MINISTRY OF JUSTICE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGHANOI LAW UNIVERSITY DUONG KHANH LINH 443036 SELF-STUDY STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY FIRST-YEAR AND SECOND-YEAR MAJORED STUDENTS TO IMPROV
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In order to interact and communicate internationally, English language proficiency is required Writing and speaking are considered to be the following two productive skills that are vitally connected with the growth of successful communication, whereas reading and listening are thought of as the two receptive abilities needed to learn a language Speaking appears to be the most crucial of the four macro-English abilities needed for communication.
On the other hand, speaking for specific reasons often occurs 1n contexts when a speaking performance is provided to an audience under peculiar circumstances The principles of public speaking are closely related to the development of speaking for special communication Speaking in front of an audience is considered to be more difficult than having a routine conversation with a friend or family member In reality, selecting themes, structuring ideas, personalizing the message, and reacting to listener responses are just a few of the extra abilities required for effective speaking (Lucas, 2001) For English to be spoken at an acceptable level for a non-native speaker, various sub-skills must be present, including lexical resources, grammatical structures, pronunciation, rhythm, intonation, and others.
There are other ways to learn these skills, but several studies have shown that improving speaking skills through self-study is the most effective strategy. Self-study is an effective strategy for improving any educational experience and can open up new academic and professional opportunities Additionally, self- study can be used to learn a new subject or gain expertise in a new skill.
Numerous benefits of independent study are entirely dependent on the goals of the individual students (Rahmonova, 2017) Therefore, this research study will mainly focus on the self-study strategies that young learners use 1n order to help them improve their English skills.
The primary purpose of this study is to see what differences there are between strategies used by first-year and second-year English-majored students at Hanoi Law University In addition, the study would show how those strategies affect the participants to improve their speaking skills.
This study aimed to answer the following questions:
1 What are the similarities and differences in self-study strategies to improve speaking skills employed by the first-year and second-year
2 What self-study strategies are perceived as effective by students?
As previously stated, the researcher would like to conduct a study on the English majors' independent study at the Hanoi Law University's Legal Foreign Language Faculty Additionally, this study only includes first- and second-year students at the Legal Foreign Language Faculty; it does not include other faculty members Finally, this study excludes strategies to enhance other skills and only focuses on self-study techniques for improving English speaking abilities.
Even though this study is carried out on a small scale, the researcher hopes that once completed, the study, to some extent, would show how those strategies affect the participants to improve their speaking skills Furthermore,the researcher expects that the study results could provide effective solutions for young generations who are willing to improve their speaking skills through self- study strategies to overcome the drawbacks of those self-study strategies.
Chapter 1: The Introduction presents the background of the study, the aim of the study, the questions of the study, the scope of the study, and the significance of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature Review starts with the nature of speaking skills, the definition, and the characteristics of self-study strategies This sector also mentions some previous studies on self-study strategies.
Chapter 3: Methodology includes five parts The first part is the research questions The second part presents the subject The third part discusses the data collection instruments The following part shows the data analysis The last part is summary.
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion which includes the result of the questionnaire of each group of participants This part also shows the comparison between them.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendations focus on the recommendation to help the English majors improve their speaking skills through self-study strategies.
