A study on difficulties in learning speaking skill faced by non-English major students at Hanoi University of Industry = Nghiên cứu về những khó khăn trong việc

8 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Information about students participating in the survey Table 2: Teachers’ years of teaching English and students’ years of learning English Table 3: Teachers

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ XOAN

A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILL

FACED BY NON-ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT

HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

Nghiên cứu về những khó khăn trong việc học kĩ năng nói của sinh viên không

chuyên Tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Công Nghiệp Hà Nội

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Hanoi – 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ XOAN

A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILL

FACED BY NON-ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT

HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

Nghiên cứu về những khó khăn trong việc học kĩ năng nói của sinh viên không

chuyên Tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Công Nghiệp Hà Nội

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: Phạm Lan Anh, M.A

Hanoi – 2012

1.1 Theoretical background of Communicative language teaching

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1.3 Teaching Speaking Skills in CLT approach 11

1.3.2 The techniques in teaching speaking skills 13

1.4 Difficulties in learning speaking skill 15

2.1.1 Description of the English course and its objectives at HaUI 22

2 Some suggestions to overcome students’ difficulties 42

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APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire for students (English version) I APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire for students (Vietnamese version) IV

APPENDIX 4: Transcription of semi-structured group interview with

teachers

XI

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

HaUI: Hanoi University of Industry

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

L1: First language

L2: Second language

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Information about students participating in the survey

Table 2: Teachers’ years of teaching English and students’ years of learning

English

Table 3: Teachers’ and students’ opinion about the importance of English speaking

skill

Table 4: Teachers’ and students’ opinion about the importance of English speaking

skill in comparison with other skills

Table 5: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about students’ favor of learning English

speaking skill

Table 6: Teachers’ and students’ judgment about students’ speaking competence

Table 7: Students’ reasons for learning English speaking skill

Table 8: Teachers’ belief about CLT

Table 9: Students’ common difficulties in learning speaking skill

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Nowadays, in the trend of globalization, English has become an international language and has been widely used in many parts of the world With the development of modern science and technology along with the integration policy, the need of learning English in Vietnam has been increasing day by day With the purpose of finding a good job with high salary or to study abroad, learners of English nowadays not only wish to master the grammar of the language to pass the exam at school but they also wish to develop their communication competence However, they often get into a lot of difficulties on the way mastering it The reasons may be that to speak a foreign language fluently is not easy and it takes a lot

of time and effort There are many factors such as: students’ motivation, students’ characteristics, learning materials, teachers’ teaching methods, etc… which affect students’ achievement in learning English speaking skill

The topic of difficulties in learning English speaking has also attracted me since I began teaching English at Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) In the hope

of helping students master English well to get a good job after graduation, the Faculty of English at HaUI has applied the communicative language teaching approach in teaching and learning for both English-major and non-English-major students Among four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking is paid special attention However, throughout my teaching for non-English major students at this university, I realize that the speaking lessons are usually not really successful as expected because students have a lot of difficulties

in learning this skill Although students can do the grammar exercises very well, can master quite many new words and structures, they still cannot apply them in learning speaking skill very well That is one of the reasons why I wish to carry out

a research to find out the common difficulties in learning speaking skill and some suggested solutions to the problem

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There are quite many researches on learning English speaking skill and difficulties in learning this skill; however, there are still few researches about difficulties in learning speaking skill by students at HaUI, especially by non-English major students although it is a quite big university in Vietnam and the number of non-English major students is also quite large Being an English teacher for non-English major students at this university, I would like to carry out a research to find out the common difficulties in learning this skill by those students in order to help them to improve the situation in the next semesters as well as to help me and my colleagues to improve our teaching

These above facts have provoked me to conduct a research with the title: “A study on difficulties in learning speaking skill faced by non- English major students

at Hanoi University of Industry”

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The study is carried out to find out non-English major students’ difficulties

in learning English speaking skill at Hanoi University of Industry from students and lecturers’ points of views Then, some solutions will be generated from the lecturers

at this university to overcome the problems All these above aims can be realized by answering three following research questions:

1 What are the difficulties encountered by non-English major students in learning English speaking skill from lecturers’ opinions?

2 What are the difficulties encountered by non-English major students in learning English speaking skill from students’ opinions?

3 What are suggested as solutions by lecturers for non-English major students

to overcome those difficulties?

