Speaking fluency influential factors and practices for development among english major students at an giang university

The factors influencing the English language speaking fluency of the first-year English major students at An Giang University.. ABSTRACT The research “Speaking fluency: influential fact

AN GIANG UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

STUDENT: NGUYEN THI NGOC PHUOC STUDENT ID NUMBER: DAV150476

Contents

LIST OF TABLES 3

DECLARATION 4

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5

ABSTRACT 6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 7

1.1 Rationale of the study 7

1.2 Research aims 10

1.3 Research questions 10

1.4 Significance of the study 10

1.5 Limitations of the study 12

1.6 Organization of the study 12

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 13

2.1 Fluency and English language speaking fluency 13

2.1.1 Fluency 13

2.1.2 Speaking Fluency 15

2.2 The importance of fluency in English language speaking 15

2.3 Factors influencing speaking fluency 16

2.4 Practices for improving speaking fluency 23

2.5 Summary of literature review and justification of the study 24

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 25

3.1 Research design 25

3.2 Research participants and sampling methods 25

3.3 Instrumentation 27

3.3.1 Questionnaire 27

3.3.2 Interview 28

3.4 Procedure of data collection 29

3.4.1 Administering the questionnaires 29

3.4.2 Administering the interviews 30

3.5 Procedure of data analysis 30

3.5.1 Analysis of questionnaire data 30

3.5.2 Analysis of the interviews 31

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 33

4.1 The factors influencing the English language speaking fluency of the first-year English major students at An Giang University 33

4.1.1 The first-year English major students’ perceptions of the affective factor influencing their English language speaking fluency 39

4.1.2 The first-year English major students’ perception of the linguistic factor influencing their English language speaking fluency 40

4.1.3 The first-year English major students’ perception of the cognitive factor influencing their English language speaking fluency 41

4.2 The activities that the first-year English major students have been doing to develop their English language speaking fluency at An Giang University 42

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 47

5.1 Summary of findings and discussions 47

5.2 Conclusions 52

5.3 Implications 53

5.3.1 For lecturers 53

5.3.2 For students 54

5.4 Recommendations 55

References 56

Appendices 61

APPENDIX 1 QUESTIONNAIRE 61

APPENDIX 2 INTERVIEW 68

APPENDIX 3 PROTOCOL OF THE INTERVIEWS WITH STUDENTS 69

APPENDIX 4 INTERVIEW AUDIOSCRIPTS 75

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Distribution of students by class, gender, and English speaking level……… 26

Table 3.2 Item distribution in the questionnaire……… ……… 28

Table 3.3 Reliability statistics of the pilot study 31

Table 3.4 Reliability statistics of the major instrument 31

Table 3.5 Time frame of the study 32

Table 4.1 Students' perceptions of factor influencing their English language speaking fluency……… 33

Table 4.2 Results of One-Sample T-Test……… 34

Table 4.3 Students' perceptions of three factors influencing their English speaking fluency………35

Table 4.4 Differences in students’ perceptions of factors that influence on their speaking fluency between classes 38

Table 4.5 Result of One-way ANNOVA Test 38

Table 4.6 Differences in students’ perceptions of affective factor influencing their speaking fluency between classes 39

Table 4 7 Result of One-way ANNOVA Test 40

Table 4 8 Differences in students’ perceptions of affective factors influencing their speaking fluency between speaking scores 40

Table 4 9 Students’ perceptions of linguistic factors influencing their speaking fluency 41

Table 4.10 Students’ perceptions on cognitive factor influencing their speaking fluency 42

represents my own work and that it has not been previously submitted to any other

university or institute in application for admission to degrees or other qualifications

_

May 2019 Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuoc

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study could not be done without a great deal of assistance I gratefully acknowledge the support and motivation of my school, my instructor as well as all the participants of this study during the time I was doing this study as a requirement of

completing my Degree of English Language at An Giang University

First of all, I am extremely grateful for having the opportunity of meeting and working on this thesis with my supervisor Mr Le Do Thai He has been the best

supervisor I could have ever imagined His expertise, guidance, and support helped me to

go through not only my thesis but my whole degree at the An Giang University Without him, I would definitely not be where I am now Without his valuable comments, my research might not have finished completely I also would like to send my special thanks

to all first-year English major students at An Giang University who were studying

English Language at An Giang University for their cooperation in working with me during the time this study was being carried out, completing the questionnaires and

providing precious information for my research

Additionally, I would like to thank and show my appreciation to staffs and lecturers at An Giang University for their support and advice during my graduate studies

Finally, my sincere thanks obviously go to my family for their motivation, love, encouragement and belief in me when I am exhausted They are the greatest motivators in

my life Without them, I might not be able to go through this all

An Giang, April 22th, 2019

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuoc

ABSTRACT

The research “Speaking fluency: influential factors and practices for development among English-major students at An Giang University” investigates factors that influence students’ speaking fluency and activities that the first-year English major students have been doing to develop their English language speaking fluency, as in their self-reports It

is conducted to the second semester students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, An Giang University The participants of the research are the first-year English major

students at An Giang University The data, both qualitative and quantitative, were

collected through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews One hundred students are chosen to fill in the questionnaire, and 8 students who are chosen randomly to be interviewed The research result shows that the factors influencing students speaking fluency are cognitive, linguistic and affective Those are the main factors that have

contributed to the speaking fluency (Wang, 2014) The results of questionnaires and interviews revealed that it is affective factors that more affect the students’ English

fluency In addition, the study reveals that students have different ways to develop their English-speaking fluency Some important conclusions were drawn, and

recommendations were made based on the study results

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The chapter provides general information of the study, including the rationale of the study, the research aim, the research questions, as well as the significance of the research It ends with a short description of the organization of the thesis

