Some suggestions for teaching english speaking skill to the non english major students at vinh university

MINISTRY OF EDUCATIONAND AND TRAININGVINH UNIVERSITY HOANG THI CHUNG SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL TO THE NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY MASTER’S

MINISTRY OF EDUCATIONAND AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

HOANG THI CHUNG

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING

ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL TO THE NON-ENGLISH

MAJOR STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghệ An, 2014

MINISTRY OF EDUCATIONAND AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

HOANG THI CHUNG

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING

ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL TO THE NON-ENGLISH

MAJOR STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

Code: 60 14 01 11

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Supervisor: Phan Thi Huong, M.A

Nghệ An, 2014

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I declare that this dissertation represents my own work, and that it has not been previously submitted to this University or to any other institutions for a degree, diploma or other qualifications.

Hoang Thi Chung

I would like to express my deepest thanks to M.A Phan Thi Huong, mysupervisor for her immense encouragement as well as her detailed guidance shegave me while I was doing my research, without which the study could not havebeen completed

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to FLD’s Dean,

Dr Tran Ba Tien, without his support, motivation and consideration, it would nothave been possible for me to complete the course

I would also like to express my thanks to the teachers of English at VinhUniversity who helped me in providing the materials, answering the surveyquestionnaire, taking part in the interviews actively and making constructivecomments in the process of writing this thesis, without their help the thesis wouldnot have been successful

I am also thankful to my first-year students of K53 from two classes NN1-111:NN1-112 for their whole-heated participation in the study

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my friends and my family for theirunderstanding, patience and support during the entire period of my study

Hoang Thi Chung

This study is aimed at investigating the reality of teaching the speaking skill tonon-major students of English at Vinh University but only focuses on difficultiesexperienced by the teachers of English and some recommendations and classroomtechniques and activities for them to minimize those difficulties Specifically, someclassroom activities are made with the hope that they would be helpful for teachers intheir teaching English speaking skill to non- English major students of English at VU.The thesis consists of five chapters Chapter 1 is an introduction to the thesis.Chapter 2 includes the review of related literature, methodology used in the researchstudy The findings and discussion of relevant difficulties in teaching speaking skillcaused by teachers themselves, students and objective factors are all presented in thechapter 4 The final chapter is the conclusion of the study, which discusses theoverview that can be drawn from the study, concurrently suggests some classroomtechniques and activities with the hope that they can add interest to each lesson andserve different learning styles Teachers can find sample games and activities in thispart for getting their students more involved in speaking in class and can feel free tochange their content or degree of difficulty to suit their needs, or use them as aspringboard to create specific activities

It is hoped that this thesis will be useful for teachers at VU in teaching thespeaking skill to their non-English major students

LIST OF TABLES

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY xxxiiiCHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION xliiTable 4.4: Teachers’ English communicative competence xlvCHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION lviiiREFERENCES lxxxAPPENDICES I

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ELT: English Language Teaching

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as Second Language

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

STT: Student talking time

TTT: Teacher talking time

TM: Translation Method

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

No of Students: Number of Students

No of Teachers: Number of Teachers

VU: Vinh University

LIST OF TABLES

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY xxxiiiCHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION xliiTable 4.4: Teachers’ English communicative competence xlvCHAPTER 5: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION lviiiREFERENCES lxxxAPPENDICES I

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

We are living in the global world in which English language has rapidlybecome an international language To meet this requirement, English has beentaught almost everywhere in Vietnam, especially in schools, colleges, universities,English is a compulsory subject

However, how to speak English well is a problem for many Vietnameselearners of English, especially for the students of colleges and universities Despitethe fact that most of the students have been learning English since they were atsecondary or high school, they can not speak English fluently, or some cannot speakany English at all As a teacher of English at Vinh University, from our observationand our own teaching experience, we see that during a speaking lesson students canhardly use English for communicative objectives even in the simple form Someexplain that they want to talk but they do not know what to say Some are in poorparticipation in speaking activities in the classroom

In fact, there is a large number of non-English major students who may begood at reading, writing but find it difficult to speak in English I often encourage

my students to talk in English in class but they keep silent during the lessons.Perhaps, there is a variety of reasons for their poor participation, including suchlarge classes, lack of ideas, lack of motivation, lack of confidence whencommunicating or poor knowledge of English language In addition to those

mentioned above, equipment and teaching methods of teachers can make thesituation worse.

There have been numerous studies on this situation and various solutions,recommendations and suggestions have been proposed, including innovatingteaching methods, changing syllabus or textbooks, upgrading teachers’qualifications, changing formats of speaking tests and so on At Vinh University,however, no research on suggesting communicative activities for teaching speakingskill to non- English majors has been done before The author, as a teacher ofEnglish at VU, is more than aware of the situation and she herself has encountered anumber of difficulties in helping her students improve their speaking skill This

actually drives her to this research, entitled “Some suggestions for teaching English speaking skill to the non-English major students at Vinh University”.

1 2 Scope of the study

To improve speaking skill for non- English major students at VU, variousmethods can be made used of However, within the framework of this thesis, theauthor only intends to give an overview of the current situation of teaching andlearning speaking skill for non-English major students at VU and suggestcommunicative activities to help teachers improve their students’ speaking skill andachieve the objectives of each unit of the course book as well The suggestedactivities will serve as a reference for teachers to teach effectively speaking topics

in New Headway Pre-intermidiate the third edition

1.3 Aims of the study

Within the framework of a thesis, the study aims at suggesting classroomactivities with the hope that they would be helpful for teachers in their teachingEnglish speaking skill to non- English major students at VU

To achieve this aim, the objectives are (i) to investigate the current situations

of learning and teaching of speaking skill to non- English major students at VU inorder to find out the reasons for students’ unwillingness to speak English as well as

difficulties experienced by the teachers of English in teaching speaking skill; (ii) tosuggest some classroom activities to be used in speaking class for non-Englishmajors.

