INVESTIGATION INTO THE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT VINH PHUC TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

It was conducted to examine the second year students’ difficulties in their English speaking skills, find out the instructional strategies applied by English language teachers in speaki

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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

ĐỖ THỊ CẨM VÂN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS

AT VINH PHUC TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

(Nghiên cứu những chiến lược giảng dạy nhằm nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho sinh

viên năm thứ hai Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Vĩnh Phúc)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.01.11

Hanoi – 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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

ĐỖ THỊ CẨM VÂN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS

AT VINH PHUC TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE

(Nghiên cứu những chiến lược giảng dạy nhằm nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho sinh

viên năm thứ hai Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Vĩnh Phúc)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.01.11

Supervisor: Dr Tô Thị Thu Hương

Hanoi - 2014

DECLARATION

I, Do Thi Cam Van, hereby declare that the work in this thesis is the result of

my own research It is recognized that should this declaration be found to be false, disciplinary actions could be taken and penalties could be imposed in accordance with university policies and rules

Hanoi, 2014

Đỗ Thị Cẩm Vân

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would love to express my sincere thanks to a number of people whose invaluable support and encouragement were of great help in completing of this study

First of all, I would like to advance my special gratitude to Dr To Thi Thu Huong - my supervisor for her guidance, invaluable advice as well as critical comments during the research process Without her tireless help, this study could not have been finished

Secondly, my thanks go to Dr Le Van Canh for his contributions through giving me helpful advice when I started the study

I am thankful to all the staff of the Post- Graduate Department of University

of Language International Studies, VNU for giving me assistance and encouraging

me to complete the thesis

A further acknowledgement goes to my dear friends from the Master's Course

I would also like to acknowledge the 15 English teachers and 60 second -year students from K17, English Department, Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College for their participation and cooperation during the data collection process

Finally, special words of thanks are sent to my beloved family for their encouragement even in the hardest time when I was confused and exhausted

ABSTRACT

The study is entitled “An investigation into the instructional strategies to

develop speaking skills for the second year students at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College” It was conducted to examine the second year students’

difficulties in their English speaking skills, find out the instructional strategies applied by English language teachers in speaking classes, and show how role- play practice affecting students’ performance in speaking skills The study was carried out on sixty second- year students and fifteen English teachers at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College during 8 weeks by questionnaires, semi- structured interviews, test, and personal observations The findings indicated students’ good awareness and varied attitudes towards the problems they have to face, and the difficulties they had in the learning process In addition, the study showed a range

of the instructional strategies the teachers applied to motivate their students’ participation in speaking lessons And role- playing was the most popularly used at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration ……… i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of appendices vi

List of abbreviations vii

List of figures vii

List of tables viii

INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1

2 Scope of the study 2

3 Aims of the study 2

4 Significance of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Design of the study 4

DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1 Overview of speaking skills 5

1.1 Definition of speaking and teaching speaking skills 5

1.2 Principles for teaching speaking skills 5

2 Communicative Language Teaching Today 7

2.1 Definition of communicative language teaching 7

2.2 Current trends in communicative language teaching 8

2.3 Classroom activities in communicative language teaching 9

3 Instructional strategies 10

3.1 Definition 10

3.2 Instructional strategies model 11

4 Role- play 13

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

1 The context 15

1.1 Description of the English speaking classe and its objectives at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College 15

1.2 Description of the students 17

1.3 Description of the teachers 17

2 Method and procedure 18

2.1 Selection of participants 18

2.2 Data collection methods 18

2.2.1 Questionnaires 19

2.2.2 Semi-structured interviews 19

2.2.3 Observations 20

2.3 Data collection procedures 20

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 1 Teachers’ instructional strategies in English speaking classes 22

1.1 Instructional strategies used by teachers in speaking lessons 22

1.2 Which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their difficulties in speaking lessons? 29

1.2.1 Students’ difficulties in the speaking classes 30

1.2.2 Which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their difficulties in speaking lessons? 33

2 Effect of role- play practice to students’ performance in English speaking classes 33

CONCLUSION 1 Summary of the study 39

2 Limitations of the study 39

4 Suggestions for further studies 40

REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I

LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Transcripts of student interviews (schedule 1)

Appendix 2: Transcripts of student interviews (schedule 2)

Appendix 3: Transcripts of teacher interviews (schedule 1)

Appendix 4: Transcripts of teacher interviews (schedule 2)

Appendix 5: Teacher interview schedules

Appendix 6: Student interview schedules

Appendix 8: Mid- term test: K 17 English A

Appendix 9: Mid- term test: K 17 English C

Appendix 10: Students’ questionnaire

Appendix 11: Teachers’ questionnaire

Appendix 12: Findings from observation

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ED: English Department

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

MA: Master of Arts

Figure 4: Importance of the teachers’ instructional strategies from the students’ points of view

