Strategies for coping with facetoface oral communication problems employed by firstyear English majored students at Thuongmai University

Strategies for coping with facetoface oral communication problems employed by firstyear English majored students at Thuongmai University ABSTRACT Economic globalization has prompted that the communicative approach plays an important role in language teaching especially in the context where English is a foreign language and the ultimate goal of language teaching is to improve the communicative competence of language learners Language learners can significantly improve their communicative competence by developing their ability to use communication strategies or strategies for coping with face to face oral communication problems Tha.

Economic globalization has prompted that the communicative approachplays an important role in language teaching especially in the context whereEnglish is a foreign language and the ultimate goal of language teaching is toimprove the communicative competence of language learners Languagelearners can significantly improve their communicative competence bydeveloping their ability to use communication strategies or strategies forcoping with face-to-face oral communication problems That’s also the aim ofEnglish Faculty students of Thuongmai University who are often preoccupiedwith developing their oral communication, which is needed to improving theiracademic performance, professional development, personal and socialeffectiveness

The present study discussed the challenges and complexities that mostlyfirst-year English major students encountered .Quantitative data fromquestionnaire and informal interviews with the first year students are used toanalyze and interpret to find out the frequency of communication strategiesused by the subjects to overcome the difficulties they coped with whenperforming speaking and listening tasks, from that help providerecommendations for English teaching and learning for communicativecompetence in Faculty of English, Thuongmai University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EOCS English Oral Communication Strategies

OCSI Oral Communication Strategies Inventory

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS

Along my graduation journey, I have received a great deal of support,encouragement, help and suggestions from my supervisors, classmates,friends and family, who have all played important roles in my presentachievement

First and foremost, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to Ms.Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, the supervisor of this graduation paper Her detailedcomments and useful advice have helped me shape my ideas and realize myaims She has also provided me with many useful materials as well asencouraged and created favorable conditions for me to fulfill this research.Therefore, it is an undeniable fact that this paper would have not beencompleted without her invaluable support

Secondly, I would like to show my sincere thanks to all the lecturers ofthe English Faculty whose lectures have enriched my academic knowledge ofEnglish during the past four years I am grateful to you for your help andtransfer of precious experience, which will prepare us for knowledge to comeinto practical works and for stable basis to actualize our dream career Also,

my particular thanks are sent to the Faculty of English for giving me a chance

to do the thesis

In addition, I warmly thank all my friends for their encouragement andprecious assistance throughout the process of writing the thesis Theirmaterial and spiritual support is a great driving-force for me Especially, Iwish to thank the majority of the first year students of Thuongmai Universityschool year 2020-2024 for their honest answers and individual share in theprocess of completing survey questionnaires

Last but not least, I wish to send special thanks to my beloved familyincluding, my parents, brother and sister for their endless love, understandingand whole-hearted encouragement throughout my research journey and life.Every you is an indispensable part and all are supportive that havehelped an undergraduated me finish my graduation paper smoothly Withoutall these people, the thesis would never have been successfully completed

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

This chapter is supposed to show the main reasons why the graduationthesis has been chosen and the organization of the study as well It providesmeaning of research subject, scope of the study and then the researchmethodology to help having specific overview about the mentioned issue

English has become the main factor for business and in the globalworkplace As a result, competence in English is an important requirement forany professional, working in an international business environment Englishcommunication skills are the key to succeed in a career path Englishproficiency is undoubtedly vital for all Thuongmai University students,especially those who are majoring in English

According to annalyzing, more than a half of the students who registerfor English major at Thuongmai University are from countryside and what Imean here is that majority of local school haven’t paid much attention tospeaking skill, instead they try to fulfill the vast knowledge in grammar andvocabulary, the teaching and learning of English is commonly grammar-focused and students’ English competence is measured by written exams Itcomes to the reason why in their first year, they have to make a lot of effort toimprove their speaking skill, in other words, it’s crucial for them to learn how

to speak correctly, smoothly and confidently since it’s the most basic thing to

be done before they start their major subject Moreover, the wrong spellingsome times create inferiority for the students

I myself had been very successful with the use of memorizationstrategies for learning English vocabulary and grammatical structures fromtextbooks written or translated by Vietnamese authors or scholars However, Iexperienced difficulty in expressing my opinion in academic contexts orcommunicating orally with foreigners in social situations Hence, face-to-face

oral communication (OC) is important problems for them and English oralcommunication strategies (EOCS) are defined as the tools that students ofEnglish Department use to overcome their English oral communicationproblems and develop their English oral communicative competence inacademic and social practices.

