(LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ) Difficulties in teaching English speaking skills to the tenth form students at Van Canh high school

NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS TO THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS AT VAN CANH HIGH SCHOOL Những khó khăn trong việc dạy kĩ năng nói cho học sinh lớp 10 trườ

NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS TO THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS

AT VAN CANH HIGH SCHOOL

(Những khó khăn trong việc dạy kĩ năng nói cho học sinh lớp 10

trường THPT Vân Canh) M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 601410

Hanoi, 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS TO THE TENTH FORM STUDENTS

AT VAN CANH HIGH SCHOOL

(Những khó khăn trong việc dạy kĩ năng nói cho học sinh lớp 10

trường THPT Vân Canh) M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Students‟ level of language learning 16

Table 2: Students‟ motivation for learning English 16

Table 3a: The frequency of using techniques 20

Table 3b: Students‟ opinions towards teachers‟ teaching speaking techniques 21

Table 4: Students‟ difficulties in speaking lessons 22

Table 5: Factors affecting students‟ participating in English classroom activities 23

Table 6: Students‟ expectation from the teachers 23

Table 7: The teachers‟ age and their teaching experience 24

Table 8: Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching English speaking skills 26

Table 9: Teachers‟ solutions to the problems 27

Table 10: Teachers‟ suggestions to overcome the difficulties 28

Figure 1: Students‟ attitudes towards English speaking skills 17

Figure 2: Students‟ opinions on the speaking topics in the textbooks 18

Figure 3: Frequency of students‟ speaking participation 18

Figure 4: Opportunities to use English outside classroom 19

Figure 5: Students‟ self-improvement of speaking skills 19

Figure 6: Teachers‟ attitude towards speaking skills 25

Figure 7: Teachers‟ techniques of teaching speaking skills 26

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract …iii

List of tables and figures iv

List of abbreviations v

Table of contents vi

Part A: Introduction 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and significance of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Research questions 2

