The difficulties in english presentation faced by huflits students and succestions graduation paper, major business english

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY – (HUFLIT) o0o DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES THE DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH PRESENTATION FACED BY HUFLIT’S STUDENTS AND SOLUTIONS Instructor: Ms Nguyễn Thị Ái Loan (M.A.) Student: Nguyễn Huỳnh Thảo Ngân Student’s number: 15DH710221 Class: TA1504 HO CHI MINH CITY, May 27th, 2019 NAME: Nguyễn Huỳnh Thảo Ngân STUDENT ID: 15DH710221 EMAIL ADD: nguyenhuynhthaongan97@gmail.com DATE SUBMITTED: May 27th, 2019 WORD COUNT: 11853 Declaration I certify that the attached material is my original work No other person’s work or ideas have been used without acknowledgement Except where I have clearly stated that I have used some of this material elsewhere, I have not presented this for assessment in another course or unit at this or any other institution Name/signature Date: May 27th, 2019 NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN ii TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENT…………………………………………………… iii-v LIST OF FIGURES …………………………………………………………vi ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………… ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of The Problem ……………………………… ….……….1 1.2 Problem Identification ………………………………………………… 1.3 Research Objective ………………………………………………………2 1.4 Scope of The Research …………………………………… ……… 1.5 Research Organization ………………………………………………….3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of Oral Presentation Skill …………………… ……… ……5 2.2 Types of Oral Presentation …………………………………… … … 2.3 The Benefits of English Oral Presentation ………………… …………8 2.3.1 The Advantages of Oral Presentation Skill ………… …… …8 2.3.2 The Advantages of Presentation in English…………………….9 2.4 The Difficulties in Oral Presentation……………………………………11 2.4.1 Internal Difficulties in Oral Presentation …………… ……… 11 2.4.1.1 Anxiety ……………………………………………………11 2.4.1.2 The Lack of Self – Confidence …………………… … 13 2.4.1.3 The English Speaking Proficiency …………………… 14 2.4.2 External Difficulties in Oral Presentation …………………… 15 2.4.2.1 The Audience …………………………………………….15 2.4.2.2 The Lack of Motivation ……………………………… 16 NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN iii 2.5 Chapter Conclusion………………………………………………… 17 CHAPTER 3: MENTHODOLOGY 3.1 Methods ………………………………………………… ….… ….19 3.1.1 Quantitative Methods …………………….……….……….19 3.1.2 Qualitative Methods ……………………….……………….19 3.2 Research Setting ………………………………………………… …20 3.3 Subject Description ………………………………… …… …… 20 3.4 Materials and Procedure ………………………………… ……… 21 3.4.1 Questionnaire ……………………………… ……………21 3.4.2 Interview …………………………………………… ……22 3.5 Statistical Treatment …………………………………………………22 CHAPTER 4: RESULT … …………………………………….………….23-36 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 5.1 Internal Factors ………….……………………………………………37 5.2 External Factors ………………………………………………………39 5.3 Chapter Conclusion ………………………………………………… 40 CHAPTER 6: SOLUTION 6.1 The Solutions to Cope with Internal Factors ……………………….41 6.2 The Solutions to Cope with External Factors ………… …… … 42 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION 7.1 Conclusion ………………………………………… …………… …44 7.2 Limitation of The Study ……………………… ……………………45 NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN iv 7.3 Recommendation for Further Research … ……………………… 46 REFERENCES ……………………………………………………….…… 47-51 APPENDIX …………………………………….…………………………….52-56 NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN v LIST OF TABLE, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF TABLE Table 2.2.1: Type and purpose of oral presentation, according to Randall P Whatley (2014) …………………………………………………………………….7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 The University Years of Participants ………………………………23 Figure 4.2 The English Proficiency of Participants ……………………………25 Figure 4.3 The Frequency of Making English Presentation ………………… 27 Figure 4.4.1 Being Afraid of Making Mistakes …………………………………29 Figure 4.4.2 The Shyness ………………… ……………………………………30 Figure 4.4.3 The Lack of Appropriate Vocabulary and Expressions …………31 Figure 4.4.4 Making Grammar Mistakes during Presentation ……………… 32 Figure 4.4.5 Interruption from the Audience ………………………………… 33 Figure 4.4.6 Presentation Topics …………………………………… …………34 Figure 4.4.7 Lack of Preparation Time ………………………………… …….36 NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as Foreign Language ESL English as Second Language HUFLIT Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Language – Information Technology NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Ms Nguyen Thi Ai Loan for the dedicated instruction It is my pleasure to be supervised by her, without her careful guidance, this research could not be completed With no less sincerity, the researcher would like to send my thanks to 120 participants from HUFLIT for their enthusiastic cooperation in the research Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents, who have been given me a huge support and care to complete this study NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN viii ABSTRACT Oral presentation in English has long been an essential soft skill for Vietnamese undergraduate in particular and people in the working age in general It could be explained by the rapid speed of Vietnam integration into the globalization trend, more and more labor force from different neighbor countries come to Vietnam to look for career opportunities Besides major knowledge, they equip a good background of English as well as soft skills, include presentation which is considered as an important