enhancing third year non english major students participation in speaking lessons through collaborative activities at hanoi university of business and technology

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -  - NGUYỄN THỊ MINH HÀ ENHANCING THIRD-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY (Tăng cường tham gia sinh viên năm thứ ba không chuyên học nói thông qua hoạt động cộng tác trường Đại học Kinh doanh Công nghệ Hà Nội) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 HA NOI – 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -  - NGUYỄN THỊ MINH HÀ ENHANCING THIRD-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY (Tăng cường tham gia sinh viên năm thứ ba không chuyên học nói thông qua hoạt động cộng tác trường Đại học Kinh doanh Công nghệ Hà Nội) M.A Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Đỗ Bá Quý, MEd HA NOI - 2010 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rational and statement of the problem for the study Aims of the study Scope of the study Research questions/ hypothesis Method of the study Organization of the thesis PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical backgrounds of speaking 1.1.1 Nature of speaking 1.1.2 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity 1.1.3 Problems with speaking and speaking activities 1.2 Theoretical backgrounds of collaborative learning (CL) 1.2.1 Definitions of CL 1.2.1.1 Definition 1.2.1.2 Collaborative learning versus competitive learning 1.2.1.3 Collaborative learning versus cooperative learning 1.2.2 Key factors of successful CL 1.2.3 Benefits of CL 11 1.2.4 Types of grouping 13 1.2.5 Learner’s roles 14 v 1.2.6 Teacher’s roles 14 1.2.7 Role of instructional materials 15 1.2.8 Collaborative activities (CA) 15 1.2.9 Previous studies on the topic 16 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18 2.1 Background of the study 18 2.1.1 The teaching and learning conditions 18 2.1.2 The syllabus 18 2.1.3 The description of the material used 19 2.1.4 The learners 19 2.1.5 The teachers 20 2.1.6 The participants 20 2.1.7 Teaching practice at HUBT 21 2.2 Data collection instruments 22 2.2.1 Classroom observation 22 2.2.2 Students’ reports 23 2.2.3 Questionnaires 23 2.2.4 Interviews 23 2.3 Data collection procedures 23 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 25 3.1 Students’ attitude towards speaking practice in class and pair and group work activities 25 3.1.1 Students’ attitude towards speaking practice in class 25 3.1.2 Students’ attitude towards pair and group work in speaking activities 26 3.2 Factors affect their involvement in speaking activities 27 vi 3.2.1 Topic of the discussion 27 3.2.2 Leadership 29 3.2.3 Proficiency level 31 3.2.4 Grouping 32 3.2.5 Conflicts during discussion 34 3.2.6 Shyness 35 3.3 Students’ distribution of participation in CA 35 3.3.1 In “Case Study” lessons 35 3.3.2 In presentation project 38 3.4 Students’ nature of participation in CA 38 PART C: CONCLUSION 40 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology ESL/ EFL: English as a second or foreign language CL: Cooperative learning/ Collaborative learning CLL: Collaborative language learning CA: Collaborative activities LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Some matters related to grouping before and after the application of CA Table 2: Conflicts during discussion before and after the application of CA Table 3: Students’ distribution of participation- class Table 4: Students’ distribution of participation- class LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Cooperative learning outcomes Figure 2: Students’ attitude towards speaking practice in class before the application of CA Figure 3: Students’ attitude towards speaking practice before and after the application of CA Figure 4: Students’ attitude towards pair or group work before and after the application of CA Figure 5: Students’ desire for leadership in pair or group work Figure 6: Students’ distribution of participation- class 1&2 PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale and statement of the problem for the study In the globalization age today, English is considered as a means of international communication and an important instrument to link many countries all over the world The demand for teaching and learning English in the world as well as in Vietnam is increasing Among four main skills, speaking skill plays an important role in English teaching in the context of Vietnam For many students, speaking is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language in general and in English in particular However, many EFL students find this skill most difficult to obtain Through working together in speaking class, students have opportunities to strengthen both their academic language proficiency and basic interpersonal communication skills However, through my own teaching experience and my class observation, there are some problems in building up well-functioning groups or pairs in speaking class such as students‟ unwillingness to involve activities, inequality in students‟ participation in speaking group work, overwhelming Vietnamese use in English discussion, students‟ attitudes to repeated or boring activities in class, students‟ lack of cooperative skills, etc Therefore, for