5 Research methods 2

6 Design of study 3

Part B: The study 4

Chapter 1: Literature review 4

1.1 Communicative approach to language teaching 4

1.1.1 What is meant by communication? 4

1.1.2 Communicative language teaching 4

1.1.2.1 Nature of communicative language teaching 4

1.1.2.2 The techniques of communicative language teaching 5

1.2 Overview of speaking activities 6

1.2.1 What is meant by speaking skills? 6

1.2.2 Theories of teaching speaking skills 7

1.2.2.1 Functions of spoken Language 7

1.2.2.2 The role of speaking skills in communication approach 7

1.2.3 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity 7

1.2.4 Principles in teaching speaking in CLT 8

1.2.5 Problems with speaking activities 9

1.2.6 Factors affecting English speaking skills 9

1.2.6.1 Aptitude 10

1.2.6.2 Motivation 10

1.2.6 3 Learning strategies 12

1.2.6.4 Anxiety 12

Chapter 2: The study 13

2.1 Context of the study 13

2.1.1 An overview of the research site 13

2.1.2 Description of the students at Van Canh High School 13

2.1.3 Description of the teachers at Van Canh High School 14

2.1.4 Description of physical setting 14

2.2 Methodology 14

2.2.1 Participants 14

2.2.2 Research instruments 15

2.2.3 Data analysis 15

2.3 Presentation of statistical results 15

2.3.1 Results and discussions from the questionnaires for the students 15

2.3.2 Results and discussions from the questionnaires for the teachers 24

Chapter 3: Findings 29

3.1 Difficulties from the students 29

3.1.1 Lack of motivation 29

3.1.2 Anxiety or lack of confidence 29

3.1.3 Lack of vocabularies, structures 30

3.1.4 Lack of opportunities to use English in real life 30

3.1.5 Low linguistic competence and low communicative competence 31

3.1.6 Using mother tongue problem 31

3.1.7 Pronunciation problems 31

3.2 Difficulties from the teachers 31

3.3 Other difficulties 32

3.3.1 Large class size 32

3.3.2 Time constraint 32

3.3.3 Lack of reference materials 32

3.3.4 Lack of facilities 33

Part C: Conclusion 34

1 Summary of the study 34

2 Suggestions 34

2.1 Motivate students to participate in the speaking skills lessons 35

2.1.1 Create a warm class atmosphere 35

2.1.2 Vary the teaching techniques 36

2.1.3 Provide more interesting topics to motivate students‟ participation 37

2.1.4 Encourage students to participate in the speaking activities 37

2.1.5 Equip teaching facilities 38

2.2 Help students to be confident 38

2.3 Help students overcome pronunciation problems 39

2.4 Overcome time constraint problem 39

2.5 Improve students‟ linguistic competence 39

2.6 Overcome the using mother tongue problem 40

2.7 Create opportunities for students to use English in real life 40

3 Limitations of the study 41

4 Suggestions for the further study 41

References 42 Appendix 1a I Appendix 1b V Appendix 2 IX Appendix 3 XIII

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

One of the main tasks assigned to foreign language teaching at school is that of training students to be communicatively competent Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998: 13) In any second language teaching and learning, speaking is always believed to be the most vital skill Learning a target language makes no sense if you cannot communicate in it successfully For many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues However, with the rapid progress of globalization, English speaking skill is thought to be the key to one‟s success in his career The goal of teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance Classroom activities that develop learners‟ ability to express themselves through speech would therefore seem an important component of a language course

However, due to some objective and subjective reasons, teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning speaking in particular does not come up to the study goals

A great deal of researches has shown that students are often hesitant and anxious about speaking the target language in class Despite teachers‟ efforts to provide students with opportunities to develop their communicative skills, how to teach and learn speaking skills effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students to many high schools in Vietnam

At Van Canh High School, the situation is the same For most students, they find speaking especially important yet challenging one What can we, as teachers, do to help our learners overcome their problems and take advantage of opportunities to practice speaking? For me, as a teacher, mastering methodology is very important Especially, I am interested in teaching speaking skills But how to conduct an effective speaking lesson is very difficult Therefore, I hope that the study will help to facilitate my teaching

All the above mentioned reasons have inspired the writer to conduct a research titled

“Difficulties in teaching English speaking skills to the tenth form students at Van Canh High School.”

2 Aims and significance of the study

This study is aimed at finding out the difficulties in teaching and learning English speaking skills that 10th form students and English teachers at Van Canh High School have encountered Also it is expected to investigate the causes of those difficulties Through this some solutions to solve these problems will be suggested

The study is carried out with the hope to be of some help to improve the effectiveness of English learning and teaching at van Canh High School

3 Scope of the study

The study only focuses on the difficulties that 10th form students and English teachers at Van Canh High school have encountered in speaking skills

- The second one is carried out on 9 English teachers of Van Canh High School

All comments, remarks, recommendations, assumptions and conclusions provided in the study based on the analysis of the statistics from the survey questionnaires conducted with the

10th form students and English teachers of Van Canh High School

6 Design of study

This study consists of 3 parts:

Part A: Introduction presents the rationale, the aims, scope, the method and design of the

study The research questions are also mentioned in this part

Part B: The study consists of 3 chapters:

Chapter 1: Literature Review reviews the theory about CLT and speaking skills

Chapter 2: The study – The study setting is presented in this chapter Data collection and

analysis are also presented in this chapter

Chapter 3: Findings focuses on the difficulties facing the English teachers at Van Canh High

School and their students in teaching English speaking skills

Part C: Conclusion summarizes all the key issues of the study and suggests some techniques

for the English teachers to teach speaking skills more effectively The limitations of the study and some suggestions for further study are also mentioned in this part

PART B THE STUDY CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Communicative approach to language teaching

1.1.1 What is meant by communication?

In Thompson‟s book (2003: 9) “Communication and Language”, he considers that

“Communication is such a well-integrated part of our day- to- day existence that we tend to take it for granted rarely pausing to consider what it involves or just how important it is to us” Before he expressed to his own ideas about communication, he mentioned some of Fiske‟s ideas:

“Communication is one of those human activities that everyone recognizes but few can definite satisfactorily.” (Fiske, 1990: 1)

“Communication is too often taken for granted when it should be taken to pieces.” (Fiske, 1994: 8)

Thompson noticed “I quickly recognized that communication is used in a number of senses and at a number of levels to indicate the transmission of information or even, as in the transport networks example, the transmission of goods and people.” (Thompson, 2003: 10) However, he completely agreed with Fiske‟s ideas that “the most relevant definition of communication for present purposes is social interaction through messages” (Thompson, 2003: 10) There are two related aspects that we should consider when talking about definition

of communication is “social” and “interaction”

1.1.2 Communicative language teaching

1.1.2.1 Nature of communicative language teaching

Communicative language teaching means little more than an integration of grammatical and functional teaching Littlewood (1981: 1) states, “One of the most characteristic features

of communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well as structural aspects of language”

