VIỆC KHAI THÁC NGỮ LIỆU THỰC tế TRONG bài THUYẾT TRÌNH kĩ NĂNG nói của SINH VIÊN năm THỨ BA, KHOA sư PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

50 688 0
VIỆC KHAI THÁC NGỮ LIỆU THỰC tế TRONG bài THUYẾT TRÌNH kĩ NĂNG nói của SINH VIÊN năm THỨ BA, KHOA sư PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

Đang tải... (xem toàn văn)

Tài liệu hạn chế xem trước, để xem đầy đủ mời bạn chọn Tải xuống

Thông tin tài liệu

This initial chapter outlines the research problem and rationale for the study together with its scope and significance. Above all, the aims and objectives are identified with six research questions which serve as guidelines for the whole research. Finally, the chapter concludes with an overview of the rest of the paper to orientate the readers throughout this paper. 1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study In the past ten years, there has been a variety of research studies on using authentic materials in language teaching and learning by many authors, namely Martinez (2002), Oura (n.d.), Berardo (2006), Lombardi (2007), McCoy (2009), Nguyen (2007), and Phan (2011), of which the two latest were conducted on learners at FELTE, ULIS, VNU. Those works exploited a variety of aspects in using this type of materials, which has contributed considerately to the situation of teaching and learning English in some countries as well as in Vietnam. Besides, there have many studies on presentation, which were carried out by students in ULIS, VNU. One of them is the thesis “A study on how to give a good presentation for secondyear students of English Department, CFL, VNUH” by Pham (2003). However, to the best knowledge of the researcher, there has not been any author exploiting the use of authentic materials in speaking presentation among thirdyear students in FELTE, ULIS, VNU. Furthermore, it is necessary to take an investigation into the lessons drawn by these students from this group activity. Having been one of the students who have experienced this activity in the course, the researcher find it necessary and significant to carry out an inside research on the aspect of working with authentic materials for speaking presentations. The real situation has inspired the researcher to convey the topic “The exploitation of authentic materials in speaking presentations by thirdyear students, FELTE, ULIS, VNU” with the expectation to fill in the gap of the previous studies.

CHAPTER – INTRODUCTION This initial chapter outlines the research problem and rationale for the study together with its scope and significance Above all, the aims and objectives are identified with six research questions which serve as guidelines for the whole research Finally, the chapter concludes with an overview of the rest of the paper to orientate the readers throughout this paper 1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study In the past ten years, there has been a variety of research studies on using authentic materials in language teaching and learning by many authors, namely Martinez (2002), Oura (n.d.), Berardo (2006), Lombardi (2007), McCoy (2009), Nguyen (2007), and Phan (2011), of which the two latest were conducted on learners at FELTE, ULIS, VNU Those works exploited a variety of aspects in using this type of materials, which has contributed considerately to the situation of teaching and learning English in some countries as well as in Vietnam Besides, there have many studies on presentation, which were carried out by students in ULIS, VNU One of them is the thesis “A study on how to give a good presentation for second-year students of English Department, CFL, VNUH” by Pham (2003) However, to the best knowledge of the researcher, there has not been any author exploiting the use of authentic materials in speaking presentation among third-year students in FELTE, ULIS, VNU Furthermore, it is necessary to take an investigation into the lessons drawn by these students from this group activity Having been one of the students who have experienced this activity in the course, the researcher find it necessary and significant to carry out an inside research on the aspect of working with authentic materials for speaking presentations The real situation has inspired the researcher to convey the topic “The exploitation of authentic materials in speaking presentations by third-year students, FELTE, ULIS, VNU” with the expectation to fill in the gap of the previous studies 1.2 Aims of the study and research questions This study, firstly, is going to discuss students’ perceptions of authentic materials Secondly, it aims to find out the reasons why the students chose to use authentic materials in their speaking presentations Next, the researcher desires to exploit the difficulties that the students faced when using these materials Furthermore, the researcher expects to discover the students’ methods of exploiting authentic materials in completing this activity or in other words, their solutions to the difficulties they encounter Finally, the researcher also aims to exploit some lessons drawn by the students throughout their process of working with authentic materials to carry out their presentations Those aims will be reached by the responses to six research questions: What are authentic materials as perceived by the students? Why and how did the students use authentic materials for their speaking presentations? What is the relation between the students’ use of authentic materials and teacher’s comments? What were the difficulties that the students encountered when using authentic materials? What did the students to overcome the difficulties in using authentic materials? What is the difference in the use of authentic materials between main-stream students and fast-track students? 