such a young teacher as the author of this research, to create and control pair work or group work effectively in speaking lessons for the third-year non-English major students is really a challenging work To my surprise, even though all of my students in two classes got accustomed to group work in second language learning, most of them still suppose that working in pairs or groups in speaking lessons is merely the action of putting all participants in groups, then each member try to complete their task mainly individually and competitively then they combine the results of each individual‟s to make the final one After the first lessons with each class, I found out that the most problematic issue of getting efficient speaking lessons is students‟ participation and their working attitude towards team work Furthermore, this situation was obviously serious when I discovered that in all four classes of third-year students I taught, about half of the groups (often with four to six members) felt disappointed with their group work effectiveness and found this kind of learning activity so tough to deal with smoothly and productively; one-third of the groups were quite happy with the common work they achieved together; and only one-sixth of them were truly satisfied with their mutual team work efficiency and found a little difficulty in practicing speaking English together Nevertheless, all of the learners complained their peers‟ participation in group work Most of the complaints focused on team members‟ laziness, „hijacking‟ attitudes, lower English proficiency and the bad working habits due to the lack of collaborative skills Especially, the team leaders criticized the ineffective collaboration among teams in which every member competed against each other to get the easy tasks, so most of the hard ones would fall on the heads of the groups Meanwhile, many teammates felt annoyed as other members (often the higher proficiency learners) overwhelmed them Consequently, there was less time for them to practice speaking English and they had not many opportunities to raise their voices Besides, to some extent, the students‟ attitudes on the way the institute, particularly the English department assess their achievement in acquiring a second language, have great influence on their effort in participating in group work It means that there are not a few learners consider practicing English just a compulsory on-task activity and just take part in group work more enthusiastically if they are going to be marked what they in the group Additionally, as a matter of fact, marks for speaking skill only occupy a small percentage of the total mark at the end of each module (7.5%); thus, the motivation to be more involved in practicing English in group is still questionable with very practical English learners For such reasons, I pick up collaborative activities and tried to apply them in my own EFL speaking lessons in hope of bringing students better study environment and opportunities to take part in speaking lessons as well However, it is still very challenging for both teachers and students To build up such environment is an essential part of teacher‟s role in class so that good team players can become more willing helpers and prompters for weaker ones in the groups Also, there are good opportunities for not very good members to participate in-group discussion with more confidence, enthusiasm and creativeness Accordingly, the author of this study takes it into consideration and conduct an action research titled “Enhancing third-year non-English major students’ participation in speaking lessons through collaborative activities at Hanoi University of Business and Technology” Aims of the study This is an action research project It is aimed at, firstly, investigating the effectiveness of using collaborative activities in teaching speaking to the third- year students at HUBT Secondly, based on the results of the study, the research aims to provide some practical suggestions for better use of collaborative activities in speaking classes Theoretically, the study supplies the English language teachers with the understanding of collaborative activities in terms of their types, advantages and disadvantages The study also suggests some ways to successfully exploit collaborative activities during the stages of teaching speaking Pedagogically, the findings and comments of this study are believed to be relevant to improving the teaching of speaking skill to students at HUBT The study may help teachers to make their speaking classroom more active and effective so that they can help their students develop speaking skill as well as other language skills Scope of the study In terms of collaborative activities, the researcher just applied some of them according to Kagan (1986, 1995) such as Numbered Heads Together, Jigsaw, Peer Tutoring, Cooperative Projects, Think – Pair – Share in speaking lessons In terms of language skills and participants, the author of this study only focused on speaking skill integrated with other language skills Apart from the first speaking lesson, the five other ones (in the section Case Study of the current course book) were implemented at HUBT for two classes of third-year non-English major students in the second