Survey research into an assessment of students’ speaking skill by teachers at equest academy

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN QUỲNH ANH SURVEY RESEARCH INTO AN ASSESSMENT OF STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL BY TEACHERS AT EQUEST ACADEMY Nghiên cứu việc đánh giá kĩ nói Tiếng Anh học viên giáo viên học viện anh ngữ Equest M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 HANOI – 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN QUỲNH ANH SURVEY RESEARCH INTO AN ASSESSMENT OF STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILL BY TEACHERS AT EQUEST ACADEMY Nghiên cứu việc đánh giá kĩ nói Tiếng Anh học viên giáo viên học viện anh ngữ Equest M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 Supervisor : Assoc Dr Ngơ Hữu Hồng HANOI - 2017 DECLARATION I declare that the materials in this thesis have not been submitted previously or concurrently in the whole or as part of requirements for a degree of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Thesis deposited in the library I also certify that the work presented in the thesis is to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text Any help that I have received during the preparation and completion of this thesis has been acknowledged In addition, I certify all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis Date: 2017 15 Signature: I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was accomplished with the help of many people First, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc., Dr Ngô Hữu Hoàng for his guidance, invaluable advice, and constant encouragement He has been my mentor academically and personally His constant encouragement has helped me complete this thesis My further gratitude goes to the English department chairs at ULIS Especially, Assoc Prof Dr Lê Hùng Tiến, Assoc Prof Dr.Lê Văn Canh, and Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn , who have shared their knowledge with me during my study I am grateful to all the research participants, including my teacher colleagues who helped arrange the field work for me Many thanks go to all my friends, Hiền, Ngân and Trang who gave invaluable advice and a lot of encouragement to me I would also like to express my appreciation and heartfelt gratitude to my parents who have always believed in me and supported my dreams I also thank my sisters: Thuỳ Linh and Quỳnh Mai for their cooperation all through Most of all, I would like to thank my husband, Quang Vũ, for his love, care, emotional and intellectual support, for his continuous encouragement, and bearing with me during all the tough times The completion of my master program would be impossible without him II ABSTRACT The present study investigates the teachers‟ classroom speaking assessment in EQuest Academy, a famous English center in Hanoi The data is collected from questionnaires and interviews where teachers were the only targeted respondents 10 teachers recently working in EQuest participated in the questionnaire and are interviewed The results have revealed that classroom speaking assessment currently conducted in EQuest Academy has broadly employed performance-based tasks and that somewhat informative feedback has been offered to students in the form of criterion descriptions plus marking scores, one which resulted in teachers having an overall pessimistic attitude towards the positive effects of such testing on teaching and learning It is evident from this study that there is need for improvements in order to facilitate better learning outcomes in the classroom Since EQuest teachers are not trained adequately the theory speaking assessment, there is less confidence in assessing students‟ speaking skill The study also finds that the speaking assessment tasks used by EQuest English teachers are those which gave the students less psychological burden; are timesaving and designed for the convenience of construction and administration and not demand the teacher to take the role of an interviewer III TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT .III TABLE OF CONTENTS IV PART A: INTRODUCTION I Rationale II Background to the research II.1 English education in EQuest Academy .2 II.2 Characteristics of English assessment in EQuest Academy III Research aims IV Research questions PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter One: Literature Review 1.1.Key term definitions 1.1.1 Test vs Assessment 1.1.2 Classroom speaking assessment 1.2 The advantages of classroom assessment 1.2.1 Academic advantages 1.2.2 Advantages for speaking assessment 1.3 Issues related to reliability in classroom assessment 1.4 Issues related to validity in classroom assessment .9 1.5 Teachers' perceptions 10 Chapter Two: Methodology 11 2.1 A qualitative approach .11 2.2 Steps in the selection of participants 12 2.2.1 Questionnaire participants .12 2.2.2 Interview informants .13 2.3 Data collection procedures 14 2.4.Data analysis .15 Chapter Three 18 IV Findings and Discussions 18 3.1 Findings 18 3.1.1 Teachers' perceptions of speaking assessment in EQuest .18 3.1.2 Positive effects of classroom speaking assessment on teaching and learning 19 3.1.3 Types of speaking assessment tasks used by EQuest teachers 20 3.1.4 Teachers' perceptions of the practical constraints in conducting communicative speaking assessment 24 3.1.4.1 Difficulties caused by the class .24 3.1.4.2 Difficulties