1.1 Rationale of the study

To begin with, with the globalization of the world economy, especially with

Vietnam's entry into the WTO, we all have to communicate with people from all over the world in English It is recognized that English is becoming an universal language

importantly and requires us to be master of communicative competence

In the context of English learning and teaching in Vietnam, productive and

receptive skills are developed by the students and teachers essentially Receptive skills which are reading and listening allow students to understand textbook, documents or works And, productive skills which include in speaking and writing are significant because they help students perform in communicative environment Each of these skills must be attended by the teacher to help students develop their communicative

competence According to the process of learning, the first skill to be developed by a language learner is speaking skill and to foreign language learners, it represents a hard challenge to accomplish Producing, receiving and processing information are

components of an interactive process called speaking (Burns, A & Joyce, 1997) This process is one of the most essential challenges in the English learning path and includes the ability to communicate fluently Also, speaking is related to other language skills The ability of the students to speak can utilize vocabulary and be the basic foundation to be master at listening and reading comprehension (Patiung, Tolla, Anshari, & Dolla, 2015) Yet, speaking skill has much more demanding than listening, because it is not only

understanding but also producing (Hidayat & Herawati, 2012) There is no doubt that speaking which is one of the most important skills in English learning includes all other kinds of knowing People who know a language are considered as “speaker” of that language are actually interested in contributing to the communication so that it is worth making effort to speak It does not mean that they all have to speak correctly, they just feel free from pronunciation, lexical and grammatical errors that produce the meaning

communication Besides, classroom activities help to develop students’ ability to express themselves through speech and improve their speaking fluency in informal conversation interaction (Ur, 2012)

In the universities, all the students have been required a good English foundation They have already been taught four skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking) based on communicative teaching method by teachers They already know grammar, vocabulary, and they can write short phrases and paragraph or even essay, but in speaking lesson in the classroom or in real life when they meet foreigners , they do not seem to have developed good fluency in speaking though they spent many years for studying The fact is students in high school who have good English foundations already know

grammar structures, vocabulary, pronunciation They are also taught communicative approach methods to develop speaking skill However, when they enter the university, they are not interested in speaking and do not have good fluency in speaking This

situation is true with the first-year English majored students and even students after studying English for several years Thus, they do not understand the message from

foreigners since their interaction are interrupted by a lot pauses and hesitations That is why, this present study looks for resources in the learning, teaching, and the development

of fluency in the English classes All this with the purpose to explore what factors are necessary for fluency development can be more beneficial or appropriate for the first-year English majored students in the context of an EFL program

Especially for the students who will become the teachers of English of the

Faculty of Foreign Languages, English speaking fluency is indispensable Firstly, they need to use English orally daily as a role model for their students Being competent in using English to be able to interact with students during the teaching and learning is essential Secondly, they need to design classroom activities that support to develop their fluency when using English orally Yet, there is a fact that even English majors still have difficulty expressing themselves effectively Helping them express themselves fluently in the English classroom teaching and daily communication has been a matter of concern to teachers of English for quite a long time

In fact, the primary function of language is to communicate We communicate with one another by sharing or expressing our thoughts, ideas, emotions and collected facts Thus, to become a proficient communicator, one needs to be good at one of the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, but it will be more

advantages when one takes his speaking skill into consideration to talk to someone That

is his ability to express his thoughts, opinions and feelings, in range of words put together

in a meaningful way and the joy of sharing his stories, ideas, and perceptions with others

is immense and vice versa People cannot communicate with one another without speech And, speaking skill is important for the learners of any language An active speaker can get the audience’ attention and transfer his message when he is purposefully trained in the skill of speaking Certainly, it is useful for career success and one’s professional

aspiration (Ishrat & Qureshi, n.d.)

Furthermore, gaining speaking fluency has become a major goal for many foreign language learners who study English in EFL are able to use the language for

communication purposes This research can be relevant in the AGU context because many AGU EFL students or even the majored students in English are unable to speak fluently after spending many years studying the foreign language because they have a little chance to converse in English outside the classroom As a result, at the moment of speaking, they are very confused and being slow and hesitant in producing their

messages which has resulted in the feeling of anxiety and lack of confidence to speak This is a lack of speaking fluency in general students in AGU Because of that, speaking fluency has become a challenge for them because they are required to master some sub-skills like pronunciation, stress, intonation, grammar, vocabulary, and so forth It is questionable whether all students or even English majors in AGU may have a deep

comprehension and competence in speaking fluency or still face with difficulty in

speaking fluent English

Indeed, the first-year English major students at AGU has been known about the speaking fluency very little, they are not clear about what factors influence the English language speaking fluency on them and what they need to do to develop their English language speaking fluency This current paper is intended to find a satisfactory answer to these questions Hopefully, identifying the influential factors of speaking fluency that

contribute to students good competency in this study will help to find suggestions for development among English-major students at An Giang University

1.2 Research aims

This current research is carried out

1 To explore what factors influence the English language speaking fluency of the year English major students at An Giang University, according to their perceptions;

first-2 To find out what the first-year English major students have been doing to develop their English language speaking fluency, as in their self-reports

1.3 Research questions

This research is intentionally seeking the answers to these two following questions:

1 What factors influence the English language speaking fluency of the first-year English major students at An Giang University, according to their perceptions?

2 In what ways have the first-year English major students been practicing to develop their English language speaking fluency, as in their self-reports?

1.4 Significance of the study

The significance of this research may improve student’s English speaking fluency

in teaching and learning process in the Faculty of Foreign Languages and can be listed as below significances:

First, this research will discuss the importance of fluency and speaking fluency in today's integrated economic environment in order to help freshmen in the faculty of foreign languages change the way they learn English effectively by focusing on fluency first

Second, this study will transform students' perceptions so that they have the right look at what they need to gain from learning English that is fluent in their work They will have a better understanding the purpose of learning English is communication If they want to communicate fluently, they have to develop their fluency through

suggestions They will not feel regrettable for the four years they have learned the wrong

way, do not identify the right target and are not aiming at any specific value from

learning English Because some first-year students are still vague about what they need to study and are not properly oriented to any achievement from the perspective of learning English

Third, majored freshman can be aware of the correct way to learn effectively

through exploring the factors that influence on their speaking process They had to study and got degrees but learned the wrong way by learning the old way is to focus on

grammar, knowledge in textbooks, but lack practice outside school hours and lack discipline This leads to a hesitant, awkwardness and confusion in English

self-communication when meeting foreigners of majored students in particular and other students in general So, this research is extremely important for the first year student to change their perception on the purpose of learning English and the greatest implement they should also try to get is speaking fluency Since it should take success, it has a long process going to be advanced, and it should be accomplished in 4 years if they know method and implementation

