An investigation into problems of teaching english speaking skill to non english majors at saigon technology university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature WX AN INVESTIGATION INTO PROBLEMS OF TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS TO NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT SAIGON TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS IN TESOL SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF TESOL HOANG THI PHONG LINH Supervisor: NGUYEN HOANG LINH, M.A HOCHIMINH CITY – 2005 Certificate of originality I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: AN INVESTIGATION INTO PROBLEMS OF TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL TO NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT SAIGON TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programmes issued by the higher Degree Committee Ho Chi Minh City, December 10th, 2005 HOANG THI PHONG LINH RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, HOANG THI PHONG LINH, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be assessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses Ho Chi Minh City, December 10th, 2005 HOANG THI PHONG LINH ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Mr NGUYEN HOANG LINH, M.A, who provided valuable comments and support in the preparation and completion of this thesis I would also like to thank the organizers of this master course, Mr Le Huu Phuoc, Head of the Department of Post Graduate Studies of Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities; and Mr Nguyen Huynh Dat, Head of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature of the university; and their staff members This thesis would never have been possible without the assistance and support from my colleagues and students of GE at Saigon Technology University Therefore, I would take this opportunity to send my special thanks to them all Last, but not least, I wish to send my warmest thanks to my parents and my aunt, who took all the family burden during the long period of time I spent doing this thesis with great understanding and sympathy as well as whose moral support has backed me to attain my aim ABSTRACT Reality shows that a large number of Vietnamese university students can hardly communicate in English although they have spent years learning English at high school The English text-books for high school students only focus on the reading skill and grammar High school teachers generally have no time scheduled in class for speaking activities They are supposed to provide their students with vocabulary and grammar structures so that they can manage to pass written examinations This seems to be the ultimate aim of learning English as a foreign language at high school Little by little, students get used to learning vocabulary and grammar structures and focusing only on improving their reading skill when they learn English at high school As a result, when they enter university, they are used to this learning style, which helps them get high marks in the written end-of-term test They can hardly ever change their learning style, which is considered to be very passive and not effective at all despite a very communicative course-book used for General English at university A lot of school years passed and a lot of generations of students finished “New Interchange 1&2” with high marks in written end-ofterm tests, even or 10 marks The great concern is that even these students cannot communicate in English It could be a really serious problem in the present situation when they have to take part in job interviews in English It is certain that the interviewer would assess how well the applicant does in the interview, i.e whether or not s/he has the ability to express herself or himself in English At this point, new graduates definitely identify that it is a waste of time and energy when they spend such a long time - years at high school and years at university studying English and cannot communicate in it What is the cause of this? The “Communicative Approach” is always encouraged to adopt in teaching English; however, it is not much put into application Here and there, “GrammarTranslation” method is still most dominant possibly because of factors such as schedule, class setting, test questions, students’ learning style and so on How to improve their speaking skill has become a big question at present In order for us the teachers of English at Saigon Technology University (STU) as well as those who teach English to non-English majors to find out the answer to this question, its root must be taken into consideration In an attempt to make practical contribution to the general process of improving the teaching of English speaking skill, I would like to an investigation into the problems the teachers of English at STU have to face when teaching this skill to non-English majors After the investigation, the findings serve as basis for implications for teaching this skill This study was carried out as follows: (1) a series of class observations at STU in order to figure out what kinds of speaking activities the teachers ask the students to and how they organize them in GE classes, (2) interviews with the teachers who are in charge of the chosen observed classes in order to seek the reasons why they choose a certain kind of speaking activity, (3) a questionnaire asking students about their experience in learning English at high school, their motivation