key to success Acknowledge not only is the important proficiencies needed of English oral presentation for higher education as well as careers, but also the barriers students have to encounter while presenting Thus, this research is aimed to figure out the main factors that cause the difficulties in English presentation faced by students who learn English as their foreign language Furthermore, the researcher aspires to suggest the solutions to cope with this issue To achieve the purpose of this research, the researcher employed questionnaire and interview tools to 110 participants who are students of Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Language – Information Technology Structured questionnaire of 27 questions and semistructured interview were applied to collect data for answering two main questions namely the difficulties in English presentation and the solutions The findings demonstrated that there were five factors that impact on the English oral presentation quality of HUFLIT’s students; whereas, the outside effect were considered seriously Moreover, based on the results, the researcher provided the effective solutions to handle with those difficulties The study concludes by the recommendation for further research in the future, and a hope that the findings would clarify the barriers, so that the lecturers could have a better understanding the difficulties and prepared appropriate lessons to well train the students in English oral presentation skills NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN ix CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of The Problem The twenty-first century is the age of development and integrate, thus every citizen has the responsibility to contribute both his (or her) mental strength and physical strength in order to help the country becomes more and more prosperous Because of that mission, the education focuses highly on teaching students, especially undergraduates to be comprehensive students with profound knowledge and soft skills However, according to a report made by Diễn đàn Doanh Nghiệp Việt Nam in June, 2010 (cited in Anh Tu, 2018) shows that the citizen at the age of twenty to twenty-four, who lack of soft skills is about 78%, and we cannot doubt that it is a remarkable figure Thus, nowadays in most of universities in Vietnam, soft skill courses become an important part of a study program Although there are abundant of soft skills that students must equip for themselves, oral presentation skill is one of the most essential soft skills, which is known as the universal key to unlock the bright future careers Hence, most of Vietnamese universities have been changing the traditional teaching method, from “Instructor/Teacher Centered Methods”, which is known as the instructors are all active, and the students or trainees become passive listeners into “Learner – Centered Methods” that the students become more active in the class by doing discussions, making inquiries, and giving presentations in class The new teaching method focuses most on oral presentation skill, and uses it as an effective assessment tool Through oral presentation, students can demonstrate their integrated skills such as reading, searching – analyzing and synthesis the information, public speaking, communication, etc Thus, oral presentation is a “the most transferable of all the student’s skills, and a critical part of their professional development” (Joan, V.E & Lucinda, B., 2004) NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN moreover, they should have a small note belong to them in case they forget the important content of the presentation 6.2 The Solutions to Cope with External Factors In this aspect, most of the students find it difficult to handle with the audience’s behavior during present time It is advisable to presenters to use eyecontact and some gesture or body language technique to attract more attention from the audience Besides, the lectures ought to seriously consider the appropriation during presentation time, thus it would reduce the neglect and interruption from the audience Furthermore, the lecturers also need to guide their students to prepare a visual aid according to the order of the speech, along with outline the aim of the presentation at the beginning and stick to them Therefore, the audience can follow the presentation clearly and attractively According to the findings, the presentation topic is one of the outside impact that the students have to face The researcher recommends the lecturers to provide the students more opportunities to talk about their interesting topics, for instance, once or twice during the courses, the lecturers hold a small live forum for students to discuss the topics that the major considers, it would be a great chance for students to join the English oral activity naturally According to Jane King (2002), “oral presentations can be a beneficial and enjoyable activity for learners Both teachers and students can expect a break away from textbook” On the other hand, the lecturers could give the students a chance to choose a topic that they find excited from the text book to present, instead of assigning topics in a compulsory way Besides that, the external factor related to preparation time is considered as the most difficulty in English oral presentation To tackle with this difficulty, the researcher recommends students to spend at least thirty minutes a day, and two or three days before the presentation to rehearsal in front of the mirror or a small group of friends to receive the evaluation from them Additionally, if the students too busy, they should spend the night before presentation day reviewing