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3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study aims at finding out the difficulties in learning speaking skill faced by non-English major students at HaUI There are many types of difficulties that learners can meet when they study a foreign language However, due to the limitation of time and the narrow scale, the study only focuses on the most common difficulties in learning speaking skill faced by non-English major students at Hanoi University of Industry from the perspectives of students and teachers Then, this study will also give out some suggested solutions generated from the teachers in the interview for students to overcome those difficulties and improve their speaking skill

4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

In finding out the difficulties of non-English major students in learning speaking English and some suggested solutions, it is hoped that the result of the study will somehow be used as reference to help students to learn speaking skill better in the next semesters In addition, the result of this study is also strongly believed to help me and my colleagues to better our own teaching at HaUI, as well

as those who are in charge of teaching English speaking skill to non-English major students at other universities and colleges in Vietnam with the same situation as at HaUI

Last but not least, this study is also hoped to contribute to recent knowledge about difficulties in learning speaking skill of non-English major students at HaUI

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5 METHODOLOGY

With the aims of investigating difficulties of non-English major students

in learning speaking skill at HaUI, I decide to choose survey research methodology Based on the aims of this study, it is clear that this is a descriptive research

To collect data for this study, 526 non-English major students and 15 lecturers are invited to take part in The students are from different classes, different faculties and all chosen at random The lecturers participating in the survey are directly teaching English to non-English major students or have had some experience in teaching non-English major students so that they can understand the students’ difficulties in learning speaking skill Those lecturers are also selected randomly

In this study, questionnaires for non-English major students and lecturers, semi-structured group-interview with teachers will be used to collect data to guarantee the accuracy of the data

6 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The minor thesis is composed of three parts:

Part A: Introduction presents the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the

scope, the methodology, the limitations and the design of the study

Part B: Development consists of three following chapters

1 Chapter 1: Literature Review presents the concepts relevant to the study

2 Chapter 2: The Study presents an overview of the context of investigation,

summarizes non-English major most common difficulties and gives some suggested solutions for them to overcome those difficulties

Part C: Conclusion addresses the key issues, limitations of the study and

suggestions for further researches

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 1 briefly presents the overview of CLT and speaking skill: concept

of CLT, characteristics of CLT, concept of speaking, characteristics of speaking, teaching speaking skills in CLT approach, the techniques in teaching speaking skills and difficulties in learning speaking skill

1.1 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

1.1.1 Concept of CLT

There are many different definitions about CLT

Hymes (1972) promotes the theory about language as communication with the target to develop “communicative competence” for students, which is later considered to be the goal of language teaching, the backbone of the communicative language teaching approach

CLT was expanded with the development of the notional- functional syllabus (Wilkins, 1976) and a communicative syllabus (Munby, 1978) The former was an attempt to organize second language curriculum based on communicative principles Both were based on the theory that the basic categories of language were notions and functions rather than grammatical categories such as nouns, verbs, or adjectives Widdowson (1978) further added to the field when he proposed a model

of language in which he made a distinction between usage and use, which usage referring to grammatical aspects of language and use referring to communicative

aspects of language

Canale and Swain (1980) expands the theoretical basis of CLT for both teaching and testing They are against the trend of over emphasis on function and a lack of emphasis on form grammatical complexity They insist that teaching in CLT approach need to develop communicative competence for students In their views, communicative competence consists of grammatical, sociolinguistic and strategic

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competence Later Canale (1983) separated sociolinguistic competence into two different components: sociolinguistic and discourse competence

According to Nunan (1989, p.194) CLT is defined as adapted below:

“CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using language, which

is meaningful to the learners Objectives reflect the needs of the learners; they include functional skills as well as linguistic objectives The learner‟s role is as a negotiator and integrator The teacher‟s role is as a facilitator of the communication process Materials promote communicative language use; they are task-based and authentic”

Nunan states that in communication process, learners are negotiators and integrators whereas teachers are facilitators Nunan’s definition of CLT represents a particular view of understanding and explaining language acquisition

According to Bock (2000) CLT is tailored to get at meaning and learners negotiate meaning in class Meaning is considered as what is communicated The negotiation of meaning can be implicated through pair work, group work in problem-solving tasks He also states: “Authentic materials, functional tasks, and group and pair work are significant aspects of CLT”

The definition above represents a particular view of understanding and explaining language acquisition It is socially constructed and must be seen as a product of social, cultural, economic, and political forces

1.1.2 Characteristics of CLT

Nunan (1991) points out five features of CLT: 1) An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language 2) The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation 3) The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself 4) An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning 5) An attempt to link classroom language learning

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with language activities outside the classroom These five features are claimed by practitioners of CLT to show that they are very interested in the needs and desires of their learners as well as the connection between the language as it is taught in their class and as it used outside the classroom In the CLT classroom, pair work and

group work are made used of to practice the fluency-based activities

Brown (2001), in describing the key principles of CLT, promotes six

characteristics of CLT The first one is that the goals of CLT are emphasized in all

of the components of communicative competence including: grammatical,

discourse, functional, sociolinguistic, and strategic The second one is that language

techniques are designed to motivate learners to use the pragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes (communicative purposes) The

mastering of grammar rules is not the central goal of CLT The third one is that

teaching techniques and activities are designed and organized to develop students’ fluency and accuracy Fluency is sometime considered more important than

accuracy The fourth one is that in the classroom students have to use the language

in the communicative activities The fifth one is that students can develop their study ability during learning process Last but not least, the role of the teacher in

self-the class is recognized as a facilitator and guide, not self-the person who knows everything and forces students to learn and study what she knows

