Nghiên cứu thăm dò những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến sự thể hiện kỹ năng nói của học sinh trường trung cấp nghề ở thành phố Thanh Hóa

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ***************************** CAO THỊ TRANG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************************

CAO THỊ TRANG

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE

AT A VOCATIONAL SCHOOL IN THANH HOA CITY

NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ NHỮNG YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN

SỰ THỂ HIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG TRUNG

CẤP NGHỀ TẠI THÀNH PHỐ THANH HÓA

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi– 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

************************

CAO THỊ TRANG

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE

AT A VOCATIONAL SCHOOL IN THANH HOA CITY

NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ NHỮNG YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN

SỰ THỂ HIỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG TRUNG

CẤP NGHỀ TẠI THÀNH PHỐ THANH HÓA

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh Ph.D

Hà Nội– 2014

DECLARATION

I certify that this thesis entitled “An exploratory study on factors affecting students’ speaking performance at a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city” is entirely my own work I have provided fully documented

references to the work of others The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal course of study

Hanoi, September 2014

Signature

Cao Thị Trang

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to express my faithful gratitude to my supervisor,

Dr Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh for her patient guidance, stimulating suggestions and encouragement throughout my research

I also wish to thank all the staff members of the faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Language and International studies, VNU for providing me the best environment to fulfill my course and my thesis

Especially I am really indebted to my colleagues and my students at VSTH for their active participation and assistance without them my reseach would not exist

Last but not least, I would like to express my special thanks to my loving parents, my husband and my daughters who are always with me to encourage and readily support me on any sitiuations so that I could accomplish my study

Hanoi, September 2014

ABTRACT

The current study was carried out to investigate factors affecting college students’ performance The focus of this research was to investigate the factors affecting students’ performance in English speaking class room with the first - year students at a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city To achieve these aims, both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were employed The data was collected via a number of instruments including: questionnaires for students and teachers In this study, 116 first-year students from different faculties were chosen randomly as the participants The major findings of the research showed that the factors affecting students’ speaking performance in English speaking classroom fall into of three categories: students’ factors, teachers’ factors, classroom factors The study also demonstrated that among three main factors, the students’ factors were proved

to be the most affected whereas teachers’ factors were ranked as second Based on the findings of the study, some discussion and implications were made along with recommended suggestion for further research

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1 21

Figure 2 24

Figure 3 25

Figure 4 27

Figure 5 31

Figure 6 31

Figure 7 32

Figure 8 33

Figure 9 34

Figure 10 36

Table 1 20

Table 2 21

Table 3 22

Table 4 25

Table 5 26

Table 6 28

Table 7 29

Table 8 30

Table 9 33

Table 10 35

Table 11 37

Table 12 38

Table 13 39

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research question 2

4 Methods of the study 3

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Scope of the study 3

7 Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Speaking in foreign language learning and teaching 5

1.1.1 Definitions of speaking 5

1.1.2 Importance of speaking 6

1.1.3 Approaches to the teaching of speaking 7

1.1.4 Types of classroom speaking performance 8

1.2 Factors affecting students’ speaking performance 9

1.2.1 Students’ factors 9

1.2.1.1 Students’ motivation 9

1.2.1.2 Students’ language levels 10

1.2.1.3 Students’ personality and anxiety 12

1.2.1.4 Family background 13

1.2.2 Teachers’ factors 13

1.2.2.1 Teacher’s role 13

1.2.2.2 Teacher’s knowledge and characteristics 13

1.2.2.3 Teacher’s method 14

1.2.3 Classroom factors 15

1.2.3.1 Classroom atmosphere 15

1.2.3.2 Class size 15

1.2.3.3 Classroom physical condition 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 Research setting 17

2.1.1 An overview of The Vocational school in Thanh Hoa city 17

2.1.2 The teachers 17

2.1.3 The students 17

2.1.4 The materials and syllabus 17

2.2 The participants 18

2.3 Data collections instruments 18

2.4 Data collection procedures 19

2.5 Data analysis procedures 19

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 20

3.1 Data analysis of survey questionnaire for students 20

3.2 Data analysis of survey questionnaire for teachers 31

CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS, DISSCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS 40

