Teaching speaking skill at viet anh college problems and solutions

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI XUAN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL AT VIETANH COLLEGE: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other lan

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI XUAN

TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL AT VIETANH COLLEGE:

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2014

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI XUAN

TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL AT VIETANH COLLEGE:

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other language (TESOL)

Code: 6014111

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Ngo Dinh Phuong

Nghe An, 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge with all my greatest attitude the support, guidance and invaluable critical feedback given by the supervisor - Assoc Prof Dr Ngo Dinh Phuong

My sincere thanks are due to the teachers and students at Viet Anh college where I have been teaching in and doing the research

I am also indebt of my lectures, my friends, my classmates, as well as

my colleagues for their invaluable comments, criticism and encouragement Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my beloved people, my family for their love and encouragement

ABSTRACT

Oral skill is one of four required skills making a live language It has been taught for the freshmen at the colleges as the compulsory subject However, the various situations of teaching and learning this skill cause obstacles that to achieve

In order to improve the quality of speaking classes, the study limits itself to the study on the elementary level with the popular problems and suggested solutions The study has been conducted for the purpose of testing the effectiveness of using language games to motivate students at Viet Anh college in speaking classes Thus, three sets of survey questionnaire including pre-task survey questionnaire and post-task survey questionnaire are used to investigate students’ attitudes, perspectives towards speaking skill and language games adapted during speaking lessons, to find out the students’ preferences for employing this technique in mastering speaking skill According to the display of theoretical background, the textbook and data collection on teachers and students, the author had a view on analysis and came to some suggestions to improve the speaking skill

TABLE OF CONTENT

ABSTRACT iii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 aims of the study 2

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Research questions: 2

1.5 Design of the study: 2

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 The history of communicative language teaching in Asia and Vietnam 4

2.2 The typical of characteristics and principles of CLT 5

2.3 The concept of speaking 5

2.4 The speaking process 6

2.5 Speaking competence 6

2.6 A successful speaking lesson: 7

2.7 Problems with speaking lessons: 8

2.7.1 Problems faced to teachers: 8

2.7.2 Problems caused by students: 9

2.7.3 Factors affect on oral performance: 10

2.7.3.1 Clustering 10

2.7.3.2 Redundancy 10

2.7.3.3 Reduced forms 10

2.7.3.4 Performance variables 10

2.7.3.5 Colloquial language 10

2.7.3.6 Rate of delivery 10

2.7.3.7 Stress, rhythm, and intonation 10

2.7.3.8 Interaction 11

2.8 Solutions to speaking problems: 11

2.8.1 Discussion 12

2.8.2 Role plays 13

2.8.3 Simulation 13

2.8.4 Information gap activities 13

2.8.5 Brainstorming 14

2.8.6 Storytelling 14

2.8.7 Interviews 14

2.8.8 Story Completion 15

2.8.9 Reporting 15

2.8.11 Picture Narrating 16

2.8.12 Picture Describing 16

2.8.13 Find the Difference 16

2.9 The text book New Headway elementary 2nd edition: 17

2.9.1 The overall design of the text book New Headway elementary 2nd edition 17

2.9.2 The general features of The text book New Headway elementary 2nd edition: 18

2.9.3 Description of the speaking section 18

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 22

3.1 The setting of the study: 22

3.1.1 The facts of CLT and teaching speaking in Vietnam: 22

3.1.2 An overview of teaching speaking at Viet Anh college: 22

3.2 Participants: 23

3.3 Data collection instruments: 24

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 26

4.1 Findings 26

4.1.1 Teachers’ background and experience: 26

4.1.2 Teachers’ opinions about speaking skill 26

4.1.3 Teachers’ opinions about students’ attitudes toward speaking lessons 28 4.1.4 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking skill for the freshmen 29