1.3 Significance of the study Once having been completed, this research would be of benefits for the target population including teachers and students, policy makers as well as other researchers who are interested in the same field To begin with, as the research problem has stated, the findings of this study would contribute to students’ awareness in their use of real-life materials This hopefully would provide students with a theoretical base and enhance their study skills and working skills in the future Besides, the findings discussed in Chapter and the implications provided in Chapter of this study would be used as a helpful source for teachers and policy makers To be specific, students’ understanding about authentic materials, their difficulties in using authentic materials in speaking presentations and their solutions to those difficulties will be presented in the fourth chapter In the fifth chapter, pedagogical implications will be suggested by the researcher with the aim to make the best use of students’ awareness of authentic materials in their speaking presentations Last but not least, this study hopefully would be a reliable source for other researchers who are interested in the same field The data, findings and implications will be available and free for them to access Besides, they could learn from some limitations of this study 1.4 Scope of the study First, materials in general are categorized into many types In this study, the focus is on authentic materials employed by students Second, authentic materials can be used for various purposes and fields However, the paper only investigates the use of authentic materials in speaking presentations by English learners at FELTE, ULIS, VNU Third, the scope is narrowed to a population of 87 third-year students including 80 students in main-stream group and students in fast-track group, and a teacher who was in charge of speaking skills in the fast-track group in semester 1, academic year 2011-2012 1.5 Methodology 1.5.1 Data collection methods Survey questionnaires and interviews were combined to collect the data from the target population To be specific, the same set of questionnaire was employed to survey third-year main-stream students and fast-track students After the data from survey questionnaire was synthesized, two semi interviews with a main-stream student and a fast-track student were carried out for the sake of thoroughly investigated data Simultaneously, a set of questions for interview was sent to the target teacher to exploit his opinions on his students’ use of authentic materials in their speaking presentations It should be noted that all of the survey questionnaires and interviews’ questions were designed by the researcher, based on the researcher’s purposes of employing the data, and were delivered to the participants in the second semester of academic year 2011-2012 Besides, the language used in survey questionnaires was simple English so that the participants had not difficulty in answering Next, Vietnamese was encouraged in the interviews with the students for the sake of clear and understandable expressions and opinions, and friendly face-to-face atmosphere In fact, English was recognized sometimes in the interviews when the students wanted to use the accurate terminologies However, the interview with the teacher was carried out online and in English because the teacher was not available in Vietnam at the time of the interview There was only one interview, with the fast-track student, was recorded as she agreed to so 1.5.2 Data analysis methods Firstly, the data from the survey questionnaire was decoded and summarized into tables and charts From this result, the researcher made use of relevant interview questions to illustrate those quantitative data Secondly, the interviews with teacher and students would be transcribed and synthesized By researching the data, the answers by the students and the teacher were presented in tables and figures so that the would find it convenient to follow Data from the interview with the teacher would be used for answering research question Meanwhile, all of the answers collected from the students would be employed to answer six research questions of this study The data collected from the questionnaires and the data from the interviews were analyzed separately After that, they were combined together to answer all of the research questions 1.6 An overview of the rest of the paper The rest of the paper includes five chapters as follows: Chapter (Literature review) provides the background of the study, including definition of key concepts, description of the context in which speaking presentations are conducted in FELTE, ULIS, VNU Chapter (Methodology) describes the participants and instruments of the study, as well as the procedure employed to carry out the research Chapter (Results and discussion) presents, analyzes and discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected according to seven research questions Chapter (Recommendations) presents the researcher’s suggestions to resolve remaining problems in using authentic materials in speaking presentations in FELTE, ULIS, VNU Chapter (Conclusion) summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, the