4.1 Major findings and discussion 40

4.1.1 The students 40

4.1.2 The teachers 40

4.1.3 The classroom 41

4.2 Implications 42

PART C: CONCLUSION 45

1 Conclusion 45

2 Limitations and suggestion for further study 45

REFERENCES 47 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS I APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS V

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Undeniably, English is the most important international language and becoming an indispensable means of communication with the rest of the world It provides ready access to the world scholarship and world trade Thus, the demand of learning English is becoming more urgent than ever In Viet Nam, it is a compulsory subject at all levels of learners In learning English, the fours skills namely reading, writing, speaking, listening are very important but speaking seems to be the most significant All learners of English want to achieve this skill All teachers pay much attention on speaking for their students

However, the teaching and learning of English speaking in Viet Nam have encountered many difficulties In fact, although most of Vietnamese learners can be good at grammar, reading and writing skill, few of them can speak English correctly and fluently It takes learners lots of time if they want to be professional at it Since, the learners are often reluctant in speaking English There have been variety of solutions given such as changing teaching method, changing textbooks, upgrading teachers’ qualification and so on, the poor performance of students in speaking remains a common problem in acquiring the language

As a teacher of a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city the researcher see that most of her students facing these problems They do not often enjoy speaking English and they do not actively contribute to the speaking lessons They feel hardly to express their thought in English and the safe way they choose is keeping quiet With their poor performance in speaking English, they lost their opportunities to get the good jobs of the competitive labor market

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

research entitled “An exploratory study on factors affecting students’ speaking performance at a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city”

2 Aims of the study

The study is carried out to find out some factors affecting students’ speaking performance at a vocational school in Thanh Hoa city

3 Research questions

In order to achieve the above-mentioned objective, the study was

implemented to answer the question: What are the factors affecting students’ speaking performance at the vocational school in Thanh Hoa city?

4 Methods of the study

To conduct the study, several methods were used, but the researcher used mainly quantitative and qualitative methods The data collected for the study will come from two sources: the student respondents and the English teacher respondents at the vocational school in Thanh Hoa city

Two sets of questionnaires, one for students and the other for teachers, are going to be used as data collection instruments All the comments, recommendations and conclusions provided in the study will be based on the data analysis

5 Significance of the study

The study may be helpful for both students and teachers of English It may help the English teachers to implement suitable teaching method to their students Teachers can use the outcomes of the study as a reference in their research when they want to conduct the study related to teaching and learning speaking in general and factors affecting students’ speaking performance in particular It may also create awareness among students about their problems

in learning English to achieve more effective education

6 Scope of the study

Studying English speaking performance as a foreign language has been paid attention by many researchers so far However, due to the limit of time and capacity, within the scope of an M.A minor thesis, the researcher only focuses on factors affecting students’ speaking performance including students’ motivation, students’ language level, students’ personality and anxiety and family background, teachers’ role, teachers’ knowledge and characteristics, teachers’ teaching methods, classroom atmosphere, class size, classroom physical condition The subjects of the study are 5 English teachers and 116 students from the Vocational school in Thanh Hoa city

The study is divided into three parts: the Introduction, the Development and the Conclusion

PART A: INTRODUCTION - deals with the rationale, aims, research

questions, methods, scope, and organization of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT including the following chapters:

CHAPTER 1: Literature review, presents the theoretical background of

speaking in which definition of speaking, the role of speaking in foreign language teaching, approaches of teaching speaking; issues of students’ speaking performance including types of speaking performance and factors affecting students’ speaking performance

CHAPTER 2: Methodology gives overview of the research site, the

participants, data collections instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis procedures

CHAPTER 3: Data analysis provides the analysis of the survey

questionnaire for students and the analysis of the survey questionnaire for

teachers

CHAPTER 4: Major findings, discussion and implications give some major

finding, suggestion and implications to improve students’ speaking

performance

PART C: CONCLUSION - summarizes all the key issues of the study as

well as the limitations and suggestion for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking in foreign language learning and teaching

1.1.1 Definitions of speaking

Florez (1991:1) defines speaking as “an interactive process of constructing

meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information” (cited in Bailey, 2005:2) It is “often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving”,

but it is not completely unpredictable

In addition, speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non verbal symbols, in a variety contexts” (Chaney, 1998:13) Bailey (2005:2) shares the same view that “speaking is the productive, oral skill It consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning.” As Jones, (1989: 86) defines, “speaking is a form of communication, so it is important that what you say conveyed in the most effective way.”

