Những hạn chế của lớp học Việt Nam ảnh hưởng đến việc đánh giá kĩ năng nói môn tiếng Anh

Besides that, Korea and Vietnam share many things such as a Confucianism-based culture and education system resulting in a conserving attitude toward knowledge, toward the expected roles

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Background of Questionnaire Participants……… ….33

Table 3 Practical constraints affecting teachers to conduct speaking assessment……… …39

Table 4 Speaking assessment tasks used by Nam Dinh teachers……… ………49

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHORSHIP DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART I CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the research 1

1.2 Research questions and research aims 2

1.3 Scope of the study Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4 Methodology 4

1.5 Significance of the study 5

1.6 Design of the study 5

PART II CHAPTER II: LIERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Constraints in oral teaching skill at Vietnamese lower secondary school and tertiary education 7

2.2 Constraints in speaking teaching in Vietnamese upper-secondary schools 9

2.2.1 Educational system 9

2.1.1.1 Large classes 9

2.1.1.2 Lack of appropriate resources 11

2.1.1.3 Textbook 12

2.1.2 Teachers‟ problems 13

2.1.2.1 Traditional way‟s affection 13

2.1.2.2 Lack of English competence 14

2.1.3 Students‟ problems 15

2.1.3.1 Low English competence 15

2.1.3.2 Demotivation of speaking 17

2.3 Requirements of speaking assessment at Vietnamese upper-secondary school 18

2.3.1 An overview of speaking assessment criteria at upper-secondary school 18

2.3.2 Continuous speaking assessment 19

2.3.3 Types of speaking assessment 21

2.3.4 Criteria in speaking test 22

2.3.4.1 Validity 22

2.3.4.2 Reliability 23

2.3.4.3 Authenticity 24

2.3.4.4 Marking 25

2.3.4.5 Backwash effect 26

2.3 Role of teachers in assessing oral skill 26

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Case study 29

3.2 Steps in the selection of participants 32

3.2.1 Questionnaire Participants 32

3.2.2 Interview informants 34

3.3 Data collection 35

3.4 Data analysis 36

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS 4.1 Overall findings 37

4.2 The practical constraints affecting teachers to conduct speaking assessment 38

4.2.1 Difficulties caused by the educational system 39

4.2.1.1 Large classes 39

4.2.1.2 Excessive work in addition to classroom teaching 41

4.2.1.3 Textbooks 42

4.2.1.4 Exams‟ negative backwash 43

4.2.1.5 Few opportunities for retraining 44

4.2.2 Difficulties caused by the students 45

4.2.2.1 Students‟ low English proficiency 45

4.2.2.2 Students‟ low demotivation 45

4.2.3 Difficulties caused by teachers 46

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS 46

4.1 Overall findings 46

Table 3 - Practical constraints affecting teachers‟ English speaking assessment 49

4.2.1 Difficulties caused by the educational system 49

4.2.1.1 Large classes 49

4.2.1.2 Excessive work in addition to classroom teaching 51

“The last tasks in speaking lessons in the textbook are difficult for students‟ speaking ability I seldom quit speaking lessons but I can only use the first two or three speaking tasks I ask them to read aloud and learn by heart and speak in front of the class However, I cannot use the tasks of discussion They are too difficult for my students” (Teacher 1) 52

Being asked about the lack of speaking tests in the textbook, the teachers shared their opinions: 53

4.2.1.4 Exams‟ negative backwash 53

4.2.1.5 Few opportunities for retraining 54

4.2.2 Difficulties caused by the students 55

4.2.2.1 Students‟ low English proficiency 55

4.2.2.2 Students‟ low motivation 55

All the teachers in the sample reported that students were demotivated to learn speaking English: 56

4.2.3 Difficulties caused by teachers 56

4.2.3.1 Teachers‟ low English proficiency 56

The younger participants also shared some ideas about the problem: 57

4.2.3.2 Difficulty in eliciting students‟ responses 58

4.2.3.3 Difficulties in ensuring reliability of assessment 58

4.3 The extent that these constraints influence the ways teachers perform assessment of English speaking with particular reference to the use of assessment tasks 59

4.3.1 Topic 60

All the teachers who used this type of assessment doubted about its authenticity: 61

4.3.1 Interview 62

Teacher 10 who used this task-type gave positive opinion about students‟

attitude: 62

However, the task make teachers difficult to lower the noise in the classroom and to give students marks 62

4.3.2 Personal information 62

Teachers also conducted this type for all the levels at the beginning of the school: 63

4.3.4 Role-play 63

On the other hand, teacher 1 expressed a different opinion: 64

4.3.5 Dialogue practice 64

“If this assessment task is applied in all the lessons, it is really boring” (Teacher 5) 65

4.3.6 Picture description 65

4.3.7 Information gap activity 66

Only one of the participants used this type of speaking assessment 66

The teacher who was the only one using this task shared his opinions 66

Teacher 3 thought that this task was new to him 67

4.3.8 Discussion 67

The only teacher using this task expressed her problem of scoring 67

This participant only applied this task in high-quality classes 67

5.1 Nam Dinh upper-secondary English teachers‟ speaking assessment 71

5.1.1 The ways of speaking assessment in Nam Dinh upper-secondary school English teachers 71

5.1.2 The types of non-authentic speaking assessment tasks 71

5.1.3.1 Constraints caused by students 73

Lack of English input 73

Students‟ demotivation 74

Teachers‟ lack of teaching methodology in speaking test 74

Teachers‟ low consciousness of „backwash effect‟ 75

No inter-rater test reliability 75

Teachers‟ low proficiency 76

5.1.3.3 Constraints caused by the education system 76

Large classes 76

Excessive work in addition to classroom teaching 76

Textbook 77

Exams‟ negative backwash 77

Ineffective training classes 78

Teachers‟ personal beliefs 78

REFERENCES 86

Heaton, J B (1990) Classroom Testing Pearson Longman 87

Pennington, C M (1999) Language Learning Arnold 89

PART I

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the research:

Communicative language teaching (CLT) has been applied in Vietnamese secondary schools since 2006 in the new English curriculum and textbooks The change

upper-in new way of teachupper-ing English at upper-secondary school is considered significant to meet the demand of social and educational development and supported by almost English teachers at this level However, four years of applying new English curriculum and textbooks have shown a mismatch between CLT and expected effectiveness due to many constraints both from the teachers and the teaching contexts