Figure 5: Instructional strategies the teachers used from the students’ points of view Figure 6: Instructional strategy motivated the students the most from the students Figure 7: Students’ difficulties in English speaking lessons

Figure 8: Students’ difficulties from the teachers’ points of view

Figure 9: Students’ result from the mid- term test

Table 6: Students’ difficulties in English speaking lessons

Table 7: Students’ difficulties in English speaking lessons from the teachers’ points

of view

Table 8: Students’ perceptions towards role- play

Table 9: Students’ result from the mid- term test

PART A: INTRODUCTION

This part of the thesis is dedicated to introducing the rationale, the aims, the scopes and the significance of the study as well as the research questions It also presents the research method and the design of the study

1 Rationale

At present, Vietnamese people consider English to be an important foreign language, and thus, a great number of people study it In the context of global integration, in general, and in Viet Nam in particular, the demand for learning English gets stronger and stronger power This worldwide expansion has increased the demand

to acquire good communication skills in English That is the reason why the teaching and learning English has been paid more attention recently in Vietnam English is regarded as an indispensable tool for academic and career advancement It cannot be denied, therefore, that English is now the dominant language, especially in language teaching programs in many schools

In the era of communicative language teaching, teaching and learning the four language skills are inevitable (Bailey, 1998) Of four major language skills, the mastery

of speaking skills is put on the first priority by many Vietnamese learners This is because the success of learners in language learning is often evaluated on the improvement in their spoken language proficiency (Richards, 2006) In order to aid teachers and learners in their teaching and learning speaking skills, there is a variety of speaking instructional techniques available In addition, Shumin (1997) stated that learning to speak a foreign language requires more than knowing its grammar and vocabulary The ways the teachers teach English can affect the academic achievement

of the learners especially at higher level

Nunan (1998) argued that it is very important for the teachers to be aware that motivation is a consideration in determining whether or not learners are willing to

communicate Clearly, the more meaningful the materials, the tasks and the teachers’ instructional strategies are for the learners involved, the better the outcome will be

Ur (2005) developed this further by suggesting that good speaking skills classrooms are ones where learners talk a lot, participation is even, motivation is high and the language is at an acceptable level

Ur (1991) reminded motivation is one of the most important matters for the class teachers and suggested that “learners motivation makes teaching and learning immeasurably easier and more pleasant, as well as more productive” (Ur 1991: 274) Furthermore, in the process of learning English speaking skills, the second year English majored students at VTTC often express a feeling of stress, nervousness or anxiety, in-confidence… In addition, their results in the final speaking examinations are usually low This fact can be triggered to many difficulties the students have to face

in their learning process In order to help the second year English majored students to overcome their difficulties in learning speaking skills, and help the English teachers to have some useful instructional strategies in teaching are the inspiration of conducting

the study entitled “An investigation into the instructional strategies to develop

speaking skills for the second year students at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College”

2 Scope of the study

As this thesis is only a small-sized scale study, it is only concerned with the

difficulties the students had in the speaking class, the suitable instructional strategies that teachers at VTTC choose for the second year English majored students in their

speaking lessons as well as to help the students learn English speaking skills better

3 Aims of the study

The study is carried out to help the English teachers at VTTC find out which instructional strategies are suitable in the actual context of teaching English speaking skills at VTTC Firstly, the thesis is an attempt to explore the instructional strategies

being applied by English language teachers by questionnaires, interviews, and observation so as to see which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their difficulties in English speaking lessons Secondly, the study investigated the

effectiveness of role- play practice to students’ English speaking performance

In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the study is designed to answer the following research questions:

(1) What are the instructional strategies applied by the English language teachers in speaking classes at VTTC?

1.1 What instructional strategies are commonly used by the English

language teachers in their speaking lessons?

1.2 Which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their

difficulties in speaking lessons?

(2) How well can role- play practice help the students to overcome their difficulties in speaking lessons?

4 Significance of the study

This study plays an important role to the author herself as well as to teachers teaching English speaking skills, it provides teachers with necessary and important information to help them choose the most suitable instructional strategies that have high value in helping students to speak English

5 Methods of the study

This study focused on finding out the instructional strategies in teaching English speaking skills to the second year English majored students A survey method was employed to collect the data In order to seek answers to the above research questions, the questionnaires were designed and delivered to 15 English teachers and 60 second year English majored students Besides, with the hope that the reliability of the obtained information from the questionnaires would increase, semi-structured

teachers were carried out The researcher also observed the classes to have more information At the end of research process, the author designed a mid- term test to check the students’ speaking performance

6 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts named introduction, development and conclusion Part A is introduction which provides an overview of the study including the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the significance, the research method as well as the design of study The second part, development has three chapters Chapter 1 deals with literature review This chapter reviews theoretical background on which the whole study is based Chapter 2 is about Methodology, which briefly presents the methodological framework of the study It includes the setting, the subjects, the instruments and procedure of data collection and data analysis Chapter 3 presents data analysis, findings, discussion and brings some more useful strategies used

in speaking lessons The last part, Conclusion, presents the summary of the study, limitations and suggestions for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

