Nghiên cứu thăm dò những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến sự thể hiện kỹ năng nói của học sinh trường trung cấp nghề ở thành phố Thanh Hóa

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ***************************** CAO THỊ TRANG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE AT A VOCATIONAL SCHOOL IN THANH HOA CITY NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ NHỮNG YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN SỰ THỂ HIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG TRUNG CẤP NGHỀ TẠI THÀNH PHỐ THANH HÓA M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi– 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ************************ CAO THỊ TRANG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE AT A VOCATIONAL SCHOOL IN THANH HOA CITY NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ NHỮNG YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN SỰ THỂ HIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG TRUNG CẤP NGHỀ TẠI THÀNH PHỐ THANH HÓA M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh Ph.D Hà Nội– 2014 DECLARATION I certify that this thesis entitled “An exploratory study on factors affecting students’ speaking performance at a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city” is entirely my own work I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal course of study Hanoi, September 2014 Signature Cao Thị Trang i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my faithful gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh for her patient guidance, stimulating suggestions and encouragement throughout my research I also wish to thank all the staff members of the faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Language and International studies, VNU for providing me the best environment to fulfill my course and my thesis Especially I am really indebted to my colleagues and my students at VSTH for their active participation and assistance without them my reseach would not exist Last but not least, I would like to express my special thanks to my loving parents, my husband and my daughters who are always with me to encourage and readily support me on any sitiuations so that I could accomplish my study Hanoi, September 2014 ii ABTRACT The current study was carried out to investigate factors affecting college students’ performance The focus of this research was to investigate the factors affecting students’ performance in English speaking class room with the first - year students at a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city To achieve these aims, both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were employed The data was collected via a number of instruments including: questionnaires for students and teachers In this study, 116 first-year students from different faculties were chosen randomly as the participants The major findings of the research showed that the factors affecting students’ speaking performance in English speaking classroom fall into of three categories: students’ factors, teachers’ factors, classroom factors The study also demonstrated that among three main factors, the students’ factors were proved to be the most affected whereas teachers’ factors were ranked as second Based on the findings of the study, some discussion and implications were made along with recommended suggestion for further research iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VSTH: The vocational school in Thanh Hoa city CLT: Communicative Language Teaching EFL: English as Foreign Language iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 21 Figure 24 Figure 25 Figure 27 Figure 31 Figure 31 Figure 32 Figure 33 Figure 34 Figure 10 36 Table 20 Table 21 Table 22 Table 25 Table 26 Table 28 Table 29 Table 30 Table 33 Table 10 35 Table 11 37 Table 12 38 Table 13 39 v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES viii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study Research question Methods of the study Significance of the study Scope of the study Organization of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking in foreign language learning and teaching 1.1.1 Definitions of speaking 1.1.2 Importance of speaking 1.1.3 Approaches to the teaching of speaking 1.1.4 Types of classroom speaking performance 1.2 Factors affecting students’ speaking performance 1.2.1 Students’ factors 1.2.1.1 Students’ motivation 1.2.1.2 Students’ language levels 10 vi 1.2.1.3 Students’ personality and anxiety 12 1.2.1.4 Family background 13 1.2.2 Teachers’ factors 13 1.2.2.1 Teacher’s role 13 1.2.2.2 Teacher’s knowledge and characteristics 13 1.2.2.3 Teacher’s method 14 1.2.3 Classroom factors 15 1.2.3.1 Classroom atmosphere 15 1.2.3.2 Class size 15 1.2.3.3 Classroom physical condition 16 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17 2.1 Research setting 17 2.1.1 An overview of The Vocational school in Thanh Hoa city 17 2.1.2 The teachers 17 2.1.3 The students 17 2.1.4 The materials and syllabus 17 2.2 The participants 18 2.3 Data collections instruments 18 2.4 Data collection procedures 19 2.5 Data analysis procedures 19 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 20 3.1 Data analysis of survey questionnaire for students 20 3.2 