semester (school year 2009 – 2010) Research questions/ hypothesis The study aims to test the effectiveness of collaborative activities as a teaching technique to motivate students to participate in speaking lessons Thus, the hypothesis is that collaborative activities can be used to enhance students‟ participation in speaking lessons To test the hypothesis, there are three research questions: How are the students usually involved in speaking activities? What are the factors affecting their involvement in speaking activities? To what extent collaborative activities increase students‟ involvement in speaking activities? Methods of the study The research is conducted basing on both qualitative and quantitative methods Firstly, quantitative approach was utilized to investigate fully the participants‟ performance in collaborative activities in speaking lessons The data collected will go through analysis and yield conclusion about the subjects of the study In each speaking lesson, group discussion is observed directly by group leaders and mainly by the researcher The checklists and field notes are carefully noted down to show what really happens in group discussion using collaborative activities The observation forms are based on the model initiated by Wallace (2001) and Hopkins (1993) In addition, questionnaires which aim at investigating students‟ attitudes towards speaking lessons, their learning habits in previous lessons and their opinions of the effects of collaborative activities on their involvement in speaking lessons Closed questions and rating scale responses are used to help the researcher have detailed countable data Besides, qualitative approach is also involved in the process of data collection The learners‟ ideas in their reports after each lesson or in the semi-unstructured interviews with their teacher (either face-to-face interviews or online chatting) contribute much to the data analysis Then the researcher can process the data and draw conclusions on that matter that to what extent CA can help students enhance their participation in class Organization of the thesis This paper is designed with three main parts namely Introduction, Development, and Conclusion The first part, Introduction, briefly introduces the general background information of the study such as the rationale and statement of the problem for the study, the aims and significance, scope, research questions and the method dealt with in the study The second part of the thesis is Development, which include three chapters Chapter One provides the literature review relevant to the study on the two major issues: collaborative learning approach and speaking skill Then some key information about the teaching practice at HUBT, the participants, data collection instruments, methods of data analysis and procedure of the study are presented in Chapter Two The last chapter, Chapter Three, describes the analysis of a range of data, and discusses and interprets the findings of the study Finally, the Conclusion discusses conclusions drawn from the study, comments on the limitations of this research and makes some recommendations for further studies as well as the author professional development after the research V POST-TASK SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE I Attitudes towards speaking lessons Questions How you enjoy speaking English in class? Very much 33 Not very Little much 20 Very little Not at all How you enjoy group work or pair work? 46 0 a Students’ learning habits in speaking lessons Strongly Agree agree Working with others in groups in speaking 20 27 Don‟t know Statements Disagree 11 Strongly disagree 46 0 35 18 24 29 5 I am not afraid of being criticized if I speak in 22 31 0 29 4 11 35 34 0 22 17 24 17 41 13 45 lesson helps me to pay greater attention to the lesson I feel more confident if I speak English in a small group I feel bored if I have to speak English with another classmate I can speak English more in a small group English in a small group I want to pair with a person I like 21 I don‟t want to work in groups with people weaker than me at English I like working in groups with people who 24 respect my ideas I like working in groups with people who often 12 challenge me 10 I only like working in groups when I have 11 something to share 11 I feel safe if I make mistakes when I work in 10 groups 12 I feel uncomfortable when I work in groups if VI my idea is different from others 13 I enjoy practicing speaking with friends of other 35 17 3 sex III Participation in Collaborative Learning group in speaking lessons Statements In speaking lessons,……… I nothing Always Often Sometimes Never 0 17 41 11 34 13 I only listen to my teacher and friends and take note their ideas I only say something when the teacher asks me 0 33 25 I lazy working out the answers to the agenda items 0 24 34 I want to lead my team 20 27 I want my teammates to listen and approve my ideas 17 41 0 I ask my classmates for their ideas 29 23 I share my ideas with my peers 42 16 0 I ask the teacher what I am not clear 16 19 20 10 I give reasons for what I say 36 18 11 I am confident enough to work on my own 18 15 22 12 While working in groups, I speak more 24 26 13 I speak English more between me and another 23 23 12 27 16 53 classmate 