In the investigation into the instructional strategies to develop students’ speaking abilities, the study needs to present the previous and current literature on the speaking skills Besides, it should show the definition of the instructional strategy used by the English language teachers in speaking lessons, and then define and explore the nature

of speaking Next, the definition and current trends of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is also analyzed These issues are mentioned specifically in the first chapter

1 An overview of speaking skills

1.1 Definition of speaking and teaching speaking skills

Of the four skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing), speaking plays a vital role since it is the step to identify who knows or does not know a language Pattison (1992) confirms that when people know or learn a language, they mean being able to speak the language Speaking, according to Donough and Shaw (1993), is a skill which enables people to produce utterances when communicating to achieve a particular end

Defining the term “speaking”, Florez (1999, cited in M.Bailey, 2005) states that speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information” In this process, there are five elements involved including pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, gesture and mimics, fluency and accuracy (Harmer, 2001) In the process of teaching and learning a foreign language, teaching speaking skills means helping students develop the ability to produce grammatically correct and logically connected utterances that are appropriate in specific contexts with acceptable pronunciation (Fararwati, 2010)

1.2 Principles for teaching speaking skills

When teaching speaking, there are some principles that teachers should follow to

of some famous linguists Nunan (1991: 55, 56) suggested five principles for teaching speaking skills as follow:

- Be aware of the difference between second language and foreign language learning contexts

- Give students practice with both fluency and accuracy

- Provide opportunities for students to talk by using group works or pair works and limiting teacher talk

- Plan speaking tasks that involve negotiation for meaning

- Design classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both transactional and interactional speaking in which transactional speech involves communicating to get something done and interactional speech is communicating with someone for social purpose, establishing and maintaining social relationships

Brown (1994) mentioned six principles for teaching speaking skills

- Focus on both fluency and accuracy

- Provide intrinsically motivating techniques

- Encourage the use of authentic language

- Provide appropriate feedback and correction

- Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening

- Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication

(Source: Slides by Daniel Beck- samuraitheologian@gmail.com )

The opinions of the two authors have some differences but they share one

common principle is that the teachers should focus on fluency and accuracy when teaching speaking skills In the definition of Richards (2006:14), “Fluency is natural language use occurring when a speaker engages in meaningful interaction and maintains comprehensible and ongoing communication despite limitations in his or her communicative competence” while “accuracy focuses on creating correct examples of language use.” Thus, we cannot say that someone can speak fluently without accuracy

or vice versa, and accuracy as well as fluency is very necessary for successful communication/ presentation

Nunan (2003: 55) also states that “Accuracy is the extent to which students’ speech matches what people actually say when they use the target language Fluency is the extent to which speakers use the language quickly and confidently, with few hesitations or unnatural pauses, false starts, word searches, etc.” As for Ur (1996), both fluency and accuracy are taken into consideration, apart from other factors This is

a good balance Brown (1994: 254) also shares the same idea that “both fluency and accuracy are important goals to pursue in CLT”

In our own situation, most of the second-year majors seem to lack confidence in speaking/ presenting in English Nonetheless, what they talk about is more important than what they achieve Thus, the teachers should tolerate and encourage the students

to feel safer and be more confident to present more effectively

2 CLT Today

The ever growing need for good communication skills in English has created a huge demand for English teaching around the world Millions of people today want to improve their command of English or to ensure that their children achieve a good command of English

2.1 Definition of CLT

Perhaps the majority of language teachers today when asked to identify the methodology they employ in their classrooms mention “communicative” as the methodology of choice

Richard, J (2006) defines that CLT can be understood as a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom CLT sets as its goal the teaching of communicative competence

Richards and Rodgers (2001) said that CLT is generally regarded as an approach

to language teaching So, CLT reflects a certain model or research paradigm, or a theory (Celce Murcia, 2001) Its primary goal is for learners to develop communicative competence or communicative ability (Hymes, 1971)

CLT is learner-centered and emphasizes communication and real- life situations

In traditional methods of English teaching, the teacher is the expert and carries the responsibility for students’ learning

In CLT, learners practice real- life situations, for example, asking someone for directions Learners communicate their thoughts without worrying about perfect grammar

CLT methodologies are best described as a set of macro- strategies (Kumaradivelu, 1994) or methodological principles (Doughty and Long, 2003)

2.2 Current trends in CLT

Approaches to language teaching today seek to capture the rich view of language and language learning assumed by a communicative view of language Jacob and Farrell (2001: 3) see the shift toward CLT as marking a paradigm shift about teachers, learning, and teaching Some components of this shift mentioned as follow:

- Focusing attention on the role of the learners rather than the external stimuli learners are receiving from their environment So the center of attention in the classroom shifted from the teacher to the student This process is generally known as the move from teacher-centered instruction to learner-centered instruction