Richard (2006) suggests six following principles of CLT today: 1) Teachers need to make real communication the focus of language learning 2) Teachers should provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they know

3) Teachers ought to be tolerant of learners’ errors as they indicate that the learner is

building up his or her communicative competence 4) Teachers should provide opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency 5) Teachers had

better link the different skills such as speaking, reading, and listening together, since

they usually occur so in the real world 6) Teachers should let students induce or

discover grammar rules themselves In applying these principles in the classroom, new classroom techniques and activities were needed, and the new roles for teachers

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and learners in the classroom appear Instead of making use of activities that demanded accurate repetition and memorization of sentences and grammatical patterns, activities that require learners to negotiate meaning and to interact meaning-fully are required (Richards, 2006, p 13)

According to Larsen- Freeman (2003, p.131) the most obvious characteristics

of CLT is that, almost everything that is done is done with a communicative intent The focus of CLT is therefore on learners’ ability to express their own ideas, feelings, attitudes, desires and needs The focus of the lesson is on fluency, not on accuracy

Richards & Rodgers (2001, p.167) also affirm that CLT is associated with its learner- centred and experienced-based tasks view of second language teaching In CLT context, learners are seen as active participants in the construction of knowledge, rather than passive recipients of information provided by the teacher or the textbook In contrast, language teachers are no longer viewed as the authority of the knowledge, playing a dominant role Rather, they share different roles such as communication facilitator, independent participant, needs analyst, counsellor, and group process manager to create more fascinating experiences for the learners Besides the above features, Richards & Rodgers (2001) also describe other significant characteristics of this approach including its efforts to make tasks and language relevant to a target group of learners through an analysis of genuine, realistic situations, its emphasis on the use of authentic, from-life materials, and its attempt to create a secure, nonthreatening atmosphere

Littlewood (1981) describes the CLT approach that one of the most characteristic features of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language In reaction to the grammar-translation and audio-lingual methods, the CLT approach emphasizes the communicative activities that involve the real use of language in daily life situation

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1.2 Speaking Skill

Speaking skill plays an important role in learners’ learning process It is considered an important criterion to judge learners’ achievement in learning a language They often evaluate their success in language learning by how well they can speak that language Therefore, if they cannot learn how to speak or do not get any opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get demotivated and bored with learning On the contrary, if the teachers can apply interesting activities in the class, speaking lessons can become very funny and interesting

1.2.1 Concepts of Speaking

There are many different concepts of speaking by many different linguistics, however, most of them agree that speaking is very important to human communication Bygate (1997) states that speaking is a skill which is very important and requires as much attention as other skills, in both first and second languages In order to carry out most of their basic interactions and transactions, learners need to be able to speak, and express their ideas to other people He slso

emphasizes that “interaction is the use of language for maintaining communication

between participants” and „interaction skills are skills of deciding what to say, when to say it and how to say it clearly” (Bygate, 1997, p.115) Therefore, in

learning speaking skill, learners are required to know not only how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence or grammatical competence), but also when, why and in what ways language is produced (sociolinguistic competence)

According to Brown, Burns & Joyce, speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning concerning three periods: producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997)

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Chaney and Burk (1998, p.13) states that speaking is the process of building

and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in many different contexts

Brown (1994) affirms that interaction is the heart of communication; it is what communication is all about, for example in the cases of sending messages; receiving them; interpreting them in a specific context; negotiating meanings; and collaborating to accomplish certain purposes And interaction is the collaborative exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a reciprocal effect on each other

In Byrne’s view (1986), speaking skill is one of two ways of oral

communication process, and is the productive skill The speaker has to encode the

message he wishes to convey in appropriate language, while the listener has to

decode (or interpret) the message

According to Florez (1999) speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information It is often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving

In short, there are quite many different definitions of speaking, each of them has their own good points and strong points However, in this study the researcher decided to follow the concept of speaking by Bygate (1997 which means that speaking not only involves grammatical competence but also sociolinguistic competence

1.2.2 Characteristics of Speaking

According to Bygate (1997), speaking involves two kinds of routines in the process of communicating They are information routines and interactional ones

Information routines may be described to involve two sub-routines: expository and

evaluation The former includes description, narration, comparison and instruction The latter consists of explanation, prediction, justification, preference and decision