In teaching language communicative skills, teaching speaking is the most difficult but assessing speaking is even more difficult because of the subjective nature of the assessment When talking with the colleagues in my school, I realize that almost all of

them seldom conduct English speaking assessment although the new curriculum and textbooks claim to be following CLT with ready-made tasks for assessing speaking Instead of teaching oral communication in English speaking lessons, teachers often let their students do speaking tasks on paper, do grammar exercises or even ignore speaking lessons to go on with the next ones in textbook They give students scores based on their work on paper only, never based on their oral performance At upper-secondary school, school English teachers are under pressure of exams, so my school English teachers focus mainly on teaching English grammar to help their students at regular school exams and national upper secondary school leaving exam more than developing students‟ communicative competence In group meeting, teaching plans and grammar exercises are usually discussed but quality of speaking lessons, especially speaking assessment is never mentioned

In our English teaching context, some subjective and objective causes limit us in the conduct of English speaking teaching and assessment The first cause, as mentioned above is the current exams‟ pressure which demotivates us to teach oral English skills but spending more time on grammar and reading skills as the requirement of the exams Secondly, teaching conditions such as large classes and insufficient facilities seem not to support speaking because every class has more than 50 students but tables and chairs are not conveniently arranged for speaking activities Thirdly, in spite of being aware of the role of speaking assessment, teachers are still under the impacts of traditional way focusing on grammar teaching; even some do not have enough English competence to be successful in teaching and assessing students‟ oral communication Lastly, students‟ demotivation of speaking and low English competence also constrains us to assess speaking as well as expected

In the process of seeking for literature supporting my thesis, I was much

impressed and inspired by a study of Kim Hyun Sook entitled “The types of speaking

assessment tasks used by Korean Junior Secondary school English teachers” from

Asian EFL Journal, December 2003 Articles The study both explored the speaking tasks which were used at junior secondary schools in Korea and found out the deep roots of

Korean EFL constraints to teachers‟ English speaking assessment In fact, even though CLT has been applied in Korean schools since 1900s, English teachers still have many difficulties in realizing it in their classroom practice similar to the current situation in Vietnam Besides that, Korea and Vietnam share many things such as a Confucianism-based culture and education system resulting in a conserving attitude toward knowledge, toward the expected roles of teachers and students in the classroom (Ballard & Clanchy,

1991, cited in To Thi Thu Huong 2010: 97) and the author‟s ideas appears to very closely relate to my study on the theme of assessment of English speaking skills of secondary students, so I decided to replicate her study in my thesis so that the types of constraints in assessing English speaking to teachers in Vietnamese context when CLT has been in use

at upper-secondary school for 4 years could be found and recommendations for improvement of the situation could be suggested

Specifically, on the basis of Kim Hyun Sook (2003) study, the researcher decided

to conduct a study to investigate the constraints in EFL Vietnamese classroom affecting speaking assessment of English teachers in Nam Dinh upper-secondary schools as a case study with the aim of contributing to the development of CLT in Vietnamese education

1.2 Research questions and research aims:

The study sets out to find answers to the two following research questions:

1 What are the practical constraints of Vietnamese classrooms that prevent teachers in upper-secondary schools in Nam Dinh from effective, routine English speaking assessment?

2 How do these constraints influence the ways Nam Dinh upper-secondary English teachers conduct speaking assessment in their classrooms?

With these questions, this research aims:

1 to explore the practical constraints in Vietnamese classrooms affecting Nam Dinh upper-secondary teachers to assess English speaking

2 to find out the negative impacts of the practical constraints to teachers‟ use

of speaking assessment tasks in their classroom; and

3 to propose possible solutions to these problems

1.3 Scope of the study:

With the aims above, the study is limited to explore practical classroom constraints and the tasks used by English teachers to assess speaking skill in upper-secondary schools in Nam Dinh

Other factors affecting the practice of English speaking assessment or English language assessment at upper-secondary schools in Vietnam are beyond the scope of the present study due to the time and financial restrictions of a Master thesis

1.4 Methodology:

This study employs a mixed research approach combining different methods, using both qualitative and quantitative data so that valid, reliable thick and rich information could be obtained to answer the two research questions The main method is case study

The cases were 10 teachers who were teaching English in two upper-secondary schools in Nam Truc district and in one in Nam Dinh city

The case study used qualitative approach to explore the constraints affecting Nam Dinh upper-secondary English teachers‟ speaking assessment

Two main instruments used in the study were questionnaire and semi-structured interview The questionnaire was used to identify the classroom constraints in assessing speaking, the types of speaking assessment tasks as well as the ways teachers were conducting speaking assessment Meanwhile, the semi-structured interviews are considered more important to help the researcher to explore the deep roots of these constraints to suggest effective measures and solutions in the teaching context

Regarding the data collection procedures, first of all, a list of five questions was sent to the 10 teachers to get some general information After that, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with six individual teachers to explore the roots of the problems in the ways of speaking assessments currently used in upper-secondary schools in Nam Dinh as well as the specific difficulties they meet when assessing speaking These findings were then discussed further with selected teachers to help suggest the ways to solve the problems

1.5 Significance of the study

This thesis was conducted in some upper-secondary schools in Nam Dinh based on the researchers‟ interest and the demand of Vietnamese teaching context

Firstly, the constraints of Vietnamese EFL classrooms will be identified and discussed to make the concern of upper-secondary English teachers and administrators

Secondly, the study is hoped to explore how much the constraints affect the ways of teachers to use speaking assessment tasks in the classroom

Thirdly, the study gives some recommendations to solve the problems of speaking assessment in Vietnamese upper-secondary schools

1.6 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts: the Introduction, the Development and the Conclusion

Part I: Chapter I (the Introduction) presents the rationale, the background, the aims, the

scope, the method and the design of the study

Part II: the Development consists of following chapters:

Chapter II: Literature Review

Chapter III: Methodology presents definition of case study, two steps in the selection of participant, data collection and data analysis

