Difficulties in speaking of english majored sophomore at tay do university

TAY DO UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LINGUSTICS AND LITERATURE DIFFICULTIES IN SPEAKING OF ENGLISH-MAJORED SOPHOMORE AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY Supervior: Nguyen Hiep Thanh Nga, Ph.D Student: Duong Viet Anh Code: 1652220201020 Class: English 11B May 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express so much thankfulness to the following people who guided, helped me to complete this research Firstly, I am deeply grateful to Tay Do University, especially, the teachers of Faculty of Linguistics of Literature, for their teaching, bringing me wide knowledge of English over four years and giving me opportunities to conduct this research Secondly, I sincerely express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Nguyen Hiep Thanh Nga, Ph.D at Tay Do University She was very caring, spent her time to give me precious advice to overcome difficulties during conducting the research Sincerely, without her, it would be difficult for me to complete this research Thirdly, I thanked for assistance of 52 students from English 13B class for spending their time to give me the information Finally, I would like to express a deep gratitude to my family and all of my friends who always motivate me to accomplish this research i COMMENTS ii ABSTRACT Speaking is an important skill in English that give us the ability to communicate effectively and allow the speakers to convey their messages in a passionate, thoughtful and convincing manner However, students face some difficulties when speaking This survey research presents the process of the study about “Difficulties in speaking of English Majored sophomore at Tay Do University” It was conducted to find out difficulties in learning speaking of 52 sophomores from class English 13B at Tay Do University Questionnaire was the instruments of the study The research showed that sophomore had many problems in speaking such as pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and psychology iii TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i COMMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENT iv CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale .1 1.2 The significance and the organization of study 1.2.1 The significance of study 1.2.2 The organization of study CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW .3 2.1 The definition of speaking skill 2.2 The importance of English speaking skill 2.3 Difficulties in speaking skill 2.3.1 Difficulties in pronunciation 2.3.1.1 Intonation mistakes 2.3.1.2 Ending sounds 2.3.1.3 Words stress 2.3.2 Difficulties in vocabulary 2.3.2.1 Lack of vocabulary items 2.3.2.2 Seldom memorizing vocabulary .5 2.3.2.3 Misusing of vocabulary 2.3.3 Difficulties in grammar structure .6 2.3.3.1 Tenses 2.3.3.2 Misodering words 2.3.3.3 Misuse of pronouns 2.3.4 Psychology 2.3.4.1 Fear of mistakes 2.3.4.2 Shyness iv 2.3.4.3 Lack of motivation CHAPTER III: RESEARCH AIMS - RESEARCH QUESTION HYPOTHESIS 10 3.1 Aims of the study 10 3.2 Research question 10 3.3 Hypothesis 10 CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .11 4.1 Design 11 4.2 Participants 11 4.3 Instruments 11 4.4 Questionnaire 12 4.5 Procedure 12 CHAPTER V: EXPECTED OUTCOME .13 5.1 Pronunciation 13 5.2 Vocabulary 13 5.3 Grammar structure 13 5.4 Psychology 14 REFERENCES 15 QUESTIONNAIRE 16 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale English is an international language, which is commonly used by all of countries in the world nowadays This is the most important foreign language to transfer and get of knowledge, science, technology, art and culture and establish international relationship Bailey, K.M (2005) argues that: “English becomes popular and the one of most important language in the whole aspects of life to understand literature.” In English, there are four skills that should be mastered, they are: listening, speaking, reading, and writing The most important one is speaking Mastering in speaking is the most important aspect of learning English and success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in language Goh, C (2007) states of the all four skills: “Speaking is considered to be able to be the most important skill Through speaking, people can express their think and communicate with others.” Students should improve their speaking, because only in that way the students can express themselves However, learning a new language, especially in speaking, has never been easy Students have faced a lot of difficulties Particularly, English majored sophomore at Tay Do University are examples They still faced to difficulties because of many reasons Firstly, they might be think that their pronunciation is bad because they cannot express ideas and also speak with incorrect pronunciation Secondly, they seldom memorize and misusing the vocabulary Thirdly, they usually make grammatical errors Finally, they are also affected by some psychological factors such as shyness, fear of making mistakes From those reasons, they feel frustrated and uninrested in speaking English, so they not have motivation to improve and develop their speaking skills For those problems, the study “ Difficulties in speaking of English majored sophomore at Tay Do University ” was conducted to find out difficulties of second year students when learning speaking and helping them to overcome their problems Moreover, we hope that after this research, English majored sophomore can learn speaking better and mastery their speech 1.2 The significance and the organization of study 1.2.1 The significance of study Speaking English fluently is the key to have a lot of opportunities in every aspect in the future The finding of this study will help students