Interaction routines are routines based not so much on sequences of kinds of term

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occurring in typical kinds of interactions such as telephone conversation, interview conversations casual encounters, conversations at parties, lessons, radio or television interviews, all tend to be organized in characteristic ways

In Brown’s opinion (1983) speaking has three characteristics: the first one is

that its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving

However, speech is not always unpredictable The second one is that speaking

requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (“linguistic competence”), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language

(“sociolinguistic competence”) Last but not least, speech has its own skills,

structures, and conventions different from written language

Bygate (1987) considers speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways The reason is that almost all people can speak; therefore they just take speaking skill too much for granted He also asserts that speaking skill deserves attention every bit as much as literacy skills Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic interactions and transactions Bygate also highly appreciates speaking by stating that speaking is the medium through which much language is learnt

To sum up, it is undeniable that speaking is the key to successful communication By considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class, and what specific needs learners require, teachers can help learners to improve their speaking skill

1.3 Teaching Speaking Skills in CLT approach

1.3.1 Teaching Speaking Skills in CLT approach

According to Harmer (2001) teachers should be aware that teaching speaking closely relates to receptive skill work Teachers should pay attention to: Output and

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input, Texts, Reception and production Output and input: output is the language the

students produce; input is the feedback or prompters from students’ interlocutor

(teacher) Teachers can modify their students’ output Texts: offer students a model

to follow, especially when working on specific functions (agreeing, disagreeing, expressing surprise, approval ), also act as stimuli which then help create language production: discussion (from controversial reading passage), response (after

listening to a tape about a story or opinion Reception is a part of production:

conversation between two people is a blend of listening and speaking; comprehend

what’s said is necessary for what’s said next Production enables reception: oral

production works in a way that helps Ss with their listening comprehension as when they try to speak, they better adjust to understanding other people speaking in the same context

Brown & Nation (1997) think that teachers should give students practice with both fluency and accuracy: teachers should provide students with form-focused and meaning-focused speaking activities that aim at fluency and accuracy development

Nunan (2003) believes that teachers had better provide students opportunities

to talk (by using group work or pair work and limiting teacher talk), plan tasks involving negotiation of meaning, design classroom activities involving guidance, practice for both transactional and interactional speaking Interactional speaking is

to both establish and maintain social relationship while transactional speaking is to exchange goods or services Interactional speech is much more unpredictable than the other as it ranges over many topics with participants taking turn and commenting freely while the latter encounters of a fairly restricted kind (e.g telephoning for a taxi) Students should be taught and guided to speak the targeted language in both interactional and transactional settings

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1.3.2 The techniques in teaching speaking skills

Communicative drill is “one in which the type of response is controlled but the students provides his or her own content or information” (Richard & Platt, 1992, p.223).There are four kinds of activities that teachers can organize for their students

The first one is practical situations: Students practice requesting and providing

information and situations i.e asking for information in a city and ordering meals in

a restaurant The second one is guessing games: Students do the games in pairs or

groups: Ask yes-no question until figure out a person/thing chosen, Teacher provides short, incomplete story plot, only one student knows the real end, other

students guess by asking questions etc the third one is information gathering

activity: involves conducting surveys, interviews and searches in which students

were required to use their language to collect information The last one is jigsaw

activity: each partner has one or a few pieces of the “puzzle”, and the partners must cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture

Harmer (2005) suggests the following activities in the classroom: A

role-play: Teacher gives role cards to students for pair work to do certain task such as

producing speech with some requirements A discussion activity: Students are asked

to give opinion in front of the class, share ideas within small group before speaking

in public An opinion sharing activity: may require using factual information,

formulating arguments and justifying one’s opinion For some topics, there may be

no right or wrong responses from different individuals or groups A reasoning gap

activity: involving deriving some new information from given info through the

process of inference or deduction and the perception of relationships or patterns, involving comprehending and conveying information, i.e work out teacher’s

timetable on the basis of given class timetable Prepared talks: Students make

presentation on a topic of their own choice with or without agreement with teacher The talks are not designed for spontaneous conversation but more “writing-like”

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Littlewood (1981) also suggests some kinds of activities for teachers to apply

in CLT speaking classroom He classifies them into two main kinds: Functional communication activities and social interaction activities

In terms of Functional Communication Activities, two main uses of

language are mentioned: using language to share information and using language to process information They are then separated into four main groups:

a Sharing information with restricted co-operation: Identifying a picture

from a set; Discovering identical pairs; Discovering sequence of location; Discovering missing information;Discovering missing features; Discovering

secrets

b Sharing information with unrestricted co-operation: Communicating

patterns and pictures; Communicating models; Discovering differences;

Following directions

c Sharing and processing information: Reconstructing story sequence;