4.1.5 Teachers’ solutions to improve the speaking lessons 30

4.1.6 Students’ background and their experience of learning and speaking English 32

4.1.7 Students’ opinions towards speaking skill and the speaking lessons in New Headway elementary 2nd edition book: 34

4.1.8 Students’ difficulties when learning English speaking skill 38

4.1.9 Students’ solutions to improve speaking skill themselves 40

4.1.10 Students’ suggested solutions to improve speaking skill themselves 41 4.2 Discussion 43

4.3 Solutions to improving freshmen’s speaking skill 49

4.4 Summary 54

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 55

5.1 Conclusion 55

5.1.1 Problems 55

5.1.2 Solutions: 55

5.2 Limitation of the study 56

5.3 Suggested further research 57

REFERENCES 58

PHẦN CÂU HỎI DÀNH CHO HỌC SINH SINH VIÊN 59

TABLES AND CHART LIST:

Table 3.1 Description of speaking section in New Headway elementary book 21

Table 4.1: Teachers’ qualifications and their experience 26

Table 4.2: Teachers’ assessment and attitudes towards speaking skill 27

Table 4.3: Teachers’ assessment of speaking topics and activities in the textbook 28

Table 4.4: Teachers’ opinions of students’ attitudes towards speaking lessons 28

Table 4.5: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking skill 29

Chart 4.6 Analysis of difficult factors in teaching speaking 30

Table 4.7: Teachers’ solutions to improve the speaking lessons 31

Table 4.8: Teachers’ suggested solutions to improve the speaking lesson 32

Table 4.9: Students’ experience of studying and speaking English 33

Table 4.10: Students’ background of leaning and speaking English 34

Table 4.11: Students’ chance to speak English outside classroom 34

Table 4.12: Student’s opinions towards speaking 35

Table 4.12: Student’s opinions towards speaking lessons in New Headway book 36

Table 4.13: Students’ opinions towards the speaking tasks of the textbook 36

Chart 4.14: Problems to students in speaking lesson 39

Table 4.15: Students’ difficulties when learning speaking skill 40

Table 4.16: Students’ solutions to improve speaking skill themselves 41

Table 4.17: Students’ suggested solutions to improve their speaking skill 42

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative language teaching ESL: English as second language

TOEFL: Test Of English as a Foreign Language

IELTS: Test Of English as a Foreign Language

FCE: First Certificate in English

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

In order to use English effectively, learners need to develop four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing However, among the four given skills, it is now generally recognized that speaking plays a key role in facilitating language learning Without understanding inputs at the right level, any kinds of learning simply cannot occur Speaking, therefore, is essential not only as a receptive skill but also aims to the development of language proficiency

As designed in the course at many colleges and universities in Vietnam, English has played a very important subject As more detailed, speaking skill

is recognized as the principal part of language courses

At Viet - Anh College, speaking is treated equally as other skills in terms of time allocation In fact, it has not drawn much attention of both teachers and learners, they are generally less aware of its importance In classrooms, teachers seem to test, not to teach speaking skills Students cannot speak effectively If they are asked to rank the four macro skills in terms of the difficulty, speaking skill will probably be one of those which are put at the top of the list

Most freshmen at the college have a lot of difficulties in speaking This gives me a strong inspiration to have an investigation into their speaking problems through which I can identity kinds of speaking problems and factors causing their difficulties Upon above problems, I would like to provide some suggestions on strategies to help students overcome those problems Hopefully, this would help the freshmen at my college to work out possible solutions to help them can improve the effectiveness of learning speaking at

our school We can make it clearer on the topic “Teaching speaking skill at vietanh college: problems and solutions”

1.2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study is to investigate the speaking problems of the

freshmen at Vietanh college Therefore, the specific purposes are :

- To find out kinds of speaking problems encountered by the freshmen

at Viet Anh College

- To find out factors causing their difficulties in speaking

- To provide some suggestions on strategies to help the freshmen overcome those problems

1.3 Scope of the study

The study is conducted at Viet - Anh College in order to find out the difficulties in learning speaking of the freshmen Therefore, the study focuses

on describing the problems and factors causing the given difficulties related to speaking skill referring to communicative approach only It limits itself to the population of the freshmen working on New - Headway elementary book (the second edition)

1.4 Research questions:

 How do students feel when speaking? What makes Ss feel difficult when speaking?