limitations of the research as well as some suggestions for further studies Following this chapter are the References and Appendices In this chapter, the researcher has elaborated on the following points: (1) Statement and rationale for the study (2) Aims and objectives of the study (3) Scope of the study (4) Methods of the study (5) An overview of the rest of the paper Summary The chapter has provided the rationale for the study by stressing the role of authentic materials in language learning and teaching as well as disclosing the research gap The framework of the paper has also been elaborated on with the six research questions and clearly defined scope These elaborations have not only justified the major contents and structure of the study but will also work as the guidelines for the rest of the paper CHAPTER - LITERATURE REVIEW This second chapter, as the name says it, sheds light on the literature of the study, specifically the background and a number of studies related to the research topic In this chapter, a detailed presentation of the research background will be provided with the four key concepts “speaking presentations”, “authenticity”, “materials” and “authentic materials” critically identified, together with a brief discussion of the context of speaking presentations conducted in FELTE, ULIS, VNU Literature gap in previous studies will be offered simultaneously in the discussion of the key concepts 2.1 Speaking presentation 2.1.1 The concept of speaking and speaking presentation According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the verb “speak” means “to talk to somebody about something” or “to have a conversation with somebody”, and “presentation” means “the act of showing something or of giving something to somebody” Meanwhile, some authors have defined speaking as “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997, cited in Florez, 1999) Brown (1994, cited in Florez, 1999) has stated that speaking is one of the two most used skills in classroom, together with listening Sharing a similar concern with Brown, perceived “public speaking and presentation skills are in much demaand in today’s world” (Coombe, England & Schmidt, 2011) Coombe, England and Schmidt (2011) also cited an advice by Osborn and Osborn (2004) that “good orals and written skills can be your most possession” regarding their role in job searching 2.1.2 Speaking presentation in the CLT context Communicative language teaching (CLT) emphasize on group work and, therefore, materials for classroom in the CLT context promote teachers and learners to “make use of a wide variety of small-group activities” (Richards, 2006) The speaking presentations exploited in this research study belong to a group activity in five speaking classes Moreover, CLT is supposed to foster authenticity in general, and the use of authentic materials in particular, as it provides learners “a preparation for survival in the real world” (Richards, 2006) 2.2 Authenticity 2.2.1 The concept of authenticity The concept of authenticity has been discussed for years and “creates confusion because of a basic ambiguity” (Widdowson 1983, p.30 as cited in Mishan 2004) Multiple interpretations of the term have emerged in many studies by scholars and theorists, which results in the immensity of definitions According to Grellet (1981, p.8 as cited in Mishan 2004, p.13), “authenticity means that nothing of the original text is changed and also that its presentation and layout are retained” In his book, Mishan (2004, p.13)) also cites some quotations by some well-known experts in the field of authenticity to support the idea about the originality and the uniqueness of authentic texts Another approach to the understanding of authenticity is suggested by Rogers and Medley (1988, as cited in Shimoossi & Ketabi 2007, p.150) is that “authenticity is the naturalness of form, and appropriateness of cultural and situational context” However, Chavez (1998, as cited in Shomoossi & Ketabi 2007, p.150) clarifies that authenticity cannot be defined as “anything really existing in the outside world” since “any text taken out of its original context and away from its intended audience automatically becomes inauthentic” In other words, authenticity is created in the process of bringing an item from the real life to the users’ situations Those definitions are even not detailed enough to persuade the researchers who refer authenticity to “the acts of authentication by students and their teacher” (Van Lier 1996, p128, as cited in Mishan 2004, p.15) Two years later, this opinion by Van Lier was also mentioned in the theoretical base of Bacha’s work as authenticity is a “process of personal engagement” and dependent on “a learner’s self determination and commitment to understanding” (Van Lier, 1996 cited in Bacha, 2006) Back to 1995, Lee (as cited in Shomoossi & Ketabi 2007, p.150) also agrees that authenticity must be built up “through the interaction of the users, situations and the texts By synthesizing the opinions about learners’ engagement and interaction with materials, Mishan (2004, p.15) states that authenticity is “associated less with the text” than with the learners’ “interactions” with that text 2.2.2 The importance of authenticity in language learning As the topic authenticity has become “problematic within a framework of English as an international language” (Kramsch & Sullivan, 1996), many researchers raise their concern about the benefits that authenticity brings