Communicative language teaching stresses the importance of providing the learners with opportunities to use English for communicative purposes and attempts to integrate such activities into a wider program of language teaching

1.1.2.2 The techniques of communicative language teaching

The techniques of communicative language teaching are described by features

Nunan (1991a: 279) gives five features to characterize CLT:

+ An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language

+ The introduction of authentic texts in to the learning situation

+ The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself

+ An enhancement of the learner‟s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning

+ An attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the classroom

According to Richards and Rodgers (1986: 170), communicative principles can be applied

to the teaching of any skills and at any levels Because of the wide variety of classroom activities and exercise types discussed in the literature on communicative language teaching, description of typical classroom procedures used in a lesson based on CLT principle is not feasible Savignon (1984) discusses techniques and class management procedures associated with a number of CLT classroom procedure (e.g group activities, language games, role plays), but neither these activities nor the ways in which they are used are exclusive to CLT classrooms

Johnson and Johnson (1989) offer five core characteristics that underlie current applications of communicative methodology:

+ Appropriateness: Language use reflects the situations of its use and must be appropriate to that situation depending on the setting, the roles of the participants and the purpose of the communication, for example Thus learners may need to be able to use formal as well as casual styles of speaking

+ Message focus: Learners need to be able to create and understand messages, that is, real meanings Hence the focus on information sharing and information transfer in CLT activities + Psycholinguistic processing: CLT activities seek to engage learners in the use of cognitive and other processes that are important factors in second language acquisition

+ Risk taking: Learners are encouraged to make guesses and learn from their errors By going beyond what they have been taught, they are encouraged to employ a variety of communication strategies

+ Free practice: CLT encourages the use of “holistic practice” involving the simultaneous use

of a variety of sub-skills, rather than practising individual skills one piece at a time

To sum up, communicative language teaching is best considered an approach rather than a method It refers to a diverse set of principles that reflect a communicative view of language and language learning and that can be used to support a wide variety of classroom procedures

1.2 Overview of speaking activities

1.2.1 What is meant by speaking skills?

Speaking is very important for the whole learning process The term “speaking” catches much attention of linguistics Therefore, many definitions have been offered to this term Kathleen M Bailey (2005: 2) defined: “speaking is the productive, oral skill”

Nguyen and Nguyen (2001) suggested that speaking is meant under two aspects: accuracy and fluency: “Accuracy involves the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation” Whereas, “Fluency can be thought of as the ability to keep going when speaking spontaneously” When speaking fluently, language learners should be able to get message across whatever resources and abilities what they‟ve got, regardless of grammatical and other mistakes Meanwhile, many educators believe that in a communicative class that it is not necessary to teach conversational features or put students to communicate accurately and that fluency can be developed by simply providing students with lots of conversational practice Therefore, the requirements of language fluency and accuracy may differ variably due to each stage of language learning

Bygate (1987: 3) suggested a more comprehensive discussion of the nature of speaking It

is shown that “in order to be able to speak a foreign language, it is necessary to know a certain

amount of grammar and vocabulary Part of a language course is therefore generally devoted

to this objective.”

1.2.2 Theories of teaching speaking skills

1.2.2.1 Functions of spoken language

Brown & Yule (1983a: 1-3; 1983b: 11-16) mention that language can be seen as having two functions: transferring information (transactional function) and establishing/maintaining social relationships (interactional function) Interactional spoken language is characterized by shifts of topic and short turns The accuracy and clarity of information is not of primary importance, and facts/views are not normally questioned or challenged In transactional spoken language longer turns are the norm and there is a clear topic Since the effective transference of information is the goal, interlocutors are actively engaged in the negotiation of meaning Brown & Yule summarise the above stating that interactional language is "listener oriented", transactional language is "message oriented"

1.2.2.2 The role of speaking skills in communication approach

In my opinion, those who think the major objective of the students is reading not speaking have ignored some obvious pedagogical facts:

Firstly, people have the notion that learning English has something to do with oral English When one says some students are good at English, people will naturally think he or she can speak English well

Secondly, oral English can be very useful for the development of reading and writing skills Rivers points out: “when we read and write, we call upon what we know of the language orally” (Rivers, 1968: 20) He goes on to say that there must be a connection between reading and speaking If the students are reading, and then they are using their oral English, too If a student has poor English, his reading ability may also be poor Similarly, Rivers (1968) argues that writing involves oral ability as well