 What difficulties do the teachers have in teaching speaking skill?

 What can be done to motivate students’ learning English speaking lessons and to develop their speaking skill?

1.5 Design of the study:

The study consists of the following main parts as described bellow

Chapter 1: Introduction

Present the reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope, significance, methods as well as the organization of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Review which deals with theories involving speaking and speaking problems

- Present the theoretical background which is relative to the topic and surveys of books and other resources relevant to a particular the study topic will be presented

- Present action of the author’s overall view about situation of English speaking activities at Viet - Anh College

Chapter 3: Methodology

- Present action of data collection and data analysis methods of the research

- Present data analysis and results

- Present action of the findings drawn out from the analysis of data and discussion

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions

- Present some suggested activities for motivating students in speaking lessons

- Present some recommendations to improve the problems of teaching

and learning English speaking skills at Viet - Anh College

Chapter 5: Conclusion

This chapter will summarize what have been done in the research and offer implications for the study and some suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 The history of communicative language teaching in Asia and Vietnam

According to the history of teaching language, there have been sequenced methods with different aims To meet the needs of globalization, the communicative language teaching approach (CLT) was introduced and became prominent in the 1970s and early 1980s With the help of nature of language by Chomsky and communicative competence by Dell Hymes…, it were developed in teaching languages CLT is characterized as a broad approach which focuses on language use rather than on the language itself (Canale, Micheal 1980)

In the last twenty years CLT has been adopted in variety of ESL institution around the world, Asia and Vietnam It has widely accepted but in the fact, grammar translation is applied in teaching at public schools whereas CLT is at institution and ESL center However, it has been taught by most nonnative English- speaking teachers (James P.Lantolf; 2000)

CLT is considered as the most popular approach in teaching English nowadays Many teachers work with CLT on English classes It seems that teachers' understanding and practicing of the CLT is questionable People believe they are working with a good approach whereas the appropriateness of CLT in Asia, particularly in Vietnam seems to be challenged

Among the education system of Vietnam, CLT approach has been applied in a large number of text books and commercial books Especially, the text book used in high schools have been designed as task- based toward CLT approach since 2006 Meanwhile, most colleges use commercial books as a teaching aids such as New Headway elementary, Let’s talk

2.2 The typical of characteristics and principles of CLT

In CLT, language learning emphasizes learning to communicate as

opposed to learning a set of rules A wide variety of syllabus designs and teaching procedures have been made with the goal as the achievement of communicative competence CLT must be based on learners’ communication needs, including grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence… Therefore, the learners should be given meaningful communicative interaction Moreover, the second language culture should be taught through the social program That is to supply the socio-cultural knowledge and help learners to draw inferences about social meanings or values of utterances

2.3 The concept of speaking

Speaking skill is one of four important skills of language It has been studied in by many authors, especially the webs teaching English Most of them often find speaking skill interactive and communicative As written by Burns, A & Joyce, H (1997):

“Speaking is described as an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information Speaking depends on the context or the situation, Context includes the physical environment, the purposes for speaking is more often spontaneous, open ended, and evolving Speaking requires learners to not only know how

to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or

vocabulary but also that they understand when, where, why and in what ways

to produce language.”

Therefore, a good speaking skill can help us a lot in communication

2.4 The speaking process

Levelt (1989) showed the model of speech processing There are three stages including formulation, articulation and conceptual preparation The stages may occur and overlap through the process of speech duration He showed the factors of language effecting on the process They are knowledge about the language grammar, vocabulary register and discourse structure (formulation); about language pronunciation (articulation); about the topic, language and context of interaction conceptual preparation (long-term memory, conceptual preparation) They can take part in the process of making speech

As students actively engage in the speaking process, their perceptions can change from moment to moment and from week to week As individuals acquire new information, the language they use to make meaning changes As they reflect upon information shared or received, they revise their understanding, further developing their schemas about language and the world