to language users 10 Furthermore, data from the answers for Question 16 in the survey questionnaire points out that there is only a minority of students care about the promotion in marking scheme when using authentic materials Specifically, 20 out of 80 main-stream students and out of fast-track students think that authentic materials help them increase the mark of their speaking presentations Their opinions are illustrated in Table 6: Table The benefits of using authentic materials in speaking presentations Option Main-stream Fast-track students Option A It helps to empower the content of speaking 18% students 13.64% presentations Option B It provides you a chance to approach/ use 20% 18.18% real-life language Option C It helps to enhance your background 23% 22.73% knowledge about a particular field Option D It helps to enhance your vocabulary on a 20% 22.73% particular field Option E It helps to raise the atmosphere during 11% 18.18% speaking presentations Option F It helps to better the mark of your speaking 8% 4.54% presentations 4.4 Research question 4: What were the difficulties that the students encountered when using authentic materials? It was analyzed in the answer for research question that there is a small proportion of the students never use authentic materials in their speaking 36 presentations despite the fact that the majority of main-stream students and all fast-track students consider authentic materials very important This situation is caused by the difficulties in using authentic materials among third-year students In the scope of this research, the difficulties in finding and adapting the materials will be discussed together with the reasons for those difficulties According to the survey questionnaires collected from the participants, only a small proportion of the participants declare that it is not difficult at all to find authentic materials The majority of main-stream group as well as fast-track group say that it is to some extent difficult to find authentic materials Figure The difficulty in finding authentic materials Another difficulty in using these materials is the adaptation step in which the learners have to use their knowledge and competence to make the materials suitable to present to the audience Figure summarizes students’ opinion on this aspect: 37 Figure The difficulty in adapting authentic materials The reason for this difficulty is answered by data from question 14, presented in Table below: Table The reasons for the difficulty in adapting authentic materials Option Main-stream Fast-track students Option A Authentic materials contain a lot of new 42.28% students 56% /strange/ difficult words and phrases Option B Authentic materials contain a lot of 19.51% 11% unnecessary words and phrases Option C Authentic materials contain a lot of daily-life 24.39% 22% words and phrases which cannot be used in academic studying Option D A uthentic materials contain a lot of culturally 13.82% 11% biased words and phrases It can be seen in Table that most of the students surveyed face the challenging adaptation due to new words in authentic materials, and no one reports other reasons beside the reasons lying in vocabulary This result encourages the researcher to hold the interviews with two students to investigate the problem more deeply Basing on the data from the interview with SA, there are three noticeable difficulties faced by the students in her class They are regarded as the availability, reliability and language used in authentic materials (S A, April 16, 2012) Specifically, she reported that suitable authentic materials for some abstract theme such as “music” and “self-confidence” are not always available though people talk 38 about them here and there Besides, she wondered whether the materials obtained from some websites are reliable and updated or not She also found technical vocabulary in authentic materials of some topics such as “health” quite hard to understand thoroughly (SA, April 16, 2012) The problem was once described by Guariento and Morley (2001, cited in The HKU Scholars Hub, n.d.) as authentic texts sometimes are “lexically and syntactically difficult”, and by McCoy (2009) as authentic materials are “unsimplified” Therefore, the use of these materials sometimes causes learners’ misunderstanding and annoyance Another interviewee, SB, shared the same opinions with SA and mentioned one more difficulty that is the challenge in understanding the authors’ writing styles (SB, April 16, 2012) However, the teacher who was in charge of speaking skill of S A’s class claimed that there was no difficulty reported He shared an interesting opinion that the students in his class were “fluent with integrating research data into their presentations” (T, April 15, 2012) From the results of the survey questionnaires and interviews, it can be concluded that third-year students in FELTE face a number of challenges that, to some extent, prevent them from using authentic materials frequently and easily in speaking presentations 4.5 Research question 5: What did the students to overcome the difficulties in using authentic materials? First, to deal with the difficulty in finding suitable authentic materials for their speaking presentations, 68 out of 80 main-stream students and all fast-track students choose to search for the materials by themselves; 20 main-stream students 39 choose to ask teachers for advice and the others will ask friends for help It should be noticed that no one in the fast-track