Data analysis of survey questionnaire for teachers 31 CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS, DISSCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS 40 4.1 Major findings and discussion 40 4.1.1 The students 40 vii 4.1.2 The teachers 40 4.1.3 The classroom 41 4.2 Implications 42 PART C: CONCLUSION 45 Conclusion 45 Limitations and suggestion for further study 45 REFERENCES 47 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS I APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS V viii of repetition Furthermore, according to context, teachers can show variety of roles including controller, organizer, assessor, prompter, participant, resource, tutor and observer They could be resource when students need help of words, phrases or directions They could be organizer to organize speaking activities such as dividing group or be prompter if students were be stuck in a situation At last, teachers should be enthusiastic, friendly and helpful, create a pleasant and supportive class atmosphere and establish close relationship with students As the result, students will feel more relaxed to express their opinion in front of a lot of people In short, teachers should well aware of their responsibility of improving students’ speaking performance Summary Chapter has presented some major findings, discussions and implications to iimprove the students’ performance in oral activities for first - year students at The Vocational school of Thanh Hoa city The researcher hopes that the implications will be beneficial to all language teachers and learners 44 PART C: CONCLUSIONS In this part, conclusions of the study, its limitations and suggestion for further study will be presented Conclusions The study aims at finding the factors affecting students’ speaking performance of first – year no-English major students at the Vocational school in Thanh Hoa city The study was conducted at classes: Textile technology, Automobile technology and Electronics In the study, two questionnaires for both teachers and students were used as research instruments The researcher used the results of questionnaires to answer the research question “What are the factors affecting students’ speaking performance at the vocational school in Thanh Hoa city” In order to answer the research question, the researcher studied categories of theory of factors affecting students’ performance, including students’ speaking performance and took it as the framework to investigate what are the factors that really affect students’ speaking performance in the real study’ context The researcher found three factors affecting students’ speaking performance including: students’ factors, teachers’ factors and classroom’ factors Based on the finding of this study, some suggestions to improve students’ speaking performance were given Limitations and suggestion for further study 2.1 Limitations of the study Although the researcher has made efforts toward carrying down the study, due to the limitation of time, lack of sources, and lack of researcher’s experience in doing research, shortcomings are unavoidable Firstly, the study is carried down with 166 first year students so to some extend, the results of the study can not cover for all students 45 Secondly, the researcher only used questionnaires as the research instruments, it might restrict the variety of data source Despite of above limitations, the researcher hopes that this study will be valuable and beneficial to the teaching speaking skill at VSTH 2.2 Suggestion for further study This study only concentrates on factors affecting students’ speaking performance Basing on the findings and the limitations of this study, I would like to continue the study with the following topics: - A study on strategies to improve students’ speaking performance - A study on impacts of students’ speaking performance on speaking assessments in class In order to pilot the effectiveness of the study, the further research should be implemented by an experimental or an action research 46 REFERENCES Bailey, K M (2005) Practical English Language Teaching: Speaking: McGraw – Hill Companies, Inc Baigate, M (1987) Speaking Oxford: Oxford University Press Barry, K (1993) Beginning Teaching (2nd ed.) Wentworth Falls: Social Science Press Breach, D (1985) Exploring the Vietnamese concept of a “good teacher” Teacher’s Edition Brown, H D (1994) Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents Brown, H D (2000) Principles of language learning and teaching White Plains, NY: Longman Brown, H D (2007) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (5th ed.) San Francisco: Pearson Longman Brown, G., & Yule, G (1983) Teaching the spoken language: An approach based on the analysis of conversational English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Brumfit, C J (1984) Communicative Methodology in Language Teaching Cambridge:Cambridge University Press Bygate, M (1987) Speaking Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press Byrne, D (1986) Teaching Oral English: Longman Chaney, A L B., & Burk, T L (1998) Teaching Oral Communication Boston: Allyn &Bacon Dornyei, Z (2001) Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Downs, M (2000) Increasing Student Motivation Teacher's Edition, 