Pooling information to solve a problem

d Processing information: Problem solving tasks

In terms of Social Interaction Activities, Littlewood’s (1981) promotes

other set of activities with two different types They are the classroom as a social context and, simulation and role playing

a Considering the classroom as a social context, he suggests the following

activities: Using the language being thought to establish the classroom management; Using the language being thought as teaching medium; Conversations or discussion sessions; Basing dialogues and role plays on school experience

b Simulation and role playing: Role playing controlled through cued

dialogues; Role-playing controlled through cues and information; Role-playing controlled through situation and goal; Role-playing in form of debate or

discussion; Large-scale simulation activities; Improvisation

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1.4 Difficulties in learning speaking skill

Different scholars have different ideas about the difficulties in learning speaking skill Hymes (1974) stated that speaking skill includes linguistics competence, socio-linguistics competence and discourse competence Therefore, students’ psychology, linguistics, culture, leaning materials, teachers’ characters, class size, learning environment can affect students’ leaning to master communicative competence According to Larsen (1986), difficulties in language teaching in general and difficulties in teaching speaking skill in particular may stem from teachers, students together with objective factors affecting the teaching process And the researcher decided to follow this idea of Larsen in her study

1.4.1 Difficulties from teachers

1.4.1.1 Inappropriate teacher teaching methods

a Teachers’ misconceptions about CLT

According to Thompson (1994), teachers are often confused about CLT in four following aspects: the first one is that CLT means not teaching grammar, the second one is CLT means teaching speaking only, the third one is CLT means pair work, which means role play, the last one is CLT means expecting too much from the teachers These misconceptions lead to teachers’ inappropriate teaching methods

b Inappropriate teacher teaching methods

Inappropriate teachers’ talking time

Nunan (1991) suggested an inappropriate teaching method in terms of teacher’s talk He claimed: “Teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for the organization of the classroom but also for the processes of acquisition It is important for the organization and management of the classroom because it is through language that teachers either succeed or fail in implementing their teaching

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plans In terms of acquisition, teacher talk is important because it is probably the major source of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to receive.”

It is, however, proved in a lot of research that teachers tend to make up over 70% of the total talk in the classroom (Legarretta, 1977; Chaudron, 1988; Zhao, 1998; Cook, 2000) When teacher talk dominates the classroom, students will have less opportunity to further practice the language and therefore they cannot develop their language proficiency as expected

Inappropriate teacher’s correction

According to Brown (2002, p 205) students’ errors are vital evidence to show how they acquire the language through certain strategies or procedures Teachers therefore, have duty to correct students’ errors to clarify students’ understanding of meaning and construction of the language to master language in their conversation It is argued that how correction should be expressed Some prefer nice, gentle and tactful correction while the others are in favor of assertive, encouraging and frank one Ur (2000) is in favor that the later as students may lose their confidence and feel disappointed if teachers correct their errors in an insensitive way In short, teachers should be sensitive and tactful when giving corrections so that students get their errors, recognize them and correct them comfortably without any negative feeling causing them shy and embarrassed

Inappropriate teacher’s roles

The roles of teachers in the classroom have been changing a lot However, in CLT approach, it is agreed that students are the centre of the language classroom, not teachers Still, teachers play important roles in the classroom Teachers’ roles can affect the success or failure of the classroom

Harmer (1999, p 57) suggests one of the clearest classifications of teachers’ roles in the CLT classroom is that the teacher can play a role as: a controller, an

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organizer, an assessor, a prompter, a participant, a resource, a tutor and an observer

Byrner (1986, p.2) points out the roles of teachers according to three stages

of teaching speaking: the presentation stage, the practice stage and the production stage At the first stage, teachers play a role as an informant who prepares materials and presents the language to the students At this stage, teachers should be careful about time management so that students can have enough time for the other important activities At the second stage, teachers act as a conductor who should try

to give all students as much time as possible to practice the presented language At the last stage, teachers play a role as a manager and a guide Students are encouraged to use language freely even though they may make many mistakes Teachers should make sure that students use the language for their free talk Teachers are expected to comment their students’ speaking activities performance at the end of their presentation

In short, regardless of different roles of teachers, the most important one is supposedly that of a motivator to motivate students’ interests of learning, otherwise all speaking activities will not be able to be successful

1.4.2 Difficulties from students

There are many different ideas about difficulties from students in learning a foreign language in general and in learning speaking skill in particular

Nunan (1999) pointed out that students’ unmotivation is one of the factors that causes difficulties in learning speaking skill Unmotivation is caused by lack of perception of progress, unspired teaching, boredom, lack of relevant materials, lack

of knowledge about the goals of the instructional program, lack of appropriate feedback Teachers often find that it is very hard to motivate students in learning communicative competence

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Tsui (1996) suggests five factors to determine learners’ difficulties in

leaning speaking in class: “students‟ fear of making mistakes and losing face in

front of their peers, students‟ low opinion of their own proficiency level, teachers‟ intolerance of silence, uneven participation and incomprehensive input.”