Four, giving them a new sense of being aware of self- conscious and self-discipline

in the first year is to ensure that during the 4 years there is a process of accumulation of knowledge properly and not waste time for the wrong learning method It will help them

to focus on speaking fluency and practice at the beginning of the year and ensure that they are advanced in speaking fluency completely Not only majored student but also other students who have the right view to develop fluency to integrate into the world Five, this paper will boost motivation to enhance other skills To develop their speaking fluency skills, they should develop some related skills such as listening,

reading, writing and have a wide range of vocabulary If they want to have an accent like American native speaker, they have to listen to them a lot to get familiar with the way they talk, the way they respond, the speed and flow of language production; the degree of control of the language items, i.e pausing, rhythm, pronunciation and stress; and the way

of content interrupting with useful language and expressions (Nation (1989)) Therefore, they will develop their listening skill first to make an effort to develop their fluency then During the process of developing speaking, they will acquire more knowledge through reading English books, newspaper and magazines; watching English films, news and

useful English videos; hearing words or speeches from successors and their experiences, and etc all these things are not only the foundation companies to get fluent in speaking but also the values from daily life accomplished

Six, when they speak fluent English, they will become more confident in

communication, learning and work later Learning and mastering a foreign language is also a stepping stone to master another foreign language and to form acquisition skills to learn new knowledge Also, as an English teacher in the future, this study helps me to complete myself to be fluent in speaking English to ensure that the quantity and quality of knowledge are taught to students and motivates them to learn

Based on these findings, the results of the study would also be useful for both English majors and teachers alike The results of the study may be considered as a clue for other universities in gaining a better understanding of speaking fluency

1.5 Limitations of the study

Due to time constraint, this research involves only the first-year English majors at

An Giang University

1.6 Organization of the study

This thesis consists of five chapters Chapter one introduces general information

of the research Chapter 2 provides a theoretical and empirical framework for the study

by reviewing current literature on fluency in speaking English It also reviews a range of studies relevant to the issue Chapter 3 explains the methods that are used to conduct this study and to analyze the data for this research It presents the study context and

participants, the instruments used for data collection, the process of administering these instruments, and the detailed procedure of collecting and analyzing the collected data Chapter 4 presents the results of the study and provides discussions of these results It gives some insights into the students’ perceptions of the factors that influence on their speaking fluency and explore activities that support for their development of speaking fluency Chapter 5 summarizes the research findings, draws conclusions from these findings and indicates some of the implications of the findings Limitations of the study and recommendations for further studies are also presented

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Fluency and English language speaking fluency

2.1.1 Fluency

Fluency is ability to talk in a certain time with few pauses and speak continuously; the ability to produce semantic sentences and have appropriate things to say in a wide range of contexts or the ability to be creative and imaginative in the language use

Also, "fluency" refers to the ability to produce spoken language with ease or

perform an action smoothly and easily, but not necessarily perfect command of

intonation, vocabulary, and grammar, the ability to communicate ideas effectively, and the ability to produce continuous speech without causing comprehension difficulties or a breakdown of communication (Shen, 2013) The study which conducted the balance of accuracy between fluency in the classroom teaching defined that accuracy is the basis of fluency while fluency is a further improvement of a person's linguistic competence, describes a level of proficiency in communication and procedural skill, expression proficiency, lexical phrases, social interaction, necessary topics and discourse

Besides, fluency related to practice Because practice with speaking over the year was the key to promote the fluency than any specific type of activity Truthfully,

combining between the repetition of speeches and the time for practice provided in the classroom throughout the year helped students to enhance the speed of their speech from the beginning to the end of the year (Larson-hall, 2016)

In fact, repetition is the essential component of fluency In the history, it was showed that asking students to repeat their spontaneous utterances was one way to

increase fluency (Nation, 1989) He asked learners to think of ideas for a talk that they were given first for 4 minutes, then he reduced the time to 3 minutes, and finally 2

minutes (the 4/3/2 technique) In this experiment, fluency was measured by words per minute, which ranged in the eight participants from 84-196 words per minute in their final (2 minute) speech sample Seven of the participants increased their fluency from their first version to their third

In addition, the acquisition of speaking is fluency Because speaking to one another will develop the learners’ mastery of the language It can be said that fluency is the learners’ natural spoken performance or language without thinking of its structure and without translating the language into her or his native language (Darmayenti and Nofiadri, 2015)

Next, fluency is the ability to speak with ease when a person finds it easier to deliver something, without any difficulties in expressing what he wants to say It is a process of development English language on past and present information and ideas the person has already acquired and learned to communicate smoothly (Pitoy, 2012)

And fluency is spontaneity and the ability to communicate and use syntax,

idioms, rhythm, speed and speech delivery, stress, gestures and understanding (Brown, 1995) Also, fluency occurs if someone can be master at pronunciation, syntax and

vocabulary that they are taught in the classroom and use pauses and hesitations

efficiently In the classroom, the students need to be convinced to make production

errors, because it is a nature part of communication Nobody can reply on pronounced words and grammar to communicate perfectly If they do not make errors, they will not become fluent When they deal with errors, they can handle their own speech production without the teacher adding to their problems It brings their productive skills up at higher level

In short, fluency is referred to Shen (2013)’ definition because it reflects clearly and closely to the context of learning English in Vietnam

2.1.2 Speaking Fluency

Speaking fluency is the ability to keep going when speaking spontaneously (Roger Gower, n.d.) Students can speak naturally, continuously, automatically,

regardless of grammatical and other mistakes Normally, students can say anything

without hesitating in communication so that they can overcome their shyness and

inhibitions to be fluent in speaking When they are not worried about making mistakes, scared of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of attention, they will be fluent Even, fluency in speaking is a fundamental constituent that learners and teachers need to pay attention Especially for the students and teachers of the Faculty of Foreign Languages in