The speaking process includes activities that occur prior to, during, and after the actual speaking event For example, before speaking, the speaker might determine the actual content of the message, how it should be presented, and what kind of audience will be hearing the message While speaking, the speaker must attend to such things as presenting a clear message, tone of voice, suitable vocabulary, possible responses, the environment, and nonverbal gestures Following speaking, the speaker might accept comments, answer questions, explain concepts not understood, and/or assess the process

2.5 Speaking competence

As having showed above, there is a self- monitoring process Monitoring the speech is popular, but some may employ oral communication strategies The ability to communicate is to help in oral communicative strategies It is considered as speaking competence

Mentioned by Bygate(1987) , the importance of speaking competence:

“to teach speaking effectively, as teachers, you need to understand what speaking competence entailed”

The competence in speaking is defined that the ability to communicate orally in clear, coherent One with speaking competence can persuade audience and get their purposes Developing this competency includes using experience in making presentations to small or big groups to develope control

of the language

2.6 A successful speaking lesson:

As Brown and Yule (1983) discussed on the distinguishing between spoken and written language, spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances, in a range of pronunciations As this distinguishing, a speaking lesson should focus on how to make utterances, speeches on a range of pronunciation

However, the language in a speaking class is different from real communication: the content ( predictability); the reason, the result (extrinsic motivation), the participants and the means Therefore, to make the speaking lesson better is to make the language closely resemble with the communication outside the classroom

Nunan, D (1989) came to an inclusion that successful oral communication involves developing:

- The ability to arculate phonological features of the language comprehensibility;

- Mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns;

- An acceptable degree of fluency;

- Transational and interpersonal skills;

- Skills in taking short and lng speaking turns;

- Skills in management of intersaction;

- Skills in negotiating meaning;

- Conversational listening skills (successful conversations require good listeners as well as good speakers)

- Skills in knowing about and negotiating purposes for conversations;

- Using appropriate conversational formulae and fillers

Whereas, Brown and Yule suggest that most language teaching is concerned with developing skills in short, intersactional exchanges in which the learner is only required to make one or two utterances at a time

2.7 Problems with speaking lessons

2.7.1 Problems faced to teachers

The teacher of speaking, in contrast with of the written language must confront the following types of the question about the form of spoken language to teach, the important of pronunciation, the grammar in the spoken production They are listed as below:

- What is the appropriate forms of spoken language to teach?

- From the point of view of pronunciation, what is a reasonable model?

- How important is pronunciation?

- Is it any more important than teaching appropriate handwriting in the foreign language?

- If so, why?

- From the point of view of the structures taught, is it all right to teach the spoken language as if it were exactly like the written language, but with a few “spoken expressions” thrown in?

- Is it appropriate to teach the same structures to all foreign language students, no matter what their age is or their intensions in learning the spoken language?

- Are those structures which are described in standard grammars the structures which our students should be expected to produce when they speak English?

- How is it possible to give students any sort of meaningful practice in producing spoken English?

2.7.2 Problems caused by students:

In the above part, we have experienced with the problems faced by the teacher These can be traced from the below problems of the students

- Inhibition: Speaking requires production of oral language use and

some degree of real-time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibited about trying to say things in a foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts

- Nothing to say: Although students are not inhibited, they cannot think

of anything to say They have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking

- Low or uneven participation: Time devision is an obstacle in

managing the class Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard; and in a large group, this means that each one will have only very little talking time This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners

to dominate, while others speak very little or not at all

- Mother-tongue use: It is the habit of language use The speakers feel

natural when speaking Vietnamese In mono- lingual class where students share the same mother tongue , they may tend to use it; because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language If they are talking

in small groups it can be quite difficult to get some classes- particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones- to keep to the target language

2.7.3 Factors affect on oral performance:

According to Brown (2001: 270-271), there are eight elements that make oral performance easy as well as difficult:

2.7.3.3 Reduced forms

It consists of contractions, elisions, reduced vowels…Students who do not learn colloquial contractions can sometimes develop a bookish quality of speaking that in turn stigmatizes them

These are the most important characteristics of English pronunciation They convey important messeges

2.7.3.8 Interaction

Learning to produce waves of language in a vacuum-without interlocutors-would rob speaking skill of its richest component