1.4 Research questions of the study

The researcher wish to raise the questions as follows:

1 What difficulties do the teachers at VU encounter in teaching the skill ofspeaking to non-English major students?

2 What should be done to minimize the difficulties in teaching the skill ofspeaking to non-English major students experienced by the teachers ofEnglish at VU?

1.5 Organization of the study

The study consists of the following parts:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This part will introduce the problem leading to the study, rationale, purpose,scope, and organization of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review and theoretical background

Presented in this chapter are the concepts relevant to the study: Review of

previous studies ; The Nature of Language skills; The nature of speaking skill;

What is speaking?; What are components of speaking?; What skills and knowledge does a good speaker need?; What is speaking Skills; Characteristics of Speaking

Skills; Teaching Speaking Skills; Aims of Teaching Speaking Skills; Developmentapproach of speaking skills; How speaking skill has been taught to adult ESLlearners

Chapter 3: Methodology

This part presents the detailed procedure of the study: the methodology,population selection, data collection and analysis

Chapter 4 Findings and Discussions The part deals with the findings drawn out

from the analysis of data The chapter also proposes some suggestions to maketeaching English speaking more effective

Chapter 5 Conclusion

Main points and contents of the study will be summarized based on the results ofthe study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Review of previous studies

For many years, language teaching was seen as helping learners developlinguistic competence, many researches around teaching speaking such as

“Appropriate error-correction stratigies in speaking lessons”, “ Some suggestions toconduct effectively English speaking activities”, etc , proved very effective as theinspiration for students to study Recently, communicative language teaching (CLT)with its emphasis on meaning and communication in the target language and itslearner-centered approach has served as the dominant approach to languageteaching

Recently, in their minor study, Julie Mathews- Aydinly and Regina VanHorne (2006) have pointed out that multilevel classes can present challenges toteachers as it is very difficult to design or organize speaking activities for manylearners with different level and interests The suggested solutions are alsopresented in their study With the fact of teaching speaking skill to non-Englishmajors at VU, I would like to study more about speaking activities with the hopethat I can contribute to teaching English speaking successfully

2.2 What is speaking?

Speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involvesproducing and receiving and processing information” (Brown, 1994; Burns &Joyce, 1997) Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs,including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physicalenvironment, and the purposes for speaking Speaking requires that learners notonly know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar,pronunciation, or vocabulary, but also they can understand when, why, and in whatways to produce language

Bygate, Martin (1987) believes that speaking is the skill by which they aremost frequently judged and thought Learners often need to be able to speak with

confidence Speaking skill is regarded as the vehicle of social solidarity, of socialranking, of professional advancement and business It is also a medium throughwhich much language is learnt”.

In Brown and Yule’s point of view (1983) spoken language consists of short,fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciation There is often a great deal ofrepetition and overlap between one speaker and another and speaker usually usenon-specific references They also point out that spoken language is made to feelless conceptual dense than other types such as prose by using the loosely organizedsyntax, and non-specific words and phrases

2.3 What are components of speaking?

This section examines the components of spoken English, drawing on amodel proposed by van Lier (1995) It is necessary for teachers to understandfully these interrelated components in order to help adult learners improve theirspeaking skill

Figure 1: Units of spoken language (van Lier, 1995, p 15).

distinctive featurephoneme

syllablemorpheme

word

phraseclauseutterance

DISCOURSE

The figure depicts the many elements involved in teaching speaking to adultESL learners The left column lists four traditional areas of linguistic analysis(which teachers must understand), and the center column labels the units of spokenlanguage (which learners must master).

Beginning at the pyramid’s base, text refers to stretches of language of an

undetermined length Texts can be either written or spoken, but here the focus is

exclusively on spoken discourse Spoken texts are composed of utterances: what someone says A clause is two or more words that contain a verb marked for tense and a grammatical subject Independent clauses are complete sentences that can stand alone (“Tuan went to work”), whereas dependent clauses cannot (“While Tuan was going to work ”) In contrast, a phrase is two or more words that

function as a unit but do not have a subject or a verb marked for tense Theseinclude prepositional phrases (“in the hospital” or “after school”) and infinitivephrases (“to drive” or “to move up”) Clauses and phrases do not usually appearalone in formal writing, but they are quite common in speech Both clauses andphrases can be utterances, as can individual words, the next level in the pyramid

A word is called a free morpheme—a unit of language that can stand on its own and convey meaning (bus, apply, often) In contrast, bound morphemes are always connected to words These include prefixes, such as un- or pre-, as well as suffixes, such as -tion or -s or -ed Often, during the pressure of speaking, it is

difficult for Vietnamese learners English to use the expected suffixes becauseVietnamese language does not utilize these kinds of morphemes as grammaticalmarkers

A phoneme is a unit of sound that distinguishes meaning Phonemes can be either Consonants (like /p/ or /b/ in the words pat and bat) or Vowels (like /i/ and /æ/ in bit and bat)

In the top levels of the figure, the word syllable overlaps the levels of

morphemes and phonemes because a syllable can consist of a morpheme or simplyone or more phonemes

Consonants and vowels are called segmental phonemes Sometimes a spoken syllable consists of one phoneme (/o/ in okay) Syllables also consist of combined sounds (the second syllable of okay), and of both free and bound morphemes For instance, the free morpheme hat consists of three phonemes but only one syllable

The three other labels in the figure—stress, rhythm, and intonation represent

the suprasegmental phonemes When we speak, these phonemes carry meaning

differences “above” the segmental phonemes For instance, the sentence “I amgoing now” can convey at least four different meanings, depending on where thestress is placed The differences are related to the context where the utterancesoccur Consider these interpretations:

I am going now (You may be staying here, but I choose to leave.)

