Những khó khăn và giải pháp trong việc phát triển kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên tiếng Anh năm thứ 2 hệ vừa làm vừa học Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ - Đại học Quốc gia H20150227

Vietnamese people may be mostly good at reading, writing skills and doing grammatical exercises, whereas they meet difficulties in listening and especially in speaking English.. Aims of

2.3 Approaches in teaching and learning speaking skill 6

3.4 Data collection procedure 13

4.2 The connection of speaking to reading, listening and writing skills 17

4.4 Students‟ opinions on methods of overcoming their difficulties in

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Since Vietnam started open the door to the world and to foreign investment, English has gained significance as it seems to play a crucial role on the country‟s path of modernization and industrialization English has rapidly become the most popular first foreign language in Vietnam, especially at schools, colleges and universities Foreign language schools and centers have mushroomed and provided English classes with morning, afternoon and evening shifts in a day, catering for different levels of learners at different ages, with different learning purposes

Generally observed, English plays an important role in the integrating context especially in labor market Most learners of English agree that the ability to express themselves in English is of great importance for their future career, especially in modern society where working with foreigners often occurs For example, a candidate will be impressive to employers if he or she obtains good English proficiency However, the sad fact

is that students‟ English proficiency especially their ability to communicate in English orally does not really meet employers‟ demand Vietnamese people may be mostly good at reading, writing skills and doing grammatical exercises, whereas they meet difficulties in listening and especially in speaking English Thus, the research on the difficulties in learning speaking of students and some suggestions for those problems was necessary

1.2 Aims of the study and research questions

The study was conducted to investigate the current learning of speaking skill of the second year part-time students at A2 campus at University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University Basing on the current learning English of students at the university, the difficulties of students when practicing English speaking skill were discovered and some recommendations to minimize those difficulties were suggested

The above aims can be realized through the research questions:

1 What difficulties in improving English-speaking skill do the second year part time students, A2 campus at University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University meet?

2 What should be done to minimize these difficulties and help to improve speaking skill of the second year part-time students at University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University?

English-1.3 The scope of the study

The study of difficulties, recommendations of other language skills such as reading, writing and listening to ameliorate the quality of learning English skills would be beyond the scope of this study In addition, due to the time constraints and the narrow-scale study, the study only involves in the number of the 2nd year part time students at A2 campus at University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University

1.4 Significance of the study

The study is significant for the following reasons Firstly, it studies the difficulties the

2nd year part time students at A2 campus, University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University met in speaking English Secondly, it suggests some solutions for both the teachers and learners in teaching and learning speaking English Moreover, it expresses the factors affecting the improvement in the classroom settings, among which teachers‟ characteristics and methodology play important roles Furthermore, it gives some suggestions for the teachers to adapt the textbook and provides some techniques to help motivate learners

1.5 The methods of the study

The method of this study is survey study because it was conducted by using questionnaires and classroom observation to collect data It was a qualitative and quantitative study Bouma has stated that “both qualitative and quantitative approaches are essential to the research process in social science” (1996, p.173) Furthermore, each methodology has its strengths and weaknesses Thus, employing both approaches, it is hoped to achieve the reliable results for the study

1.6 Organization of the thesis

The thesis consists of five chapters Chapter 1: Introduction deals with the background,

the aims and the research questions, the scope, the significance, the methods of the study, and

the organization of the thesis Chapter 2: Literature Review presents definition of speaking,

speaking competences, approaches in teaching and learning speaking skill, speaking

difficulties of language learners and summary Chapter 3: Research Methodology mentions the

setting of the study, the participants, the instruments, the data collection procedure, the data

analysis procedure and a brief summary Chapter 4: presentation and analysis of data presents

and discusses the difficulties of students in speaking English and some student‟s suggestions

to reduce their difficulties Chapter 5: Suggestions and Conclusion presents the pedagogical

implications in teaching and learning speaking English and the conclusion of the study Besides, limitations of the study are pointed out and suggestions for further research are also proposed

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition of speaking

Speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” (Florez, 1999, p.1) It is “often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving” (ibid, p.1), but it is not completely unpredictable In language teaching,

we often talk about the four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing in terms

of their direction and modality Language generated by the learners in either speech or writing

is considered productive, and language directed at the learners in reading or listening is known

as receptive language (Savignon, 1991) Modality refers to the medium of the language (whether it is aural/ oral or written) Thus, speaking is the productive, oral skill

