the situation of teaching speaking skill to the students of pre intermediate level of proficiency at peoples police college i problems and some suggested techniques and activities

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** KHỔNG THỊ THU HẰNG Bản tóm tắt luận văn THE SITUATION OF TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL TO THE STUDENTS OF PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEVEL OF PROFI

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

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

KHỔNG THỊ THU HẰNG Bản tóm tắt luận văn

THE SITUATION OF TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL TO THE STUDENTS OF PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEVEL OF PROFICIENCY

AT PEOPLE’S POLICE COLLEGE I: PROBLEMS AND SOME

SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVITIES

(THỰC TRẠNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC VIÊN Ở TRÌNH ĐỘ TIỀN

TRUNG CẤP TẠI TRƯỜNG TRUNG CẤP CẢNH SÁT NHÂN DÂN I: KHÓ KHĂN VÀ ĐỀ

XUẤT MỘT SỐ CÁC THỦ THUẬT VÀ HOẠT ĐỘNG DẠY HỌC PHÙ HỢP)

M.A MINOR THESIS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……… i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……….ii

ABSTRACT……… ……… iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… ……….iv

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS……… …… vii

LIST OF ABREVIATIONS……… ……… viii

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION……… …….….1

1 Rationale of the study……… …… 1

2 Aims of the study……… ………2

3 Significance of the study……… ………2

4 Scope of the study……… ……… …….…3

5 Method of the study……… ……… 3

6 Design of the study……….……… … 3

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT……… ….…… 5

CHAPTER ONE - LITERATURE REVIEW……… …5

1.1 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)……… …5

1.1.1 Concept of CLT……… … ……… 6

1.1.2 Characteristics of CLT……… ………… 6

1.1.3 Using CLT in Teaching Speaking Skill……… ……… 8

1.2 Nature of language skills and oral communication……… …….8

1.2.1 Nature of language skills……… …….8

1.2.2 Oral communication……… … ………… 9

1.3 Speaking skill……….……… ……… 10

1.3.1 Concepts of speaking……… ……….10

1.3.2 Characteristics of speaking……… … 11

1.3.3 The development approach of speaking skill……….…… 12

1.4 Problems with speaking and speaking activities……… ………14

1.4.1 Problems with speaking……… ……….14

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……… i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……….ii

ABSTRACT……… ……… iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… ……….iv

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS……… …… vii

LIST OF ABREVIATIONS……… ……… viii

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION……… …….….1

1 Rationale of the study……… …… 1

2 Aims of the study……… ………2

3 Significance of the study……… ………2

4 Scope of the study……… ……… …….…3

5 Method of the study……… ……… 3

6 Design of the study……….……… … 3

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT……… ….…… 5

CHAPTER ONE - LITERATURE REVIEW……… …5

1.1 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)……… …5

1.1.1 Concept of CLT……… … ……… 6

1.1.2 Characteristics of CLT……… ………… 6

1.1.3 Using CLT in Teaching Speaking Skill……… ……… 8

1.2 Nature of language skills and oral communication……… …….8

1.2.1 Nature of language skills……… …….8

1.2.2 Oral communication……… … ………… 9

1.3 Speaking skill……….……… ……… 10

1.3.1 Concepts of speaking……… ……….10

1.3.2 Characteristics of speaking……… … 11

1.3.3 The development approach of speaking skill……….…… 12

1.4 Problems with speaking and speaking activities……… ………14

1.4.1 Problems with speaking……… ……….14

1.4.2 Problems with speaking activities……… … 15

1.5 Summary……… …… 15

CHAPTER TWO - METHODOLOGY ……… … 17

2.1 The research context……….……… 17

2.1.1 Course and its objectives at People’s Police College I……… 17

2.1.2 The students at the PPCI……… …… 18

2.1.3 The teachers at the PPCI……….…… 18

2.1.4 Physical setting……… 19

2.2 Research questions……… ……… … ……….20

2.3 Participants……….…20

2.4 Data collection instruments……… … 20

2.4.1 Questionnaire……….………… 21

2.4.2 Interview……… … 22

2.5 Data collection procedures……… ……… 22

2.6 Data analysis……….……… 22

2.7 Summary……….23

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS……… 24

3.1 Findings……… 24

3.1.1 Questionnaire and interview for teachers……….…… 24

3.1.2 Questionnaire and interview for students……… … 30

3.2 Discussions……… ……37

3.2.1 Teachers’ and students’ perception of speaking and speaking activities….38 3.2.2 Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning to speak English……… 38

3.2.2.1.Teachers’ problems in teaching 1st year English students…… 38

3.2.2.2 Students’ problems in learning to speak English……… 40

3.2.3 Inappropriate current techniques in teaching speaking skill ………… 41

3.2.4 Problems from objective factors……… 42

3.3 Summary………43

PART THREE: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION……… ……….…44

1 Overview……….……… 44

2 Recommendations ……… 44

2.1 Some coping strategies for teachers……… ……… 44

2.2 Some suggested classroom techniques and activities for teachers to motivate students of English ……… 46

2.2.1 Some suggested techniques in teaching speaking……… 46

2.2.1.1 Teaching speaking strategies……… 46

2.2.1.2 Base the activities on easy language……… 47

2.2.1.3 Use language in authentic ways……… 47

2.2.1.4 Design activities with a purpose……… 48

2.2.1.5 Use pair work and group work……….48

2.2.1.6 Adjust feedback/ Error correction………49

2.2.2 Some suggested activities in teaching speaking………49

3.4.2.1 Drill activities……… 49

3.4.2.2 Structured output activities/ Guided activities………50

3.4.2.3 Communicative output activities……….52

3 Limitations of the study ……… 53

4 Suggestions for further study……….……….54

REFERENCES……… ……….55 APPENDICES……….…….I Appendix 1……… … I Appendix 2……….….III Appendix 3……… V