I am going now (You may assert that I’m staying, but I insist that I am

leaving.)

I am going now (I insist that I am leaving, rather than staying.)

I am going now (I am not waiting any longer.)

It is critical to know how these levels of spoken language relate to thespeaking skill of Vietnamese learners Two key points derive from a substantialreview of the research on foreign accent by Major (2001) First, he says that reallylearning the sound system of a language entails mastering (a) the individualsegments (the V and C phonemes), (b) the combinations of segments, (c) prosody(stress, intonation, rhythm, etc.), and (d) “global accent, or the overall accent of aspeaker” (p 12) He adds that a global foreign accent is the result of a nonnativecombination of (a), (b), and (c)

Second, Major (2001) notes that “both the learner’s age and the age oflearning (when the learner was first exposed to the language) have been found to beimportant variables in governing whether and to what degree a learner can acquire anative like accent” (pp 6–7) He concludes that “the vast majority of the researchindicates that the younger the learner the more native like the pronunciation” (p 11).

To conclude, it can be seen from the Pyramid that all the levels of languageoperate when we speak, and conversation is not really simple at all It is impotantfor language teachers to understand these units of language and how they worktogether

2.4 Characteristics of Speaking Skill

Bygate, M (1987) states that: “In most speaking the person to whom we arespeaking is in front of us and able to use right if we make mistakes” Unlike readers

or writers, speaker may need patience and imagination, too While talking, speakersneed to take notice of the other and allows listeners chance to speak it

Brown (1983) and her colleagues point out that a listener helps speakersimprove their performance as a speaker because being a listener gives learnersmodels to utilize when acting as speaker Besides, being a hearer first helpsappreciate the difficulties inherent in the task It is clear that giving speakersexperience in hearer’s role is more helpful than simple practice in tasks in which aspeaker is having real difficulties in appreciating what a particular task required Richards (1985) states that Communicative Competence includes:

a) Knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language

b) Knowledge of rules of speaking (e.g knowing how to begin and endconversations, knowing what topics can be talked about in different types of speechevent, knowing which address, forms should be used with different person onespeaks to and in different situations

c) Knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts such asrequests, apologies, thanks and invitations

d) Knowing how to use language appropriately (quoted from Nunan, David,1999: 226)

According to Nunan, David (1999) what are needs to know and be able to do

in order to speak in another language is to know how to articulate sounds in acomprehensible manner, one needs an adequate vocabulary, and to have mastery ofsyntax

The socio linguist Dell Hymes (1974) proposed the notion of communicativecompetence as an alternative to Chomsky’s linguistic competence Communicativecompetence includes linguistic competence, but also a range of other sociolinguistic and conversational skill that enable the speaker to know how to say what

to whom

2.5 Aims of Teaching Speaking Skill

As for Widdowson H.G (quoted from Brumfit C.J & Johnson K:117), “ theproblem is that students, and especially students in developing countries, who havereceived several years of formal English teaching, frequently remain deficient in theability to actually use the language, and to understand its use in normalcommunication, whether in the spoken or the written mode” (1979:117)

Therefore, objective of teaching speaking skill is communicative efficiency

or in other words is to teach learners the way to communicate “appropriately” andefficiently It can be seen from the example give by Newmark of a man who is good

at structures but fails in utterance competence

So, to help learners develop communicative efficiency in speaking, teachercan use balanced activities approach that combines language input, structuredoutput and communicative output

Language input comes in the form of teacher talk, listening activities, readingpassages, and the language heard and read outside of class It gives learners thematerial They need to begin producing language themselves

Language input may be content oriented or form oriented

Structured output focuses on correct form In structured output, learners mayhave options for responses, but all of the options require them to use the specificform or structure that the teacher has just introduced.

Structured output is designed to make learners comfortable producing specificlanguage items recently introduces, sometimes in combination with previouslylearned items

In communicative output, the learners’ main purpose is to complete a task,such as obtaining information, developing a travel plan… To complete the task,they may be use the language that the teacher has just presented, but they also maydraw on any other vocabulary, grammar, and communication strategies that theyknow In communicative output activities, the criterion of success is whether thelearner gets the message across Accuracy is not a consideration unless the lack of itinterferes with the message

In a balance activities approach, the teacher uses a variety of activities fromthese different categories of input and output Learners at all proficiency levels,including beginners, benefit from this variety, it is more motivating, and it is alsomore likely to result in effective language learning

2.6 Difficulties in teaching English speaking skill

Language teaching is a complex process involving many interrelatedfactors Larsen-Freeman points out that language teaching can be summarized intothree fields: language learner/learning (How to learn); language/culture (What toLearn); teacher/teaching (How to teach) Basing on Larsen-Freeman’ views,difficulties in language teaching in general and difficulties in teaching Englishspeaking skill in particular are examined from teachers, students together withobjective factors affecting the teaching process

