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A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE ORAL PRESENTATION SKILL IN ENGLISH OF THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR

STUDENTS, HUNG YEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION (NGHIEN CUU VE NHUNG KHO KHAN VA GIAI PHAP CAI THIEN Ki NANG THUYET TRINH TIENG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM NHÁT KHOA NGOẠI NGỮ

CUA TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HQC SU PHAM KY THUAT HUNG YEN)

Supervisor: Pham Thi Duong, PhD Student: Le Thi Kim Chi Student number: 11317008

Hung Yen — 2021

HUNG YEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

GRADUATION PAPER FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE ORAL PRESENTATION SKILL IN ENGLISH OF THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR

STUDENTS, HUNG YEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION (NGHIEN CUU VE NHUNG KHO KHAN VA GIAI PHAP CAI THIEN Ki NANG THUYET TRINH TIENG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM NHÁT KHOA NGOẠI NGỮ

CUA TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HQC SU PHAM KY THUAT HUNG YEN)

Supervisor: Pham Thi Duong, PhD Student: Le Thi Kim Chi Student number: 11317008

Hung Yen-2021

DECLARATION

I certify that this study which entitled “Difficulties and solutions to improve oral

presentation skill in English of the first-year English major students, Hung Yen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It’s a great honor of my life when I have a graduation research to study and practice the knowledge and skills that I have studied at university First of all, I would like to thanks the graduation research program for the senior students of Faculty and Foreign Language at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education On my behalf, I sincerely thank the administration of Hung Yen University of Technology and Education, Inspection Rooms of Leadership Students and of Faculty Foreign Languages who facilitated for in this graduation research

I would also like to thank Mrs Do Phuc Huong — Dean of Faculty of Foreign Languages who is very enthusiastic Through this research paper, I also would like to thank the Leadership team, lecturers of Hung Yen University of Technology and Education who supported and helped me during my graduation research

Especially, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my graduation instructor Mrs Pham Thi Duong, who has always been willing to give me valuable advices and suggestions in order that I can complete successfully this study During these last weeks, Mrs Duong has helped me a lot in doing research Furthermore, she gave me the experiences, knowledge, and right way to complete this research Without her helps, I cannot finish the study perfectly

In addition, from the bottom of my heart I would like to thank all the students of TAK18.1 at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education for helping me to complete this research and especially for their cooperation during data collection process

I would like to acknowledge my thanks to all the authors of the books, magazines, and other materials listed in the reference part for their ideas that have been reflected and developed in the study

Finally, I would like to thank my family, my dear friends for their supporting and encouragement during the time when the study was carried out.

ABSTRACT

The study entitled “Difficulties and solutions to improve oral presentation skill

in English of the first-year English major students, Hung Yen University of

Technology and Education.” aims at finding out: (1) Students’ current oral presentations situation in English, (2) the difficulties that students face with when giving oral presentations, (3) the strategies for students to improve oral presentation skills in English To achieve these purposes, the researcher uses the two instruments: survey questionnaire for fifty-three students and interview randomly five of the first- year students in Faculty of Foreign Languages at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education The result of the research showed that students have many difficulties while making English oral presentation Moreover, that result also proposed some solutions to help first- year English major student at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education to overcome difficulties and build a confidence in giving English presentation.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims of the study

1.3Research questions 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Methodology of the study

1.6 Design of the study

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1.3.3 Presentation skills are important to time manageImehnt che

2.1.4 Difficulties in making oral presentations CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY

3.1 Introduction

3.1.2 Methodology 3.1.3 Participants of the study

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4.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for the further S†udy ccccseeiehiheeke 26

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

M.A: Master of art

FFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages

UTEHY: Hung Yen University of Technology and Education K18: First-year English major students

viii

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1:The importance of oral presentations in English (For teachers) cesses 10 Chart 2:The importance of oral presentations in English (For student§) 10 Chart 3: The necessary in making an oral presentation in English (For teachers) 11 Chart 4:The necessary in making an oral presentation in English (For students) ee 11 Chart 5: The level of difficulties teachers and students find in English oral presentations (For