2.2 Speaking competence

Speaking competences consist of four elements: (1) grammatical competence (linguistic competence), (2) sociolinguistic competence (pragmatic competence), (3) discourse competence, and (4) strategies competence (Scarcella & Rebecca, 1992)

Grammatical or linguistic competence enables speakers to use and understand grammatical structures, sentence structures accurately and unhesitatingly, and thus, it

contributes to the speaker‟s fluency (Scarcella & Rebecca, 1992) It is also concerned with

knowledge of the language itself, its form and meaning and involves knowledge in spelling,

pronunciation, vocabulary, word formation, and linguistic semantics (Hedge, 2000)

Sociolinguistic or pragmatic competence is generally considered to involve two kinds

of ability First, it is the ability of knowing how to use language in order to achieve certain communicative goals or intentions (Hedge, 2000) Second, the ability to use language appropriate in social context Thus, learners need to know the appropriate social conventions

It can be seen, then, that social knowledge is necessary to select the language forms to use in different settings, and with people in different roles and with different status In other words,

as Hymes explained speakers should know “when to speak, when not, what to talk about with whom, when, where and in what manner” (1972)

Discourse competence refers to the ability to manage turn-taking in conversation such

as taking a turn of talk, holding a turn and relinquishing a turn, open into or closing a conversation, keeping a conversation going or clearing up communication breakdowns and comprehension problems (Scarcella & Rebecca, 1992) Effective speakers and listeners have also acquired a large repertoire of discourse markers, expressions that speakers use to express

ideas, show relationships of time, and indicate course, contrast and emphasis

Strategies competence allows effective speakers to stretch their ability to communicate effectively in the target language Canale and Swain defines strategic competence as “how to scope in an authentic communicative situation and how to keep the communicative channel open” (1980, p.25)

Strategic competence consists of using communication strategies which come into play

when the learners are unable to express what they want to say because they lack the resourses

to do so successfully They compensate for this either by changing their original intention or

by searching for other means of expression

The learners can use achievement strategies to explain what they are trying to say and

find the ways of compensating for their insecure or inadequate knowledge of English; as a result, they keep the conversation going and may encourage the listener to provide the necessary language

Moreover, learners can use reduction strategies to avoid the forms of which they are

uncertain and select the perhaps structure which they know The question arising is whether strategic competence can be trained Certainly teachers can help students early in a language program by teaching them appropriate questions for requesting help (eg: what does it mean? How do you say?), and the language to ask for vocabulary items (eg: what do you call the person who…? What do you call the thing that…?) The teacher can also act as listener in classroom interaction and respond to students‟ appeals for help, providing language at the point of need

However, Faerch, Haastrup and Phillipson (1985) referred to fluency as a component

of communicative competence and distinguish it from strategic: whereas strategic competence presupposes a lack of knowledge, fluency covers speakers‟ ability to make use of whatever

linguistic and pragmatic competence they have (Faerch, Haastrup and Phillipson 1984, p.168)

Thus, fluency relates to language production and it is normally reserved for speech It is the

ability to link units of speech together with facility and without strain or inappropriate slowness or undue hesitation According to these authors, there are three types of fluency:

(1) Semantic fluency: linking together propositions and speech acts;

(2)Lexical- syntactic fluency: linking together syntactic constituencies and words;

(3) Articulator fluency: linking together speech segments; (ibid: 143, 65)

2.3 Approaches in teaching and learning speaking skill

In the recent decades, the communicative approach to language teaching mostly employed on the belief that it helps to develop the learners‟ communicative language ability Thus, the goal of language learning classroom is to provide students with communicative practice with the aim for learners to acquire language Therefore, providing students with communicative activities gives students chances to form and practice communication strategies or string lexical phrases together to express ideas

Moreover, in teaching practice, it is generally observed that negotiation of meaning in communicative tasks may provide opportunities for learners to develop their strategic competence and fluency but may not necessarily lead to more comprehensible output and the development of greater accuracy As teachers, we need then to ask a question “what will help learners to become more accurate?” when communicating with others One solution might be

we need to take away the time pressure in a communicative task and give learners the chance

to prepare the content of what they are going to say It is hoped that they may focus more on correct expression

Alternatively, an opportunity to focus on forms may be provided after the communicative task especially with speaking practice activities if students are recorded and then try to compare their own language for justifying the criteria with forms the teacher gives them, their speaking ability maybe improved In this case, learners have chance to notice differences between their own use of language forms and those of the teachers, and can pay attention to the correct forms This provides the opportunities for intake and the further development of the learner‟s interlingual systems It is therefore possible, in the case of using

a cycle of preparatory and follow-up task to create a balance between accuracy and fluency activity An understanding of how learners use tasks can inform our decision-making about how to incorporate them into language teaching program (Brumfit, 1984)