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1: Teachers’ perception of CLT

Chart 2: Teachers’ current method in teaching speaking skill

Chart 3:

Chart 4:

Chart 5:

Chart 6:

Teachers’ reaction when students keep making mistakes and frequency

of correcting mistakes while students are performing their tasks

Chart 3.1: Teachers’ reaction when students keep making mistakes

Chart 3.2: frequency of correcting mistakes while students are

performing their tasks

The students’ reasons for learning English

Students’ opinions on the speaking topics

Teachers’ reactions to students’ mistakes

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching and learning speaking skill at

PPCI

Table 2: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking skill to the students at PPCI

Table 3: Techniques to minimize the difficulties encounter in teaching speaking

at PPCI

Table 4: Students’ attitudes towards speaking skills

Table 5: Factors that make the student reluctant to speak

Table 6: Teachers’ current techniques to encourage students to speak

ESP : English for Specific Purposes

No of teachers : Number of teachers

No of students : Number of students

FLD : Foreign Languages Department

PART ONE : INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Undeniably, English is a global language crossing many international boundaries In fact, the English language is so popular, it is spoken in more than a hundred countries and has more than a million words English is considered as the medium of communication in the fields of science, technology, diplomacy, and business, and so on English has an inherent simplicity and flexibility allowing it to be learnt quickly, cementing English as a global language

In addition, the political and economic changes have great positive impact on the teaching methods of teachers of English in Vietnam They have realized that students can only improve their language competence through communication It is the need for oral competence in English that has turned the teachers‟ emphasis from teaching grammar into teaching communication Therefore, speaking skills nowadays play a much more important role in modern English than ever before In every English class, teachers would like to develop students‟ speaking skills by applying the communicative language teaching method known as one of the most effective approaches that help students speak

However, in some places in Vietnam English teaching has been strongly influenced by the traditional methods Teachers as well as students pay much attention to the grammatical items In these classes, teachers mainly focus on explaining the grammatical rules and structures to students who are considered as passive recipients As a result, those students might be structurally competent but communicative incompetent That causes a lot of difficulties in using English in real-life communication

To meet the demand of learners of English, teachers of English in general and teachers

of English at People's Police College I (hereafter PPCI) in particular have been trying to find

out the most suitable and effective method of teaching English Speaking Therefore, the

Communicative Language Teaching Approach (hereafter CLT) is applied to teach English to

learners of all levels They hope that by using this teaching method, they can help their learners improve their English and use it effectively and fluently in communication That is

also the idea suggested by many linguists and methodologists such as Nunan (1991) and Das (1985)

Nevertheless, there still exist many difficulties facing English Language teachers in Vietnam in general and English Language teachers at the PPCI in particular Many Vietnamese learners can write and read English quite well but they cannot speak fluently and correctly in communication Certainly there are many reasons for this As one teacher of English I realized that although both teachers and learners try their best to reach their goals to teach and study English speaking skills effectively, up to now the results have been still far from satisfaction

This has given me the desire to conduct this research to examine the teaching and learning English speaking skill as well as to find techniques and activities to improve the quality of the teaching of speaking skill at the People's Police College I where I am working full time

2 Aims of the study

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills to the students at Pre-Intermediate level of proficiency at PPCI in order to find out problems preventing the students from willingly taking part in speaking activities in the English class The writer also makes some recommendations for the English teachers as reference in their teaching speaking skills with a view to help the students improve their speaking competence The specific objectives of the study are:

 To investigate the current situation of teaching English speaking skill at PPCI

 To identify the problems that the teachers and students face in teaching and learning speaking skills

 To suggest some techniques and activities to improve the quality of the teaching of speaking skill at PPCI

3 Significance of the study

The study is significant for the following reasons Firstly, it finds out how teachers and students perceive the concept of speaking and speaking activities Secondly, it find out the

problems that teachers and students face Furthermore, it gives some suggestions for the teachers to adapt the textbook and provides some techniques to help motivate learners

4 Scope of the study

The study focuses on the difficulties that the English language teachers meet when teaching speaking skill to students of Pre-Intermediate level of English Proficiency at the PPCI and some suggested techniques and activities which help them improve the quality of their teaching The study of difficulties, recommendations of other language skills such as reading, writing and listening to ameliorate the quality of learning English skills would be beyond the scope of this study In addition, due to the time constraints and the narrow-scale study, the study only involves in the number of the 1st year students of Reconnaissance Investigation Police at People‟s Police College I

5 Method of the study

This study is designed to use both quantitative and qualitative In order to gain the most successful results, the quantitative data has been collected through survey questionnaires One survey questionnaire is for students of pre-intermediate level of English language proficiency at the PPCI and the other is for English language teachers of Division of Foreign Languages and Informatics – The PPCI Collected data, then, will be processed and analyzed

to yield conclusions about the study

Together with the quantitative method, the qualitative data has been obtained by informal interviews with some students and teachers to gather in-depth information about the real situations of teaching and learning speaking skills at PPCI

