Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS teaching speaking skills for the first year students at thai nguyen college of economics and technology problems and recommendations

No of students: Number of students No of teachers: Number of teachers MA: Master of Arts LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Speaking activities and topics designed for New Headway Elementary....1

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

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CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION……… 1

1 Rationales of the study……… 1

2 Aims……….2

3 Research questions……….2

4 Scope of the study……… 3

5 Organization of the study……….……….……… 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT……… ….4

Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND……….4

1.1 The nature of speaking……… ……….……4

1.1.1 Definition of speaking……… ….4

1.1.2 Characteristics of speaking……….5

1.1.3 Development approach in teaching speaking skills………5

1.2 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skills 8

1.2.1 Difficulties from teachers‟ view……….……… 8

1.2.2 Difficulties from non-native students in studying speaking skill…10 1.2.3 Difficulties from external factors ……… ……11

1.3 The roles of speaking skills….……… ………11

1.3.1 Teaching speaking skills on Vietnamese teachers‟ view 11

1.3.2 Learning speaking skills in Vietnam ………13

Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODS……… 14

2.1 The reality of teaching and learning English speaking skills at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Technology……… 14

2.1.1 Overview of the English course and its objectives … … 14

2.1.2 Description of the students……… …… 15

2.1.3 Description of the teachers………16

2.2 The research methods……… ………….17

2.3 Data analysis……… ………18

2.3.1 Procedure of the survey……… ……… 18

2.3.2 Presentation of the statistical results……… …………19

Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS………27

3.1 Findings 27

3.1.1 Problems from the teachers……… ……27

3.1.2 Problems from the students……… ……29

3.1.3 Problems from other factors……… ………32

3.2 Recommendations……… …34

3.2.1 Overview……… …34

3.2.2 Suggested solutions for the situation at the college… ……35

3.2.3 Some teaching strategies for the teachers……… 36

3.2.4 Some suggested activities in speaking lessons……… 38

PART C: CONCLUSION……… 41

REFERENCES……… 42 APPENDICES……….I

No of students: Number of students

No of teachers: Number of teachers MA: Master of Arts

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Speaking activities and topics designed for New Headway Elementary 14

Table 2: Students‟ opinion on learning English………19 Table 3: The reasons that make students unwilling to speak in English class… …20 Table 4: Students‟ assessment of speaking activities given by teachers… ………22 Table 5: Teachers‟ English communicative competence……… …23 Table 6: Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching speaking at TNC-ET……… 24 Table 7: What teachers do to motivate students to speak in English class……… 25

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationales of the study

The main reason for choosing this topic for my thesis was realizing how important speaking English is in every day situations Speaking a foreign language represents one of the essential requirements of today´s society No one can deny the universality of English Outside English-speaking countries, English has become a compulsory component of education in many countries This trend also applies in Vietnam At many schools and universities, English is chosen as a compulsory subject for students as English is considered to be a useful tool to access the world knowledge It is considered as one of the most influencing factors while applying for a job or sustaining in a particular work position under the condition of advancing the language level However, though the importance of English has been recognized, how it is taught can often be questioned

When we were students before, we learnt in traditional ways-teachers read, explained grammar units and students copied, took notes The teaching of oral English was especially neglected with my former teachers I had very little emphasis in schools at secondary level on teaching oral English In the upper grades, even at my university, educators tended to particularly focus on reading, writing, and academic content, and diminish the importance of helping students to speak English better And now we become teachers, standing in front of new students and transmit a foreign language to them We really want to make a better effect In my college, Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Technology (TNC-ET), students accumulate 6 credits of English out of total credits for an undergraduate degree The proportion of English compared to other subjects, then,

is relatively small The requirement, however, after they graduate, is equal to level

B in language education These people are required to reach a sufficient level in a foreign language in order to accomplish communication in their jobs That means the curriculums must emphasize on oral communication How we can do it when it

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is is surprising to learn that many of the students are incapable of using their English to talk, even in class We now mainly spend time talking with students about a particular topic and making sure they know vocabulary words connected with that topic as a preview to reading a passage or a story We consider that is all about teaching oral English We have had numerous studies on this situation and various solutions, recommendations and suggestions, including changing teaching methods, changing syllabus or textbooks, upgrading teachers‟ qualifications, changing formats of speaking tests and so on But what is the main difficulty and where we can find suitable solutions for the situation we encounter everyday are the questions that urge me to make my writing about this matter My research is

conducted on Teaching speaking skills to first- year students at Thai Nguyen

College of Economics and Technology: problems and recommendations

2 Aims of the study

The study is aimed at:

situations of the first-year students at TNC-ET on the basis of finding out relevant difficulties experienced by the teachers of English and some other external reasons

speak English in class

helping the students overcome their inhibition and unwillingness, and thereby, improve their speaking skills

the hope that they can enhance the learners in speaking skills

3 Research questions

The above aims can be realized through the following research questions:

1 What are the problems in teaching and learning speaking skills for the year students at TNC-ET?

first-2 How can teachers and students minimize these difficulties?