As communicative approaches have developed, teachers have been concerned to ensure that students not only practice speaking in a controlled way in order to produce features

of pronunciation, vocabulary and structures accurately; but also practice using these features more freely in purposeful communication It has therefore become usual to include both accuracy – and fluency – based activities from the beginning of the course

The challenge for the communicative classroom is to find activities and procedures for speaking which will prepare students for spontaneous interaction and which will aid the acquisition process, though of course the two aims may usefully coincide Since a particular type of activity may provide for some of these things but not others, there is then the question

of how to create a varied program of activities which gives a range of opportunities for speaking practice

2.4 Speaking difficulties of language learners

Burn and Joyce (1997, p.134) identify three sets of factors that may cause reluctance

on the parts of students to take part in classroom tasks involving speaking They suggest that this reluctance may be due to cultural factors, linguistic factors, and psychological factors

Cultural factors derive from learners‟ prior learning experiences and the expectations created by these experiences Students meet difficulties in communication when they are not familiar with the cultural or social knowledge of the target language which required to process meaning in communication

According to Burn and Joyce, the linguistic factors that inhibit the use of the spoken language include difficulties in transferring from the learners‟ first language to the target language in term of the sounds, rhythms, and stress patterns Difficulties in understanding the English grammatical patterns which are different from that of their mother tongue

Psychological factors include cultural shock, previous negative social or political experiences, lack of motivation, anxiety or shyness in class, especially if their previous learning experiences were negative

In language teaching and learning which mostly occurred in classroom setting motivation is seen as a key consideration in determining the preparation of learners to the communication to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitude towards learning the language That is, motivation to learn a second language is seen as referring to the extent to which the individual works or strikes to learn the language because of a desire to do

so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity Thus, raising motivation inside the classroom is necessary in a language class

However, many learners are still unmotivated The reasons for this negative attitude may be they were lack of success over time or lack of perception of progress They may perceive in relevance of materials or lack of knowledge about the goals of the instructional program or receive inappropriate feedbacks Sometimes, they might be bored with the lecture

or classroom setting Moreover, students are perhaps unmotivated because of their teachers‟ uninspired teaching

According to Tsui (1996), after implementing the case study in secondary school classroom in Hong Kong, identified five principle factors accounting for the reluctance of students to speak up in class:

(1) Students‟ perceived low proficiency in English

(2) Students‟ fear of mistakes and derision

Thus, in order to develop their second language proficiency, students should try their best to overcome all their difficulties in learning English especially in speaking English They need to practice English as mush as possible such as participating in the widest possible range

of situations in which English is used as a mean of communication For example, students watch films in English, make friends with foreigners to communicate in English or gain experience from their peers

2.5 Summary

The chapter has briefly reviewed literature relating to the study The definition of speaking, the speaking competences, approaches in teaching and learning speaking skill as well as speaking difficulties of language learners have been discussed It is seen as the ground for the study In the next chapter, the methodology used in the study will be presented

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 The setting of the study

The study was conducted amongst part-time second year students at University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University Students attend the course

in four and a half school years Their class time is from 6 pm to 8.30 pm In the lesson, students learn both theory and practicing language skills

The course, at the beginning level, aims at providing students with general knowledge

of English grammar, vocabulary, phonology as well as developing students‟ four language skills with more focus on the speaking skill At this stage, the set of textbooks Knowhow (Volume 1, 2 and 3) are used Students learn basic grammar items such as the form of the verbs (simple present, present continuous, past simple, past continuous), adjectives, prepositions, expand vocabulary and pronunciation They also practice the four language skills four lessons in a week (from Monday to Thursday)

Then, at pre-intermediate and intermediate levels, the students are required with a higher level of knowledge The set of textbooks used in the course are Inside Out (pre-intermediate, intermediate, and upper-intermediate) Students learn the four language skills by using these textbooks, especially; the focus is on reading and speaking skills Besides these textbooks, students are provided with reference books which help students improve their speaking, listening, writing and reading skills Students are required to prepare the homework and then their teacher will correct these exercises in class Apart from the textbooks, more exercises which were such as reading, writing or use of English exercises are designed by teachers and provided to students to help them self-study at home After each three units, students will have a review lessons and take a small test However, in this stage; students must also learn some theoretical subjects such as grammar, semantics and phonetics apart from practicing the language skills and the second language, Chinese As a result, the time for practicing language skills is two lessons per weeks (Monday and Friday)