2.6.1 Difficulties from teachers

Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices

a The amount of Teacher Talk

According to second language acquisition theories, both teachers and studentsshould participate in language classes actively Teachers have to face two tasks inlanguage classrooms: (1) offer enough high-quality English language input; (2) offermore opportunities for students to use the target language So the distribution of teachertalk time, as an important factor that affect language learning, has been concerned bymany scholars An important issue is whether the amount of teacher talk influenceslearners’ L2 acquisition or foreign language learning A great number of researchershave testified this Researches in language classrooms have established that teacherstend to do most of the classroom talk Teacher talk makes up over 70 percent of the totaltalk It is evident that if teachers devote large amounts of time to explanations ormanagement instructions, student talk will be indeed severely restricted Teacher-initiated talk will dominate the classroom, allowing little opportunity for extendedstudent talk In such an environment, students have little opportunity to develop theirlanguage proficiency Harmer points out that the best lessons are ones where STT ismaximized Getting students to use the language they are learning is a vital part of ateacher’s job (Harmer, 2000:4)

b Teacher's Correction

Inevitably learners will make mistakes in the process of learning “A learner’s errors are significant in (that) they provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in the discovery of the language” (Brown, 2002: 205) It is a vital part of

the teacher’s role to point out students’ mistakes and provide correction Incorrection, some specific information is provided on aspects of the learners’performance, through explanation, or provision of better or other alternatives, orthrough elicitation of these from the leaner (Ur, 2000) Correction helps students toclarify their understanding of meaning and construction of the language

One of the crucial issues is how correction is expressed: gently or assertivelysupportively or as a condemnation, tactfully or rudely Ur (2000) points out that

we should go for encouraging, tactful correction The learner has reliable intuitive

knowledge about what kind of correction helps most, that is, learner preferences are

on the whole reliable guide So teachers have to be careful when correcting, ifteachers do it in an insensitive way, the students will feel upset and lose theirconfidence

c Krashen’s Input Theory

Input plays a critical role in language learning There is no learning withoutinput The language used by the teacher affects the language produced by thelearners, the interaction generated, and hence the kind of learning that takes place.The problem is what type and how much of input is appropriate and useful forlanguage learners in classrooms

In Krashen’s view, learning only takes place by means of a learner’saccess to comprehensible input Humans acquire language in only one way - byunderstanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input Learning willoccur when unknown items are only just beyond the learner’s level It isexplained in detail “i+1”structure “i” stands for the learners’ current linguisticcompetence, and “1” stands for the items the learners intend to learn The InputTheory also has two corollaries (Krashen, 1985: 2):

Corollary 1: Speaking is a result of acquisition, not its cause; it emerges as result

of building competence via comprehensible input

Corollary 2: If input is understood and there is enough of it, the necessarygrammar is automatically provided The language teacher need not attemptdeliberately to teach the next structure along the natural order it will be provided injust the right quantities and automatically reviews if the student receives a sufficientamount of comprehensible input

By examining the idea of comprehensible input and the two corollaries, onecan find that comprehensive and right quantity input is the central concern withwhich learners are able to learn language It is the foundation or premise of theoccurrence of learning This provides implications for language teaching: teachertalk should be comprehensible in different forms and in right quantities But how

could teachers know whether their input is enough or not? How could they make theirinput comprehensible? Krashen describes two ways: the linguistic resources areinsufficient for immediate decoding Simplified input can be made available to thelearner through one-way or two-way interaction, with the former including listening to alecture, watching television and reading, and the latter occurring in conversations.Krashen stresses that two-way interaction is a particularly good way of providingcomprehensible input because it enables the learner to obtain additional contextualinformation and optimally adjusted input when meaning has to be negotiated because

of communication problems

In Krashen’s view, acquisition takes place by means of a learner’s access tocomprehensible input He comments that the input, which is totally incomprehensible tolearners, is not likely to cause learning to take place Teacher talk, actually serves asmain sources of input of language exposure in classroom learning, is more importantfor foreign language learning, so teachers should make their input comprehensibleand in right quantities

d Teacher-learner relationship

The relationship between the teacher and students plays a part in evokingproblems in teaching speaking skill A necessary prerequisite for creating afavorable learning atmosphere in the class is to establish a good relationshipbetween the teacher and his students One of the possible ways of pursuing this aim

is to talk with students about their feelings and help them rationalize their anxietyabout speaking, which results in difficulties in teaching speaking skill (Tsui, 1996).The teacher may decide to talk to individual students outside the classroom, asstudents may feel inhibited about discussing their feelings in front of theirclassmates This “step” may contribute to the creation of trust and “partnership”between the student and the teacher In addition, students always feel morecomfortable when learning with the teachers who have a good sense of humor,friendly, relaxed and patient (Young, 1991) Such anxieties related to teacher-

learner interactions are also investigated in a wealth of studies by Horwitz (1988),Horwitz et al (1991)

Teachers’ deficiency in English communicative competence

This can be another constraint in teaching speaking skill which is related toteachers’ deficiency in English communicative competence For many years,

language teaching was seen as helping learners to develop linguistic

competence-that is, helping students master the sounds, words, and grammar patterns of English.The idea was that by studying bits and pieces of a language, students couldeventually put them all together and communicate

In the 1970s and 1980s, however, our understanding of language learningexperienced a significant shift in focus This shift was influenced by internationaldevelopments in linguistics, curricula, and pedagogy, as well as by sociolinguisticresearch (primarily in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, andthe United States) In addition, the numbers of refugees and immigrants resetting inEnglish-speaking countries made linguist and language teachers realize thatdeveloping linguistic competence alone was not enough to be able to speak Englishwell and get along in society

In the mid-1970s the notion of linguistic competence came to be viewed as a

component of the broader idea of communicative competence “the ability of

language learners to interact with other speakers, to make meaning, as distinct fromtheir ability to perform on discrete-point tests of grammatical knowledge”(Savignon, 1991, p.264)

There are several important models of communicative competence (seeespecially Bachman, 1990, Canale and Swain, 1980, Richards, Platt and Weber,

1985, Littlewood, 1994, and Hedge, 2000), all of which include some form of

sociolinguistic competence, or the ability to use language appropriately in various contexts Sociolinguistic competence involves register (degrees of formality and informality), appropriate word choice, style shifting, and politeness strategies.