4, 8-13 47 Ellis, R (1985) Understanding Second Language Acquisition Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press Fisher, R (1990) Teaching Children to Think Basil Blackwell Gardner, R C (1985) Social psychology and second language learning: The role of attitudes and motivation London, UK: Edward Arnold Harmer, J (1999) The Practice of Engish Language Teaching Malaysia: Longman Hayes, (1997) Helping teachers to Cope with Large Classes, Retrieved June from ELT Journal Volume 52/2 Oxford University Press Horwitz, E K., & Cope, J A (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety The Modern Language Journal, 70(2), 125-132 Kayi, H (2006) Teaching Speaking The Interenet TESL Journal, XII(11) Le Phuoc Ky (2002) Problems, Solutions, and Advantages of Large Classes Teacher's Edition, 9(9), 8-11 Lightbown, P M., & Spada, N (1999) How Languages are Learned Oxford: Oxford University Press McDonough, J., & McDonough, S (1997) Research Methods for English Language Teachers London: Arnold Nunan, D (1989) Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom Cambridge: Cambridge Universtity Press Nunan, D (1992) Research Methods in Language Learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Nunan, D (1999) Second Language Teaching & Learning Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers Pattison, P (1992) Developing communication Skill Cambridge: CUP Richards, J C., & Rodgers, T S (2001) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 48 Rivers W.M (1968), Teaching Foreign – Language Skills, The University of Chicago Press Spielberger, C (1983) Manual for the State - Trait Anxiety Palo Altro: Consulting Psychologists Press Stern, H.H (1983) Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press Hutchinson, T (2002) Lifelines Elementary, Oxford University Press Tui A B.M (1996) Reticence and anxiety in second language learning In Underwood, M (1987) Effective Class Management NewYork: Longman Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge University Press 49 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE FOR STUDENTS This survey is designed to investigate the factors affecting students’ speaking performance in English classroom Your support will be very much appreciated, and the results of this survey will support our research It will also help us improving the English language programme’s modules The information you provide will be kept confidential and will in no way affect your course assessment We urge you to be truthful in responding to the items in this questionnaire Part 1: Please provide the following information about yourself Age: _ Gender: M/ F(Please circle the appropriate option) Year of Study: Class: Length of studying English: (years) According to you, which factors that most affects your speaking performance? (You can choose more than one option) A Students’ factors B Teachers’ factors C Classroom’s factors D Others How much you feel interested in English speaking? A Very interested B Interested C Little interested D Not interested I Why you learn English speaking? A Because it help me understand English songs B Because it is interesting C Because it id necessary for my future job D To communicate with foreigners and understand different cultures E I want to study and work abroad F To improve my vocabulary, grammar and phonetics G Because it is a compulsory subject H Other (please specify)…… How often you participate in speaking activities in class? A I always speak when I have opportunities B I will speak if I know well the topic C I only speak when teacher orders me D I rarely speak and often keep quite in speaking classes How you evaluate your English speaking ability? A Excellent B Good C Acceptable D Bad E Very bad What are your problems in speaking English? A Lack of subject matter B I not have enough vocabulary and grammar structures C Improper listening skill D Bad pronunciation E Others……………………… What you feel when speaking before class? II A I always feel shy and nervous when speaking in crowded B I am afraid of making mistakes and being laughed by other students C I am ready to speak without concerning with people around in spite of my English level is low D I always feel confident to speak before class According to you what are the sub-factors affecting your speaking skill? A Location B Parents’ money support C Parents’ educational background D Amount of time for study What are the roles of teachers in speaking activities? Question Options Yes Teacher acts as a controller Teacher organizes activities: dividing groups, telling how to do… Teacher give feedbacks, evaluation, What are correction, or grade students the Teacher directly takes part in class teacher’s activities roles in Teacher provides words, phrases, English directions speaking Teacher offer students guidance to look activities? for information and resource materials As tutor, teacher goes around the class and give general guidance Teacher observe students during their oral activities and gives them feedback III No 10 What you think about your teacher’s teaching method and characteristics? (You can choose more than one option) A Teacher uses appropriate method B Teacher talks too much in class C Teacher speaks so quickly D Teacher always speaks