1.2.3 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity

There are some characteristics of a successful speaking activity which are introduced by

Ur (1996: 120) as follows:

+ Learners talk a lot: As much as possible of the period of time allotted to the activities is in fact occupied by learner talk This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up with teacher talk or pause

+ Participation is even: Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants: all get a chance to speak, and contributions are fairly evenly distributed

+ Motivation is high: Learners are eager to speak: because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving a task objective

+ Language is of an acceptable level: Learners express themselves in utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy

1.2.4 Principles in teaching speaking in CLT

Language educators and teachers have made great efforts to find out the main principles

of teaching speaking

According to Larsen Freeman:(1986: 77; 84; 115) “… the challenge for the teacher is to create a classroom environment which does not look like a normal classroom” so “…the teacher should try to provide as relaxed and comfortable an environment as possible” Because

he believed that “Language learning is more effective when it is fun” and “learning is facilitated in a relaxed, comfortable environment”

Ur (1996) also set some principles as follows:

+ Take account of the student as a person

+ Reduce anxiety by moving from easy to less easy

+ Maintain a carefully balance between fluency and accuracy

+ Provide good model for students to imitate

+ Provide appropriate stimuli for eliciting speech

+ Vary classroom interaction modes

+ Give clear instructions

+ Monitor student activity continuously

+ Prepare well for the class

+ Handle errors sensitively and effectively

1.2.5 Problems with speaking activities

According to Ur (1996: 121), there still exist some problems with speaking activities as follows:

+ Inhibition: Speaking requires some degree of real time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the classroom: Worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

+ Nothing to say: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say: They have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking

+ Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard; and in a large group this means that each one will have only very little talking time +Mother tongue use: In classes where all, or a number of, the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it: because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language, and because they feel less “exposed” if they are speaking mother tongue

1.2.6 Factors affecting English speaking skills

There are both positive and negative affective factors for foreign language achievement Some of the positive factors can be listed as: the student‟s positive attitude towards learning the new language, the teacher‟s motivational attitude, and discipline during the learning process, proficiency in the student‟s first language, and the student‟s discovery and application

of similarities between the first and the foreign language Some of the negative factors can be listed as: a poor attitude towards learning a new language, lack of motivation, lack of discipline, negative influence of teachers, and the habit by some students to constantly resort

to concentrating on translating literally from his or her first language The social and cultural contexts of the new language can also affect language learners Language learners come from different backgrounds and have different needs and goals they also have different styles of learning Teachers of foreign languages should consider these among the affective factors for second language acquisition

1.2.6.1 Aptitude

These were reported to have a profound effect on the strategies learners choose, with negative attitudes and beliefs often cause poor strategy use or lack of orchestration of strategies “Aptitude refers to the special ability involved in second language learning.” (Douglous et al 1995) The relationship between aptitude and foreign language learning success is a very important one and various studies, such as Gardner & Lambert (1972), Gardner (1980) and Skehan (1989) have reported that aptitude is a major factor determining the level of success of second language learning (Douglous et al 1995) Students can have a good aptitude for learning This can infer various things, such as:

+ The understanding of the function of words in sentences

+ The ability to understand and use grammatical rules

+ Memory of key words, what they mean and how to use them

An important point regarding aptitude and foreign language learning is that successful learners may not be strong in all the components of aptitude and can still succeed at learning a foreign language For example, some individuals may have strong memories but only average abilities in the other components of aptitude Teachers cannot influence language aptitude, they can only measure it There are specific tests that can measure aptitude, however it is important that the teacher recognizes and understands that aptitude can be in everyone, just in different forms

1.2.6.2 Motivation

As a foreign language teacher, it is important that you should adopt strategies to motivate the students to learn Van Lier (1996: 98) accepted that motivation “is a very important, if not the most important factor in language learning” Nunan (1999: 233) also quoted Gardner (1985: 10)

“Motivation is a key consideration in determining the preparedness of learners to communicate …… Motivation to learn a second language is seen as referring to the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity”

The social psychological factor of motivation has been proven to account for differential success in second language learning A motivated student can be defined as someone who:

"Expends effort, is persistent and attentive to the tasks at hand, has goals, desires and aspirations, enjoys the activity, makes attributions concerning success or failure, is aroused and makes use of strategies to aid in achieving goals (Dornyei, 2003: 173) It makes sense that those individuals who are motivated to learn the second language will learn faster and to a greater degree than those who are not Gass (1993) supported that “if the students‟ only reason for learning a second language is external pressure, a student‟s motivation may be minimal and result in lack of success” Furthermore, if students feel that they are not going to need the language in their lives, students may not be motivated and attitudes toward leaning that language may be negative (Gass et al 1993)