18 Chart 13: The students’ frequency of having difficulties in studying presentations skill (For students)

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ix LIST OF TABLES

Table 1:Reasons for studying English presentations skill of the studenfs e 15 Table 2: Students’ difficulties in making oral presentations (For teacher§$) 20 Table 3: Students’ difficulties in making oral presentations in English (For students) 21 Table 4: Solutions for good oral presentations in English «che re 22

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

English is one of the most dominating language of the world which is having its impact on every field of work In Vietnam, English is taught as an important part and compulsory subject in most schools It is regarded as an indispensable segment of economy, life and society of almost countries over the world Besides, English is also considered as the golden key to the innovation, development and global integration That is the main reason why these days, a lot of Universities in Vietnam have opened the English Department in the structure of their training including Hung Yen University of Technology and Education In the global workforce, English is well known as the dominant language and a necessity for people to speak It is estimated that the number of people in the world who use English to communicate everyday is over two billion (East Bourne School of English, 2013) All large international companies require the candidates to show their English skill and working ability However, what should the candidates do to get impressive attraction from employers? Oral presentation is the answer for the above question In the fact, you cannot persuade other persons to believe in your views or ideas if you do not present Moreover, oral presentation covers a variety of skills such as the structure of presentation, the design of slides, the voice and the body language which are extremely essential for presenter to succeed in further promotion

Because of its importance, oral presentation is becoming a necessary part of language teaching and learning in most of college in general and Hung Yen University of Technology and Education(UTEHY) in particular Specially, the first-year English majors at UTEHY who have been provided soft skills during University, always aware of how important oral presentation to their future job is In spite of understanding the roles of presenting, some students do not know how to make an oral presentation well Even they are still embarrassed and unconfident in front of crowds

Because of the above reasons, the researcher decided to choose the study entitled

Difficulties and solution toimprove oral presentation skills in English of the first year English major students, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education 1.2 Aims of the study

The aim of the study is investigating difficulties and solutions to improve oral presentation skills in English of the first-year English major students, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education To achieve that aim, the researcher finds out 3 main

objectives of the study which are:

>» Showing the first year students’ current oral presentation situation in English at UTEHY

> Pointing out the challenges of making oral presentations in English of the first year English majors in FFL, UTEHY

» Suggesting some solutions to enhance oral presentation skills in English

1.3Research questions

This study guided by the following research questions:

1 What are the first-year major English student’s current oral presentation situation in English?

2 What are the challenges of making oral presentationin English for the first-year English major students at UTEHY?

3 Which solutions should be used for the first- year English majors of UTEHY to improve oral presentation skill?

1.4 Scope of the study

Because of limited time, knowledge and experience, the researcher only focuses on the importance, the difficulties and strategies of oral presentation skill in English The main participants are the first year English major students and lecturers of English in campus 2 in UTEHY in survey and interview The findings as well as techniques are applied to the teachers of English and students of English in campus 2 of UTEHY This study helps the students to improve oral presentations in English

1.5 Methodology of the study

Validity is an importance key to effective re-search If a piece of research is invalid then it is worthless Validity is thus a requirement for both quantitative and qualitative research The meaning of reliability in quantitative research is essentially a synonym for dependability, consistency and reliability overtime (Cohen et al 2007 Research Methods in

Education)

In terms of the methods, both qualitativeand quantitative approaches are exploited Survey questionnaire, interview are the main tools After the data is collected and analyzed, some conclusions will be drawn and some suggestions will be made in the thesis

1.5.1 Questionnaire

In order to collect the data for the study, questionnaires were delivered randomly to 53 the first-year English major students at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education They were designed to find out the ways to help the students improve their presentations skill.

