The frequency of teachers choosing scales of diffi- 123docz.net

Figure 1: Difficulties in teaching TOEIC speaking skills in general (From teachers’ perspective)

It is clear from the chart that there is a significant difference among the means of 9 general difficulties from the perspective of teachers. The difficulties caused by students’ low level of speaking competence, large and multi-level class, students’

low motivation level and students’ passive learning style are the most widely voted difficulties by teachers with comparatively high means of 3.42, 3.67, 3.75, 3.85. A surprisingly common feature of these four difficulties is that no teacher rated them as “not difficult at all”. The percentages of teachers regarding them as “extremely difficult and very difficult” are equal to or higher than 50%.

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Following these difficulties are those from students’ anxiety, lack of reference materials and lack of facilities with the means of 2.08, 2.33 and 2.5 respectively.

More than one third of the teachers voted them as “not difficult at all”.

It can also be seen from this graph that according to the teachers the difficulties stemming from themselves including their large amount of talk time in class, or their inappropriate error correction techniques are not really serious and do not trouble their teaching very much. Their means being less than half of the top four chosen difficulties clearly prove this fact.

There was only one teacher who suggested another difficulty of “inappropriate course book and syllabus”. She herself rated it as “difficult”. Her suggestion was, however, not supported by other teachers.

In short, from the perspective of teachers, the difficulties they met in teaching TOEIC speaking skills in general mainly stem from students (3 difficulties) and partly from an objective factor (1 difficulty).

3.1.2The specific difficulties

Teachers have difficulties in helping students to…….

Scales of difficulties (F)

Means Extremely

Difficult (x5)

Very Difficult (x4)

Difficult (x3)

Slightly Difficult (x2)

Not Difficult at all (x1)

Have intelligible pronunciation 2 3 4 2 1 3.25

Have appropriate intonation and stress 3 3 3 2 1 3.42

Use suitable vocabulary and structures 0 2 2 6 2 2.33

Answer the questions accurately, fully and relevantly 1 2 2 4 3 2.5

Use effective cohesive devices to connect ideas 0 1 3 5 3 2.17

Follow time limit 0 1 2 2 7 1.75

Improve students’ listening competence to understand the

questions in the recording 3 4 4 1 0 3.75

Recognize the relationship between the sender and the

receiver of the message 3 3 3 2 1 3.42

Support their answer with details, reasons or examples 3 3 4 1 1 3.5

F: The frequency of teachers choosing scales of difficulties

Figure 2: Difficulties teaching 6 different parts of TOEIC speaking test (From teachers’ perspective)

As it comes to teaching 6 different parts of TOEIC speaking test, the specific difficulties seem to be slightly more troublesome to teachers than the general ones with the means ranging from 1.75 to 3.75.

The teachers found it very difficult to help students to “improve students’ listening competence to understand the questions in the recording”, to “support their answer with details, reasons or examples”, to “recognize the relationship between the sender and the receiver of the message” and to “have appropriate intonation and stress”. These most popular difficulties have the means higher than 3.25. In particular, 6 or 7 teachers (50 or 58%) considered them as “extremely or very difficult”. There was no or only 1 teacher rating them as “not difficult at all”.

Just following these difficulties is the difficulty in helping students to have intelligible pronunciation with the mean of 3.25. This is comparatively easy to understand as pronunciation has a strong connection with intonation and stress.

Guiding students to follow time limit does not seem to trouble teachers very much.

7 out of 12 teachers said that it is not really a difficulty.

3.2 The difficulties in teaching TOEIC speaking skills from students’

perspective

3.2.1 The general difficulties

Teachers have difficulties with…..

Scales of difficulties (F)

Means Extremely

Difficult (x5)

Very Difficult (x4)

Difficult (x3)

Slightly Difficult (x2)

Not Difficult at all (x1)

Adjusting the amount of teacher's talk 9 11 12 29 34 2.28

Using appropriate error correction techniques 10 5 5 38 37 2.08

Students' low level of speaking competence 28 24 22 13 8 3.54

Students' passive learning style 26 27 27 13 2 3.65

Students' low motivation level 32 28 19 10 6 3.74

Students' anxiety 11 18 17 20 29 2.6

Large and Multi-level class 30 31 20 9 5 3.76

Lack of facilities 19 9 18 14 35 2.61

Lack of reference materials 18 17 10 15 35 2.66

Inadequate number of periods 1 4

The final test format 6

The frequency of teachers choosing scales of difficulties

The difficulty of students’ low motivation level

APPENDIX E TRANSCRIPT OF THE GROUP INTERVIEW