Motivation is defined as the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of a desire to learn the language and the satisfaction experienced in this activity A “motivated learner” is, therefore, defined as one who is: (a) eager to learn the language, (b) willing to expend effort on the learning activity, and (c) willing to sustain the learning activity (Gardner, 1985: 10) Motivation plays a significant role in three ways First, it mediates any relation between language attitudes and language achievement Second, it has a causal relationship with language anxiety Third, it has a direct role in the informal learning context, showing the voluntary nature of the motivated learners' participation in informal second language learning contexts

In his current model, Gardner (2000) focuses on motivation and language aptitude as the two most influential determinants of language achievement and shows how integrative motivation affects language achievement Moreover, this model predicts that the second language learning situation could affect learners' attitudes and motivation

Harmer divides motivation into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation Extrinsic motivation is caused such outside factors In contrast, intrinsic motivation is caused by inside factors like the enjoyment of learning process itself or by a desire to learn the target language Through those concepts above, we clearly have to agree that motivation plays an important role in language teaching and learning because if students are motivated, they will

learn the language the teachers are trying to deliver If they are not motivated, learning and teaching will stand still and the outputs are likely to be disappointing for both students and teachers In order to make students motivated in learning, we have to understand the sources

of motivation Thus, teachers should make learning activities reflect students‟ interests and needs – then they will be motivated

1.2.6.3 Learning strategies

Learning strategies is a factor of foreign language learning One definition of learning strategies is: “Steps or actions taken by learners to improve the development of their language skills” (Gass et al 1993: 265) Different learning strategies work best for different people when learning a foreign language For example, one student may learn vocabulary through writing and practicing the vocabulary using cue cards, whereas another student may only read the vocabulary and learn by that way Although it is clear that students can be more successful

in second language learning if they adopt particular learning strategies to suit them

as an aspect of personality State anxiety can be defined as apprehension that is experienced at

a particular moment in time as a respond to a definite situation (Spielberger, 1983) It is a combination of trait and situation-specific anxiety This latter type consists of the anxiety which is aroused by a specific type of situation or event such as public speaking, examinations, or class participation

To sum up, students with anxiety will have difficulty concentrating and processing input

in class and consequently the output of the language is negatively affected They tend to withdraw from voluntary participation and are unwilling to take risks When students are nervous, they tend to make more mistakes The more mistakes they make, the more nervous they will be, and the less likely they are to perform well at speaking skills thus resulting in a vicious circle The relationship between anxiety and speaking is not difficult to identify

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 2.1 Context of the study

2.1.1 An overview of the research site

Van Canh High School, which has been operated since 1985, is located in a mountainous district in Binh Dinh province, where there are no good opportunities for studying English Therefore, the teaching of English in general, and the teaching speaking English in particular has encountered with a great deal of difficulties There are only 958 students divided into 24 classes: 10 tenth-grade classes, 8 eleventh-grade classes and 6 twelve-grade classes English is now a compulsory subject in Van Canh High School The textbook chosen is English 10, 11, 12 (basic stream) by Hoang Van Van, Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, Do Tuan Minh, Nguyen Thu Phuong, Nguyen Quoc Tuan, Nha Xuat Ban Giao Duc Each consists

of 16 lessons Each lesson is divided into 5 periods with the aim of giving the students basic knowledge of English and practising four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing skills This series textbook is suitable for applying Communicative Language Teaching

2.1.2 Description of the students at Van Canh High School

The majority of students are aged from fifteen to nineteen from poor farming families and some of them are ethnic minority Most of them live very far from school All of them have learnt English at secondary school for four years Some of them had also learnt English at primary school Comparing with the students in the past, now they are more aware of the importance of learning English, more intelligent, more active and more motivated in learning English However, their speaking skills are not quite good Only a few students wish to take university entrance exams in English, which means few students have real interest in learning English In other words, not much attention is paid to English by the majority of the students The learning of speaking is far worse As the students grow older, they become more reluctant

to speak the target language To answer the teacher's questions, the students usually use Vietnamese when they do not know the words in English or when they wish to ask questions but cannot express themselves with confident in English It means they do not try to use English as much as possible