According to Mackey (1965) “ oral expression involves not only the use of the right sounds in the right patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also a choice of words and inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning”, (cited in Bygate, 1987:5)

In study of Brown and Yule (1983), spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciation They also point out that spoken language is made to feel less conceptually dense than other types of language

From some definitions above it can be concluded that speaking skill is always related to communication Speaking skill itself can be stated as the productive, oral skill, using the language accurately to express meanings in order to transfer or to get knowledge and information from other people in the

whole life situation

1.1.2 Importance of speaking

Speaking plays an utmost important role among the four language skills since

it is the fundamental to human communication (Ur 1996:120) It can not be denied that in our daily lives, people spend more time on speaking rather than

on writing According to Hymes (1972) “The goal of language teaching is to develop communicative competence Pattison (1992) confirms that when people know or learn a language, they mean being able to speak the language More than this, Ur (1996) shows that people who knows a language are referred to as “speaker” of that language as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing The mastery of speaking skills in English is a priority for many second-language or foreign-language learners (Jack C Richards 2008:19)

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

In social contexts, speaking is particularly useful as it is key to communication

Kayi (2006) and Bygate (1987) share the same view that the learners need to have ability to speak confidently to carry their most basic transactions

In general, because of the importance of oral skill in language teaching and learning, speaking skill should be paid more attention to

1.1.3 Approaches in teaching speaking

In the history of language learning and teaching methods there have been existed several approaches such as Grammar - Translation Method, Reading Method, Audiolingualism, and Affective - Humanistic Approach and, etc However, CLT is the latest influence on teaching methodology which has been put forth around the world as a new or innovative approach to teach English as a second or foreign language Therefore, in this section, the researcher only discusses on CLT as an approach for teaching speaking skill

To define CLT, Nunan (1989:194) states:

“CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning Activities

involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using language, which is meaningful to the learners Objectives reflect the needs of the learners including functional skills as well as linguistics objectives The learner’s role is a negotiator and integrator The teacher’s role is a facilitator of the communication progress.”

In brief, CLT emphasizes communication in a foreign language and improves the learners’ competence through communicative activities

* Characteristics of CLT

According to Richards and Rogers (2001:161), CLT has a rich theoretical base and some of the characteristics of the communicative view of language are:

- Language is a system for the expression of meaning

- The primary function of language is to allow interaction and communication

- The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative use

- The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural features but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in discourse

In brief, CLT is characterized with communicative competence, leaner’s –

centeredness and four skills integration These characteristics will be the principles for teachers to choose appropriate techniques as well as activities in the classroom to improve students’ communicative competence

1.1.4 Types of classroom speaking performance

According to Brown (2000), there are six types of classroom speaking

performance (p.271) :

Imitative: This types of speaking performance is the ability to practice an

intonation and focusing on some particular elements of language form In fact, it’s simply imitaion of a word or phrase or possibly a sentence The important thing here is focusing on pronunciation Drilling is used in teaching and learning process to help students get opportunity to listen and orally repeat some words

Intensive: This is the students’ speaking performance that is practicing some

phonological and grammatical aspects of language It relates to the production of short stretches of oral language designed to demonstrate competence in a narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or phonological relationships It usually places students doing the task in pairs (group work), for example, reading aloud that includes reading paragraph, reading dialogue with partner in turn, reading information from chart, etc

Responsive: Responsive performance includes interaction and test

comprehension but at the somewhat limited level of very short conversation, standard greeting and small talk, simple request and comments

Transactional: It is an extended form of responsive which has the purpose of

exchanging specific information, language Conversations, for example, may have more of a negotiate nature to them than does responsive speech

