Students’ difficulties towards learning english speaking in a rural area an investigation at xuan chau lower secondary school

Furthermore, the students’ opinions about the role of speaking in their English course and the possible solutions to overcome the difficulties were also covered in this study.. Aims of t

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

Ở KHU VỰC NÔNG THÔN – NGHIÊN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC

CƠ SỞ XUÂN CHÂU – XUÂN TRƯỜNG – NAM ĐỊNH)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi – 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

Ở KHU VỰC NÔNG THÔN – NGHIÊN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC

CƠ SỞ XUÂN CHÂU – XUÂN TRƯỜNG – NAM ĐỊNH)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã

Hanoi - 2017

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled: “Students’ Difficulties towards

Learning English Speaking in a Rural Area - An Investigation at Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School” is the result of my own work in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts of Faculty at Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi The research has not been submitted to any other universities or institutions

Hanoi, 2017

Nguyễn Thị Hương

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would not be fulfilled without the help of many people, and I would like

to show my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has taught me, inspired me, challenged me, and supported me throughout the realization of this thesis

I would like to express my deepest thanks to my beloved supervisor, Dr Vu Thi Thanh Nha, for her whole-hearted assistance, encouragement as well as profound guidance she gave me while I was doing my research

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my lecturers and staffs at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi whose support and consideration have enabled me to pursue the course

I would also like to express my whole-heated thanks to teachers and all students of Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School for their helps and their willingness to participate in the research Without their help, this thesis could not be fulfilled Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my family and my kind-hearted friends, who have always inspired and encouraged me to complete this study

ABSTRACT

Speaking is often considered as the most difficult skill of language learning Many students find it difficult to activate this knowledge in real time, and face-to-face encounters Hence, the study addressed the gap in our understanding of the difficulties of secondary students, especially students in a rural area, encountered in learning English speaking Furthermore, the students’ opinions about the role of speaking in their English course and the possible solutions to overcome the difficulties were also covered in this study With these aims, questionnaire as well

as semi-structured interview was constructed as collecting data instruments Four students were interviewed out of 67 students who responded to the questionnaire The highlighted difficulties were: lack of practice outside class, large class, and limitation of class time; it also reported together with suggestions that might help students overcome the difficulties In addition, some pedagogical implications, limitations and suggestions for further studies were included in this study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION 10