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Common self-study strategies for mastery of English Speaking
Due to the learners' diverse backgrounds, each learner needs a unique set of teaching strategies The media currently provides more information to students than only classroom instruction through a variety of outlets including radio, newspapers, magazines, television, etc Learners can also employ a variety of self-study techniques to advance their language abilities This study focuses on the ten methods listed below, both with and without media: e Using tongue twisters:
A sentence or phrase that is challenging to pronounce because it has numerous identical sounds is known as a tongue twister Tongue twisters, as defined by Beare (2014), are brief, memorable sentences that are challenging to speak, particularly quickly, due to alliteration or a tiny fluctuation of consonant sounds When concentrating on one specific, connected phoneme or sound,tongue twisters are particularly helpful for pronunciation According to
Gonzales (2009:3), tongue twisters are used to repeat anything as quickly and accurately as feasible Tongue twisters are beneficial in learning pronunciation, and they greatly enhance students' pronunciation by helping them build memory skills in addition to rehearsing and pronouncing words For someone who speaks to a listener, working with tongue twisters to build on his/her phonemic awareness helps to develop better articulation and pronunciation of words In line with these, Gonzalez, (2009:3) states that tongue twisters are often used to practice pronunciation Further, Gonzales, (2009:4) states that tongue twister is a fun activity in any language classroom Practicing tongue twisters allows people who are learning English to strengthen their speech skills The faster a person can say the tongue twister without slipping up, the stronger their language skills become. e Singing along to English songs:
In their 2016 study, Aguirre, Bustinza, and Garvich looked at how music affects motivation for learning English as a second language Additionally, they looked into how music helps students' grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary as it supports language development Singing provides students with pre-made phrases, grammar, and vocabulary When enjoying singing English songs, memorizing the lyrics keeps vocabulary words and complete phrases at the ready for when a real-life opportunity arises. e Shadowing English speech
Shadowing has been defined by many researchers in several ways.
Marslen Wilson (1973) defined shadowing as a task in which a participant is required to repeat speech as he or she hears it He clarified the definition saying that when the shadower is presented with a sentence, he or she will start to repeat it before having heard all of it Lambert (1990) suggested a more technical definition, saying that “shadowing is a paced, auditory tracking task which involves the immediate vocalization of auditorily presented stimuli in the same language, parrot-style, of a message" (p 17) Nye and Fowler (2003) further suggested differentiating shadowing from imitation In a shadowing task, participants are asked to repeat the utterances they hear as quickly as possible. Then, the participants will usually articulate focusing on both a speaker’s regional dialect and his or her vocal mannerisms Through imitation, on the other hand, a shadower’s utterances will tend to reproduce phonetic or non- phonetic aspects of the target utterance suppressing personal speech habits.
Several studies pointed out that practicing suprasegmentals led to better pronunciation Acton (1984) showed practical results with regard to shadowing.
In his empirical research on fossilized pronunciation, he utilized tracking for fossilization and noted that “it is an intense experience, one that eventually forces learners to focus on intonation contours, stress, and rhythm, independent, to some degree, of the lexical content With practice, the ability to attend to both form and content develop" (p 77). e Retelling an English story
Retelling is the part of speaking activities in learning and retelling stories is an assessment tool that helps students in developing of learning English speaking Clay (1979) and Smith (1978) have given suggestions of reading to help students in learning the language The young learners interchange with adults for the reading books can reach the learner to develop language comprehension, spoken language, and construct of story’s framework (Blank, et al.1971; 1975) Brown's (1975) research shows that the active participation of the young learners in stories, rehabilitation promotes an understanding of the subject Restoration has defined in the study of Brown's ideas, thinking about the incident is a matter of stories and arrange the story events in chronological sequence The sample of his ideas is the mental restoration of events in students to create an internal representation of the story Pellegrini and Galda (1982) found the story apprehension and retelling efficiency can improve from the active participation and interaction with their peers in the restoration story through role-playing Similarly, Amato and Taylor (1973) found that retelling capacity allows learners to have a large and active role in the restoration and collaboration between the teller and the listener. e Talking to yourself in English
A small study, conducted by Heather Fielding for her Honor Thesis, whereby she interviewed language professors and asked them about their use of self-talk while learning English as a second language 93% said they self-talked, and 80% found this very useful Yet, only one-third advised their students to use this technique. e Practicing thinking in English
For this research, the author finds it necessary to clarify the critical thinking on students’ speaking skills Critical thinking is achieved when students can perform Analysis (focusing on separate parts and their functionality in the whole), Synthesis (focusing on combining separate parts to form a new and original whole), and Evaluation (reflecting upon information) (Yusuf & Adeoye,
2012) Similarly, according to Goodwin and Sommervold (2012), analyzing information is not simply memorizing, but more about synthesizing it and connecting it with prior knowledge; therefore, critical thinking leads to higher self-consciousness, self-awareness, problem-solving, self-confidence, and self-worth.