Given the importance of the ability to communicate orally in English,this study therefore discusses the challenge that first-year English studentsencountered, and the strategies they applied during their school year Theresults were analyzed and interpreted to find out the frequency ofcommunication strategies used by the subjects to overcome the difficultiesthey coped with when performing speaking and listening tasks It is hopedthat the outcomes of the present study will help promote a more genuinereflection on the speaking and listening proficiency of ThuongmaiUniversity’s first-year English major students

Therefore, I choose the topic: “ Strategies for coping with face-to-face oral communication problems employed by first-year English majored students at Thuongmai University ” to research I hope that this research will

provide not only first-year students but also all students who are in curriculum

of English Department with a relatively full and detailed view about how toimprove communication skill

1.2. Previous studies

To complete my study in the best way I have found and read manydocuments related to the topic I am currently working on I have read lots ofrelated materials such as books and previous studies in both Vietnamese andEnglish They are useful precious documents for me In relation to EnglishOral Communication Strategies (EOCS), there have been a large number ofresearchers who have studied this field not only in our country but also overthe world Of course, each researcher has their own direction and has aconclusion for their own studies The review of previous studies will show

remarkable data on students’ performance as using face-to-face oralcommunication to finish their subjects.

1.2.1. Studies Abroad

Kongsom (2009) have confirmed that CS training in the classroom couldliterally help students to communicate more effectively, raise students’awareness of CSs, and enhance students’ confidence in speaking English.Besides, formal training or formal discussion on CSs and the teaching of CSswill be useful among English teachers The reseach provide relatedknowledge and most important is the useful solution in class because theenvironment is the ideal and primary one for students to practice and mutualstudy After all, they could have useful advice and comments from theirteachers

Yasuo Nakatani (June 2006) focuses on how valid information aboutlearner perception of strategy use during communicative tasks can be gatheredsystematically from English as a foreign language (EFL) learners The resultshows that OCS includes 8 categories of strategies for coping with speakingproblems and 7 categories for coping with listening problems duringcommunication

Since Selinker’s (1972) identification of the concept of OCS, there havebeen several theoretical frameworks and definitions of OCS from differentperspectives These definitions of OCS have, to some extent, resulted indifferent classifications and taxonomies of OCS The literature reviewedfound that research studies on OCS were based on two perspectives – theinteractional and psycholinguistic, which were introduced by Tarone (1977,1984) and Færch and Kasper (1983, 1984), respectively

1.2.2. Studies in Vietnam

PhD Huyen Minh Bui (June, 2016) has studied this area before with theobject Vietnamese students in Transnational Education Advanced Programs inVietna and concluded that Vietnamese students were active and autonomous

language learners in their choices of EOCS To reach this conclusion, she laidout the theoretical background for definition, importance, purpose, format andsome types of EOCS Besides, she also pointed out some common obstaclesand mistakes of Vietnamese students understanding speeches or talking withnative speakers in English Her brilliant research has provided acomprehensive study of EOCS from the students’ perspectives and exploredhow they use these strategies to deal with their English oral communicationproblems and improve their English communicative competence.

Nguyen Thi Thu and Nguyen Thi Kieu Thu (2016) explored the CSsamong Vietnamese Non-majors of English at Intermediate Level hasrecommended raising students’ awareness of CS use in their oralcommunication along with incorporating a formal instruction on CSs inschool curriculum because by this way, students can have more chances toexpose to the use of CSs in class activities

With the close objects to my research, “ A study on improving Englishspeaking skill for first-year students in English Faculty at ThuongmaiUniversity” by Nguyen Phuong Anh (2018) examines difficulties whilespeaaking English of first-year English majored students and giverecomendations for students to improve their speaking ability as well assuggest some methods and activities for teachers to make English classesmore interesting and efficient The reseacher shows that a majority of first-year students at TMU have poor English speaking skill and suggests helpfultechniques to hopefully solve the problem