group choose any other option apart from Option A, which can be referred to their independent working style Figure Solutions to the difficulty in finding authentic materials SA’s answer in the interview is also employed to resolve this research question She explained the reason why she did not choose Option B That is their teachers would possibly provide them some sources of materials which they have searched by themselves already (SA, April 16, 2012) Furthermore, she said that her friends and she could not give up searching things relating to the topics by themselves, otherwise they would declare their failure The student believed that she would find out some useful authentic materials after working seriously by herself This belief once again proves an independent working style among thirdyear fast-track students in FELTE A similar solution can be seen in the answer by SB as she said that she “kept changing key words on google search” (S B, April 16, 2012) However, a big difference can be seen in her next solution that is changing the topics, which is not suggested by SA 40 Second, several solutions to deal with difficult or unnecessary parts in an authentic material were selected and further suggested by the students: Figure Solutions to the difficulty in adapting authentic materials Three options are shared equally among the participants Besides, no one in the fast-track group chooses to cut out difficult parts in the authentic materials It is suggested by SA that a short leading activity should be used with the purpose of elaborating the meaning of some unfamiliar vocabulary (S A, April 16, 2012) To her and to the researcher, this is a helpful and creative solution as it can help to broaden the audience’s background knowledge, make use of the materials and therefore motivate the audience in a speaking presentation Besides, some students in their survey questionnaire and S B in her interview suggested the presenters to change their topics, which require too many unfamiliar vocabulary, or translate the vocabulary into Vietnamese 41 4.6 Research question 6: What is the difference in the use of authentic materials between main-stream students and fast-track students? It can be summarized that third-year students in main-stream group and fast-track group share common understanding and opinions about the concept of “authentic materials” in general However, by synthesizing and analyzing the data from the survey questionnaires and three interviews, the research have worked out four basic differences in the use of authentic materials between the two groups First, the two groups of students show different levels of frequency in using authentic materials in their speaking presentations It can be seen from Figure on page 33 of this research that all fast-track students surveyed often or always use authentic materials in this activity, while 2.50% of main-stream student never use this kind of materials in the activity This difference is explained in the answer of the student from fast-track group According to this student, her classmates and she were required to work on authentic materials from their first year at university (SA, April 16, 2012) Therefore, it is no doubt that the students in this groups is quite familiar with this kind of materials despite whether or not they can give the right definition for the term “authentic materials” Second, there is a slight difference in the sources from which authentic materials are obtained by the two groups It is noticed by the researcher that only a number of main-stream students (22 out of 80 students) responded to the request of listing the sources of authentic materials they used, while this number is out of students in fast-track group (Table 5, pg.34) Although these numbers cannot speak about their attitude towards the problem, they somehow presents their level of concern towards the use of authentic materials in their speaking presentations 42 Third, the difficulties in using authentic materials by the two groups differentiate from each other Basing on the analysis for research question 4, students in both groups agree that there are difficulties in using authentic materials due to the availability, reliability and language usage However, main-stream students face another challenge that is the authors’ writing styles (S B, April 16, 2012) To the best knowledge of the researcher and according to S A’s answer, fasttrack students have been required to work on authentic materials since their first year at university (SA, April 16, 2012) The situation serves as an explanation to this difference in their ability to understand different and unfamiliar writing styles Last but not least, the two groups of students are also different in terms of their solutions to their difficulties To deal with the difficulty in finding suitable authentic materials for their speaking presentations, while main-stream students vary their choices (A searched on online/ offline sources by yourself/ themselves; B asked for teachers’ suggestions; C asked for other people/ friends/ help), no one in the fast-track group choose any other option apart from Option A, which is possibly referred to their independent working style The analysis of S A’s answer suggests that she and her classmates in fast-track group would rely on themselves if they faced difficulty searching for the suitable authentic materials In contrast, SB claimed that she and her classmates would change their presentation topics if the current topic