93.6% of the students and 100%of the teachers responded that this textbook included no materials for pronunciation work

Strong disagree disagree Undecided Agree Strongly

Ss T Ss T Ss T Ss T Ss T

C There is enough vocabulary work to help the students prepare their speaking

D The vocabulary tasks are suitable for the students’ proficiency level

E There is enough grammar work to help the students prepare their speaking

F The grammar presentation at the grammar references at the end of the book are clear and suitable for the students’ proficiency level

G The textbook includes material for pronunciation work such as individual sounds, word stress, sentence stress and intonation

Table 1b The detailed evaluation of the students and teachers about the language input in the textbook “Let’s talk 1”

The interview with 5 students reveals similar results Most of the students in the interview reported that they liked the speaking topics; however, the language input was too simple and boring 4 out of 5 students said that for each unit, the textbook supplied several vocabulary items; however, it is not enough for them and they were still in dire need for new words to help them express their ideas in the speaking activities 2 of the interviewed students revealed that the grammar presentation supplied by the textbook was clear and comprehensible; however, very monotonous and simply in form of summarizing tables

These students expressed a desire for a more detailed grammar presentations as well as more grammar practice to help them speak English with higher accuracy in each topic 4 students in the interview showed their worry and nervousness about their pronunciation

Recommendations

Based on the result of discussion, some recommendations will be made in the hope of developing the situation of teaching and learning speaking skill for first year English majors at PDU

Because each classroom has its own peculiarities, it is difficult for a textbook to meet the needs of each class proportionally Therefore, it is essential to use the textbook in a sensible and reasonable way (William, 1993) Both of the merits and demerits of the textbook should be taken into consideration carefully in order to make full use of the former and compensate for or neutralize the later In the speaking course for first year English majors in second semester, under the constrained time, the teachers not only have to cover the syllabus requirement but also help students overcome their specific problems

Therefore, they have to choose cautiously which parts in the textbook should be taught and which should be replaced by supplementary materials According to the researcher, there should have supplementary materials for four aspects in speaking course namely vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and speaking activities

3.3.1 Supplementary Materials for Vocabulary and Speaking activities

Firstly, supplementary materials for vocabulary should be in form of exercises or reading and listening texts For each speaking topic, students should be supplied with a list of vocabulary items Each vocabulary item in the lists is presented with its spelling, pronunciation, meanings and examples One more thing to consider here is what vocabulary to teach According to the researcher, the most important thing to consider is the learnability The first year English Majors are at pre-intermediate level; therefore, vocabulary items should not beyond their level, and words with concrete meanings should be introduced before ones with abstract meaning Furthermore, when deciding what vocabulary items to cover, teachers should consider mainly the usefulness of the words

For each topic in the textbook, it is important for teachers to predict what words their students likely need to know to help them in their speaking Furthermore, teachers‘ choice is also affected by the frequency in which the particular item is used in common language as stated by Harmer (2001, p.154), ―the words which are most commonly used are the ones we should teach first‖ It is recommended that sometimes, the supplementary materials for vocabulary should be combined with those for speaking activities Supplementary speaking activities should have the same or related topics to the ones in the current textbook, so that they either extend these topics in some ways, or offer students different activities of these same topics (see Appendix 8) Some sources for supplementary materials of vocabulary and speaking activities that the researcher would like to recommend for PDU teachers are as follows:

 English Vocabulary Organizer- 100 topics for self-study (By Chris Gough,

 Recycling Elementary English (By Claire West, 2002, Georgian Press, Jersey )

 Website: http://busyteacher.org/, http://www.eslflow.com/

Cunningsworth (1995) points out that with the effective teaching of grammar, learners are equipped with the ability to make their own sentences and will be able to use target language for their own purposes Therefore, teachers should guarantee that the supplementary materials involve clear, effective and complete grammar presentations so that students can have good practice and concise review The students prefer to have grammatical exercises in the supplementary materials; however, the researcher thinks that it seem too ambitious to design supplementary speaking materials that include grammatical exercises Instead of providing students with variety of grammar exercises, teachers should encourage students to self-study at home What the teacher should cover in supplementary materials is grammar-based communicative activities With these activities, students can revise their grammar and practice speaking at the same time There are many sources available for grammar-based communicative activities; therefore, teachers can have a wide choice when selecting or adapting grammatical materials There is one interesting book about grammar which, in the opinion of the researcher, is suitable for first year English Majors entitled ―Round-up‖ (By Virginia Evans, 2003, Longman)

These materials should be in form of listening tapes, CDs or videos along with the transcripts of the target language texts The research suggests using the materials available in some websites such as: http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