With the development of time, the studies on direct communication aremore popular both for English and other fields Almost research proved theuseful strategies of OC in academic and practical environment and the way toimprove speaking skill However, to develop the proficiency in Englishcommunication, the students need to understand the difficulties that they have

to face at first From that they can handle it and improve their speaking skill

Thus, this thesis will focus on the difficulties in verbal communicationpointing to first year English majored students of Thuongmai University and

then form the study: “Strategies for coping with face-to-face oral communication problems employed by first-year English majored students

at Thuongmai University ”

1.3. Aims and objectives of the study

Publication of the EOCS identified in this study will inform first yearEnglish majored students in selecting strategies to improve their English oralcommunication skills that are appropriate to their English proficiency andeducational and cultural backgrounds

The study is an understanding of the students’ perspectives, on both thebenefits and difficulties of studying in English major, aims at finding thevarious and functional strategies for coping face-to-face oral communicationproblems Each of idea and suggested solution is for the sake of first yearstudents, support them to invest more time and mentality improving the face-to-face oral communication Following that, it has the potential to benefitstudents enrolled in English Department at Thuongmai University The studymainly focuses on answering these 2 questions:

- What are the difficulties in the English oral communication learning process

of first-year English majored students at Thuongmai University?

- What are effective strategies to help first-year English majored studentsimprove their face-to-face oral communication?

1.4. Research subject

Face-to-face oral communication skills are fundamental to thedevelopment of literacy and essential for thinking and learning.Communication skills are vital for a student’s academic success and futurecareer prospects Thuongmai University is famous for its commerce majorand in today’s challenging economic environment, students must not only

possess academic expertise, but also the requisite skills to enhance theirlearning and employability prospects in the future.

The targeted subjects here are 150 Thuongmai University’s first-yearstudents in 2020-2024 school year who are particularly are in need ofbroadening their speaking ability All of them are supposed to take part inanswering the questionaire and 50 in those students are again accidentallychosen to answer the private interview I conduct this study on enhancing vitalskills of oral communication and providing potential suggestions for theobject to decide in which way they can do better and more effectively in theireffort of speaking English

1.5. Scope of the study

This study is focused on surveying the problems related to the face oral communication of the first-year students in English Department atThuongmai University in order to improve their English speaking skill so thestudy mainly focuses on surveying freshmen in Faculty of English atThuongmai University Additionally, the research will be involved in somecertain aspects such as speaking problems of students with their classmates,with their Vietnamese teachers, with foreign teachers or with other people.This is on the reason that depend on different speakers, they will havedifferent attitude and emotion to express their speech

of obtaining large amounts of information from a large sample of people.Researchers employ widely this kind of instrument to collect the primary dataand because of its huge advantages such as less pressure on respondents, not

under pressure of bias and straight forward analysis of answer (Gillham,2009)

The purpose of this instrument is to finger out the students’ attitudestowards improving English oral communication, their opinions about factorsaffecting learning English speaking and methods they applied for developingthis skill

1.6.1.2. Interview

The second tool used was private interviews, which involved 2Vietnamese open-ended questions to let the participants fell free to expresstheir thought and ideas There were 50 random students invited to personalinterviews with the researcher in the places and at times that are convenientfor them Each interview was recorded and might last from 15-20 minutes sothat the students could participate naturally allowing the content to bereviewed carefully

Also, the interviews aim to acquire information about factors theparticipants think that have particular impact on English oral communicationand solutions they may suggest to enhance their speaking skills

1.6.2. Data collection procedure

This part shows all steps to get information to find out the solutions forthe statement problems :

- Giving instructions to the students to fill out the questionaires and explainingeach part clearly With individual interview, I’m supposed to ask them first to

be able to take the record of their answers

- Collecting the students’ questionaires and recording the students’ interview

In the process of the survey, because of the limitation of directdistribution, a questionaire link has been sent to 150 freshmen who have beenselected basing on the class they are in For each class unit, about 20 out of 45students were required to fill out the survey First of all, data will be collected

in text, I will read and synthesize the related materials needed for the study

These provide suggestions to help me identify the problem and form the basis

of the research Then, I will collect data about OC of students at ThuongmaiUniversity Hence, it is useful for me to find out the mistakes they often madewhile speaking English with their teachers, friends and foreingers

To date, the purpose of combing questionnaire and interviews as thestudy’s instruments is to overcome the limitations of each one and optimizethe research findings

1.6.3. Data analysis method

After collecting data from the participants by using a questionnaire andinterview the data was analyzed and became percentage The researcher willanalyze the data as follows:

- Reading the result of the questionaire and interviews, taking note the maincontents collected from individual interview

- Composing tables to consider students’ problems

- Calculating the result and giving the conclusion based on the data analysis

In the process of analyzing, there’s supposed to raise some differentideas about one issue and that’s when I need to combine the result andanswers from both questionaire and the interviews to come out with the mostproper analyzing idea This figures will help me have a conclusion about theproblems in finding OCS for first year students in Thuongmai University andcomplete my study

1.7. Organization of the study

This study is divided into four chapters:

- Chapter 1: Overview

This chapter involves rationale, previous study, aims of study, researchsubject, the scope of the study, research methodology and organization of thestudy

- Chapter 2: Literature

In the second chapter, all the relevant theoretical background of theresearch is presented This chapter provides the most complete knowledgebase of OCS

- Chapter 3: Research finding

This chapter gives results of the research: the mistakes, difficulties andproblems in OCS employed by first year English majored students atThuongmai University

- Chapter 4: Recommendations

The last chapter which summaries and presents the limitations of thestudy, along with the suggestion for further studies The recommendations andsome suggestions for coping face-to-face OC of first year English majoredstudents at Thuongmai University would be also given

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter explains various aspects related to the topic ofcommunication skills, ranging from general to specific views It is startedwith background knowledge of communication, communication skills,listening and speaking skills

2.1 Overview about OCS

2.1.1 Definition of OCS

To understand what the first year students in English Department have todeal with when communicating in English, it is essential to consider thedefinition given by its creator and developer It is necessary to learn abouteach specific part of the research topic: oral communication, speaking skillsand communication strategies

2.1.1.1 Definition of Communication and Oral communication

Communication is a fundamental activity in our daily life and there aredifferent methods or channels by which we can communicate our messages,such as face-to-face meetings or emails According to Lynch (1996),

“Communication involves enabling someone else to understand what we want

to tell them, what is often referred to as our message.” The main purpose ofcommunication is to transmit an intended message to the listener successfully

In so doing, communication necessarily requires the use of language (Lynch,1996)

Communication is defined as a “mutual exchange between two or moreindividuals which enhances cooperation and establishes commonality”(Wenden & Rubin, 1987) Based on this definition, communication – bothspoken and written – is seen as a dynamic and interdependent tool that is used

in the negotiation of meaning between two or more people sharing someknowledge of the language being used (Savignon, 1983) The term oralcommunication is used to refer to communication that involves both speaking

and listening Oral communication is the process of verbally transmittinginformation and ideas from one individual or group to another Beingprepared, getting organized, connecting with your audience, using visual aidsand practicing are just a few of the ways you can perfect your oralcommunication skills.

2.1.1.2 Definition of Communication Strategies

The term “communication strategies” (CSs) has been defined differently

by many scholars over the past decades For instance, as proposed by Faerchand Kasper in “Strategies in interlanguage communication” London,Longman 1983, it is recognized as the ways learners utilized to avoidcommunication breakdown For Canale “From communication competence tocommunicative language pedagogy,” in J.C Richards & R.W Schmidt (Eds.),communication strategies (CSs) are employed for an attempt to boost theinteraction effectiveness Similarly, Bygate in “Speaking”, Oxford UniversityPress sees it as methods for accomplishing communication by utilizinglanguage in the most effective way

2.1.1.3 Definition of Oral Communication Strategies

Developed by Nakatani in 2006 “Developing an oral communicationstrategies inventory”, the Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (OCSI) iswidely used nowadays as a tool for statistical analysis to identify the learners‟general perceptions of strategies for oral interaction As proposed by the sameresearcher, the term “oral communication strategies” is used instead ofcommunication strategies in order to avoid terms that might exacerbate theconfusion regarding the taxonomies Specifically, oral communicationstrategies concentrate more on “strategic behaviors that learners use whenfacing communication problems during interactional tasks” Divided into twomain sections, the first part of the OCSI includes eight strategies for copingwith speaking difficulties (32 items), while the second part comprises seven

factors influencing strategies used to cope with problems when performinglistening tasks (26 items).