4 Scope of the study

Although problems in teaching practices in my college exist in the four macro-skills, we have chosen to focus on difficulties in teaching speaking skills to first-year students at TNC-ET for the fact that mastering speaking is so central to language learning that when we refer to speaking a language, we often mean knowing a language In addition, some recommendations for the teachers of English

to decrease those difficulties are also proposed Also, due to the researcher‟s limited ability, time constraints and narrow-scaled study, this study only involves a small number of TNC-ET non-English students in their first academic year (i.e., 50 first-

5 Organization of the study

The study consists of three parts Part A, Introduction, deals with general

rationales of the study, aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, and the

outline of the study Part B, Development, is composed of three chapters Chapter One,

Theoretical Background, reviews the theoretical literature involving the difficulties in

teaching speaking skill to non-English major students in three relating areas: nature of oral communication; the difficulties in teaching and learning English speaking skills; and

the roles of speaking skills in the views of teachers and students Chapter Two, Research

Methods, mentions the concrete reality of teaching and learning speaking skills at

TNC-ET, methods of the study and data analysis Chapter Three, Findings and

Recommendations, presents and discusses the problems just found out in teaching the

skill of speaking to first-year students of English at TNC-ET including the difficulties caused by teachers themselves, students and objective factors It also gives the recommendations and activities in reducing those difficulties suggested by the participants of the study The last part is the conclusion of the study, which presents the overview of the study Besides, the limitations of the thesis are pointed out and the areas for further study are also proposed

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 The nature of speaking

1.1.1 Definition of speaking

According to Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997, speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving

According to Burn & Joyce, 1997, "speaking" is the delivery of language through the mouth To speak, we create sounds using many parts of our body, including the lungs, vocal tract, vocal chords, tongue, teeth and lips In the framework of how we learn our first language, language has been divided into different skill areas A child first learns to practice language through the skill of listening Later, a child uses language by speaking combined with listening Then, when school begins, children learn the skills of reading and writing So speaking is usually the second of the four language skills that we learn This vocalized form of language usually requires at least one listener When two or more people speak or talk to each other, the conversation is called a "dialogue" Speech can flow naturally from one person to another in the form of dialogue It can also be planned and rehearsed, as in the delivery of a speech or presentation

Speaking can be formal or informal:

know well

people for the first time

Speaking is probably the language skill that most language learners wish to perfect as soon as possible

1.1.2 Characteristics of speaking

According to Bygate (1987), speaking has the following characteristics:

Firstly, its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving

Secondly, the learners must know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary, but also they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language

Thirdly, speech has its own features, structures, and conventions different from written language

Lastly, Bygate (1987) considers speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways The reason is that almost all people can speak, and so take speaking skill too much for granted Bygate also highly appreciates speaking skill by stating that speaking is the medium through which much language is learnt

To sum up, it is undeniable that speaking is the key to communication By considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class, and what specific needs learners report, teachers can help learners improve their speaking and overall oral competency

1.1.3 Development approach in teaching speaking skills

Speaking in traditional methodologies usually meant repeating after the teachers, memorizing a dialogue, or responding to drills.The emergence of communication language teaching in the 1980s led to changed views of syllabuses and methodology, which are continuing to shape approaches to teaching speaking skills today Grammar-based syllabuses were replaced by communicative ones built around notions, functions, skills, tasks, and other non-grammatical units of organization Fluency became a goal for speaking courses and this could be developed through the phases in teaching speaking skills that required learners to

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attempt real communication, despite limited proficiency in English Therefore, it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking Rather than leading students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place is desired With this aim, the following part will search the three main phases for an effective speaking lesson: Presentation phase, Produce phase and Production phase

In the Presentation phase, the teacher is a model, when students are aiming for accuracy The teacher says new language and asks students to repeat until they are correct and confident with their pronunciation of the new language