In addition to requiring information, skill, and self-questioning to reach a sound decision, critical thinking is also regarded as a type of intellectual engagement and responsible thinking (Yusuf & Adeoye, 2012) As a result, critical thinkers frequently start by identifying important questions and problems, then clearly formulate them, gather pertinent information, employ abstract concepts, think critically, and ultimately communicate effectively with others (Hikmawati, Gunawa, Sahidu, & Kosim, 2021). e Taking online English-speaking courses
According to Octaberlina & Muslimin (2020), who stated that teachers and students at colleges were benefited from obtaining diverse abilities in separate fields like developing their information technology skills, which have been trained previously for reasons of computerized innovation and reinforcing for teachers in the college, online learning has a wide range of benefits for both instructors and students. e Chatting with native English speakers online
Foreign language learners reported that online chat increased their language proficiency, helped them expand their vocabulary, exposed them to a variety of functional language discourse, increased their total immersion in the target language, improved their oral skills (Hampel & Hauck, 2004; Rossade, Heins & Hampel, 2005), and gave them the chance to communicate right away with real language experts in the majority of native-nonnative chat attitude studies. e Finding local opportunities to speak English
The term “local opportunities” here means that learners can find every surrounded chance to practice and develop Speaking skills such as joining an English club, attending local English workshops and so on.
English speaking club, for example, is defined as students “extra learning program besides regular English class, which more focuses on mastering skills of English in teaching and learning activities” (Aida Yuliandasari& Wendi
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There is numerous research about self-study in our contemporary world.
In Hong Kong, Monica (2005) investigated learner autonomy Ten professors and 146 secondary students took part in the study The purpose of this study was to look into how far autonomous learning was being used in this particular institution, as well as learner beliefs about self and English/Chinese language self-studying She agreed with other academics that students themselves need to be aware of the long-term learning process and how it contributes to the growth of their autonomy.
A detailed overview of study techniques that have been thoroughly examined in cognitive and educational psychology research was published in
2013 by Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, and Willingham They provide a list of 10 study techniques that improve recall and knowledge retention, along with suggestions for their relative effectiveness Retrieval practice and distributed practice were found to be very effective study techniques across a range of student groups, environments, and learning materials (for a recent review, see Adesope, Trevisan, & Sundararajan, 2017) Recent research reveal that students only sometimes apply these study techniques in the classroom, despite the fact that they have significant benefits on memory and knowledge transfer (e.g., Bartoszweski & Gurung, 2015; Blasiman, Dunlosky, & Rawson, 2017; Hartwig & Dunlosky, 2012; Karpicke, Butler, & Roediger, 2009; Kornell
& Bjork, 2007; McCabe, 2011; Morehead, Rhodes, & DeLozier, 2015;
Wissman, Rawson, & Pyc, 2012) For example, Hartwig, Dunlosky, and
Morehead et al (2015) asked undergraduate psychology students to indicate which of nine presented study strategies (e.g., flashcards and recopying notes) they regularly used The most commonly named strategies were doing practice tests/using flashcards (both forms of retrieval practice), rereading, and cramming Similarly, when college students were asked to rate, on a 6-point scale, how much they had practiced various study techniques in preparation for a final exam, Bartoszweski and Gurung discovered that practice exams, self- explanation, the use of keywords, and rereading were the most frequently employed techniques Additionally, McCabe, Morehead, and colleagues (2015) asked undergraduate students to predict, on a 7-point rating scale, which of two study strategies would enhance learning the most in six different scenarios (for example, testing vs restudying).
The study experienced a long-term research movement in Vietnam, which affected both theory and practice The research accomplishments of self-learning activities in general and study for students in particular are quite varied, although being less developed than the field of education.
Le N H wrote a book titled "Self-taught to Succeed" in 1968 He later altered the title to "Study, a Demand of the Times" and confirmed that a self- taught guy is not ineligible for success.
One of the most supportive researchers of self-study is Toan N C (2001). All of his books and writings were released in an effort to persuade educators at all levels of education to alter the way they teach in order to maximize students' capacity for self-learning In order to develop an exact notion, he thoroughly examined the nature of self-study He provides self-study model advancements here with thorough directions for teachers applying this model.