- Focusing attention on the learning process rather than the products that learners produce This shift is known as the move from product-oriented to process- oriented instruction

- Focusing attention on the social nature of learning rather than on students as separate, decontextualized individuals

- Focusing attention on diversity among learners and viewing these differences not

as impediments to learning but as resources to be recognized, catered to, and appreciated This shift is known as the study of individual differences

- Helping students to understand the purpose of learning and develop their own purpose

- An emphasis on the importance of meaning rather than drills and other forms of rote learning

- A view of learning as a lifelong process rather than something done to prepare students for an exam

2.3 Classroom activities in CLT

Since accessed to CLT, teachers and materials writers have sought to find ways

of developing classroom activities that reflect the principles of a communicative methodology Activities that require frequent interaction among learners or with other interlocutors to exchange information and solve problems (Wesche and Skehan, 2002)

- Information- gap activities

This refers to the fact that in real communication, people norrally communicate to get information they do not possess More authentic communication is likely to occur

in the classroom is the students go beyond practice of language forms for their own sake and use their linguistic and communicative resources to obtain information

- Jigsaw activities:

The class is divided into groups and each group has part of information needed to complete an activity The class must fit the pieces together to complete the whole They have to use their language abilities to communicate meaningfully and so take part

in meaningful communication practice

- Task- completion activities:

Puzzles, games, map reading in which the focus is on using one’s language

- Information- gathering activities:

Student- conducted surveys, interviews, and searches in which students are required to use their linguistic resources to collect information

- Opinion- sharing activities:

Activities in which students compare values, opinions, or beliefs, such as a ranking task in which students list qualities iin order of importance that they might consider in choosing a date or a spouse

- Information- transfer activities:

These activities require students to take information that is presented in one form, and represent it in a different form

- Reasoning- gap activities: These involve deriving some new information from given information through the process of interfence, practical reasoning,

- Role- play: Activities in which students are assigned roles and improvise a scene or exchange based on given information or clues

3 Instructional strategies

3.1 Definition

There have been many definitions of the instructional strategies mentioned in linguistics Friedman and Fisher’s (1998) states that instructional strategies are those tactics used by the instructors to promote learning

Dick and Carey (1996) showed the definition of the instructional strategies: Instructional strategies determine the approach a teacher may take to achieve learning objectives Instructional strategies are used by the teachers to create learning environment and to specify the nature of the activity in which the teacher and learner will be involved during the lessons

Dick and Carey (1996) used the term instructional strategy to describe the process

of sequencing and organizing content, specifying learning activities, and deciding how

to deliver the content and activities

Mentioned in Alberta Learning, (2002: 67), instructional strategies are defined as the activities the teachers use to help the students become independent, strategic learners

The purposes of the instructional strategies are:

- To motivate students and help them focus attention

- To organize information for understanding and remembering

- To monitor and assess learning

(Instructional strategies/ 67/ 2002, Alberta Learning, Alberta, Canada)

3.2 Instructional strategies model of Dick and Carey (1996)

Dick and Carey's Model

Dick and Carey's model (1996) is systematic in nature The model is a procedural system including ten major process components (9 basic steps in an iterative cycle and a culminating evaluation of the effectiveness of the instruction)

The 9 components in an iterative cycle include:

- Assess needs to identify instructional goal(s): to identify what it is the learners are expected to be able to do at the end of the instruction

- Conduct instructional analysis: to determine a step-by-step of what learners are doing when they are performing the goal; to determine what skills and knowledge are required

- Analyze learners and contexts: to identify learners' present skills, preferences and attitude as well as the characteristics of the instructional setting, prior knowledge of the topic area, attitudes toward content and potential delivery systems, academic motivation

- Write performance objectives: to specify what it is the learners will be able to do with the statements of the skills to be learned, the conditions, and the criteria

- Develop assessment instruments: to develop a criteria-referenced assessment consistent with the performance objectives

- Develop instructional strategy: to develop strategies in pre-instructional activities, presentation of information, learner's participation, testing and follow-through activities

- Develop and select instruction: to use the instructional strategies to produce the instruction

- Design and conduct formative evaluation: to collect data that are used to identify how to improve the instruction

- Revise instruction: to use the data from the formative evaluation to examine the validity

of the instructional analysis, learner and context analysis, performance objectives, assessment instruments, instructional strategies, and instruction

The final process is to design and conduct summative evaluation, which is an evaluation

of the value of the instruction

(Dick, W., & Carey, L (1996) The systematic design of instruction) Comments from Gustasfon and Branch (1997) about Dick and Carey's (1996) Model:

"The most widely adopted introductory text related to the process is Dick and Carey (1996) Thus, their model is known almost anywhere English is taught The popularity of

the Dick and Carey model can be partially explained by its very readable text and the authors' continually updating the model to reflect emerging philosophy They also accompany there model with clear and simple examples of each of the steps and excerpts from cases of its use to provide readers with a frame of reference Dick and Carey have made minor modifications to their model to reflect growing interest in performance technology, context analysis, multilevel evaluation models, and total quality management"