2.8 Solutions to speaking problems:

- Use group work: Using group work not only increases the sheer

amount of learner talk going on a limited period of time but also lowers the inhibitions of learners who are unwilling to speak in front of the full class It

is true that group work means the teacher cannot supervise all learner speech,

so that not all utterances will be correct, and learners may occasionally slip into their native language; nevertheless, even talking into consideration occasional mistakes and mother-tongue use, the amount of tie remaining for positive, useful oral practice is still likely to be far more than in the full- class set –up

- Base the activity on easy language: In general, the level of language

needed for a discussion should be lower than that used in intensive language- learning activities in the same class: it should be easily recalled and produced

by the participants, so that they can speak fluently with minimum of hesitation It is a good idea to teach or review essential vocabulary before the activity starts

- Make a careful choice of topic and task to stimulate interest: On the

whole, the clearer the purpose of the discussion is more motivated participants will be

- Give some instruction or training in discussion skills: If the task is

based on group discussion then include the instructions about participants when introducing it For example, tell the learners to make sure that everyone

in the group contributes to the discussion, appoint a chairperson to each group who will regulate the participation

- Keep the students speaking the target language: You might appoint

one of the group as monitor, whose job is to remind participants to use the target language, and perhaps later to the teacher how well the group managed

to keep to it Even if there is no actual penalty attached, the very awareness that someone is monitoring such lapses helps participants to be more careful However, when all is said and done, the best way to keep the students speaking the target language is simply to be there yourself as much as possible, reminding them and modeling the language use yourself: there is no

substitute for nagging

2.8.1 Discussion

A discussion can be held for various reasons There are three main aims

of discussion: sharing ideas about an event, finding solutions for a problem Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant things For example, students can become involved in discussions In the type of discussion, the teacher can form groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial sentences like

“people learn best when they read vs people learn best when they travel” Then each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents their opinions to the class It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided among group members

At the end, the class decides on the winning group who defended the idea in the best way This activity fosters critical thinking and quick decision making, and students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite ways while disagreeing with the others For efficient group discussions, it is

always better not to form large groups, because quiet students may avoid contributing in large groups The group members can be either assigned by the teacher or the students may determine it by themselves, but groups should

be rearranged in every discussion activity so that students can work with various people and learn to be open to different ideas

Lastly, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is, the students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas, express support, check for clarification, and so on

2.8.2 Role plays

A widely spread and one of the best communicative activities is a role play which trains the students in the classroom to deal with unpredictable real-life conversation in an English speaking environment The special reasons for using the role play in the lessons is that it puts students in situations in which they are required to use and develop language necessary in social relationships and helps them to build up their social skills Using role play is useful especially while teaching shy students who have difficulty participating in conversation about themselves Through this activity they are put into various roles and no longer feel that their own personality is implicated Role play is an essential communicative technique which develops fluency, promotes interaction in the classroom and increases motivation

2.8.3 Simulation

Simulation is a kind of role play but the emphasis is put on creating the atmosphere of a real world Students pretend they are a part of a simulated environment and take part either as themselves or are given a role and pretend being someone else To achieve a suitable simulated environment, the classroom is usually rearranged and, where possible, converted in a required place according to the situation

2.8.4 Information gap activities

Information gap activities are described by Thornbury (2005) who claims that in these kinds of tasks there is a knowledge gap among learners and it can be bridged by using the language So, in order to obtain the information, the interactants have to communicate

The most common information gap activity is spotting the differences in the pictures, exchanging personal information, guessing games and also creating the story based on flashcards shown to the students in random order, for a few seconds and one flashcard per group only This makes the students cooperate and communicate with each other to find the lacking information

2.8.5 Brainstorming

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time Depending

on the context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideas quickly and freely The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the students are not criticized for their ideas, so students will be open sharing their new ideas

2.8.6 Storytelling

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates Story telling fosters creative thinking It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have Students also can tell riddles or jokes For instance, at the very beginning of each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short riddles or jokes as an opening

2.8.7 Interviews

Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people

It is a good idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students

should prepare their own interview questions Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class