An Giang University, English speaking fluency is crucial

In addition, Nation (2007) argued that fluency strand is necessary for any

proficiency level when learning a foreign language The purpose for learning is best to use what already known Also, fluency as the ability to result from the speech at normal speed without pausing (Skehan, 2009) Speaker reports the messages naturally in normal

to create understandable of the listener And, speaking fluency skills were viewed as delivering messages in real situation and condition orally without awkward words,

expressing the ideas clearly and understandably, and the using of simple words to make listeners understand (Zang, 2009)

2.2 The importance of fluency in English language speaking

According to Nation (1991), he recommended some techniques to help the

learners perform at a level higher than their normal level of fluency and declaimed that when a learner is lack of fluency is when he speaks slowly and hesitantly because of presence of grammatical error as and a lack of sufficient time for planning (Arevart & Nation, 1991) Clearly, if the learners are bad at fluency, their hesitation items like um, er and ah will greatly reduce their fluent performance adding ill- informed element

Furthermore, fluency is the key for interaction, the learning of a new language implies developing fluency as part of speaking skills (Nation & Newton, 2009), it is clear that this skill is one of the main ones to develop to be able to maintain conversation and

communication in a global sense, for the possibility to express an idea (Burns, A & Joyce, 1997)

In addition, to show how four strands principle can be done in self- regulated

language learning without teacher, it is suggested that there are four strands in a language course: a) language learning through listening and reading is called meaning-focused input; b) form-focused instruction is focused on language features; c) language learning through speaking and writing refers to meaning-focused output, and d) the fluency development is a fourth strand, which is a retrieval of meaning processing It evidently reveals the importance of fluency development Thus, this study attempts to give some suggestions for the first year students develop speaking fluency in class (Nation, 2007) Likewise, there is the relation between speaking and fluency Speaking is the main skill; it includes all the levels of oral communication and all the stages of that process On the other hand, fluency is a sub-skill of the speaking ability and implies how easy a foreign language learner can express himself without having to stop to think about words, and experience breakdown in communication (Goh, C & Burns, 2012) In a classroom, teachers often develop speaking skill, but not necessarily fluency That is why it is

important to make effective learning styles to develop fluency in English oral production within a classroom

There was another definition that a fluent speaker can use correct patterns

automatically in a normal conversation (Hartmann & Stork, 2014) This means that the main feature of a fluent student includes speaking without too much hesitation; learners can make some pauses, but sometimes and not too long For all this, it is relevant that it should be given some suggestions to develop the major first year fluency in English speaking to help them achieve a better fluency level

2.3 Factors influencing speaking fluency

There are many researchers who conducted about the factors that affect students’ fluency in speaking gave many successes and be significant for EFL learners and teachers

in many countries

First, with attention to narrow sense of fluency, Segalowitz (2010) in “Cognitive base of second language fluency” pointed out that multidimensional construct which

reflects the efficiency of using linguistic knowledge and executing the neurological and muscular mechanisms that an EFL speakers has developed during the course of learning, and a distinction should be made among the three factors of fluency— cognitive,

utterance, and perceived fluency

Second, the study about what factors that positively affect students English

speaking fluency showed that there are three factors influence students’ speaking

fluency, including enjoyable learning process, good self - motivation, and good support from their friends (Hidayat & Herawati, 2012)

Third, Yang (2014) conducted research that aimed to find out how the EFL teachers and students treat the development of speaking fluency The obtained results indicated that the teachers’ willingness to develop students speaking fluency is not

sufficient As the result, the students unfamiliar to the way of practicing the speaking fluency Besides, students also experienced a lack of time, activity, effort, and a relevant principle of guiding in the current EFL class (Yang, 2014)

Four, students face different factors that affect their speaking ability indicated in several studies There was evidence that bad performance of student in speaking was affected by some factors such as lack of student motivation, the use of mother tongue in learning process, lack of vocabulary, the participation during teaching activities (Hoang, Tran, & Mai, 2015)

Five, most of the EFL students who learned English for many years have

difficulties to use the language to speak Though they have good level of vocabulary or grammar, they never develop confidence in themselves Most of them have weak

motivation: fear of making mistakes, feeling shy, feeling hesitated and lack of

confidence while speaking English Thus, the researcher’s study is to give motivation to other students in terms of English speaking performance and help them improve in their spoken language proficiency (Haidara, 2016)

This research is conducted based on Wang (2014) when he carried out the

experimental research to enhance students’ accuracy and fluency in spoken English of Chinese English Foreign Language learners because of two reasons:

First, with the aim to improve Chinese EFL learners’ speaking competence, Wang(2014)’s paper explored three factors affecting students’ speaking competence and put forward a four-step pedagogical method in which activities can be carried out stage

by stage: Pre-speaking, while-speaking, post-speaking and extension practice

successfully Findings showed that the use of three effective models (Wilis’ three-stage model, Florez’s five-stage-model, and Goh’s four-stage model ) in oral English affects students’ accuracy and fluency It enhances students’ knowledge, vocabulary, strategies

to speak, reduces anxiety, accuracy, and fluency There were some suggestions present based on three effective models in this research Before speaking, students have to master enough in knowledge, vocabulary, and strategies to reduce their fear and stress While speaking, they should have enough time and opportunity to encourage their fluency After speaking, students should be given the correct use of language to improve learners’ speaking fluency These above things are totally useful and relevant for this study’s aim which is finding the factors that influence students’ fluency in speaking and the activities what they have been doing to develop their speaking fluency

Second, Wang (2014) found three factors related to the common difficulties in developing speaking fluency that student in EFL class often face with such as lack of vocabulary, grammar, motivation, shyness, anxiety and etc These factors are completely consistent with the real situation in the universities and in AGU particularly Therefore, this research will deepen research on these factors and find effective activities to help students enhance their speaking fluency

Therefore, speaking happened spontaneously among two people and more in real time Some various kinds of influencing speaking fluency are cognitive factors, linguistic factors, and affective factors (Wang, 2014)

a Cognitive factors

It is the efficacy of one’s underlying processing abilities Cognitive factor is noted as the ability of the speaker to smoothly translate thoughts to speech (Segalowitz, 2010) This allows the speaker to plan their thoughts with elements such as content, vocabulary, and grammatical form to produce a mature conversation efficiently