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Rationales 1

1.3 Aims of the study 2

1.4 Research questions 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Outline of the study 3

1.8 Summary 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Introduction 5

2.2 Speaking skill 5

2.2.1 Definition of speaking skill 5

2.2.2 The purposes of speaking 6

2.2.3 The characteristics of speaking 8

2.2.4 The role of speaking in language teaching and learning 9

2.2.5 Approaches to teaching speaking: A review 10

2.3 Students’ problems with speaking activities 11

2.4 Summary 16

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 Introduction 17

3.2 Research questions 17

3.3 The research context 17

3.3.1 Research site 17

3.3.2 Students 18

3.3.3 Teachers 18

3.3.4 English textbooks 18

3.3.5 The facilities 20

3.4 Participants 20

3.5 Methods of the study 20

3.6 Data collection procedures 21

3.6.1 Questionnaire 22

3.6.1.1 Aims of the questionnaire 22

3.6.1.2 Students’ questionnaire 22

3.6.2 Interview 24

3.6.2.1 Aims of the interview 24

3.6.2.2 Students’ interview 24

3.7 Data analysis 25

3.8 Summary 26

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS 27

4.1 Introduction 27

4.2 Findings from students’ questionnaire 27

4.2.1 Students’ opinions on the role of speaking in their English course 27

4.2.2 Students’ difficulties in learning English speaking 30

4.2.3 Students’ suggestions to overcome the difficulties 34

4.3 Findings from students’ interviews 38

4.3.1 Students’ opinions on the role of speaking in their English course 39

4.3.2 Students’ difficulties in learning English speaking 41

4.3.3 Students’ suggestions to overcome the difficulties 41

4.4 Summary 42

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 43

5.1 Introduction 43

5.2 Discussion of the main findings 43

5.3 Pedagogical implications 45

5.3.1 For English teachers 45

5.3.2 For students 47

5.4 Limitations of the study 48

5.5 Suggestions for the further research 48

5.6 Conclusion 49

REFERENCES 50 APPENDIX 1 : BẢNG CÂU HỎI DÀNH CHO HỌC SINH I APPENDIX 2 : CÂU HỎI PHỎNG VẤN DÀNH CHO HỌC SINH IV APPENDIX 3 : SAMPLE LESSON PLAN V APPENDIX 4: STUDENTS’ QUESTIONNAIRE ……… IX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ELT: English Language Teaching

ESL: English as a Second Language

L1: First language

TESOL: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Three key features of learners’ speech 8

Table 2: Summary of the questions in part 2 of students’ questionnaire 23

Table 3: Students’ opinions in term of difficulty of four English skills 28

Table 4: Students’ opinions on the skill(s) they wanted to improve 29

Table 5: Students’ difficulties in learning English speaking 31

Table 6: Students’ opinions on the speaking topics presented in the textbook 34

Table 7: Students’ opinions on activities teachers organised in speaking lessons 36

Figure 1: The overall mean of four main factors 32

Speaking seems to be the most important skills of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) because people who know a language are usually referred as speakers of that language (Ur, 1996) Speaking is the bridge to connect people, it is certainly the most effective means of communication; it is the means through which learners could communicate with others to achieve certain goals or

to express their opinions, intentions, hopes and viewpoints It is a truism in TESOL that speaking is one of the most fundamental skills in the acquisition of English as

an additional language, and in many “social ecologies of learning” (Leather & van Dam, 2002, p.9), but it is among the most difficult and most problematic skills for most of students to master

In Vietnam, English is chosen as the major foreign language and a compulsory subject in nearly all schools at all levels; hence, English has received a lot of attention from many people like students, their families, and educators Understanding the necessity of English, everyone wants to be competent in English

To master English, the students need to grasp all the four skills that are closely related to one another: listening, speaking, reading and writing However, in many schools, students exclusively focus on learning to read English-language documents, and to prepare English language essays and letters, with little attention to the skills

of conversation Essentially, learning English is seen as learning a scholarly skill for the purposes of reading and writing, not as learning a living language of use Students give more special attention to writing and reading tasks that are similar to exam items, and give less attention to speaking tasks in the textbooks because speaking is completely excluded from the exams After learning English in many years, students are incompetent in language and unable to communicate the target language Students could be good at reading and writing skills, they may have a good knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary without finding it difficult to do grammatical exercises However, they meet difficulties in speaking, and find it difficult to speak English in the real-life situations

In Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School, students also find it difficult in learning English speaking Furthermore, this school is located in a rural area, teaching and learning English speaking meet more difficulties than schools in urban areas

Therefore, it is essential to find out difficulties of students in learning speaking skills All of the above reasons have made me conduct the research on “Students’ Difficulties towards Learning English Speaking in a Rural Area - An Investigation

at Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School”

1.3 Aims of the study

The study was conducted to find out difficulties that students in a rural area could encounter in learning English speaking In addition, the researcher also investigated students’ opinions on the role of speaking in their English course As a result, some suggestions were proposed to help students overcome the difficulties

1.4 Research questions

With these above aims, the study focused on three research questions below:

1 What do students think is the role of speaking in their English course?

2 What difficulties do students encounter in learning English speaking?

3 What solutions should be suggested to help the students overcome the difficulties?

1.5 Scope of the study

The study was conducted at Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School, Nam Dinh province It only focused on learning English speaking of grade- 9 students in three aspects: students’ opinions on the role of speaking, students’ difficulties in learning speaking, and possible solutions for the difficulties

1.6 Significance of the study

The significance of this study was that via the results, the researcher found out the problems that students encountered in learning English speaking and proposed some suitable solutions to help students overcome the difficulties Based on findings of this study, there is a possibility that it could be a reference for other teachers in teaching speaking skill It would be also a primitive road for further studies