2.8.9 Reporting

Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class

2.8.10 Playing Card

In this game, students should form groups of four Each suit will represent a topic For instance:

- Diamonds: Earning money

- Hearts: Love and relationships

- Spades: An unforgettable memory

- Clubs: Best teacher

Each student in a group will choose a card Then, each student will write 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that

students are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or

no students get little practice in spoken language production

2.8.11 Picture Narrating

This activity is based on several sequential pictures Students are asked

to tell the story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria provided by the teacher as a rubric Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures they need to use while narrating

2.8.12 Picture Describing

Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture For this activity students can form groups and each group is given a different picture Students discuss the picture with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes the picture to the whole class This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of the learners as well as their public speaking skills

2.8.13 Find the Difference

For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing tennis Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures

Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves

producing and receiving and processing information Its form and meaning are

dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving However, speech is not always unpredictable Language functions (or patterns) that tend to recur in certain discourse situations (e.g., declining an invitation or requesting time off from work), can be identified and charted For example,

when a salesperson asks "May I help you?" the expected discourse sequence includes a statement of need, response to the need, offer of appreciation, acknowledgement of the appreciation, and a leave-taking exchange Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language

such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (linguistic competence), but

also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce

language (sociolinguistic competence) Finally, speech has its own skills,

structures, and conventions different from written language A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and knowledge to succeed in a given speech act

2.9 The text book New Headway elementary 2 nd edition:

2.9.1 The overall design of the text book New Headway elementary

2 nd edition

The text book New Headway elementary 2nd edition is commercial material used to teach the freshmen at colleges This book concludes fourteen units divided into two term Four different language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing are intergrated in each unit The other language elements as pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are also mentioned carefully

Speaking lessons are under the tendency communicative approaches In general, the textbook provides students with a variety of topics and activities with the aim of helping students improve their speaking skill accompanied by another skill such as speaking and reading, speaking and listening To be more specific, Consequently, the students will lose their interest during the lessons Therefore, an effective technique should be exploited to motivate students in these speaking lessons

2.9.2 The general features of The text book New Headway elementary

The text book New Headway elementary 2nd edition follows the two approaches dominating the foreign language education and methodology all

over the world - the learner - centered approach and the communicative approach The teaching method chosen for this book is task - based teaching The reason for this choice is that these two approaches consider

students the centre of education and aim at developing their creativity

2.9.3 Description of the speaking section

As mentioned above, speaking is one of four skills taught in intergrated lessons with another skill For example: Listening and speaking, reading and speaking, speaking and reading They consist of 1-3 main activities

Unit Topic Skill work Speaking topic – Activities

1 Hello

everybody

Listening and speaking

- Ask and answer questions about the students in your class

- Introduce your partner to your class

- Practise conversations with your partner

4

Take it easy!

Speaking - A questionaire – How do you live?

- What is your favorite season? (Topic)

- Leisure activities (Discussion)

5

Where do

you live?

Speaking and listening

Reading and speaking

Listening and speaking

- What are the differences between the two pictures? (Picture description)

- At home on a plane – What do you like and don’t like about Joane’s house? (Discussion)

- Home around the world – Where do you live?

(Mini dialogue)

6 Speaking - A questionaire – What can you do?

Can you

speak

English?

Reading and speaking

- Super kids + exchanging informations + Discussion

- What did you do at the end of 20thcentury? -

When did it happened? – Question and answer

- Two famous firsts – Discussion

- Incredible information – pronunciation practice

- How did you two meet? – Pair discusion

9

Food you like Listening

and speaking

- My favorite food – Group discussion

- Meals in your country – Pair discussion

- I’ve got more than you – (Role play)

- Talking about your town – (Topic based)

11

Looking

good

Listening and speaking

- Who’s at the party? – (Picture description)

12

Life is an

adventure

Reading and speaking

- Interviews with people who do dangerous sports

13

How terribly

clever!