The teacher is a prompt during the Practice phase, encouraging students to think about how to use the new language they are learning

During the Production phase, the teacher is organizer, encourager and monitor as students work in pairs or groups to practice fluency He needs to organize the groups, encourages students who may be afraid of making mistakes or may not know what to say, and be a monitor to keep the noise at an acceptable level and to make sure that everyone is doing what they are supposed to do

Baker and Westrup (2003) denote some important features of the Presentation phase of a PPP lesson:

- This phase should only last about 5 or 10 minutes

- The information the teacher gives is for students to use later in the lesson

- The teacher should try to involve students in this stage as much as possible

When presenting new language, it is important to include four things:

intonation pattern;

Teacher can present language directly, present through situations, present through pictures and real objects, present through students„ own knowledge

Students need a lot of practice in using the new language they have learnt in the Presentation phase The Practice phase is a main part of a lesson, which can also include practice in listening, reading and writing During the Practice phase of a lesson, teacher will work with the students to practice speaking in different ways at different stages:

At the beginning, the teacher controls everything students say and corrects the pronunciation, sentence construction and use of the language Later, students should

do activities with less help and control from the teacher They practice the language

in pairs or groups, but now the teacher only guides the activities The teacher still monitor the work, walking quietly around the pairs or groups, listening, sometimes correcting and making sure students know what they have to do At the end, students should be able to use the new language reasonably well, and to speak more fluently using the language they have learnt

Once students have had an opportunity to practice speaking during the Practice phase, they should be ready to concentrate on speaking fluently with little direction from the teacher This is the Production phase of the lesson During this phase, students focus on becoming more fluent The teacher‟s task is to prepare the students well during the Presentation and Practice phases and to set up interesting and motivating activities, followed by useful feedback and correction, for the Production phase

To build students„ confidence, the teacher can suggest that they can use their first language for a group discussion about the activity Then, they can tell the class

or other groups about their ideas in English They can gather their ideas easily and quickly in their first language, and then communicate them in English to the rest of the class

In short, during the Production phase, students will speak with little help from the teacher, so the language they say and hear is more unpredictable This is why

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need good preparation and support before the Production phase to help them to do this successfully

1.2 Difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skills

Basing on Larsen-Freeman‟s views, difficulties in language teaching in general and difficulties in teaching English speaking skills in particular are examined from teachers, students together with objective factors affecting the teaching process

1.2.1 Difficulties from teachers’ view

- Inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices

As Nunan (1991) points out: Teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for the organization of the classroom but also for the processes of acquisition It is important for the organization and management of the classroom because it is through language that teachers either succeed or fail in implementing their teaching plans In terms of acquisition, teacher talk is important as it is probably the major source of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to receive

The amount and type of teacher talk is even regarded as a decisive factor of success or failure in classroom teaching Besides, the ways the teacher corrects students‟ mistakes influence on their mentality a lot Moreover, to make the process

of teaching and learning effective, it is very essential to build a friendly, threatening classroom atmosphere which is created on the basis of a close teacher-learner relationship Therefore, inappropriate teacher pedagogical practices, through not only classroom teacher talk but also classroom teacher-learner relationship have also been seen as a major contributor to the difficulties in teaching speaking skills

non-The first point is that teacher talks too much in an English class Researches in language classrooms have established that teachers tend to do most of the classroom talk Teacher talk makes up over 70 percent of the total talk (Cook, 2000; Chaudron, 1988) It is evident that if teachers devote large amounts of time to explanations or management instructions, student talk will be indeed severely restricted In order to avoid the overuse of teacher talk, many scholars tend to maximize student talking time (STT) and minimize teacher talking time (TTT)

Teacher‟s corrections are sometimes unsuitable Inevitably learners will make

mistakes in the process of learning “A learner’s errors are significant in (that) they

provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or procedures the learner is employing in the discovery of the language”

(Brown, 2002: 205) It is a vital part of the teacher‟s role to point out students‟

mistakes and provide correction Correction helps students to clarify their understanding of meaning and construction of the language However, if teachers do

it in an insensitive way, the students will feel upset and lose their confidence

The next important thing is teacher and learner relationship Sometimes teacher does not build good relations with his learners as he thinks he need not care about it No student„s name in teacher‟s head and no talks outside classroom are becoming common The teacher does not know that neglection can cause problems

in teaching in general a lot, especially in speaking classes In fact, the relationship between the teacher and students plays a part in evoking problems in teaching speaking skill One of the possible ways of pursuing this aim is to talk with students about their feelings and help them rationalize their anxiety about speaking, which results in difficulties in teaching speaking skills (Tsui, 1996)