1.7 Outline of the study

The study consists of five chapters:

- Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter was a brief description of the research including the rationales for conducting the research, the aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study, and outline of the study

- Chapter 2: Literature review

This chapter introduced some concepts, theoretical frameworks and related studies

- Chapter 3: The methodology

This chapter introduced the research context and methodology of the study

- Chapter 4: Findings

This chapter presented the major findings from the students’ questionnaire and interview to answer the research questions

- Chapter 5: Discussions and conclusion

This chapter gave some concluding remarks, some limitations existing in this study,

implication for English teaching and learning, and suggestions for further studies

1.8 Summary

In summary, this chapter provided the overview of the study including rationales of the study, aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study, and design of the study The following chapter will present the theoretical framework of the study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

Chapter 1 presented the overview of the study, its aim and structure To provide a background of the study, this chapter will describe a theoretical framework for designing and analyzing data This chapter begins by reviewing theories of speaking skill followed by theories relating to difficulties in learning English speaking

2.2 Speaking skill

2.2.1 Definition of speaking skill

Speaking is a highly complex and difficult skill which involving the interaction of multiple psychological as well as physiological processes It is considered as one of the most important skills when learning English Speaking is the ability to express oneself or the activity to report acts in precise words; it is also the ability to converse or to express a sequence of ideas fluently Based on Competence Based Curriculum, speaking is one of the four basic competences that the students should gain well; it plays a significant role in communication, and is one of the factors used

to evaluate your English proficient competence

Speaking is defined as an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information Its form and meaning are dependent on the participants, and the purposes of speaking, the context in which it occurs (Burns & Joyce, 1997) It is the production of auditory signals designed to produce differential verbal responses in a listener It is considered as combining sounds in a systematic way, according to language specific principles to form meaningful utterances

According to Byrne (1976, p.8), “speaking is a two-way process between the

speaker(s) and the listener(s) involving the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding” It is considered as development of the relationship

between speaker and listener Hence, it requires the ability to co-operate in the

management of speaking turns (Thornbury, 2005) In the nature of communication,

we can find the speaker, the listener, the message and the feedback Speakers talk in order to have some effect on their listeners Both the listener and the speaker have a positive function to perform: the speaker has to encode the message to be conveyed

in appropriate language, while the listener has to decode the message The message itself in normal speech usually contains information that the listener needs

2.2.2 The purposes of speaking

Speaking is always produced for a purpose; in this sense, we can say “it is

functional as it has function of fulfill speakers’ everyday goals” (God & Burns,

On the other hand, some conversations are interactional with the purpose of establishing or maintaining a relationship This latter kind is sometimes called the interpersonal use of language It plays an important social role in oiling the wheels

of daily life Examples of interactional uses of language are greetings, small talks, and compliments Apparently, the language used in the interactional mode is listener oriented Speakers’ talk in this type tends to be limited to quite short turns (Richards, 1990)

It was argued that the purpose of speaking could be either transactional or interactional However, in spite of the distinctions between the two types, in most circumstances, interactional language is combined with transactional language This helps to ease the transactional tasks to be done by keeping good social relations with others Analyzing speaking purposes more precisely, Kingen (2000) combines both the transactional and interpersonal purposes of speaking into an extensive list

of twelve categories as follows (see Halliday, 1975):

 Personal: express personal feelings, opinions, beliefs and ideas

 Descriptive: describe someone or something, real or imagined

 Narrative: create and tell stories or chronologically sequenced events

 Instructive: give instructions or provide directions designed to produce an outcome

 Questioning: ask questions to obtain information

 Comparative: compare two or more objects, people, ideas, or opinions to make judgments about them

 Imaginative: express mental images of people, places, events, and objects

 Predictive: predict possible future events

 Interpretative: explore meanings, create hypothetical deductions, and consider inferences

 Persuasive: change others’ opinions, attitudes, or points of view, or influence the behavior of others in some way

 Explanatory: explain, clarify, and support ideas and opinions

 Informative: share information with others

2.2.3 The characteristics of speaking

According to Burns and Goh (2012), when talking about the quality of the spoken language, three characteristics were mentioned: fluency, accuracy, and complexity (Bygate, 1998; Skehan, 1996)