In this website, many clear and slow reading speed listening files are very suitable for students‘ pre-intermediate level Thanks to this special slow speed, students will find easier to imitate the pronunciation in these listening files With these kind of supplementary materials, what teachers have to do is to choose listening files with suitable and interesting contents and assigning students to listen and practice at home Students‘ home-work can be randomly checked at the beginning of each speaking lesson

In this final part, the author would like to make a brief summary of the whole study

Furthermore, perfection is supposed to be hard to achieve especially in doing research; therefore, this part will discussed the limitations, which are well perceived by the researcher, as the basis for suggestions for further research on the issue of material development in English teaching

This study is conducted with the aims of developing supplementary materials to teach speaking skills for PDU first-year English majors Two sets of questionnaires were administered at PDU on a group of 94 first year students and 12 teachers; one semi- structure interview was performed with 5 volunteered students The results show that students‘ deficiencies in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation knowledge are the most popular difficulties in their learning speaking skills Besides, the textbook being used in the speaking course for first year English majors in the second semester is judged to have some negative consequences Most of the problems lie in the sufficiency of the language input in this textbook It provides a deficient amount of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation work This small study also figures out the favorable attitudes of both teachers and students to the use of supplementary materials in speaking lessons Based on the preferences of the students and teachers, the researcher points out some recommendations for the teaching and learning speaking skills which necessitates the supplementation of materials for vocabulary, grammar, speaking activities and pronunciation as a remedial approach to students‘ difficulties and textbook‘s limitations It is hoped that the researcher‘s recommendations may be beneficial to teachers in their process of choosing or designing suitable supplementary materials to teach speaking skills for PDU first-year English majors

Given in the time constraint, the scope and the nature of the study, it cannot be free from limitations like any educational study of this type The following section concerns several limitations of this small study.

Limitations of the study

Within the scale and scope of a minor thesis, this study does have some certain limitations Firstly, this study only figures out what aspects in the process of learning and teaching speaking skill should be supplemented and how to be supplemented At the appendices, this study also limits itself to a few samples of supplementary materials for first year English Majors However, the question of the real effectiveness of such supplementary materials when being in used has not been addressed Furthermore, there may be some problems with the use of the questionnaires although they are such a great instrument to collect data from a large number of participants The credibility of the information generated from the questionnaires is questionable, as it relies on the truthfulness and proper understanding of the respondents The final limitation is attributed to the sample size of this study As presented in Chapter two, the study involved 94 students and 12 teachers in total The perception generated from this narrow range of teacher participants might not be appropriately representative All these existing limitations of this study call for further research.

Suggestion for further research

Given the limitations of the study, further research is needed to gain a better understanding of the issue related to the use of supplementary speaking materials for English Majors Herein recommendations that are thought to be most important will be listed

Firstly, the findings of this study revealed that in order to give more effective speaking lessons for first year English majors, there should have supplementary materials for vocabulary, grammar, speaking activities and pronunciation After choosing or designing supplementary materials based on the findings of this small study, it is suggested that an experimental research should be conducted to examine the real suitability and effectiveness of such supplementary materials when being used in speaking lessons

Secondly, the findings of this study revealed that the core textbook ―Let‘s Talk1‖ of speaking course does have some weaknesses However, this finding is only based on the evaluation of both teachers and first year English majors about the content of the currently used textbook The evaluation of other aspects of this textbook such as physical appearance, layout and design, language type has not been addressed Therefore, another study focusing on developing supplementary materials based on the evaluation of every aspect in the textbook is worth considering

Those suggestions for further studies above were made with the hope that a comprehensive understanding of exploiting supplementary speaking materials for teaching speaking skills and its effect on students‘ language proficiency in general and speaking proficiency in particular would be finally obtained

1 Acklam, R (1994), ―The Role of the Coursebook‖, Practical English Teaching, 14(3), pp 12-14

2 Ansary, H., & Babaii, E (2002), ―Universal Characteristics of EFL/ESL Textbooks: A Step Towards Systematic Textbook Evaluation‖, The Internet TESL Journal, 8(2), Feb 2002, Retrieved July 14, 2011 from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Ansary

3 Babbie, E R (1973), Survey research methods, Wadsworth Pub Co, Belmont

4 Biemer, L B (1992), The textbook controversy: The role of content, Ablex Publishing

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6 Brown, R S., & Nation, P (1997), ―Teaching Speaking: Suggestions for the classroom‖,

The Language Teacher, 21(1), p.12, Retrieved June 12, 2011, from http://jalt-publications.org/old_tlt/files/97/jan/speaking.html

