Khóa luận tốt nghiệp an investigation into oral communication strategies adopted by second year english majors at vietnam national university of agriculture

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO ORAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE KHẢO SÁT VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC GIAO TIẾP QUA KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH, HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student : NGUYỄN AN KHÁNH Student code : 621194 Major : ENGLISH Supervisor : BÙI THỊ LÀ Hanoi – 2021 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO ORAL COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE KHẢO SÁT VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC GIAO TIẾP QUA KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH, HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student : NGUYỄN AN KHÁNH Student code : 621194 Major : ENGLISH Supervisor : BÙI THỊ LÀ Hanoi – 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled an investigation into oral communication strategies adopted by second-year English majors at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgment in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2021 Nguyen An Khanh Approved by SUPERVISOR Bui Thi La (Signature and full name) Date: /07/2021 i TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality i Table of contents ii Abstract iv List of abbreviation v List of tables vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale for the study Aims and objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Significance of the study Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Review of previous studies 1.2 Review of theoretical background 1.2.1 Communication strategy 1.2.4 The OCS Inventory 16 1.3 Summary 19 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 20 2.1 Research methods 20 2.2 Research context 21 2.3 Data collection 22 2.3.1 Data collection instrument 22 2.3.2 Data collection procedure 22 ii 2.4 Data analysis 23 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24 3.1 Findings 24 3.1.1 Quantitative finding 24 3.1.2 Qualitative finding 31 3.2 Discussion 32 3.3 Summary 37 PART III: CONCLUSION 38 Recapitulation 38 Concluding remarks on each of the thesis objectives 38 Limitation of the current research 40 Suggestions for further research 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES 43 iii ABSTRACT Oral communication strategies are a powerful instrument for EFL learners who would like to improve their English ability and communication skills It is indeed a crucial tool for students to gain an understanding of communication techniques in EFL settings As a result, one of this thesis was to look at the usage frequency of oral communication strategies among English majors at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture In addition, as well as to propose effective oral communication strategies that enable English majors to enhance their communication ability The mixed-methods design was used in this study The quantitative phase involved the administration of a questionnaire to 110 participants, and the qualitative phase involved 12 students who completed the questionnaire but volunteered to participate in the follow-up interviews Integration of quantitative and qualitative findings of the current research revealed that English-majored second-year students used eight oral communication strategies to help to enhance their English oral communication competence The study documented a few practical oral communication strategies The findings of this study might raise the awareness of oral communication strategies among Vietnamese students in general and VNUA students in particular Combining the results of this study with those of other studies from different settings may lead to a better understanding of oral communication strategies iv LIST OF ABBREVIATION CS Communication strategies EFL English as a foreign language M Mean OCS Oral communication strategies OCSI Oral Communication Strategies Inventory SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences St D Standard Deviation VNUA Vietnam National University of Agriculture v LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 The overall use of oral communication strategies 24 Table 3.2 Fluency Oriented strategies 25 Table 3.3 Negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies 26 Table 3.4 Nonverbal strategies 26 Table 3.5 Attempt to think in English strategies 27 Table 3.6 Message reduction and alteration 27 Table 3.7 Social affective strategies 28 Table 3.8 Accuracy-oriented strategies 29 Table 3.9 Message abandonment strategies 30 Table 3.10 Achievement and Reduction strategies 31 vi PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study In the process of globalization, high-quality human resources was one of the essential requirements for Vietnam Yet, having only specialized knowledge without a good command of English, especially speaking and listening skills, Vietnamese human resources will face various difficulties in the job market and the career ladder It was the duty of universities to meet the need for a highquality workforce with proficient English