All comments, remarks and recommendations assumptions and conclusion provided in the study based on the data analysis

6 Design of the study

This minor thesis is composed of three parts:

PART ONE, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, the aims, significance, scope, methods and design of the study

PART TWO, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three following chapters

 Chapter one, Literature Review, presents the concepts relevant to the study It starts

with the theoretical issues on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which consist the definition, characteristics, using CLT in teaching speaking The next part discusses about nature of language skills and oral communication, speaking skill with the definition of speaking skill as well as the development approach of speaking skill This chapter also presents related theories to the problems in teaching English speaking skill

 Chapter two, Methodology, mentions the research context, research questions,

participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, data analysis

 Chapter three, Findings and Discussion, the study and the presentations of the

statistical results and presents and discusses findings of the difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students of English at PPCI including the difficulties caused by teachers themselves, students and objective factors

PART THREE, SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION, is some coping strategies and classroom techniques and activities in reducing those difficulties suggested by the participants

of the study, the conclusion of the study which presents overview of the study Besides the limitations of the thesis are pointed out and the areas for further study are also proposed

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

It is known that the history of language teaching has shown the change on methods, which have reflected recognition of changes in the sort of proficiency learners needs What has changed in a second language teaching is not the way we teach but in the aim of language teaching and learning (Le, 2004)

Teaching a second language used to aim at enabling learners to read and appreciate class of literature Therefore, any teachers who were able to reach this aim were thought to be good teachers (Le, 2004) For a long time traditional methods - Grammar translation and Audio-lingual were used to teach English that made learners become structure competent and communicative incompetent

It is undeniable that most learners of English nowadays desire to be able to communicate with others in the language they learn Parallel with this change in the aims of learning English, methods of teaching had to be changed For a long time, a number of language teaching methodologists have constantly looked for the most appropriate way to teach English effectively As a result, some teaching methods came into being such as:

 Grammar-translation method

 The Direct method

 The Audio-lingual method

 The Audio-visual method

 Communicative Language Teaching

Mackey (1965) remarks that most methods, which have ever developed, still continue to exist

in one form or another as each method has its advantages and disadvantage For example, grammar-translation is easy to implement and cheap to administer which makes it still be used

in many classroom situations in large classes

General speaking, it is hard to say which method is the most effective and appropriate without considering the circumstances in which it is applied The question of which method should be used in Vietnam depends most on the background of English language teaching and learning

in the country, sources of materials, teachers' proficiency, learners' needs and facilities for teaching and learning

1.1.1 Concept of CLT

So far, CLT has been viewed differently by different authors such as Wilkins (1972), Nunan (1989), and so on However, most of definitions of CLT come under the weak version stressing the importance of opportunities to use English for communicative purposes Among the available definitions, the one given by Nunan (1989, p194) seems to be the most widely-accepted and the most favorable one As for him:

"CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning Activities involve oral

communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using language, which is meaningful to the learners Objectives reflect the needs of the learners; they include functional skills as well as linguistic objectives The learner's role is as a negotiator and integrator The teacher's role is

as a facilitator of the communication process Materials promote communicative language use; they are task-based and authentic"

Nunan also asserts that in communication process, learners are negotiators and integrators where as teachers are facilitators

The definitions above, as with any definitions of the language teaching method, represents a particular view of understanding and explaining language acquisition It is socially constructed and must be seen as a product of social, cultural, economic, and political forces

Canale and Swain (1980) expanded on the theoretical basis of CLT for both teaching and testing In their reaction against an over emphasis on function and a lack of emphasis on grammatical complexity, they pointed out that external oriental communication is not necessarily more essential than other proposes of language such as "self-expression, verbal thinking, problem solving, and creative writing"

1.1.2 Characteristics of CLT

Language is not simply a system of rules It is now generally seen "as a dynamic resource for

the creation of meaning" (Nunan,1989) This point of view is really supports CLT

 CLT is aimed at (a) making communicative competence the goal of language teaching and (b) developing procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication (Le, 2004)

 CLT is grounded on a theory of language as communication The goal of CLT is to create a realistic context for language acquisition in the classroom to order communicative competence (Hymes, 1972)

 CLT is also associated with learner-centered and experienced based tasks (Richard and Rodgers, 1986 L.Tsang, and Wong, 2000)

 The focus of CLT is on functional language usage and learners' ability to express themselves In other words, for CLT, developing learners' skills is more important than the content of the teaching and learning (Johnson, 1982)

 There are three major principle of CLT:

(1) communication principle: emphasizes activities that involve real communication promote learning

(2) task principle: supports that activities in which language is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning

(3) meaningfulness principle: claims that language that is meaningful to the learners supports the learning process

(Le, 2004)

 In communicative classes, learners communicate with each other and learning tasks are completed by means of interaction between learners It is clear that learners' completing a task

is fore-grounded and communicating with each other is back-grounded This may lead to

considerable use of pair work, group work and mingling activities

 In ESL classes, teachers are facilitators and monitors, usually, without interruption and then

to provide feedback on the success

However, CLT is not a perfect method There still exist critical remarks on CLT as its inappropriateness to local contexts and cultures, its negation of rote-learning, memorization, displaying questions, teacher's talk, etc

In spite of limitations and shortcomings, no one can negate that Communicative Language Teaching allows teachers to incorporate motivating and purposeful communicative activities and principle into their teaching, which later results in the improvement of their learners' proficiency