3.2 Participants

The total number of second year part time students at A2 campus is 127 into three classes, about 40 students in each class The students participated in the study are 120 students which made up nearly 95% of the total

Students come from different levels of personal background and they are both students and work-people Many learners are students who are currently studying at other universities

or colleges in Hanoi Those are currently working in companies or state organizations They work or study at daytime and come to English classes in the evenings Some people are neither students nor work-people They do not attend any courses at universities or colleges; they stay

at home and only take part in English course in the evenings

Students are at different levels of English language proficiency, they are different Some of them have learned English for 7 years at junior and senior high schools; some have only learned English for 3 years at high school Although some of them study English rather well, the rest are only good at grammar They focus more on reading and writing skills, meanwhile, not paid attention to speaking and listening skills They are likely to do grammatical exercises very quickly and well at their level but they cannot speak fluently even with some common topics, and most of them do not feel self-confident or even a bit frightened

in communicating in English Besides that, some students learnt other foreign languages such

as French, Chinese or Russian at high school instead of English In general, students were at elementary level

Moreover, students come to study with different purposes Some wish to master English and use it for their works, or their real life communication As a result, they study very hard and attend all the lessons They are active to participate in speaking activities and share their ideas or discuss in speaking lessons However, some of them want to study to get the degree for promotion in their work, so they only come to class because of administration attention checked Therefore, they seem to be reluctant in class apart from waiting for taking roll-call

Obviously, if students are the most important factor in the learning process, teachers are the most significant factor in the teaching process In in-service Training Department,

University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University, teachers can

be divided into two groups: the first group is the teachers who are currently teaching English

at this university; the other is the teachers who are currently teaching English at other institutes Most of the teachers graduated from foreign languages institutes with good ability

of teaching and they have much experience in teaching At present, over half of the teaching staff has been taking MA courses in English and they use many different methods in teaching English speaking skill

3.3 The Instruments

Data were gained through the students‟ survey questionnaires and the researcher‟s observation in English classes

3.3.1 Survey questionnaires for students

Survey questionnaire for students (see appendix 1) is used to find out the relevant difficulties students have to cope with in learning speaking skill in English classes The questionnaire consists of 7 closed-questions with the hope to find students‟ opinion on speaking skill, students‟ assessment of their English language background, students‟ difficulties, and some suggestions to solve their problems

In this study, the self-completion questionnaire was employed The surveyees completed the questionnaires by themselves without the assistance of the researcher In using the self-completion type, better cooperation from the part of respondent was sought as they may complete the questionnaires, given sufficient time to think over the answers In the surveys questionnaires, there are multiple choices for them to choose in each however some questions required for more than one option

3.3.2 Class observation

According to Arthea & Verna (2005, p.22), observation is 'the act or practice of paying attention to people, events, and/or the environment' Therefore, observation serves as a useful tool in doing research It helps observer to watch people do and listen to what they say without asking them about their views, feelings or attitudes (Robson, 1993, p.191) It is also an appropriate technique for getting at 'real-life' in 'the real world' This clarifies the validity of the observed words Moreover, by utilizing the observation instruments, the researcher will

maximize the usefulness of the hours he/ she spends in classroom observation and participation (Arthea & Verna, 2005, p.19) to get data

Classroom observation is a suitable method to obtain data for this study First, it is helpful to investigate the students' responses in the survey questionnaires if what they do in practice is congruent with what they say Second, through observation, the researcher actually knows the way of cooperation and interactions between students and students and between teacher and students, then to have a complete picture of teaching and learning language at the university Therefore, classroom observation was conducted to help doing the study

3.4 Data collection procedure

The questionnaires were administrated to 120 second year students at A2 campus The participants were asked to complete at class in 15–minute break during the time they did not have lessons Additionally, the purpose of the survey was to get firsthand information and it took place in an informal atmosphere (at break time of their class), so they felt free and comfortable to answer the questionnaire All of the students stated that they were very happy

to help and they did not hesitate to reveal private information such as names, ages They thought that their main objective of doing the survey questionnaires was to help the researcher have a good and true investigation

In the observation, classroom procedures were noted The observation sheets were used to record teachers' teaching and students‟ learning in the classroom in terms of task involvement of students and teachers and the way tasks are exploited and carried out by both parties Through the classroom observation, the researcher can check again the results of survey questionnaires and see that if all the students‟ opinion is true or not The result from classroom observation is the foundation for all the result of the study

3.5 Data analysis procedure

All the collected data from students‟ questionnaires answers was analyzed and transferred into percentage The data from observation sheets were examined to find out the current situation of learning English speaking from students at the university The observation

data also help the researcher to see if what the students said matched to the teaching and learning practice All of these procedure aim to find out the answers to the research questions

CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA

4.1 Students’ English language background

Students‟ English language background focuses only on all four language skills such as reading, listening, speaking and writing Two first questions of the survey questionnaire are

“Which English languages skill(s) are you best at?” and “Which English language skill(s) do you need to improve most?”