Likewise, cognitive fluency reflects the ease or difficulty of cognitive process in a

speaker’s mind and the amount of resources required for task performance And, an analysis about cognitive factor is what learners are thinking while they were pausing or hesitating during the spontaneous speech task While the lower proficiency learners (LP) found hard to find words by translating it from Vietnamese language and decide which vocabulary to use, the higher proficiency learners (HP) already had multi- word

expressions and was trying to decide which one is used better to complete the context (Kahng, 2014)

In addition, cognitive process related to both semantic and phonemic fluency, including immediate attention to set up the generation of words, an available knowledge which is relevantly selected, an ability to recover items from verbal declarative memory and coordinate these processes, including working memory to control performance and avoid breaking rule (Laisney et al., 2009) Also, cognitive fluency can be defined as the speaker’s characterizes and the abilities to plan and execute his speech fluently And, underlying cognitive fluency is the usage knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and the speed (N H De Jong, Steinel, Florijn, Schoonen, & Hulstijn, 2013)

Furthermore, speaking processes include conceptualization, formulation, and articulation (Levelt, 1989) Conceptualization concern with kinds of information selected

to express meaning Formulation refers to the speaker’s ability to select proper words in appropriate grammatical structure And articulation requires the speaker to produce the speech with his/ her articulatory organs These three processes occur at the same time, it

is acceptable for students make mistakes in face to face communication sometimes

b Linguistic factors

In daily conversation, speaking skill plays an important role in how to control or interrupt a conversation because it requires not only the knowledge of how to produce the form of language such as grammar, pronunciation, and vocabularies, but also the

comprehension about when, why, and in what way to produce the language (Harmer, 2002)

The learners often think about specific rules they had learned, for instance, how to make a sentence with the choice of tense – aspect, articles and prepositions It is about the issues on morphological and syntactic aspects which has learner’s limitation have to face

with (Kahng, 2014) With the passage of time, it is undeniable that grammar-translation method is indispensable in the classroom teaching It helps student know the appropriate grammar used with the correct form, the usage, the content of the target language Thus, combining communicative approach with grammar-translation method in the classroom teaching help students not only acquire a solid knowledge of the English language but also better their English language skills While practicing linguistic competence,

classroom activities such as role playing, simulations, and real-life interactions to provide

as much practice as possible for students to develop their communicative competence, especially lead to spoken language (Shen, 2013)

Vocabulary which is the basic component in English language skills should be improved And so, it plays an essential aspect in producing sentence structures and thus can help students acquire linguistic competence with the spontaneous, flexible, and correct manipulation of the language system (Shen, 2013) Besides, vocabulary is the significant building block to help student have a fast access to the words and expressions

in the students’ mind during speaking process so that they can enhance their speaking fluency (Wang, 2014)

Therefore, mastering in the knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and

pronunciation should be related to lower or fewer hesitations and pauses, and a lower mean duration of syllables) (N H De Jong et al., 2013)

Most studies have found fluency with another aspect called utterance fluency It includes breakdown fluency, speed fluency and repair fluency (Kahng, 2014) Breakdown

is the number of silent pauses, number of filled pauses (“uhm” and “uh”) duration of silent pauses Some speakers use silent pauses (De Jong et al., 2013) Speech fluency is the rate and density of speech delivery, and repair fluency has been characterized as the number of corrections and repetitions in speech Paying attention on these items will enhance speaker’ automatic fluency so that he can manage to speak fast with only minor pauses and improve the flow of speech (Bosker, Pinget, Quené, & Sanders, 2012)

c Affective factors

There are some psychological factors such as anxiety, shyness and lack of

confidence that affect spoken language fluency Shyness and lack of confident can cause

the learners’ confusion and reduce their fluency when they do not feel competence in speaking (Gürbüz, 2017) Also, another study recommended three categories of fluency : motivation, self- confidence and anxiety (Hoang et al., 2015)

Additionally, anxiety is classified into three types: trait anxiety, state anxiety and situation-specific anxiety (Mersi, 2012) First, trait anxiety is perceived as an aspect

of personality and more temperament to be anxious It is particular for the one who is always anxious about anything happening around him or her was born with this

characteristic Second, state anxiety is an apprehension that is experienced at a certain time as a reaction to specific situation This situation often occurs in the classroom when students are asked to stand up and talk about his/ her experiences about the definite topic without preparing before Thus, they are so confused and anxious about what they need to share Last, situation-specific anxiety is related to apprehension specific situations and events There are some students who always feel anxious when they are called to present

in front of many people do not feel comfortable to perform a topic or an idea This

anxiety can be seen in speaking tests called test anxiety

Moreover, teacher should understand that the child, the family and the school interactions influence the development of students’ English fluency for oral communication (Vianna, 2014)

* The family:

(1) Parents Participate in the Learning Experience

Parent are expected to contact with their own children than conflict to know what subject they are good at and support them (Vianna, 2014) Because of that reason, parents will take responsibility for taking their children to extracurricular activities, setting routines such as speaking with their children in short conversation about English classes, talking in English in daily conversation etc Clearly, parents are the strong evidence for a genuine interest in the child’s learning activities

Besides, the media, the workforce, and the community will affect parents’ choices

in education for the child Parent makes sure that the child study English in extra time and join in English conversation Thus, parents participated in the child’s learning process

(2) Technology Use is Fundamental in English Fluency

Parents believe that technique used in home can support the education such as watching videos, films, music and discuss together viewed as a part of the home routine Parents and teachers’ believes technology used in home and in school provide a valuable resources for them to motivate students’ access of the English fluency

* The school interactions - Teachers:

Parents’ perceptions about the school’s role in the child’s English fluency were (1)the teachers’ competence, and (2) the method (Vianna, 2014) Teachers plays an important role in giving students more opportunities to speak English in class by using technological strategies and speaking activities through giving clear instruction and encourage them to participate in speaking activities enthusiastically (Hoang et al., 2015) Being fearful of making mistakes and criticism or losing face will reduce the flow of the students’ conversation Therefore, teachers must motivate them be confidence in

speaking and enhance their speaking fluency

* The child - Students:

There are 2 motivations that affect students’ fluency of English: internal

motivation and external motivation (Vianna, 2014)