2.1.2 The importance of OCS

In our society, communication is an important vehicle that is used byhumans to allow them to manage relationships and to “recall the past, think inthe present, and plan the future” (Emanuel, 2011) In this sense, oralcommunication competence contributes to an individual’s social adjustmentand participation within interpersonal relationships because it enablescommunicators to confidently show more control over their lives (Emanuel,2011; Morreale, Osborn, & Pearson, 2000)

In education, oral language communicative competence in speaking andlistening is an important indicator of students’ academic, personal andprofessional success (Morreale et al., 2000) Emanuel (2011) conducted astudy of how college students spend their time communicating academicallyand found that the participants spent more than three quarters of their dailytime on oral communication activities, including listening and speaking, butonly a quarter of their time on reading and writing activities This is animportant consideration for educators because it suggests facilitating andencouraging more effective oral communication strategies for their students

2.1.3 Classifications of oral communication skills in English

2.1.3.1 Listening

According to Howatt and Dakin (1974), "listening is the ability toidentify and understand what others are saying This process involvesunderstanding of a speaker's accent or pronunciation, the speaker's grammarand vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning An able listener is capable ofdoing these four things simultaneously"

According to Rost (1991) "Listening is an active process requiringparticipation on the part of the listener” For example when someone listens to

a speaker, he/she processes the information mentally in order to construct an

answer During the listening process the listener is actively engaged Inlearning a foreign language, it is important to listen to what is transmittedwith a great deal of attention because this helps the listener to reproduceexactly, or almost exactly, what he/she hears Therefore, listening is not anisolated skill; we listen in order to understand what has been heard Moreover,the speaker and the listener must be interacting in a social context

According to Larsen- Freeman (1986) "It is through interaction betweenspeaker and listener the meaning becomes clear" This clarity suggests anunderstanding of what has been heard

2.1.3.2 Speaking

According to Dong Xiaohong (1994) speaking is "one of the mostnecessary language proficiency" Speaking, thus, seems to be the mostimportant skill that should be paid attention to in the process of teaching andlearning

Scott (1978) reveals that "speaking can be typified as an activityinvolving two or more people in whom the participants are both hearers andspeakers having to react to what they hear and make their contribution." Eachhas an intention or a set of intentions that he wants to achieve in theinteraction and an ability to interpret what is said to him whom he cannotpredict exactly either in terms of form or in terms of meaning Speakingrequires not only that learners know how to produce specific points oflanguage, such as grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary (linguisticcompetence), but also that they understand when, why and in what way toproduce language (sociolinguistic competence)

This analysis of researching has found that improvement in listeningskill has a positive effect on speaking Speaking and listening are intimatelyinterrelated activities in the learning process Particularly, there is a significantrelationship between listening and speaking Much debate continued to provethe increasing influence of listening skill on speaking We corroborate Rost

(1994) proposed three reasons to improve listening and speaking skills First,speaking provides a means of interaction for the learner, because learnersmust interact to achieve understanding, access to speakers of the language isessential Second, authentic spoken language presents a challenge for thelearner to attempt to understand the language as native speakers actually use

it Third, listening exercises provide teachers with the means for drawinglearners’ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, new interactionpatterns) in the language

2.2 Factors affecting the use of oral communication strategies

As noted by Cheng (2007), like other forms of learning, learning aforeign language or a second language is always influenced by differentfactors such as prior learning experience, learners’ social and culturalbackgrounds, effective and cognitive expectations about the language, anddifferences in the language teaching and learning approaches The followingsections present a review of previous research on the relationship betweenlanguage strategy use and learner factors (e.g., motivational orientation, socialand cultural background, language proficiency level, teaching and learningmethod, gender, academic major, and educational context) in EFL or ESLeducational contexts

2.2.1 Motivational orientation

There have been a number of definitions of learner motivation ineducation generally, and in second language learning in particular Ineducation, the term motivation is understood to mean the extent to whichlearners make choices about “the goals to pursue and the effort they willdevote to that pursuit” (Brown, 2007) In this definition, Brown hasemphasized that in second language learning, the motivation of languagelearners is considered to be one of the most significant factors determiningtheir success or failure in language learning (Brown, 2007)

In the current research the term motivational orientation will be used torefer to the reasons and goals for learning English in English Department byfirst-year students The term motivational orientation better reflects theresearch purpose and ensures accuracy of translation in both English andVietnamese.

