APPENDIX E TRANSCRIPT OF THE GROUP INTERVIEW- 123docz.net

Researcher: Hi everyone and thank you very much for coming here today. As mentioned in my email to you all, I have been carrying out my Master thesis on

“Difficulties in teaching TOEIC speaking skills to students at Bac Ha International University”. I intended to use two research instruments: Questionnaires and Group Interview. After the analysis of the Questionnaires for Lecturers and Questionnaires for Students, the eight most common difficulties faced by lecturers in teaching TOEIC speaking skills are drawn out. The “General difficulties” include students’

low level of speaking competence, students’ passive learning style, students’ low motivation level, and large and multi-level class while the most popular difficulties in teaching different parts of TOEIC speaking are difficulties in helping students to have appropriate intonation and stress (in all 6 parts), to improve their listening competence to understand questions in the recording (in part 3 – question 4 and part 5 – question 10), to recognize the relationship between the sender and receiver of the message (in part 5 – question 10), to support their answers with details, reasons and examples (in part 6 – question 11). This group interview aims at finding out your suggested solutions to these difficulties. All of them would be highly appreciated.

This interview will be recorded and transcribed later. Please be aware that the data from the interview will be kept confidential and will be used only for the purpose of this study.

So, let’s start with the first difficulty: students’ low level of speaking competence.

What do you think are the solutions to this difficulty?

Participant B: I think that it’s a very serious problem for all non English major students. This difficulty results from not good English education during their school

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English in BHIU. Hence, to solve this problem completely, I think we should spend more time and effort teaching students carefully from very first time they enter BHIU. That is to say, instead of supposing students to have already mastered the high-school English knowledge, we should provide students with basic English at first. It may take one or two terms but I’m sure it’s worth. Once students have a good basic English, they can catch up on with the college curriculum very well.

Participant A: I totally agree with Ms. B’s idea for a more careful teaching of first-year students. But what can be done to help current third year students to improve their English competence?

Participant C: As for students with low level of English competence in my class, I highly suggested them to join the other lower – level classes in their free time. I do hope that their hard work may quickly bridge the gap between them and the other students. By this way, weak students have a chance to revise their forgotten knowledge while they can still proceed their study as their plan. In particular, all of these bridging classes are totally free at our university if students ask for permission from the teachers in advance.

Participant D: Great idea. Beside these bridging classes, another free place for students to further practice their English speaking is joining BEC (Bac Ha English Club). I joined some of their events and found it a very interesting and useful environment for students to speak English. They may also get a lot of advice from senior students and hopefully may make progress in their English speaking study.

Participant E, F, G: Well-done!

Participant A: By the way, I would like to introduce to you a very useful website in which students can hold small English speaking meetings. It is in fact a free web- conference website. It is however very important for students to be instructed carefully before they start using their own conferences or meetings.

Participant B, C, D, E, F, G: Great! Can you send us the address of the website please?

Participant A: Sure, I’ll send it to your email after this meeting.

Researcher: Very good. Now, let’s move on to the second difficulty: students’

passive learning style.

Participant G: The problem of the education system once again. Students are used to listening to their teachers writing on the board, then noting down in their notebook. They prefer keeping silent or being “obedient” rather than speaking up or arguing with classmates and teachers. This is especially true for the classes, the majority of which are female students.

Participant E: That’s right. This passive learning style is just like a bad habit which has been lasting for so long, and hence it’s very difficult to brainwash our students.

Participant F: You two are a bit negative about our BHIU students. This passive learning style has been, to some extent, changed in Vietnamese subjects. However, as it comes to English, it seems to get more serious. From my viewpoint, we can change our students’ learning style gradually. As for me, I often give compliments on any arguments from students regardless whether they are correct or not.

Participant A: I increased the time for pair or group work, discussion and argument in my class. Whether it is in TOEIC reading, listening or speaking lessons, students are encouraged to work in a team and express their ideas freely. Sometimes, I allow them to speak in Vietnamese to make sure that they feel confident to give their ideas. Of course, English comments or questions are a bit higher evaluated and granted with some extra marks.

Participant E: To change students’ habit of “teachers’ reading and students’

writing”, I often prepare my lessons in power point which I promised to send to

explanations, examples and so on. A short test on so-called important notes is often carried out to encourage students to take careful note during the lesson.

Participant G: To make sure that students feel confident to speak up in front of other classmates, I usually assign the topics, for example, at the end of each lesson.

Students can prepare beforehand and feel it easier to express their ideas in English in the next lessons.

Researcher: Thank you very much for your suggestions. If there is no more suggestion for this difficulty, we should continue with the third one: students’ low motivation level.

Participant D: Students’ low motivation level? Is it due to the teachers’ teaching methodologies?

Participant B: In my opinion, students’ low motivation level may result from two main reasons. First of all, they themselves don’t like the subject or don’t feel that learning TOEIC speaking skills is important for their future career. You know, students are quite practical now. They don’t pay much attention to the subjects which may not be useful for them. The second reason is possibly the teachers’

teaching method. Perhaps we do not apply appropriate teaching methodologies to attract their attention.

Participant C: So, what is the solution to make students motivated? It’s seemingly very difficult to me.

Participant F: In my first lesson with my TOEIC speaking class, I asked my students to “Work in group and discuss the question: Is it necessary to study TOEIC speaking? Why (not)?” The students were quite excited to discuss these two questions. Some of them frankly said that TOEIC speaking is not really important, especially in comparison with TOEIC reading and speaking. It is also a fact in

knowledge of English and may help students to get their desirable job. This idea was then quickly argued by the other students who mentioned the role of TOEIC speaking in the real work place. It means that students must certainly communicate in English in the future work place and the skills they get from TOEIC speaking test will be of great importance and of great help to them to score more extra points in the eyes of the directors or the bosses.