Internal motivation is seemed as (1) students are naturally interested in English, and (2) students enjoy learning The natural interest of the student is the internal

motivation that influences on the students’ speaking fluency In fact, they will feel easy in capturing a better fluency when they are able to learn more deeply and discover it The students who are interested in classroom activities, participated without being shy,

brought questions to class, related to the topic, contact with other students in learning, and demonstrated a natural interest in English

Also, the child who is internally motivated to language development, supported the use of technology to improve English fluency They will be motivated by external motivation such as the Internet, music, films or games

Given all these, the theoretical framework of the study are cognitive, linguistic and affective factors (Wang, 2014) which affect student’s fluency improvement This study is conducted based on these factors to figure out what factor influence on student’s

ability to be fluent in oral communication and their activities to be good at speaking fluency

2.4 Practices for improving speaking fluency

There were many studies from researchers to find the best solution for enhancing students’ speaking fluency in EFL classroom First, investigating how the 4/3/2

technique can improve Algerian EFL learners’ speaking fluency has proved to be very successful and helpful in assisting the students in improving their speaking fluency

(Ouided ARAB, 2016)

Second, “the best recording” and “an ask and answer” methods were used for learners from the beginning to advance in the English learning environment in Japan With the best recording method, learners can be aware of how they speak English It can

be effective when they can use digital gadgets such as mobile phones and iPhones to realize their weakness in pronunciation, stress, and intonation And so, teachers could encourage students to use this method to produce their speech appropriately The second method which is “an ask and answer” is necessary for Japanese English learners to develop fluency practice focusing on repetition because Japanese English learners to improve fluency practice focusing on repetition (Hoshino, 2012)

Third, “storytelling” technique were used to analyze the speaking fluency level and comprehension of the what they listen or read of the students This is a common way that teachers use as part of improving students’ communication because telling stories can help language learners in upgrading his knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical structures, and pronunciation Moreover, learners can begin a conversation with others and use their source of language to express words from various stories And so, retelling stories are able to help them speak fluently and even improve their vocabulary and

comprehensibility (Rachmawaty & Hermagustiana, 2010)

There has been little other research carried out, especially in the context of

language learning and teaching at university in Vietnam, which led to the implementation

of the current study

2.5 Summary of literature review and justification of the study

In conclusion, it can clearly be seen that fluency is considered to be one of the ultimate goals in the target language among many EFL learners Indeed, becoming a fluent speaker will help language learners express their thoughts or communicative intent easily and smoothly and even catch the listeners’ attention on the content rather than the form (N De Jong & Perfetti, 2011) And so, it is vital to investigate the first-year

English major students’ perceptions about the factors that affect their English-speaking fluency in teaching and learning process Moreover, Nation and Newton (2009) pointed out that a fluency development activity provides some deliberate push to the high level of performance for the learners And, the learners take part in activities where all the

language items are previous experience This means that the learners work with familiar topics and performance making use of known vocabulary and structures Therefore, investigating students’ activities is important to improve their fluency in English

speaking

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes some aspects of methodology including research design, research participants, instrumentation, procedure of data collection, procedure of data analysis used in this study to explore the factors that affecting students’ speaking fluency

in speaking class and what the first-year English majors at An Giang University do to improve their English speaking fluency

3.1 Research design

In conducting the research, descriptive method is used to describe the student’s fluency in speaking To collect the data, questionnaire and interviews are used as the test instruments The students are given questionnaire and interview to find out some factors influencing on students’ speaking fluency

In this study, both qualitative and quantitative data were collected As for the quantitative data, a self-reported questionnaire consisting of two sections was used to collect data from EFL students The qualitative data were gathered through interviews conducted with EFL students and through the open-ended questions in the questionnaires

3.2 Research participants and sampling methods

The research is conducted at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, An Giang

University The students of 19AV, 19TA1, 19TA2, 43AV classes who meet the criteria are chosen as the research participant In this research only first-year English-major students are taken The respondents in this research gain both the good and bad level of fluency scale

Participants were conveniently selected The researcher chooses 100

participants for questionnaires and eight participants for interview The students from

*AV classes are majored in English Language Teacher Education (ELTE) while the students from *TA classes are majored in English Language (EL) They are both male and female This is because the research chooses conveniently participants to explore influential factors and practices for development among English-major students at An Giang University

They were students in the second semester in this year and would be in the

academic year of 2018/2019 Participants were students who passed speaking final exam from the 1st semester To complete data from questionnaire, researcher also asked eights students for the interview to find out some activities supporting the development of speaking fluency

The study was conducted with 100 first-year English major students chosen conveniently randomly from English Major Classes at AGU Thirty-two of them were in class 19 AV, 19 were in class 19TA1, 33 were in class 19TA2 and 16 were in class 43

AV The percentages of the students that took part in the study are illustrated in Table 3.1

Table 3 1 Distribution of students by class, gender, and English speaking level

Frequency Percent Valid

As shown in Table 3.1, the percentage of female (84%) was higher than the

percentage of male (16%) who took part in the study

In the study, the students were also required to provide data in relation to their speaking score in the most recent term Table 3.1 reports percentages of students’

speaking score in recent term Regarding English background, there was a wide range of academic levels within these students

3.3 Instrumentation

There are two instruments used in collecting the data First, the questionnaire is distributed in order to get information from the respondent’ perception about what factors influence their speaking fluency The indicator of questionnaire is about student’s

speaking fluency Second, the interview is conducted after questionnaire The participants are chosen to be interviewed conveniently

3.3.1 Questionnaire

The questionnaire was revised based on participants’ suggestions and more

comprehensive literature review It consists of two sections: the first section asks for the respondents’ basic information such as gender, major, average score in recent term, the second section gives the instructions to participants

The questionnaires, aimed to collect quantitative data in order to gain insights into the students’ perceptions and expectations of the speaking fluency in English

language the first year English majored students at AGU, a set of questionnaires consists

of 48 questions was designed (See Appendix 1) 48 questionnaires are randomly

distributed to participants who are given clear instruction on how to complete the

questionnaires before they start The response options for each question in the survey were rated according to a five-point Likert scale: Strongly disagree, Disagree, No ideas, Agree and Strongly agree All the questionnaires are finished in captive groups and are collected orderly and successfully