Table 1: Three key features of learners’ speech

Fluency Speech where the message is communicated coherently

with few pauses and hesitations, thus causing minimal comprehension difficulties for the listeners

Meaning

Accuracy Speech where the message is communicated using

correct grammar The notion of accuracy can also be expanded to include correct pronunciation according to target language norms

Form

Complexity Speech where the message is communicated precisely

More advanced grammatical forms are used, such as subordination and clausal embedding, which are appropriate for speech in relation to the social and cultural context, as well as the roles of, and relationships with, interlocutors

Meaning and form

(Goh & Burns, 2012, p.42-43) Language learners may not have adequate cognitive resources to produce speech that is both fluent and accurate Under time pressure when speaking, language learners experience limited cognitive capacity for processing meaning and linguistic knowledge at the same time Thus, even when they know the grammatical rules in their heads, some language learners may not always use correct grammar when they speak Their first priority is to express meaning (Skehan, 1998a) Grappling with

limited capacity in their working memory, they will most likely sacrifice accuracy when formulating their message Their immediate aim is to get their meaning across, using the linguistic resources that are available to them at that point in time There

is not always enough time to retrieve rules or access extensively the vocabulary stored in their memory

Beginning learners will not have even developed sufficient grammatical resources

to produce utterances that are morphologically or syntactically accurate They may initially only try to string content words together As their knowledge of grammar develops, words may be supported by greater use of grammatical forms for inflecting verbs However, when their attention is taxed in face-to-face communication, grammatical accuracy may be compromised The need to avoid long pauses that might lead to a breakdown in communication or losing their turn often means that learners may not attend to the form of the language adequately When some processes, such as lexical retrieval, are partially automatized, language learners may be able to demonstrate language complexity by formulating longer and more precise utterances They use grammatical resources, such as subordination and clausal embeddings, to increase the preciseness of what they are conveying and to provide additional information Increase in language complexity is a an important milestone in speech in first language acquisition, and it is a measurement of second language development

2.2.4 The role of speaking in language teaching and learning

When discussing the role of speaking, Bygate (1987) claims that speaking is the

vehicle of social solidarity, of social ranking, of professional advancement and of business In language teaching and learning, speaking is a medium through which much language is learnt, which is particularly useful The ability to communicate in

a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of the learners in school and success later in every phase of life

Developing speaking skills is vital importance in EFL/ESL programs Nunan (1999) argues that success in learning a language is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language If the right speaking activities are taught in the classroom, speaking can raise general learners’ motivation and make the English language classroom be a fun and dynamic place (Nunan, 1999) Speaking in a second or foreign language has viewed as the most demanding of the four skills On the other hand, speaking plays a vital role because it is one of the factors that helps identify who knows or does not know a language

2.2.5 Approaches to teaching speaking: A review

According to Burns (1998), approaches for teaching speaking can be divided into those that focus directly on developing isolated speaking skill and those that focus

on the production of speech during communicative activities She referred to these approaches as direct/controlled and indirect/transfer respectively:

 A direct or controlled approach is concerned with structural accuracy and emphasizes practice of language form, such as pronunciation of the sounds in English Such an approach also aims to raise learners’ awareness about the grammar of the target language, as well as discourse structures and routines

 An indirect or transfer approach, on the other hand, is concerned with fluency of speech It engages learners in functional language use by getting them to talk with other students in class Teachers typically plan activities to fit common situations in which the learners need to use spoken English The assumption here is that learners will somehow transfer the speaking skills developed through such communicative activities to real-life situations Thornbury (2005) advocated a general approach to skill development for the teaching of second language speaking The approach consists of three stages: awareness raising, appropriation, and autonomy Awareness – raising activities aim

at helping learners uncover gaps in their own knowledge about speaking Appropriation activities, Thornbury argues, go beyond controlled practice or

restructuring of knowledge These activities aim to develop “practiced control,” where learners demonstrate “progressive control” or “self-regulation” of a skill (Thornbury, 2005, p.63) The third stage of general approach requires learners to engage in activities that demonstrate a degree of autonomy in and outside the classroom This autonomy was partly due to the increased automaticity of the language production, what he experienced as feeling fluent As we have seen, the ability to automatize the more mechanical of a task so as to free attention for higher level activities is one characteristic of skilled performers