For the reasons mentioned above, CLT has served as the dominant approach to language teaching since the demise of Audio-lingual Method

1.1.3 Using CLT in Teaching Speaking Skill

When using communicative activities, it is important to make students feel comfortable and confident, feel free to take risks and have opportunities to speak According to Pica, Young and Doughty (1987), there are two kinds of classroom available to second language learners:

Input has been modified or simplified such as a traditional "teacher-fronted" classroom; and authentic students-to-student interaction is emphasized It provides the learners more opportunities for speaking since the learners try to achieve mutual understanding and modify their language according to the demand of the situation

Objectives for speaking are often given by the particular program in which the teacher must work In some cases, the syllabus will consist of a list of grammar structures to be taught The teacher needs to be flexible in making best use of what is available for teaching purpose

In other words, the teacher must have some freedom in deciding what objectives to meet, what content to cover, and what activities to use In this case, the teacher can go beyond the more specific goals and objectives of the particular program to the speaking needs that the students have in the "real world"

There are many speaking activities can be used in classroom such as scrambled sentence, language games, role-plays, problem-solving, discussion, cued story, picture story etc

1.2 Nature of language skills and oral communication

1.2.1 Nature of language skills

It is known that language communication involves some language skills, which consists of four macro inter-related skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) That is the reason why learners of English are required to have an adequate mastery of the four skills

Nevertheless, the degree of fluency of each skill, which is a learner requires, depends on their course purposes As for Byrne (1991), listening and reading are considered to be receptive skills, whereas speaking and writing are productive skills Speaking and listening are also called oral skills basing on the manners by which they are formed as they are related to articulator organs

The skills in connection with manual script including reading and writing are called literacy skills Of the four skills, speaking plays an utmost important role since it is the step to identify who knows or does not know a language Pattison (1992) confirms that when people speak of knowing or learning a language they mean being able to speak the language

Teachers should also bear in mind the differences between real-life oral communication and classroom oral communication As for Pattison (1987) classroom oral practices have five characteristics: (1) the content or topic is predictable and decided by teachers, books, tapes, etc; (2) learners' aims in speaking are to practise speaking, to follow teachers' instructions and get good marks; (3) learners' extrinsic motivation is satisfied; (4) participants are often a large group; (5) language from teachers or tape is closely adapted to learners' level

Nunan (1989) provides a list of characteristics of successful oral communication As for him, successful oral communication should involve: (1) comprehensible pronunciation of

the target language; (2) good use of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns; (3) fluency; (4) good transactional and interpersonal skills; (5) skills in taking short and long speaking in turns; (6) skills in the management of interactions; (7) skills in negotiating meaning; (8) conversational listening skills; (9) skills in knowing about and negotiating purposes for the conversation; (10) using appropriate conversational formulae and filters

1.3 Speaking skill

1.3.1 Concepts of speaking

As mentioned above, speaking is the productive, oral skill Speaking consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning (utterances are simply things people say) Speaking is "an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information" (Florenz, 1999, p.1) It is "often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving" (ibid., p.1), but it is not completely unpredictable Speaking is such a fundamental human behavior that we don't stop to analyze it unless there is something noticeable about it For example, if a person is experiencing a speech pathology (if a person stutters or if his speech is impaired due to a stroke or a head injury), we may realize that the speech is atypical Likewise, if someone is a particularly effective or lucid speaker, we may notice that her speech is atypical in a noteworthy sense What we fail to notice on a daily basis, however, are the myriad physical, mental, psychological, social, and cultural factors that must all work together when we speak It is even a more impressive feat when we hear someone speaking effectively in a second or foreign language

According to Brown and Yule's opinions (1983), spoken language consists of short fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation However, speaking is a skill, which deserves attention as much as literacy skills in both first and second language because our learners often need to speak with confidence in order to carry out a lot of their most basic transactions (Bygate, 1991) Furthermore, speaking is known with two main types of conversation called dialogue and monologue

Brown and Yule (1983) point out the ability to give uninterrupted oral presentation (monologue) is rather different from interacting with one or more other speakers for transactional and international purposes It is much more difficult to extemporize on a given

subject to a group of listeners That explains why speaking skill generally has to be learnt and practised carefully before giving a presentation

A comprehensive discussion of the nature of speaking is provided by Bygate (1987), who shows that in order to be able to speak a foreign language, it is obviously necessary to have micro-linguistic skills, that is, to understand some grammar, vocabulary and the rules governing how words are put together to form sentences However, these motor-perceptive skills, as Bygate calls them, are not sufficient since while producing sentences, we often have

to adapt them to the circumstances He then presents the second set of speaking skills: the interaction skills, which involve using knowledge and basic motor-perception skills in deciding what to say and how to say it, while maintaining the intended relation with others

1.3.2 Characteristics of speaking

As for Bygate M (1987), in most speaking the person to whom we are speaking is in front

of us and able to put right if we make mistakes He/ She can also generally show agreement and understanding - or incomprehension and disagreement Unlike readers or writers, speakers may need patience and imagination, too While talking, speakers need to take notice of the other and allows listeners chance to speak it It means that we take turns to speak Brown (1983) and her colleagues point out that a listener helps speakers improve their performance as

a speaker because being a listener gives learner models to utilize when acting as a speaker In addition, being a hearer first helps the learner appreciate the difficulties inherent in the task It

is clear that giving speakers experience in hearer's role is more helpful than simple practice in task in which a speaker is having real difficulties in appreciating what a particular task required