Interpersonal (dialogue): Conversation is carried out more for the purpose of

maintaining social relationships than for the transmission of facts and

information The forms of interpersonal speaking performance are interview, role play, discussions, conversations and games

Extensive: Oral production task include speeches, oral presentations, and

story-telling Language style is frequently more deliberative (planning is involved) and formal for extensive tasks, but we cannot rule out certain informal monologues such as casually delivered speech

In brief, students need to know at least the pronunciation, vocabularies, and language functions that they are going to use When students are ready and prepared for the activity, they can use the language appropriately

1.2 Factors affecting students’ speaking performance

A number of studies have been carried out to identify and analyze the numerous factors that affect students’ speaking performance Their findings identify students’ effort, previous schooling parents’ education, family income, self motivation, age of students, and entry qualifications as factors that have a significant effect on the students’ performance in various settings Since not all factors are relevant for a particular context The choice of factors reviewed here was based on their importance to the current study

1.2.1 Students’ factors

1.2.1.1 Students’ motivation

Lower motivation levels or lack of motivation is another reason for hindering the students from active participation in speaking activities It leads to reluctance in active participation in the speaking activities leading to poor performance or no performance at all

According to Lightbown and Spada “motivation in second language learning

is a complex phenomenon which can be defined in terms of two factors: learners’communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language community” In other words, motivation in the present context refers to the

combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language (Garder, 1985; 10) He also considered motivation as “a key consideration in determining the preparedness of learners to communicate” and indicates that motivation of foreign language learning contains four aspects: a goal, effortful behavior, a desire to attain the goal and the attitude It can be understood that if students have strong learning motivation take positive attitude towards study and make great efforts to master English with clear goal and desire, they will gain better grade than those who have not acquired motivation

Besides, Lightbown and Spada (1999:57) also points out some conditions that help increase students’ motivation They says that if we can make the classroom places where students enjoy coming because of interesting content, challenging but manageable and clear goals, supportive and non-threatening atmosphere, we can make a positive contribution to students’ motivation

It is true that motivation plays an important part in the success of second language learning The degree of motivation directly affects to the level of involvement in speaking activities The more motivated students are, the more actively they are involved in speaking lessons

1.2.1.2 Students’ language levels

Students’ language levels can be viewed as students’ linguistic competence or students’ language proficiency which consists of the learners’ knowledge of target language (Rod, 1985) The common problems in a Vietnamese vocational school leading to low students’ language proficiency or students’ language proficiency in different levels are:

Lack of subject matter:

The common problem seen among students is that they think that they have nothing to say on a particular topic because they are lack of social and cultural

knowledge In reality, with limited knowledge they may be bored or feel that the topic is unrelated to

anything they know If this is the case, they can not confidently speak out much about anything other than the fact that they should be participating in it actively

Lack of proper vocabulary:

Another problem encountered with learners is that they often feel anxious when they have to search for what are appropriate to fit into the context/content This is because of lack of exposure to a variety of vocabulary, structures or expressions This also leads to failing in communicating fluently in English, which again make students unwilling to speak Therefore, in the classroom many students just sit in silence and do not participate in the classroom activities

Moreover, in Burns and Joyce’s view, students have difficulties in pronunciation such as sounds, rhythms and stress patterns of English, low proficiency of grammar patterns and problems in transferring from the native language into the target language

Improper listening skills:

In the initial stages of language learning, beginning with listening activities and following with speaking activities seems to be the most appropriate sequence Listening plays an extremely important role in the development of speaking abilities Usually, one person speaks and the other responds through attending by means of the listening process In fact, during interaction, every speaker plays a duel role- both as a listener and a speaker If one cannot understand what is said, one is certainly unable to respond So, speaking is closely interwoven with listening skills

All of these linguistics factors result in break – down in processing language

foreign language learning

Students’ anxiety

Spielberger (1983:1) defines anxiety as “the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the automatic nervous system” (as cited in Brown (2007:161) It is associated with feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self doubt, apprehension or worry (Scovel, 1978:134) Through the research of Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986), they found out three main causes of language anxiety: communication apprehension, text anxiety and fear of negative evaluation