to recognize their difficulties in learning English speaking and solve them in the right ways 1.2.2 The organization of study The research consists of five chapters: Chapter I: Introduction : this chapter presents the rationale,the research aim, the research questions, the significant, the organization of the research proposal Chapter II: Literature Review: this chapter is about the definition, the importance and also mentions to the difficulties of the speaking skill Chapter III: Research Aims and Research Questions: this chapter is about the aims of study, the research questions and hypothesis Chapter IV: Research Methodology: this chapter consists of design, participants, instruments and procedure for data collection Chapter V: Expected outcome: this chapter presents the expected outcome for the research proposal CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 The definition of speaking skill Speaking is very important in people’s daily life Speaking also is one of basic skills in learning foreign language besides listening, reading, and writing It has been through since the students entered elementary school, however it is not easy for the students to communicate in English They have to think more often when speaking English Noon-ura, S (2008) states that: “Speaking is depending on the complexity of the information to be communicated However, the student sometimes finds it difficult to clarify what they want to say.” From definition above, it can be concluded that speaking is a productive skill, and the ability to express the communication with others Because the main purpose of speaking is to communicate in order to express thoughts in effective ways 2.2 The importance of English speaking skill Ribecca (1990) states that “Speaking skill enables you to put your point across succinctly and evocatively whether in conversations, teleconversations, interviews, group discussions, elevator pitches, presentations, and so on.” Students are taught a lot of subjects in depth during their formal education They can never know how much knowledge is stored in mind unless they can put it across by speaking or writing Speaking skill can help students in all areas of life Having wide range of English skills will assist them in acquiring a good job, communicating well to others, in business, at work or in school The more knowledgeable they are in their speaking skills, the less frustration in conveying themself to others 2.3 Difficulties in speaking skill 2.3.1 Difficulties in pronunciation Pronunciation mistakes include intonation, ending sounds and stress 2.3.1.1 Intonation mistakes Fraser (2000) states that “Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say, the way the voice rises and falls when speaking, in other words the music of the language” With intonation, the message which the speakers want to say will become more clearly and to show exactly feeling or attitude But the way you can get intonation when you speak is not easy Students usually speak English with flat tone Their voice not go up or down Some of them have trouble with messy intonation, they raise their voice in wrong part of sentences, especially in Wh-questions and Yes-NO questions Those mistakes actually cause a lot of misunderstanding situations in reality 2.3.1.2 Ending sounds To every English learners, the word “ ending sound ” is pretty popular in speaking To understand easily, “ ending sounds ” are sounds that occur at the end of the word The misunderstanding between short vowels and long vowels or others, but ending sounds seems to be the most common pronunciation mistake that English majored sophomore still have to face when speaking English Students find these sounds such as /dʒ/, /θ/, /ʃ/, /ð/ and /ʒ/ are difficult to pronounce, then they have a tendency to omit these ending sounds or produce them in uncorrected way Beside, it also happens with /t/ and /d/ sounds when they pronounce /-ed/ sounds 2.3.1.3 Words stress Learners of English not have such a concept as “stressed syllables” because their language is syllable-timed The first reason why students make mistakes in word stress is the differences between the two completely different systems of stress Wei,Y.(2002) states that: “English words can be either monosyllabic or polysyllabic whereas Vietnamese, on the other hand, is always monosyllabic”.The way Vietnamese speakers produce English words is greatly influenced by their mother tongue, which has tone instead of stress The second reason why students produce wrong stress placement is the features of the English word stress themselves Its nature, levels, and placements are very complicated and unpredictable They have rules about stress placements as mentioned above, but there are so many exceptions to the rules that many students find it very difficult to learn by heart both the rules of word stress and the exceptions to all those rules 2.3.2 Difficulties in vocabulary Vocabulary mistakes include lack of vocabulary items, seldom memorizing vocabulary and misusing of vocabulary 2.3.2.1 Lack of vocabulary items Vocabulary is one of factors that support students for mastering language skills In speaking, they cannot communicate well without vocabular It is supported by Shumin, K (1997) “Vocabulary is the vital aspect of the language” Furthermore, Tam, M (1997) states that: “It would be impossible to learn a language without vocabulary” Even though, the vocabulary is an important language component that should be mastered by students but they are still lack of vocabulary There were many students who cannot answer the native teacher’s question, they keep asking the teacher to translate the question into Vietnamese Besides, when the teacher asked them some questions in English, some of the students can understand the