for learning English, their attitude towards practicing speaking English, their levels of confidence in speaking English and contributing factors, and their expectations in GE classes at university CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study: GE courses provide the students at STU, who major in engineering, with 240 periods of class time during semesters (2 periods each class session, sessions each week, 15 weeks each semester) They help to consolidate basic grammar structures and improve students’ performance competence, especially listening and speaking skills They enable students to study ESP following the GE courses New Interchange & by Richards (CUP, 1990) used as the course-books covers the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, as well as improving pronunciation and building vocabulary Particular emphasis is placed on listening and speaking The primary goal of the course-books is to teach communicative competence, that is, the ability to communicate in English according to the situation, purpose, and the roles of the participants However, teachers of English at STU have not completely helped their students achieve this goal Their communicative competence, especially speaking skill is not much improved after they finish the courses It is just because teachers must be responsible for their students’ result in the endof-term test, which tests students’ knowledge of vocabulary, grammar structures and reading comprehension that most of them tend to switch the focus of the course books to reading and writing 1.2 Significance of the study: To most people, mastering the art of speaking is the most important aspect of learning a foreign language Success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the language (Karl Krahnke, 1994) It is obvious that communicative ability is the goal of foreign language learning: people who know a language are referred to as “ speakers” of that language and speaking seems to include all other kinds of knowing and many if not most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak ( Penny Ur, 1996) No one can say that he has learnt a certain foreign language but he is unable to speak it Reality shows that most teachers of English at Vietnamese technology universities, especially at STU encounter a lot of difficulties when they want to teach speaking skill to their students The problems result not only from the students themselves but also from many other factors such as the way of testing at the end of each semester, teaching methodology and so on For fear that non-English majors will waste a lot of time, money, and energy in learning English if they can not communicate in it after learning it for a long time, I would like to conduct this study in hope of helping the teachers of English at STU in particular and other universities in Ho Chi Minh city in general get a better view on the problems they have to deal with and take a forward step in teaching English, especially English speaking skill to their students 1.3 Research Questions: In this study, the following questions will be used as a basis: What problems the teachers have to face in teaching English speaking skill to non-English majors at STU? Why they have such problems? 1.4 Aims of the study: The thesis aims at identifying problems in teaching English speaking skill to non-English majors at STU through investigating the dominating tasks that are usually used in General English classes at STU and the reasons why the teachers adopt them as well as looking into the students’ attitude, motivation and expectations towards their studying English at university so that the teachers can make innovation in their teaching method on the basis of the findings 1.5 Scope of the study: In this study I would like to focus on the problems encountered by the teachers in teaching English speaking skill The investigation takes place at STU, a private technology university, where the students not major in English, but in engineering The findings are based on the writer’s observational time in General English classes, interviews with the teachers in charge of those classes and data collected from a questionnaire for the GE students from the observed classes at STU 1.6 Design of the study: The thesis is divided into chapters: Chapter discusses the reason why I choose this topic and the significance of the study This chapter shows that this issue is really concerned about Chapter is the literature review, in which I (1) extract some linguists’ ideas about the great importance of speaking skill in learning a language and then discuss how they suggest teachers of English to develop speaking tasks in the classroom; and (2) give an overview of teaching and learning English speaking skill in Vietnam This chapter lays the foundation to move forward to the study of problems facing the teachers in teaching English speaking skill Chapter is the methodology I adopt to the investigation into the abovementioned research questions, involving a series of GE class observations, interviews with the teachers in charge of the observed classes, and a questionnaire for the students of these classes Chapter presents the results from the investigation, on the basis of which I would like to discuss some problems facing the teachers The findings pave the way for the implications suggested in the next chapter Chapter closes the thesis with the conclusion and some implications for teaching English speaking