From the above definitions of the instructional strategies of some linguists and the model of the instructional strategies of Dick and Carey (1996), I draw my own definition

of the instructional strategies as follows:

The instructional strategies are effective activities the teachers used in the classroom to achieve the learning objectives In simple words, the instructional strategies are the ways or activities the teachers applied to stimulate students to participate in the

learning process

4 Role- play

It is not enough merely to provide students with opportunities to speak in English, as teachers we need to encourage students to speak in a variety of different situations, and hence help them to learn to speak with confidence

However, many teachers and students in an ESL class dread the words play” Just a few of the terms which are used, often interchangeably, are

“role-"simulation," "game," "role-play," "simulation-game," "role-play simulation," and

"role-playing game" (Crookall and Oxford, 1990a)

Role- play is an effective technique to animate the teaching and learning atmosphere, arouse the interests of learners, and make the language acquisition impressive

According to Gower et-al, a role play part of a particular person: a customer, a

manager, a shop assistant, for example As this person, they take part in a situation, acting out a conversation

Meanwhile according to Revell, role play defined as an individual’s spontaneous behavior reacting to others in a hypothetical situation

The effective use of role-plays can add variety to the kinds of activities students are asked to perform It encourages thinking and creativity; lets students develop and practice new language and behavioural skills in a relatively safe setting, and can create the motivation and involvement necessary for real learning to occur

Reasons for using role play in the English speaking classroom

- Role play allows a wider range of language functions and language varieties to occur than would normally occur within a classroom

- Role play allows exploration of cultural issues, in particular, appropriate ways to behave

in certain situations such as when being offered food or drink

- Role play can add interest to an activity and by distributing roles can ensure participation

in an activity

- Role play can result in repetition of speaking activity by providing a change

Summary: From all the above information, all the readers could see that there were

many useful activities (the instructional strategies) the language teachers can apply in their English speaking classes to stimulate their students in the learning process The linguists mentioned the instructional strategies much in their studies such as group- work, information gap activities, jigsaw activities, role- play In the actual context

of VTTC, role- play activities have been applying widely However, up to present, there has not been a study relating how role- play activities affecting student’ performance

in the speaking classes at VTTC yet That was the reason why I chose this aspect to research

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

1 The context

1.1 Description of the English speaking classes and its objectives at VTTC

The study was conducted at VTTC The major English students at VTTC are required to complete four semesters of speaking skills during the first year and the second year Each semester includes four credits

The main course book used for the second year students in the first semester is Speaking three assigned by the group of English teachers of VTTC to fit students’ level

of English and educational goals of the college The total number of units is nine There are only nine units, each contains a topic and includes a variety of parts such as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, exercises and communicative skills To be more detailed, main activities and topics or drills designed in terms of speaking skills in the course book are presented as the following:

1 Tourism

Pair work Giving opinions about tourism in Vietnam Group work Advantages and disadvantages in developing

tourism in your local area

Role- play A tour guide and a visitor Group work How to attract tourists to visit landscapes in

Nam: An education researcher and a journalist Pair work Give advices to protect your local environment

3 Environment

Pair work The effects of environmental pollution on

human life

Group work Why is Vietnam ranked in top ten for worst air

pollution?

4 Jobs Group work Talk about your job

Role- play Job interview

5 Sports

Group work Advantages and disadvantages of sports Group work Positive and negative effects of sports on our

health Pair work Describing a popular sport Role- play A gymnast and a sport reporter

It can be learned from the table that the speaking activities are vivid with many

kinds of activities in which role- play activities are the most popular

The textbook Speaking three is used to aim at providing students with general

knowledge of English grammar, vocabulary, phonology as well as developing students’ four language skills, especially speaking skills Therefore, after studying this subject, students have to pass two mid-term oral tests and one final oral test

1.2 Description of the students

Second year English majored students at English Department (ED), VTTC, aged from 19 to 22, both male and female, have learnt English for at least eight years, four years at secondary school, three years at high school and over one year at VTTC Although all of them have learnt English since they were at grade 6, their level of English proficiency is still quite low and varies a lot due to the fact that they come from different parts of Vinh Phuc Province Many come from the countryside where there are no favorable English learning conditions The others come from towns and cities and have better chances for learning English Furthermore, during years at schools, a majority of the students did not have chances to practice English speaking skills The students said that at schools, they didn’t take part in role- play activities

1.3 Description of the teachers

Obviously, if students are the most important factor in the learning process, teachers are the most significant factor in the teaching process At VTTC, there are sixteen teachers of English aged from 26 to 59 and four of them have ever been to English-speaking countries Of sixteen teachers, ten were trained at University of Language International Studies - Vietnam National University, one was from Hue Univesity, two graduated from Ha Noi University, one was from Ha Noi National University of Education and other two were trained from Ha Noi Pedagogical University No 2 At present, one has just finished a PhD course in Australia, five