The thesis of Huong, D T (2008) is one investigation on this subject At the Institute of International Studies, she conducted a survey on the connection between learner autonomy and English proficiency To collect a ton of data, the researcher used a combination of three techniques: questionnaires, interviews, and tests The researcher concluded that there was a clear relationship between students' autonomy in their learning and their command of the English language after gathering and analyzing the data Higher degrees of self-study are frequently preferred above those who are passive and reliant on both teachers and peers To put it another way, their linguistic skills appear to be lower.
However, despite the fact that this study had several expectations, it has only suggested encouraging learner autonomy.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 0000 0 ccc eeceeeteeeeteeees 16
The study was the mixture of Quantitative study and Qualitative study. The design of the study contains two parts: the Questionnaire to collect the participants’ idea about self-study strategies and the Interview to gather interviewees’ opinions to clarify the research questions.
The researcher carried out the present study at Hanoi Law University (HLU) The participants belong to the undergraduate program of Legal Foreign Language Faculty They attend the Speaking 1 and Speaking 2 courses which are compulsory courses for all Legal English students at HLU The aim of these courses is to equip students with knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures and phonetics to discuss different speaking topics At the end of the courses, students can know how to present their views and opinions clearly and convincingly; know how to present a specific content in the right order; mastering communication operations and tricks such as presenting additional information, properly interrupting the conversation, switching topics, summarizing information in communication to achieve high communication and discussion efficiency, giving presentations on different topics.
First, the research chose students from six classes of the Legal Foreign Language Faculty at Hanoi Law University The students are first-year and second-year undergraduate learners.
The researcher based on Slovin Formular to estimate the number of participants with the minimum of 76 respondents Despite of this minimum amount, the researcher worked with 104 English majors at HLU The subjects consist of both males and females The participants were in 2 age groups with 43 first-year students and 61 second-year students and have at least 1 year of learning English These selected students are from three different classes of Legal Foreign Language Faculty which made this study become more reliable because of the differences between their English levels.
Then, the author randomly chose 16 students from the respondents above to ask and answer the interview questions.
According to Oxford (1990), different data collection instruments can be employed to gather data such as questionnaires, tests, checklists, interviews, and observations.
The instruments to collect data in this study were questionnaire and interview.
"A questionnaire is a form used in a survey design that participants in a study complete and return to the researcher," according to Creswell (2005) The participant selects responses to questions and provides rudimentary demographic or personal data It is one of the best methods for learning aspects research,including preferences, beliefs, attitudes, and motivations The questionnaire was first selected for this study because it can quickly reach a large number of people Nunan (1992) asserts that it is not only the shortest approach to gather data, but also the self-managed and may be administered to big groups of participants at the same time Most importantly, the questionnaire allows participants a chance to voice their wants and ideas without feeling awkward.Informants are more likely to provide objective and truthful replies because the anonymity is maintained by withholding their names, which is essential to the study One of the negatives is that because surveys have a set format, there are few options for expressing unexpected responses This flaw is lessened by the questionnaire employed in the study, which provides some room for unstructured responses The questionnaires' limited usefulness in identifying the root causes of issues and potential remedies is the other drawback Other research tools should include this in their contributions.
The researcher used the questionnaire through Google Forms to collect information about the English majors’ reality of self-study.
The questionnaire consisted of fourteen closed-ended questions (multiple- choices) in five main parts as follows:
- Part 1: Demographic questions: including four questions about Gender,
Academic level, cumulative years of learning English and current English level.
- Part 2: Self-study strategies used by participants: including two questions about participants’ confidence and Self-study strategies used by participants to improve English speaking skills.
- Part 3: Frequency of practicing: consisting one question about the frequency of using self-study strategies to practice English speaking autonomously.
- Part 4: Effectiveness and Efficiency: involving four questions about the effectiveness and efficiency of using self-study strategies to practice English Speaking skills in four elements: Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Fluency and
Grammar, followed by two questions about drawbacks and solutions to overcome the disadvantages of self-study strategies at the end of the questionnaire.
In applied linguistics, interviews are frequently employed as a research strategy to gather data (Burns, 1999) Semi-structured interviews were used in this investigation It allows the interview a lot of flexibility while also giving the subjects some control over how the interview will proceed (Nunan, 1992) The goal is to make the most of the data obtained so that the interviewer has more freedom and the interviewees have appropriate influence over the interview's course.