English without translation E Teacher does not carry out various speaking activities Teacher does not build up pleasant and positive learning atmosphere F Others………… 11 What should teacher to encourage students to express their opinions and thinking? (You can choose more than one) A Create a pleasant and supportive class atmosphere B Not interrupt students when they make mistakes C Encourage students with marks and rewards D Be enthusiastic, friendly and helpful E Give equal speaking opportunities to all students F Use pictures, charts or other visual facilities such as TV sets, projectors… I Others…… Thank you for your cooperation! IV APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into entitled “An exploratory on factors affecting students’ speaking performance at a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city”” Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated All the information provided by you is solely for the study purpose, and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Thank you for your cooperation! According to you, which factors really affecting students’ speaking performance? (You can choose more than one option) A Students’ factors B Teachers’ factors C Classroom’s factors D Others What you think of the importance of speaking to your students? (You can choose more than one option) A Speaking helps students to improve other language skills and linguistic knowledge B Speaking can bring students enjoyment and pleasure C Speaking helps to broaden knowledge of the world D Student can communicate much through speaking What you think about students’ speaking performance? A very good B good C little good D bad V What are students’ difficulties in speaking English? A Lack of subject matter B They not have enough vocabulary and grammar structure C Improper listening skill D Bad pronunciation E Others……………………… According to you what students feel when speaking before class? A They always feel shy and nervous when speaking in crowded B They’re afraid of making mistakes and being laughed by other students C They are ready to speak without concerning with people around despite of their low English level D They always feel confident to speak before class According to you what are the sub-factors affecting students’ speaking? E Location F Parents’ money support G Parents’ educational background H Amount of time for study What are the teacher’s roles in English speaking activities? Questions Options Yes What are Teacher acts as a controller the Teacher organizes activities: dividing teacher’s groups, telling how to do… roles in Teacher give feedbacks, evaluation, English correction, or grade students speaking Teacher directly takes part in class activities? activities (You can Teacher provides words, phrases, VI No choose directions more than Teacher offer students guidance to look one for information and resource materials option) As tutor, teacher goes around the class and give general guidance Teacher observe students during their oral activities and gives them feedback What method you often use in teaching speaking? A Grammar-Translation B Audio-lingual C CLT D Others What kind of activities you often use? (You can choose more than one option) Questions What kind Options Yes of Pair work and group work activities you Games often use? Role play (You can choose Story telling more option) than one Questions and answers Information gap Reporting Picture description Brainstorming Others ( please specified) VII No 10 What you when your student can not speak in English speaking class? A Force them to speak B Punish them before class C Encourage them to speak by giving helps D Let them to sit down and ignore them E Give them bad marks 10 What you think about your teacher’s teaching method and characteristics? (You can choose more than one option) A Teacher uses appropriate method B Teacher talks too much in class C Teacher speaks so quickly D Teacher always speaks English without translation E Teacher does not carry out various speaking activities Teacher does not build up pleasant and positive learning atmosphere F Others………… 11 What should teacher to encourage students to express their opinions and thinking? (You can choose more than one) A Create a pleasant and supportive class atmosphere B Not interrupt students when they make mistakes C Encourage students with marks and rewards D Be enthusiastic, friendly and helpful E Give equal speaking opportunities to all students F Use pictures, charts or other visual facilities such as TV sets, projectors… I Others…… VIII IX ... AT A VOCATIONAL SCHOOL IN THANH HOA CITY NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ NHỮNG YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN SỰ THỂ HIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG TRUNG CẤP NGHỀ TẠI THÀNH PHỐ THANH HÓA M.A MINOR PROGRAMME... vocational school in Thanh Hoa city” Aims of the study The study is carried out to find out some factors affecting students’ speaking performance at a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city Research... Research setting 2.1.1 An overview of The Vocational school of Thanh Hoa city The study is conducted at The Vocational school of Thanh Hoa city (VSTH), a public school establishing in 2012 to