2.3 Students’ problems with speaking activities

Despite of the fact that speaking is considered one of the most crucial language skills, many students have major problems in mastering even the basics of this important language skill A significant percentage of learners in schools across the globe, rural and urban, face obstacles in using oral language This can hinder their progress and exclude them gradually from the procedure of learning because they fail in fulfilling the basic requirements of successful communication during the English lessons

A number of empirical studies have examined students’ concerns and difficulties they face while participating in oral activities Students’ problems which students encounter in learning English speaking can summarize as following:

 Psychological factors

According to Juhana (2012), there are some kinds of psychological factors:

- Fear of mistake: Students often feel afraid of making mistake when they are speaking English In addition, this is also much influenced by the students fear

of being laughed by other students or being criticized by the teachers, they are afraid of being negatively evaluated when making mistake, particularly in front

of their friends Students are afraid of looking foolish in front of other people (Kurtus, 2001) In some other cases, they also worry about how they will sound, and are scared of sounding silly and so on

- Anxiety: Among other affective variables, anxiety stands out as one of the main blocking factors for effective language learning In other words, anxiety influences students in learning language One study investigated EFL learners’ communication obstacles in English language classrooms, and it reported that anxiety during the English speaking process are considered one of the two biggest obstacles for EFL learners This study also revealed that students who perceived their English as poor feel more anxious and more unwilling to communicate in English classes than the other students perceiving their English level as very good, good, and OK Their low ability, in many cases, causes anxious feeling among many students

Lack of confidence: It is commonly understood that students’ lack of confidence usually occurs when students realize that their conversation partners

do not understand them or when they do not understand other speakers Many students think that their English is bad and feel that they cannot speak English well He and Chen (2010) state the main cause of students’ confidence is their low ability in speaking English The other cause of students’ lack of confidence also deals with the lack of encouragement

Lack of motivation: Motivation is defined as the reason to do something; motivation is rather important in learning English in general and speaking in particular, if you have motivation, of course you will be willing to take part in the lessons; but if you do not motivation, there is no reason for them to participate in the lessons Nunan (1999) adds that the causes of the students’ lack of motivation e.g uninspired teaching, boredom, lack of perceived relevance of materials and lack of knowledge about the goals of the instructional program

 Linguistic factors

Juhana (2012) stated that there are some kinds of linguistic factors:

Lack of vocabulary: Huyen and Nga (2003) confirmed that in order to communicate well in a foreign language like English, students should acquire

an adequate number of words and should also know how to use them accurately

The difficulty supported by Hetrakul (1995, p.76) who states that “In speaking

English, students need to master a lot of vocabulary, because by mastering many words, they would study way of speaking easily Sometimes, students felt difficult when they were learning because they had limited vocabulary” Liu and

Jackson (2008) also claimed that lack of vocabulary was regarded as a main obstacle for spoken communication by Chinese English learners

Lack of grammatical patterns: Learning grammar cannot be separated in learning a language, especially English Therefore, it is obviously important to understand grammar However, due to the different grammar between the mother tongue and foreign language, it is very often that students find this as an obstacle in their learning English speaking Hetrakul (1995, p.76) stated that

“Most students are very easy to get confused with English grammar, while

grammar is very needed to form a right sentence If the students do not have grammar mastery, of course they will not be able to produce sentences that grammatically right Realizing that the grammar students have is very weak, so they feel embarrassed when they want to produce English sentences orally”

Therefore, without a good understanding of grammar, the message or the idea will not be sent effectively and clearly

Incorrect pronunciation: Pronunciation is also important in English speaking because a good and correct pronunciation makes the message in a conversation easy to understand In many cases, especially in EFL classes, most students do not have self-confidence to speak because they do not know how to pronounce

a certain word well The difficulty also supported by Hetrakul (1995, p.76):