Piloting the questionnaires for students, the researcher found out

misunderstandings or difficulties in answering the questions After the pilot, some details of the questionnaire were added based on the suggestions of participants Thanks

to this process, the questionnaires became clearer and more understandable enough for the respondents to complete them

Table 3.2 Item distribution in the questionnaire

Linguistic factor (10 items) 29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38

Cognitive factor (10 items) 39,40,42,42,43,44,45,46,47,48

3.3.2 Interview

Qualitative interviews consist of open- ended questions and provide qualitative data The researcher can obtain in-depth information about participant’s thoughts, beliefs, knowledge, reasoning, motivations, and feeling about the topic It allows a researcher to enter the inner world of a person’s perspective The researcher can use probes or prompt and ask follow – up questions that may naturally emerge during qualitative interview (Patton, 1987)

The data interview was to find factors that affect students’ speaking fluency The answers of students’ interview were recorded with an audio recorder The results from the interview were transcribed after the researcher listened to the recorded audio Eight students were invited to have an interview Interview is process gathering data that

include questioning and answering among the interviewer and interviewee Interview is the most important tool in the qualitative method It is the best way to measure people’s views, meanings, and definitions of real situation (Punch, 2009) Further, semi-structured interview was used to collect the information from participants This technique

expectation finds more detailed information from respondent based on respondent’s answer Some specific questions based on interview guide for the research aims

The question of this interview related with factors that influenced students’

English-speaking fluency and the types of interlocutors that increased their speaking fluency skill, teacher’s teaching techniques, their learning process and their own practices during speaking class and outside classroom Each student got the same questions that had been prepared by researcher Then, the results of the interview were coded and

classified in two main points; factors that impact students’ speaking fluency and students’ practices to increase their fluency in English speaking The process of interview was recorded to help interviewee relax during answer the questions Data from interview were carried out after the questionnaires It also supported the result of research to provide more information Besides, interview played an important role in validating the

questionnaires in the class data

3.4 Procedure of data collection

3.4.1 Administering the questionnaires

Before conducting the questionnaires, permission was taken from the supervisor after he had carefully examined the validity In the first place, the questionnaire was administered to 19 EFL students, they were studying in class DH19AV These students were chosen randomly and then the datum collated in the questionnaire were analyzed for

a pilot study After delivering the plot questionnaires, the researcher reconsidered the questionnaires to see whether those questionnaires met the research questions The

researcher made some changes so that the questionnaire would become clearer and easier

to the participants

After evaluating the reliability of the questionnaire thanks to IBM SPSS

Software, the questionnaire was administered to a total of another 100 students in the

middle of March, 32 of whom were in class DH19AV , 19 in class DH19TA1, 33 in class DH19TA2 and 16 students from CD43AV class The students were provided with

information about the study and how to fill in the questionnaires There were no problems that appeared during the administration of the study It took approximately 15 minutes for the students to complete it

3.4.2 Administering the interviews

The researcher chose eight of 100 students conveniently who had done the questionnaire of the study to interview for providing more detailed information and explaining clearly why they had chosen such options The schedules were set up in

convenience of the interviewees The researcher assured the interviewee of

confidentiality as no authorized persons would have access to their answers The

researcher both recorded and wrote down the responses immediately Besides, each interview took the interviewees 15 minutes At the end of the interview, the researcher gave her sincere thanks again to the respondents for their contribution in the study

3.5 Procedure of data analysis

3.5.1 Analysis of questionnaire data

The data collected through the questionnaire were compiled and the IBM SPSS Statistics 20.0 program was employed to analyze the data

Prior to administering, the questionnaire underwent many changes It was read and corrected by the supervisor who had experience in English Second Language

teaching Finally, in the main scheme students were asked to complete the questionnaires

in the classroom To ensure the reliability of student’s responses the research, clear

instructions were given before delivering the questionnaires

In the piloting process, the researcher used SPSS to analyze the reliability of the data obtained from the nineteen students; the result was shown in Table 3.1 as follows:

Table 3.3 Reliability statistics of the pilot study

After passing the piloting of the instrument, the researcher continued giving 100 other the first-year English major students the questionnaires and still used SPSS to analyze the data

Table 3.4 Reliability statistics of the major instrument

Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Based on

3.5.2 Analysis of the interviews

The analysis for the interviews involved descriptive data, as well Note-taking technique was used All the answers of the interviewees were analyzed by categorizing the points that came out from the statements for each question In addition, thematic analysis and grouping of the answers from different interviewees to the same or similar questions were employed for the analysis of interviews The content analysis was carried out

To analysis the qualitative data gained from the interview, the researcher would listen to the interview recording and transcribe all the words that said by the

interviewees After all of the data transcribed, interview data were organized based on the research objectives Relevant themes were selected and coded The researcher used coding, it started from coding the data into more specific patterns or categories Next,

researcher identified which of data sources that researcher has to code qualitatively Findings of the interview would be presented in narrative explanations

Table 3.5 Time frame of the study

1 General outline for the proposal 15/10/2018 to 28/10/2018

7 Discussion with the supervisor 15/10/2018 to 21/4/2019

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter is devoted to the analysis of data collected from the questionnaires and the interviews described in the previous chapter It is divided into two sections The first section of this chapter briefly introduces the proportion of participants under survey according to specific demographic backgrounds The second section-the main part of this chapter discusses the findings of the study

4.1 The factors influencing the English language speaking fluency of the first-year English major students at An Giang University

The first question of this study is to explore what factors influence the English language speaking fluency of the first-year English major students at An Giang

University, according to their perceptions The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for 48 items was 94 (see Chapter 3), suggesting that all the items of the questionnaire had very high internal consistency

The questions in the questionnaire aimed to gather data related to three factors including (1) cognitive, (2) linguistic, and (3) affective The results of the respondents’ perceptions of the influential factors on their speaking fluency analyzed by the

Descriptives Test are summarized in Table 4.1

Table 4.1 Students’ perceptions of factors influencing their English language speaking

The data from the Table 4.2 indicates that most of the first-year English majors

nearly agree the factors influence their English language speaking fluency (Mean = 3.71)

The data also reveals that there is a rather big difference in their perceptions of factors among the students (SD = 49)

When being interviewed, eight respondents showed their perceptions about the definition of speaking fluency clearly and quite similarly with the definition of the research It is clearly most of them have a correct understanding about the concept:

“Speaking fluency is the ability to speak a second language like a native

language” (Respondents 3 & 7)

“Speaking fluency is the ability to speak smoothly, and continuously.”