There were four semi-structured interview questions after finishing the questionnaire to clarify the research questions by the participants Four questions in these parts as follows:
1 Do you think that self-study strategies are important in learning
Speaking skills? If yes, why?
2 How does self-study strategies help you to improve your mastery of speaking skills?
3 Do you think that using as many as different strategies is better than using only one? If yes, why?
4 What factors do you think are the causes of the differences between students using dissimilar strategies?
The two first questions clarify the second research question as “What self- study strategies are perceived as effective by students?”; whereas the two last questions simplify the first research question “What are the similarities and differences in self-study strategies to improve speaking skills employed by the first-year and second-year English-majored students?”.
The questionnaire was distributed to the students with clear instructions and explanations for filling out the questionnaire from the researcher The questionnaire was then collected upon completion Then the information on the questionnaire was put into an Excel file.
Statistic procedures used to analyze the process data were descriptive statistics, percentages and content analysis The quantitative data obtained from the close-ended responses of the first three parts were analyzed by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences on Personal Computer (SPSS/PC). This tool helped the researchers synthesize and analyze the information collected from the survey easily and correctly Microsoft Excel was also operated to analyze two questions in the questionnaire, the two questions about Frequency and Drawbacks of the self-study strategies.
The qualitative data obtained from four interview questions were analyzed by using content analysis to validate the result in the interview.
A five-point Likert scale was employed to measure the level of opinions ranging as follows:
Strongly agree, use every day = 5
The value of mean scores for level of understanding towards concepts of self-study and the level of frequency towards the strategies used was interpreted according to the following criteria (Sahan and Tarhan, 2015) A five-point Likert scale was used to measure the understanding and effectiveness of the self-study strategies adopted by the participants The level of self-study strategies’ efficiency was classified based on the following criteria in Table 1.
Table 1 The interpretation of Mean Range
Mean Range Level of effectiveness
This part showed an overview of the objectives of the course, the subject of the study, the research questions, the data collection instruments, and the data analysis The main instrument used in the research was the questionnaires and interview with the purpose of achieving more reliable and valid data In the following part, the researcher focused on the significance of the study.
This chapter presents the results of the study It is divided into four parts as follows: (1) Demographic Data, (2) Self-study Strategies used by First year and second year students, (3) The frequency of those Self-study strategies employed by first year and second year students, and (4) Effectiveness and efficiency of adopting those Self-study strategies to practice English speaking skills as perceived by the students.
In the first part of the questionnaire, there were 4 questions asking about the respondents’ personal data and academic background The 104 respondents were requested to honestly answer the questions in this section and the results are shown in Table | to Table 4 in terms of frequency and percentage as follows.
Table 2 shows that 52.9% of the respondents were female and 43.3% of the respondents were male This imbalance is due to the fact that, in general,more female students apply to study Legal English than male students The information English programs at HLU usually attracts more female students than male students.
Frequency | Percent first-year students
Table 3 shows that 41% of the respondents were first year students and 58.7% of the respondents were second year students Therefore, there is a small difference between the number of students in the first year and in the second year.
Table 4 Cumulative years of learning English
First-year students | Second-year students Frequency | Percent | Frequency | Percent
30 69.8 38 62.3 years less than 1 year 2 4.7 6 9.8 Total 43 100.0 61 100.0
Table 4 indicates that the majority of the respondents (69.8% with the freshmen and 62.3 % with the sophomore) had been studying English for more than 4 years, followed by the second place with 14% first year students and13.1% second year students who had been studying English for 2 years and 4 years; meanwhile, the first year and second year respondents who had been studying English for 3 years were at the almost same percentage (11.6% and11.5%), followed by 4.7% first year students and 9.8% second year students who had been studying English for less than 1 year For the last option of 4 years learning English, there are 13.1% second year respondents chose this option and there are no freshmen who had been learning English for 4 years.
First-year students | Second-year students
Advanced 2 4.7 11 18.0 Intermediate 13 30.2 6 9.8 Pre-Intermediate 14 32.6 20 32.8 Valid Proficient 2 4.7 4 6.6