Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS an investigation into using authentic materials to supplement the coursebook on teaching speaking skill grade 12 students in gia binh II high school, bac ninh province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES  LÊ VŨ QUỲNH NGA AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING AUTHENT

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES



LÊ VŨ QUỲNH NGA

AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS TO SUPPLEMENT THE COURSEBOOK ON TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL FOR GRADE – 12 STUDENTS

IN GIA BINH II HIGH SCHOOL, BAC NINH PROVINCE

NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TÀI LIỆU THỰC TIỄN

ĐỂ BỔ TRỢ SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TRONG DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 12 TRƯỜNG THPT GIA BÌNH II,

TỈNH BẮC NINH

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY

CODE: 60 14 10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES



LÊ VŨ QUỲNH NGA

AN INVESTIGATION INTO USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS TO SUPPLEMENT THE COURSEBOOK ON TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL FOR GRADE – 12 STUDENTS

IN GIA BINH II HIGH SCHOOL, BAC NINH PROVINCE

NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TÀI LIỆU THỰC TIỄN

ĐỂ BỔ TRỢ SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TRONG DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 12 TRƯỜNG THPT GIA BÌNH II,

TABLE OF CONTENT

LIST OF TABLES AND CHART

ABSTRACT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

2 The scope of the study

3 The research question and objectives of the study

4 Significance of the study

5 Methods of the study

6 Design of the study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW

I 1 Approaches of Language Teaching

I 1 1 The Grammar – Translation Method

I 1 2 The Direct Method

I 1 3 The Audio – Lingual Method

I 1 4 Communicative Language Teaching

i

v

vi

vii

1

1

2

2

3

3

3

4

4

4

4

5

6

7

I 2 Authentic Materials and Coursebook

I 2 1 Authentic Materials

I 2 1 1 Definition

I 2 1 2 Advantages of Using Authentic Materials

I 2 1 3 Disadvantages of Using Authentic Materials

CHAPTER II THE STUDY

II 1 The Status of Teaching and Learning Speaking at Gia Binh II High School

II 1 1 Description of the Students at Gia Binh II High School

II 1 2 Description of the Teachers at Gia Binh II High School

II 1 3 The Status of Teaching and Learning Speaking at Gia Binh II High School

II 2 Research Methodology

II 2 1 Questionnaire for the Teachers

II 2 2 Questionnaire for the Students

II 3 Data Analysis

II 3 1 Questionnaires for the Teachers

II 3 1 1 Teachers’ Teaching Experience (Part I)

II 3 1 2 Teachers’ Perceptions of CLT (Part II, Section A)

II 3 1 3 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill in terms of

coursebook (Part II, Section B – 1)

II 3 1 4 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill in terms of learners

(Part II, Section B –2)

II 3 1 5 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill in terms of facilities

(Part II, Section B – 3)

II 3 1 6 The using of Authentic Materials for teaching English speaking skill

(Part II, Section C)

II 3 2 Questionnaires for the Students

II 3 2 1 Students’ experience in learning English (question 1)

II 3 2 2 Students’ attitude towards learning English and learning speaking skill (question 2, 4, 5)

II 3 2 3 Students’ motivation in learning English (question 3)

II 3 2 4 Students’ evaluation of an English speaking lesson (question 6)

II 3 2 5 Students’ difficulties in learning speaking skill (question 7)

class (question 8, 9, 10)

II 3 2 7 Students’ evaluation of teachers’ speaking skill (question 11)

II 3 2 8 Students’ suggestions for better speaking teaching and learning (question 12)

CHAPTER III FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

III 1 Findings

III 1 1 Findings from Questionnaire for the Teachers

III 1 2 Findings from Questionnaire for the Students

III 2 Recommendations

III 2 1 Recommendations for the Students

III 2 2 Recommendations for the Teachers

PART II CONCLUSION

I Conclusion

II Suggestions for Further Research

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: Survey Questionnaire for the Teachers

APPENDIX B: Survey Questionnaire for the Students

APPENDIX C: Survey Questionnaire for the Teachers (the 1 st version)

LIST OF TABLES AND CHART

Table 4: Difficulties in teaching and learning in terms of learners 25

Table 5: Difficulties in teaching and learning in terms of facilities 26

Table 8: Kinds of Activities used to develope speaking lessons 28

Table 10: Students’ evaluation of an English speaking lesson 30

Table 11: Students’ difficulties in learning speaking skill 31

Table 12: Students’ evaluation of kinds of authentic materials used 32

Table 13: Students’ evaluation of kinds of activities used 32

Table 14: Students’ evaluation of teachers’ speaking skill 33

Table 15: Students’ suggestions for better speaking teaching and learning 33

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Among the most popular languages of the world, English is the most universal and has been used by more users than ever The need of learning English always increases and never stops In Vietnam, foreign language learning and teaching generally and English learning and teaching particularly have been granted increasing supports from government, educational authorities for the demand of young labor force with a good command of English in this present time of globalization

To keep pace with the demand of English in our society, learners’

communicative competence significantly becomes more and more important and the change of teaching method become an urgent requirement in order to help learners obtain communicative competence Years ago, the major methods used to teach English in Vietnam were grammar – translation, audio – lingual… which were teacher-centered, in which the teachers were the leaders, the controllers, the testers, etc…, and the students were just the passive objects of the process of teaching and learning The index of how good a student was based on his/ her mastery of language structures rather than on his/ her language use in reality, which then has been proved to be inappropriate in the new time Everything has changed with the appearance of the

approach communicative language teaching which really helps students get communicative competence One evidence of this development in Vietnam is the

reformation in both textbooks and methodologies done many times over decades in order to ultimately find out a way of teaching and learning which best suits Vietnamese students In 2005, Ministry of Education and Training again introduced two new sets of textbook, one for regular students (which is called as the standard textbook), and one for specialized students with lots of revolutionary changes in comparison with textbooks of English in the past

The new English Textbook series written by Vietnamese writers pay more attention on developing students’ communicative skills – Speaking, Listening, Writing and Reading – and help students review grammatical rules in Language Focus Task – based lessons are the formation of the textbook The tasks can be either pair work,

group work or class work, which give students more chances to take part in the lessons

to gradually develop their communicative competence, and make them the center of the teaching and learning process However, with such changes, there are still some problems “Although the new textbooks emphasize the students' communicative skills

in English, it is observed that classroom teaching remains grammar-focused, bound, and teacher-centered on account of teachers' inadequacy of required proficiency

textbook-in English and teachtextbook-ing skills as well as of the traditional image of the teacher as a type

of omniscient authority figure and a holder of all knowledge.” (Le, V C., 2007)