Another important element of communicative competence is strategic competence In terms of speaking, this is the learner’s ability to use language

strategies to compensate for gaps in skills and knowledge For example, if you don’tknow a word you need to express your meaning, what strategies can you use tomake your point?

A fourth component of communicative competence is discourse competence, “how

sentence elements are tied together”, which includes both cohesion and coherence

(Lazaraton, 2001, p.104) Cohesion includes reference, repetition, synonyms, and

so on In contrast, coherence involves “how texts are constructed” (Lazaraton,

2001, p.104; see also Bachman, 1990, pp.84-102, and Douglas, 2000, pp.25-29) These four components of communicative competence have several practicalimplications for EFL and ESL teachers Since communicative competence is amultifaceted construct, it is important for teachers to understand the complexitieslearners face when they are speaking English

One of those complexities is balancing fluency and accuracy A proficient

speaker is both fluent and accurate Accuracy in this context refers to the ability to

speak properly-that is, selecting the correct words and expressions to convey the

intended meaning, as well as using the grammatical patterns of English Fluency,

on the other hand, is the capacity to speak fluidly, confidently, and at a rateconsistent with the norms of the relevant native speech community

An important concept for teachers to understand is that while students are atthe beginning and intermediate levels of language learning, that is, while they arestill developing their proficiency, fluency and accuracy often work against eachother Before grammar rules become automatic and while learners are still acquiringessential vocabulary items, applying the rules and searching one’s memory for theright words can be laborious mental processes, which slow the learners’ speech andmake them seem dysfluent Likewise, language learners can sometimes speakquickly, without hesitating to apply the rules they have learned, but doing so may

decrease their accuracy (that is, the number of errors they make in speaking mayincrease).

Below is Hedge’s description of communicative competence which probablyconsidered as the most elaborate

Linguistic

competence

- to achieve accuracy in the grammatical forms of the language

- to pronounce the forms accurately

- to use stress, rhythm and intonation to express meaning

- to build a range of vocabulary

- to learn the script and spelling rules

- to achieve accuracy in syntax and word formation

Pragmatic

competence

- to learn the relationship between grammatical forms and functions

- to use stress and intonation to express attitude and emotion

- to learn a scale of formality

- to understand and use emotive tone

- to use the pragmatic rules of language

- to select language forms appropriate to topic, listener, etc

- to be able to use cohesive devices in reading and writing texts

- to be able to cope with authentic texts

Strategic

competence

- to be able to take risks in using both spoken and written language

- to use a range of communication strategies

- to learn the language needed to engage in some of these strategies, e.g

“What do you call a thing that/person who…”

Fluency

- to deal with the information gap of real discourse

- to process language and respond appropriately with a degree of ease

- to be able to respond with reasonable speed in “real time”

From the description of communicative competence mentioned above, to teachteaching speaking skill, teachers might have been required to have language

teaching competence including five interrelated fields, that is, linguistic competence, pragmatic competence or sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence and fluency This can be understood that

linguistic competence (syntactic structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation) is notthe only requirement of teaching speaking skill However, in English oral classesteachers only spend teaching time in providing the knowledge of linguisticcompetence, which causes students’ failure to unsuccessfully communicate

2.6.2 Difficulties from students

There exist many student-related problems in teaching speaking skill in

English classes Many learners, as reported by studies into speaking (e.g Tsui:

“Reticence and anxiety in second language learning”), are unprepared or unwilling

to speak Their reluctance and reticence in English oral classes pose a big challengefor teaching speaking skill

First and foremost, many reasons for learners’ unwillingness to speak can beenumerated Burns and Joyce identified three groups of factors that are likely tocause reluctance with learners These encompass cultural, linguistic, and affective

factors (Burns and Joyce, 1997) Cultural factors follow from students’ prior

learning experiences and consequently from the expectations that are formed on

their basis Examples of linguistic factors limiting speaking may be, according to

Burns and Joyce, difficulties in the phonetics and phonology of the target language,poor knowledge of grammatical patterns or low awareness of cultural backgroundand social conventions that are necessary for processing meaning in the targetlanguage A low motivation level, timidity or anxiety in class, negative social

experiences, and culture shock are ranked among possible affective factors (134) In

discussing the methodology of speaking, Ur (1997) is also preoccupied withlearners’ problems with speaking activities The difficulties she has encountered ingetting her learners to speak in the class correspond to some of the items such as

mother tongue, inhibition, no ideas to share and problems of participation A

careful investigation into the nature of learners’ problems with speaking wasconducted by Tsui She based her study on “the classroom action research projectreports of thirty-eight ESL teachers” These were practising secondary schoolteachers who enrolled to a two-year in-service teacher training at the University of

Hong Kong The results Tsui presented reveal a considerable similarity to thoseidentified by Burns and Joyce, and Ur According to Tsui’s study, there are five

factors determining learners’ hesitancy to speak 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 incomprehensible input.