skill CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Mức độ tự tin nói tiếng Anh yếu tố tạo nên 11 Bạn có thường xuyên thiếu tự tin nói tiếng Anh không? □ Luôn □ Thường xuyên □ Thỉnh thoảng □ Hiếm □ Không 12 Nguyên nhân nguyên nhân sau giải thích cho thiếu tự tin bạn? □ Tôi sợ mặt nói sai □ Tôi nói □ Tiếng Anh Tôi không dám nói □ Tôi không quen nói tiếng Anh trước nhiều người □ Tôi không hiểu giáo viên bạn lớp vừa nói Sự mong đợi học tiếng Anh trường Đại học 13 Bạn mong chờ điều điều sau lớp học tiếng Anh trường Đại học? □ Giáo viên nên quan tâm nhiều đến kỹ giao tiếp dành nhiều thời gian lớp để sinh viên thực thực hành nói □ Ngoài thực hành kỹ giao tiếp có sẵn sách, nên có thêm vài hoạt động nói phù hợp với mức độ thông thạo tiếng Anh sinh viên □ Không nên có thực hành nói học kỹ nói không kiểm tra kỳ thi cuối học kỳ □ Giáo viên nên khuyến khích mức chuẩn bị tốt cho thực hành nói để sinh viên cảm thấy hào hứng thực □ Giáo viên cần cho sinh viên làm tâp ngữ pháp, đọc hiểu, đề thi mẫu sinh viên đạt kết tốt kỳ thi cuối học kỳ □ Có vài trò chơi mang tính giao tiếp học 102 14 Bạn thích thực hoạt động nói tiếng Anh hoạt động sau hơn? □ trò chơi □ hoạt động tìm thông tin mà bạn chưa có cách đặt câu hỏi □ đóng vai □ đối thoại □ thảo luận theo nhóm □ trình bày trước lớp □ kể chuyện Cảm ơn trợ giúp bạn 103 APPENDIX 3: SOME EXAMPLES OF BRAINSTORMING USED IN THE CLASSROOM ¾ Simple Word Lists ¾ List words to describe people's appearance ¾ List all the items you need for a party ¾ Make a list of house furniture ¾ Lists Based on a Principle ¾ Write down a food that begins with each letter of the alphabet ¾ Make a list of animals starting with the smallest animal and getting bigger ¾ Finding Alternatives for a Blank in a Sentence The man got off his and walked away (answers could include : horse/bicycle/letter/backside) Peter lived in a (answers could include : caravan/house/fantasy world/apartment) I don't like her because she is (answers could include : too talkative/the teacher's pet/boring) ¾ Brainstorming on a Picture Pictures are a rich source of inspiration for brainstorming Strange events evoke the biggest variety of responses Most students will let their imagination roam if the pictures are strange enough Use pictures from the textbook, magazines or other sources What are these people doing? List the objects in the picture What is this man thinking about? Write four words to describe this person 104 ¾ Brainstorming Using a Song Songs are wonderful for reducing nervousness They seem to be particularly effective in whole-class brainstorming when the teacher is writing the ideas on the board Play a song for the class and ask questions like the following How does the singer feel? What you think the singer looks like? Suggest titles for this song When you think that this song was written? ¾ Word-mapping or Phrase-mapping Around a Central Theme Write a word or phrase in the center of a page All the other words or phrases should link off this in a logical manner Word-mapping can be useful for establishing groups of similar things, for example animals or food Phrase-mapping can be useful for developing topics or functions ¾ Changing One Word in a Sentence Each Time Each word must be changed, but each sentence must have a meaning This can be useful to show the students the role of each word in a sentence prior to a substitution drill or other activities It can be a fun activity to on the blackboard Example: Peter played flute in the orchestra Peter played flute in the park John played flute in the park 105 John played soccer in the park John watched soccer in the park John watched soccer near the park John watched soccer near a park Variations: add one word, take away one word ¾ Listing Different Ways of Expressing a Particular Language Function Example: Ask Someone to Move his Car Please move your car I'd appreciate if you could move your car Get your car out of my way ¾ Prediction Guess what the speaker will say next This can be used in conjunction with dialogues in textbooks It is a powerful technique to encourage students to take a risk If the dialogue is recorded, stop the tape and ask the students to predict what the speaker will say ¾ Free Association This is best done orally and can be a lot of fun One student gives a word in your chosen topic and asks another student to say the first word that she thinks of The second student continues to make associations The first student simply repeats the word in each case After making about 10 associations, the first student should try to work backwards from the last association to the original word Example: A: apple B: red A: red B: rose and so on 106 Variation: Free association in pairs or in groups Students make the associations from the previous student's word ¾ Group Storytelling Students work in groups and take turns adding to a story, either spoken or written It is usually better to give the first line of the story Example: John was late for school because Student A: he missed the train Student B: and there wasn't another for 20 minutes Student C: so he went to a game center Student D: but he lost his wallet 107 APPENDIX 4: GAMES Guessing game Time: 15-20 minutes Aim: To get students to ask questions and brainstorm for the object Preparation: None One student in class chooses a visible object in the room and the other students try to guess what it is by asking questions One student may begin the game by mentally selecting a pink hair ribbon that