Anxiety and speaking performance are closely related If the students fear of losing face as making mistakes or being laughed at by other students, they will certainlee keep quiet and wait until they and a general sense of failure in the learners Tsui (1996) reconfirmed are required to speak in oral English lessons Sometimes, extreme anxiety results in the students’ being tongue-tied

or lost for words in an unexpected situation leading to discouragement that

students’ fear of making mistakes and derision was one of the causes of reluctance in speaking lessons

1.2.1.4 Family background:

Many previous researches studied impacts of family background and rural background on students’ academic performance including speaking performance They cited that parents’ personal background, parents’ income, parents’ education and their location play an important role in their children’s schooling achievements In deed, if a student is lucky lived in a family with adequate of physical condition, his parents are good at English; he may show better in speaking lesson On the contrary, most students coming from rural background and poor- income family who are the first generation learners of English Language, when asked to take part or do a speaking activity they usually say nothing or tend to use their mother tongue, resulting in the failure

of the speaking learning process

1.2.2.2 Teacher’s method

The teacher’s teaching method refers to teaching techniques or activities used

in the classroom to get students involved in learning to achieve a goal Through the history we have experienced the existence and development of many teaching methods that can be divided into Grammar-translation or traditional method, Direct method, Reading method, Audio-lingual method,

Audiovisual method and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) (Stern;1983) In recent years, CLT appeals many language learners and educators’ attention when the communicative skill is concerned Teacher’s technique turns from teacher – centered method into learner – centered method The teaching techniques consist of role-play, problem solving, games, pair work, group work, interview and discussion, etc

However, the activity that is particularly appropriate for one student may not

be ideal for another There’s no teaching method that is the best one for all learners as each one has its own advantages and disadvantages Applying a suitable teaching method require teachers’ careful consideration because it will affect the way student gets involved in the lesson Furthermore, choosing the appropriate method can have positive effects on students’ learning and participation in classroom’s activities

1.2.2.3 Teacher’s characteristics

Teacher’s characteristics are vital factors impacting on students’ involvement

in speaking lessons It can be understood that in order to involve students in classroom’s activities, teachers should have some key characteristics that students respect and lay their trust on Barry (1993) mentions that teachers should be natural, warm, pleasant, approachable, tolerant It can be understood that teachers should reveal their felling and emotion as their real people, regard students as partners, be enthusiastic with students’ difficulties, readily listen to them, tolerant with their mistakes instead of criticizing them tactlessly All factors above aim at creating good relationship with their students, building pleasant atmosphere in class to motivate students’ participation in the activities

1.2.3 Classroom factors

1.2.3.1 Classroom atmosphere

Many teachers do not take the atmosphere into consideration, but it is an important part of learning in a classroom A pleasant and supportive atmosphere will create idea learning environment It encourages students to express their opinions and thinking On the contrary, a concrete atmosphere will make up dump environment in which students always keep quite They

do not take risks because they are afraid of being criticized if they make mistakes

According to Underwood (1987:34-44), both students and teachers take the responsibility for creating a good teaching and learning environment with the following points: giving a sense of purpose, ensuring that English is spoken, balancing fluency and accuracy, using appropriate language, giving encouragement, the place of examination and tests, extra-curricular activities, involving all the students Moreover, humor is a very potent factor to improve the classroom atmosphere The use of humor helps students feel at ease without tension in the air

1.2.3.2 Class size

The number of students is a considering factor in foreign language class, especially in speaking lessons In a language class in which students’ participation contributes greatly to the success of the lesson, the number of students should be kept small so that interaction between teachers and students and between one student and another can be maximized (Le Phuoc

Ky, 2002),

According to Hayes (1997), any class with over 40 students can be considered

a large class Teaching in large classes is both difficult for both teachers and students for many reasons First, teachers can not pay equal attention to all students, and students could not take equal opportunities to involve the lessons Next, large classes are often more difficult to control because of

noisy, discipline problems Moreover, many of techniques and materials are difficult to use in large classes because students are different in learning styles, preferences and levels of English proficiency