In addition, it is assumed that when people speak in a second or foreignlanguage, they become more apprehensive and tense and thus more unwilling toparticipate in conversation (Horwitz et al., 1986; MacIntyre & Gadner, 1989) It hasbeen found that many SL/FL students, especially Asian learners, are passive inlanguage classrooms and choose not to use the target language most of the time,especially when responding to teachers (Tsui, 1996) Meanwhile, multiple variablessuch as low English proficiency, personal traits (i.e., reservedness, shyness,introvertedness) or individual differences (i.e., self-esteem and/or self-perception),and cultural beliefs were found to contribute to student reticence in SL/FLclassrooms

Adopting a quantitative method, MacIntyre and his associates conducted anumber of empirical studies and found that communicating in a second languagewas related to a willingness to engage in L2 communication, motivation forlanguage learning, the opportunity for contact, and the perception of competence,language and anxiety, personality, intellect, the social context, and other variables(MacIntyre & Charos, 1996; MacIntyre et al., 1998; MacIntyre et al., 2001) Theyalso claimed that willingness to communicate was a good predictor for students’actual use of the target in communication Based on six interviews of Japanesestudents at the University of Edinburgh, Dwyer and Heller-Murphy (1996)concluded that the students were reticent in EFL/ESL classrooms due to fear ofpublic 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 On the basis of the analysis of

interviews with 15 lecturers in the university in Hong Kong, Flowerdew et al.(2000) also found that the students were rated as passive and reticence learners inthe classroom by their lecturers who attributed student reticence to such factors aslow English proficiency, fear of being embarrassed in front of other peers, theirinability to understand concepts, incomprehensible input, lack of preparation, andthe passive learning style acquired during their secondary schooling

All these findings reveal that reticence is a widely-observed phenomenon inSL/FL classrooms However, since wide differences exist in SL/FL languagelearning situations, to better understand the issue of reticence and enhance the oralproficiency of the target language by promoting students’ actual participation inclassroom activities, more research is needed with different groups of learners invarious SL/FL learning situations

2.6.3 Difficulties from objective factors

The objective factors like large and multilevel classes, time constraint and textbook also result in the difficulties in teaching speaking skill

Recently, in their minor study, Julie Mathews-Aydinli and Regina Van Horne(2006) have pointed out that multilevel classes can present challenges to teachers,

as it is very difficult to design or organize speaking activities for many learners withdifferent levels and interests The suggested solutions are also presented in theirstudy As for them, there are some things that teachers should follow in order topromote success of multilevel classes not only in speaking lessons but also in otherones

According to the information from the article “University English classrooms

in Vietnam” (2005) by Pham Hoa Hiep, many Vietnamese teachers are conflicted,feeling that their circumstances oppose, or at least, militate against attempts to usecommunicative practices For example, they have to prepare students for agrammar-based examination, and have to finish certain content in the textbook in acertain amount of time They may have classes of 60 students, many of whom are

more concerned about the immediate goal – to pass exams, to get a degree, ratherthan the long term goal – to develop communicative competence

Moreover, in the article “Language and Vietnamese Pedagogical Contexts” by

Le Van Canh, the author mentioned “the pre-determined syllabus and prescribedtext book are also frustrating to teachers if they are committed to communicativemethods” or “….the obstacle to the implementation of the communicative approach

is the class size and the teaching schedule.” The author affirmed that the teacher isalways under pressure to cover the allocated syllabus in the time allowed

To conclude, this chapter has reviewed a theoretical framework of difficulties

in teaching English speaking skill including nature of language skills and oralcommunication, the skill of speaking and difficulties in teaching English speakingskill In the following chapter, the methodology used in the study will be dealt with

2.7 Development approach of speaking skills

In teaching English, teachers may face many of issues that prevent themfrom a good conduction such as: number of learners, types of learners, size of class,number of learning hours, and types of materials Therefore, the teachers must have

a good grasp of a variety of techniques and procedures through which learners’ability can be refined According to Byrne, D (1991:22, 23) there are three phrases

to develop learners’ oral ability They are briefly presented as follows:

The pre-speaking

In this phase, teachers are the centre It means that they work as aninformation provider, since they know English, select materials to teach and presentthe material in such a way that the meaning of the new language items asmemorable as possible as while the learners are motionless So far, oral materialsare written mainly in two forms in every course book They are dialogue and prose.And obviously these two forms must be presented in defend ways

According to Byrne (1991:22) introduction of the procedure in which the tendifferent steps are used to present a dialogue They are:

• Establish setting by using pictures At this phrase English should be used asmuch as possible,

• Draw out learners’ experience related to situation

• Explain some key words

• Set listening task by asking key information of the dialogue

• Ask learners to listen without looking at the books

• Allow learners to have a look at their books when necessary

• Ask the learners to listen and repeat

• Ask learners to pick up difficulties (good chance for learners to soak) andexplain difficulties

• Ask them to practice( Role- play)

• Ask learners to dramatize the dialogue

• It has been known that this procedure is perfectly and logically arranged.However, it is dependent on the learner’s competence so some steps can beleft out It is quite hard for Vietnamese learners to conduct the step tenbecause they are generally shy and time is limited Nine other steps are used

• Introduce the text New words and structures are given

• provide relevant practice,

• Set the reading task: make questions

• Ask the learners to read the passage in silence and find the answers,

• Ask learners to read again aloud and ask for the answer

• Explain difficulties they still have

• Do silent reading again because the learners need to go on the step nine

• Get the learners to talk about what they have to learner based on the previousanswers.