Furthermore, some parts of the textbook’s content are different from real life in Vietnam, espeacially in rural areas, which make teaching and learning challenging

Lesson adaptation becomes inevitable

From all the things mentioned above, I would like to devote my time and effort to: (1) investigate the current situation of teaching and learning English speaking skill

of grade-12 students in Gia Binh II High School, Gia Binh District, Bac Ninh Province;

(2) study how the new textbook is perceived by English teachers in Gia Binh II High School and their grade-12 students; and (3) investigate how the teachers adapt the lessons to make them suitable for students and whether or not they use authentic materials to supplement their lessons while teaching speaking

2 The scope of the study

The study focuses on how to use authentic materials to supplement the textbook

in teaching speaking skill to grade-12 students in Gia Binh II High School (GB II HS), Gia Binh District, Bac Ninh Province

3 The research question and objectives of the study

The main question to guide the current study is: How teachers use authentic materials to supplement the textbook in teaching speaking skill to grade-12 students

in Gia Binh II High School, Gia Binh District, Bac Ninh Province?

Answers to this question help achieve the following three objectives:

 To investigate the difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill of teachers and grade-12 students in Gia Binh II High School, Bac Ninh Province

 To investigate the problems of textbook faced by the teachers and grade-12 students in Gia Binh II High School, Gia Binh District, Bac Ninh Province

 To investigate the use of authentic materials to supplement the textbook in teaching and learning speaking skill in the target school

4 Significance of the study

This study hopefully hastens the change of English teaching methodology in Gia Binh II High School by making teachers more aware of the significance of authentic materials and use them in teaching English in general and teaching speaking skill in particularly

5 Methods of the study

This study is decided as a descriptive study The instrument of data collection is survey questionnaire There are two questionnaires designed: one for teachers and one for students The questionnaires for the teachers were delivered to 10 English teachers

in GB II HS and 20 other teachers from Gia Binh I High School and Luong Tai I High School which share quite the same conditions as my school The questionnaire for students were delivered to 130 students of four different classes A1, A2, A4 and A8 in Gia Binh II High School The data help to answer the research questions raised above

6 Design of the study

The thesis consists of three parts:

Part I is the Introduction, which presents the rationales, the scope, the objectives, the significances, the method and the design of the study

Part II is the backbone of the thesis with three chapters: Chapter I deals with the Literature Review, in which we review some approaches of teaching English in history

so far, the theories about textbook evaluation and textbook adaption, and the application of authentic materials to supplement textbook in teaching a language

Chapter II presents the methodology of the study and the data analysis Chapter III discusses the findings and proposes some suggestions for using authentic materials while teaching to supplement the textbook

Part III is the Conclusion and Suggestions for further research

PART II DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW

I 1 Approaches of Language Teaching

I 1 1 The Grammar – Translation Method

Rooted in the formal teaching of Latin and Greek, Grammar – Translation Method (GTM) was the dominant method in language teaching until the end of the 19thcentury and continued to be used so far However, it has long been believed to be old – fashioned According to Richards & Rodgers (1986: 3), this method has some principle characteristics as follow: (1) It is a way of studying through detailed analysis of its grammar rules and translation of sentences and texts into or out of the target language

(2) Reading and writing are the major focus Little or no attention is paid to listening and speaking (3) Vocabulary is taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary study and memorization (4) The sentence is the basic unit of teaching and practicing the language (5) Accuracy is emphasized (6) Grammar is taught deductively And (7) the students’ mother tounge is the medium of instruction

Talking about this method, Larsen-Freeman (1986: 11 - 12) supposed that the

“fundamental purpose of learning a foreign language is to be able to read literature written in the target language” Besides, according to her excerpt for 7 characteristics above, teachers’ and learners’ role are also very important in GTM Teachers are the

“authority” of the class, whereas the learners are just the listeners and followers That makes up a picture of a one –way road, from the teachers to the students, little or even

no creativeness or interaction at all

Another famous methodologist, Rivers W., also stated in her writing (1981: 31):

“There is much stress on knowing rules and exceptions, … little stress is laid on accurate pronunciation and information; communication is neglected” Certainly, the stress on rules or accuracies differs from this teacher to another because of the difference of their students’ proficiency Some teachers can do a lot with rules and exceptions because their students’ pronunciation is acceptable but some other cannot

do so because their students even do not know how to pronounce a word, and vice versa But people agree that in a GTM class there is an over – emphasis on rules and a

neglect of communicative skills As a result, some students are the master of rules, but just amateur communicators They even cannot realize whether they improve or not without tests or exams which normally focus on rules, or vocabulary, which consequently demotivate them to learn the target language The method really creats frustration for students, for whom foreign language learning is a tedious experience of memorization of new words and grammatical rules, while it makes few demands on teachers

GTM requires few resources and it is easy to apply and is cheap to administer

In Vietnam, it is still used in many classrooms where the class is large, the teaching and learning facilities are insufficient, or even worse, where the teachers’ ability is still in need of training

I 1 2 The Direct Method

Like the GTM, the Direct Method (DM) is not new It has been applied by language teachers for many years Direct Method is considered very similar to another method named “Gouin and the Series Method” This method states that “Language learning is primarily a matter of transforming perceptions into conceptions Children use language to represent their conceptions” and pose a method that “taught learners

directly (without translation) and conceptually (without grammatical rules and

explanations), a series of connected sentences that are easy to perceive.” And DM’s theory is “second language learning should be more like first language learning”

Richards and Rogers (1986: 9-10) summarize the principles of the DM as: (1) Classroom instruction was conducted exclusively in the target language (2) Only everyday vocabulary and sentences are taught (3) Oral communication skills were built up in a carefully traded progression organized around question – and – answer exchanges between teachers and students in small, intensive classes (4) Grammar was taught inductively (5) New teaching points were taught through modelling and practice (6) Concrete vocabulary was taught through demonstration, objects, and pictures; abstract vocabulary was taught by association of ideas (7) Both speech and listening comprehension were taught And (8) correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized

The DM was very popular in the end of the 19th century, and widely accepted in private schools where students were highly motivated and also where the native teachers could be employed However, this method could not succeed in public education where “the constraints of the budget, classroom size, time and teacher background made the method very difficult to use” (Richards & Rogers, 1986: 9)

Besides, this method was also considered as lacking of theoretical foundations The skills and personality of the teacher decide the success of the method, not the methodology itself, which could lead to confusion while using it Although in the middle of the century people returned to the DM, it had become an out – of – date method, because people were turning to a new method: Audio – Lingual