University of Language International University, Ha Noi National University and at Ha Noi University

Six of sixteen teachers have been teaching Engish over 15 years and have acquired considerable competence Seven teachers have been teaching over 6 years The teachers at this college know how to link the traditional methods- the Gramar Translation Method and the modern one- Audiolingual Method However, the students’ performance in English speaking classes has not been effective yet The result in general is not high appreciated The language teachers have to face with a lot of difficulties in teaching They claimed about many inadequate problems in teaching speaking skills in English classes According to them, these problems were originated from themselves-teachers of English, students and objective factors Therefore, it is very necessary for the staff to find out effective ways to minimize the difficulties in teaching English and from then, to improve the quality of English speaking lessons

2 Method and Procedure

2.1 Selection of participants

The subjects who participated in this study are 60 English majored students and

15 English teachers from ED, VTTC The 60 students under this investigation are in the first term of the second year of the academic training program These students are young aged from 19 to 22, both female and male All of these students were born and are living in Vinh Phuc Province because it is a local pedagogical college Therefore, they appear to have similar educational background, more importantly; they have similar speaking abilities The 15 English teachers aged from 26 to 59 with many years

of teaching experiences

2.2 Data collection methods

The data collection methods aimed to collect both qualitative and quantitative data Data were collected from questionnaires, semi- structured interview, and personal observation This combination of various means of data collection established a

triangulation to enhance data reliability and validity through multiple sources (Burns, 1994)

The questionnaires designed for both students and teachers were delivered directly with clear explanation about the purpose of the study Both the questionnaires were to investigate the students’ difficulties in speaking classes; to find out the instructional strategies the language teachers applied; and to seek for the result of using role- play activities The interviews were carried out to clarify some information from the questionnaire responses

The data collection methods would be described in details as follows:

2.2.1 Questionnaire

In the study, the questionnaire ( see Appendix 10 ) was designed for students Its aim was to collect the information to answer the research questions It consisted of 3 parts: the first part with one question about students’ difficulties in speaking classes, the second part with 4 questions about the teachers’ instructional strategies applied and preferred in the learning process, and the last part with only one more question about the students’ perception towards role- play practice

Another form of questionnaire (see Appendix 11) was made for English teachers There were 2 parts in the questionnaire: the first one with 2 questions about the difficulties the teachers and their students had in the speaking classes, and the second part with 4 questions related to the instructional strategies the teacher applied in the process of teaching speaking skills

2.2.2 Semi- structured interviews

In this study, semi-structured interviews were designed to interview both the language teachers and students for several purposes First, they could bring the interviewer great flexibility to focus more on remarkable points (Nunan, 1992) Added

to this, a semi-structured interview was interactive, the data collected would be vivid

In the thesis, the semi- structured interviews were used to add more information to the questionnaire data There were four interview schedules, two for the teachers and two for the students Each schedule had many questions designed to help the researcher

to interview to avoid asking the interviewees the questions not relating to the objectives

of the study

2.2.3 Observations

First of all, the researcher chose this type of the data collection methods because observations would be very effective to be able to see the interactions inside the classroom (Brown & Rodgers, 2002)

Added to this, the researcher spent 2 weeks to observe the colleagues’ procedure and instructional strategies to find out which strategies were appropriate, which strategies were not in the actual context of VTTC

In the study, observations were appropriate to examine students’ participation in speaking activities and teachers’ instructional strategies to boost their participation

2.3 Data collection procedures

The data in the study were collected during the period of 8 weeks by the instruments mentioned above

First of all, observations were conducted to find out the instructional strategies the language teachers applied in the speaking classes After 2 weeks of observing, the most popular and effective instructional strategy was found to serve for the process of conducting the study

Secondly, the first version of the questionnaire was designed for the students After checking to ensure its accuracy, fluency, conciseness and focus, the questionnaires were directly delivered to 60 second- year students in two classes at ED

at VTTC in class The second version of the questionnaire was designed for the language teachers The questionnaires were delivered to 15 language teachers at the

meeting room of the ED at VTTC The researcher wrote a short introduction about the study and a careful instruction to lessen any misunderstanding and ambiguity

Next, semi-structured interviews for students with the first schedule were administered with each individual participant in Vietnamese After that, the interviews took place in an informal atmosphere to minimize the participants’ anxiety Besides, teacher interviews with the first schedule were conducted from 10 to 15 minutes in English with only five teachers teaching speaking skills

After collecting information from the above instruments, the researcher found that the most popular and effective instructional strategy the language teachers applied was role- play Then, the researcher used this instructional strategy to apply to her two classes One class applied the role- play activities in a normal way In another class, the author used video- clip, visual aids, pictures, etc to instruct the students to take part in role- play activities The period of time to carry out this process was 6 weeks

Next, observations were continuously conducted to examine the performance of two classes in the speaking lessons The researcher designed a mid- term test to check the students’ understanding and performance