The while-speaking

Unlike the presentation phase, in this phase learners have to do most of thetalking Teacher provides maximum amount of practice Practice is usually in theform of activities or exercises to improve fluency of speaking Pair work or groupwork are used in this phase

The post-speaking

Learners need chances to speak English freely at this phase A real chance tospeak English takes place when the learners are able to use English naturally forthemselves, not for their teacher Group work plays an important part in makinglearners practice speaking By doing group work, all learners can have chance toparticipate in task Time can be saved and learners seem more confident

Byrne (1988:2) concludes that in order to improve speaking ability oflearners, three phases above should be followed orderly But in fact, they might not

be applied as expected due to time limitation, types of learners and materials in use.The phases can be overlapped or run into one another provided that we keep ouraim to get the learners to communicate However, teachers ought to pay attention towhat has been spoken by the students during the Practice and Production phases sothat they can see how far students have improved their speaking ability and whatmistakes they might produce

2.8 How speaking skill has been taught to ESL learners

Although several language teaching methods have been used to teachspeaking in a second or foreign language, three methods have dominated languageteaching in the past 60 years This section first briefly reviews each method andthen focuses specifically on how the method treats the speaking skill of adultlearners

The Grammar-Translation Method

In the grammar-translation method, students are taught to analyze grammarand to translate (usually in writing) from one language to another The keyinstructional goal is to read the literature of a particular culture According toRichards and Rodgers (1986), the main characteristics of the grammar-translationmethod are:

Reading and writing are the major focus;

The vocabulary studied is determined by the reading texts;

The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language practice”;

The primary emphasis is on accuracy;

Teaching is deductive (i.e., grammar rules are presented and then practiced throughtranslating); and

The medium of instruction is typically the students’ native language

The grammar-translation method does not prepare students to speak English,

so it is not appropriate for nonacademic adult ESL students who want to improvetheir speaking skill The method is not consistent with the goals of increasingfluency, oral production, or communicative competence of adult ESOL learners Ingrammar-translation lessons, speaking consists largely of reading translations aloud

or doing grammar exercises orally There are few opportunities for expressingoriginal thoughts or personal needs and feelings in English

The Audio-lingual Method

The audio-lingual method dominated English-language instruction for manyyears In this method, speaking skill is taught by having students repeat sentencesand recite memorized textbook dialogues The theory behind the audio-lingualmethod is that students learn to speak by practicing grammatical structures untilproducing those structures become automatic Then, it is thought, the learnerswould be able to engage in conversation As a result, “teaching oral language wasthought to require no more than engineering the repeated oral production of

structures concentrating on the development of grammatical and phonologicalaccuracy combined with fluency” (Bygate, 2001, p 15).

The theoretical basis of the audio-lingual method behaviorist is the concept

of good habit formation This theory proposes that for learners to form good habits,language lessons must involve frequent repetition and correction Teachers addressspoken errors quickly, in hopes of preventing students from forming bad habits Iferrors are left untreated, both the speaker and the other students in class mightinternalize those erroneous forms There is little or no explanation of vocabulary orgrammar rules in audio-lingual lessons Instead, intense repetition and practice areused to establish good speaking habits to the point that they are fluent and automatic

- that is, adult ESOL learners would not have to stop and think about how to form

an utterance before speaking

Audiolingualism “rapidly lost popularity, partly as a result of the strongtheoretical arguments that were advanced against it, but also because the resultsobtained from classroom practice were disappointing” in several ways (Ellis, 1990,p.29) Many learners lost interest in language learning because the pattern practiceand audio-lingual drills were boring Adult learners often felt hampered becausethe method downplayed the explicit teaching of grammar rules In addition, thememorization of patterns “did not lead to fluent and effective communication inreal-life situations”(p.30)

“While audiolingualism stressed oral skills (evidenced by the amount of timespent in the language laboratory practicing drills), speech production was tightlycontrolled in order to reinforce correct habit formation of linguistic rules”(Lazaraton, 2001, p 103) This sort of tightly controlled practice does notnecessarily prepare learners for the spontaneous, fluid interaction that occursoutside the classroom

Communicative Language Teaching

During the 1970s and 1980s, language acquisition research (anddissatisfaction with the audio-lingual method) made TESOL professionalsreconsider some long-standing beliefs about how people learn languages As aresult, communicative language teaching arose.

CLT is an approach to the teaching of second and foreign languages thatemphasizes interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning alanguage

In this method teachers often downplay accuracy and emphasize students’ability to convey their messages (Hammerly, 1991) Accuracy is the extent to whichthe adult ESL learners’ speech matches the native speaker norms Fluency is thespeed, ease, and naturalness with which ESL learners communicate orally.Proficient speakers are both fluent and accurate, but at the lower levels, fluency andaccuracy often work against one another That is, to be accurate and apply learnedrules, adult ESL learners may speak hesitantly or haltingly To be fluent inconversation, they may overlook the time-consuming application of rules Theinstructional implications are that teachers should not focus only on accuracy, butshould use both form-focused and fluency building activities in adult ESL classes

In some language teaching methods, such as Total Physical Response, thefocus is on input-based activities In contrast, communicative language teachingmethods feature more interaction-based activities, such as role plays andinformation gap tasks Curricular choices, such as task-based and project-basedactivities also promote interaction Pair work and group work are typicalorganizational features of interaction-based lessons in communicative languageteaching

Concluding remark

It can be seen that of all the approaches stated above, which have dominatedlanguage teaching in the past 60 years throughout the world, the first two, i.e., the

Grammar-Translation method and the Audio-lingual method, have proved to remaincertian drawbacks in the current teaching of speaking skill, especially that to adultlearners, whose characteristics regarding psychology, mindset and ability inlearning to speak English require productive methods rather than inactive ones.