I 1 3 The Audio – Lingual Method

Audio – Lingual Method (ALM) first emerged in America during World War II because of the need for people to learn foreign language quickly for military purposes

Prator & Celce – Murcia (1979) summarized the principles of this method as follow:

(1) New material is presented in dialog form (2) There is dependence on mimicry, memorization of set phrases, and overlearning (3) Structures are sequenced by means

of contrastive analysis and taught one at a time (4) Structural patterns are taught using repetitive drills (5) There is little or no grammatical explanation Grammar is taught by inductive analogy rather than deductive explanation (6) Vocabulary is strictly limited and learned in context (7) There is much use of tapes, language labs, and visual aids

(8) Great importance is attached to pronunciation (9) Very little use of the mother tongue by teachers is permitted (10) Successful responses are immediately reinforced

(11) There is great effort to get students to produce error – free utterances And (12) there is a tendency to manipulate language and disregard content

The most successful aspect of this method is to develop students’ listening comprehension and fluency in speaking in the target language Students are encouraged

by the sense of being able to use what they have learned very early However, the success or the failure of this method depends largely upon the quality of the teachers and the availability of the resources The teacher must be a fluent speaker since most of his/ her job is done orally in class Furthermore, (s)he must be very resourceful when presenting

the lessons, i.e., (s)he must vary his/ her techniques to make learning process more interesting and meaningful; otherwise, the students might easily get bored with mechanical repitition or be “well – trained parrots” as commented by Rivers (1981: 47)

By the 1960s, ALM committed some ultimate failure in teaching long – term communicative proficiency Together with it was Wilga Rivers’ eloquent criticism of the misconceptions of the ALM, this method gradually became wan People discovered

“that language was not really acquired through a process of habit formation and overlearning; that errors were not necessary to be avoided at all costs; and that structural linguistics did not tell us everything about language that we need to know.”

Certainly, any method passes through ups and downs, and the ALM is not the exception It has been considered as one of the most successful pedagogical theory so far Up to now, adaptations of the ALM still have been found in contemporary methodologies

I 1 4 Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) appeared because of the failure of all the previous approaches and the need for a method which can help students build up communicative competence According to Jack C Richards (2006, 3), “CLT can be understood as a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom.” Specifically, the goal of CLT is to teach communicative competence; the process of learning a foreign language of the learners includes “(i) interaction between the learners and users of the language, (ii) collaborative creation of meaning, (iii) creating meaningful and purposeful interaction through language, (iv) negotiation of meaning as the learner and his/ her interlocutor arrive at understanding, (v) learning through attending to the feedback learners get when they use the language, (vi) paying attention to the language one hears and trying

to incorporate new forms into one’s developing communicative competence; and (vii) trying out and experimenting with different ways of saying things.” The kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, according to him, are “pair work activities, role plays, group work activities and project work”

Nunan (1989) set out the principles of CLT with such fields as: (1) Theory of language: Nunan sees language as “a system for the expression of meaning, primary function – interaction and communication” (2) Theory of learning: “activities

involving real communication; carrying out meaningful tasks; and using language

which is meaningful to the learner” (3) Objectives: The objectives of CLT “will reflect

the needs of the learner; they will include functional skills as well as linguistic

objectives” (4) Syllabus: CLT’s syllabus “will include some/ all of the following:

structures, functions, notions, themes, tasks Ordering will be guided by learner needs.”

(5) Activity types: The activity should “engage learners in communication, involve

processes such as information sharing, negotiation of meaning and interaction.” (6)

Learner roles: Learners are seen as “negotiator, interactor giving as well as taking” (7) Teacher roles: They are considered as “Facilitator of the communication process,

participants’ tasks, and texts; needs analyst, counsellor, and process manager.” (8)

Roles of materials: Materials play the “primary role in promoting communicative

language use; task – based materials; authentic.”

Based on the characteristics given by Richards and Nunan, CLT is seemingly more outstanding than the formers, better fit to new are of language teaching and learning One thing makes this method more brilliant is that it encourages the use of authentic materials Canale and Swain (1980) stated that CLT is a good environment of using authentic materials because “it is considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to genuine communicative needs in realistic L2 situations so that they develop strategies for understanding language as actually used in native speakers.”

However, CLT is not always brilliant because of many objective disadvantages

Bock (2000: 24 - 30), an author studied a lot about English teaching and learning in Vietnam, classified them into three categories: difficulties from students, difficulties

from educational system and difficulties from teachers From students, (i) Students lack

motivation for communicative competence because they seem to over – concerned with passing exams which rarely test for communicative competence (ii) Students show resistance to class participation and the reasons may come from their anxiety, laziness and unfamiliarity with communicative lessons (iii) Students use Vietnamese during

group work and the sources of the difficulty are also anxiety and unfamiliarity with

CLT And (iv) Students are of low English proficiency From educational system, (i)

Conductive facilities are inadequate (ii) Class sizes are large And (iii) Classes are of

multi – level From teachers, (i) Teachers feel inadequate because they lack training in

CLT and experience in implementing CLT (2) Teachers find it unable to assess communicative competence because they are not given methods to access communicative competence Unless we solve these problems, CLT can never get proper success in application to teaching and learning, espressingly in Vietnam

I 1 5 Conclusion

Generally there have had many approaches in learning and teaching a language and all of them seemed to gain the enjoyment of the community in a period of time, in the past or at present Nonetheless, at this moment, CLT is the most popular method because it serves for the raising needs for communication through distinctive its theory about the communicative competence CLT also provides teachers and learners with a chance to access to authentic, genuine materials in many sources, from the native speakers or just from the speakers of English – speaking countries There is no restriction

This minor thesis does not have ambition to cover all the approaches used in teaching and learning a language history It just wants to focus on CLT, the approach allows using authentic materials, which is one of the best ways to teach learners how to speak comprehensively Besides, CLT is the approach advocated by the Vietnamese education authority, therefore, the focus of this study is fully justified

I 2 Authentic Materials and Coursebook

I 2 1 Authentic Materials

I 2 1 1 Definition

The use of authentic materials in foreign language learning is said to have a long history Henry Sweet lived in the 19th century is the first person to teach and write about using authentic materials in teaching a language As clearly perceived the advantages of using this kind of materials, he wrote:

The great advantage of natural, idiomatic texts over artificial “methods”

or “series” is that they do justice to every feature of the language… The artificial systems, on the other hand, tend to cause incessant repetition of certain grammatical constructions, certain elements of vocabulary, certain combinations of words to the almost total exclusion of others which are equally, or perhaps even more, essential