all the content of the NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 42 speech Moreover, it is recommended the students to have a detailed timeline for their study, by doing this they could allocate time reasonably, avoid the lack of preparation time NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 43 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 7.1 Conclusion The twenty-first century, in the context of integration and global development, students who desire to open many opportunities for their future have to meet the social needs, among them, presentation skill in English is a crucial competition point However, there is still exist a high rate of youth lack of this soft skill because of many hidden difficulties in this, urged the researcher to conduct this study Consequently, the main purpose of this study is to find out the causes of English oral presentation difficulties faced by HUFLIT’s students In the most general view, the research was done to investigate the difficulties in English presentation, and now it is reasonable for the researcher to confirm five factors from both internal and external impact The first difficulty comes from the anxiety of making mistakes in linguistic field while presenting in front of peers The second barrier is the psychological manner that the presenter does not confident enough to give a speech on the stage Thirdly, there is a huge negative impact from the audience who behave disrespectfully and impolitely to presenters The fourth thing is considered as the tough or uninspiring topics The last but not least is the lack of preparation time For the findings from questionnaire and interview, it is confirmed that HUFLIT’s students in general have been created many opportunities to access to as well as develop their presentation skills in English during four years learning in university Even though, many of them encounter with awkwardness because of inexperience and the lack of public speaking technique Although the researcher provided some effective solutions to overcome the barriers, the students themselves ought to self-evaluate and determine deficiencies to better than the past NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 44 From the research’s result, together with the literature review, the researcher deeply understands the issue as well as the pedagogical implications contributed to the research This study highly recommends students to really take English presentation with a serious manner, and take awareness of public speaking skills so that they can have a proper investigation to improve their oral presentation in English Nonetheless, there are many barriers in the process, there are also simple and effective solutions to overcome Last but not least, the outcome of this research also figures out how the outside factors affect the students while they are presenting This finding is not mentioned as many as linguistic factors by other researchers Thus, it would be great to conduct a larger scale research to verify the accuracy 7.2 Limitation of The Study Although this research was carefully prepared, the researcher aware of its limitations and shortcomings, namely the lack of data, and the limited time Firstly, the lack of the data is considered as a major issue This study is not able to reach the entire population of HUFLIT’s students but only 110 participants in the questionnaire and 10 students for the interview It is obvious that the number of participants is minimal, therefore it is limitation for the result Another limitation is the lack of time, due to limited time, the material sources could not be abundant enough Besides, the time the research took an interview was to stick to others’ schedule at university, the interviewees were busy preparing for tests As a method, the researcher should have set the interview as short as possible to save participants’ time In short, the further study would be conduct in a larger scale as well as longer time to enquire more aspects that affect the English presentation of the students NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 45 7.3 Recommendation for Further Research Acknowledge the limitation of the study, it is recommended for the future researches to gain more significant achievement Future researches may conduct in the same issue; however, the scale of the study should be expanded to be more reliable Moreover, future researches are supposed to add more questionnaire to discover the role of psychological as well as social factors to the presentation Besides, it could be a huge problem among different culture in the anxiety of verbal and non-verbal technique in English presentation; thus, the further studies about the impact of foreign culture on English presentation encountered by EFL students would be praised NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 46 REFERENCES 2018, November 07 Vietnam ranks 41th in English Proficiency Index Dantri Newspapers Retrieved from http://dtinews.vn ANTD (2016, June 21) Poor English Skills Challenge Vietnamese students Vietnamnet Retrieved from: https://english.vietnamnet.vn Abu El Enein, A.H (2011, July) Difficulties encountering English majors in giving academic oral presentations during class at Al-Aqsa University 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Krashen, S (1982) Language two New York, NY: Oxford University Press Gallardo del Puerto, F & Martínez Adrián, M (2015) The use of oral presentations in Higher Education: CLIL vs English as a Foreing Language Pulso Revista de Educación, 38, 76-106 Jane, K (2002) Preparing EFL learners for oral presentations Dong Hwa Journal of Humanistic Studies, 4, 401–418 