1.5.2 Interview

Besides, the interviews were carried out with 5 among 53 first-year English major students at Faculty of Foreign Language,Hung Yen University of Technology and Education These interviews effectively helped the author in collecting more reliable opinions to get better quality for the responses

In short, all results of the survey are in order to give some suggestions for techniques to improving oral presentation skills in English of the first year English major students, Hung Yen University of Technology and Education

1.6 Design of the study

» Chapter I: Introduction

This chapter introduces the rationale, the aims, research questions, the scope, the

methodology and the design of the study >» Chapter IH: Literature Review

The theoretical background, the definition, the compositions, the types, the importance, the difficulties and the strategies of English oral presentations are presented in this chapter

> Chapter LI: The study

This chapter presents the overview of Faculty of Foreign Languages at UTEHY, the difficulties of using oral presentations for the first year English majors at UTEHY, data analysis, discussion and techniques

> Chapter IV: Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the study and limitation as well as several suggestions for the further study.

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the researcher gives the relevant literature on English presentations skill which helps the first year English students at UTEHY to improve presentation skill in English The literature should be consisted of background, definition, types, compositions, importance of presentation Below are the details of these parts:

2.1 An overview of oral presentations 2.1.1 The definition of oral presentations

For the dictionary, “oral” is spoken, said or something that relates to the mouth And “presentation” means delivering an address to a public audience Oral presentation is a great way to deliver the best possible information what the presenter would like to say to audiences in a clear and coherent manner In other words, oral presentation is a speech or talk which a new product, idea or pieces of work is shown and explained to audiences Almost all oral presentations have to contain three main parts: introduction, body and conclusion

Smith, F.C, Bace, R.G(2002) defines that presentations are ways of communicating ideas and information to a group A presentation carries the speaker’s personality better and allows immediate interaction between all the participants.”

In the Guidelines for oral Presentations of Ohio Wesleyan University, oral presentations are like brief discussions of a focused topic delivered to a group of listeners in order to impart knowledge or to stimulate discussion They are similar to short papers with an introduction, main body and conclusion The ability to give brief presentations is a learned skill and one that is called frequently in the workplace

2.1.2 Types of oral presentation

In presenting skill, there are various kinds of oral presentations based on the purposes, the forms or the contexts of delivery According to Randall P Whatley (2008), there are five popular types of presentations:

2.1.2.1 Informative presentation

Informative presentation supports awareness and understanding about specific knowledge for specific audiences with specific goals According to Randall P Whatley (2008), the informative one is accurately descriptive The presenter must keep an informative presentation brief and relevant as well as apply the fact and avoid complicated information This kind of presentation often contains organizational structures: time, place,

cause, effect, logical order.

2.1.2.2 Arousing presentation

This type of presentation aims at making audiences think about a certain problem The presenter has to wake the listeners’ emotion up so that they are interested in the topic To attract people’s attraction, the presenter should use short stories, colorful languages or music to illustrate the problem Sometimes, he can give others a clear direction and call them to action According to Randall P Whatley (2008)

2.1.2.3 Persuasive presentation

Persuasive presentation is a skill to influence an audience This means the presenter convince the listeners to accept a specific proposal To get a successful persuasive presentation, the performer has to give the argumentation, rationalization, the evidence and the reliable information The goal of this kind is to change the belief, attitude and behavior of another person According to Randall P Whatley (2008)

2.1.2.4 Instructional presentation

The purpose of this presentation is to give the specific directions or orders The presentation will probably be a bit longer because it has to cover the topic thoroughly The listeners can go with new knowledge or new lesson if the presenter explains why the information is valuable to the audiences or provide participants the chance to ask questions and receive the feedback from the leader of presentation According to Randall P Whatley (2008)

2.1.2.5 Decision-making presentation

This kind of presentation helps the audiences take move suggested action The presentation shows ideas, suggestions and arguments to persuade the listeners to follow requests when the presenter tells them what to do and how to do Let the audiences know what will happen if they do not want to perform what the presenter asks According to

Randall P Whatley (2008).