Speaking has the following characteristics:

Firstly, 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 can be identified and charted

Secondly, 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 ("sociolinguistics competence")

Thirdly, speech has its own skills, structures, and conversations different from written language A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and knowledge to succeed in a given speech act

Finally, Bygate (1987) considers speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways The reason is that almost all people can speak, and so take speaking skill too much for granted He also asserts that speaking skill deserves attention every bit as much as literacy skills Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic transactions Bygate also highly appreciates speaking by stating that speaking is the medium through which much language is learnt

In conclusion, it is undeniable that speaking is key to communication By considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class, and what specific need learners report, teachers can help learners improve their speaking and overall oral competency

1.3.3 The development approach of speaking skill

Byrne (1991, p 22-31) points out that there are three phases to develop learner‟s oral ability, which are as follows:

 Phase 1: The Presentation Phase (when you introduce something new to be learned)

In this phase, teachers are centre It means that they work as information provider, since they know English, select materials to teach and present the material in such a way that the meaning of the new language is as intelligible and memorable as possible while the learners are motionless As far as we know, oral materials are written mainly in two forms in every course-book They are dialogues and prose And obviously these two forms must be presented

in different ways

According two Byrne (1991, p.22) 10 different steps are used to present a dialogue They are the following:

1 Establish setting by using pictures At this phase English should be used as much as possible

2 Draw out learners‟ experience related to situation

3 Explain some key words

4 Set listening task by asking key information of the dialogue

5 Ask learners listen without looking at the books

6 Allow learners to have a look at their book when necessary for them

7 Ask the learners to listen and repeat

8 Ask learners to pick up difficulties (good chance for them to speak) and explain difficulties

9 Ask them to practice (role-play)

10 Ask them to dramatize the dialogue

It is known that this procedure is perfect and logically arranged However, it is dependent on learner‟s competence so some steps can be left out It is quite hard for Vietnamese learners to conduct the step 10 because they are generally shy and time is limited 9 other steps are used

to present a prose Byrne (1991, p.26) suggests that teachers should use the following steps to present a prose Introduce the topic by asking to look at the picture or asking them about the related thing

 Introduce the text New words and structures are given

 Provide relevant practice

 Set the reading task: make questions

 Ask the learners to read the passage in silence and find the answer

 Explain difficulties they still have

 Do silent reading again because the learners need to go on with the step 9

 Get the learners to talk about what they have to learn based on the previous answers

 Phase 2: The Practice Phase (when you allow the learners to work under your direction) Unlike the presentation phase, this phase learners have to do most of talking Teachers provide maximum amount of practice Practice is usually in the forms of activities to improve fluency

of speaking At this phase, pair work or group work is used

 Phase 3: The Production Phase (when you give learners opportunities to work on their

own)

At this phase learners need chances to speak English freely A real chance to speak English takes place when the learner is able to use English naturally for themselves, not for their teachers Group work plays an important part in making learners practice speaking here Doing group work, all learners can have chance to participate in talks Time can be saved and learners seem more confident

Byrne (1988, p.2) concludes that in order to improve speaking ability of learners These three phases should be followed orderly But in fact, they might not be applied as expected due to

time limitation, types of learners and materials in use

1.4 Problems with speaking and speaking activities

1.4.1 Problems with speaking

Everything has bad and good sides Speaking also has its own problems

According to Brown (1994, p.256), the characteristics of spoken language can make oral performance easy as well as in some cases difficult There are following problems with speaking

* Clustering: Fluent speech is phrase not word by word Learners can organize output both cognitively and physically through such clustering

* Redundancy: The speaker has an opportunity to make clearer through the redundancy of language Learner can capitalize on this featured of spoken language

* Reduce forms: Contraction, elisions, reduced vowel, etc all form special problems in teaching spoken English Students don‟t learn colloquial contraction can sometimes develop a stilted, bookish quality of speaking that in turn stigmatize them

* Colloquial language: Colloquialism appears both in monologues and dialogues If learners are only exposed to standard English and / or “text book” language, they sometimes have difficulty in understanding and producing words, idioms and phrases of colloquial language

* Stress, rhythm and intonation: This is the most important characteristic of English pronunciation because the stress-time rhythm of spoken English and its intonation patterns convey important massages But in fact the learners of English often find it difficult to

pronounce English words, to stress the right syllabus, to follow the stress-time rhythm and intonation patterns of spoken English

* Affective factors: In the process of learning speaking, students often encounter the risk of saying out things that may be young, stupid and incomprehensible At those times, they tend to

be anxious because they do not want to be judged by other learners

* Interaction: The greatest difficulty that the students face in learning to speak originates from the interactive nature of most communication Engaged in the process of negotiation of meaning with many discourse constraints, learners have to do the complex task of choosing what to say, how to say, when to say, etc Learners are also affected by their interlocutors‟ performance

1.4.2 Problems with speaking activities

In order to know more clearly about the problems in learning and teaching speaking that students and teachers often meet, we should concern some problems with speaking activities suggested by Luu (2000, p56-57)

* Inhibition: Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real time exposure to an audience Learners are often inhibition 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: Even if they are not inhibited, you often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say, or that they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling

* Lows or uneven participation: Only one student can talk at a time in a large group This means that each one have only very little time for talking This problem is compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate the group, while others speak very little or not at all In some cases some students haven‟t got any chance, intentionally and unintentionally, to speak for a long time

* Mother-tongue use: When all, or a number of the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to use it frequently This happens because the native language is easier to use and because they feel unnatural to speak to one another in a foreign language and become

learners feel less “exposed” if they are speaking the language they master If they are talking

in a small group, it can be quiet difficult to get some classes, particularly less disciplines or motivated ones, to keep to the target language

* Teacher domination: Teaching in a crowded class, many teachers tend to spend much time explaining words, phrases and grammar structures in details for fear that otherwise the students cannot understand and fail in their tests During explanation, teachers find it is easier and less time consuming the use of the mother tongue Another important thing is that the teachers seem more interested in individual work (between teacher and one student or the whole group, or one student and another student or the whole group) They fear that other kinds of student grouping (pair work and group work) may cause noise or discipline problems

1.5 Summary

This chapter so far discussed issues and aspects concerning to the topic of the study It has discussed the concepts and ideas relating to CLT Such issues include definitions of CLT, characteristics of CLT as well as teacher‟s and student‟s role in CLT Given the purpose of the study, it was mainly focused on the discussion of language skills and speaking skills It includes the definitions, the characteristics of speaking and the development approach of speaking skill Besides, the problems with speaking and speaking activities have been presented as well

The following chapters will present the investigation, the findings and suggested activities to the problems under the light of the above mentioned theories

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the context that determines the study of the difficulties experienced by

the teachers in teaching English speaking skill to the students at the PPCI The researcher

starts by describing an overview of People‟s Police College I, the teachers, the students, the physical setting The research questions, the participants, the methods of data collection are

also discussed in detail

2.1 The research context

2.1.1 Course and its objectives at People’s Police College I

The study was conducted at People‟s Police College I All students at this college are required to complete three semesters of English as part of their general education requirements during the first and the second years In the first two semesters, students have to finish with General English (GE) program, which accounts for 120 periods The third semester is reserved for the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program with a total number of 30 periods

The first stage – the stage for GE- aims at providing students with general knowledge of English grammar, vocabulary, phonology as well as developing students‟ four language skills with more focus on the speaking skill, at this stage the textbook Lifelines (Pre-Intermediate)

is used By using this textbook, our goal develops our students‟ communicative competence and our students can learn the real things from daily life Students are required to work in pairs, in groups to practise English in common situations Additionally, students also have chances to listen to both native and non-native speakers from the tapes used with the textbook

At this stage, one form of test is used: a written test at the end of each semester

The second stage- the stage for ESP, the students are equipped with the knowledge of the terms and structures related to their profession The textbooks utilized at this stage depend on students‟ required majors such as English for Reconnaissance Investigation Police, English for Traffic Police and English for Administrative Police They are designed by teachers at PPCI themselves Students are required to read the texts on real law cases, try to find out the meanings of the law terms and then discuss in pairs, in groups answering the questions that followed During the study and at the end of this stage students have written tests

The objectives of the English course are obvious At the end of the course (after 150 periods), students are required to obtain:

 General knowledge of English grammar and a relatively big number of vocabularies in uses

 The capability to communicate with foreigners in English in common situations like: asking

to check foreigners‟ suspecting luggage, asking to get information from foreigners concerning

to the murder, asking to check the foreigners‟ residence, showing the way The ability to understand and use the professional terms and structures

2.1.2 The students at the PPCI

Like students of other colleges and universities, in order to be students of the PPCI, they have to pass a very challenging University Entrance Examination Students of the PPCI come from all parts of the country: big cities, provinces and mountainous areas

New students of the PPCI do not have the same level of English language proficiency Some of them have learned English for 7 years at secondary and high schools some have only learned English for three years and some have never learned English Students from big cities like Hanoi, Haiphong seem better However, they are only good at grammar, not speaking They can do grammar very quickly and well at their level but they cannot speak fluently about some common topics, and most of them do not feel self-confident or even a bit frightened in communicating in English

2.1.3 The teachers at the PPCI

If students are the most important factor in the learning process, teachers are the most significant factor in the teaching process In PPCI, there are 19 teachers of English aged from

24 to 34 but none of them have ever been to any English speaking countries Of the eighteen teachers, only 5 have been trained at College of Foreign Languages-Vietnam National University, Hanoi and the rests graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Languages in Hanoi Open University, Vinh University, People‟s Security Academy At present, over half of the teaching staff at the Division of Foreign Languages and Informatics in PPCI has been taking M.A courses in Hanoi College of Foreign Languages-Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Foreign Studies and some foreign organizations of education and training in

Hanoi Ten out of nineteen teachers have been teaching English from 6 years to over ten years and have acquired considerable pedagogical competence However, the method of teaching, which is applied by most of the teachers at this college, is a very traditional one – the Grammar Translation method Other methods are rarely used In addition, as the results of a recent study carried out by the researcher show, the teachers of English at PPCI confront a lot

of difficulties in teaching English, especially speaking skill to the students 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 necessary for the staff at the Division of Foreign Languages and Informatics of PPCI to find out effective ways to minimize the difficulties in teaching English and from then, to improve the quality of English speaking lessons

2.1.4 Physical setting

The term “physical setting” refers to the place where the lessons take place, the number of students in an English class, the equipments and different types of materials available for teachers and students in teaching and learning English