meaning of what the teacher says but they cannot answer it by using English 2.3.2.2 Seldom memorizing vocabulary Learners not usually memorize a new word as soon as they first meet the word Memorizing a new word requires a process Zaremba, A J (2006) defines this process in five stages: “encountering new words, getting the word form, getting the word meaning, consolidating word form and meaning in memory, using the word When learning vocabulary, learners often adopt different vocabulary strategies.” Pronounceability, orthography, length, morphology, synformy and semantic features of the word are six factors that affect word learning Concerning length, there is no conclusive results that show that the length of a word will affect the acquisition of it Morphology: a word will be more difficult to learn if the word has a more complex morphology, such as irregularity of plural, and gender of inanimate nouns (Schmitt & McCarthy 1997) Synformy: learners confuse words that sound or look alike Semantic features of the word: semantic properties include abstractness, and register restriction, idiomaticity and multiplicity of meaning are said to affect the learning of words 2.3.2.3 Misusing of vocabulary Folse, K (2004) states that “A word is the simplest part of any language While communicating or delivering any ideas or thoughts, one must use a proper word.” Word choice is a person’s choice or selection of words The choice of words is the style of expression But students usually not know how to choose appropriate words while speaking, they need to have rich vocabulary when they speak The more they know words, the better they will be In some cases, incorrect word choice leads to the misunderstanding and even make no sense It sometimes makes the situation awkward and unclear When we speak,we cannot always capture the exact words we want at the exact moment we want them We cannot also remember the words we rehearsed so carefully The more we search for the right words, the more frustrated we become, which makes us struggle even more 2.3.3 Difficulties in grammar structure Grammatical mistakes include tense in sentence, misordering words, misuse of pronouns 2.3.3.1 Tenses Speaking English hardly bothers about tenses or other grammatical rules as long as you can convey your idea properly to your listeners The students often make mistakes and commit errors while learning English , especially when they try to arrange sentences or use tenses while speaking However, the fact that tense is a basic component in speaking Meanwhile, tenses are very crucial, it cannot be used both in spoken and written if the tenses are not mastered well There are three main tenses: past, present, simple Patil, Z.N (2008) states that: “Simple present tense is used to express a habitual action with adverbs such as usually, always, or often.” The use of simple present tense often confuses students When the speaker makes an error in simple present tense, it means that the speaker is not careful enough in making their text vivid and detailed Mochamad Noer Tjahjono (2007) wrote a thesis, titled: “An Error Analysis on the Use of Simple past” He found that the students had continued to make errors using simple past tense Thus, if students want to be a good speaker, they have to understand how to use appropriate tense when they speak 2.3.3.2 Misodering words Word order is important, it is what makes the sentences make sense So, proper word order is an essential part of writing and speaking When students put words in the wrong order, the result is a confusing, unclear, and an incorrect sentence The word order is important here not to convey feeling or tone, but to impart a particular sense or interpretation Another consideration regarding the order of words concerns fluency or accuracy The placing of adjectives is particularly problematic in English for those learning the language Native speakers learn the order as if by osmosis, and many don’t even realize there is a particular sequence They just know where the words need to go depending on what they want to communicate Students should pay more attention to word order to make right order sentences 2.3.3.3 Misuse of pronouns One of the easiest traps to fall into as a speaker is the misuse of pronouns We were taught in grade school that pronouns make communication easier by shortening references to characters in a story They can be viewed as pro-nouns, used by elite communicators But in practice, it is a lot harder to use them correctly The first issue of understanding who the pronoun refers to in order to avoid misuse of pronouns The next issue with the misuse of pronouns is understanding who is included in its reference And the last danger in the misuse of pronouns is the typical verbs that they’re allowed to follow pronouns Working with pronouns is easy to poorly It takes work and rigorous assessment to eliminate potentially divisive words from speech But the audience’s attention, connection, and response is worth the effort 2.3.4 Psychology 2.3.4.1 Fear of mistakes Fear of mistake becomes one of the main factors of students‟ reluctance to speak in English in the classroom With respect to the fear of making mistake issue, According to Nunan, D (2006) adds that this fear is linked to the issue of correction and negative evaluation In addition, this is also much influenced by the students‟ fear of being laughed at by other students or being criticized by the teacher As a result, students commonly stop participating in the speaking activity 2.3.4.2 Shyness Shyness is an emotional thing that many students suffer from when they are required to speak in English class This indicates that shyness could be a source of problem in students’s learning activities in the classroom Therefore, paying attention on this