(Sweet, 1899: 177; quoted in Language Teaching 40: 97 by A Gilmore) However, to the 20th century, new methods such as “New Method” or “the Audio – Lingual” refused using them They “all imposed carefully structured materials and prescribed behaviours on teachers and learners” Consequetly, “the authority of the approach resided in the materials themselves, not in the lessons given by the teacher using them”, Howatt (1984: 267)

The debate between Chomsky (1965) and Hymes (1972) did give authenticity another chance to get onto the battle again People realized that communicative competence involved much more than the knowledge of language structures, and contextualized communication began to have precedence over form They also realized that the appearance of CLT is a force for reintroduction of authenticity And since that reappearance, “authentic materials” have become a good field of researchers and scholars to ascertain the definition, the roles and the usage of this kind of materials in language teaching and learning

A Gilmore (2007) listed in his writing “Authentic materials and authenticity in foreign language learning” eight definitions from the liturature:

 The language produced by native speakers for native speakers in a particular language community (Porter & Roberts, 1981; Little, Devitt & Singleton, 1989)

 The language produced by a real speaker/ writer for a real audience, conveying a real message (Morrow, 1977; Porter & Roberts, 1981; Swaffar, 1985; Nunan, 1988/9; Benson & Voller, 1997)

 The qualities bestowed on a text by the receiver, in that it is not seen as something inherent in a text itself, but it is imparted on it by the reader/ listener

(Widdowson, 1978/9; Breen, 1985)

 The interaction between students and teachers, and is a “personal process of engagement” (van Lier, 1996: 128)

 The types of task chosen (Breen, 1985; Bachman, 1991; van Lier, 1996; Benson

& Voller, 1997; Lewcowicz, 2000; Guariento & Morley, 2001; Rost, 2002)

 The social situation of the classroom (Breen, 1985; Arnold, 1991; Lee, 1995;

Guariento & Morley, 2001; Rost, 2002)

 Assessment (Bachman, 1991; Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Lewcowicz, 2000)

 Culture, and the ability to behave or think like a target language group in order to

be recognized and validated by them (Kramsch, 1998) According to Gilmore, the ideas of Morrow (1977) is the best one: an authentic text is a stretch of real language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to convey a real message of some sort And in fact, this view is agreed by almost teachers or pedagogues from country to country In his writing, Gilmore once used the word “graded teacher”; which come to another related term

“graded materials” to separate it with authentic materials The Graded Materials are the ones that usually circle around a particular structure that is presented to the student For example, if the tense being presented is, "The Past Tense", every single speaker in the dialogs or even the texts given to the students are in that tense In other words, the situation that is put in context, it is not real Authentic materials are of course different from so – called “graded materials” And thanks to the globalization, authentic materials become more available for the teachers to choose The availability of sources

of authentic materials spreads from newspapers, TV programs, menus, magazines, the internet, to the movies, songs, brochures, comics, literature (novels, poems and short stories), and so forth

I 2 1 2 Advantages of Using Authentic Materials

Using authentic material in the classroom, and assuming that it is appropriately exploited, is significant for many reasons: (1) Students are exposed to real discourse, as

in videos of interviews with famous people where intermediate students listen for gist

(2) Authentic materials keep students informed about what is happening in the world,

so they have an intrinsic educational value As teachers, we are educators working

within the school system, so education and general development are part of our responsibilities (Sanderson, 1999) (3) Textbooks often do not include incidental or improper English (4) They can produce a sense of achievement (5) The same piece of material can be used under different circumstances if the task is different (6) Language change is reflected in the materials so that students and teachers can keep abreast of such changes (7) Reading texts are ideal to teach/practise mini-skills or macro-skills such as scanning, when students are given a news article and asked to look for specific information (8) Books, articles, newspapers, and so on contain a wide variety of text types and language styles and are not easily found in conventional teaching materials

(9) They can encourage reading for pleasure because they are likely to contain topics of interest to learners, especially if students are given the chance to have a say about the topics or kinds of authentic materials to be used in class

I 2 1 3 Disadvantages of Using Authentic Materials

The disadvantages mentioned by several writers are: (1) They may be too culturally biased, or unnecessarily difficult to understand outside the language community (2) The vocabulary might not be relevant to the student's immediate needs

(3) Too many structures are mixed so lower levels have a hard time decoding the texts

(4) Special preparation is necessary which can be time consuming (5) With listening:

too many different accents (6) The material can become outdated easily This is true with the cases of news, TV or radio programs

I 2 2 The Coursebook

I 2 2 1 Definition

Obviously, a textbook or coursebook (UK English) is a manual of instruction in any branch of study Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions

There have been a plenty of pros and cons around the definition and the usage

of coursebook A Hasan & B Esmat (2009) synthetized the arguments and counter – arguments for defining and using a textbook as below:

The arguments for using a textbook are: (1) A textbook is a framework which

regulates and times the programs (2) In the eyes of the learners, no textbook means no

purpose (3) Without a textbook, learners think their learning is not taken seriously (4)

In many situations, a textbook can serve as a syllabus (6) A textbook is a cheap way of providing learning materials (7) A textbook provides ready – made teaching texts and learning tasks (8) A learner without a textbook is out of focus and teacher – depent

(9) For novice teachers, a textbook means security, guidance, and support

The counter – arguments are: (1) If every group of students has different

needs, no one textbook can be a response to all differing needs (2) Topics in a textbook may not be relevant for and interesting to all (3) A textbook is confining, i.e.,

it inhibits teachers’ creativity (4) A textbook of necessary sets prearranged sequence and structures that may not be realistic and situation – friendly (5) Textbooks have their own rationale, and as such they cannot by their nature cater for a variety of levels, every type of learning styles, and every category of learning strategies that often exist

in the class (6) Teachers many find themselves as a mediators with no free hand and slave, in fact, to others’ judgments about what is good and what is not (cf Ur, 1996, pp

183 – 195)

General speaking, almost all the teachers when asked show the protection with the textbook Only few of them have different ideas However, most of the teachers also agree that we should incorporate the arguments and couter – arguments when considering the roles of textbook in teaching and learning process which come to a conclusion that textbook is unlackable and adaptation is also inevitable

I 2 2 2 Textbook Evaluation

No textbook is perfect, so choosing and evaluating a coursebook is an inevitable process while using a well – designed coursebook The fact that learners have become more sophisticated, as a result of the access to mass media or of the globalization They have higher expectation and standards They devide themselves into various groups, each of which has a different fields and needs And of cource, no textbook is universal enough to be the best for all the teachers and learners That’s why many scholars have suggested different ways to help teachers become more systematic and objective in their approach of selecting and evaluating the textbook in order to satisfy most of the needs during teaching and learning process We have some names here B Tomlinson