2.1.3 Description of the teachers at Van Canh High School

If students are the most important factor in the learning process, teachers are the most important factor in the teaching process There are 9 teachers of English language aged from

24 to 38 All of them have obtained B.A and have been trained at Qui Nhon University They are energetic and willing to devote their time and energy to teaching However, they are inexperienced and are not well-trained so they have to face with many difficulties

2.1.4 Description of physical setting

The term « physical setting » refers to the place where the lessons take place, the number

of students in an English class, the equipment and different types of materials available for teachers and students in teaching and learning English

In Van Canh High School, English teaching and learning activities are mostly carried out inside the classrooms which are designed for lecture lessons with the only classroom equipment such as: a blackboard, and desks The only type of teaching aid that the English group has is some cassette recorders In term of class size, the number of students in an English class is quite large, from 45 to 50 This large number causes a great deal of difficulties for the teaching and learning

The materials for reference and self-study are not available for teachers and students In the school library, there are only some English books but they are not really helpful for teachers and students The problem is not very bad for the teachers since they can go out to find their own references but it is very difficult for the students to do so themselves

In the field of language teaching, the computer network technology offers language teacher a significant advantage However, at Van Canh High School, where I have been working as an English teacher, there is only one computer-furnished room for all subjects Due

to this limitation, only approximately 50% of teachers here sometimes apply ICT in teaching and most of them are young teachers Moreover, the effectiveness of applying ICT in language teaching doesn‟t meet the learners‟ satisfactory because of their inexperience in this field

2.2 Methodology

2.2.1 Participants

In total, 107 tenth form students at Van Canh High School and 9 English teachers participated in this study The students are chosen randomly from 3 classes of 10th form; consist of 63 female and 44 male students at the age from 16 to 17 All of them come from the rural areas They have learnt English for at least 4 years The teachers are aged from 24 to 38 All of them are B.A and none of them have been to English speaking countries The youngest has been teaching for one year and the oldest has been teaching for 15 years

2.2.2 Research instruments

In order to get the data for the study, the researcher used two questionnaires: one for the teachers and the other for the students The students‟ questionnaire has twelve questions written in both languages English and Vietnamese in order to help the students avoid misunderstanding The questionnaire for the teachers has thirteen questions Some of them are multiple choice questions but some of them were designed to elicit the participants‟ ideas The main purpose of the questionnaires is used for exploiting teacher‟s and students‟ difficulties, their experience, and their attitude toward English speaking skills

2.2.3 Data analysis

Data analysis is the process by which the researcher interprets the data collected from the survey questionnaires They were analyzed quantitatively and presented in tables and charts

2.3 Presentation of statistical results

107 sheets of questionnaire were delivered to the students in three 10th form classes taught by different teachers Students were chosen freely in order to have different abilities of English study with different attitudes They are of course both sexes

2.3.1 Results and discussions from the questionnaires for the students

The data collected by means of questionnaire for the students at Van Canh High School are analyzed and discussed on the following categories:

● Students’ English background

The statistics from the personal information show that students‟ learning time is different 60% of the students started studying English at secondary school 13% of them started studying English when they were at the 3rd form 8% of them have studied English since they were at the forth form and the rest of them started studying English when they were at the 5th

form This leads to multi-level classes at the beginning of the school year making it difficult for the teachers to find suitable techniques to teach Table 1 below shows us the students‟ study results of the previous term (After 4 months studying at High School).

Table 1: Students’ level of language learning

From Table 1, we can see that students‟ linguistic competence is very low Only 15.9% of them are good There are no excellent students and the numbers of bad and very bad students are very high (30%) This is because of many negative factors and difficulties that will be presented in the next parts of the research

● Students’ motivation for learning English

Widen the society, culture and language knowledge 44 41.1

English is the most important mean of communication 42 39.3

Table 2: Students’ motivation for learning English

It cannot be denied that motivation is closely related to success in foreign language learning However, the success is a long term goal In order to gain a success in a foreign language, or in this case in order to improve speaking skills, learners must take part in speaking activities conducted in the classroom Therefore, it can be said that motivation is also closely related to the learners‟ participation in speaking activities But from Table 2, which is the result of the statistics of question 3 in the survey questionnaire, we can see that the major number of students (65.4%) study English because it is a compulsory subject Only 12.1% of them study English because they found it interesting About half of the participants study

English because they thought English would be needed for them in the future jobs 29% of them study English for entertainment and 41.1% of them study English to improve their society, culture and language knowledge, which doesn‟t need the speaking skills at all Generally speaking, Van Canh High School students have low motivation of learning English, especially speaking skills