1.2.3.3 Classroom physical conditions

Physical conditions in the classroom refer to the lightness/brightness, the temperature and fresh air, the acoustics, the lines of vision, the layout of the desks or tables, the possibility to moving desks or tables, the other furniture and the facilities for displaying pictures, charts, etc (Underwood, 1987) Jeremy Harmer (1991) confirmed that such physical condition had great impact on students' learning as well as their attitude towards the subject

matter These affect students' motivation either positively or negatively

Summary

In conclusion, chapter 1 has presented some theoretical background knowledge related to the topic of the study It has discusses some concepts

about speaking skills, the role of speaking, an overview of approaches of

speaking, especially of Communicative Language Teaching and theories of

students’ speaking performance Besides, it also discusses some factors

affecting students’ performance in speaking activities including

students’factors, teachers’ factors and classroom’factors The current study will focus on, among these factors, what are the factors that really affect students’ speaking performance in the study’s context

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Research setting

2.1.1 An overview of The Vocational school of Thanh Hoa city

The study is conducted at The Vocational school of Thanh Hoa city (VSTH),

a public school establishing in 2012 to train students becoming workers to meet the need of human resources for Thanh Hoa province and neighboring provinces The school has about 500 students and 46 officials and teachers of all subjects

2.1.2 The teachers

English is the only foreign language taught and learnt at the school There are

5 English teachers who are all enthusiastic to devote their time and energy to teaching They are all young with the age ranging from 25 to 31 and have at least 3 years of experience in teaching English They were trained from training courses in English language teaching at different universities in Vietnam They are so well-aware of the important role of the ability to communicate in English Therefore, they pay much attention to form students’ ability of speaking and they always try to find out effective teaching methods

to increase teaching and learning quality

2.1.3 The students

Most of the students at the school know very little about English They think that it is a non-major subject and they do not pay much attention to it All they need is to get enough knowledge of grammar and vocabulary to pass the written exam Generally, most of the students are passive in learning English, especially in speaking lessons Thus, it would be hard to involve students in a communicative activity

2.1.4 The materials and syllabus

The English book used for all students at the school is “Lifelines Elementary” (Tom Hutchinson, Oxford University Press, 2002) There are 14 units lasting

150 periods divvied in 3 terms The aim of the book is to enable students communicate in the target language However, the tests and examinations are

in written form So the teachers and students focus on grammar, and reading comprehension to pass the exam

At the Vocational school of Thanh Hoa city, English teaching and learning are mostly carried out inside the classrooms which are equipped with projectors and language labs is available Besides, each English teacher is provided a cassette player to support the listening lessons However, equipments and facilities are inadequate such as lack of TV set, materials for reference and; in the library, English books, newspapers and magazines are not available

2.2 Participants

116 first-year students from different faculties and five English teachers at the Vocational school were chosen randomly as the participants These students were from 3 classes: Textile technology, Automobile technology, Electronics, where the researcher was working as a lecturer of English The research was conducted in the second term of the school year All the participants took part

in the survey questionnaires by answering all the given questions

2.3 Data collection instruments

Survey questionnaires were used as the main instrument to collect information from students and teachers because they help to get a large amount of respondents without consuming too much of time Besides, students may easily understand all contents presented in writing copies to answer more exactly In this study, two sets of questionnaires were designed according factors presented in chapter 1 of part B and delivered to 116 students and 5

English teachers of VSTH

2.4 Data collection procedures

116 students from 3 classes were randomly collected With the teachers’ permission, copies of the questionnaire were handed out to the students To ensure that the students have right understanding of the questions, the researcher translated them into Vietnamese and give guidance if necessary It took about 15 minutes to fully complete all questions

It is easy for the questionnaire for teachers Five copies were given to the five English teachers and a date was made for the questionnaire to be given back

2.5 Data analysis procedures

Then the data would be analyzed using descriptive statistics with percentage, interpretations The results from the questionnaires will be then presented in the forms of tables and charts