6 2.1.3 The importance of oral presentation in English

In the Chapter I, the research provides a number of reasons why oral presentation skills should be developed Moreover, Emden and Becker (2004) shares:” Ability to speak well enough to interest, influence or persuade other people is a major asset for whatever they want to do in the future and it may change them in ways that the did not expect.” Thus, it can not be denied that oral presentation skills bring a lot of benefits for the good presenter Below are the importance of oral presentation to four popular fields:

2.1.3.1 Presentation skills are important to individual success

In today’s competitive business environment where the global workplace is getting more narrow, it is very hard for you to look for a good job if you are not able to present yourself attractively because the success of your job interview completely depends on how well you are present your strength To promote your career, you should present your ideas which need oral presentation skills and a bit of confidence According to Emden

and Becker (2004)

2.1.3.2 Presentation skills are important to business success

Business in locations and in worldwide in the 21th century is more complicating than before In this environment, presentations skill is the leading ideal to function the relationship and the cooperation with customers or counterparts As you know, Apple is a famous technology brand in all over the world Steve Jobs is a superior presenter for Apple product As a results, this produce is the best selling one with customers’ trust and Millions of dollar are earned from his presentation Thus, in business success, it is hoped to present reliable message with confidence to clients, staffs and sometimes the public According to

Emden and Becker (2004)

2.1.3.3 Presentation skills are important to time management

There are many presentations that last too long and waste the time In presenting skill, “shorter, better” is a necessary condition A long presentation makes the audiences bored and asleep Therefore, a good presentation gets their message across in less time because they can organize the time in order to focus on the contents A careful presenter can save time while preparing thanks to having a fine preparation before According to

Emden and Becker (2004).

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2.1.3.4 Presentation skills are important to leadership

Leadership is one of the most leading manager in a party or an organization and others like this Every leader needs to be able to stand up and deliver a clear and inspiring message There are many keys to success to a leader such as financial planning, marketing campaigns, using technology advance and so on However, one common characteristic of great leaders is presentation skill When the leaders create a proposal to subordinates, they have to present its goal persuasively so that the subordinates follow In order to achieve your success at the highest levels, you must learn the art of presenting skill According to

Emden and Becker (2004)

2.1.4 Difficulties in making oral presentations

According to Malcolm Kushner (from Presentations for Dummies, problems can occur at any time during a presentation that involves an audience Visual aids can get screwed up; loud sounds can interfere with the audience’s understanding of your point; or you might just make a mistake in what you say-or how you say it-during your presentation Other studies wer concerned with listing difficulties that students usually face in oral presentation, such as feeling nervous (Chuang 2009; Abu El Enein, 2011 Alwi&Sidhu 2013) One of the main difficulties reported facing students in oral anxiety or fear of speaking Some studies investigated the reasons behind students’ anxiety, such as lack of vocabulary (Subasi, 2010; Mazdayasna, 2012), while others proposed ways to overcome these difficulties, such as choosing a familiar topic and practicing a lot (Zappa-Hollman, 2007) Making an oral presentation is not easy for presenters to do without careful preparation A bad presentation can put your audience to sleep or send them running for the doors There are many difficulties in making presentations that most of presenters have experienced According to Presentation Prep resource, the presenter often faces with the following difficulties:

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CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY

3.1 Introduction

3.1.1 Faculty of Foreign Languages at UTEHY

Hung Yen University of Technology and Education (UTEHY) has been established for 50 years It was a Vocational School In 1979, the school was upgraded Hung Yen College of Technical Teachers Training I Then, it became Hung Yen University of Technology and Education in 2003 Now, the university has three campuses: in Dan Tien, KhoaiChau, Hung Yen (Campus 1), in NhanHoa, My Hao, Hung Yen (Campus 2), in 189 NguyenLuong Bang street, Hai Duong Campus 3 The university trains many fields such as Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Automobile Engineering and others The university has invested various modern facilities containing multimedia labs, network computers and others In recent years, there have been some new fields like Accounting, Business Administration, especially English Although Faculty of Foreign Languages (FFL) has been established since 2008, it attracts a lot of students from different areas to take part in