Chapter IV: Findings include the overall findings and the other findings of the practical constraints in conducting communicative speaking assessment and types of speaking assessment tasks used by Nam Dinh upper-secondary school English teachers

Chapter V: Discussion aims to discuss about constraints in speaking assessment at secondary school and give suggestions for conducting communicative speaking assessment

upper-Part III: Chapter VI (Conclusion) highlights the research aims, the results and shows

some limitation, suggestions for further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This part of the study provides a general look at the constraints affecting speaking teaching in Vietnamese ELT from lower secondary schools, upper-secondary schools and colleges/universities Then the literature on theories related to speaking assessment is

reviewed to set a theoretical background for the study Role of teachers in assessing oral

skill will be discussed in the last part of literature review

2.1 Cited constraints in teaching English communicatively at Vietnamese lower

secondary school to tertiary levels

ELT at lower secondary school seemed not to be taken cared of as much as at secondary school and higher levels of education In fact, when discussing the problem with my colleagues at secondary school, I realize that EFL teachers at this level are busy teaching English only if it is reported to be the subject at entrance exam into upper-

upper-secondary school Thus, lower-upper-secondary school students seem to learn English harder if entrance exam includes English test In other words, English and other subjects at this level cannot be as important as Math and Literature which is taken more care to help students at entrance exam into upper-secondary school The biggest problem in ELT in general and teaching English speaking in particular is students and teachers‟ lack of efforts to develop communicative competence as required in CLT

Le Van Canh (2000) in his article asserted that communicative language teaching was too challenging in Vietnam where the teacher‟s English proficiency was low, classes were large, the buildings, furniture and other facilities were not basic, and only low levels of support could be provided in terms of materials, libraries and advisory services New teaching methods required new understandings and skills The contrary was that teachers were required to spend more time doing additional preparatory work, while there were already many demands on teachers‟ time in addition to their syllabus teaching work

Bock‟s study (2000:25-26, cited in Canh & Barnard, 2009) reported that during CLT application in Vietnamese universities and language centres, “students were not interested in achieving communicative competence or working in groups, being more motivated to pass examinations, sometimes referred to as „required‟ motivation” The study also mentioned other factors affecting CLT in Vietnam were “large class sizes of mixed students (between 40 and 105) and the lack of helpful facilities such as flexible seating and consistent power supply and the difficulties of testing communicative competence”

Some recent research for Master theses which were conducted at Vietnamese colleges and universities support the above ideas when teachers meet too many challenges in teaching English speaking

Luu Thuy Duong (2006) conducted a study of teachers‟ difficulties at teaching speaking for the 1st year students at Hanoi Open University, Faculty of Tourism The statistics

showed that 60% of informants thought that their students had low English proficiency level, 100% responded that students had passive learning style and often spoke Vietnamese when working in pairs and groups The study also showed that teachers had difficulties of heavy teaching loads and lack of training in pair and group work methodology Meanwhile, teachers had no support of classroom conditions such as large classes, multi-level classes and lack of necessary facilities which could not give teachers the advantages to organize students work in pairs or in groups Thus, English speaking lesson could not go as teachers expected

Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh (2008) explored the same topic of a study with her survey research among non-English-majored students at Thai Nguyen University-College of Technology The result was that 100% teachers were constrained by large classes and multi-level classes, students‟ low motivation, students‟ low English proficiency and students‟ passive ways of learning She found that 76.9% of the teachers thought that they did not have enough time to conduct speaking activities and their deficiency in English

communicative competence and unsuitable textbook did not allow them to satisfy

students‟ demand of oral communication

Mai Thi Thanh Thu (2008), in her study reported that 85.7% of the teachers at Thanh Hoa College of Culture and Arts could not teach speaking as well as expected because of students‟ low motivation; 100% of the teachers responded that their students used Vietnamese during pair work and group work, 100% of the participants blamed students‟ low English proficiency, 71.4% for students‟ passive learning styles The problem of educational system was also considered one of the main causes of ineffective speaking teaching with 100% of the participants for the lack of facilities, 85.7% for multi-level class

In Mai Thuy Phuong‟s research (2008) on constraints affecting teachers at Foreign Language Center, Hai Phong Universiy, the author found that 27% EFL teachers had never been trained in CLT Even though 73% of the participants had been trained of

CLT, they rarely conducted communicative activities for students Instead, 81% participants responded that they used just grammar translation as a routine in speaking lessons In fact, students just hoped to pass the exams at the university and teachers hoped to help them do so 100% of the teachers admitted that large class size, multi-level classes, learners‟ low English proficiency and lack of time contributed to make them skip teaching English speaking

A study with the participation of teachers at Yen Dinh high school showed that most teachers (70%) complained about difficulties in controlling students when they taught in large classes The author explained that the noise in the class was impossible because

“the majority of the students enjoyed speaking Vietnamese more than speaking English”(Luu Thi Lan (2008:55)

Tran The Hai (2008) showed in his study that 100% teachers considered large classes and multi-level classes affected their speaking lessons All the classes of Do Luong 1 upper-secondary school where the author did the research included the number of students

between 45 and 55, so the teachers could not manage classes and were afraid that the noise could affect other classes nearby

Another study by Nguyen Thi Huong Giang (2008) explored that teachers at Son La Ethnic Boarding high school found difficult in teaching speaking skills to the minority students 100% of the participants thought that their speaking teaching were ineffective because of large-sized classes As the author explained, “it is hard for teachers to organize activities and control noise” because “teachers‟ voice is not loud enough” when only talkative students have chances to use their voice” but other shy ones take opportunities to use Vietnamese (p 37)

Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa (2009) reported in her study at Chi Linh high school that 100% of teachers considered large-sized classes was a big problem in teaching English, especially speaking skill A class at the school usually contained from 42 to 50 students 71% 0f the teachers mentioned that multi-level class as a constraint in teaching speaking skill The teachers found it difficult to manage students because of the noise and Vietnamese habit

Teachers at Marie Curie school, Hai Phong complained that large classes prevented students from participating in group work and questioning-activities because of classes‟ noise and teachers‟ unable management, even “the students can‟t move easily and some students don‟t do the activities” but “teachers must speak loudly and get sore throat” as a teacher reported Nguyen Duc Hung (2009) Because teachers were under pressure of completing the lesson in a limited time, they could not conduct all the activities needed for a number of more than 50 students in a class (Canh and Barnard, 2009)