communicative skills From such demand, English Linguistics becomes a new major at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture (VNUA), elevating English-majored students' oral communication competence, which was a must to increase their competitiveness in the job market Specifically, English was taught as a foreign language in the context of Vietnam Among four English skills, namely reading, listening, speaking, and writing, most students find it challenging to study speaking and listening skills According to Bialystock (1990), developing the ability to use oral communication strategies (OCS) helps learners develop communicative proficiency to deal with their lack of knowledge of the target language This was a crucial tool for students who were short of speaking and listening knowledge Considering all the reasons above, I decided to propose a study titled "An investigation into communication strategies adopted by second-year English majors at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture" Aims and objectives of the study The aim of the study was to improve the second-year English majors oral communication skills at VNUA The objectives of the paper were to investigate the use of OCS by Englishmajored students at Vietnam National University of Agriculture and to suggest effective OCS for English majors to improve their oral communication ability Research questions What were the oral communication strategies used in English communication by English-majored second-year students at VNUA? What suggestions should be given to improve English majors‟ oral communication skills at VNUA? Scope of the study The study lasted months from 01/03/2021 The author carried out an investigation into the use of OCS with 110 second-year English-majored students from the Department of Education and Foreign Languages at VNUA The study explored the use of OCS among English Linguistics second-year students In detail, the study focuses only on OCS to cope with problems while speaking Significance of the study Achieving specialized knowledge and proficient English communication competence at the same time was not an easy task for many students In many means to develop communication ability, using OCS was a tool that was not limited by the target language knowledge of users The impact of OCS on second language or foreign language acquisition in general and English as a foreign language, in particular, has been proven by many scholars to successfully deal with communication difficulties This was a valid reason for OCS to be compulsory knowledge for VNUA students in particular and students in general By conducting this research, first, we hope to raise students‟ awareness of OCS, and second, this study was also expected to become a useful reference resource for fellow students as well as other researchers Design of the study Apart from abstracts, references and appendices, the study consists of three main parts: talk (O8) Moreover, a small number of respondents (41.67%) indicated that they usually speak softly and clearly and only speak loudly if necessary (O1) The overwhelming majority of interview individuals commented that they not only used an example to clarify their message when the listeners not understood but they also used it to check comprehension e.g “I give them an example about what I just said and ask them to name the result” Just over half of those (66.67%) who were interviewed gave positive feedback on comprehension checks (O2) One particular case stated, “I don‟t think I have to care because if they don‟t answer, they will ask” Concerning the interviews, whilst only three interviewees mentioned that they will try two or three times to convert their original message in simpler expressions to execute the original intent (O5), a good number agreed that they only try one time (O6) or not even bother Over three-quarters of those interviewed (83.3%) reported that they feel anxious at the moment they start talking to someone in English This might be the reason for the high density of emotion control strategies Even though they felt nervous or stressed, all of them still express an interest in communication in English The same proportion of interviewees shared the same feeling of afraid to make mistakes The unconscious use of empty sound was also coded from 83.33% of respondents (O9) Regarding the qualitative finding, every interviewee responded that they will use translation as the final method if the listeners were Vietnamese By the definition of Speaking Reduction strategies, using Vietnamese was considered avoidance of the problem that occurred at the time in English, which indicates that it belongs to the reduction strategies as „message abandonment strategies‟ 3.2 Discussion Research question 1: What were the OCS used in English communication by second-year English majors at VNUA? 32 Regarding the findings in the previous section, the degree of overall use of OCS while speaking by second-year English-majored students was considered high frequency The top three most used strategies consisted of „Fluencyoriented strategies‟, „Nonverbal strategies‟ and „Negotiation for meaning while speaking‟ „Fluency-oriented strategies‟ held the highest