(2003), A Cunningsworth (1995), M P Breen & C N Candlin (1979 & 1987), Daoud

& Celce – Murcia (1979), Williams (1983), Tucker 1975), Sheldon (1988), Ur (1996), Miekley (2005) Although the checklists are built up under variety of methods to access how good a textbook is and it is difficult for the teachers even to choose which checklist they should follow, the checklists are really necessary

I 2 2 3 Textbook Adaptation

Adaptation is another inevitable process in using a coursebook while teaching a language in many parts of the world We should understand that coursebooks are not written for a specific group of people They are written for a generalized target group (children or adults, beginners or the advanced, ESL or EFL) No book can meet all the needs and interests of each group of learners that use it Graves (2000, 188 - 197) explains that coursebook adaptation can happen at three different levels – the activity level, the unit level and the syllabus level Syllabus level adaptation is taking a coursebook and reordering the units and/or adding supplementary materials to the units

to better fit the learners’ needs over a course of study At the unit level, the steps in the order of activities in a unit are changed In an example of this, Graves gave twelve activities from a course book unit to groups of teachers and asked them to produce a unit plan for their students At the end of the activity, each group had reordered the units in a totally unique way, and none matched the original coursebook order

Teachers adapt our coursebooks for many reasons: perhaps the particular page they are working on doesn’t provide enough practice for the class in question, or perhaps the particular topic doesn’t excite the interest of the group Whatever the reason is, the principles are the same and can be distilled into the following advices:

 Supplement, don’t replace: Supplementing means adding to the activities in the

coursebook to better suit the needs of the learners In principle, we should supplement to provide more than what is in the coursebook, however, the coursebook activities are there for a reason and so you should try to include them

 Supplementing doesn’t always mean photocopying: Many people think that supplementing means creating or copying worksheets This is not always the case

 Don’t follow rubrics slavishly: Just because the course book tells you to do

something in one way, it doesn’t mean you have to Sometimes authors will miss the opportunity, particularly for group and pair work Doing an exercise in a new

and imaginative way can help to lift the book off the page

 Have a good reason to do what you are doing: Don’t supplement or adapt merely for the sake of it Make sure that you have a very good reason for what you are doing and that you are clear about the aims Not only will this make the activity

easier to conduct, but it will make it more interesting for all

 Change the content, not the exercise: A practical idea for supplementing is to adapt exercises by changing or adding to the content but keeping the same exercise framework and aims This helps to keep the flow of the course book syllabus intact, but will also help to make the content more relevant to the group and is particularly useful in an ESP context

I 2 3 Conclusion

Materials have always been the backbone of the teaching and learning process

In the past, well – designed coursebooks were compulsory for all the schools, but now the trend is changing People are more and more interested in materials taken from real life, which are said to have strong influence on the learners and put a good pressure as well as realistic knowledge on the learners’ mind, which in turn help learning and teaching process develop Whereas, there are a lot of people uninterested in using this kind of materials because for them, to some extend they prevent the streamline of the knowledge in the coursebook, this inversely can be considered as conservative by the former group But we cannot say that this opinion is not reasonable That’s why the coursebook adaptation is a necessary work to do with almost all the teachers who realize the unsuitability of the coursebook with the factual students’ proficiency, not the complete alteration of the authentic materials with the designed coursebook

Generally, the use of materials in this or that way is a social activity, which promote the interaction for learning and teaching process During the long history, coursebooks have always been the central of teaching a foreign language to most teachers, which should be reviewed and changed to fit the new teaching and learning orientation

CHAPTER II THE STUDY

II 1 The Status of Teaching and Learning Speaking at Gia Binh II High School

II 1 1 Description of the Students at Gia Binh II High School

All the students when coming into Gia Binh II High School have studied English as a compulsory subject since they were in lower – secondary school The level

of students for grade 10 is said to be pre – intermediate, however, actually they are at much lower level Not only that, almost all students do not have much awareness about English Despite the fact that English is a compulsory subject, it is always considered

as no more than an optional one Students are just forced to learn it to get marks to complete the report What’s more, Gia Binh is a completely rural area where almost all people work as farmers - no extra job - which means that some people are really poor and cannot invest for their children to study Or if they do so, English will not be chosen, but Maths, Chemistry, and Physics, or Literature, Geography, and History will

be They also have little access to such mass media as newspapers, magazine (especially in English) or the Internet, which use English a lot, then they are far from familiar with English in every day life The unfamiliarity and the incompetence of them with English consequently make them shy and passive and make it very difficult for them Some of them are even afraid of learning English

However, English has been learned for a long time and grammar is the focus of all the textbooks, so some students are really good at grammatical rules, but bad at listening or speaking Communication in real life is certainly rare and a big challenge for them One thing we can hope about these students is that they have much ability in learning how to communicate in the target language if they are trained and given a chance

II 1 2 Description of the Teachers at Gia Binh II High School

In Gia Binh II High School, there are 11 teachers All of them are very young, the oldest ones were born in 1976 and the youngest in 1984 None of them has ever been to any English speaking countries One of them is attending the MA Course, K17

in University of Languages International Studies – Vietnam National University One

of them studied Russian in university and then kept on studying English as the second degree Two of them graduated from colleges of foreign languages, and then were trained in the in – service training courses All the other teachers graduated from either ULIS – VNU or Foreign Languages Department – Thai Nguyen University

In the past, methodologically, the teachers in Gia Binh II High School were familiar with traditional language teaching They focused on grammar too much and were always the controllers of the class When the new textbook was first introduced, it was not only new with students, but also with the teachers The deviation were unavoidable Some teachers have limitations in terms of communicative competence in the target language because either they graduated from university for a long time or they got familiar with teaching in traditional ways as a result of the students’ low proficiency or they themselves were not good communicators However, the young sensitive teachers in this school quickly put them into the current when the new textbook and new methodology were applied; and they always show that they have great desire to succeed in their changes in teaching process

II 1 3 The Status of Teaching and Learning Speaking at Gia Binh II High School

In the past, the number of students in each class was great which was not suitable for teaching and learning a foreign language Private talks occurred much time during classes because our teachers sometimes could not control their students properly The time for each lesson always limited to only 45 minutes, teachers could just choose to focus themselves and their students on grammatical rules rather than giving their students speaking practice Consequently, as presented above, students were good at grammar but unable to use them in real life Moreover, the method used

in teaching process was teacher – centered which often demotivated both teachers and students in their own teaching and learning jobs Facilities in the school were also considered as a weak point of the school: no technical rooms specifically for teaching and learning foreign languages, no cassette players, no video players, no library for such references as exercise books or newspapers in English, ect…