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter will present and analyze the data collected from the survey questionnaires The main source of data is derived from answers of the two questionnaires for students and teachers Data analysis is presented to investigate the factors affecting speaking performance at VSTH

3.1 Data analysis of questionnaire for students

Personal information of the students taking part in the survey

As mentioned in Chapter 2, Part 1 of the questionnaire includes five items seeking the participants’ background information The information collected

is presented in Table 1 below:

Year

of study

studying English (Mean)

technology

Automobile technology Electronics 19.5

(range

18– 21)

5 (range 3 –

7 years)

Table 1: Background information of the participants

As can be seen from Table 1, the total number of the students in the survey was 116 of which 74.1% were males and 25.9% were females Their average age was about 19.5 The students came from four different classes of the school The number of participants among the three classes was rather different (approximately 3.3% for each class) Even though the students’ length of studying English stood between 3 and 7 years, most of the students revealed that they started to learn English when they were in secondary school (Mean = 5)

3.1.1 Factors affecting students’ performance in students’ view

Figure 1: Factors affecting students’ performance under students’ view

As the result of the figure 1, it can be seen that students’ factors were mostly affected on students’ speaking performance (38%) Likewise, most of students said that teachers’ factors were very important (33%) 20 % of students thought that classroom’ factors were reasons Some students (9%)

said that materials also deeply affected their performance in speaking class

From this fact, it can be concluded that students aware of the factors affecting their speaking performance in some extend

3.1.2 Students’ factors

Motivation

Questions 2, 3 and 4 are designed to discover students’ motivation towards speaking skill The specific questions and students’ responses are shown in Table 2, 3 and chart 2 below:

Table 2: Students’ attitude towards speaking skill

Being asked about the importance of English speaking skill, 28 students admit that speaking skill is very important to them, which takes 24.1% while 65 out

of 116 respondents (56%) stated it was rather important and 13.8 % of the correspondents mentioned speaking was little important skill 6.0% of the students did not realize the importance of the speaking skill when they

reported that this skill were not important at all

The result from the questionnaire shows that generally the students were aware of the importance of speaking in learning a foreign language

In short, most of the students (80.1%) are fully aware of the crucial role of

speaking skill in EFL acquisition process

students

Percentage (%)

learn English

speaking?

(You can choose

more than one

option)

A Because it help me understand English songs 36 31,0

B Because it is interesting 25 21.6

C Because it id necessary for

D To communicate with foreigners and understand different cultures

In response to the question above, the highest percentage (71.5%) of the students wanted to learn English speaking because it was a compulsory subject in the school’s curriculum Only 49 of 116 students taking 42.2 % knew the role English in the modern life, they found the major reason for learning speaking English as a means to communicate with foreigners and understand their cultures While 56 % stated that English speaking was necessary for their future job and 51.7 % of them wanted to study and worked abroad, only 40.5 % felt it was interesting At the same time, 43.9 % said that they learnt speaking skill because it helped them to understand and listen to English songs 35% students perceived the speaking skill could improve their knowledge of grammar, vocabulary and phonetics which help them to do their tests and exams well Only 4 students gave other opinions, according to them, they want to learn English for entertainment such as playing games and watching movies in English

This result reveals that a greater number of the students are not really motivated in learning speaking English The reasons for which students learn English mostly arise from requirements of their school and the needs in their future profession Therefore, they feel unwilling to take part in speaking activities in class This partly leads to their poor performance in English speaking

Figure 2: Students' frequency of speaking English in class time

As can be seen from the figure 2 above, only 10.3 of the respondents were willing to speak in any activities, whereas 40.5% spoke when being ordered and 12.1% just spoke when they knew well about the topic Also, 37.1% of them said that they were not used to speaking in class, so they often kept quiet and were passively in speaking lessons We can see that this number is not small In observation, the researcher realized that most students were reluctant

to speak English and tend to keep silent until their teacher ordered From the result shown in the figure, a conclusion can be drawn that the percentage of the students who often passively spoke English in class was remarkable As a result, their performance in speaking activities was bad So the question raised here is what factors made many students show their poor performance in speaking activities in class The following questions will response the problems

Students’ language level