aspect is also quite important in order to help the students their best in their speaking performance in the classroom In line with this, Baldwin (2011) further explains that speaking in front of people is one of the more common phobias that students encounter and feeling of shyness makes their mind go blank or that they will forget what to say This theory is also supported by the result of this research in which most students fail to perform the speaking performance at their best As they say, their inability to show their ability in speaking is also influenced much by their feeling of shyness In other words, it can be said that shyness plays an important role in speaking performance done by the students 2.3.4.3 Lack of motivation Motivation is much needed in doing everything, including in learning something In learning language, a learner needs motivation because it helps him or her in trying and developing his or her understanding of a new language With motivation, a learner wants to succeed So, without it, he or she will certainly fail to make the necessary effort Lucas, S E (2001) further adds that: “Motivation is an inner energy” He says that no matter what kinds of motivation the learners possess it will enhance their study interest In shot, Literature Review points out some common difficulties that students often face and emphasizes the importance of speaking skills From there, students can review and come up with solutions to improve their speaking skill CHAPTER III RESEARCH AIMS - RESEARCH QUESTION - HYPOTHESIS 3.1 Aims of the study This study was conducted to investigate the difficulties in speaking of English majored sophomore at Tay Do University (2019 - 2023) As for the result, students were able to know some common difficulties in learning English speaking, so they can find the solutions and try their best to overcome them 3.2 Research question “ What are difficuties in speaking of English majored sophomore at Tay Do University? ” 3.3 Hypothesis English majored students at Tay Do University think that the most difficulties skill is speaking and they have faced some difficulties in English speaking such as: pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and psychological factors Through the literature review and the research question, it is hypothesized that the students will improve their speaking skills thanks to finding out the difficulties they have faced 10 CHAPTER IV RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 4.1 Design The research “ Difficulties in speaking of English majored sophomore at Tay Do University” was effectuated to find out some common mistakes which English majored sophomore at Tay Do University often make in their speaking process It was also designed as a combination of quantitative and qualitative research The research was carried out at Tay Do University with a group of 52 students from class English 13B 4.2 Participants Participants of this research were 52 English majored sophomores from class English 13B at Tay Do University Their ages were from 19 to 25 They had different English levels and learning methods The participants studied speaking skills at Tay Do University with the book Speak Now (by David Bohlke and Jack C Richards) Its first published on September 20, 2012 This book consists of topics and students considered that the topic “ Brand” is the most dificult Students studied this subject for 45 periods and they were taught by a foreign teacher who came from Philippines - Mrs Hazel With the devotion of the teachers, students had a chance to join in an improving process by practicing speaking with their classmates and the teacher through diverse topics which are close to their life 4.3 Instruments The instruments of this research were the questionnaire which was taken from Tay Do University sophomores to find out their mistakes in speaking English It was extremely helpful in collecting essential information from the students The questionnaires were supplied to sophomore students with a clear and careful explanation of the researcher 11 4.4 Questionnaire The questionnaire was used as the most useful and important instrument, without it the study could not been fulfilled The questions were used to get the information of students’s attitude in English speaking skill Especially, they can rate their English speaking skill level with question The questionnaire consists of questions and 16 statements and they are divided into the following groups: Group Summary the content of the question group a From to Student’s background b From to Student’s attitude toward speaking c From to 24 The difficulties in speaking 4.5 Procedure In this part, all activities created the research in 14 weeks and the process was divided into steps All the activities of carrying out the research were listed in the following chart: Steps Activities - Choose the research topic Meet students to get the information about their learning process in their class - Design the questionnaire Write the outline Search for the reference books From the 7th to the 10th week - Write literature review Step - Check carefully the research From the 11th to 14th week - Complete the research Step The first three weeks Step From the 4th to the 6th week Step 12 CHAPTER V EXPECTED OUTCOME English majored sophomore usually face many difficulties when learning speaking This research aims to find out difficulties in speaking of English Majored sophomore at Tay Do University 5.1 Pronunciation Most students face a lot of difficulties when they speak English and they sometimes get frustrated when they could not understand or be understand by native speakers of English Therefore, pronunciation is a difficult aspect in speaking There are some factors that affecting the pronunciation of students of