were too hard for them Furthermore, the student from fast-track group was quite creative when suggesting a short leading activity to help the audience deal with unfamiliar vocabulary in their presentation (S A, April 16, 2012) Whereas, the student from main-stream group suggested the presenters to translate new words and phrases into Vietnamese, cut them out of the materials or change the topics if necessary 43 CHAPTER – RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the research findings, this chapter suggests some ways to increase the effectiveness in using authentic materials in speaking presentations To make these recommendations specific and clear, detailed suggestions are presented according to steps for both parties, teachers and students 5.1 Teachers’ orientation Based on the researcher’s answer for research question and 2, over a half of the students participating in this study did not have a complete view on the term “authentic materials” although nearly all of them claimed that they had used the materials in their speaking presentations before Besides, from the interviews with two students, the researcher found that they were aware of the importance of authentic materials in their presentations in general and in their speaking presentations in particular SA and SB even stated that authentic materials strengthened their presentations as they provided the presenters with real data and statistics, and therefore, helped to empower persuasive and argumentative presentations This situation suggests the researcher that there is a need for teachers’ careful guidance for students on the use of authentic materials Teachers’ guidance firstly should focus on students’ understanding of the term as it is the theoretical base for their further research on this type of materials Secondly, teachers’ continuous willingness to help students approach and exploit authentic materials should be considered seriously To give a specific reason for this suggestion, the finding for research question pointed out that there were many students who did not ask their teachers for advice when facing 44 difficulties exploiting authentic materials in their speaking presentations To be more specific, SA, in her interview with the researcher, claimed that teachers’ advice was not always useful for the students when they had difficulty finding authentic materials, for example, the sources of materials suggested by their teachers had been searched by themselves already Furthermore, a number of students, as stated in SB’s interview, thought of changing their presentation topics to avoid the difficulties in exploiting authentic materials for those topics Although this solution can be seen among main-stream students only in the research, it cannot be concluded that fast-track students did not think of it Therefore, teachers’ orientation is necessary to help students make the best use of authentic materials, which were considered important by the students 5.2 Requirement and Criteria In the answer for research question 3, only 8% of main-stream students and 4.54% of fast-track students said that the use of authentic materials in speaking presentations helped to increase their marks in this activity In the researcher’s opinion, teachers and policy makers in FELTE should consider a certain promotion for efficient use of authentic materials in the criteria of a speaking presentation, if there was not any In other words, students should be promoted by marks as they said that use of authentic materials, to some extent, helped to empower their presentations, enhance their background knowledge and real-life language, and raise the class atmosphere Besides, this promotion can make the students to focus on their working process, not only their final performances in class, since they will have to work seriously to select the most suitable materials, the most significant data from real life and the most effective methods to deliver their products to their audience On the whole, the researcher believe that a promotion in marking scheme will be a suitable solution if teachers want their students to exploit authentic materials effectively 45 Summary In this chapter, the recommendations by the researcher were given in order to resolve problems remaining in the use of authentic materials in speaking presentations in speaking course for third-year students at FELTE, ULIS, VNU The suggestions were presented step by step for both teachers and students 46 CHAPTER - CONCLUSION The previous chapters have thoroughly elaborated on the introduction, the literature, the methodology, the results of the research as well as pedagogical recommendations Finally, this concluding chapter will summarize and evaluate the findings of the whole paper by summing up the results, limitations, contributions of the research as well as putting forward several suggestions for further studies 6.1 Major findings of the study On the whole, this research paper performs a fairly comprehensive study on the exploitation of authentic materials in speaking presentations by third-year students in FELTE, ULIS, VNU This research was conducted with 80 mainstream students and fast-track students through survey questionnaire and interview instrument The data collected from the survey questionnaires was illustrated in tables and figures Major findings concerning six research questions were revealed as follows: Initially, the analysis of the data collected from the survey questionnaires and the interviews provided