Dwyer and Murphy (1996) listed the following factors: fear of public failure, fear of making mistakes, lack of confidence, low English proficiency, and inability to keep up with native speakers, incompetence in the rules and norms of English conversation, disorientation, etc This conclusion was supported by many other scholars such as Jones (1999), Cortazzi & Jin (1996); Jackson (1999, 2001, 2002); Li (1998); Zou (2004)

According to Burns and Joyce (1997), cultural, linguistic and affective factors are the three main causes of students' difficulties in learning a foreign language

Cultural factors: Cultural factors are those that emerge from students’ prior

learning experiences as well as from the expectations that are formed on their basis The American linguist Sapir (192, p.60) maintains that language and culture are dual entities: Culture representing what a society thinks and does, while its language expresses and embodies the ideas of that society In other words, if a learner expects

to speak a language well, he must appreciate the way it is used in social contexts Cultural factors can create students’ learning style They can have affect on students’ learning results Keefe (1979) defines learning style as “cognitive, affective and physiological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with and respond to the learning environment.” Willing (1987)

divides learners into four groups basing on their behaviors: the first one is concrete

learners who are interested in social aspects of language learning The second one

is analytical learners who would rather work individually on reading and grammar The third one is communicative learners: are willing to communicate with other

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speakers The fourth one is authority-oriented learners: tend to be independent and

prefer to work in non-communicative classroom

Ellis (1985, p.120) classifies learners’ learning styles into two main types: extrovert and introvert Extrovert learners are more willing to interact with others than the introvert ones, and so they are usually more successful in oral communication than the rest

Lightbown and Spada (1995, p.55) listed a number of personality characteristics that greatly affects the success of second language learners: extroversion, inhibition, self-esteem, empathy, dominance, talkativeness and responsiveness

It is important for teachers to take into consideration students’ different learning styles to improve their students’ performance in learning speaking

Linguistic factor: According to Scarcella and Oxford (1992), linguistic

factor (grammar competence) consists of grammar structures (morphology, syntax), vocabulary and mechanics (basic sounds of letters, syllables; the appropriate

pronunciation of words, intonation and stress elements)

Another thing related to linguistic factor should be taken into consideration

is that affection of learners’ first language into the target language in terms of the sounds, rhythms, and stress patterns

Affective factors: Affective factors that cause difficulties for students in

learning a foreign language may be low motivation, anxiety in class, negative social

experiences and culture shock

According to Melton (1990), motivation is an important aspect which can determine the failure or success in any learning situation In Dornyei’s view (2001), motivation consists of three sets of components: course-specific motivational components, lecturer-specific motivational components and group-specific

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motivational components To get students really motivated, teachers need to ensure all the three sets of components, which is very hard Nunan (1999) pointed out some main reasons for students’ demotivation as follows: Lack of success over time/lack

of perception of progress, uninspired teaching, boredom, lack of perceived relevance of materials, lack of knowledge about the goals of the instructional program, lack of appropriate feedback

According to Shank & Terril (1995), anxiety is “the subjective feeling of

tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the autonomic nervous system” Zhang (2006) listed out six main causes of language

anxiety: low proficient English, students’ fear of mistakes and derision, large class size, unwilling to take risks, low tolerance of ambiguity, competitiveness Schumann (1998) claims that the causes of anxiety are students’ forgetfulness, avoidance of speaking the language, less interaction with people, low self-esteem, low-confidence, and feeling unsure of one’s abilities

As presented above, difficulties from students are varied and defined in different ways However, in this study, the researcher follows the ideas that these difficulties from the students are: students’ passive learning style, students’ low motivation, students’ anxiety and students’ lack of background knowledge and

ideas

1.4.3 Difficulties from objective factors

Difficulties from objective factors are usually identified by students’ learning in large and multilevel classes, uninteresting textbook, lack of material and facilities for language teaching and learning

According to Le (2002) in large classes, students have different learning styles, preferences and levels of English proficiency Therefore, teachers cannot pay equal attention to all students in a large class and it is also very difficult for teachers

to organize suitable activities for all students in the class Ur (1993, p 303) has the

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similar ideas that teachers of large classes get into a lot of difficulties in maintaining disciplines, choosing suitable materials and activating students Dalle and Thrush

(2003) claimed that: “large classes challenge even well-trained and experienced

teachers.” Thus, large class size not only causes difficulties for teachers in their

teaching but also causes difficulties for students in their learning

Mathews (2006) said that multilevel classes can cause a lot of difficulties

to teachers in organizing the activities in speaking classes Dalle (2003) also had the same idea about this issue