● Students’ attitudes towards learning English speaking skills

Question 2 is about the students‟ attitudes towards English speaking skills

reading 15%

listening 49%

writing 21%

speaking 15%

Figure 1: Students’ attitudes towards English speaking skills

Only 15% of the participants think the most difficult skill is speaking and the same number thinks reading is Whereas, the majority of the participants (49%) said that listening is the most difficult skill for them to master 21% of them believed that the most difficult skill for them to practice is writing Through the statistics in Figure 1, we can see that although speaking is not the most difficult skills for the students to practice, the results of practicing do not achieve the desired goals

● Students’ opinions on the speaking topics in the textbooks

With regard to the textbook, the results collected in Figure 2 showed that students have different ideas on the topics introduced in the textbooks Most of them (56.1%) think those topics are suitable for them and interesting as well Only 36.3% think the topics are difficult and 12.1% think the topics are boring for them to practice (some of the topics are boring) This can be reported that the speaking topics in the textbook are suitable and interesting They don‟t have much trouble to students‟ practicing in speaking lessons

easy 0.9

interesting 34.6

boring 12.1

Figure 2: Students’ opinions on the speaking topics in the textbooks

● Frequency of students’ speaking participation

About 16.9 % of the participants admitted that they had never participated in English speaking activities accepted the teacher asked them to do as we can see in Figure 3 And about the same number (12.1%) answered that they usually joined in speaking activities frequently Only 0.9% of the students said they always participated in English speaking activities More than half of them sometimes took part in these activities From these statistics showed that very few students were willing to participate in the speaking activities

Always ( 0.9% ) usually (12.1% ) sometimes ( 70.1 % ) never (16.9% )

Figure 3: Frequency of students’ speaking participation

● Opportunities to use English outside classroom

As mentioned in the study context that Van Canh High School is located in a mountainous district in Binh Dinh province, where there are no good opportunities for

studying English Look at the chart below (Figure 4), we are not surprised why only 1.9% students have opportunities to practice English outside the classroom More than half of the students (50.4%) have never practiced speaking English outside the classroom and approximately half of them (47.7%) sometimes have chance to use English outside the classroom This can be reported that most of the students have not enough opportunities to use English in real life Therefore, their linguistics competence is rather low

many opportunities ( 1.9% ) sometimes ( 47.7% ) never ( 50.4% )

Figure 4: Opportunities to use English outside classroom

● Students’ self-improvement of speaking skills

0 50 100

usually 12.1 4.7 8.4 15.9 4.7 sometimes 53.3 7.5 54.2 39.3 21.4 never 19.6 87.9 33.6 37.4 72.9

Figure 5: Students’ self- improvement of speaking skills

A: Try to participate in English speaking activities whenever you can

B: Take part in English speaking club at your school

C: Listen and repeat through CD tapes or from the Internet

D: Participate in group practicing inside and outside the classroom

E: Talk to foreigners

The statistics from the chart above (Figure 5) indicate that students do not try to improve speaking skills themselves in real life A great number of informants (53.3%) sometimes try to take part in the English speaking skills They never join the school English speaking club (87.9%) Moreover, 33.6% never listen to the tapes or the internet With 37.4% of the students never participate in group works inside as well as outside the classroom We are not surprised that about 72.9% never have chance to talk to foreigners, because there are no foreigners in Van Canh district It can be announced that the students‟ reality of self-improvement like this will have great influence on the practice of speaking skills

● Students’ attitude towards the teachers’ techniques of teaching speaking skills

Techniques Like Dislike

Table 3b: Students’ opinions towards teachers’ teaching speaking techniques

The results of the student survey from Table 3a and Table 3b show that, although the English teachers at Van Canh High School usually vary their teaching techniques, some techniques do not suit the students‟ interest Students are highly interested in information technology (88.8%) The second rank is games which can be considered a strong motivating factor because students can talk naturally, have more opportunities to take part in the speaking activities Using real objects and pictures is also having the same place The other majority of students enjoy working in small groups or pairs and that they find it an effective way of improving their speaking skills They can improve their interaction skills through group work

or pair work involving a motivating topic Because students are afraid of making mistakes, they don‟t like the techniques which they have to present the language alone such as presentation, story telling, etc…