14 I speak English more when the teacher asks me to speak individually 15 I keep silent if I have to work in groups VII APPENDIX WORK-GROUP OBSERVATION SHEET Students’ on-task (Adapted from Wallace 2001:117) Students’ distribution of participation (one-minute sweep) A B C D E F 10 Students’ nature of participation (Adapted from Wallace 2001:117) Categories: A B C = initiation = response – simple agreement = response – agreement and development = response – simple disagreement D E F = response – disagreement and development = structuring move (e.g Why don‟t we discuss…?) VIII Students’ off-task (Adapted from Hopkins 1993:105) A Talking not related to task assigned Doodling Daydreaming Wandering around Working at other tasks/ subjects Physically bothering other students Attempting to draw attention Other B C D E F IX APPENDIX COLLBORATIVE GROUP WORK/ PROJECT SELF-EVALUATION Name:……………………………………………… Teacher: Nguyễn Thị Minh Hà Group:…………………… Class: ……………………….Date:…………………… Project Topic/ Title:………………………………………………………………………………… How did you contribute to your cooperative project, in brief? ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… Did you work better and contribute to your cooperative project more than your team contribution before the time applying collaborative activities? ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… What you think of your teammates‟ contribution? Did they cooperate with you and with each other very well? How did they do/ say to show their disagreement or agreement? ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… Next time, what will you to improve your work and your team cooperation in the group work or cooperative project? ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… What you think your teammates should to make your team work more effectively? ………………………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………… Thank you for your cooperation! X APPENDIX LESSON PLAN Unit 8: EMPLOYMENT Lesson 4: Speaking – CASE STUDY: SLIM GYM Plan maker: Nguyen Thi Minh Ha I Class Description: Twenty-nine third-year students of HUBT II Time: 210 minutes III Objectives: Skills: After the lesson, students (Ss) are supposed to be able to: - Speak, listen to teacher and partners, ask other students and take notes during the lesson - Cooperate to each other to discuss and make final decision in the discussion - Train making-decision skills or leadership skills by managing the meetings (especially the group leader) Language: By the end of the lesson, Ss will be able to - Use vocabulary items related to employment topic (recruitment process, good staff retention, headhunting, etc.) which is introduced in the three previous lessons to listen to and talk about the topic: new general manager recruitment IV Teaching Aids: Textbook, white board, chalk, handouts, pictures, etc V Anticipated problems: - Students may lack vocabulary to talk about recruitment/employment Therefore, teacher should be ready to give Ss explanation and provide them some new words or phrases VI Teaching Method: Communicative Language Teaching – Collaborative Learning VII Procedure XI Time 15‟ Teacher’s activities Stages Students’ activities Warm-up - Ask Ss for their opinions about the key - Work individually to generate factors for getting a job? (intelligence, ideas personality, appearance, age, - Discuss in pairs and take notes experience, family background, - Present your ideas before the qualifications, etc.) Reasons? class  Think – Pair – Share 15‟ - Have Ss work together: - Work in 3groups Individuals + Divide the class into groups Ask contribute to their group work by them to draw and fill in the graph working out the seven basic steps about recruitment process with to recruit an employee of a steps company as they learned in the + Use graph to elicit Ss to remember previous lessons what they studied in the previous - Avoid making too much noise lessons about and what they could  Cooperative Project bring by using English to express + Ask Ss to look at the graph and tell the class about a recruitment process (as an employer or an employee) Suggested answer: Advertise a vacancy Train new staff - Work a probationary period Offer a permanent post Receive applications Shortlist the candidates Make a job offer Assemble an interview panel XII Lead in: Our duty today is to choose a new manager 15‟ Case - Ask Ss to read silently to capture the Study basic information about the company and - During that time, some Ss are Part 1: provide brief information about the asked to fill in the table on the Background company and its current situation: board with the information from Company -Ss work individually the background Based in Business aims Profit/loss? Reasons Image: positive/negative? Reasons? Find a new General Manager in response to… Requirements? Options? - Ask Ss to exchange their answers with - Ss work in pairs to check their their friends sitting next to them answers - Ask S to read aloud the background - Read aloud and answer the T and explain any new words or difficult expressions or pronunciation if necessary - Check the information on the board 10‟ Grouping - Divide class into groups: groups of - Each student counts the number, five, one group of four remember his/her and move to - Number each