mean of 3.71 as the most frequently used strategies, in which students gained confidence when they pronounced correctly However, in regard to the variables, the most used strategy with the mean of 3.98 was „use familiar words‟ Among eight OCS, there was only one strategy that fell in the medium frequency level that was „Message abandonment strategies‟ Notwithstanding, the qualitative data showed that 91.67% of the undertaking of this method could be viewed as an open topic or indefinite invitation for another conversation Looking at a broader picture, the second-year English majors might favor dealing with problems over avoiding problems while speaking Viewing the English-majored context, these results reflect those of Le et al (2020) who also found that „fluency-oriented‟ was the most commonly used strategy and „Negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies‟ ranked third Comparison of the findings with those of other studies (Chen, 2009; Yaman, 2015; Chairat, 2017) confirmed that „Nonverbal strategies‟ and „Negotiation for meaning while speaking‟ ranked in the top of high-frequency use strategies Chen (2009), Yaman (2015), and Le et al (2020) reported that the finding of the least often used strategies was „message abandonment‟ In comparison, Chairat (2017) reported that the least used strategy was „attempt to think in English‟ Despite „Message abandonment strategies‟, five items (17, 22, 23, 25, and 27) were also reported as medium frequency On the matter of breaking down the original message into smaller ones, all the participants reported that they will use item 15 after or without using item 17 In the individual interviews, the informants‟ act of putting questions in some circumstances to answer could be 33 seen as a form of message reduction These answers suggested that students prefer reducing message (item 15) to replacing message (item 17) It was possible that the result of item 22 was due to the fact that students tend to be afraid of making mistakes while speaking in English This fear of mistakes might lead to the lack of „using filler‟ strategy because of the unconscious use of empty sounds The degree of frequency between item (pay attention to rhymes and intonation) and item 27 (emphasize subject or verb of the sentence) had a small conflict These differences demonstrated that the students paid attention to intonation more than rhymes while speaking While adapting Bui's (2016) suggestion and analyzing the qualitative data, one challenge emerged Some informants answered that they would use digital support if they face communication difficulties related to accuracy In this case, there was no suitable category for either of these answers This was why the author suggests a new item “seeking help from digital devices” Another concern for this topic was the translation from English to Vietnamese which was a communication strategy proven by many scholars Using digital devices to support and pay attention to grammar and word order were considered reduction strategies (Nakatani, 2010) To deal with the inefficiency, an appropriate proposal was suggested separating the “accuracy-oriented strategies” into „reduction accuracy-oriented strategies‟ and 'achievement accuracy-oriented strategies” consisted the remaining items To be specific, the former consisted „pay attention to grammar and word order and „seeking help from digital devices‟ Research question 2: What suggestion should be given to improve English majors‟ oral communication skills at VNUA? There were similarities between the trend of using OCS in papers described by Chen (2009), Yaman (2015), Chairat (2017), and Le et al (2020) In all four 34 papers that were conducted in the English majored context, „message reduction and alteration strategies‟, „non-verbal strategies‟, and „negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies‟ were the most frequently used strategies The findings above suggested that English majors believed these subcategories were among the most effective strategies despite the differences between countries and educational systems Overseeing the non-English-majored context, the reviewed pieces of literature (Nakatani, 2006; Huang, 2010; Ounis, 2016) supported „social affective strategies‟ as an effective choice These studies either found nonEnglish majors considered „message reduction and alteration strategies‟ and „nonverbal strategies‟ effective Comparison of Ounis‟s (2016) finding with those in English-majored context showed the similarity between the degrees of using „negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies‟ that suggested negotiation for meaning strategies was very effective Regarding the preference between achievement and reduction strategies, a large number of studies recommended that not only English-majored students but non-English-majored students also chose achievement strategies Table 3.8 in the current study suggested that English majors probably minimized the rate of abandoning the desired message Apart from Chairat (2017), this result was further supported by Yaman (2015) and Le et al (2020) Toward the Vietnamese context, Le et al (2020) also reported that „fluencyoriented‟ was the most commonly