2.2.2 Cutural background

Culture and language are quite intertwined and inseparable because eachaffects the other (Mekheimer, 2011) Research into the language culturerelationship suggests that language is “one of the dominant threads in allcultures” (Hall, 1997), while culture “colors semantic manifestation oflanguage” (Mekheimer, 2011)

Generally, research on second or foreign language acquisition has paidattention to the close relationship between culture and language because theaction of learning a new language enables language learners to open theirminds to other peoples and to increase their cross-cultural understanding(Citron, 1995) At the same time, language users are likely to bring their ownvalues, beliefs, cultural assumptions and communication strategies to theprocess of learning this language (Cheng, 2007; Lin, 2009; Yuan, 2012) Thissuggests that culture and language have an inter-dependent relationship

2.2.3 Teaching and learning method

A number of researchers have investigated how language teaching andlearning methods and the types of activities used in language classroomsinfluence the choice of language learning strategies (Oxford & Nyikos, 1989;Psaltou-Joycey, 2008)

As discussed earlier, Gardner’s (1985) social educational theorydescribes the relationship between individual differences and educationalcontexts This theory states that educational contexts play a significant role indetermining learners’ choice of language learning strategies (Gardner, 1985).Similarly, Rubin (1981) found that there was a close connection between

language strategy use and the activities and setting in which the learning tookplace Differences in language educational contexts can be classroompractices compared with natural social settings (Lafford, 2004), prestigiousuniversities compared with less prestigious colleges (Watanabe, 1990), orsecond language settings compared with foreign language settings (Lu, 2005).This section has reviewed the literature on the classifications andtaxonomies of OCS as well as the relationships between use of both Coping-OCS and Developing-OCS and learner factors (motivational orientation,social and cultural background, language proficiency levels, teaching andlearning methods, gender, academic major, and educational context) Thisliterature review has highlighted the contributions of previous researchers andidentified the gaps in the research that need further study.

2.3.4 Anxiety

The fear of speaking English is pertinent to some personality constructslike anxiety, inhibition, and risk taking Speaking a language sometimesresults in anxiety Sometimes, extreme anxiety may lead to despondence and asense of failure in learners (Bashir, Azeem, & Dogar 2011) According toWoodrow (2006), anxiety has a negative effect on the oral performance ofEnglish speakers Adults are very careful to making errors in whatever theytell In their opinion, errors show a kind of unawareness which can hinderthem to speak English in front of other people Speaking anxiety mayoriginate from a classroom condition with the different abilities of languagelearners Learners are divided into two groups: strong and weak ones Thestrong learners often dominate the slow and weak ones The weak learners donot usually want to talk in front of the strong ones which leads to their silenceduring the whole class activity

2.3 Oral Communication Strategies

Nowadays to enhance students’ English oral speaking abilities, therehave been numerous effective ways that were provided in many previous

studies In this study, chosen solutions tend to be divided into three fields thatare speaking skill, listening skill and psychological factors Also, thesemethods are mainly from students’ perspectives

2.3.1 Strategies for coping with speaking problem

There were many strategies to improve English speaking skill whichhave been discussed by many experts, as follows:

- Memorizing strategy

This category is used for memorizing items of language especiallyvocabulary It is also an important factor for speaking because vocabulary isone of important ingredients of speaking According to Oxford (1990,p.68) heexpressed that “ Learners can use memory strategies to retrieve targetlanguage information quickly, so that this information can be employed forcommunication involving any of four skills.”

You can start a smart memorizing method with rearrange involvingvocabulary , grammar with pictures and sentences It is believed to be theeffective way to keep in mind the knowledge in the long time

- Repeating strategy

Repeating strategies is also one of the most important ones use Englishspeaking skill Oxford (1990, p.70) claimed that “Repeating something indifferent ways can be a means of reemphasizing it” It can be essential ispreparing for presentations or public speaking He also stated that “Repeatingstrategy improves their pronunciation and their use of structures, vocabulary,idioms, intonations, gestures and styles which are all together combined toform the speaking skill

In this strategy, we can use turn-taking communicative method Thismethod requires that each speaker speaks only when it is his/her turn during

an interaction Knowing when to talk depends on watching out for the verbaland nonverbal cues that signal the next speaker that the previous speaker hasfinished or the topic under discussion has been exhausted and a new topic

may be introduced At the same time, it also means that others should begiven the opportunity to take a turn.