Speaking and listening

- Noises at night (A story telling)

- Things you have done – Structure based

- How to live to be 100 (Discussion)

Table 3.1 Description of speaking section in New Headway elementary

book

(Liz and John Soar, New Headway elementary , Student’s book 2010:7); Liz and John Soar, New Headway elementary , Teachers’ book 2010:7)

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 The setting of the study:

3.1.1 The facts of CLT and teaching speaking in Vietnam:

Considered as the most popular approach in teaching English, CLT works as a prominence syllabus Training teachers has been conducting while numbers of centers have been opening Most people think about CLT syllabus

as a chain of human action in learning process A lot of games are applied and give funny times to learn English becomes the most difficult but the funniest subject at schools The needs of learning language are increasing

The fact that duration of classes are limited meanwhile the number of learners are great make CLT syllabus is controversial That’s why they can not get the best effectiveness Students do not acquire much time to communicate with others More than that, the teachers can’t give a wide look

at every student As a result, English classes at the center seem to be a better situation to apply CLT approach

The time to prepare the materials does matter too Materials play an important role in CLT curriculum They give the chances for students to acquire languages Moreover, they help teachers to control their work at classes and fit the time The fact that Vietnamese teachers have less time to enrich their syllabus is truthful Besides, not many teachers would like to pay for materials with their low incoming

In conclusion, it is a big question how to apply CLT effectively at schools and colleges in Vietnam nowadays

3.1.2 An overview of teaching speaking at Viet Anh college:

Viet Anh college is a job training college At first, it worked as a technical eonomics college Up to now, there have been a lot of changes in teaching and training The college works on chemical and teacher training

The changes caused by the needs of society lead to changes in the ways of training English which is a compulsory subject is taught for the freshmen at the first year English teaching group at Viet Anh college comprises 4 teachers graduating from different universities, at different ages The students

are some from ethnic minorities They are at a different levels

Working as the leader of the group offers the researcher the chances to observe and evaluate them The teachers have various education background accompanied by their language knowledge Being trained with CLT leads them to new ways of teaching They use the games, the materials … to facilitate the speaking lessons and help students to communicate more Thanks to their efforts, an opened atmosphere comes and the lessons attract learners much better However, learners have not got good grades This is an evidence to show how speaking lessons work at colleges Playing games without a logical syllabus, working in pairs or groups without the right way of feedback, unsystematic teaching skills have been problems of practical CLT Some teachers announce that they use CLT whereas they indeed use grammar translation method

As a thought of teaching oral skill, the teachers are confused at the process of teaching Moreover, the applications of CLT on speaking lessons should be improved.The fact at my college seems to be the same with other colleges

A better study would examine a large, randomly selected sample of societies with CLT approach applied at different colleges in different areas on the more types of speaking activites The paper fails to cover all situations of CLT on teaching speaking in all colleges in the area and generalize the fact This is conducted with the experience and knowledge of the author with the aim to clarify what has been happening in English teaching at Viet Anh college and evaluate the applications on a specific skill – speaking nowadays

3.3 Data collection instruments:

To fulfill the above aims, the study was carried out with both

qualitative method and qualitative method And questionnaire and interview

is used as data collection instruments

Most questions in the survey questionnaires were multiple choice questions The questions for teachers are designed in English while for students are in both English and Vietnamese The questionnaire designed for students consists of three parts:

+ Part one aims at drawing out demographic data about the participants such as age, gender and the number of years they have been studying English and speaking skill as well

+ Part two focuses on analyzing problems in teaching speaking for the freshmen and their causes

+ Part three aims at giving some suggested solutions for above problems

After all information from the two questionnaires were collected, analyzed, they were used as the foundation for the research to examine the effect of CLT in the class at Viet – Anh college

- Class observation: This is a very important method to ensure the

reliability of the questionnaire Class observation provided supplementary data on the real situation of teaching and learning English speaking It is

important to give suggestions basing on the situations of class and

motivations of students

- Testing instruments: We use rubrics to measure the effect of the

activities and to test the students’ work and progress It works as a framework

to form the questionaire and analyse the information

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The teachers and students’ questionnaires are analyzed and comprise with interviews in this chapter Basing on the result of the analysis, research questions are discussed in detail to discover the reality that the teachers and students have in teaching and learning speaking skill as well as the difficulties they faced The fact of teaching speaking for the freshmen at Viet Anh college

is discussed and the author comes to a conclusion of suggested implicature and solutions