used strategy However, there were a few differences between the trend within the two subclasses, „fluency-oriented‟ and „social affective‟ 35 Rank Variables Le et al This study (2020) findings Fluency oriented I pay attention to my rhythm and intonation I change my way of saying things according to the context 5 2 Social affective I actively encourage myself to express what I want to say I try to give a good impression to the listener Since Le et al (2020) conducted their research in the South of Vietnam and the current study was conducted in the North of Vietnam, it might be related to the cultural contexts Many types of research have pointed out that cultural background was a factor affecting the use of OCS Maintaining eye contact and speaking softly and clearly were a gesture of politeness, which was documented from the majority of interviewees during the data collection stage This evidence agreed with seeing cultural context as a contributing factor This combination of findings suggests that OCS should be popular among students in general and English-majored students in particular Students have been using all four suggested strategies at high frequency Regarding the rank of used strategies, students should keep on the current use of „nonverbal strategies‟ and „negotiation for meaning strategies‟ and try to upward the trend of employing „message reduction and alteration strategies‟ and „social affective strategies‟ In the present, OCS was introduced to students through „Semantic‟ curriculum in the second semester of second-year To raise the awareness of 36 OCS, instead of the second year, it should be introduced in freshman year The content could be mentioned in Speaking or Speaking (they were the introductory speaking courses at A2 and B1 level) in which teachers could direct students to use four recommended OCS Tasks related to practice pronunciation and overcoming fear of making mistakes were highly recommended to employ in classes Students were advised to practice using OCS both inside and outside the classroom While speaking, students ought to pay equal attention to pronunciation, intonation and sentences stress in their performance 3.3 Summary The results in this chapter indicate that among strategies for coping with problems while speaking, strategies were being considered as high frequency which were “fluency-oriented strategies”, “negotiation for meaning strategies”, “non-verbal strategies”, “message reduction and alteration”, “social affective”, “attempt to think in English”, “accuracy-oriented” and strategy at the medium level of frequency, “message abandonment” These findings were supported by multiple papers regionally and internationally By applying individual interviews with semi-structured questions, the findings provided shreds of evidence that suggests the change of a subcategory of the OCSI, “accuracy-oriented” Considering prior research, the current study suggests four effective OCS which were „message reduction and alteration strategies‟, „nonverbal strategies‟, „negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies‟, and „social affective strategies‟ After evaluating and discussing the results, this paper proposes raising the awareness of OCS among students Teachers ought to apply more speaking tasks in order to create many situations for speaking practice The findings and discussion of this chapter have addressed the research questions and suggested a few influencing factors on the use of OCS 37 PART III: CONCLUSION Recapitulation The study "An investigation into communication strategies adopted by second-year English majors at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture" was carried out on the basis of OCS and the OCSI (Nakatani, 2006) 110 second-year English majors were surveyed and 12 participants were interviewed about the OCS to deal with problems while speaking, were “fluency-oriented strategies”, “negotiation for meaning strategies”, “non-verbal strategies”, “message reduction and alteration”, “social affective”, “attempt to think in English”, “accuracy-oriented”, and “message abandonment” The online survey lasted for one month and the interview via Microsoft Team began after the survey The software SPSS (version 20.0) and coding were applied to analyze quantitative and qualitative data The outcomes of this research suggested that overall English-majored second-year students used OCS under high frequency and four suggestions on the effective OCS Concluding remarks on each of the thesis objectives The results of the present paper reveal that all out of eight subclasses were employed by the respondents in coping with challenges while speaking English Furthermore, the top three strategies used by second-yearEnglish majors were „Fluency-oriented‟, „Nonverbal‟, and „Negotiation for meaning while speaking‟, respectively Applying „Fluency-oriented strategies‟, students pay attention to pronunciation, rhymes, intonation, and context to be clear about the message and avoid sending inappropriate utterances to the listeners In certain cases, gestures or eye contact were used to modify the message and attract the interlocutor‟s attention so that speakers could achieve the communicative goals