- Teachers’ deficiency in English communicative competence

This can be another constraint in teaching speaking skills which is related to teachers‟ deficiency in English communicative competence For many years, language teaching was seen as helping learners to develop linguistic competence-that is, helping students master the sounds, words, and grammar patterns of English

The idea was that by studying bits and pieces of a language, students could eventually put them all together and communicate

From the Hedge‟s description of communicative competence, to teach teaching speaking skill, teachers might have been required to have language

teaching competence including five interrelated fields, that is, linguistic

competence, pragmatic competence or sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, strategic competence and fluency This can be understood that

linguistic competence (syntactic structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation) is not

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the only requirement of teaching speaking skill However, in English oral classes teachers only spend teaching time in providing the knowledge of linguistic competence, which causes students‟ failure to unsuccessfully communicate

However, every difficulty as well as problem mixes to each other as a chain

The core may be unactive teachers The teachers produce syllabuses and tests at the end of each semester, students are assessed based on a written test of reading and writing skills only As a result, many students and even teachers are 'examination-oriented' They spend time developing reading and writing skills while 'ignoring' listening and speaking skills This is likely to happen not at a single school in

Vietnam, but across the whole spectrum

1.2.2 Difficulties from non-native students in studying speaking skill

There exist many student-related problems in teaching speaking skill in

English classes Many learners, as reported by studies into speaking (e.g Tsui:

“Reticence and anxiety in second language learning”), are unprepared or unwilling

to speak Their reluctance and reticence in English oral classes pose a big challenge for teaching speaking skills

According to Burn and Joyce (1997), reasons for Vietnamese learners‟

unwillingness to speak can be enumerated But the foremost one is of course the

cultural factors Cultural factors follow from students‟ prior learning experiences

and consequently from the expectations that are formed on their basis Another

reason originates in linguistic factors Linguistic factorslimiting speaking may be,

according to Burns and Joyce, difficulties in the phonetics and phonology of the target language, poor knowledge of grammatical patterns or low awareness of cultural background and social conventions that are necessary for processing meaning in the target language From the fact that a large number of teachers are limited in English proficiency, they cannot provide enough curricculum emphasizing on speaking skills Furthermore, examination system does not emphasize oral skills, too A low motivation level, timidity or anxiety in class,

negative social experiences, and culture shock are ranked among possible affective

factors In other words, the reasons for students„ poor speaking skills determining

learners‟ hesitancy to speak in class are: students’ fear of making mistakes and

losing face in front of their peers, students’ low opinion of their own proficiency level, limited opportunities outside of class to practice, uneven participationand incomprehensible input

1.2.3 Difficulties from external factors

The external factors like large and multilevel classes, time constraint, class condition and text book also result in the difficulties in teaching speaking skills

Large and multilevel classes are very common in Vietnam Multilevel classes can present challenges to teachers, as it is very difficult to design or organize speaking activities for many learners with different levels and interests Even though they may be common, large classes challenge even well-trained and experienced teachers The task of teaching oral skills in large classes can be

daunting

Many Vietnamese teachers feel that their circumstances oppose to attempts

to use communicative practices For example, they have to prepare students for a grammar-based examination, and have to finish certain content in the textbook in a certain amount of time They may have classes of 60 students, many of whom are more concerned about the immediate goal – to pass exams, to get a degree, rather than the long term goal – to develop communicative competence Moreover, textbooks with the allocated syllabus in the time allowed are also the obstacle to the implementation of the communicative approach If teachers are committed to communicative methods, pre-determined syllabus worries them all the time

To conclude, we have just reviewed a theoretical framework of difficulties in teaching English speaking skills including nature of language skills and oral communication, the skills of speaking and difficulties in teaching English speaking

skills In the following part, the real situations at TNC-ET will be discovered

1.3 The roles of speaking skills 1.3.1 Teaching speaking skills on Vietnamese teachers’ view

The poor quality of teaching speaking skills at a university in Vietnam results in a large number of graduates who have difficulty in communicating in