● Students’ difficulties in speaking lessons

As can be seen from Table 4, the main difficulties students face with are varied The number of students who don‟t always understand the task requirements is very small (only 0.9%) More than half of the students (57.9%) say they never have difficulty in understanding

the task requirements Lack of ideas is a problem with the students, 56.1% admitted having difficulty in finding the ideas to speak Lack of vocabularies and structures is a problem to the majority of students Only 23.4% of the informants say they have never encountered with this problem Being afraid of losing face is also one of obstacles that prevent most of students to speak Only 16.8% of the informants are confident enough to speak out without being afraid of making mistakes and only 3.7% say they never afraid of speaking in front of new friends Having a chance of speaking and getting feedback from the teacher is also a factor that should

be taken into consideration More than half of the participants say they usually have problem having no opportunities to speak Pronunciation is also a problem that should be taken into consideration, too Because only 21.5% of the participants say they never have problems with pronunciation

Pronunciation problems 22 20.6 27 25.2 35 32.7 23 21.5 Lack of society knowledge 11 10.3 17 15.9 50 46.7 39 36.4

Table 4: Students’ difficulties in speaking lessons

●Factors affecting Van Canh students’ participating in English classroom activities

There of course exist many factors which cause the above difficulties to the students in a language lesson, especially in speaking skills In Van Canh High School the situation is the same The results are presented in Table 5 below The highest rate is the students‟ low communicative competence (66.4%) And the second rank is the students‟ shyness (47.7 %) The facilities and authentic materials are very important as well These factors lead too many difficulties for the students in speaking lessons as presented above

Factors Number Percentage

The aims of study English is not for communicative 18 16.8

Table 5: Factors affecting Van Canh students’ participating in English classroom activities

● Students’ expectation from the teachers

Wait until you finish, point out the mistakes and correct 51 47.7% Wait until you finish, point out the mistakes and ask your

classmates to correct

Question

12

Give marks or add marks if you participate in the speaking activities regularly

Increase the use of information technology 50 46.7%

Table 6: Students’ expectation from the teachers

Question 9 and question 12 from the questionnaire aim at finding out the students‟ expectations from the teachers The results from Table 6 indicate that the majority of the students (68.2%) wish their teachers varied their teaching techniques more often The next one

is that the teachers should increase the use of language games as we know game is a strong motivating factor in language learning As a compulsory subject, so we won‟t be surprised at the third rank of the statistics, 56.1% of the informants say that they like giving marks when they take part in the speaking activities frequently More than half of the participants expected that they are not interrupted when they make the mistakes and the same number of the participants (50.5%) like being praised to the class 46.7% of the students expect the teachers should use more visual aids and information technology In the bottom of the statistics, 38.3%

of the students wish to take part in extra activities such as English speaking club, quizzes,

etc…

2.3.2 Results and discussions from the questionnaires for the teachers

9 copies of the questionnaire distributed to 9 English teachers at Van Canh High School were responded and the data are analyzed in this part of the study

●The teachers’ age and their teaching experience

Table 7: The teachers’ age and their teaching experience

From the personal information analyzed in Table 7, we can see only 3 teachers have been teaching for 10 years This means that the English teachers in Van Canh High School do not have very good experience The results of question 1, question 2 and question 4 indicate that all of them have been trained in CLT whether at the university or at workshops 100% of them

apply CLT in their teaching speaking skills All of them agreed that the aim of teaching speaking is enable the students to communicate More than half of them (55.6%) agreed that to improve students‟ vocabularies, to practice grammar structures, to practice pronunciation and intonation are also the aims of teaching speaking skills

●Teachers’ attitude towards speaking skills

In comparison with other three skills, 100% of the teachers of Van Canh High School agreed that speaking skills is as important as other skills They claimed that although the aim

of teaching English is to communicate, students are only examined reading and writing skills

in examinations

0 20 40 60 80 100

the most important

as important

as others

not so important as others

Figure 6: Teachers’ attitude towards speaking skills

● Teachers’ opinions on the speaking topics in the textbooks

The purpose of question 5 is to find out the teachers‟ opinions on the speaking topics in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” As the students, Van Canh High School teachers highly greed that the speaking topics in the textbook in general are suitable and interesting except some boring and difficult ones which become obstacles in teaching and learning in some speaking lessons

●Teachers’ techniques of teaching speaking skills

Look at the chart below (Figure 7); we can see that Van Canh High School teachers often vary their techniques of teaching speaking skills Of course the frequency is depended on the aims of the tasks in the textbook and the level of the students