In short, to create good language learning environment, school and universities should organize small size classes with the equivalent students’ English level However, it is quite hard to achieve this condition in most cases in Vietnam

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CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

The study begins with the description of the current situation where the study was conducted The next part is an overview of participants and instruments of the

study Finally, it is the presentation of statistics and data analysis

2.1 The context

2.1.1 Description of the English course and its objectives at HaUI

The study was conducted with non-English-major students at Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI), where English is the foreign language taught as a non-major subject

The English courses at HaUI are divided into two stages: The first stage is General English and the second stage is English for Specific Purposes The first stage aims at providing students with general knowledge of vocabulary, phonology, English grammar as well as developing students’ integrated four language skills with the focus on speaking skill At this stage, students learn English during five semesters Each semester lasts 90 periods (45 minutes per period) and students learn

6 periods in a week However, before learning this foreign language, students can take part in the replacement test If students pass this test, they can skip the first semester of English which is called English 1 With, the third semester – English 3- students only learn 65 periods in class and 25 periods online During the first four

semesters, the series of textbooks New-headway by Liz, John Soars & Sylvia

Wheeldon (Elementary and Pre-intermediate) – third edition published by Oxford University Press are used for four first semesters For the fifth semester, the textbook “International Express” – pre-intermediate published by Oxford University

Press is used By using these textbooks, we can improve our students’

communicative competence and our students can learn the real things from daily topic conversations Students are asked to work individually, in pairs, in groups to practice English in situational contexts During learning process, in each semester, students are required to complete two progress tests, one mid-term test and a final

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test After finishing 5 General English semesters, students moves to the second stage – the stage for English for Specific Purposes which lasts 60 periods in one semester At this stage, our students are provided with the knowledge of terms and structures related to their future job The materials used during this stage vary depending on the majors of the students These materials are collected and designed

by teachers at HaUI themselves mainly focus on students’ specific vocabulary, reading and translation

2.1.2 Description of the students at HaUI

The students at HaUI come from different provinces such as: Ha Noi, Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, Hai Phong, Hai Duong, Thanh Hoa, … Most of them have studied English before, however, they are not good at English When they took the entrance exam to this university, they had to take the test in math, physics and chemistry; therefore, they only paid attention to these subjects to pass the exam English was considered to be unimportant; they did not study it thoroughly Their English level is usually very low and their English levels are very different Some students can be quite good at grammar but not good at speaking

Non-English major students belong to different faculties such as: economics, mechanical engineering, automobile, chemistry, electronic and computer science Their motivation for learning English is not the same Usually, students from economics faculties, and computer science faculties are interested and more hard-working in learning English more than students from other faculties

2.1.3 Description of English teachers at HaUI

There are 117 English teachers at HaUI (62 of them are permanent staff and the rest are temporary ones) Most of them are female (111 female teachers), only 6

of them are male Their age is from 22 to 45 Most of them are still very young, some teachers have just only graduated from university, and they do not have much experience in teaching However, the boards of administrators always have some

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workshops at the beginning and at the end of the school year to find out the things achieved and the things not achieved during the previous course, to train teachers in teaching methods (CLT approach is selected for all the teachers to apply in their teaching) and to give chance for good teachers to share their teaching experience, managing classroom with their colleagues About 60% of the teachers at HaUI used

to be students at Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies (HULIS), 24% teachers come from Hanoi University, and the others are from Hanoi National University of Education or other universities 18 teachers have finished their MA courses and there are many teachers are pursuing their MA courses

The second questionnaire was administered to 15 teachers who are currently teaching English for non-English-major students at HaUI so that they can understand the students’ difficulties in learning speaking skill Those lecturers are also selected randomly These teachers include 2 male teachers, and 13 female teachers, aged from 23 to 45 Three of them graduated from Hanoi University, 12 of them graduated from Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies (HULIS) Two of them get MA in English language teaching, and two more teachers are learning a Post-graduate course at HULIS

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Besides, the researcher also carries out the group-interview with 7 teachers participating in answering the questionnaires to generate some solutions to students’ most common difficulties in learning English speaking skill

2.2.2 Sampling

The sample of 526 non-English-major students, aged from 18 to 22, from different classes of different faculties at HaUI are randomly selected to take part in answering the questionnaires

The sample of 15 teachers who are currently teaching English for English-major students at HaUI are also selected randomly to take part in answering the questionnaires, then7 out of these 15 teachers are invited at random to join in the group interviews

non-2.2.3 Research Methodology

The aims of this study is to investigate the common difficulties of English major students in learning speaking skill at HaUI, therefore the researcher decided to choose survey research methodology Based on the aims of this study, it

non-is clear that thnon-is non-is a descriptive research It non-is suitable with thnon-is study because the researcher just wants to collect the information from the students and teachers in their own current situations to find out the most common difficulties that non-

