An investigation into students’ engagement in English speaking activities at political academy

Students’ engagement in English speaking activities plays a crucial role in developing students’ English language proficiency in general and speaking skills in particular. On the bases of a thorough investigation into the situation of teaching and learning English at Political Academy, the researcher focuses on investigating the level of students’ engagement in English speaking activities, and determining the factors affecting students’ engagement in English speaking activities at Political Academy.

v DISCUSSION AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT IN ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES AT POLITICAL ACADEMY NGUYEN VAN TIEP* Political Academy,  nguyentiep13@gmail.com * Received: 05/4/2019; Revised: 10/5/2019; Accepted: 13/5/2019 ABSTRACT Students’ engagement in English speaking activities plays a crucial role in developing students’ English language proficiency in general and speaking skills in particular On the bases of a thorough investigation into the situation of teaching and learning English at Political Academy, the researcher focuses on investigating the level of students’ engagement in English speaking activities, and determining the factors affecting students’ engagement in English speaking activities at Political Academy Keywords: students, engagement, English speaking activities INTRODUCTION Hadfield (1999, p.7) says that “speaking is a bridge for learners between classroom and the world outside” Speaking is the main channel of verbal communication as learners need this skill to express their thoughts, ideas and feelings successfully Nonetheless, in many foreign language or second language environments, speaking is not considered as important as writing due to the fact that students whose grades are often assessed on the basis of writing performances At Political Academy, most students are at beginner and elementary English levels There exists a fact that speaking activities have not been truly carried out as most students keep silent or find it difficult to express their own opinions It can be seen from the class video recordings that the 68 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) students did their activities passively Furthermore, the students seemed to be demotivated in joining speaking activities Just a few students showed their eagerness to speak out in front of their classmates When other students worked in pairs or in groups, they frequently expressed their opinions in their mother tongue In addition, after breaking time, they looked tired and showed little motivation during their lessons Therefore, it is necessary to portray this situation as well as identify what the causes are The research was conducted to address two questions as follows: • To what extent students engage in speaking English in classroom? • What are the factors influencing students’ engagement in English speaking activities? DISCUSSION v LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of students’ engagement in learning Students’ engagement has become a major concern in language teaching and learning since 1960s It has been defined as “the extent to which students are engaging in activities that higher education research has shown to be linked with high-quality learning outcomes” (Krause and Coates, 2008, p 493) According to Erickson (1992), students’ engagement is a kind of active and individual classroom experience Additionally, Newmman (1992) indicated that students’ engagement is their psychological investment in and effort directed toward learning Moreover, Astin (1984) proposed a theory about students’ engagement - the involvement theory In which, he argued that student’s involvement refers to the amount of physical and psychological energy devoted by students to the academic experience Conceptually, Fredericks at al (2004, p.61) introduced a definition of engagement including three dimensions of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive Their work recapitulated a number of ideas and definitions related to engagement and compresses the term into three main categories; namely, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagements Behavioral engagement: Behavioral engagement is the students’ participation in academic, social and extracurricular activities Three main categories of behavioral engagement include positive conduct, involvement in learning, and participation in school-related activities Emotional engagement: Emotional engagement comprises of students’ attitudes, interests, and values related to positive or negative interactions with faculty, staff, students, academics, or institution This has also been called “identification” with school and learning practices Emotional engagement creates connections with schools and promotes students’ motivation to learn For emotional engagement, there are three main components, including students’affective reactions, emotional reactions, and school identification Cognitive engagement: Fredericks et al (2004) divides cognitive engagement into two components: psychological and cognitive Accordingly, psychological component comprises of motivational goals and self-regulated The latter focuses on the investment of students in learning as well as their motivation to learn In this study, the author employed all the three components: emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagements by Fredericks et al 2.2 Importance of students’ engagement in speaking activities Students’ engagement has attracted attention of researchers and educators worldwide “Students who are bored, restless, disruptive, and disengaged in the short term have clearly documented negative impacts on students, teachers, schools, and communities” (Gilbert, 2007, pp.4-8) The students who engage in learning could enhance huge gains in their academic, emotional, social, and behavioral achievements (Klem & Connell, 2004) Besides, students would be inspired if they were engaged into their learning in school They would enjoy classroom activities and highly appreciate the lessons During classroom activities, they would be motivated and become active in acquiring knowledge Furthermore, engagement in learning could build up their confidence in their study, get higher grades in exams, and comply with regulations (Dev, 1997) Students’ engagement in learning improved their performance and attendance, which in turn could produce good results in exam grades, league tables, thereby KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) 69 v DISCUSSION heightening school’s status (Kushman, Sieber, & Kinney, 2000) Students’ engagement, according to Kenny and Dumont (1995), is increasingly considered as a sign of successful classroom instructions Engagement would reduce the rates of problems related to discipline and absence When students are on-task and engaged, it seemed that teachers would face fewer classroom management problems METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research methods This study was conducted by employing both qualitative and quantitative research methods This helps to improve the evaluation by ensuring that the limitations of one type of data are balanced by the strengths of the other 3.2 Data collection instruments The data was gained through the employment of three research instruments, namely, a survey questionnaire, classroom observations, and a semi-structured interview, which were discussed in details as follows: The first data collection instrument is a selfreport questionnaire which serves the main purpose of the study, that is, to measure the selected students’ self-reported engagement Students were provided with items reflecting various aspects of engagement and they would select the response that best describes them The questionnaire consists of 15 items related to three dimensions of students’ engagement in English speaking lessons As its name suggests, surveyed students completed the questionnaire by themselves without the author’s assistance The researcher used mean of every single option to analyze results to examine the level of engagement of selected students (see Appendix 1) Apart from the survey questionnaire, classroom observation was also conducted in 70 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) order to double-check the data collected from the questionnaire with more focus on students’ behavioral engagement Observation was carried out by the researcher with the assistance of a checklist of a number of selected variables relevant to students’ engagement Students’ engagement in this study was coded by a classroom observation scheme Based on interactions between teachers and students in classroom, the information about students’ engagement was collected Classroom observations provided the researcher with the information including work arrangement, opportunity for students, and the number of speaking activities in the lessons Classroom observations help the researcher survey the real situation and compare with the information collected from the questionnaire In order to identify the factors affecting students’ engagement in English speaking activities at Political Academy, the results of questionnaire and observations were extended and elaborated by the use of qualitative interviews with both students and teachers The researcher designed a number of questions to ask the chosen teachers and students about factors influencing their engagement related to the three afore-mentioned dimensions of engagement in the literature review The questions are open enough to allow interviewees to express their thoughts, feelings or opinions freely During the interviews, the author flexibly used prepared questions depending on the circumstances (see Appendices 2, 3) 3.3 Participants In order to get information to fulfill the aim of the study, the researcher selected teachers as part of participants with a view to getting an insight into their opinions of possible factors affecting their students’ engagement in learning English speaking skills 45 first-year students of elementary English level were the key participants in this study DISCUSSION v DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 The extent students engage in English speaking activities This part identifies the extent to which students at Political Academy engage in English speaking activities The responses generated through the student self-report items were manually coded and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 The researcher used mean of every single option to analyze the results to examine the level of engagement of selected students The student selfreport questionnaire consists of 15 items, which were analyzed to examine three dimensions of students’ engagement: emotional, cognitive and behavioral engagements As a result, the higher the means of responses were, the higher level of students’ engagement