Some recent years, there have been changes Firstly, the new textbook poses a new formation of an unit: 5 lessons correspond with four skills and a language focus

This means that though the time for each lesson is still limited, teachers and students still have time to interact with each other in the target language In Speaking class, asking and answering, playing roles, describing a picture or discussing… are the popular activities which could never occur in the past Secondly, thanks to the change

of the textbook again, speaking activites have other objectives than just focusing on form and language accuracy as before Then, students can review grammatical structures, vocabulary and language functions, develop their speaking skill through practicing situations given in the textbook and by the teachers, and build up confidence

in using English in real life Thirdly, the teaching method used has changed from teacher – centered to learner – centered Teachers no more are the controllers of the class but are guides, recommendators and organizers, ect… Students are more active in getting knowledge The last but not least change is on the facilities Now, we have one technical room, one video player, eight cassette players, one lap top given to the group leader and one computer room with 40 computers used together with other subjects

The matter here is that teachers rarely used these facilities except for cassette players, one because they are not enough if many classes are in need at one time and the other because the teachers are not used to using and exploiting modern teaching aids It is pity that the size of the class, from 45 to 50, is still too large for a language class This backward physical condition will be a high barrier for students to succeed in communication

II 2 Research Methodology

Two questionnaires were designed for teachers and students to get information

to fulfil the aims of the study

II 2 1 Questionnaire for the Teachers

The questionnaire for the teachers aims at finding out: (1) The difficulties in teaching and learning English speaking skill of teachers and grade-12 students in Gia Binh II High School (2) The problems faced by the teachers and the grade-12 students

in using the English 12 coursebook (3) The use of supplementary authentic materials

in teaching and learning English speaking skill

The questionnaires were delivered to 30 teachers from three high schools Gia Binh II High School, Gia Binh I High School, Gia Binh District, and Luong Tai I High School, Luong Tai District, Bac Ninh Province

In three schools, Luong Tai I has 12 teachers, Gia Binh II has 11 teachers; Gia Binh I has only 8 Among 30 teachers, 6 graduated from in – service courses They either used to teach Russian and then changed into English or graduated from college

of foreign languages and then kept on studying in – service university The rest all graduated from universities of foreign languages All these three high schools locate in

geographical, social and cultural characteristics so might share the same, or similar, teaching and learning environment The reason for the expansion of the number of teachers doing the questionnaire is to increase the validity and reliability of the information collected The questionnaires delivered to the teachers within 2 weeks were all responded adequately

The questionnaire for the teachers (see Appendix A) consists of 2 big main parts focusing on the following categories:

 Teachers’ teaching experience (Part I)

 Teachers’ perception of CLT (Part II, Section A)

 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill in terms of coursebook (Part

II 2 2 Questionnaire for the Students

The questionnaire for the students aims at: (1) exploring the current situation of learning English and the attitude towards learning English as well as Speaking Skill particularly of Grade – 12 students in Gia Binh II High School (2) Collecting students’

ideas about the appropriateness of the English 12 standard Textbook (3) Finding out the implementation of CLT and the use of Authentic Materials in English Speaking Skill lessons

The questionnaires were delivered to 130 grade-12 students of four different classes 12A1, 12A2, 12A4 and 12A8 in Gia Binh II High School They are of quite different background: students from classes A1 and A2 are among the best students of the school who are major in natural science subjects such as Maths, Chemistry, Physics or Biology

They used to believed as not very good at English, but the fact is that they have a lot of ability in learning this language whenever they have interest or motivation Class A4 and A8 are the normal classes, not the worst, who learn standard textbooks for all subjects

They are believed as acceptable in learning both natural and social science subjects It is certain that each student has a different interest in learning different subject, that’s why some students are quite interested in English whereas some are not

The questionnaire for the students (see Appendix B) consists of 12 questions focusing on the following categories:

 Students’ experience in learning English (question 1)

 Students’ attitude in learning English (question 2)

 Students’ motivation in learning English (question 3)

 Students’ attitude in learning speaking skill (questions 4, 5)

 Students’ evaluation of an English speaking lesson (question 6)

 Students’ difficulties in learning speaking skill (question 7)

 Students’ evaluation of using visual aids or supplementary materials in speaking class (questions 8, 9, 10)

 Students’ evaluation of teachers’ speaking skill (question 11)

 Students’ suggestions for better speaking teaching and learning (question 12)

All 130 copies of questionnaires delivered to students were responded adequately

II 3 Data Analysis

II 3 1 Questionnaires for the Teachers

II 3 1 1 Teachers’ Teaching Experience

Table 2: Teachers’ teaching experience

From the tables above, we can see that English teachers from three schools are really young Only 6% of the teachers are from 46 to over 55 years old, meanwhile there are 67% of the teachers are from 22 to 35 years old With such range of ages, the years of teaching experience correspond: only 6% of the teachers have about 25 to 30 years of teaching, and two other groups from 5 to 10 and from 11 to 15 years of teaching experience both make up 47%

It can be said that teachers have enough experience and they are young then they can learn more in the future Moreover, the advantage of the age can help them get access more easily to the new methods of teaching or change for another better method, the diversity of materials and the need for modern teaching techniques and technology

II 3 1 2 Teachers’ Perceptions of CLT

This part aims at discovering how the teachers are aware of the nature and characteristics of CLT, the stated approach that the new coursebook and English curriculum base on From the data in Table 3, one thing we can see quite clearly is that these teachers’ perceptions of CLT are not good Their ideas show big disagreement with each other and even with themselves Except for: “CLT creats a lot of opportunities for students to communicate” or “The final goal of CLT is students’

communicative competence”…, which are obvious characteristics of CLT, the others make much trouble for the teachers In fact, that these teachers do not perceive the CLT well is not only proved through this questionnaire Right before doing it, I also gave these teachers another questionnaire (see Appendix C), in which a lot of ideas of CLT

were collected and the teachers were asked to evaluate them However, because that questionnaire was full of academic and theoretical knowledge, some teachers even could not do them This is a failure of that questionnaire which comes to my decision

of making this questionnaire, more suitable to the teachers But this also proves the bad perception of the teachers of CLT Fortunately, the number of the teachers who misunderstood the nature of CLT is small, and among those who graduated from unofficial courses They can learn more later

Nevertheless, real teaching of course does not always portrait theoretical knowledge; actually some teachers can teach very well with their own method based on their limited knowledge of CLT, whereas some others who understand CLT quite well

do not succeed in teaching “Students” is a big factor that we should pay attention while trying to apply CLT in teaching English in this rural area