In the FFL, there are 30 teachers (27 teachers of English, 2 teachers of Chinese and |

teacher of literature) Most of the teachers of English who got M.A degree in English graduated from the Faculty of English at famous universities like Ha Noi National University or Ha Noi University They have responsibility to teach both English majors and non- English majors The teachers of FFL are very enthusiastic and willing to devote their time and energy to teach students

According to the recorded data, there are about 300 students of English (four courses) who are often from 19 to 25 years old The students of FFL come from all parts of

Viet Nam, but most of them are from rural areas The numbers of females are much more

than males This make FFL special than other departments To enter the Faculty of Foreign Languages in UTEHY, students have to pass a very challenging universities entrance examination Generally, they have learnt English for at least 7 years at secondary and high school and they are only good at grammar but bad at speaking skill as well as oral presentations in English.

3.1.2 Methodology

To collect the data for researching, the researcher uses both quantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires students and interview questions for students The interview questions and the survey questionnaires were designed based on the main aims of the study After getting the results, the researcher will use the tables and charts for presenting the collected data The interview results will be recorded carefully and the tape script will be typed in the appendices part

3.1.3 Participants of the study

The research was carried out with 53 first-year English major students at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education (5 of them were invited to the short interview) Most of them have learned English for more than nine years and have quite similar English

background However, the students, who come from urban areas, seem to have a little bit

better English background because their duration of learning English is normally longer and they had more convenient environment to study foreign languages as well According to the questionnaire, before entering in university, they were rarely taught speaking skill This means the students can do grammatical exercises very well but they are not confident in communicating and presenting in English

3.2 Data analysis

All the collected data were summarized to obtain a sense of the overall information

The results from the survey were then shown in tables and charts So far, this chapter will deal with the data analysis and findings on the obtained results.

10 3.2.1.1 Questionnaire

Question 1.The importance of English oral presentation skills

For students, we can see that there are 80% of students who realize that presenting skill is very important, 14% of them think oral presentation is important, 4% of people say that it is normal On the other hand, the percentage of students who disagree with its importance is 2%.

Chart 4:The necessary in making an oral presentation in English (For students)

The pie chart 2 presents the teachers and students’ views on the necessity of oral presentations in English The majorities of teachers (60%) agree that it is very necessary to make oral presentations The others (40%) only think that making oral presentations are necessary None of them chooses “Not necessary or Normal” in their answer In general, teachers findsoral presentation skills necessary.

12

For students, as can be seen from the above chart, there are many students who

agree about the significance of English oral presentations The chart indicates 76 % of them (38 students) who claim that oral presentation is very necessary and 24 % (12 students) find it necessary Remarkably, none of students think it is little necessary or unnecessary It shows the acknowledgement of significant role which English oral presentations

In conclusion, none of teachers and students denies the necessity of presentation skills All of teachers and students think that English oral presentation skills are important

and essential for students

Question 3 The level of difficulties for students that teachers and students find in

English oral presentations

90% 80% 80%

70% 60% 50% 40%

20% 10%

0% Very difficult Difficult Normal 0% Easy 0%

Teachers

Chart 5: The level of difficulties teachers and students find in English oral presentations

(For teachers)

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70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

For students, the pie chart illustrates the benefits of performance for students in English presentations skill, when being asked about the difficulties of oral presentations in English, there are 30% of the participants suppose very difficult The percentage of members choose difficult is 60% Besides, 10% of the students feel oral presentations is normal and no one (0%) think it is easy to make It indicates clearly that the majority of them get difficulties a lot when oral presentations skill

In summary, although there are three different points of view, we can see clearly that all of teachers and students believe that oral presentations in English is not easy to do

Question 4 Students’ oral presentations level in English