After each lesson, a semi-structured interview of five minutes, using the second student-targeted schedule, took place in Vietnamese with five students in the observed group for data collection The teachers were also interviewed after each lesson Those interviews in English based on the second teachers’ schedule

The findings would be demonstrated in the following chapter, Chapter Three: Findings and Discussion

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The data would be presented, compared, and contrasted in this chapter from the four different sources, questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, test, and observations under three main areas These included the teachers’ instructional strategies in the speaking classes, and how role- play activities affect the students’ performance in the learning process of speaking skills These lead to the answers of the two research questions In each section, the discussion of the findings would be described in details

1 TEACHERS’ INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES IN THE ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES

The first research question: “What are the instructional strategies applied by

English language teachers in speaking classes at VTTC?” divided into two

sub-questions: What instructional strategies are commonly used by English teachers in

their speaking lessons? Which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their difficulties in speaking lessons? was designed to examine the common

instructional strategies the English teachers often used in their process of teaching English speaking skills at VTTC The researcher also wanted to show some difficulties the students had in the learning process and which instructional strategies helped the students to overcome those difficulties The results would be presented below

1.1 INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES BEING USED BY TEACHERS IN

SPEAKING LESSONS

1.1.1 Data from the semi- structured interview

Through the students interview about their teachers’ instructional strategies applied in the English speaking classes, it was very obviously that role- play practicing was the most popular and effective instructional strategy at VTTC Four in five students answered that their teachers often asked the students to practice role- play activities in the English speaking classes Student 1- S1 stated: “My teacher divided us

into small groups to discuss and practice role- play activities The topic was so difficult that I couldn’t say anything But when my teacher asked me to role- play, I was so excited to take part in.” (see Appendix 2) Added to this, student 2- S2 expressed her opinion: “I really liked role- play activities I found it effective.” (see Appendix 2) Student 5- S5 also added: “We participated in a role- play activity I found it very interesting and effective I think this helped us easily discuss the content of the lesson.” The students also mentioned some other strategies such as: “The teacher encouraged us to answer some her questions individually to have some information related to the topic” (Student 5- S5, see Appendix 2) Besides, thee student 4- S4 submitted: “The teacher encouraged us to answer her questions individually to have some information.” (see Appendix 2)

As shown in the interview for the teachers in the first schedule, the researcher found that they shared the same opinion with their students Teacher 3- T3 said: “I often ask my students to work in small groups or practice role- play activities They must interact each other in the process of role- play practicing” (see Appendix 4) Another teacher shared: “Today I wanted my students to work in groups to practice a role- play activity I found they were very.” (Teacher 1- T1, see Appendix 4)

1.1.2 Data from the questionnaire

The teachers were asked to share their attitudes towards the importance of the instructional strategies in English teaching and learning (see Appendix 11, Q2) on the 5-point Likert scale that ranged from 1 = Essential, 2 = Very important, 3 = Rather important, 4 = Not very important, to 5 = Not important at all

important

Rather important

Not very Important

%

Figure 1: Importance of the teachers’ instructional strategies

from the teachers’ points of view

As shown in the figure 1, almost teachers had positive attitudes towards the importance of the instructional strategies in English teaching and learning Many of them agreed that the instructional strategy was very important (60%), while essential (26,6%) The instructional strategies were important because the teachers always used them to help the students become independent learners (Alberta Learning, 2002, 67) Question 3 and question 4 in the questionnaire version for the teachers (see Appendix 11, Q 3 and Q4) about the instructional strategies the teachers applied and which instructional strategy motivated the students the most received a lot of responses The data was collected and analyzed as follows:

No Instructional strategies Result (Q3) (%) Result (Q4)(%)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

3 Jigsaw activities 13,4% 0%

Table 3 : The instructional strategies the teachers applied and which instructional

strategy motivated the students the most in English speaking lessons

%

Figure 2: The instructional strategies the teachers applied in English speaking lessons From figure 2, up to 100% of the teachers agreed that they often applied role-play activities in their process of English speaking teaching, while most of the teachers chose group work and pair work to ask their students to participate in (86,6% and 80%) Opinion- sharing activities also received a lot of responses 73,3 % of the teachers gave the answers that they applied this instructional strategies in their

0 10

13.4 6.7

53.3 60

20

100

66.7 73.3

Group work Pair work Jigsaw activities Reasoning- gap activities Information- gap activities

gathering activities Information- transfer activities Role- play Task- completion activities

Information-Opinion- sharing activities

speaking classrooms The majority of them stated that they often asked their students to take part in Task- completion activity (66,7%) Some of them indicated that their instructional strategy in the English speaking class was Information- gap activity (53,3%) Other activties were not chosen to applied much in the class Only 6,7% used reasoning- gap activities in the English learning process Some of them added that sometimes they divided the class into small groups to play games related to the topic of the lesson