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Overview of the subjects of the study

In general, the non-English major students do not have the same level ofEnglish language proficiency Some of them have learned English for 7 years; somehave 3 years of learning English at high school where only written English is taughtand some has never learnt English because at secondary and high school, they learntFrench or Russian This big gap has a certain effect on the students’ learningattitudes

They can hardly communicate in English as they often feel shy The studentsare incapable of using their English to talk in class due to their lack of socialknowledge as well as their poor English knowledge, so they keep silent during thelesson Moreover, the traditional methods of teaching of teachers can be the othercauses

Also, the students’ attitudes towards learning have much influence on theeffect of teaching Some students think that English is not a major subject and notuseful for their future job So the students have born in their mind that the final goal

is to pass the exams In addition, the majority of the students do not haveappropriate learning strategies or the habit to learn independently or creatively As aresult, they never prepare the lesson at home or review the lesson regularly

At the end of each semester, students have to participate in a final test thatconcentrates on grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing During one semester,students are required to do at least a midterm test (the number of test depends onteacher) in order to be given marks to be qualified to participate in the final exam.

3.1.2 Teachers

Obviously, if students are the most important factor in the learning process,teachers are the most significant factor in the teaching process At VU, there are 20teachers of English aged from 35 to 60 but none of them have ever been to anyEnglish-speaking countries Of 20 teachers, four were trained at Hanoi College ofForeign Languages- Vietnam National University, only one was trained from VU asfull-time course, and the rest used to be teachers of Russian, French and Chinese butthey took an in-service English course at VU and now work as non-Englishteachers Eleven out of twenty teachers have been teaching English from 6 years toover 20 years and have acquired considerable pedagogical competence However,the method of teaching, which is applied by most of the teachers at this University,

is a very traditional one – the Grammar Translation method Other methods arerarely used by them In addition, the results of a recent study carried out by theresearcher show that non-English major teachers at VU confront a lot of difficulties

in teaching English, especially speaking skill to non-English major students Theyclaimed about many problems in teaching speaking skills in English classes.According to them, these problems were originated from themselves-teachers ofEnglish, students and objective factors Therefore, it is very necessary for non-English major teachers to find out effective ways to minimize the difficulties inteaching English so as to improve the quality of English speaking lessons

In terms of teacher’s qualification, two of them have acquired Ph.D degree; twelve have M.A degree (60%), while the rest (30%) have B.A degree and are about doing M.A courses Each teacher has to teach 3 or 4 classes, each of class has

more than 50 students They are required to use the textbook “New Headway

Pre-interemediate the third edition ” by John and Liz Soars to teach 105 periods of the

training program

3.1.3 Course book

The teaching material currently used for the non- English major students is the

“New Headway Pre-interemediate the third edition ” by John and Liz Soars.

This textbook treats the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writingthoroughly and combines traditional methods of language teaching and more recentcommunicative ones

The 12-unit textbook is programmed to be taught in 2 semesters as presentedbelow in Table 3.1

Table 3.1: Distribution of Time and Units in 2 Semesters

Semester

The number

of credits

Time (50- minute lesson

1 3 45 lesson periods per 15 weeks 1-5 New Headway

interemediate the third edition

Pre-2 4 60 lesson periods per 15 weeks 6-12

There are 12 units, each accompanies with a topic familiar to learners andincludes such parts as grammar, vocabulary, practice exercises and communicativeskills However, the course book appears to focus on grammar and grammarexercises other than communication skills This can be easily noticed on the veryfirst page of the book, which presents each unit with a topic and all grammar items

it is about, without any skills named As considerations go further to contents ofeach unit, this seems to be proved right Activities for speaking skill, for example,are not found to appear until unit three To be more detailed, all activities and topics

or drills in terms of speaking skill in the course book are presented as the following

Table 3.2: Speaking activities and topics/drills in the course book “New

Headway Pre-interemediate the third edition”

Unit Speaking activities Topics/drills

world

6 Pair workDiscussion Things comparisionMoney, life, work

7

It can be learned from the table that the variety of speaking activities islimited, with discussion as the most common It therefore depends very much onteachers’ experience and enthusiasm to design speaking activities that motivatestudents and improve their speaking ability

3.2 Methods of the study

This study is conducted as a qualitative and quantitative study, in which,interviews questionnaire are used to collect data One of the outstanding features ofthe quantitative methodology is its objectivity According to Burns (1999), thequantitative approach is employed when the researcher aims at attaining objectivity

and control as it is held that it can “offer ways of testing hypothesis that are widely accepted or standardized” (1999:22) Hence, to obtain an overview of difficulties in

teaching and learning speaking skill in English classes experienced by teachers andstudents at VU, a survey will be conducted among the teachers Moreover, to have acomprehensive picture, a similar questionnaire will be delivered to the first-yearnon-English students in the 2nd term

However, according to Burns (1999), qualitative research is the methodology

of studying the participants’ opinion, actions and experiences through interview,observation and published information One strong point of the qualitative method

is that the collected data is usually “extensive” and “detailed” (Burns, 1999:23) For

these reasons, the author would like to carry out in-depth interviews with a number

of teachers and students so as to gain deep understanding of difficulties in teachingEnglish speaking skill to non-English major students at VU Their insights are ofgreat use for the process of analyzing data

3.2.1 Participants

In order to get information to fulfill the aims of the study, first and foremost, thesurvey was conducted among two different groups of subjects The first questionnairewas administered to 20 teachers who teach English to non-English major students at

VU The researcher selected them as the subjects of the study with the hope to findout the difficulties they encounter in teaching English speaking skill to non-Englishmajor students at VU

The second questionnaire was administered to 100 non-English major students

at VU They were chosen from two classes- NN1-111, NN1-112 at the end of thesecond semester of the academic year 2014 Most of them are from 18 to 23 yearsold and they are first-year students Only first-year students of 2nd term were chosen