In the PPCI, English teaching and learning activities are mostly carried out inside the classrooms which are designed for lecture lessons with only classroom equipment – a chalkboard The only type of teaching aid that the Foreign Languages Department (FLD) has

is cassette recorder There are about 3 cassette recorders in FLD but they are not in good conditions due to their oldness The PPCI also has other equipment like multi-functions projectors, video recorders, TV but they are not enough for all classes

In term of class size, as a non-language college, the number of students in an English class

is quite large, from 65 to 75 Especially, there are even classes with 80 students This large number causes a great deal of difficulties for the teaching and learning

The material for reference and self-study is not available for teachers and students at the PPCI In the library, there are only some English books such as English grammar in use, Oxford practice grammar, there are not any English speaking books, they are not enough for teachers and students The problem is not very bad for teachers since they can go out to find

their own references but it is very difficult for students as they are required to stay inside the College campus during weekdays and even at weekends

2.2 Research questions

In order to uncover the difficulties of the English teachers in teaching speaking skills to students of pre-intermediate level of proficiency at PPCI, it is necessary to answer the following questions:

1 How do teachers and students perceive concepts of speaking and speaking activities?

2 Which problems do the teachers and students face?

3 What are techniques and activities currently used by English language teachers in speaking class at PPCI to improve the quality of the teaching of speaking skill?

2.3 Participants

The subject of the experiment was 160 students of pre-intermediate level of English and

19 teachers who are currently teaching or have taught speaking at PPCI These students were randomly chosen from two classes of different faculties in which 120 were female and 40 male Most of them aged from eighteen to twenty Most of them came from the countryside (100 students) while 60 are from big cities like Hanoi, Haiphong, Haiduong or Bacninh They follow the same course of general English All these students are taught by Vietnamese teachers of English 19 teachers who are currently teaching speaking skills to pre-intermediate students at PPCI are selected as the participants of the study with the hope to find out the teaching methods and techniques they often apply in teaching speaking skills to their students

at PPCI

2.4 Data collection instruments

In order to obtain in-depth, rich data and information for investigating the situation and difficulties that teachers and students meet in teaching and learning speaking skill at PPCI, the study used various methods of data collection: questionnaire and interview In order to get information to fulfill the aims of the study, two survey questionnaires were designed The first questionnaire were administered to 19 teachers currently teaching speaking skills to pre-intermediate students at PPCI as the participants of the study with the hope to find out the teaching methods and techniques they often apply in teaching English speaking skills to their

students at PPCI The second questionnaires were administered to 160 English language students who were randomly chosen from two classes of different faculties in which 120 were female and 40 were male The researcher delivered the questionnaire to those students in order

to investigate the problems facing the learning of English speaking skill of pre-intermediate level students at the PPCI

2.4.1 Questionnaire

Basing on certain knowledge about the students‟ problems gained through 8 years of experience as a teacher of English at PPCI, the investigator designed two kinds of questionnaires which consist of both closed questions (students and teachers only choose one option) and open-ended questions (with more possibilities at their disposal) to find out difficulties which the teachers and pre-intermediate students encounter in teaching and learning speaking and what they would like to be done to improve the situation

 The teachers’ survey questionnaire: The survey questionnaire for teachers consists of 10 questions (see appendix 1) in which 10 questions are multiple choice All these questions are

focused on the following categories:

 Teachers‟ opinions on the CLT (Question 1 and 2)

 Teachers‟ attitudes towards teaching and learning speaking skill (Question 3)

 Teachers‟ reactions to students‟ mistakes (Question 4 and 5 )

 Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students at PPCI ( Question 6)

 Techniques in minimizing in difficulties in teaching speaking skill (Question 7, 8, 9)

 Teachers‟ opinions (Question 10)

 The students’ survey questionnaire: The survey questionnaire for students consists of 12 questions (see appendix 2) in which 1 yes/no questions, 11 questions are multiple choice All

these questions are focused on the following categories:

 Reasons for learning English (Question 1)

 Students‟ attitudes towards learning English speaking skills (Question 2, 3,4)

 Students‟ opinions on the speaking topics presented in Lifelines – Pre-intermediate (Question 5)

 Factors making students unwilling to speak English in class (Question 6, and 7)

 Difficulties encounter during speaking lesson (Question 8)

 Teachers‟ reactions to students‟ mistakes while performing tasks (Question 9)

 Teachers‟ current techniques to encourage students under students‟ observation (Question 10 and 11)

 Students‟ opinions (Question 12)

2.4.2 Interview

An interview was conducted in English with a group of 10 students chosen randomly from two classes and some teachers who are teaching speaking skills to pre-intermediate students The question in the interviews were basically based on those in the questionnaire, but were extended to include more open-ended questions to get more thorough understanding of the reasons behind each student‟s choice Each conversation lasted for about 7 minutes The data were then transcribed and translated into English For descriptive convenience, the researcher

used pseudo-initial for student interviewees (A,T,D,S) and for teacher interviewees (T,H,L)

2.5 Data collection procedure

In the first phase, questionnaires were administered to 160 PPCI first-year English students at the end of the second semester of the academic year 2011 and 19 teachers of English of the Division of Foreign Languages and Informatics at PPCI The participants were asked to complete the questionnaire at home and returned their responses two days later so that they would have as much time as they needed