2.2.1.2 Lack of appropriate resources

In fact, speaking and other communicative skills needs the support of facilities such as cassettes, videos, CD-ROMs, pictures, computers and language labs (Van et al, 2006:16) but these conditions seem so far from the reality Canh and Barnard (2009) approved that

Vietnamese schools are almost poorly equipped Tables and chairs are not arranged suitably to support students‟ speaking activities

A study conducted in 2008 Nguyen Thi Huong Giang at Son La Ethnic Boarding high school showed that 75% teachers could not teach speaking as well as expected because of poor teaching condition such as lack of equipment and mismatch in tables and chairs‟ arrangement Luu Thi Lan (2008) in the study conducted in her school reported that 50%

of the teachers were not satisfied with school‟s lack of facilities supporting speaking teaching The basic materials supporting speaking activities such as pictures, handouts, etc were self-prepared by teachers but there was no assistance of schools‟ administrators

The lack of facilities was also explored in Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa‟s study (2009) at Chi Linh high school 75% of the teachers who was asked to show that it was one of the most serious problems of teaching speaking Besides of lack of space for speaking activities,

“three cassettes players were in bad conditions” and “there was no photocopier” (p.42) The lack of material resources seem to make teachers less responsible for the job Le Thi Tuyet Mai (2009) in the study of teachers‟ classroom management in Hai Phong mentioned that lack of space made teachers impossible to control the noise and Vietnamese speaking in Vietnamese EFL classroom As a result, teachers felt tired, frustrated and demotivated to teach speaking

2.2.1.3 Textbook

Textbook is the heart of ELT In other word, how textbook is designed will contribute much to the success of teachers‟ way of teaching However, Vietnamese upper-secondary school English teachers have been accessed to new series of English textbook for a short time (since 2006), so they cannot easily adapt to the new contents in the book On the contrary, old English textbook is easier in the aspects of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, accent etc Especially, new series of English textbook requires teachers to

have good English communicative competence The problems cannot be solved in a short time

Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh‟s study (2007:21) showed that “figures in the research seem to suggest that there is not much emphasis on speaking skills in the workbooks The six review units, called “Test Yourself”, aim to help students assess their own progress and serve as sample tests for teachers when designing 45 minute tests for their classes Each review has four main components: Listening, Reading, Writing and Language Focus but no speaking practice is included”

Tran The Hai (2008) in his study found that even though 70% of the participants responded that they enjoyed teaching speaking, 50% of them felt hard to teach oral communication 60% of the teachers complained about the difficulty of speaking tasks Teachers also reported that they did not have enough time to cover all tasks in a speaking lesson

On the other hand, the recent studies on using the new sets of English language textbook and teaching the macro skills of reading, writing and listening showed that textbook includes so many words and a lot of topics are out of the background of students and teachers (Nguyen Thi Bich Hang, 2008, Phung Thi Hoai Thu, 2008, Vu Thi Thu Ha,

2008, Le Minh Sao, 2008) Speaking teaching is in the streamline of difficulties like other communicative skill

However, the official guide book encourages teachers to use textbooks to teach and assess speaking actively According to Hoang Van Van et al (2006:51), “because of the difficulties of managing and organization, teachers can use marks in small tests of 10 and

15 minutes in classroom lessons” and speaking accounts for 20% in forty minute tests and final tests like other skills It seems to be discrepant because oral assessment causes teachers and school administrators more troubles than other skills Therefore, how much

successful teachers apply communicative approach and new series of textbook is still a big question

2.2.2 Teachers‟ problems

2.2.2.1 Traditional ways of teaching

Before the new English curriculum with CLT orientation was applied, many Vietnamese teachers of English at secondary school levels had a long time of using the old English

textbook, so it was hard to make them immediately adapted to the new way of teaching

Since the English curriculum innovation with the assistance of new series of textbooks was implemented four years ago, short time workshops of two or three weeks have been organized to train teachers to adapt to CLT approach However, “the effectiveness of these workshops has not been formally evaluated” (Canh and Barnard, 2009) Thus, many teachers seemed not to be ready for teaching English communicatively On the contrary, “these teachers considered that they were not sufficiently competent for the delivery of the intended curriculum” (p.29)

A range of current studies reviewed following support the idea that Vietnamese teachers

at upper-secondary school lacked teaching methodology of CLT Especially, they still used traditional way of grammar teaching in speaking lessons

Nguyen Thi Huong Giang (2008) in her study of EFL teachers‟ problems in teaching speaking skill at an upper-seconsary school in Son La reported that 50% teachers had never been trained in CLT when the rest of 50% had only heard of in ELT training workshops This sad sign could not help teachers to vary speaking activities, even if they wish to be effective in speaking lessons in the textbook and it seemed that communicative methodology were out of teachers‟ reach

Another study conducted by Luu Thi Lan (2008) at Yen Dinh high school showed that 62% teachers still made traditional teacher-centred method current in use to meet students‟ demand of taking part in exams In speaking lessons, oral tasks were dismissed

to give the ways to grammar exercises In this way, teachers could save much time and effort but still met students‟ need

The majority of the teachers (85.7%) at Chi Linh high school in the study conducted by Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa (2009) reported that their lack of training in new method limited their speaking teaching After using new English textbooks, they still applied traditional ways in teaching speaking because “they had no chances to attend any course of CLT” (p.40)

2.2.2.2 Lack of English competence

To be successful in applying CLT in general and teaching speaking skill communicatively in particular, teachers of English must have a good English competence, especially elements related to oral communication such as pronunciation, fluency, elicitation techniques, etc However, Vietnamese upper-secondary teachers seem not to have these qualities to teaching English oral skill

Out of many English teachers, a large number taught Russian before teaching English (Canh and Barnard, 2009:29), another number were trained in in-service classes to avoid

a lack of EFL teachers a long time ago Thus, their English competence might be enough for the old English programme but they failed to teach along the communicative approach Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa (2009) reported that 85.7% of the teachers joining her study had problem of deficiency in spoken English that constrained them to make the process of teaching speaking skill These teachers admitted that they had a lack of vocabulary, pronunciation, stress, etc which was basic background in speaking skill It was surprised that some teachers reported that “they learnt the term CLT somewhere but did not quite understand how it worked” Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa, 2009:40)