in speaking activities was assumed to be Behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement survey items were drawn from a variety of measures (Wellborn & Connell, 1987; Finn et al., 1995; Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1993) and included new items developed for this study In Table 4.1, the descriptive statistics of student’s emotional engagement are presented With a possible range of mean values from to 5, the mean value ranges from 0.55 to 1.84 The number of students who circled Option B (Sometimes) was the largest In other words, mean value of Option B was also the highest (1.84) Meanwhile, the figure for Option C (Often) was slightly lower, at the mean value of 1.26 The mean values for Option A (Never), D (Usually), and E (Always) stayed quite low, at 0.55, 073, and 0.71 respectively These statistical results reveal that the majority of students were at the levels of “sometimes” and “often” (see Table 4.1) Thanks to classroom observations, the author got some insights into what was actually occurring inside the classroom and students’ emotions to teaching and learning English activities at Political Table 4.1 Responses by 45 students related to emotional engagement Items of emotional engagement by 45 students Total number of student’s responses to each option within Likert’s five-scale items A B C D E I feel motivated to participate in English speaking activities 6/45 13% 19/45 42% 9/45 20% 6/45 13% 5/45 11% I feel comfortable talking with my classmates in English 5/45 11% 16/45 36% 12/45 26% 6/45 13% 6/45 13% I feel focused during English speaking activities 5/45 11% 17/45 38% 12/45 27% 7/45 15% 4/45 9% I feel excited by the work in English speaking activities 4/45 9% 17/45 38% 13/45 29% 6/45 13% 5/45 11% I look forward to the next lesson when the lesson is over 5/45 11% 14/45 31% 11/45 24% 8/45 18% 7/45 16% 0.55 1.84 1.26 0.73 0.71 Mean Value Academy In the classes observed, the teachers did their best to engage students into the activities and arouse their interest In response, most of the students followed the sequence of activities, tried to liven themselves up, and strived to fulfill their roles in the assigned activities However, they all did their job as if they had been forced to during the activities Overall, the results presented in Table 4.2 showed that a majority of the students were on the important threshold of moving from “sometimes engage” to “usually engage” in terms of cognitive engagement More specifically, the mean of students choosing option B (Sometimes) was 1.53 This was about 0.2 higher than the mean of respondents opting for option C (Often) On the other hand, the means of students who circled options A (Never), D (Usually), and E (Always) were quite low, at 0.71, 0.84, and 0.60 respectively During the class observation, it seemed that just a few students were immersed in the tasks KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) 71 v DISCUSSION Table 4.2 Responses by 45 students related to cognitive engagement Items of cognitive engagement by 45 students Total number of student’s responses to each option within Likert’s five-scale items A B C D E I practice speaking English at home and in class even when I not have a test 5/45 11% If I not know how to pronounce a word, I actively look it up in the dictionary or ask someone 6/45 13% When teacher gives out a speaking activity, I get ready to participate in 5/45 11% 16/45 35% 12/45 27% 7/54 15% 5/45 11% I positively get feedback from teacher 9/45 20% 16/45 35% 10/45 22% 7/45 15% 4/45 8% I want to talk to my teacher/ friends in English in class 7/45 15% 9/45 20% 13/45 29% 9/45 20% 7/45 15% 0.71 1.53 1.33 0.84 0.60 Mean Value 15/45 33% 13/45 29% 12/45 27% 13/45 29% 8/45 17% 7/45 15% 5/45 11% 6/45 13% Many students wanted the lesson to be over as soon as possible In addition, a few students made efforts to talk in English while others did personal things after finishing their tasks Without teacher’s presence, the students stopped their discussion in English immediately There were a few students who were self-aware of their study In Table 3, the means of option B, C, and D were quite equal (1.24, 1.29, and 1.26 respectively It is noticeable that the means of option D in Table 4.3 was significantly higher than those of Tables 4.1 and 4.2 (1.26 compared to 0.73, 0.84) This suggests that students’ level of behavioral engagement was higher than the levels of emotional and cognitive engagement There is a remarkable difference in the findings between student self-report and class observation regarding behavioral engagement For some 72 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) Table 4.3 Responses by 45 students related to behavioral engagement Items of behavioral engagement by 45 students Total number of student’s responses to each option within Likert’s five-scale items A B C D E I always pay attention in speaking activities 2/45 4% 9/45 20% 12/45 27% 14/45 31% 8/45 18% I raise my hand to answer in English when the teacher asks a question 4/45 9% 14/45 31% 13/45 29% 9/45 20% 5/45 11% I actively participate in all English speaking activities 4/45 9% 10/45 22% 11/45 24% 12/45 27% 8/45 18% I strictly follow the teacher’s instructions and lesson’s regulations 5/45 11% 9/45 20% 12/45 27% 12/45 27% 7/45 15% When I am in class, I always present my opinions in English 5/45 11% 14/45 31% 10/45 22% 10/45 22% 6/45 13% 0.44 1.24 1.29 1.26 0.76 Mean Value participants, self-report results were consistent