After the collected data were analyzed, in the second phase, 5 teacher informants and 10 students informants with the most problems in teaching and learning English speaking skill were contacted for semi-structured interviews with the researcher in locations where they felt

at ease and at a time they suggested The interviews were all tape-recorded to free the interviewer to participate naturally in the discussion and to allow the content to be reviewed in details During the interview, the researcher modified the questions and procedures according

to the subjects‟ responses

2.6 Data analysis

Data analysis is not simply a single description of the collected data and information In fact it is the process by which the researcher interprets the data and information collected from

the survey questionnaires and interviews The scheme and coding table in this research emerged from an examination of the data rather than being determined beforehand and imposed on the data and information The information from the interviews was transcribed and major themes were indentified with a view to clarify and supplement the statistical results

2.7 Summary

In short, the chapter has described in detail the setting of the study, the research questions, instruments and data analysis used in this study Major findings will be presented and discussed in Chapter three

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Since the focus of the thesis is on investigating the present situation of teaching and learning

to speak English to the 1st year English students and suggesting some effective techniques with

a hope to improve the students‟ speaking skills Thus in this section, the researcher would like

to present the findings of the study into teachers and students about the teaching and learning speaking skills at PPCI

3.1 Findings

3.1.1 Questionnaire and interview for teachers

 Teachers’ opinions on the Communicative Language Teaching

Question 1 - 2

As can we see from chart 1 most of

the teachers at PPCI have quite good

knowledge of CLT and its features

The teachers (24%, 21%, and 19%

respectively) believe CLT is

student-centered, improve students‟

communicative competence and

provides students opportunities to

communicate The percentage of those

who agree that CLT emphasizes

fluency over accuracy accounts for 10% Besides, 13% of the teachers claim that CLT focuses

on meaningful tasks rather than on the language itself This leads to the fact that when applying the CLT in teaching speaking, the teachers (8%) do not usually teach grammar and (5%) do not use CLT for other skills but speaking skill

The statistics from chart 2 clearly show that 18 out of 19 teachers preferred applying Grammar-Translation Method in their teaching to applying CLT Meanwhile, only 7 out of 19 teachers (26 %) often apply CLT in teaching speaking skills and two of the teachers (7 %) are persistent with Direct Method In the interview, most teachers claimed that they cannot succeed in applying CLT because of the following reasons: These students are lack of

motivation to study speaking, they use

Vietnamese in group work, they have

low English proficiency level These

are also the difficulties that the

teachers at People‟s Police College I

encountered in teaching speaking

skills In short, though most of the

teachers know the great advantages of

the CLT, some of them also assert that

they find it hard to apply this approach

into their teaching and the others say that CLT is sometimes not really effective when teaching speaking In other words, the teachers at PPCI encounter many difficulties when teaching speaking skill in light of CLT

 Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching and learning speaking skill

Table 1: Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching and learning speaking skill at PPCI

As can be seen from the table, when being asked about the importance of speaking skill half of the teachers (53%) find learning and teaching English speaking skill very essential to the students The number of teacher (5%) state that teaching and learning speaking is not very essential None of the teachers says speaking skill is not essential at all The reason for these positive attitudes toward teaching and learning speaking skill derive from their understanding that their country is on the way of integration so that they need to use English to communicate both in the students‟ future jobs and in their everyday life Thus the teachers wish to help the students enrich their background knowledge, increase their vocabulary and grammatical structures, improve their speaking skill and gain their confidence when communicating in English

 Teachers’ reaction to students’ mistakes

Question 4: What is your reaction when your students keep making mistakes?

Question 5: How often do you correct student’s mistakes while they are performing their task? Chart 3: Teachers’ reaction when students keep making mistakes and frequency of correcting

mistakes while students are performing their tasks

As can we seen from the chart, not

many teachers at the PPCI are

tolerant if their students keep

making the same mistakes Question

4 in Chart 3.1 identified that the

participants who stopped students

and corrected mistakes when they

kept making mistakes made up

53% Only 10% can still be patient

and encourage students to go on All

the teachers, more or less, stop students to correct mistakes, the result shows that there still existed some teachers whose reaction to students‟ mistakes was in an unfriendly, unhelpful manner (16%) and was even angry (21%)

In addition to that, question 5 indicated in Chart 3.2 reveals that more than half of the teachers (74%) frequently stop students

during their performance for mistake

correction instead of keeping silent

until they finish their task

Consequently, the frequency of

interrupting students to correct

mistakes while they are performing

their tasks is quite high From these

statistical data, it can be understood

that the ways of mistake correction applied by most of the teacher at PPCI prevented students from speaking in classes

 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students at PPCI

Question 6: What are your difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students of intermediate level of English proficiency at PPCI? (Tick more than one option)

teachers

Percentage (%)

B Students‟ low level of English proficiency 19 100%

C Large class and heterogeneous class 19 100%

F Students‟ passive way of learning 19 100%

G Students‟ lack of background knowledge 7 37%

Table 2: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking skill to the students at PPCI

According to the information obtained from the survey, the teachers have encountered several problems when teaching speaking English to the students of pre-intermediate level at People‟s Police College I Table 2 gives us the fact that 100% find it hard to teach speaking because of various reasons such as: Students‟ low motivation, students‟ low level of English proficiency, large class and heterogeneous class, students‟ passive way of learning, it is difficult to manage the class as well as organize classroom activities The time is a problem for teachers in teaching speaking skill (79%), they complain that a 45-minute‟s period is too short for them to organize speaking activities after teaching vocabulary and grammar of a lesson Many teachers