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

The one-sample T-test was run on the test value 4.0 and the mean score of

students’ perceptions of three factors that influence on their speaking fluency for

English Majors at AGU The result (see Table 4.2) shows that there was a significant difference between the mean score (M= 3.71) of students’ perceptions of the issue and the test value 4.0 (p = 00) It means that though EFL students’ perceptions were inclined

to be more positive than negative, they remained neutral attitudes toward the influential factors On other words, the result indicates that the first-year English major students at

An Giang University mostly agree with 48 statements about what factors influence the English language speaking fluency (M = 3.71)

The Descriptive Test was then run on the mean scores of students’ perceptions of three factors that are perceived to influence on their speaking fluency The results are summarized in Table 4.3 below

Table 4.3 Students’ perceptions of three factors influencing their English speaking

fluency

Std Deviation

Valid N (listwise) 100

The results indicate that as in students’ perceptions, while the most influential

factors on speaking fluency of the first-year English major students at An Giang

University are of affective factors, they were not highly influenced by linguistic and cognitive factor

Likewise, when being asked about the factors that can affect their English speaking fluency, most of them (7/8 students) are influenced by affective factors They

recommended some components that make them concern about their fluency in speaking such as psychology, motivation, confidence, environment, emotion:

“Vocabulary , voice, grammar If I am good at vocabulary and grammar, I can speak English fluently And, I pay attention to my voice so that I can adjust it

suitably when I communicate with others.” - ( Linguistic factor) (Respondent 1)

“Psychology makes me feel uncomfortable and worry sometimes Next, I find my motivation is job opportunities, so I must be master at speaking English so that I will have a stable job with high salary” - ( Affective factor) (Respondent 2)

“Motivation- The first, when I studied in high school, I found it interested Next, I had a relative who had been in America often chatted with me when we were free Absolutely, I was motivated all the time to be master at speaking to have more job opportunities after graduation” - ( Affective factor) (Respondent 3)

“I tried to be confident so that I can be brave to talk with the other people In addition, my family always create good conditions for me to approach English For example, my parents give me a chance to go to English speaking club to

communicate with foreigners and buy English books for me to read.” - ( Affective factor) (Respondent 4)

“Myself & Environment- I have started learning English in secondary school, so I have had a solid foundation for learning English speaking.” (Respondent 5)

“Vocabulary, confidence – when I know a lot of vocabularies, I will be confident in producing continuous speech” - (Linguistic & Affective factor) (Respondent 6) “Motivation – my America teacher is my greatest motivation If I can speak

English fluently, I can interact with him and exchange culture” - ( Affective factor) (Respondent 7)

“Emotion – I love watching West film when I was 7 years old And so, I enjoy English conversation very much Furthermore, if I can speak English fluently, I can

go abroad and interact with the other people” (Affective factor) (Respondent 8)

Parallel to the results of the questionnaire, most of the respondents asked to give their opinions about the most influential factors that motivate them to improve their

English-speaking fluency such as self- confidence, motivation, natural interest And so,

most of them are totally affected by affective factor:

“ Consistency is the most powerful key to any problems in learning English If you are consistent, you are going to get your motivation to grow In fact, I have to

be patient in trying to learn and keep practicing English speaking every day in order to be fluent” (Respondent 1)

“The most influential factor that affects my English-speaking fluency is self- confidence Self-confidence should be improved by myself because if I am

confident, I will be easy to speak everything” (Respondent 2)

“ What I think is the greatest influence is natural interest When I have this

natural ability to learn, I am able to obtain a better fluency And so, i am willing

to build a learning process so that I can be master at it.” (Respondent 3)

“I want to speak English fluently, so I could be brave to speak, and I have

motivation from myself to be able to speak fluently, so I have to practice

speaking English every day” (Respondent 4)

“ The most influential factor that motivate me to improve my English-speaking fluency is myself I am interested in learning English which comes from myself because I already love English when I was in Elementary school I love to sing English songs such as My heart will go on, Hello and etc Because I do not find stressful when I learn it and I find it easy to speak out whatever I think”

“The first factor is I have high self- confidence and brave Because I contacted with English when I was very young, I have stored a wealth of vocabulary in my long- term memory And so, talking in front of the other people is not a big deal for me” (Respondent 8)

Further investigation was conducted to investigate how different it was among students’ perceptions of each factor:

Table 4.4 Differences in students’ perceptions of factors that influence on their speaking

fluency between classes

N Mean Std Deviation

Std

Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean

Min Max

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

Looking further into the difference in the first-year English major students’

perception of the factors influence their English language speaking fluency, the One-Way ANOVA was run on the mean scores of students’ perceptions of the three factors to 4

classes 19AV (M=3.56), 19TA1 (M=3.61) and 19TA2 (M=3.77), 43AV (M=4.04) (see Table 4.4)

Table 4.5 Result of One-way ANNOVA Test

can also be seen that there is an enormous difference between these groups (p=.01) (see Table 4.5)

4.1.1 The first-year English major students’ perceptions of the affective factor

influencing their English language speaking fluency

The results summarized in Table 4.3 indicated that students were inclined to be relatively positive in the affective factor influence their English language speaking

fluency (M=3.77, SD=0.52) Also, the Descriptive Test was run on the mean scores of students’ perceptions of affective factors that influence on their speaking fluency among

classes The results are summarized in Table 4.6 below

Table 4.6 Differences in students’ perceptions of affective factor influencing their speaking

fluency between classes

Std

Deviation Std Error

95% Confidence Interval for Mean

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

2 (M = 3.80) remained a quite positive attitude about this component (see Table 4.7)

Also, it can be seen that there is an enormous difference between these groups (p = 022)

(See Table 4.7)