student in turn from to the group with the same number 6, and then group all of the students with - Select the team leader and the same number into a team secretary to take the minutes XIII 100‟ Part - Ask S to read the task guide and ask Tasks him/her to check their understanding of - The whole class listens what they are going to in the class 30‟ 4.1 - Ask Ss to read information about the - Read silently and take notes Listening four candidates for the post of General - Remember key information Pre- Director(p75) about each candidate Listening - Pair Tutoring: get Ss to help each other to learn by explaining words that the other does not know or translating if necessary - Go around the class and offer help if necessary: new words, explicit the meaning of the sentence,… While- - Ask Ss to listen and jot down what they - Work individually - take notes Listening can hear Play each recording (about one - Exchange the results with the candidate) twice next-to student (pairs)  join - Play the tracks once to check the key another pair to make a group of information the Ss should catch about four to share the candidates after listening 70‟ 4.2 Speaking - Discussion - Ask Ss to work in groups: using Peer Tutoring - Work in groups - Encourage volunteers or call two Ss to - Generate ideas and share with present their work partners/ teammates - Go around the class and offer help if - Listen to others and take notes if necessary necessary - Collect the mistakes while the S is speaking and give feedback after they finish presenting 40‟ - Ask 3- groups come to the platform - Present XIV Presentation to show their discussion in front of - Listen, take notes the class - Ask other groups listen and take notes - Or listen, take notes (comments) - After they finish presenting, collect comments from other groups + give feedback: point out both Ss strengths and weaknesses - Give them marks 5‟ Wrapping - Summarize the main points up - Ash Ss to draw lessons from - Speak and take notes discussion - Give homework: Write a letter offering the successful candidate TEACHING PREPARATION Unit 9: TRADE Lesson 4: Speaking – CASE STUDY: Ashbury Guitars Plan maker: Nguyen Thi Minh Ha Work in pairs to note down key information about the situation Prepare to present briefly the situation T calls presenters – ask the others to comment, compare – give feedback to the presenters Role play – negotiating: information-gap activities - Ss in one side (Ashbury Guitars/ KGC) discuss first - sides (4 participants) meet and negotiate to reach the last agreement XV LESSON PLAN Unit 12: LEADERSHIP Lesson 4: Speaking – CASE STUDY: ORBIT RECORDS Plan maker: Nguyen Thi Minh Ha Work in groups of three, read the background, write down some key information about Orbit‟s profile and make a graph to show the history and changes in the company Orbit Records Guidelines: - Head office: - Stores: how many? - Products/ service: where? What to now? … months ago … After the founder died … years ago … 20 years ago … Analyzing the results of the survey: work individually - in pairs - in groups of four Listening and Discussing: Number Head Together XVI LESSON PLAN Unit 13: INNOVATION Lesson 4: Speaking – CASE STUDY: STYLE IS EVERYTHING Plan maker: Nguyen Thi Minh Ha Jigsaw – Reading the background to get the requirements - Teacher: Prepare some 10 - 20 pieces of paper with the information printed already on each piece Mix up all the pieces and ask each student to take some pieces - Ss: Read the pieces they take carefully and in one team together put them in the correct order A Guidelines to competitors B Guidelines for presenters - The product of the competition is to encourage innovation in the clothing industry Any product with innovation features may be entered Describe any ideas for television or radio commercials Product concepts should be creative and have excellent sales potential Introduce your team Outline the structure of your presentation …………………… Cooperative Project - Speaking - Normally, when making a presentation, there is only one student prepares his/her own talk and then presents it before the class Even though the requirement of the task is working in a team, there is a trend that at the end of the lesson, each team gives one representative (often the one with the best English speaking ability of the team) to present - Now: Ss work in groups of five, together contribute their ideas and prepare to present before the class  Require Ss to cooperate very well and move to the next presentation smoothly X APPENDIX STUDENTS’ DISTRIBUTION OF PARTICIPATION (one-minute sweep) Students’ Codes C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 Students’ Codes C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 S1 12 14 19 22 20 S17 16 18 23 22 21 S2 10 15 14 S18 15 15 17 25 31 S3 15 18 17 23 24 S19 10 13 14 19 S4 11 16 20 21 S20 10 16 14 S5 S21 11 15 S6 15 13 17 21 19 S22 11 21 19 17 S7 9 11 14 24 S23 12 11 20 S8 5 7 14 S24 18 20 23 23 27 S9 17 15 22 23 25 S25 12 15 S10 19 21 20 25 22 S26 11 13 S11 19 23 30 28 28 S27 5 S12 17 17 22 26 26 S28 20 19 23 21 31 S13 23 25 27 35 38 S29 16 14 19 22 23 S14 10 10 16 Total 319 341 456 519 584 S15 11 13 25 15 Min- Max 1- 23 3- 25 5- 30 5- 35 7- 38 S16 16 12 18 Table 3: Students’ distribution of participation- class XI S30 10 13 S46 17 17 19 22 25 S31 19 21 26 32 36 S47 11 11 S32 23 24 26 25 33 S48 11 14 15 21 S33 6 11 16 S49 13 21 19 26 22 S34 12 15 S50 15 14 21 23 27 S35 9 12 19 S51 14 26 13 19 S36 11 11 14 15 18 S52 13 24 19 22 26 S37 S53 24 19 27 27 25 S38 13 15 21 19 S54 24 27 33 34 39 S39 12 17 21 18 19 S55 10 13 17 21 22 S40 11 12 14 S56 15 15 27 24 31 S41 21 27 25 30 37 S57 12 13 15 14 S42 11 S58 19 15 21 24 22 S43 13 Total 334 389 490 543 622 S44 15 17 16 21 Min- Max 2- 24 3- 27 6- 33 5- 34 8- 39 S45 16 16 18 25 32 Table 4: Students’ distribution of participation- class [...]