Moreover, to cope with communication breakdown, informants observed the interlocutor‟s reaction to check the understanding of both parties and used means of 38 negotiation such as comprehension checking questions, example, etc to ensure that the speaker and the listener come to the same understanding „Negotiation for meaning while speaking‟ was indicated as the active strategy which bettered foreign language competence (Nakatani, 2006) Other significant contributors of the current research were four effective OCS recommended in the findings Those were „message reduction and alteration strategies‟, „nonverbal strategies‟, „negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies‟, and „social affective strategies‟ Two of the suggested strategies were commonly used by English-majored second-year students „Message reduction and alteration strategies‟ were understood as using an easier alternative expression, dividing the original message into smaller ones, and making simpler utterances Meanwhile, applying „social affective strategies‟ was the process of controlling the speaker‟s anxiety, avoiding silence by motivating oneself to speak in spite of making mistakes and giving a good impression These strategies were highly recommended for English majors at VNUA to overcome the fear of making mistakes An important issue that emerged from the research was the students‟ tendency to deal with occurring problems while speaking rather than avoid it Showing students‟ positive attitude toward English speaking could be perceived as active learning The outcomes propose raising the awareness of OCS among English majors and increasing the number of speaking activities which encourage students using „social affective strategies‟ to risk making mistakes By gradually taking the risk of making mistakes, students will overcome the fear of being false and make progress in speaking and three other skills as well Finally, students are suggested to raise the use of „message reduction and alteration strategies‟ and „social affective strategies‟ side by side with continue the good work of employing „nonverbal strategies‟ and „negotiation for meaning 39 strategies‟ The study proposes teachers to give more speaking tasks for students to practice OCS, pronunciation and to overcome the fear of making mistake Limitation of the current research The present study was conducted from March 1st, 2021 to June 30th, 2021 which was four months The object of the research only covered the second-year English majors The study should follow the longitudinal design and cover all the different objects at VNUA to give better results OCS was a difficult and complex research topic that could be affected by many factors, including cultural background, attitude, proficiency, and especially gender since the majority of the students in the Department of Education and Foreign Languages were female Studies about this topic require a variety of data collection methods such as observation, focus group interview, etc when the current study only focuses on surveying and semi-structured interviewing Suggestions for further research The study was carried out on second-year English majors at VNUA using surveying and semi-structured interview as data collection methods Follow-up research could be conducted on a larger scale to represent the whole body of students at VNUA Factors affecting the choice of using OCS like proficiency, culture, motivation, etc should be employed with participants in the current or from different settings to better understood the impact of those factors It was crucial that different methodologies and factors could result in different outcomes For this reason, in future research, motivation, gender, and proficiency could be seen as affecting factors On top of that, a specific speaking task could be assigned and the research could cover strategies for both speaking and listening 40 REFERENCES (APA) Bialystok, E (1983) On learning language form and language function Interlanguage Studies Bulletin, 54-70 Bui, H M (2016) Exploring English Oral Communication Strategies used by Vietnamese students in Transnational Education Advanced Programs in Vietnam A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, RMIT University Chairat, P (2017) Oral communication strategies used by English major undergraduates during the internship program In Proceeding of the International Conference on Literature, History, Humanities and Interdisciplinary Studies (LHHISS-17) Bangkok (Thailand) July (pp 11-12) Dörnyei, Z., & Scott, M L (1997) Communication strategies in a second language: Definitions and taxonomies Language learning, 47(1), 173-210 Faerch, C., & Kasper, G (1984) Two ways of defining communication strategies Language learning, 34(1), 45-63 Huang, C P (2010) Exploring factors affecting the use of oral communication strategies LongHua Technology University Journal, 30(1), 85-104 Le, V T., Huynh, T A., & Tran, K H (2020) Strategies used by undergraduate englishmajored students in oral communication VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 36(1), 156-179 Nakatani, Y (2006) Developing an OCS inventory The modern language journal, 90(2), 151-168 Ounis, T (2016) Exploring the