4.1 Findings

4.1.1 Teachers’ background and experience:

teaching

Places of work

college

Table 4.1: Teachers’ qualifications and their experience

The questionnaire for the teachers showed that three teachers come from rural area where high school didn’t teach speaking and listening

One of four teachers has been teaching for five years The duration points that she graduated a short time ago That’s why they weren’t trained on speaking skill at high school The job experience teacher involves speaking skill is different

4.1.2 Teachers’ opinions about speaking skill

As seen from table 4.2, one of four teachers (25%) thinks that speaking

is the most difficult skill It is easy to explain that all teachers love teaching

speaking Half of them love much while each a quarter loves very much and a little Moreover all of the teachers realized the neccessarity of the speaking skill for the students They also show that it is neccessary for their jobs, their

chances to impove their qualifications

Teachers’ assessment of the difficulty of speaking

Difficulties of four skill

Speaking difficulties

Teachers’ attitudes towards speaking skill

Very neccessary neccessary A little neccessary Not neccessary at all

Love for teaching speaking

Table 4.2: Teachers’ assessment and attitudes towards speaking skill

To make their ideas clearer, I have interview them with further information The interviewing question is: “What make you love teaching speaking?” They give some facts of the class and students Some reasons are open atmosphere at class, the time arrangement Moreover, they can re- design the lesson plan Most answers are about the extinsive factors

The wonder of teaching effectiveness is raised The researcher asks about text book and students assessment

Regarding the textbook “New Headway elementary 2nd edition ”, half of the teachers confirmed that the topics and activities in the textbook were

interesting The other thought that they were normal They said in the interview that some topics were not update and exciting enough to motivate students Indeed, the topic of love, country, and new jobs as PR , DJ, blogger are not in the books Moreover, the questions and answer activities, pair works, dialogue practise prior in the books The activities were not various enough These are shown in below table:

Teachers’ assessment of speaking topics and tasks in the textbook

Number of teachers Percentage

Table 4.4: Teachers’ opinions of students’ attitudes towards speaking lessons

As the table shown, the teachers thought that the students are not eager

to participate in speaking classes Three of them found their students were sometimes willing to speak, as recommended The least of all, one per forth, found her students were not willing to speaking The reasons may be guessed

that their students are lack of vocabulary and afraid of making mistakes They added confusing on pronunciation as a minor reason

4.1.4 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking skill for the freshmen

In my interviews on the difficulties, I realized that there were two types

of problems The first was caused by extinsive factors included material, classroom management, students’s problems The other is instinsive factor such as teachers’ applications, confusing on the process of teaching in an intergrated book, The combinations between questionaire and classroom observation showed that the intergrated course book lead to difficulties for 50% teachers in teaching time The attached informations clarify the difficulties of the teachers

N0 Teachers’ difficulties Number of teachers Percentag e

8 Teachers’ insufficient communicative competence 4 100

10 Lack of communcative situation outside the

Table 4.5: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking skill

Among the ten difficulties, there was only one factor overlapped of both teachers and students It is the unexact pronunciation The teacher was unconfident about not only their unnatural pronunciation but also their students’ local accent The second per ten traced to the teachers’ background and experience The majority belongs to the extinsive factors

Difficluties in teaching speaking

teacher overlapped students facilities

Chart 4.6 Analysis of difficult factors in teaching speaking

As far as can be seen, the difficult come form facility and students most This can be a great problem faced by the teachers

An analysis is done in a period of speaking, unit 3 “The world of work”

- A questionaire – How do you live?

- What is your favorite season? (Topic)

- Leisure activities (Discussion) The cellus difficulties are: Students are not willing to take part in the questionaire activity They knew the words, the structures to ask and answer but they were not confident enough to engage in the topic Moreover, the questionare was in trouble when being exhanged in a large classroom It took too much time

4.1.5 Teachers’ solutions to improve the speaking lessons