... lessons at all or very little Their explanation for this matter in the follow-up interview mainly focused on their ability in using English This part often fell on the students of beginner English proficiency 3.1.2 Students attitudes towards pair and group work in speaking activities Students attitudes towards pair and group work in speaking activities after the application of collaborative activities. .. 12% in the number of students with little or no interest in speaking It was really a positive result when at the end of the course no one complained about their interest losing in practicing speaking in class Obviously, the students got more excitement and willingness to take part in speaking activities Nevertheless, there were still 6.9% of the students did not like practicing in English speaking lessons. .. students interest, participation, proficiency and responsibilities for their own learning Basing on the results of these previous studies, the author of this research would like to apply this learning approach to another type of subjects (non- English third year students) in another educational institute (HUBT) in Hanoi in speaking lessons to help the students involve much more in practicing speaking. .. “tomorrow's business leaders” It introduces intermediate English level students to the professional communication and language skills necessary for a wide range of business situations such as participating in meetings, negotiation and, socialization, etc Thus, speaking skill is at the heart of this course with the part of discussion, individually or in groups, is present at mostly every part of each unit... at Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT) The participants in this study is 58 non- English major third- year students They are from two classes whose major is Accounting of K12 The ages of the participants range from 19 to 22 To those students, English is not their majors but a compulsory subject in the courses During four -year course at HUBT, students have to attend about 216 English lessons. .. expanding the target training to areas of technology, the university was renamed Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT) in May, 2006 As its name suggests, the subjects like accounting, finance, corporate administration, foreign trade, etc are the main ones in the training program Besides, English is regarded as a very important subject because it serves a means of international communication... students of HUBT are often aged from 18 to 22 There are about 25 – 30 students in each English class However, the number of male and female students in the class is of great difference due to their majors, the females outnumber the males Two fields of Banking and Finance, and Accounting gain the domination by female students meanwhile other fields like Corporate Administration, Information technology, ... similar educational background Meanwhile, according to the aims of the English course, third- year students of HUBT are assumed to be of intermediate English level at the end of the 11th module with Market Leader, Intermediate 2.1.7 Teaching practice at HUBT The teaching practice of English at HUBT is based on the students specific needs, their ability and English proficiency, the aims and goals of the... sharply increasing number of both full-time and in- service training students, 116 teachers themselves cannot fulfill the demands of English teaching Thus, they have to invite a lot of visiting lecturers of English (approximately 150) introduced by official staff of HUBT Moreover, the turnover of those teachers is quite high This leads to, sometimes, inconsistent and unstable English teaching of HUBT... the students often feel shy or afraid of making mistakes because of their poor English and the lack of social knowledge as well Consequently, in English classrooms, the students usually keep silent and unwilling to take part in class activities That is the reason why for majority of students, using English to communicate is a tough challenge The students at HUBT are quite active and dynamic; many of ... titled Enhancing third- year non- English major students participation in speaking lessons through collaborative activities at Hanoi University of Business and Technology Aims of the study This is... involved in speaking activities? What are the factors affecting their involvement in speaking activities? To what extent collaborative activities increase students involvement in speaking activities? ... educational institute (HUBT) in Hanoi in speaking lessons to help the students involve much more in practicing speaking English in class In short, some basic theoretical backgrounds of speaking and