English such as intonation, ending sounds, word stress, etc As a results, students cannot add get the intonation when they speak or they mispronounce the word stress or sometimes they pass the ending sounds This research can help the students recognize and know how to improve their speech more correctly and fluently 5.2 Vocabulary Vocabulary is also an important aspect that affecting speaking skill Lack of vocabulary, they not have much words to express when they speak In addition, they seldom memorize the vocabulary, they just cannot remember the words they normally know Besides, words often have more than one meaning so they misusing the appropriate words Through this research, students might learn vocabulary and use them in effective ways 5.3 Grammar structure The students often make mistakes and commit errors while learning speaking They misunderstanding tense when they speak while tense is quite important part in grammar Moreover, they misordering words, sometimes they put words in wrong place Besides, they also use incorrectly the pronouns which makes the listeners feel 13 confused This research can help the students find solutions to improve grammar in speaking 5.4 Psychology Psychology is a factor that definitely affects everything in our lives, especially in speaking In some cases, students are afraid of making errors , feeling fearful when they have to speak in front of lots of people and low motivation also affects students in speaking Through this research, students can finds some solutions to help them be more confident and being an active speaker 14 REFERENCES BOOK REFERENCES Bailey, K.M (2005) Practical English Language Teaching: Speaking New York: McGraw-Hill Fraser, H (2000) Coordinating improvements in pronunciation teaching for adult learners of English as a second language Canberra: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (Australian National Training Authority Adult Literacy National Project) Folse, K (2004) Vocabulary myths Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press Goh, C (2007) Teaching speaking in the language classroom Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre Lucas, S E (2001) The art of public speaking.(7th Ed.) Singapore: McGraw-Hill Noon-ura, S (2008) Teaching listening speaking skills to Thai students with low English proficiency Asian EFL Journal Nunan, D (2006) Task-based language teaching in the Asia context: Defining ‘task’ Asian EFL Journal Patil, Z.N (2008) Rethinking the objectives of teaching English in Asia Asian EFL Journal Rebecca L (1990) Language Learning Strategie The University of Albama: Heinle & Heinle publisher 10 Shumin, K (1997) Factors to consider: Developing adult EFL students’ speaking abilities English Teaching Forum 11 Tam, M (1997) Building fluency: a course for non-native speakers of English English Teaching Forum 12 Wei,Y (2002) Insights into English pronunciation problems of Thai students.Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Quadruple Helix (8th, April 6, 2002) 12 p ERIC.(ED476746) 13 Zaremba, A J (2006) Speaking professionally.Canada: Thompson South-Western 15 QUESTIONNAIRE Dear friends, My name is Duong Viet Anh - a senior of class English 11B I am carrying out a research entitled “Difficulties in speaking of English majored sophomore at Tay Do University ” This questionnaire used to collect the necessary information from students and I would like to express my deep gratitude for spending their precious time to giving me the informations which are extremely useful and necessary for my graduate research Part Student’s name:……………………………………….Age: …… Gender: Male Female Class:…………………………………………………………… Please read the following questions and circle the appropriate answer for each question Give specific answers if needed How long have you studied English? …….years Which skills you think is the most difficult? A Reading B Writing C Speaking D Listening What you think about speaking skill? A Very difficult B Difficult C Normal 16 D Easy How would you rate your speaking skill? A Exellent B Good C Average D Bad In your opinion, which factors effect your speaking skill? A Pronunciation B Vocabulary C Grammar structure D Psychology What are your pronunciation difficulties in speaking? A Can’t get intonation B Lack of ending sounds C Mispronounce word stress What are your vocabulary difficulties in speaking? A Lack of vocabulary items B Seldom memorizing vocabulary C Misusing of vocabulary What are your grammar difficulties in speaking? A Tense in sentence B Misordering words C Misuse of pronouns 17 What are your psychological difficulties in speaking? A Fear of mistakes B Shyness C Lack of motivation Part Please read this following statements and mask (√) in suitable column to express your opinion Statements Strongly Disagree No Agree Strongly Disagree (2) Idea (4) Agree (1) (3) Speaking is not easy so you have faced lots of difficulties when learning 10 Speaking is more difficult than other skills 11 You want to improve your speaking skill but you not know where to start 12 You think that your pronunciation is bad 13 You don’t get intonation when you speak 14 Sometimes you pass the ending sounds 15 You often mispronounce English word stress 16 You don’t have much 18 (5) words to express while speaking 17 You cannot remember words you normally know 18 Words having more than one meaning so you confused about how to use the appropriate words 19 You often misunderstand about tense when you speak 20 You often put words in the wrong place 21 It is hard to use correctly the pronouns 22 You usually afraid of being laughed at by friends or being criticized by the teacher because of making errors 23 You feel fearful to speak in front of yours friends and teacher 24 You have low motivation in learning speaking 19