Retrieved from http://ir.ndhu.edu.tw/bitstream/987654321/4403/1/4-401-418.PDF Juhana (2012) Psychological Factors That Hinder Students from Speaking in English Class (A Case Study in a Senior High School in South Tangerang, Banten, Indonesia) Journal of Education and Practice, 3(12), 100-110 Retrieved from https://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JEP/article/viewFile/2887/2913 NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 48 Kadir @ Shahar, H (2014) Investigating anxiety- related problems in oral presentation among engineering students Retrieved from http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/9150/1/Hazila_Kadir_@_Shahar.pdf Katchen, J.E (1991) Using the video camera to 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Cam TESOL Conference on English Language Teaching, 5, 278–286 Retrieved from https://camtesol.org/Download/Earlier_Publications/Selected_Papers_Vol.5_2009.p df Trung Hieu (2011, June 13) Students Lack Confidence To Use English VietNam News, Retrieved from https://vietnamnews.vn/ Webster, F (2002) A genre approach to oral presentations The Internet TESL Journal, 8(7) Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/WebsterOralPresentations.html Zitouni, N (2013) The Use of Students’ Oral Presentations in Enhancing Speaking Skill in the English Language Classrooms (The Case Study of Second Year NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 50 Students at the Department of English in Biskra University) Retrieved from http://dspace.univbiskra.dz:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/4777/1/The%20Use%20of%20Students %27%20Oral%20Presentation%20in%20Enhancing%20Speaking%20Skill.pdf NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 51 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE Hello ladies and gentlemen, my name is Nguyen Huynh Thao Ngan I am a senior student of Foreign Language Department of Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages – Information Technology (HUFLIT) I am now making a research about “The difficulties in English presentation skills encountered by students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages – Information Technology (HUFLIT)” that really need your co-operations I would greatly appreciate if you take time to complete this questionnaire It is used for academic research purposes only and your answers will be kept in secret Please read carefully and choose the only one answer for each question by putting a ✓ in a box or writing down your answer in a blank The writing answers can be given in Vietnamese or English Which year are you in?  Freshman (the first year of the university)  Sophomore (the second year of the university)  Junior (the third year of the university)  Senior (the fourth year of the university) What is your major? _ How you evaluate your level in English?  Excellent  Good  Average  Weak NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 52 During your academic years, how often you make an English presentation?  Frequently (more than times)  Sometimes (2 – times)  Rarely (1 time)  Never No Strongly Difficulties Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree INTERNAL FACTORS First: Anxiety Your voice becomes quiver and the volume is low (Giọng nói bạn bị run âm lượng nhỏ) You can speaking fluently (Bạn khơng thể nói trôi chảy được) Your breath becomes so heavy (Hơi thở trở nên gấp nặng nề) Your body becomes fidgeting or motionless (Cơ thể bạn trở nên bồn chồn hay chí bất động) You cannot remember anything that you prepared (Bạn nhớ điều mà bạn chuẩn bị) Second: Lack of confidence NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 53 You not like standing in front of people and speaking (Bạn khơng thích việc đứng trước mặt người trình bày) You afraid of being laughed at (Bạn sợ bị cười nhạo) You afraid of making mistake while presenting (Bạn sợ mắc lỗi thuyết trình) You afraid of receiving criticisms (Bạn sợ nhận lời phê bình) You are too shy to make a presentation in front of audience (Bạn ngại ngùng với việc phải thuyết trình trước khán giả) Third: English speaking proficiency Lack of appropriate vocabulary and expressions used in a presentation (Thiếu từ vựng cụm diễn đạt phù hợp thuyết trình) Pronunciation difficulty (Sự khó khăn việc phát âm) You usually make grammar mistakes during presentation (Bạn thường mắc phải lỗi ngữ pháp thuyết trình) You too focus on accuracy rather than fluency during presentation NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 54 (Bạn q trọng việc nói thuyết trình cách lưu loát) You cannot express the English intonation during the speech (Bạn diễn đạt theo ngữ điệu Tiếng anh trình thuyết trình) EXTERNAL FACTORS First: The Audience You avoid eye-contact with audience during the presentation (Bạn tránh giao tiếp mắt với khan giả thuyết trình) You afraid of interacting with audience (Bạn e ngại tương tác với khán giả) Interruption from the audience, - i.g: talking, joking, etc (Khán giả gây gián đoạn – ví dụ: nói chuyện riêng, đùa giỡn, v.v.) You afraid of feedbacks from teacher and peers (Bạn lo ngại phản hồi đánh giá từ giảng viên bạn bè) Second: Lack of motivation You not have right to choose the topics in most of your presentation tasks (Đa phần NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 55 thuyết trình, bạn không tự chọn đề tài) You not have many chances to practice oral presentation in English in-class (Bạn khơng có nhiều hội để luyện tập thuyết trình tiếng anh lớp) Lack of preparation time (Thiếu thời gian chuẩn bị) What are the ways for you to cope with your difficulties in the presentation? _ _ Thank you for your time and participation! NGUYEN HUYNH THAO NGAN 56