2.2.3 Students‟ problems

2.2.3.1 Low English competence

In CLT, especially speaking, students‟ English competence must be good enough to match the difficulty of speaking tasks However, the recent studies showed that a large number of Vietnamese upper-secondary school students did not have good English knowledge to speak English

Students at Son La Ethnic Boarding high school in Nguyen Thi Huong Giang‟s thesis (2008) were supposed not to have enough qualities to adapt oral communication of the programme even though they had learnt English for 3 years at lower-secondary school The author explained that students had serious problems in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation The statistics in the study showed that 100% teachers had the difficulty of students‟ low level of English

Another thesis by Luu Thi Lan (2008) at Yen Dinh school asserted some factors came from learners such as learners‟ low English proficiency, lack of interest and learning styles which prevented teachers to teach speaking skill Because of lack of basic knowledge, students “might feel intimidated by more advanced ones”, “they were afraid

of making mistakes and losing face in front of their teachers and classmates” (p.53)

Tran The Hai‟s study (2008) was also about teachers‟ challenges in teaching speaking at the school in Nghe An 100% participants thought that students‟ low level of spoken language constrained them to teach speaking effectively Thus, instead of speaking English, all their students enjoyed speaking Vietnamese in speaking lessons to avoid making mistakes As a teacher responded, “I don‟t know that to correct my students‟ mistakes because there are too many” (p.26)

Canh and Barnard‟s study (2009:27) showed that students enjoyed speaking Vietnamese

in the classroom because their English competence was not good enough to communicate

in English Use of Vietnamese seemed common for both teachers and students because

“their people would not be able to understand the lessons if they spoke English.”

The same findings were explored in the study conducted by Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa (2009) The author reported that 100% teachers complained that students‟ low English proficiency was one of the greatest obstacles in teaching speaking skill “Students had learned English since they were in grade 6” but “their knowledge of vocabulary and grammatical structures was limited to do oral communicative activities” at new English curriculum at upper-secondary school 85.7% teachers referred to students using their mother tongue during pair-work and group work

A study conducted in Marie Curie in Hai Phong by Nguyen Duc Hung (2009) showed that as the students‟ proficiency was limited, it seemed hard for the teachers to use some types of communicative activities in the classroom Students were asked to do simple speaking tasks like dialogue practice, text –reading, etc because they could not do other complicated activities

2.2.3.2 Demotivation of speaking English

In EFL teaching and teaching, motivation plays an important role to be successful In Gardner and Lambert‟ s view (1972, cited in Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, 2008:13), “if learners need to speak the second language in a wide range of social situations or to fulfill professional ambitions, they will perceive the communicative value of the second language and will therefore be motivated to acquire proficiency in it.” However, it seems

that Vietnamese students at upper-secondary school do not have enough motivation to enjoy speaking activities This idea will be explained in the summary of the following studies and theses

In fact, Vietnamese students are still under affection of teacher-based approach Canh and Barnard (2009) explored that teachers talked much more than students in the lessons when students enjoyed doing exercises without any argument with teachers Passive way

of learning English and the habit of speaking Vietnamese were the main reasons to ineffectiveness of learning speaking Besides, students have motivation of learning grammar for examinations and the mismatch of Vietnamese and English culture also make students to speak English

Nguyen Thi Huong Giang (2008) reported that minority students at Son La Ethic Boarding high school rarely open their mouth to speak English 100% teachers confirmed that their students were too shy to speak English and 75% of the teachers reported that students were demotivated to take part in speaking activities The same number of 75% felt hard to teach speaking when students used too much mother-tongue during pair work and group work Tran The Hai‟s study (2008) gave the statistics of 100% of the participants who agreed that students were demotivated to speak The students interviewed shared the idea that they learnt English to take exams, they were not compulsory in English speaking lessons and marks were given, depending on their paper tests

Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa (2009) also admitted in the study that most of the teachers (71.4%) considered the lack of motivation in class participation as important constraint According to teachers‟ responses, “students‟ English learning was driven by testing and grammar” for exams 71.4% teachers thought that students were not eager to participate

in collaborative activities In the author‟s view, communicative activities like role-play, problem-solving tasks or information gap were strange to our culture of learning

2.3 Requirements of English speaking assessment at Vietnamese

 English 10 is guided to follow continuous assessment and variable assessment (p.51)

 Because of the difficulties of managing and organization, teachers can use marks in small tests of 10 and 15 minutes in classroom lessons (p.51)

 English 10 is guided to test all the skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in the examinations (p.55)

 The percentage of all the skills are fairly divided in the tests: listening 20%, speaking 20%, reading 20%, writing 20% and language focus 20% (p.55)

Van et al (2006)

Five criteria in language testing and assessment are listed as follows:

 Insurance of comprehension: assessment must reflect all the aspects of students‟ background, skills, competence, attitude and behaviors

 Insurance of reliability: assessment must have accuracy, honest, explicitness, objectiveness, fairness and reflect students‟ competence and education officials

 Insurance of feasibility: assessment must have contents, forms and tools suitable to conditions of students, subjects‟ aims

 Insurance of classification: assessment helps to classify students‟ ability correctly

 Insurance of validity: assessment must assess all the aspects of students as the objectives are made to have good effect on teaching

Van et al (2008:19)

In other words, speaking assessment is considered important in Vietnamese

upper-secondary school ELT which seems harder to be applied because it depends so much on teachers‟ responsibility and competence

The next part will discuss other aspects of speaking assessment

2.3.2 Continuous speaking assessment

Among the four macro language skills, it has been widely recognized that speaking, particularly in a second language, is the most difficult language skill to assess (O‟ Sullivan, 2008:1) The various difficulties in the testing of speaking abilities of learners frequently include the lack of basic theory and pedagogy and reliable test designs (Pennington, 1999; Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996) This is due for the most part, to the difficult matching of the testing goals and the appropriate instruments and tasks for assessment Speaking as a major construct for testing is likewise divided into different criteria with highly diverse applications