7 Burkart, G.S (1998), Spoken Language: What is it and How to Teach it? Center for

Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC, Retrieved June 10, 2011 from http://www.nclrc.org/speaking/spindex.html

8 Burn, A., & Joyce, H (1997), Focus on Speaking, National Centre for English Language

9 Byrne, D (1991), Techniques for classroom interaction, Longman, London

10 Chwo, G S., Jonas, A., Tsai, C & Chuang, C (2009), Adopting supplementary materials to enhance listening and speaking strategy use by Taiwanese college EFL learners, Retrieved June 16, 2011 from gas.hk.edu.tw /journal/59/25-41.pdf

11 Crawford, J (2002), The role of materials in the language classroom: Finding the balance Methodology in Language Teaching: An anthology of current practice,

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14 Dao, Thi Hoa (2010), Using supplementary reading materials with the course book

“Business Basics” to improve the efficiency of reading teaching and learning for second-year students at Bac Ha College of Technology, M.A.Minor Thesis,

University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam

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ESP program for second year medical students at Hanoi Medical University, M.A

Thesis, University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam

16 Evans, V (2003) Round-up: English grammar book, Volume 4 Longman

17 Fararwati, A (2010), A descriptive study on teaching speaking of recount text based on school level-based curriculum at the eight year of SMP N 6 Wonogiri in 2009/2010 academic year, Retrieved May 16, 2011 from http://etd.eprints.ums.ac.id/10002/

18 Gough, C (2001), English Vocabulary Organizer-100 topics for self-study, Language

19 Harmer, J (2001), The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman, Hallow,

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23 Le, Thi Thuy (2009), Developing supplementary reading and writing materials for non-English Majored University Students: A need-based approach, M.A Thesis,

University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam

24 Lydie, M (2007), Brighten your English classroom with unconventional supplementary materials, Department of English Language and Literature, Bro,

Masaryk University Bro, Diploma, Retrieved April 16, 2011 from is.muni.cz/th/79944/pedf_m/Diploma_Thesis.pdf

25 M.Bailey, K (2005), Practical english language teaching, McGraw-Hill ESL/ELT,

26 McGrath, I (2002), Materials evaluation and design for language teaching,

27 Nunan, D (1991), Language teaching methodology, Prentice Hall International,

28 Pham, Thi Thuy (2007), Development of supplementary materials to improve reading skills for the first year English majors at military science academy M.A Thesis,

University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam

29 Richards, J.C (1996), Reflective teaching in second language classroom, Cambridge

30 Richards, J C (2005), The role of textbooks in a language program, Retrieved

March 11, 2011 from www.professorjackrichards.com/pdfs/role-of-textbooks.pdf

31 Richards, J.C (2006), ―Developing Classroom Speaking Activities; From Theory to

Practice‖, Guidelines-Singapore-Periodical for Classroom Language Teachers, 28(2), pp 3-8 Retrieved May 2, 2011 from www.professorjackrichards.com/ /developing-classroom-speaking-activitie

32 Rogers, C V., & Medley, F W (1988), ―Language with a Purpose: Using Authentic

Materials in the Foreign Language Classroom‖, Foreign Language Annals, 21, pp

33 Senior, R (2005), ―Authentic Responses to Authentic Materials‖, English Teaching

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35 Tomlinson, B (1998), Materials development in language teaching, Cambridge

36 Vicka, M S (2008), Improving student’s speaking mastery using information gap at the second year of SMP N3, Research Paper, School of teaching training and education faculty, Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta

37 West, C (2002) ―Reclycling elementary English‖ Georgian Press Jersey

38 Williams, D (1983), ―Developing Criteria for Textbook Evaluation‖, ELT

Journal, 37(3), pp 251-254 http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ http://busyteacher.org/, http://www.eslflow.com/

Appendix 1 Principles of teaching speaking skills

Five principles of teaching speaking skills:

 Be aware of the difference between second language and foreign language learning contexts

 Give students practice with both fluency and accuracy

 Provide opportunities for students to talk by using group works or pair works and limiting teacher talk

 Plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning

 Design classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both transactional and interactional speaking in which transactional speech involves communicating to get something done and interactional speech is communicating with someone for social purpose, establishing and maintaining social relationships

(Source: Nunan, 1991, Language Teaching Methodology)

Six principles of teaching speaking skills

 Focus on both fluency and accuracy

 Encourage the use of authentic language

 Provide appropriate feedback and correction

 Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening

 Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication

(Source: Brown, 1994, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching)

Appendix 2 Checklist to Identify gaps in a course book

 Is there enough grammar? Is it what your students need? Is it clearly presented?

 Is there enough pronunciation work? Is it what your student need?

 Is there enough vocabulary work? Is it what your students need?