%

Figure 3: The instructional strategy motivated the students the most

in English speaking lessons

When being asked the question 4, nearly half of the teachers showed that role- play activity would be the most popular choice (46,6%) Three of them chose the option Task- information activities (20%) Some other teachers shared they found that group work motivate their students the most (13,3%) Information- gathering activities, information- gap activities, and information transfer activities shared the same

Information- gap activities

Information- gathering activities

Information- transfer activities

Role- play Task- completion activities

Opinion- sharing activities

percentage (6,7%) No one expressed his/ her opinion about the other instructional strategies designed in the questionnaire

The questions designed in the questionnaire version for the students (see Appendix 10) indicated that they had the same ideas with their teachers

The third question in the questionnaire for the students gave the researcher the information about the importance of the teachers’ instructional strategies in the students’ English speaking learning When the students were asked on the 5-point Likert scale that ranged from 1 = Essential, 2 = Very important, 3 = Rather important,

4 = Not very important, to 5 = Not important at all, the result as folows:

important

Rather important

Not very Important

Figure 4: Importance of the instructional strategies from the students’ points of view

It could be seen very clearly from the figure 4 that most of the students agreed that the teachers’ instructional strategies are very essential (75%), some other thought that they are very important (16,7%) The rest of the students showed their opinions that the teachers’ instructional strategies are rather important (8,3%) No one agreed with the

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

100

75

16.7 8.3

Essential Very important

Rather important Not very important Not important

at all

The next questions: “What are the instructional strategies your teacher often applies in your English speaking classes?” and “If your English teachers applied these instructional strategies, which would motivate you the most?” received many responses

No Instructional strategies Result (Q3)

(%)

Result (Q4) (%)

Table 5: The instructional strategies the teachers applied and which strategy motivated the students the most in English speaking lessons from the students’ points of view

1011.6

66.7 58.3

33.3

100 91.6 78

Group work Pair work Jigsaw activities Reasoning- gap activities Information- gap activities

Information- gathering activities

Information- transfer activities

Role- play Task- completion activities

Opinion- sharing activities

As shown from the figure 5, role- play was applied by the teachers the most widely (100%) Many of them stated that their teachers often asked them to take part in task- completion activities in their English speaking classes (91,6%), while some other said they often participated in group work and pair work (83,3% and 80%) Opinion- sharing activities accounted 78% Only few students ticked jigsaw activities and reasoning- gap activities (10% and 11,6%)

%

Figure 6: The instructional strategy motivated the students the most from the students

It could be seen from the figure 6, the students liked to take part in role- play the most 53,3% of them chose this instructional strategy Some of the students expressed that the instructional strategy motivated them the most was group work (16,6%) 13,3% stated that they enjoyed participating pair work Some of them expressed their feelings about task- completion activities (6,8%) Reasoning- gap activities and opinion- sharing activities received 5% No one chose other choices

1.2 WHICH INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES HELP THE STUDENTS

TO OVERCOME THEIR DIFFICULTIES IN SPEAKING LESSONS

To examine which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their difficulties in their English speaking lessons, first of all, the researcher tried her best to

0 10

gathering activities Information- transfer activities

Information-Role- play Task- completion activities

Opinion- sharing activities

instructional strategies in the actual context of VTTC to seek the answer for the research question

1.2.1 STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN THE SPEAKING CLASSES

1.2.1.1 Data from the interview

It is worth that five of the interviewees showed their difficulties in their speaking classes very obviously Most of them said that they didn’t have enough vocabularies to express their ideas For example, “I don’t have enough words to express my ideas” (Student 1- S1, see Appendix 1 ) Student 2 (S2) said that: “My vocabulary is so poor” (see Appendix 1) Added to this, one answered: “I am inconfident because my vocabulary is limited.” (Student 4- S4, see Appendix 1)

Another difficulty of the students in the speaking classes stated by three interviewees was their shyness in the classrooms Student 1- S1 stated that: “I’m too shy .” (see Appendix 1 ) “In my speaking classes, I am so shy to give my ideas I often make mistakes ( ) (Student 4- S4, see Appendix 1)

Besides, student 3- S3 mentioned her difficulty in the speaking classes: “My pronunciation is not good ” (see Appendix 1)

Student 5- S5 added his difficulty in his study of speaking skills: “My knowledge about society is not good to give ideas of some topics for example education, environment, tourism, .” (see Appendix 1)

The 5 language teachers seemed to have the same ideas when interviewed about their students’ difficulties in their process of teaching Three of them showed that their students lack of vocabularies Teacher 1- T1 indicated: “Some students seemed not to have enough vocabularies to express their ideas.” (See Appendix 3) Added to this, teacher 3- T3 said: “Their vocabularies are limited so they don’t have enough words to express their feelings.” (see Appendix 3) Another opinion is that: “In my speaking class, my students seem to lack of vocabularies so they often overuse Vietnamese to interact.” (Teacher 4- T4, see Appendix 3)