Participant A: We can also add a fact that the students need TOEIC speaking skills right from the interview stage. By answering interviewers’ questions accurately, relevantly and rapidly, they themselves can increase their chances to get the jobs.

Researcher: What about further explaining about the reasons for the appearance of TOEIC speaking and writing in the new format of TOEIC test?

Participant E: Good idea. Obviously, the TOEIC test of reading and listening cannot evaluate candidates’ English competence completely. In addition, the requirements of the business world to search for employees who can not only read and listen but also speak and write in English well. Is it correct?

Researcher: Absolutely.

Participant B: And who knows in the near future when students graduate, a new requirement from industrial factories will be a complete TOEIC test with all four skills?

Researcher: Great. So, we must make clear the objectives of the TOEIC speaking subjects before we start teaching.

Participant C: To make my TOEIC speaking more interesting to students, I tried to use a wide range of communicative activities such as information gaps, role-play and discussions. These activities should be designed in the form of ESL games.

Participant D: For example, I used games for practicing minimal pairs as teaching the first part of TOEIC reading, you know, how to have acceptable pronunciation, intonation and stress. The redesign of these games may take a long time but it is really worth and does raise students’ motivation. I’ll send you some of my prepared games for this “reading” part.

Participant A: Thanks a lot, D. I would also like to share my games for the second part: picture description. That game is quite familiar to you all, I think. I often use the photos in the listening section and redesign a photo matching game for students.

Students are divided into 2 groups, a member of which goes to the board. There is a set of 10 photos in front of them. Their task is after listening to a description; they choose the correct photo and stick it to the board. The audiences are called on at random to make some description about the 10 photos. This game is quite funny and motivating to my students.

Researcher: Thank you very much for your great idea of A and D. Can we summarize all the ESL games which we have already used for TOEIC speaking classes and share with each other? I do think that we can attract our students’

attention and improve their motivation level. Please send it to me, say, within a week. I’ll summarize and synthesize all the games and send them all to our Dep. Is it ok?

All participants: Ok.

Participant A: I nearly forgot a very effect tool to motivate students, that is the use of visual aids such as power point, projector, video, graphs….. These tools will certainly make our lessons more catching to students.

All participants: Sure. We have been using these visual aids too.

Researcher: Now, let’s figure out possible solutions to the third difficulty of “large

Participant G: I suggest dividing students into smaller groups, say, groups of 4 or 5 students whose levels of English include intermediate (1 student), pre-intermediate (2 or 3 students) and elementary (1 or 2 students). By this way, good students may help weaker ones. Also, it’s also easier for us to check the group work rather than check the individual work which certainly takes a lot of time and effort, and it’s totally impossible for us to do within one or two periods.

Participant B: But the problem here is whether students work well in a group. I heard a lot of comments on group work that is only good students do the work and then the weaker ones naturally get benefits without doing anything.

Participant E: Therefore, before assigning students into groups, we must guide them how to work in groups. I mean how to assign work to each member, how to synthesize the individual work, how to evaluate the work from each member and give a mark to them. In other words, the group leader should be chosen and instructed carefully about his or her roles.

Participant C: That’s right. Another very important issue which should be taken into consideration is class management. Sometimes, it’s very hard for me to control them, especially during the group work time. The number of nearly 40 students within a class is too big and they make so much noise.

Participant F: To solve this problem, we need the aid from group leaders and the monitor once again. Each group leader should make sure that group members will express their ideas in turn. They should also adjust the volume of their voice so that the whole class won’t turn into a noisy market.

Participant D: What about the problem of knowledge delivered to students within a single lesson? I mean weak students can only digest very basic one while better students expect to get something more challenging. I met this difficulty in my class, you know, as basic knowledge is delivered, good students feel bored while weak

Participant A: I think that we should decide the amount of knowledge we transfer within a lesson basing on the outstanding students’ level of English competence. As we know, students belonging to pre-intermediate and elementary are prevailing in comparison to intermediate. Therefore, what we should introduce to students in class is only basic and slightly higher to make sure that all students can understand the gist of the lessons. As for intermediate students, we can assign extra tasks for them to do at home.

Participant B: And we’d better check them through email instead of in class. For instance, I asked my best students to list all the feasible structures besides those introduced in class to describe a photo. They’ll then send them to me by email and of course I’ll reply to them by email later on.

Participant C: Good idea.

Participant G: For specially weak students, I try to spend time talking to them personally to understand their problems. If they do need my help, I can try to teach them one extra class every week to help them keep up with other classmates.

Participant D: I’m not sure I can arrange my time or not for these free classes.

Researcher: I do think that G’s idea is very helpful to weak students. If we can, we should try it and for sure we’ll be happy with the result at the end.

So, we’ve just gone through the solutions to the 4 general difficulties in teaching TOEIC speaking. Let’s move on to the first specific one: difficulty in helping students to have appropriate intonation and stress.

Participant B: Poor pronunciation, especially intonation and stress are very common among non English major students who do not have a chance to learn pronunciation officially and carefully. Although our students did have an opportunity to study with foreigners during the first two years, the resulting

APPENDIX E TRANSCRIPT OF THE GROUP INTERVIEW

The frequency of teachers choosing scales of difficulties

The difficulty of students’ low motivation level