In CLT, fluency is much more important than accuracy 100

In CLT, language items are necessarily contextualized 57 CLT creats a lot of opportunities for students to communicate 100 The final goal of CLT is students’ communicative competence 100 CLT arose as a direct result of the need for foreign language proficiency in

listening and speaking skills

86

Learners can work on four skills from the beginning 57

CLT enhances the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning

II 3 1 3 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill in terms of coursebook

37.5%

18.75%

43.75%

Good Neutral Bad

Chart 1: Coursebook Evaluation

The chart above indicates the teachers’ evaluation of 16 speaking lessons in 16 units of grade – 12 standard textbook Based on the data collected from the questionnaires, the writer of the thesis would like to have a look at teachers’

coursebook evaluation in the way of defining the lessons as good, bad and neutral

Among 16 lessons, 6 are ranked as good or qualified lessons, making up 37.5%; 7 are ranked as bad or unqualified lessons, making up 43.75% The last 3 lessons making up 18.75% are considered as neutral which means that they have both good and bad points; teachers can either use authentic materials or not 6 good lessons are from units

4, 5, 6, 10, 12 and 15 7 bad lessons are from units 1, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, and 14 3 neutral lessons are from units 2, 3 and 16 The most popular judgments of good lessons are:

good topic, good information, tasks are suitable for students’ level and stimulating, and task design is also good (does not contain too many new words, does not need much structure review, no tally in tasks’ content…) The bad lessons are criticized for many reasons For example, the speaking tasks in unit 1 are said to be similar in content, the teachers have to control the practice in class all the time Unit 7 receives the most attacks All the teachers said that this lesson is ill – designed because while task 1 is easy, task 2 and task 3 are too difficult The duty given to students in task 2 is too heavy Students do not have enough background knowledge, vocabulary and time to talk about all three fields of agriculture, education and health care Moreover, the

content of the task is not interesting because students have to talk about a strange and imaginary nation This takes away quite a lot of motivation And if the students finish everything in task 2, they will not have enough time to do task 3; or if they do, they are controlled by the teachers Likewise, unit 8 is criticized for its unrealistic and unfamiliar information which is of course useless for students That’s why students lose their motivation in learning this lesson Furthermore, the tasks are not well – designed:

controlled practice is compulsory, grammar need teaching, there is no illustrations Too many new words needed, the compulsory usage of too much Vietnamese or grammatical review are also not highly appriciated in speaking lessons following CLT approach.The same situation occurs with other unqualified lessons according to teacher’s evaluation, and certainly they need adaptation to make it easy for teachers in teaching and for learners in learning The lessons which are neutral contains both good points such as good information, good topic or easy tasks, and bad points such as the identicality in the tasks’ content, or too long tasks…

Anyway, all teachers agree that any lessons can receive the changes if they make the lessons easier, more interesting, and motivating than before Visual aids and authentic materials are the first and the best choice of the teachers all the time

II 3 1 4 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill in terms of learners

This part aims at determining the percentage of teachers’ agreement with the ideas presented in two main sector: the difficulties in terms of learners generally with teaching and learning English, and the difficulties in terms of learners particularly with speaking skill

The data in Table 5 indicate that it is no doubt that in the eyes of the teachers, English is not the favourite subject of most students and speaking is the most difficult skill for almost all of them Many the positive ideas on students’s attitude towards English and Speaking skill here are denied by the teachers, which means that teaching English and Speaking skill is a big challenge for the teachers in three schools and it will take time for the students to change their ideas about English and its skills But this

is not strange thing for most of teachers in rural areas; they have been awared of this

difficulty and become more and more patient in teaching their students Fortunately, some succeed at last with their own method and effort

There are many students who are good at English in grade-12 classes in GB II H.S 0

Learners are often eager to take part in an English lesson 0 Classes are too large for a typical language class (often more than 45) 100 Students have negative attitude to learning English speaking 100

Most of the students are very motivated to learn English 0 Before coming into the school, almost all students study English 57 For many students, Speaking is the easiest of the four macro English skills 0 For many students, Speaking is the most difficult of the four 100 Most of the students are very happy to learn Speaking lessons 0 Many students do not feel comfortable when learning Speaking Skill 100

Students are often afraid of being laughed at when they make mistakes while speaking English

100 Students do not understand all the teachers’ instructions in English 100

It is difficult for almost all students in expressing their ideas in English 100 The classes are too noisy during English Speaking lessons 0

No visual aids or supplementary are available for English Speaking lessons 0

Table 4: Difficulties in teaching and learning in terms of learners

II 3 1 5 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill in terms of facilities

This section is to determine the percentage of teachers’ agreement with the ideas presented in difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill in terms of facilities

Facilities are really important in teaching and learning processes, however, there is a good deal of limitation in these three high schools based on the evaluation of the teachers In Gia Binh II High School, facilities are quite sufficient Meanwhile, in Gia Binh I and Luong Tai I High Schools, such facilities as technical room specifically for language learning, video players, cassette players are just about to be equiped

Computers, printers, projectors are available in all these schools, but they have to share with other subjects This of course cannot be seen from the data in Table 6 below

What we can see is just one – third of the teachers answered yes with the ideas 3 and 4

The other get totally agreement except for the ideas numbered 1 and 9 which asked for the personal judgments

The classes are very well-formed and well-equipped 20 The teaching and learning environment is safe and guaranteed 100 Cassette players, video players, audio recorders or video recorders are available for

teaching and learning

Table 5: Difficulties in teaching and learning in terms of facilities

The biggest problem of English teachers facilities is that some of them do not know how to use the equipments As a result, they cannot exploit the equipments to benefit themselves and their students, which means exactly the same as the situation they are not given anything It is better if the teachers try to learn how to use and

II 3 1 6 The use of Authentic Materials for teaching English speaking skill

This part will deal with teachers’ agreement with the ideas of authentic materials, kinds of authentic materials and activities they often use in teaching speaking skill, part of the lesson they use authentic materials and the frequency of this action

Language materials originally intended for native speakers, not language learners

second-14

Instruments or materials not created or edited expressly for language learners

This means that most everyday objects in the target language qualify as authentic materials

Table 6: Perceptions of Authentic Materials

Teachers’ perceptions of authentic materials differ from each other very much, showing different opinions on this kind of materials as well as the effect on teachers’

usage later We cannot say who are completely wrong and who are completely right here, but it is lucky that the biggest number of teachers choose the last idea which is being seen as the rightest definition of authentic materials at this moment