Some linguists try to compare speaking tests to driving tests: “the purpose of testing second language speaking is similar to that of a driving test The purpose of a speaking test is to collect evidence in a systematic way (through elicitation techniques or tasks)

that will support an inference about the construct as we define it from the summary of the evidence (the „score‟) We will also be interested in the learner‟s ability to perform in a range of situations much wider than those that can be sampled during the test” (Fulcher,

2003 : 47)

As specified by MOET, in upper-secondary schools in Vietnam English teachers should use continuous assessment to assess speaking According to (Heaton, 1990), “continuous assessment is a procedure which enables you to assess over a period of weeks or months those aspects of a student‟s performance which cannot normally be assessed as satisfactorily by means of tests.” For example, teachers can use continuous assessment to measure student‟s work in groups and their overall progress as shown in class Continuous assessment includes marks or grades for homework as well as scores on classroom tests

In Israel‟s view (2010), continuous assessment means assessing aspects of learners' language throughout their course and then producing a final evaluation result from these assessments It can be compared with a summative assessment, which only assesses the learner at the end of the course Continuous assessment often provides a more accurate and complete picture of the learner's level and has a positive impact on learning Continuous assessment is a classroom strategy implemented by teachers to ascertain the knowledge, understanding and skills attained by pupils Teachers administer assessments

in a variety of ways over time to allow them to observe multiple tasks and to collect information about what pupils know, understand and can do, etc Thus, the results of the assessments help to ensure that all pupils make learning progress throughout the school cycle thereby increasing their academic achievement

Some benefits of continuous assessment help students to understand their weaknesses and concentrate their efforts in those areas, help teachers to recognize students‟ weaknesses and give urgent feedback to correct their mistakes and help teachers to assess text book and curriculum and monitor their teaching methods for students‟ needs (Israel, 2010)

2.3.3 Types of speaking assessment

In Heaton‟s view (1990), speaking assessment tasks, which are called testing activities, include pronunciation tasks, pictures and oral interviews Pronunciation has some ways

of testing such as pronuncing words in isolation, pronouncing words in sentences, reading aloud and retelling stories Techniques of using pictures are in different ways by describing, comparing, sequencing, speaking by bubbles and mapping Oral interviews include teachers‟ questions for students and students‟ work in pairs or in groups

Hughes (1989) also lists some oral testing techniques comprising of elicitation techniques and some others The first ones suggest questions and requests for information, pictures, role-play, interpreting, discussion, tape-recorded stimuli and imitation Other techniques can be prepared monologue and reading aloud

O‟Sullivan (2008:10-13) mentions different types of speaking assessment including reading aloud, mimicry, conversational exchanges, oral presentation, information transfer, interaction tasks, interview and discussion In details, the author not only describe how these tasks should be carried out in speaking test but al so show advantages and disadvantages of each task type

As stated by O‟Sullivan (2008), reading aloud asks students to read silently a text then to read it aloud to the examiner In mimicry, students are asked to repeat a series of sentences after the examiner Results will be recorded and analyzed Conversational exchanges offer students a series of situations (read or heard) from which they are expected to make sentences using particular patterns Models of the expected language may or may not be first given, this changes the nature of the task Oral presentation consists of verbal essay in which students are asked to speak, without preparation on one

or more specified general topics or in an alternative version for preparation and prepared monologue in which the student is given time to prepared but it seems like the first one

Some other uses of speaking tasks are summarized as follows Information transfer (description of picture sequence) asks students to take a series of pictures and try to tell the story in a predetermined tense having had some time to study the pictures Interaction tasks are varied with information gap between student and student, between student and teacher or role play Interview can be free (no predetermined procedure, conversation

“unfolds in an unstructured fashion) or structured (a set of procedures is used to elicit performance, that is there are a series of questions and prompts to guide the interviewer through the interview) Discussion can be made between student and student (in pairs or groups, students are asked to discuss a topic, make plans, etc) or between student and examiner (examiner determines topic then guides the discussion) (O‟Sullivan, 2008)

2.3.4 Criteria of a good speaking test

In continuous speaking assessment at Vietnamese upper-secondary school, students are assessed in speaking lessons and small tests like with other skills Therefore, teachers also must know how to design speaking tests according to criteria of a good test This part reviews aspects of a good language test including validity, reliability, authenticity, marking and washback effect

2.3.4.1 Validity

Validity of a test includes face validity, content validity and construct validity

“A test is said to have face validity if it „looks‟ as if it measures what it is supposed to measure” and “a test which does not have face validity may not be accepted by both candidates and teachers” (Hughes, 1989:27) Face validity is hardly a scientific concept, yet it is very important since the lack of it may make the test unacceptable to candidates, teachers, education authorities, etc Bachman (1990), states that face validity refers to what all staffs such as examiners, administrators and untrained observers can see Face validity is a must in a classroom speaking test, because the students are motivated for speaking if a test has good face validity (Hughes, 1989)

A language test is said to have content validity if it includes a proper sample of language skills, structures, etc relevant to the purpose of the test Construct validity seeks agreement between a theoretical concept and a specific measuring device or procedure Therefore, it is a scientific base in language testing (Hughes, 1989) Bachman (1990) also highlighted that construct validity is the most fundamental validity for a speaking test It examines if the test matches a theory of language or not

It is really hard for language teachers to handle construct validity because of the abstract nature of language abilities (Nakamura, 1993) Construct validity is associated with two distinctive approaches to performance assessment development: the construct-centered approach and the task-centered approach (Bachman, 2002) The task-centered approach has been favored over the construct-centered approach by some proponents of performance assessment as it is more practical and tangible

2.3.4.2 Reliability

In communicative language testing, reliability is as important as validity Language test requires testing results that can measure correctly students‟ ability and competence which helps teachers to assess fairly and effectively (Hughes, 1989)

The reliability issue is generally more complicated when tests involve human raters because human judgments involve subjective interpretation on the part of the rater and may thus lead to disagreement (McNamara, 1996) Inter-rater and intra-rater reliability are the main considerations when investigating the issue of rater disagreement Inter-rater reliability has to do with the consistency between two or more raters who evaluate the same test performance (Jones, 1979)