Repeating is a good way of correcting oneself and gives the speaker time

to do just that Recasting means changing the form of a message that couldnot be understood It allows the Speaker to say the message in another way sothat the listener can understand what was originally incomprehensible

-Planning strategy

Oxford (1990, p.159) said that “This strategy is always involvedidentifying the general nature of the task, the specific requirements of thetask, the resources available within the learner, and the need for further aids”.Therefore, this strategy helps in knowing what should be done to gain acertain task of speaking by determining the nature and requirements of thetask and by identifying one’s capacities and needs to do that task

Planning requires learners have certain intention and that help them tohave better orientation of their learning methods

-Self-evaluation

In this strategy, learners are supposed to evaluate their progress, andnotice to what extend they were successful in achieving their goals There aremany ways used to self-evaluate in speaking For example, learners canrecord their own speech on a tape and then listen to the recording to find outhow they sound Learners can also pay attention to the responses of native-speaking listeners when they speak They can ask themselves whether, givensuch signs, their speaking seems to have improved since last month or lastyear (Oxford 1990, p.162-163) Hence, self-evaluation is crucial strategy thathelps learners test their progress and the effectiveness of the strategies theyapply to enhance their speaking skill

2.3.2 Strategies for coping with listening problem

How to improve English oral communication through listening skill

Previous studies supported the finding that speaking and listening skillswere usually interwined in terms of language learning and development( Nooo-ura, 2008) As a result, it is essential to enhance English speakingabilities through listening Suggestions for EFL learners’ speakingimprovement included a variety of course activities, encouragement of morelistening through media, and seeking opportunities to speak in real situations.Moreover, practice and exposure to both listening and speaking activities inreal-world situations appeared to be a practical method to promote speakingconfidence ( Songsiri, 2007) Besides, there are other out-of-class factors thatenhanced participants’ speaking abilities included frequent listening toEnglish materials, such as listening to music, watching movies, listening tothe radio, watching television programs, and accessing multimedia websites.Another effective way to improve oral speaking abilities combining withlistening abilities is through imitation Most of the linguistic agree in judgingthe acquisition of a child’s first language to be one of the mysteries of humanlife, effortless in virtually any environment ( Lieberman 1991) Thus, learning

a language like a child would allow students to learn speaking more naturallyand easily Moreover, Parton (1976, 14) indicates that the infants acquirelanguage capacity by imitating what they hear and see Therefore, studentsshould have a habit of copying everything they could hear from nativespeakers, such as pronunciation, accent and so on and then keep practicing tillthey can speak proficiently

2.3.3 Strategies for coping with psychological factors

It is obvious that psychological factors become important and influentialelements which give a great impact on how the students acquiresecond/foreign languages particularly in speaking area Therefore, it isimportant to point out those psychological factors based on various theories

as follows:

2.3.3.1 Create strong motivation

Motivation is regarded as the desire of the students in learning alanguage It is not enough when the students just have the desire to learn thelanguage, the students also need to provide a great effort to reach their goal(Ortega, 2009) In learning second/foreign languages, motivation can bedivided into two factors, they are communicative needs of the students andtheir attitudes towards the language community (Lightbrown & Spada, 2001)

In this case, the students will be motivated in learning a second/foreignlanguage just because they need to learn and communicate it in a sociallarge scale to support their professional ambition in the future Therefore,they need to have a good attitude toward people who speak the targetlanguage because they need to have a contact with them Furthermore,Gardner (2001) believes that integrative motivation is the most dominant form

of motivation which is set in three kinds of condition, they are (1) the largeproportion of the integrativeness, (2) the students’ effort, investment, andenjoyment quantity in learning the language, and (3) the students’ attitudetowards teachers and curriculum used In addition, another factor whichcontributes to the students’ motivation is a manner or attitude to reasons ofwhy they want to perceive their intended result (Al Othman & Shuqair 2013)

In short, their motivation can influence their decision on being involved or not

to a certain situation in language learning such as in speaking class Students’motivation is a manner or attitude to reasons of why they want to

In class, students can take the final-semester result to be the motivationfor their learning method because it is the important one to help them havebetter result and study seriously The other source of motivation of studentscan also come from their family, friends and their future career

2.3.3.2 Minimize anxiety

Anxiety is a natural psychological aspect which contains the feeling offear which sometimes cannot be controlled (Javed et al., 2013) Foreign