Question 1 Question 2

Figure 1: Students' English language skills

ListeningWriting SpeakingReading

According to the figure 1, more than half of the students assume that they are best at reading and writing skills For them, speaking and listening are the two language skills they are not good at There are only 22.5% of the students thought that they are best at speaking skill However, the finding from the survey indicated that the number of students needs to improve speaking skill only constituted 50%

Moreover, when being asked about the importance of speaking English in the third question, most of them were aware of it (87.5% of students) especially in the modern society nowadays although they attend this English program with different purposes (see in the figure 2) This maybe explained by the fact that communication in English orally plays an important role in working environment as well as in further education

Figure 2: The importance of English speaking skill

It is interesting that a similar percentage of students (87.5) general attached to speaking

a considerable importance That is up to 66.7% and 20.8% of the students stated that speaking skill is a very important and rather important skill respectively whereas only 12.5% of them supposed speaking skill is little important Such a high rating of the importance of speaking may be connected with the demands of today‟s society where the ability to speak at least one foreign language means a necessity This requirement together with the position of English as

a world language may account for a strong position of speaking within language learning A good command of a language is considered an investment in a future life as it may extend one‟s opportunities in looking for a decent and well-paid job in the further studies There may

be an influence of popular culture with songs in English and English speaking media (e.g internet, TV and radio channels) Also, while studying, working or traveling abroad a good speaking skill proves to be a great advantage From this fact, it can be concluded that the majority of the student are aware of the importance of speaking skill

However, because of a lot of different reasons, students access their skill of speaking English is respectively at low level in next question “How can you assess your English speaking skill?” The result was revealed in the figure 3 There are no excellent students at speaking English The number of students with good level at speaking English skill only made

up 17.5% More than half of the students assume that they are not very good at this skill (55%)

Figure 3: Students' assessment of their English speaking skill

0 9.1

57.5

30.8

2.5

Excellent GoodNot very goodBad

Very bad

Meanwhile, about one third of the students view their speaking skill is bad and very bad Thus, students need to improve their English speaking skill

4.2 The connection of speaking to reading, listening and writing skills

As means and modes of communication, the four language skills listening, reading, writing and speaking obtain an interactive relationship among them In teaching practice, speaking closely related to listening, reading and writing skills For example, before writing topics, listening to the tasks or reading the text and doing reading exercises, both teachers and students should discuss the contents relating to the exercises or explain some new words or new phrases They have to speak to answer teachers‟ questions or exchange their ideas about the relating topics Speaking skill always appears in each lessons and the time for speaking skill is more than for other language skills Hence, improving students‟ English speaking skill

is necessary because of the relationship among them

According to the result of the survey questionnaires, no students are good at all four language skills Some students, who are good at writing and reading, can write a paragraph and essay or do the reading exercises quickly but sometimes they could not express their own idea well in front of the class Conversely, the others, who do not have difficulties in speaking and listening skills, maybe not get good marks in reading and writing assignments However,

in classrooms, the method of integrated skills was used to teach practicing language skills for students Thus, it takes both teachers and students more thirty minutes for each language skill This time is not much for them to practice For example, when they learn reading skill, there

are a lot of new words and phrases First of all, teachers have to introduce the title or the main idea of the reading exercise, and then instruct students how to read and how to employ the reading topics Sometimes teachers can give some questions relating to the reading task Five minutes or more might be for this process After that, students maybe spend some time to read and gain its main meaning While reading the task, they should think over to understand It will take this process at least 15 minutes Finally, students maybe spend much time doing the reading exercises and discussing the reading contents because each student has their own attitude Sometimes, there are some students who cannot finish the exercises because of shortage of time, so it is more difficult for them to catch up with or understand the teacher‟s explanation Therefore, thirty minutes is not enough for them to study each skill Moreover, students will be exhausted or boring if they have to learn all four language skills each lesson