with their behavioral engagement in English speaking activities, whereas for some others, selfreport results contradicted their performance in class In fact, it was found that two students, who reported to have had high behavioral engagement in the survey questionnaire, appeared to demonstrate low engagement in class The inconsistency could be resulted from wrong self-assessment of students Another possible explanation could be that they had the desire to communicate, but for some reasons, such as personality and English competence, they withdrew from participation In order to reveal general tendency and characteristics of engagement among students at Political Academy, descriptive statistical analyses were collected from all items in self-report questionnaire Descriptive statistics of the overall students’ engagement are computed and presented in Table 4.4 below DISCUSSION v Table 4.4 Total responses by 45 students related to students’ engagement Items of engagement by 45 students Total number of student’s responses to each option within Likert’s five-scale items A B C D E Item - 15 73 208 175 128 88 Mean Value 1.62 4.62 3.88 2.84 1.95 As indicated in Table 4.4, the mean value of 15 items ranged from 1.62 (Option A) to 4.62 (Option B) That is to say, the number of students who sometimes engaged in English speaking activities was the highest (208), while the number of students never engaging in such activities was the lowest (73) All in all, the level of students’ engagement in English speaking activities at Political Academy moved from “sometimes” to “usually” In other words, the level of students’ engagement in English speaking activities at Political Academy was not particularly high 4.2 Factors influencing students’ engagement in English speaking activities Semi-structured interviews with individual students and teachers were conducted during the last week of the investigation Eight students: five students (group 1) with low level of engagement; three students (group 2) with high level of engagement in class, were selected among the participants for a semi-structured interview They were asked and answered in Vietnamese language This was to guarantee the truthfulness of the information in case the students were not confident enough to answer the questions in English or they might have got confused in understanding the questions In order to obtain more in depth-data, two teachers who participated in the classroom observation phase were also invited to attend interviews The interviews were summarized and analyzed as follows 4.2.1 Factors from individual student a Motivation This study found that motivation could be a major factor influencing students’ engagement in English speaking activities When being asked about the motivation in learning English speaking activities, all five students with low level of engagement shared that they had very little motivation More specifically, four of them admitted that English was a compulsory subject Therefore, they did not have time to invest much time in learning it Moreover, they added that English would be unnecessary for their career after graduation Another one said that he learnt Russian at high school, thus he could not catch up with his classmates in learning English As a result, he felt frustrated and bored with English Three students with high level of engagement thought that they felt motivated when learning English For the teachers, as far as motivation is concerned, they agreed that many students had little motivation to learn English Accordingly, the students mainly focused on using English for class assignments and exams Hence, it can be interpreted that motivation played as a crucial role in affecting students’ engagement in English speaking activities b Language anxiety As to the question concerning whether students felt confident when they were practicing speaking English in class, all students in group stated that they lacked confidence in speaking in English Different from students in group 1, all of the three students in group responded that they were quite confident when speaking English in class For the two teachers, they revealed that the majority of their students did not dare to raise hands to play roles in their speaking activity, very few of them were at ease and confident when speaking English From the responses in the interviews, it can be interpreted that the students with low level of engagement were much concerned about causing mistakes when practicing speaking English KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) 73 v DISCUSSION c English proficiency When participants of two groups were asked to rate their English proficiency in general, students from group placed themselves at low level of English proficiency On the other hand, the three students in group viewed themselves as being at the above average English proficiency level They indicated that they had learnt English since they were at primary school, so they had a firm basis of English; therefore, they felt comfortable to perform their English ability in class When interviewing the two teachers, the author found that most students were at considerably average and low English levels It can be inferred that English proficiency was also a factor influencing students’ engagement in English speaking activities The students with high level of English language proficiency tend to highly engage in speaking and vice versa 4.2.2 Factors from teacher’s teaching methods a Unauthentic