“The problem which is often faced by the students is about pronunciation They

felt difficult to pronounce certain words because in English, between pronunciation and writing are different Therefore, they did not recognize yet”

Therefore, incorrect pronunciation can cause the students to be poorly perceived and understood by others

Lack of topical knowledge: According to Ur (1991), lack of topical knowledge was also pointed out as one of four problems Learners often complain that they cannot think of anything to say and they have no idea to express themselves It

is difficult for many students to respond when the teachers ask them to say something in a foreign language because they might have little ideas about what

to say, which vocabulary to use, or how to use the grammar correctly (Baker & Westrup, 2003)

Mother tongue: Ur (1991) also showed that students tend to use their mother tongue instead of the foreign language Harmer (1991) suggests some reasons why students use mother tongue in class: when all or a number of learners share the same mother tongue, they tend to use it because it is easier for them to understand and exchange with other people; or when the students are asked to have a discussion about a topic that they are incapable of, they will use their own language In addition, students often use the first language to explain something to another if there is no encouragement from the teachers If teachers frequently use the students’ language, the students will feel comfortable to do it

 Learning environment

In learning environment where the target language is not used as L1 in the community, the only input is teachers’ or classmates’ talk Learners in such environment are exposed to the language only in the classroom where they spend less time in contact with the language According to Sawir (2005), most students commented that they did not have enough opportunities to use English outside the classroom Teaching and learning English in non – English speaking environment

such as rural areas; the learners do not have much chance to practice English outside the class Most students only speak English when they are in class After school time, they come back to their normal life in which they often use their first language or mother tongue Thus, it is difficult for them to practice English with people who do not know English

Al-Jamal and Al-Jamal (2013) explored the EFL undergraduate students’ difficulties in speaking English in Jordan The findings of the study indicated they met some difficulties such as large class, and lack of time About large classes, teachers in EFL settings often find classes of 40-50 students It is difficult for teachers to create and organize activities for many students, and guarantee that all students can take part in the activities Sometimes, teachers could not remember whether this student take part in the activities or not Large classes challenge even well-trained and experienced teachers Moreover, in a large group, each student will have very little talking time; there is a tendency of some learners to dominate while others speak very little or not at all About limitation of class time, in one period, teachers have many things to do such as checking homework and preparing for new lessons, and with the rest of time it is not enough for speaking activities It is also due to limitation of time teachers must cut out the activities, and sometimes they could not let students practice all activities carefully

 Materials and facilities

When investigating some issues in learning English speaking in a foreign language classroom, the insufficiency of materials and facilities, and the syllabus that did not satisfy the learners’ communicative needs were the main reasons for learners’ speaking difficulties

2.4 Summary

This chapter presented the important bodies of literature to provide a theoretical background to investigate the difficulties that students encountered in learning English speaking

The next chapter will describe the methodological background for the study as well

as the description of the study design

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

Chapter 2 reviewed the theoretical background of the study; this chapter will provide a detailed discussion of methodological design of the study including: summarizing the research questions; providing research context and participants; discussing methods, research instruments, data collection procedures, data analysis The overall aim of the chapter is how the study is designed to answer the research questions

3.2 Research questions

As discussed in chapter 1, the aims of the study were to find out students’ opinions

on the role of speaking in their English course, students’ difficulties encountered in learning English speaking, some possible suggestions to help students overcome the difficulties With these aims, three questions were proposed:

1 What do students think is the role of speaking in their English course?

2 What difficulties do students encounter in learning English speaking?

3 What solutions should be suggested to help the students overcome the difficulties?

3.3 The research context

3.3.1 Research site

Nam Định is a province in the Red River Delta region of Northern Vietnam, it is about 90 kilometres Southeast of Hanoi Capital Except for Nam Định city, other districts are rural areas Hence, there are many difficulties in life in general and in education in particular

Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School, located in a rural district – Xuan Truong – of Nam Dinh province, established in 1969 The school has 310 students divided into nine classes: two sixth-grade classes, two seventh-grade classes, three eighth-grade

classes, and two ninth-grade classes There are twenty-two teachers and staffs in the school with three English teachers

3.3.2 Students

The school has nine classes with 310 students placed into four different grades from grade 6 to grade 9 They are at the age of eleven to fourteen, and most of them come from farming families

All students have same background knowledge of English; they learnt English in several years Their English competences are various, some people are good, but some people are rather bad

3.3.3 Teachers

In Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School, there are three teachers of English; all of them are female, their age is ranked from 38 to 42 years old They graduated from English department of whom two teachers obtained associate degree, one teacher obtained Bachelor of Arts; their experience in teaching English has been for over ten years They took part in some English workshops or English courses of the Service of Education and Training Besides, they also took B2 certificate of University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi

3.3.4 English textbooks

The textbook used in teaching and learning English is “Tiếng Anh 9” published by the Ministry of Education and Training The book is complied with theme-based approach with ten units, each unit mentions one topic, and it is combination of Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus Four skills and language focus are often taught in five or six periods of forty-five minutes for each period; in addition, “Bài tập Tiếng Anh 9” and “Bài tập thực hành Tiếng Anh 9” are also used as workbooks for students

Speaking section is designed as one separate part of the textbook In some units, it is taught in one period; in some other units, it is combined with listening to teach in one period In general, in teaching speaking, teachers often divide speaking lessons into different stages as below:

 Warm –up: Teachers often give a short game to check homework and to create atmosphere for the new lessons

 Pre - speaking: In this stage, teachers often present vocabularies, structures and some model sentences or sample tasks for students It plays an essential role in the whole process of a speaking lesson; this stage can be useful as one means of introducing new elements It helps to activate topic related words, phrases and target sentences that will be useful in carrying out the task; it is the preparation of knowledge for the next stage

 While - speaking: This is the stage for students to practice, and the teachers would be the instructors Students practice following what they were given

or following the sample, they could work individual, in pair, or in-group, etc depending on the teachers’ requirement or the task’s requirement Students will be given an activity that gives them opportunities to practice the new aspect of language Students plan for reporting the task results and report the task output

 Post - speaking: This stage is like the follow up stage After students have practiced speaking skill in while-speaking stage, they do an extension activity This helps students practice more what they learnt in pre-speaking and while-speaking However, because of limited time, this stage could be skipped; the task would be completed at home

 Homework: It is time for teachers to summary the lessons and to give homework for students

3.3.5 The facilities

In Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School, English teaching and learning are mostly carried out within the classroom that are designed for lecture lessons with the only classroom equipment such as blackboard, desks, and cassette recorders In term of class size, the number of students in a class is more than 30, and students are divided to sit in a double desk

The materials for reference and self-study are not available for both teachers and students In school library, there are only some English books but they are mainly textbooks and workbooks

The school also has a computer room with about 25 ones, it uses for all subjects mainly for computing The school also has some projectors, but teachers do not often use them in daily lessons, they are often used for teaching festivals

3.4 Participants

In order to get information to fulfil the aims of the study and to answer the research questions, sixty-seven students of two 9th - grade classes from Xuan Chau Lower Secondary School (one class has 34 students, and one class has 33 students) were selected basing on non-random sampling method The number of female students was nearly equal with male students (32:35 respectively, total 67) All participants were considered to have similar educational backgrounds

The reason for the choice of grade 9th was that in comparison with other three grades, time for them to learn English was longer than students of other grades, so they could provide rich information when collecting data

3.5 Methods of the study

In this study, the researcher used both quantitative and qualitative methods Bouma

has stated “both qualitative and quantitative approaches are essentials to the

research process in social sciences” (1996, p.173) Quantitative and qualitative

method ideally includes the benefits of both methods (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, &