To overcome the difficulties of development unequally among four language skills, each language skill should be taught in particular Because second year students of English learn practicing language skills only on Monday and Friday, it takes learners two weeks to master four language skills if they are taught a language skill per lesson Otherwise, speaking language relates to three other skills, teachers can combine speaking with other skills in each lesson such as speaking – reading, speaking – writing and speaking – listening, which helps students practice speaking English skill regularly as well as concentrate more time on other language skills For example, in a two-hour lesson, teachers can coordinate speaking and writing At first, in pre-writing part, students can discuss about the topic, it takes them some minutes to give outline by exchanging their ideas and then express themselves in front of the class Each group will share the main ideas or the supporting ideas to each other in order to give the perfect outline for writing task After that, each student will complete their own writing essay basing on using conjunction Hence, students can learn two language skills in each lesson with the balance of time This suggestion is better than the presented method and maybe used to improve students‟ speaking English skill

4.3 Students’ difficulties in speaking English

As mentioned in the statistics results from figure 4 below, a great number of the second year student of English (95%) had difficulties in speaking English; meanwhile, the number of good speaking English students is 5%

Figure 4: The number of students meet difficulties in speaking

Clearly, there were not many students who could communicate in English well because they did not equip an enough knowledge for study Six of the total students (120) must have learnt hard and try their best to master English a well as speaking skill Especially, when answering

the survey questionnaires (question 5 “Do you meet difficulties in speaking English?”) and

observation to comment on what caused students those constraints in oral English language classes; they identified a multitude of variables which can be classified as cultural factors, linguistic factors, psychology factors and the teaching methods

4.3.1 Cultural factors

As shown in question 5 as well as the figure 5, the students who had difficulties in speaking English should show clearly that what their difficulties were and why they meet those Nearly half of learners are not getting used to speaking English due to their prior learning experience is one of the difficulties students have to deal with Generally, secondary education in many different parts of Asia was strongly didactic and exam-oriented As a result, both teachers and students focused on marks and written tests while neglecting oral English

Students were possibly not encouraged to speak in their English classes The importance of speaking English was not appreciated

Figure 5: Students' diffculties in speaking English

A Students are not used to speaking English

B Students lack cultural knowledge

C Students are ashamed when they make mistakes in speaking English

D Students are introvert

E Students lack motivation

F Students are at low English proficiency (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation …)

G Teachers do not appreciate importance on practicing students‟ English speaking

H English speaking topics are not interesting

I Others: ………

In their lesson the emphasis was presumably placed on accuracy of linguistic forms Their idea of language lesson, therefore, might comprise reading and doing written exercises that practice grammar Students had also formed the habit of sitting quietly in class and listening to teachers passively They were reticent maybe because they were taught to be so since primary school They were hardly encouraged to speak out loudly in front of others Furthermore, they had remained quiet until requested by teacher to speak in class One of the

student added that the teacher always chose one of the best students to present the topics or answer the questions, so they need not be volunteer The concept of not to put up their hand had a long history and was deeply rooted in their mind For students who learn other foreign language in secondary school such as Chinese, French, or Russian instead of English, they were at elementary level, so they were not trained basically They only did English grammatical exercises and then attended the entry exam without having chances to speak English As a result, they met difficulties in speaking English and minded investing their time into learning

Moreover, not all second year students of English could get used to speaking English regularly The statistics presented in figure 5 showed that 6.1% of them got used to communicating in English everyday This cause may be as same as the motivation outside classrooms It is easy to understand that Vietnamese people„s mother tongue is Vietnamese, so they could not communicate to their friends and relatives in English Students of English only spoke English with their friends from 6.00pm to 8.30 pm every evening when they came to English classes, even if they talked with each other in Vietnamese After their lessons, they came back home with their relatives, their family members and their work Learners could not have chance to practice English speaking skill in language environment Most of them worked, studied and lived with Vietnamese partners who were not able to or not good at English Sometimes, they were laughed at themselves if they said some English statements Therefore, it is difficult for students of English to improve their speaking skill without more practice The time in class was not enough for them to speak English well because they had to learn other language skills With regard to researcher‟s observation in speaking lessons at classes, when students at the same group discussed about the received topics, some of them spoke in English but the rest spoke in Vietnamese because they did not understand all English Especially, sometimes students who spoke in English were mocked at by the peers However, this data made up a small part in the total number It meant that these students never practiced English at home even if they did like that in classes It is the fact that a few students lived in language environment Some students had chances to practice English with their colleagues if they worked in foreign or non-government organizations As a result, learners should self-