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English All the teachers know the importance of teaching oral skill, however, it is very hard to change the whole situation in a short time Furthermore, speaking is really a difficult skill to teach well Therefore, for many of English teachers, recognizing their role clearly or making a lesson better day by day is an effective solution And the active teachers always want to find the ways to diminish obstacles

in speaking periods For example, a speaking period can go smoothly if the teacher avoids the following errors: Oral skills in the text books by Hutchinson are facilitated by three main activities: pronunciation, situational conversation and argument When dealing with pronunciation, teachers simply turn on the tape to let students listen and repeat Few teachers stop to explain to students the mechanism

of producing sounds Consequently, students easily forget the correct pronunciation

of words (Bui, 2004, p 31, translated) Situational conversations are practiced with little motivation from teachers, creating modest cooperation between students (Bui,

2004, p 35, translated) When the cooperation is poor, many teachers tend to ignore developing argumentation because they often fail when they try Teachers, themselves, argue that they should spend time teaching writing and reading, as these skills help students get high marks in their exams (Bui, 2004, p 19, translated)

It is hard for the teachers to pay attention to speaking skill often The situation appears to constitute a vicious circle The more they (both teachers and students) focus on reading and writing exercises, the less they can communicate verbally in English To be fair, it is not the teachers' fault but the fault of syllabus designers They are not aware of the significance of speaking skills, about which an English teacher states: "Speaking … is extremely important: it's a voice into pupils' writing, it helps them to develop and make sense of their reading, and it also does wonders for their self esteem, building confidence for the outside world" (Howe,

2003, p 12) If assessment is based on four skills equally, the situation may be different However, it costs a lot of money and time to organize oral exams, which, according to many education managers, are not economical Their point of view is being challenged by the current development of English within the country and in a world where technology develops rapidly, reducing global divides With the

development of technology as well as English as global language, humans across the world now can communicate easily with one another

It is widely accepted that one of the main purposes of studying English is to use it for communications; speaking skill is labeled oral production and is one of the skills students are to learn in their language development Although teachers often find it

a skill that is hard to develop, they are always enthusiastic to go about promoting this development

1.3.2 Learning speaking skills in Vietnam

skill is the hardest skill to obtain Although the ability to converse is highly valued

by students, they find it hard to go ahead because they often feel a great deal of anxiety around speaking However, because of the need of English communication nowadays, learners‟ thinking is changing towards active way They want to learn more, to achieve improvement with obvious objectives

For the students taking in-service English courses, they try to do various activities to have a better command of English Each one„s aim is to do something different from the other students It is because of their understanding of learning English Now students are eager to learn and they always wonder everything about English since they love this language In my point of view, this is the most significant aspect of learning The young know that a good ability of speaking English will bring a person invisible chances in life

For students who do not like English because they see it as something which

is compulsory, they are still aware of its benefits If they accept doing homework or practicing just because of their teachers or parents, many of them like finding websites which include interesting and meaningful content that is related to English

The most crucial thing is that students regard learning English, especially oral skills necessary, and they will learn better when they are not afraid of making mistakes and they should be risk takers to get progress

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Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODS 2.1 The reality of teaching and learning English speaking skills at TNC-ET

2.1.1 Description of the English course and its objectives at TNC-ET

The study was conducted at Thai Nguyen College of Economics and Technology All students at this college are required to complete two semesters of English as part of their general education requirements during the first year

Students have to finish the General English (GE) program, which accounts for 108 periods There is no English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program after that

The main course book used is New Headway Elementary by Liz & John

Soars, to fit students‟ level of English and educational goals of the college The total number of units is 14, however, the designed syllabus covers only 10 units for 2 semesters After studying these ten units, the students are intended to be “quite communicative oriented and inclusive of the 2 language skills: listening and speaking” There are only 10 units, each contains a topic that is not really familiar to learners and includes a variety of parts as grammar, vocabulary, exercises and communicative skills However, this can be seen on the very first page of the book, which presents each unit with a topic and all grammar items it is about, activities for speaking skills, for example, are not emphasized and sometimes their contents appear unrelated to the main topic To be more detailed, main activities and topics

or drills designed by English teachers group in terms of speaking skills in the course book are presented as the following

Unit Speaking activities; Content Topics

activities

7 Answering questions; Famous firsts Past life

Table 1: Speaking activities and topics designed for New Headway (Elementary)

It can be learned from the table that the variety of speaking activities is very limited, with answering questions as the most common It therefore depends very much on teachers‟ experience and enthusiasm to design speaking activities that motivate students and improve their speaking ability