Inter-rater reliability is the extent to which two or more individuals (coders or raters) agree Inter-rater reliability addresses the consistency of the implementation of a rating system (Hughes, 1989) For inter-rater reliability, it is of primary interest to examine if

the observations over raters are consistent or not, which may be estimated through the application of generalizability (Crocker & Algina, 1986)

Intra-rater reliability concerns the consistency of one rater for the same test performance

at different times (Jones, 1979) Both inter- and intra-rater reliability deserve close attention in that test scores are likely to vary from rater to rater or even from the same rater (Clark, 1979)

In the situation of new English communicative approach which has recently been applied

to Vietnamese upper-secondary schools, both inter-rater and intra-reliability are worth being concerned If speaking assessment is conducted systematically and closely, it is easy for administrators to compare teachers‟ quality of teaching and for teachers to compare students at different classes As a result, some strategies can be made to enhance teaching

2.3.4.3 Authenticity

Bachman (1990) recognizes authenticity as a central concern in second language testing

To him, authenticity represents the quality of the relationship between test features and those of the non-test target-use context He identified two approaches to authenticity: the real-life approach and interactional ability approach The first approach highlights real context reflected in the test Thus, EFL teachers must design speaking tests related to the real-life situations if they want to achieve authenticity However, it is argued that the testing situation itself makes it different from real-life context

The second approach refers to tests‟ elements which are designed to match the aims and objectives of the courses or teachers

Generally speaking, teachers should design and use tests actively, both to make sure of real-life application and to match the aims of the course

2.3.4.4 Marking

Marking is an important part of teachers‟ job Marking or scoring is done by teachers chiefly to measure students‟ proficiency Looking at marks and scores, administrators, teachers, students and even parents know students‟ competence Moreover, scores have effects of praising or encouraging students to make effort in developing communicative skills

There are two ways of marking student speech: holistic scoring and specific scoring (Bachman, 1990) When holistic scoring aims to assess students during a process, specific scoring gives a list of criteria to mark students at a piece of time

In O‟Sullivan‟s view (2008), the greatest advantage of the holistic scale is its simplicity and speed It is easier to score students if testers have enough skills and sensitiveness As

a rule, holistic scoring allows teachers to assess a large number of students in a short time However, it makes inexperienced teachers difficult to score students because of lack

of techniques and a wide range of variables

On the other hand, “specific scoring procedures attempts to recognize smaller segments such as appropriateness, fluency, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation” (Kim, 2003:8) Teachers do not need much training and skills to use specific scoring (Bachman, 1990) because scoring can be made, based on criteria O‟Sullivan (2008) calls this type

of scale analytic rating scale in which students are given marks according to their performance in speaking tasks These scales includes some small segments of accent, grammar, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension

2.3.4.5 Washback effect

Washback or backwash effect is discussed by many different linguists and

methodologists whose theories are synthesized in Bachman‟s work (1990)

Berry (1994:31), defines backwash effect as “the effect a test has on classroom practice” Hughes (1989:1) states simply that “the effect of testing on teaching and learning is known as backwash” Even backwash, in many other linguists‟ view (Alderson and Wall, 1993; Cohen, 1994; Pierce, 1996; Bachman and Palmer, 1996, etc) has broader effect on educational aspects related such as students and teachers‟ learning and teaching strategies, classroom

Practically, washback can be harmful or beneficial (Hughes, 1989), so positive or negative washback depends on the way teachers conduct speaking assessment If teachers assess students‟ communicative competence according to criteria in speaking tests, both students and teachers are motivated in speaking lessons (Harley and Sporing, 1999) If speaking assessment is conducted in other ways like paper tests, it has bad effect on teaching and learning

ELT teachers are encouraged to make positive backwash (Bachman, 1990) by conduct speaking assessment communicatively In this way, speaking assessment can help to motivate learning and teaching other communicative skills of listening, reading and writing

2.4 Role of teachers in assessing oral skill

Speaking assessment differs from other skills‟ testing because teachers assess students directly by their oral performance Thus, besides communicative competence and motivation, teachers should take notice of humanistic aspects such as sympathy, sharing and elicitation skill, even a humanistic approach is the most important thing, “which requires oral tests to be designed around people who are going to be involved, in order to encourage them to speak as naturally as possible.” (Standowicz, 2004: 6)

According to Underhill (1992), teacher can do the following things to create a more friendly environment for the students to perform at their bests:

• Personalize the test to the learner, for example by finding an area of common interest or encouraging the student to say a few words about his/her personal experience Even if it

is not a part of the exact question, such free conversation may help relax the atmosphere

• If an opportunity occurs, say a few words about herself/himself This shows that the interviewer is also a human being, not an insensitive „testing machine‟ (Underhill, 1992 : 42-43)

• Although giving some personal information may help the testee relax, the interviewer should not speak too much during the test (Hughes, 1989 : 105-106) Moreover, she/he should not interrupt the interviewee (either to give the right answer or to correct any mistakes), but speaking clearly and maintaining eye contact is an absolute must (Kitao, Kitao, 2004 : 3)

• Learners must not be discouraged from making a second attempt at a task that they have difficulty with

• Testers should avoid being seen making notes on the testee‟s performance, because it is highly stressful (Hughes, 1989 :105-106)

• Testers should always carefully plan their test; showing his/her own incompetence is by far the worst thing to do for a teacher

To conclude, oral English testing is different from testing other macro skills In speaking tests, teachers and students work face-to-face, so sympathy, sharing and understanding can help teachers to be successful in testing students‟ speaking

This chapter has reviewed relevant studies into constraints and difficulties experienced by teachers in assessing English speaking skill in Vietnamese contexts as well as criteria and task types required for a good language test

The review of literature shows a pressing need for a study into teachers‟ constraints in assessing English speaking in Vietnamese context when CLT has been in use at upper-secondary school for 4 years could be found and recommendations for improvement of the situation could be suggested The present study is an attempt to meet this need

The next part presents the methodology of the study

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

5.0 Research questions

The study sets out to find answers to the two following research questions:

3 What are the practical constraints of Vietnamese classrooms that prevent teachers in upper-secondary schools in Nam Dinh from effective, routine English speaking assessment?

4 How do these constraints influence the ways Nam Dinh upper-secondary English teachers conduct speaking assessment in their classrooms?