Kinds of A M % Kinds of A M % Kinds of A M %

train schedules 0 Brochures 0 internet websites 57 pictures of road

signs

business cards 0 Currency 27 radio broadcasts 14

programs

85

Table 7: Kinds of Authentic Materials often used

No teachers have ever used train schedules, business cards, labels, menus, brochures and receipts as supplementary materials while teaching From the least to the most favourite kinds of authentic materials we have radio broadcasts with 14%;

currency and films 27%; literature, internet websites, and newspapers 57%; TV programs 85%; and music 100% The teachers certainly choose kinds of reference which they can find out the most easily Train schedules or any kinds in its group are

not familiar with students in terms of reading and using, not in terms of knowing and seeing Music, on the other hand, is too easy to find, and it is also the thing students are always interesting Anyway, kinds of authentic materials used depend very much on the lessons to be taught, and the experienced teachers know what to choose to exploit both materials and textbook

Kinds of activities % Kinds of activities % Kinds of activities %

Table 8: Kinds of Activities used to develop speaking lessons

According to the teachers, because students are of low proficiency, teachers have to choose controlled activities like interviews, games, Q & A exchanges, making

up sentences orally most of the time Such less controlled or free activities as free talks, description of objects, oral presentations, problem solving, oral presentation, discussion are rarely used, just 14% teachers used them in their speaking lessons If they try using these activities more often, students will easily get stuck and have negative feeling in learning speaking which leads to the distruction of the teaching and learning process

Only when the lessons are easy and the topics are interested by students, free talks or discussion occur, with the nuclear are some good students Ranking exercises, reading comprehension, chain recording, completeing dialogues, information gap are never used because they are not activities of a speaking lesson according to the teachers

In application of authentic materials, 100% of the teachers would use them for warm – up activities and 57% of the teachers would use them for while speaking activities None of them applied authentic materials for after – speaking The frequency

of using depends on the difficulty of the lessons Their explanation is that warm – up is

a free part for the teachers, they can do anything they want or think to make the lessons

a bit more interesting, but later it is better to follow the textbook Those who applied authentic materials for while – speaking part explained that they thought the textbook’

design is not comfortable for their students’ perception then they did some changes

But all of them agreed that after – speaking does not need authentic materials because this part allow students’ free talks and it is better if the teachers let them do following the instruction of the textbook This again shows that the teachers here are too dependent on the textbook However, we also have to accept that this application is a success for the teachers and students because the time for each lesson is really short, it

is not easy to adapt anything new in such a short time with such large incompetent students

II 3 2 Questionnaires for the Students

II 3 2 1 Students’ experience in learning English (question 1)

All the students attended on GB II High School had studied English in lower secondary school Up to grade 12, 120 of 130 students have studied English for 8 years, and 10 of 130 have studied for 10 years because they started learning English when they were in primary school Then students might be very good at grammar and should

be good at communicating in English in real life However, they have good memory of grammatical rules but bad ability in communication

II 3 2 2 Students’ attitude towards learning English and learning speaking skill (question 2, 4, 5)

In the questionnaire of the teachers we concluded that English is not the favourite subject of students and speaking is considered as the most difficult skill of four The data from the questionnaire of the students again prove that 61.5 % of the students dislike English and 73 % dislike speaking skill 23 % of the students do not like or dislike this subject, while the number is 19% with speaking skill 13% students (mostly girls) like this subject, and 9% have the same idea with speaking skill show us that students are very negative in learning English and speaking skill A tiny percentage of students like this subject very much: 2.5% correspoding with 2 students and worse only 1 student like speaking skill very much correspoding to nearly 1% We cannot blame the students for their unfavorableness with English and speaking skill This is not their mother tounge

and at this moment English does not help them any, except for a difficult subject for them to study in the course And no other but the teachers can change this situation

II 3 2 3 Students’ motivation in learning English (question 3)

Most of the students, up to 69%, do not have any motivation at all English for them is just a compulsory subject Some others want to get good marks in tests and exams This number is up to 19%, very much smaller than the previous group There are 9% of the students want to learn English to read newspapers, corresponding with just 12 students However, it is questionable that these students really want to learn English for such purpose Maybe they choose this idea because it is interesting or they follow the choice of some other good students There is a very small number of students are motivated to learn English to communicate with foreigners or to find scholarships studying abroad, whereas no one choose the idea number 5: to get access

to knowledge and achievement of the world This point shows off the difference between students in rural area and students in big city And it makes the idea number 1 more and more exact: students do not have motivation in learning English

To read newspapers, listen to TV or radio programs in English 9

To easily get access to knowledge and achievement of the world because English is considered as the language of international communication, science, technology and the mass media

0

Table 9: Students’ motivation in learning English

II 3 2 4 Students’ evaluation of an English speaking lesson (question 6)

Evaluation of an English speaking lesson %

Attractive, active with many activities 32 Normal, following the activities in the textbook 92

Stressful because the activities in the textbook are too difficult 19

Table 10: Students’ evaluation of an English speaking lesson

The data in Table 10 indicate that students appear not to satisfy with speaking lessons organized by the teachers The problem here is that many students just want to follow the textbook because with them it is right and standard Many other want to have more challenges or stimulation while learning, but all they can think of is playing games and listening to music When the teachers give them other kinds of activities which intend to force them to learn, both of two group will soon feel bored and become incorporate This is again the students’ lack of motivation and also the failure of the teachers as controllers or organizers of the class

II 3 2 5 Students’ difficulties in learning speaking skill (question 7)

Difficulties in learning speaking skill %

Be afraid of being laughed at when they make speaking English mistakes 73

Do not have enough basic knowledge about the topic being discussed in English

54

Do not have enough time to prepare for the activities 32 Not used to speak English before a large audience 54 Have difficulty in expressing their ideas in English 69

Classes are too noisy during English Speaking lessons 5 Textbook’s activities are too difficult and too far from real life 35

No visual aids or supplementary are available for English Speaking

.lessons

0

Table 11: Students’ difficulties in learning speaking skill

This part aims at defining the difficulties students face when learning speaking skill A large number of students have difficulty in speaking because of psychological and linguistic result They are afraid of being laughed, not used to speaking in front of audience, or do not have enough basic knowledge, or do not have vocabulary as well as grammar rules to express their ideas meaningfully and grammatically The percentage

of these groups spread from 54% to 73%, equal to from 70 to 95 students in 130

Objective reasons such as preparing time or textbook also play a very important role in preventing students in learning, up to 32 and 35% in students’ opinions

Statistically, the data collected from students are not similar to the data collected from the teachers However, if we understand the data collected from the teachers as their agreement with the ideas given by the questionnaire’s builder, not the percentage