The textbook New Headway Elementary is used to aim at providing students

with general knowledge of English grammar, vocabulary, phonology as well as developing students‟ four language skills with more focus on the speaking skill

Therefore, after each semester two forms of tests are employed: an oral test making

up 30% of the total score and a written test for 70% of the entire score

Although the oral test accounts for only a small part, a lot of students are too nervous to pass it

The objectives of the English course are quite impractical At the end of the course which includes 108 periods, students are required to obtain:

vocabulary in use

2.1.2 Description of the students

Students of TNC-ET come from 3 main faculties: the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, the Faculty of Industrial Technology and the Faculty

of Agriculture and Forestry New students of TNC-ET do not have the same level of English language proficiency Some of them have learned English for 7 years at junior and senior high schools; some have only learned English for 3 years while a few have never learned English because nearly one fourth of the students are minorities from high provinces Although some of them study English rather well,

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they are only good at grammar, not speaking They are likely to do grammatical exercises quite quickly and well at their level but they cannot speak some sentences about some common topics, and most of them do not feel confident or even a bit frightened in communicating in English Moreover, motivation to learning English

in these non-English language classes is generally low since English, for most of the students, is only understood as an obligatory subject in the college curriculum

Hence, it is very important that the staff at the English session of TNC-ET find out effective ways to help these students overcome their difficulties in speaking classes

2.1.3 Description of the teachers

Obviously, if students are the most important factor in the learning process, teachers are the most significant factor in the teaching process In TNC-ET, there are seven teachers of English aged from 27 to 35 but none of them have ever been

to any English-speaking countries Of seven teachers, one was trained at Hanoi College of Foreign Languages - Vietnam National University, one was from Hue Univesity and other five were trained from Thai Nguyen College of Education At present, over half of the teaching staff at the Division of Foreign Languages in TNC-ET has been taking MA courses in Hanoi College of Foreign Languages-Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Foreign Studies and some foreign organizations of education and training in Hanoi Six out of seven teachers have been teaching English from 6 years to over 10 years and have acquired considerable pedagogical competence However, the method of teaching, which is applied by most of the teachers at this college, is a very traditional one – the Grammar Translation method Other methods are rarely used In addition, as the results of a recent study carried out by the researcher show, the teachers of English

at TNC-ET confront a lot of difficulties in teaching English, especially speaking skill to non-English major students They claimed about many inadequate problems

in teaching speaking skills in English classes According to them, these problems were originated from themselves-teachers of English, students and objective factors

Therefore, it is very necessary for the staff at the Division of Foreign Languages of

TNC-ET to find out effective ways to minimize the difficulties in teaching English and from then, to improve the quality of English speaking lessons

2.2 Research methods

To collect information concerning the current situation of teaching and learning speaking skills at TNC-ET, I conducted a survey in the form of questionnaire under the heading of “The position of speaking from students and teachers‟ point of view” There were two types of questionnaires One was designed for students and the other for the teachers of English at TNC-ET To answer the questions in the survey questionnaires, informants may have more than one choice,

so the total percentage of the answers to a certain question may not equal 100 percent

The first questionnaire was administered to 07 teachers who teach English to non-English language major students at TNC-ET The researcher selected them as the subjects of the study with the hope to find out the difficulties they confront in teaching English speaking skills to students at TNC-ET There is 1 male teacher and

6 female teachers Most of them range from 25 to over 30 years of age In general, the majority of the teaching staff is still young and active in their jobs In terms of qualifications, they were trained from full-time training courses in English language teaching at different colleges and universities such as Hanoi College of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen College of Education The teachers always try to improve their own expertise by firstly taking English MA courses and now the number of postgraduates is five

The second questionnaire was administered to 50 students at TNC-ET They are male and female students who were randomly chosen from the total number of

500 non-English major students They are all from northern mountainous provinces

Their time length of learning English is different from each other Some of them started learning English at grade 6, some started at grade 10 and some had never learnt this foreign language Because a large number of students are minorities, they

do not have an equal cultural standard Most of them are from 18 to 20 years old and

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they were learning English at the time of delivering questionnaires I delivered the questionnaire to those students in order to investigate the problems facing them in learning English speaking skills

The first questionnaire was designed for the students with four questions:

Question 1: Why are you learning English?

Question 2: How is speaking skill important to you?

Question 3: What makes you reluctant to speak in English class?

Question 4: Do you often find your speaking lessons interesting?

The second questionnaire is designed for the teachers and consists of thee questions

Question 1: How confident do you feel about teaching speaking?