and unfamiliar activity Being asked about the attitude towards teacher’s methods, all students in two groups had a common answer that their teacher’s methods were adequate and helpful Hence, it can be referred that teachers’ pedagogy did not significantly hinder the students from engaging in English speaking activities However, when taking a closer look at the teacher’s activity arrangement, all students in the two groups shared that speaking activities were merely based on their textbook Responding to this issue, one teacher expressed her view that she had to so due to the limited time The interview responses clarified that students did not think that teachers had given them appropriate speaking activities as those activities were unauthentic and culturally unfamiliar to them Meanwhile, the teachers thought that this was out of their desire, stemming from the objective element In short, the findings of in-depth interviews indicated that teachers did put forth efforts to accommodate students in speaking activities However, to a certain extent, speaking activities which heavily relied on their 74 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) course book hindered them from engaging in English speaking activities b Uneven participation When the students were asked whether the teacher gave them even chance for participation in English speaking activities, all of them had the same answer “No” The students from group shared that their participation rate was at low level The teachers admitted that they usually gave more priorities to the active students and the ones sitting at the front row In class, if a few strong students dominated, the rest would either listen or lose interests in their lesson As a consequence, the strong ones were more and more confident and active while the weaker ones became more and more passive 4.2.3 Factors from class arrangement Concerning the language teaching and learning environment at Political Academy, there were two emerging issues; namely, seating arrangement and class size These two factors were out of teacher’s control, stemming from Political Academy’s facilities and administrators a Seating arrangement The students shared that the traditional way of seating arrangement prevented them from fulfilling their speaking activities All the interviewed teachers expressed their discontent in the arrangement of tables and chairs in class Whenever a group work was organized, students had to change their seats This was considerably uncomfortable and time-consuming b Class size Along with the seating arrangement, the large number of students in English class could be also a factor influencing students’ engagement All the teachers expressed their view that they could not find a sound solution to the over-sized class In the English class observed, there were 45 students Within two 40-minute speaking activities, the DISCUSSION v teacher only managed to organize three speaking activities and she only had enough time to call 22 students to present their opinions in English That means a half of the students did not have chance to speak English in class CONCLUSION After analyzing the collected data, some major findings were revealed First, in terms of students’ engagement level, the findings demonstrated that the level of their engagement in English speaking activities at Political Academy was generally not particularly high In other words, the number of students who engaged in English speaking activities was more than those who disengaged in such activities Second, the factors mainly affecting students’ engagement in English speaking activities included students’ motivation, language anxiety, and English proficiency, the teacher’s teaching methods, and the classroom arrangement Hopefully, the results of this study could help English lectures and administrators to come up with some solutions to improving the level of students’ engagement in English speaking activities, contributing to enhancing the quality of teaching and learning English speaking skills at Political Academy./ References: Astin, A W (1984) Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education Journal of College Student Personnel, (25), 297 - 308 Dev, P C (1997) Intrinsic motivation and academic achievement: What does their relationship imply for the classroom teacher? Remedial and Special Education, 18(1), 12 - 19 Erickson, F (1992) Students’ experience of the curriculum, In: Jackson, P (Ed.) Handbook of research on curriculum New York: Macmillan Erickson, F (1992) Students’ experience of the curriculum In: Jackson, P (Ed.) Handbook of research on curriculum New York: Macmillan Fredericks, J A., Blumenfeld, P C., & Paris, A H (2004) School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59 109 Gilbert, J (2007) Catching the Knowledge Wave: Redefining knowledge for the postindustrial age Education Canada, 47(3), - Hadfield, J (1999) Simple Speaking Activities Oxford: Oxford University Press Kenny D and Dumont, R (1995) Mission and Place: Strengthening Learning and Community Through Campus Design Oryx/Greenwood Klem, A M., & Connell, J P (2004) Relationships matter: Linking teacher support to students’ engagement and achievement Journal of School Health, 74(7), 262-273 Krause, K and Coates, H (2008) Students’ Engagement in First-Year University Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 33 (5), 493 - 505 Kushman, J.W., Sieber, C., & Heariold-Kinney, P (2000) This isn’t the place for me: School