an overview of third-year students’ understanding of the term “authentic materials” In general, both main-stream students and fasttrack students did not have a complete view on the problem Despite the fact that their perception of the term did not really match the scientific perception by some previous researchers, the students showed their noticeable concern towards the problem To be specific, fast-track students were more familiar with authentic materials as they had been required to work with them since their first year at 47 university Nevertheless, they all knew the simplified meaning of “authentic materials”, which refers to the materials obtained from real life Secondly, most of the students were aware of the importance of authentic materials in a speaking presentation as nearly 100% said that they had used these materials in the activity before Besides, common sources of authentic materials were also listed by the participants Most of them agreed that authentic materials could fill the gap of traditional classroom materials since they are more variable, updated and appealing to the language learners Despite the fact that authentic materials have favorable features in comparison with traditional classroom materials, the students faced significant difficulties in using them Students said that sometimes they found it difficult to find suitable authentic materials and adapt them into their presentations Some specific difficulties reported by the students are the availability, reliability, complex language and unfamiliar writing styles of the authentic materials Next, this research paper pointed out the solutions to those difficulties suggested by the students In this part, students from fast-track group and mainstream group presented different viewpoints and different orientations Specifically, the fast-track students would keep focusing on one topic and work independently to solve their problems if there were any Whereas, main-stream students chose both directions which are research by themselves and rely on other factors Main-stream group preferred changing the presentation topics, cut out difficult parts in their materials or use Vietnamese translation while fast-track students preferred working seriously on one topic and create activities to make the best use of the materials All in all, it should be noted that the results provided in this study cannot be generalized for all third-year students 6.2 Contributions of the study 48 As the study is finished, it is expected to be of great benefits for the target students, teachers and researchers interested in this topic To begin with, as the related studies are quite limited in terms of the scope, this study will partly fill the gap in the literature and serve as a reliable source for other researchers who share an interest in the same related issues Second, the findings from this study can provide teachers in FELTE, ULIS, VNU with descriptive information on students’ understanding and use of authentic materials in general, and in speaking presentations in particular This information hopefully will help teachers and policymakers launch better speaking programs in the future 6.3 Limitations of the study Despite the researcher’s efforts in reviewing the literature, justifying the methodology, collecting and analyzing data with careful consideration, some certain limitations could be detected due to time constraint and other unexpected factors First, when researching on this topic, the researcher found it hard to access to a number of studies related to speaking presentations Besides, there is not any specific research on the issue of using authentic materials in speaking or speaking presentation Therefore, it was difficult for the researcher to be certain that all the literature of they key concepts have been covered in the paper Second, the amount of data collected from the population was not up to the researcher’s expectation The first reason must be the researcher’s time management during data collection process Another reason comes from the willingness of some students in both main-stream group and fast-track group to participate in this research Therefore, some findings in this study was not fully developed 49 Furthermore, the pedagogical implications suggested by the researcher were limited to some extent There are implications on teachers’ orientation, requirement and criteria, which have not reached the researcher’s expectation If the researcher has another chance to work on this topic, more time and efforts will be paid to work out helpful implications for anyone concerning the problems 6.4 Suggestions for further studies In case further research is carried out, the researcher hopes to conduct a larger survey and interview including more participants from both main-stream group and fast-track group, and even students in first year and second year Since the study only focuses on the general understanding and use of authentic materials in speaking presentations, it does not investigate a detailed process of exploiting authentic materials This suggests another idea for further studies In addition, the exploitation of authentic materials was discussed together with it relation to speaking presentations, there is still a big gap in which other researchers can discuss about the issue in other speaking activities such as roleplay, forum, simulation 50

Ngày đăng: 19/08/2014, 09:30

Từ khóa liên quan

Tài liệu cùng người dùng

  • Đang cập nhật ...

Tài liệu liên quan