Use of Oral Communication Strategies by High and Low Proficiency learners of English: Tunisian EFL students as a case study International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies (IJHCS) ISSN 2356-5926, 3(1), 1077-1098 Pawley, A., Syder, F H., Richards, J C., 41 & Schmidt, R W (1983) Language and communication London: Longman, 191-195 10 Rababah, G (2002) Second Language Communication Strategies: Definitions, Taxonomies, Data Elicitation Methodology and Teachability Issues A Review Article 11 Rastegar, M., & Gohari, S S M (2016) Communication strategies, attitude, and oral output of EFL learners: A study of relations Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 6(5), 401-419 12 Tarone, G., Ferracini, R., Galetto, G., & Comoglio, P (1984) A cell surface integral membrane glycoprotein of 85,000 mol wt (gp85) associated with triton X-100-insoluble cell skeleton The Journal of cell biology, 99(2), 512519 13 Vu, K.H (2020) The use of Communication Strategies in different Speaking tasks by the first year students at Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry Tạp chí khoa học cơng nghệ đại học Thái Nguyên, T 225, S 03 (2020), 81-88 14 Vu, T.B.D (2015) A study on strategies used in verbal communication between native english and non-native speakers in the workplace Tạp chí Ngơn ngữ Đời sống, No (2015), 56-60 15 Yaman, Ş., & Özcan, M (2015) Oral communication strategies used by Turkish students learning English as a foreign language In Issues in teaching, learning and testing speaking in a second language (pp 143-158) Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 42 APPENDICES Appendix A: The survey questionnaire adopted Nakatani (2006) Dear students, We are conducting a study on oral communication strategies used by English-majored students at VNUA Could you please complete the questionnaire below which only take minutes? All your information provided for us will only be used for the purpose of research so please not leave any item unanswered Thank you very much! In the table below there are 32 English oral communication strategies How often you use these strategies in communication in general? Please read them carefully and circle the responses 1-Never (N), 2-Rarely (R), 3-Sometimes (S), 4-Often (O), or 5-Always (A) No Items N R S O A Social affective strategies I try to relax when I feel anxious I try to enjoy the conversation I try to give a good impression to the listener 5 5 5 I actively encourage myself to express what I want to say I don‟t mind taking risks even though I might make mistakes I try to use fillers when I cannot think of what to say Fluency-oriented strategies I pay attention to my rhythm and intonation 43 I pay attention to my pronunciation I pay attention to the conversational flow 5 5 5 5 5 5 10 11 12 I change my way of saying things according to the context I take my time to express what I want to say I try to speak clearly and loudly to make myself heard Negotiation for meaning while speaking strategies 13 14 15 16 I make comprehension checks to ensure the listener understands what I want to say I repeat what I want to say until the listener understands While speaking, I pay attention to the listeners‟ reactions to my speech I give examples if the listener doesn‟t understand what I‟m saying Accuracy-oriented strategies 17 18 19 20 21 I pay attention to grammar and word order during a conversation I notice myself using an expression that fits a rule that I have learned I correct myself when I notice that I have made a mistake I try to emphasize the subject and verb of the sentence I try to talk like a native speaker Message reduction and alteration strategies 44 22 I reduce the message and use simple expressions 23 I use words that are familiar to me 5 5 5 5 5 I replace the original message with another message 24 because of feeling incapable of executing my original intent Non-verbal strategies while speaking 25 26 I try to make eye contact when I am talking I use gestures and facial expressions if I can‟t express myself Message abandonment strategies 27 28 29 30 I leave a message unfinished because of some language difficulty I ask other people to help when I cant communicate well I give up when I can‟t make myself understood I abandon the execution of a verbal plan and just say some words when I don‟t know what to say Attempt to think in English strategies 31 I think first of a sentence I already know in English and then try to change it to fit the situation 32 I think of what I want to say in my native language and then construct the English sentence Appendix B: The interview question list Questions for focus group interviews How you feel at the moment that you start to speak English to someone? 45 What you often pay attention to when you speak English to someone (e.g pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar)? How you often speak English? For example, you speak slowly, quickly, softly, or loudly? Do you try to speak like a native speaker? What you if you speak English to someone but they look like they don‟t understand? What you often if you don‟t know how to express your ideas? For example, you point or use facial expressions, get eye contact or look away? 46