caused by the students .25 3.1.4.3 Difficulties caused by the teachers .26 3.2 Discussion 27 PART C: Conclusion .30 I Recapitulation 30 II Implications .31 III Limitations of the study 32 IV Suggestions for further study 33 References 34 APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE I APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS III APPENDIX C: PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM AND PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET V APPENDIX D: SUMMARY OF INTERVIEWEES’BACKGROUND INFORMATION .VI V PART A: INTRODUCTION I Rationale In Vietnam there has long been discussion about how Vietnamese people speak English, and this discussion usually arouses strong feelings in people Like many other Asian countries, Vietnamese people begin their English education very early at school, yet they find themselves helpless when it comes to speaking English Words not come out Many Vietnamese students have the words, they either heard them or read them but they can't say them The reason might be that oral skills have not usually been emphasized in Vietnamese schools and oral skills are not tested in the matriculation exam However, speaking skills are increasingly important in work life, and many Vietnamese students have expressed the need for learning better oral skills and thought speaking to be the most important area of learning in English As a result, many Vietnamese take part in extra English classes in English centers like EQuest, RES, ILA and so on Obviously, there is a clear need for better oral skills, but the means how to achieve them are still developing My study focuses on the assessment of oral skills, and I wanted to emphasize English classrooms in EQuest Academy, not in any schools because of the following reasons Firstly, recently there are so many students learning English outside schools and most of the feedback and evaluation they receive come from their teacher during those lessons in English centers without being affected by national education system I wanted to investigate how teachers assess students‟ speaking skill in everyday classroom situations where time and equipment are limited Personally, I also find this topic interesting as I am also a teacher of English in EQuest Academy, a famous English educating center Secondly, in Vietnamese schools, there are few opportunities to evaluate students' speaking skills because speaking assessment is not administered in any formal exams including the high school entrance exam and English education puts a greater emphasis on passing the entrance exam By contrast, in EQuest Acadery, students‟ speaking ability is tested regularly Thirdly, assessing speaking in a normal classroom situation has some obvious problems such as limited time and the large class of around 20 people if the situation is not recorded? Creating equal test or evaluation situations during lessons is also challenging II Background to the research II.1 English education in EQuest Academy In EQuest, an English language program is officially offered for all students at differrent levels with a variety of English courses (pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced) The curriculum has put an increasing emphasis on enhancing students‟ oral communication skills However, there are few opportunities to evaluate students' speaking skills because speaking assessment is not administered in any formal exams including the high school entrance exam and final course examination Unlike with the curriculum focus, in practice, English education in almost school in Vietnam which puts a greater emphasis on passing the course exam EQuest Academy emphasis on enhancing oral communication skills, classroom assessment is widely practiced in EQuest classroom For many students in EQuest, classroom assessment is the only opportunity to have their speaking skills assessed when they take tests such as the Test of Spoken English (TSE), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Despite the strong recommendation of assessment by classroom teachers, there is still a challenge which stems from the emphasis for a measurement driven orientation toward assessment In other words, even if the rationale for classroom assessment is to provide both students and teachers with information about their current level of speaking skills and how to improve their speaking skills on the basis of their real language performance, teachers are nevertheless under pressure from such a policy to reflect the results of classroom assessment as a certain portion or percentage of the students‟ final courses II.2 Characteristics of English assessment in EQuest Academy High stakes test situation In EQuest, most of students learn English for IELTS or TOEFL certificate to study oversea, so English assessment plays an important role in determining whether students move to the higher level This accounts for a high stakes test situation in class High stakes testing refers to tests upon which test-takers‟ futures or study plans In other words, test outcomes are likely to affect the students‟ future careers or life directions Because of the substantial impact of such assessment on students‟ futures and careers, students and parents are greatly concerned with their grades of English in EQuest and the accurate judgment of this assessment work by their teachers Therefore, under the high pressure from students