 Is there enough work on phrasal verbs?

 Is there enough (authentic) reading materials and variety, e.g from magazines, novels, newspaper, letters, diaries, menus, advertisements?

 Is there enough (authentic) listening material and variety, e.g monologues, group conversation, songs, people in everyday situations, e.g shops, restaurants?

 Are there enough communication activities?

 Is there enough speaking and variety of speaking activities, e.g role play, discussions, problem-solving activities?

 Is there enough writing and variety of writing activities, e.g stories, letters, poems, form-filling?

 Is there enough „personalization‟ – a chance for students to relate the new language to themselves and their own lives?

 Is there enough controlled practice of new language?

 Is there a good variety of controlled practice activities?

 Is there enough freer practice of new language?

 Is there a good variety of freer practice activities?

(Source: R.Acklam, 1994, Practical English Teaching)

This survey questionnaire is designed for the study entitled “Developing supplementary materials to teach speaking skill for first-year English Majors at Phuong Dong University” I am grateful for your good will and cooperation in truthfully completing this questionnaire Please be assured that the information you provide will be treated in the strictest confidence

1 How long have you been teaching English?

2 What difficulties do your students have in their process of learning Speaking skills? a Fear of making errors b Mispronunciation of sounds and words c Wrong word stress (for example `particular or parti‟cular instead of par`ticular) d Lack of intonation in speaking e Lack of grammar knowledge f Lack of vocabulary items to express ideas g Lack of speaking ideas (Don‟t know what to speak) h Others (Please specify):

3 What do you think about the content of the textbook “Let‟s Talk 1”? a Excellent b Good c Fair d Poor

4 Please give your opinions about the following statements There are five options: strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree The numbers correspond to:

Choose one option for each statement

The speaking topics in the textbook are interesting The speaking topics in the textbook are appropriate to English proficiency level of students

The speaking activities in the textbook are various from role play, information gap activities to discussion or prepared talks The speaking activities can motivate the students to use more English in the classroom

There is enough vocabulary work to help the students prepare their speaking

The vocabulary tasks are suitable for the students‟ proficiency level There is enough grammar work to help the students prepare their speaking

The grammar presentation at the grammar references at the end of the book are clear and suitable for the students‟ proficiency level

The textbook includes material for pronunciation work such as individual sounds, word stress, sentence stress and intonation

Other specific opinions about the textbook

5 Do you think that it is necessary to use supplementary materials in your Speaking lessons? a Yes b No

6 When do you prefer the supplementary materials to be used? a At home b In class c Both at home and in class d Other ways:………

7 What aspects would you like to have supplementary materials? You can choose more than one option a Vocabulary b Grammar c Pronunciation and intonation d Speaking activities e Speaking topics f Other things:

8 If you want to have supplementary materials for vocabulary, such materials should be in which of following forms? (You can choose more than one option) a A list of vocabulary items with their Vietnamese equivalents b Vocabulary exercises c Reading or listening texts of target language d Pictures e Other forms (Please specify)………

9 If you want to have supplementary materials for grammar, such materials should be in which of following forms? (You can choose more than one option) a Presentations of grammar points b Presentation and practice exercises of grammar points c Presentation of grammar points going with grammar-based communicative activities d Other form (Please specify)………

10 If you want to have supplementary materials for pronunciation and intonation, such materials should be in which of following forms? (You can choose more than one option) a A list of pronunciation and intonation written exercises b Listening tapes or CDs (Students listen and follow the target language in such tapes or CDs for good English pronunciation) c Videos (Students watch and follow the target language in such videos for good English pronunciation) d Others (please specify)………

11 If you want to have supplementary materials for speaking activities, here is the checklist for your preferences of speaking activities The activities are divided into two kinds: (1) structured output activities which focus on developing students‟ accuracy and

(2) communicative activities which focus on developing students‟ fluency In each type, please choose the speaking activities that you prefer You can choose more than one option

Structure output activities Communicative activities a Practical situation b Guessing game c Information gathering activities d Jigsaw e Others (Please specify)

12 If you want to have supplementary materials for speaking topics, please give a list of your favorite topics:

Thank you for your cooperation!

Appendix 4 Questionnaire for Students (English version)

This survey questionnaire is designed for the study entitled “Developing supplementary materials for teaching speaking skill to first-year English Majors at Phuong Dong University” I am grateful for your good will and cooperation in truthfully completing this questionnaire Please be assured that the information you provide will be treated in the strictest confidence

1 How long have you been learning English?

2 What is your motivation for learning English at university? a Want to pass tests and get good marks b Feel interested in learning English c Want to learn for future job d Others (Please specify):