5.1 Case study and semi-structured interviews

As cited by Cohen et al (2007:253), “a case study is a specific instance that is frequently designed to illustrate a more general principles” and it is “the study of an instance in action” (Adelman et al., 1980) Nunan (1992:75) states that a case study “selects an instance from the class of objects and phenomena” to be investigated for its functions in real contexts For examples, a case can be „a child, a clique, a class, a school, a community‟ (Cohen, 2007:253)

In language teaching research, according to Nunan (1992), a case study investigates some instances in context such as „a second language learner‟, „a science classroom‟, „a whole school‟ or „a complete school district‟ Especially, the strength of the research method is

to explore causes and effects before helping the researcher to suggest solutions for problems

Hitchcock and Hughes (1995:322, cited in Cohen, 2007:253) assert that the case study approach has high validity with little control of the researcher In the authors‟ opinion, a case study has some strong points as follows:

 It is concerned with a rich and vivid description of events related to the case

 It provides a chronological narrative of events relevant to the case

 It blends a description of events with the analysis of them

 It highlights specific events that are relevant to the case

 The researcher is integrally involved in the case

 An attempt is made to portray the richness of the case in writing up the report

It was a complex issue to investigate the ways English teachers perform speaking assessment as well as constraints in assessing speaking in Vietnamese upper-secondary schools because it required from the researcher a lot of skills and effort to explore the

deep roots inside the real context In the words of Wiersma (1995), people‟s words and actions in complex activities can be examined by qualitative research in active ways

Therefore, the researcher chose case study research method to obtain information from a group of 10 English teachers in upper-secondary schools in Nam Dinh to answer the two research questions and to draw out implications and suggested solutions for more effective speaking assessment

Two data collection instruments were used They are questionnaire and semi-structured interviews among volunteered teachers In Wallace‟s view (1998: 124-125), by asking questions, questionnaires and interviews helps the researchers “tap into the knowledge, opinions, ideas and experiences of learners, fellow teachers , parents or whatever.” Thus,

“the answers are recorded in some ways so that they become available for subsequent reflection and analysis.”

In Maykut and Morehouse‟s view (1994), questionnaire is used universally among educational studies in general and ELT teaching in particular According to McDonough and McDonough (1997: 171-172), questionnaires bring out following advantages:

 Necessary background asked by questionnaires can be controlled to make it precise and clear

 Questionnaires can be used in different scales which can be small or large

 Questionnaires can be done at different times and locations but the data is still qualified and fair

 Questionnaires can be collected at once or other times depending on the researcher and objects but quality is unchangeable After all, the data is comparable, the questions are the same and the format is identical

A questionnaire with different close and open questions were designed to get teachers‟ opinion of the ways they assess students‟ speaking and constraints in conducting

speaking assessment in upper-secondary schools Specifically, the questionnaire asks EFL teachers whether of not they use some types of speaking assessment tasks and their perceptions of difficulties when using them These tasks consist of „Interview‟, „Topics‟,

„Personal information‟, „Role-play‟, „Dialogue practice‟, „Picture description‟ ,

„Information gap activity‟ and „Discussion‟ These tasks are guided to be used in the

series of text book Tieng Anh 10, 11 and 12 for students‟ oral skill development

As its name indicates, “the semi-structured interview is a kind of compromise between the two extremes”: structured interview and unstructured interview (Wallace, 1998:147, Kim, 2003) Along with structured way, most of the questions can be open-ended Actively, the researcher not only raises questions but also gives some comments, recommendations and explanations to clear up ambiguity and misunderstanding

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with some of participants because “the interview is a very good way of accessing people‟s perceptions” (Punch, 1998:174) As well, the interviewees can give their individual responds and concepts which they cannot explain in the questionnaires to make the opinions various from different angles (Pattron,1990:464, Kim, 2003) McDonough and McDonough supposes that „a semi-structure interview‟ is considered „the qualitative paradigm‟ for its „richer interaction‟ and more personal responds

The semi-structured interviews were conducted around the three themes:

1 Practical classroom constraints in assessing English speaking faced by teachers;

2 The extent that these constraints influence the ways teachers perform assessment

of English speaking; and

3 Suggestions for solutions to these problems

5.2 Steps in the selection of participants and collection of data

The 1 st step: Identify a list of potential participants and send a cover letter explaining the

purpose of the research;

The 2nd step: Get consent from participants and deliver questionnaires to 10 consented

participants to get general information;

The 3 rd step: Interview volunteered teachers for deeper information

5.2.1 Questionnaire Participants

The participants come from two upper-secondary schools in Nam Truc district and another in Nam Dinh city The furthest school in Nam Truc, where the researcher is working, is 10 kilometers from Nam Dinh city Out of the 10 teachers, six participants belong to two district schools while the other teachers are teaching English at a school in Nam Dinh city The study was carried out with the agreement of the teachers as well as the leaders of the schools The questionnaires were delivered to the teachers during the break of school meetings when school year 2010 was going to finish

The participants including three male and seven female teachers responded to the questionnaire Table 1 showed that the teachers‟ age ranged from 26 to 48, with the majority under 30 years old The participants‟ experience in teaching ranged from 3 to 22 years At the time of the data collection, two teachers were teaching grades 10 and 11, two were teaching grade 11 and 12, two were teaching grade 12 Four out of ten participants were teaching all grades of 10,11 and 12 Additionally, six young teachers (with teaching experience from 3 to 10 years) got regular TEFL B.A degree when four older teachers (with teaching experience from 15 to 22 years) were trained in in-service classes to get TEFL B.A degree All the four teachers taught Russian before they were trained to become English teachers at upper-secondary schools

Table 1

Background of Questionnaire

Years of

Grades taught

Location of school

University Degree completed

teaching experience

SERVICE

SERVICE

SERVICE

SERVICE Teacher

5.2.2 Interview informants

Following Kim‟s (2003) approach, the research got six volunteer informants for interviews who took part in the interview by “Pattron‟ maximum variation sampling” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985:200 cited in Kim 2003: 11) The research made sure of variation

in participants‟ age, gender, teaching experience, teaching setting and grades taught It was decided that teachers of all grades (10-12) would be selected for interviews They were almost equal in terms of numbers of male and female Out of six interviewees, four