dropout Alexandria, VA: American Counseling Association Newmann, F M (1992) Student engagement and achievement in American secondary school New York: Teachers College Press NGHIÊN CỨU MỨC ĐỘ THAM GIA CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN TẠI HỌC VIỆN CHÍNH TRỊ NGUYỄN VĂN TIỆP Tóm tắt: Mức độ tham gia hoạt động nói tiếng Anh có vai trò quan trọng phát triển lực tiếng Anh, nói chung kỹ nói nói riêng sinh viên Trên sở đánh giá thực trạng dạy học tiếng Anh Học viện Chính trị, báo tập trung điều tra mức độ tham gia hoạt động nói tiếng Anh, xác định yếu tố ảnh hưởng mức độ tham gia hoạt động nói tiếng Anh Học viện Chính trị Từ khóa: sinh viên, mức độ tham gia, hoạt động nói tiếng Anh Ngày nhận bài: 05/4/2019; ngày sửa chữa:10/5/2019; ngày duyệt đăng: 13/5/2019 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) 75 v DISCUSSION APPENDICES Appendix 1: SELF-REPORT QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS This survey is designed to collect information for the study on “An investigation into students’ engagement in speaking activities at Political Academy” Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated You can be certain that this is for research purpose only and that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Before answering the questions, please fill in some information: * Gender: Male/Female * Your age: ……………… * How long have you been learning English? ……………………………………………… Please tick the appropriate answers for the following questions A Never B Sometimes Category C Often D Usually Items I feel motivated to participate in English speaking lessons I feel comfortable talking with my classmates in English Emotional engagement I feel focused during English speaking activities I feel excited by the work in English speaking lessons I look forward to the next lesson when the lesson is over I practice speaking English at home and in class even when I not have a test If I not know how to pronounce a word, I actively look it up in the dictionary or ask someone Cognitive engagement When teacher gives out a speaking activity, I get ready to participate in I positively get feedback from teacher 10 I want to talk to my teacher/friends in English in class 11 I always pay attention in speaking activities 12 I raise my hand to answer in English when the teacher asks a question Behavioral engagement 13 I actively participate in all English speaking activities 14 I strictly follow the teacher’s instructions and lesson’s regulations 15 When I am in class, I am ready to present my opinions in English Thank you for the cooperation 76 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) A E Always B C D E DISCUSSION v Appendix 2: TENTATIVE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS Are your students motivated enough to learn English speaking activities? Are your students confident when practicing speaking English in class? If not, what are the reasons? Do you feel that your students were shy, anxious or awkward when they spoke English? Do you think that the speaking activities that you have taught are interesting and motivating enough for your students to speak? Why (not)? What is your opinion of the language teaching and learning environment at Political Academy? Does it accommodate you to teach speaking activities? How you judge your English language teaching methodology and your classroom techniques, especially your methodology on speaking skills? Do you give even participation for all students to speak during your lessons? Are the textbooks used suitable for you to teach speaking activities? What is your opinion of your students’ English proficiency? Are your students’ vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation proficient enough to complete assigned speaking tasks in the classroom? Appendix 3: TENTATIVE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS Do you feel motivated enough in learning English speaking activities? Why (not)? How often you volunteer to speak during your speaking lesson? Are you confident when practicing speaking English in class? If not, what are the reasons? Do you often feel shy, anxious or awkward when speaking English? How you assess the speaking topics and activities in the speaking textbook? Are they motivating enough? Why (not)? What is your opinion of your teacher’s methodology and classroom techniques? Are speaking activities interesting and inspiring enough for you to learn? What is your opinion of the language teaching and learning environment at Political Academy? Does it accommodate you to learn speaking activities? Are the textbooks suitable for your speaking activities? 10 What is your opinion of your English proficiency? Are your vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation proficient enough to fulfill speaking tasks in the classroom? KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ No 19 (5/2019) 77 ... collect information for the study on An investigation into students’ engagement in speaking activities at Political Academy Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated... solutions to improving the level of students’ engagement in English speaking activities, contributing to enhancing the quality of teaching and learning English speaking skills at Political Academy. / References:... engaged in English speaking activities was more than those who disengaged in such activities Second, the factors mainly affecting students’ engagement in English speaking activities included students’