and parents, EQuest English teachers tend to develop less subjective testing in order to improve reliability and objectivity Assessing four discrete skills The high stakes test situation influences the traditional exam-dominated culture in Vietnamese schools For instance, in terms of the assessment format, pencil-and paper tests prevail and the style is based on multiple choice questions where the correct response is sought to each This test format may be seen as improving assessment reliability and objectivity because as Hughes (2003) points out, no judgment is required on the part of the scorer so that scoring may be objective At the same time, teachers are supposed to assess all four language skills in a balanced manner so as to satisfy the assessment guidelines as noted in the previous section Consequently, teachers tend to assess the four skills separately More specifically, conventional pencil and paper tests assessing reading comprehension including grammatical knowledge are the primary type of assessment while speaking and writing assessments which not have any authorized assessment tools, may be conducted as part of classroom assessment III Research aims Despite the increasing attention paid to assessment of foreign language learners in recent years among linguistic scholars and practitioners, few studies have been found concerning teachers‟ perceptions on assessment of students‟ speaking skill, especially ways in which different teachers‟ perceptions affect how students speaking skill would be assessed The present study is to investigate what features classroom speaking assessment present in the situation where it is expected to achieve both pedagogic usefulness and meet the desired measurement purpose Also, this study explores whether the current practice of classroom assessment in EQuest Academy can be effective in terms of pedagogical benefits and speaking assessments There is still a strong tendency here towards traditional formal testing This study showed that EQuest teachers agreed with the effectiveness of speaking assessment because it motivated students Most teachers expressed a strong desire to learn how speaking assessment can be effectively and efficiently administered in EQuest classroom context To solve the problem, there may be the need for EQuest teachers to change their perceptions of assessment: from being a tool for measurement to one for learning In fact, changes in individual beliefs are even more difficult than implementation of the new policy or an innovation Thus, it is important to support for teachers to try new ways of communicative assessment This can be achieved by conducting in-service teacher education programs, in which teachers have opportunities to retrain and refresh themselves in communicative speaking assessment One of the major reasons which teachers gave for not conducting communicative speaking assessment was the perception that the speaking assessment tasks suggested for ESL contexts could not meet needs of learners in EQuest Thus, it is suggested here that EQuest teachers develop their own appropriate version of the communicative speaking assessment suitable for their EFL classroom situations More importantly, EQuest teachers need to be aware of the shift in social and educational requirements of international examination (IELTS, TOEFL) Therefore, teachers need to make conscious and persistent efforts to introduce more communicative speaking assessment into their classrooms and to be equipped with some measurement tools to evaluate their students' oral proficiency III Limitations of the study The most obvious limitation of this study is the small number of participants Because of this, the findings cannot be generalized to other English teachers in Vietnam There are some limitations in this study The first possible limitation resides in the choice of participants The lack of regional balance may not be sufficiently representative of the whole teaching population The second limitation is related to the questionnaire As Thomas (2003) indicates, unlike interviews, questionnaires rarely provide opportunities for participants to receive any clarifications of confusing items Due to this, the wording of some of the questions might cause 32 some misunderstandings for respondents Lastly, the absence of the students‟ view of the effectiveness of classroom speaking assessment remains a limitation of this study due to the difficulty in recruiting young people IV Suggestions for further study This study sought to explore the EQuest English teachers' perceptions of conducting communicative speaking assessment For further research there is a need to extend the scope of the investigation and to select a range of teachers providing a regional balance By including students‟ perceptions in the study along with those of teachers and also balancing teacher participants across the nation, a more complete picture of the purposes and practices of classroom speaking assessment in Vietnamese schools can be drawn and also an improvement in the level of confidence given to the authenticity of the results, effected 33 References Adamson, B., & Davison, C (2003) Innovation in English language teaching in Hong Kong primary schools: One step forwards, two steps sideways Prospect, 18, 27-41 Bachman, L and Palmer, A S (1984) Some 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( Yes / No) → If you answer „No‟, please go to No → If you answer „Yes‟, please go to No What is your real purpose of assessment ? Please indicate in effect for what purpose you employ classroom speaking assessment, and approximately how much times you typically spend on them in your curriculum Time spent (hrs) Assessment of students for class placement Pre-topic planning Ongoing programming (lesson planning) Ongoing student assessment (e.g marking, feedback) Final evaluation of topic/unit of work Providing information to others (e.g parents, school) Following the policy of EQuest academy Others Methods of assessment: Please indicate 1) which of the following methods you use in your course; and 2) how many times you use it (or them) during a semester Methods of assessment observation of students in typical speaking activities during I Frequency regular classes marking of a specific test tasks peer assessment self assessment Others: ※ This is for those who choose the second option, ‘marking of a specific test tasks’ in No Please indicate the kinds of tasks/ activities that you use and how often you use these activities and please tell how many times you use it (or them) during a semester Frequency 1.Let the students pick up one or two questions Show and tell Self-introduction or family introduction Role play Rote memory of text dialog Picture description Information gap activities Please indicate the format of feedback that you use ( for open- ended question) ① only a score of marking ② criterion description plus score of marking ③ oral feedback given ④ written feedback given Thank you for your participation If you are willing to participate in the follow-up interview, please put a tick and let me know your contact details Yes, I can □ Contact details: (email) @ (phone) II APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS How long have you worked in EQuest ? What is your language teaching approach? What are assessment methods? What is the language element focused on in the assessment? What you perceive the function of classroom-speaking assessment? Do you perceive any positive effects of classroom speaking assessment on teaching and learning? If you have any difficulty in conducting classroom-speaking assessment, what are they? III IV APPENDIX C: PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM AND PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM (QUESTIONNAIRE) I have read the accompanying letter explaining the project named “Survey research into an assessment of students' speaking skill by teachers at EQuest Academy” The project is being conducted by Nguyễn Quỳnh Anh, a Master student of English Teaching Methodology, and supervised by Assoc.Dr Ngơ Hữu Hồng from the University of Languages and International Studies I understand that:  The participation to this study is voluntary;  I will be asked to participate in a questionnaire survey on classroombased speaking assessment  It will take about 10 minutes;  My confidentiality and privacy will be respected, future publications resulting from the study will use pseudonyms to ensure the anonymity of persons;  I may request a copy of any publications arising from the work;  I can withdraw my consent at any time without explanation In that case, my record will be destroyed, and the data will be removed from the data analysis;  I can contact Quỳnh Anh on quynhanhnguyen04091988@gmail.com or +84 1644 958825 to request further information about the project I agree to participate in the above mentioned research project conducted by Quỳnh Anh under the supervision of Dr, Ngơ Hữu Hồng Name _Signature Date V APPENDIX D: SUMMARY OF INTERVIEWEES’BACKGROUND INFORMATION Teacher Teaching Teaching approach Main experience assessment Focus method of assessment (Year) Mainly a grammar- translation Role-play with a Accuracy in the method partially combined with a dialogue given in a role-play communicative language teaching textbook and and method interview using suggested questions task fluency in the interview beforehand Both grammar-translation method and communicative language teaching method Interview using a set Fluency of accurate questions suggested beforehand use of and target grammar Mainly a grammar-translation method partially with a combined Reciting useful sentence None (i.e., giving communicative points language teaching method students something if say in English during the class) Mostly 6 grammar-translation method Mainly a Reciting useful Accuracy sentences a grammar-translation method partially with a combined communicative language teaching method Question and The extend of answer: answer a set conveying of meaning, questions prior to given the assessment especially knowing and language features Mainly 10 a grammar-translation method partially with a combined communicative language teaching method VI Speech: demonstrating a written script based on memorization Fluency using ...VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN QUỲNH ANH SURVEY RESEARCH INTO AN ASSESSMENT OF STUDENTS’. .. suggests that Qualitative data analysis requires organization of information and data reduction Thus, the researcher is required to reorganize and select related information from disordered, unorganized... 28 preparation Teachers' perceptions of theory of speaking assessment This study also indicated that EQuest teachers were not equipped with an adequate theory of communicative speaking assessment