one of the girl students is wearing He will tell the students that he has chosen an object and that each student can ask question about it He will then give a complete answer to the questions After several questions have been asked, the person whose turn is next may think he knows what the subject is In this case, he can ask, “Is it a (the)……………… ?” if he has guesses correctly, he wins the game and becomes the person who chooses the object in the second game Number of questions asked should be counted and if no one has guessed the object after 10 questions, the person who selected the object wins the game and can choose another object for the second game When there seems to be no more object available in class, teacher can extend the territory, say in the school If the students are quite advanced, a new form of this type may be applied for example, only questions that take a Yes or No answer are permitted Another variation of the game is to select a famous person, living or dead, to be guessed, instead of an object 108 Drawing: Time: 15 minutes Aim: To promote students’ communication in group work and to warm up the classroom atmosphere Preparation: Select a suitable picture, which is not too complicated for drawing Divide the class into groups (in accordance to columns of tables), each group needs to select one representative who has good ears and is able to draw picture This representative will be sent to the board before the picture is given out to the rest of the group members Without showing the picture to the representative, they have to communicate verbally with him by describing the details of the picture The representative has to re-draw the picture as described Students sitting at the back of the class are allowed to move a little bit forward, but not too close to the board After or minutes, all representatives are asked to stop drawing and return to their seat Together with class, the teacher will compare the students’ work with the original picture Declare the winner, maybe with a small prize for the best picture With this type of game, the class is rather noisy but it really works when the students feel a little bit drowsy and need to make some force to wake them up BIBLIOGRAPHY 109 Brown, D (1987) 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VanGundy, A B (1981, 2nd Ed 1988) Techniques of Structured Problem Solving New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold 51 Wajnryb, R (1992) Classroom Observation Tasks, Cambridge University Press 113 52 Widdowson, H.G (1978) Teaching English as communication Oxford University Press 53 Wright , Tony (1987) Roles of Teachers and Learners Oxford University Press 54 Zhenhui, Rao, Effective Use of the Mother Tongue in TEFL, Teacher’s Edition, Issue 3, Sep 2000 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study .1 1.2 Significance of the study: .2 114 1.3 Research Questions .3 1.4 Aims of the study: .3 1.5 Scope of the study: .3 1.6 Design of the study: CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Speaking - the most difficult skill to acquire: 2.2 Teaching English speaking skill: 2.2.1 Some opinions by methodologists on how to get students to talk in the classroom: 2.2.2 Communicative language teaching (CLT): 2.2.3 The relation of beliefs, knowledge and practice of CLT: 2.2.4 Learner-centeredness: 10 2.2.5 Classroom interaction 11 2.2.5.1 What is classroom interaction? 11 2.2.5.2 Factors influence interaction 11 a) Self-esteem 11 b) Anxiety 12 c) Inhibition 12 2.2.6 Organizing a speaking activity effectively in the classroom: 13 2.2.7 An overview of teaching and learning English speaking skill in Vietnam 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .17 3.1 Objectives 17 3.2 Participants 19 3.3 Data collection procedure: 19 3.3.1 Class observation 20 3.3.2 Interviews with teachers: 21 3.3.3 Questionnaire .22 3.4 Limitation of the study and suggestion for further study 23 3.4.1 Limitation of the study: 23 3.4.2 Suggestion for further study: .23 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS & DISCUSSION .25 4.1 Results from class observation 25 115 4.1.1 Division of class time 26 4.1.2 Types of tasks for students 28 4.2 Results from interviews .34 4.2.1 The student 35 4.2.2 The institutional system: 38 4.2.3 The teacher: Error! Bookmark not defined 4.3 Results from questionnaire .43 4.3.1 Experience in learning English at high school: 43 4.3.2 Motivation for learning English 53 4.3.3 Attitude towards practising speaking English in the classroom 55 4.3.4 Levels of confidence in speaking English and contributing factors 57 4.3.5 Expectations in university English class: 59 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION & IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH 62 5.1.Summary of the findings from the study 62 5.2 Implications for teaching English speaking skill .65 5.2.1 Implications related to the university administrators .65 5.2.2 Implications related to the teachers 67 5.2.2.1 Building up students’ confidence 67 5.2.2.2 Building up students’ motivation: 72 5.2.2.3 Strategies for teaching speaking skill 74 a) The goal of teaching speaking skill is communicative efficiency 74 b) Strategies for Developing Speaking Skills 76 c) Developing Speaking Activities 78 APPENDIX1:UNIT1(Extracted from NEW INTERCHANGE 1) 85 APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE 92 APPENDIX 3: SOME EXAMPLES OF BRAINSTORMING USED IN THE CLASSROOM 104 APPENDIX 4: Games 108 116