English-major students get into in the process of learning English speaking skill

2.2.4 The Data Collection Methods

In this study, questionnaires for non-English major students and lecturers, group-interviews with teachers will be used to collect data to guarantee the accuracy

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of them The researcher delivers 550 survey questionnaires; however, she just gets back 526 questionnaires and she analyzed the information from the sample of 526 fully-answered questionnaires

The questionnaires for students consist of the questions asking about their personal information, for example age, gender, major, their attitudes towards learning English speaking skill, and the questions about the difficulties that they meet in learning this skill

The researcher asks for permission from other teachers of the class at the time

of their lesson for 10 minutes for the students to complete answering the questionnaires with the researcher’s guidance in case they do not understand the question thoroughly Luckily, most of the other teachers agreed to help me, therefore, I could complete collecting data for the thesis quickly

The questionnaires for the teachers were delivered at the time of the recess in the teacher’s room, and all of them could finish the questionnaire during the recess After these questionnaires are collected, information from these questionnaires are then summarized and presented in the form of statistic information tables for data analysis to find out the answers for the research questions and to make some implications if possible

2.2.5.2 Interviews

The semi-structured group-interviews are used in this study Using this kind of interview, the researcher can be flexible in collecting data and it is also time-saving instead of interviewing one by one teacher The content of the interview is recorded and transcribed into texts for data analysis The information from the interviews is analyzed in qualitative methods

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2.3 Data analysis

A Results from survey questionnaires for students and teachers

Part I: General information

Question 1: General information about participants

The information about the students participating in the survey is presented in

the following table:

Teachers Students

Table 1: Information about students participating in the survey

As can be seen from the above table, the number of teachers participating in this study is 15 Among them, 2 teachers are male, which only makes up for about 13.3% The rest of about 13 teachers (86.7%) are female There are 526 students participating in answering the survey questionnaires Among them, 250 students (47.5%) are male, and 276 students (52.5%) are female The numbers of students according to gender are quite equal The number of female students is just a bit higher than the number of male students about 5%

Question 2: Teachers’ years of teaching English and students’ years of learning English

C more than 6-9 years 5 C more than 3-7 years 6

Table 2: Teachers’ years of teaching English and students’ years of learning English

The information from table 2 indicates that most of the teachers at HaUI have had at least several years of teaching English Only two teachers have the shortest periods of time working as a teacher.7 out of 15 teachers (46.7%) teachers have worked as an English teacher for 3-6 years 5 teachers (33.3%) have experience of working as a teacher for more than 6-9 years Only one teachers has worked in this university for more than 9 years

The next column in table 2 also shows that most of the students at HaUI have learnt English for quite a long time 98.67% of the students (519 out of 526 students) have studied English for more than 7 years They had to learn English as

at secondary school and high school The other number of students claiming that they have learnt English for less than 1 year to 7 years is quite small The number of these students is only 10, which makes up for 1.33% in total

Part 2: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about learning speaking skill

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Question 3: Teachers’ and students’ opinion about the importance of English speaking skill

A very important

B Quite important

C

Important

D Not very important

E Not important

Question 4: Teachers’ and students’ opinion about the importance of English speaking skill in comparison with other skills

important than others

important as others

important than others

Table 4: Teachers’ and students’ opinion about the importance of English

speaking skill in comparison with other skills

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This question is used to investigate teachers’ and students’ opinion about the importance of English speaking skill in comparison with other skills (reading, listening and writing) 13.3% of the teachers think that English speaking skill is more important than other skills The other (86.7%) assume that it is as important as other skills No teachers think that it is less important than others In student group, only 4.18% of the students consider English speaking skill more important than other skills while 92.21% consider it as important as other skills The number of students who think that English speaking skill is less important than other skills is very small (only 19 out of 526 students), which only makes up for 3.61%

Question 5: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about students’ favor of learning English speaking skill

D Not

really (2)

Table 5: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about students’ favor

of learning English speaking skill

As can be seen from the above table, teachers think that their students like learning English speaking a lot (M=2.73) However, the level of their favor is much lower than fact that the students promote In the students’ opinion, most of them like learning English speaking a lot(M= 3.65)

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Question 6: Teachers’ and students’ judgment about students’ speaking competence

A Very good

B Quite good

C Good D Bad E Quite

bad

F Very bad

Question 7 (survey questionnaires for students): Students’ reasons for learning English speaking skill

Students’ reasons for learning English speaking skill Number

(No)

Percentage (%)

C Because it is necessary for your future job 248 47.14