Question 2: According to you, what are the reasons for ineffective speaking

lessons?

Question 3: What do you do to motivate students to speak in class?

50 copies of the questionnaire delivered to the students and 07 copies of the questionnaire delivered to the teachers have been all responded

2.3 Data analysis 2.3.1 Procedure of the survey

The respondents were contacted in their respective classrooms and information about the purpose of the study was provided to them After obtaining their consent, the research questionnaire was given to them with request to complete

it at a sitting by selecting appropriate respond category which they considered more appropriate regarding their learning and teaching in English language The questionnaire for the teachers was easily carried out Seven copies were given to seven teachers and a time-limit was made for the questionnaire to be given back

For the students, to ensure that they have right understanding of the questions, the

researcher carried on translating the questions into Vietnamese one by one After each question translated three minutes were given so that the students could choose their answers

The information collected from two sources was first read through for a sense of overall data Then it was analyzed both descriptively and interpretatively

The information from the questionnaire was displayed in the form of tables

2.3.2 Presentation of the statistical results

a - Teaching and learning speaking skills at TNC-ET as seen from students’

Table 2: Students’ opinion on learning English

The low percentages in Table 2 reveal the fact that there is hardly special reason for students at TNC-ET to study English seriously

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There is only a small number, 20% of the students like English It is understandable because many of them have never learnt any foreign language The same number studies for the reason that English is an international language Other reasons for students‟ attention in English lessons are to learn something about the target culture and to get a good job, which respectively receive responses from 30%

and 32% of the students Subjective causes like to communicate with foreign people and speaking English has prestige make up only 9% of the number of students coming to English classes The biggest number of students chooses the last and unarguable reason: have to learn it (82%)

However, when being asked about the importance of English speaking skills most students confirm that speaking skills are very important to them It takes 85%

15% says that it is quite important and the percentage defying it is little important or not important at all is very small, which takes only 2%

3 What makes you reluctant to speak in English class?

Topics are not familiar and interesting

60

I‟m afraid that my classmates will laugh at me if I make mistakes

My teacher never explains requirements in Vietnamese

so I don‟t understand what she/he is talking about

53

Table 3: The reasons that make students unwilling to speak in English class

Statistics provided in Table 3 prove to be well-matched with those in Table

2 It seems that many students share the same reasons for their being uninterested in classroom English speaking

It can be seen from Table 3 above that 59% of the students in the survey reveal that their teachers often kept a distance from them in oral English lessons, which led to a stressful classroom atmosphere This suggested that the relationship between teachers and students might be another potential source of difficulty in teaching and learning speaking skill in English classes If the teacher rarely smiles at students, they may consider he is too strict and hard to access Hence, the classroom atmosphere is quite tense

Many students (60%) blame boring topics for discouraging them to speak in class and a similar number (59%) say that they are not interested in speaking as they cannot find exact words to express their ideas

Students who are not active in class make up the rate of 39% They are passive and only speak when they are asked to, especially 28% of them who are never complained by the teachers for their not speaking in class

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is students‟ wish to save face Although they are adult learners, 35% of them are afraid of making mistakes and do not want to be laughed at For this reason, 31% do not like it when teachers interrupt them to correct their mistakes This discourages them a lot

Psychological factors also play a role in getting students speak English 56%

of the students get discouraged when they receive little or no attention from teachers or when teachers and other students speak most of the time Some of them state that their shyness also affects their willingness to speak in class

23

We are surprised to gain 53% of the students stating that they do not know what they have to do in speaking activities because their teacher uses English all the time This is really a big problem because it is impossible for the first-year students

to keep up with full English requirements

4 Do you often find your speaking lessons interesting?

Yes, sometimes But the activities are not interesting and varied enough

15

Yes, very often But the activities are not interesting and varied enough

0

Table 4: Students’ assessment of speaking activities given by teachers

The data in Table 4 show that all teachers design classroom speaking activities but none of them do it very often A large proportion of the students, 54%, show interest in classroom speaking activities but those activities are not introduced very often by their teachers Not many students (15%) complain that activities their teachers use do not appear to be interesting to them It can be drawn out that students are motivated by speaking activities The question is whether or not and how often teachers make use of activities in their teaching 25% of the students state that their teachers sometimes make use of classroom activities in raising students‟

interest in speaking and these students find the sometimes-provided activities interesting

b - Teaching and learning speaking skills at TNC-ET as seen from teachers’

perspective