Turner, 2007) Quantitative analyses employ descriptive and inferential statistics, whereas qualitative analyses produce expressive data that provide descriptive details (often in narrative form) to examine the study’s research objectives Whereas quantitative data may be collected via measures such as self-reports and physiological tests, qualitative data are collected via focus groups, structured or semi-structured interviews, and other forms (Creswell, 2013) Moreover, according

to Burns (1999), the quantitative approach is employed when the researcher aims at

attaining objectivity and control as it is held that it can “offer ways of testing

hypothesis that are widely accepted or standardized” (p.22) However, according to

Burns (1999), qualitative research is the methodology of studying the participants’ opinion, actions and experiences through interview, observation and published information Correspondingly, this method will be made use of in the phrase of collecting, analyzing and synthesizing basic knowledge for the literature review One strong point of the qualitative method is that the collected data is usually

“extensive” and “detailed” (Burns, 1999, p.23) or as held by Larsen Freeman and Long, it supplies researchers with “real”, “rich” and “deep” data (1991, p.12)

3.6 Data collection procedures

This section described the data collection procedures, it aims was to serve the overall purpose of the study; data was gained through employment of two research instruments: questionnaire and interview The questionnaire was for the first step, and the interview was for the second step The combination of different instruments used in this research would help the researcher gain reliable data and have a deep insight into the circumstances The data collected by the self-report questionnaire and interview was synthesized and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively to obtain realistic results Participants completed the questionnaire and interview within the school

3.6.1 Questionnaire

Questionnaire was the first procedure to collect primary data in this study; this section will briefly outline the aims of questionnaire and data collection procedure with students

3.6.1.1 Aims of the questionnaire

The first concern of data collection was to promptly refine the issues, descriptive questionnaire (Oppenheim, 1992) Generally, questionnaire seems to be very popular among educational researchers in general (Cohen, 1989) and ELT research

in particular Because it can offer many advantages:

 It is efficient in terms of cost, effort, and time for researchers;

 It handles a variety of topics posed to different people;

 The needed knowledge is controlled by the questions, therefore it affords a good deal of precision and clarity;

 Questionnaire can be used on a small scale or on a large scale, and researchers can carry out online, offline or even through telephone Moreover, use of questionnaire could allow comparison between participants Another concern was to recruit information-rich participants With many participants, who were almost unknown to researcher, this would be more efficient and reliable with the assistance of a questionnaire

3.6.1.2 Students’ questionnaire

The final questionnaire was composed of two parts (see Appendix 1) The first part included the items examining the students’ opinions on the role of speaking in their English course, the students’ difficulties in learning English speaking, and the students’ suggestions for the difficulties It contained 10 questions with two main types: ranked questions and open-ended questions With open-ended questions, students could be free to show their opinions; they could provide anything as long

as it related to the questions With ranked questions, the rank was from 1 point to 3 points, in which 1 point stood for “khó”, “hay gặp” or “không thích”; 2 points stood for “bình thường” or “ít gặp”; and 3 points stood for “dễ”, “không gặp” or “thích” After collecting the questionnaire from students, the scores were summed up, the mean was also calculated in order to recognise the difference among the items; the lower mean was, the more common difficulty or the most dislike or the most difficult was Relating to the second part at the end of the questionnaire, this part was not obligatory; it was intended for students’ interview If students were willing

to take part in the interview, they could decide to reveal their identity including their name and class they were in If not, they could skip it

Table 2: Summary of the questions in part 2 of students’ questionnaire

questions

Question types Question order

Students’ opinions about

the role of speaking to

their English course

Vietnamese, it would helped students avoid misunderstanding about the questions The questionnaire was also translated into English for the purpose of analysis (see Appendix 4) During the questionnaire process, the researcher only gave instructions if students asked, she did not interfere anything to affect participants’ selection To maintain the respondents’ interest and capacity to complete it, the length was limited to one period (45 minutes) or less At last, the questionnaire was collected to analyse

3.6.2 Interview

Semi-structured interview was conducted as a flown-on step from the questionnaire; this section will briefly outline the aims of the interview and data collection procedures with students

3.6.2.1 Aims of the interview

Semi-structured or unstructured interview allow in-depth discussions into needs areas, and understand more a person’s opinion The questionnaire seemed inadequate to allow detailed answers on the topic Moreover, contradictory results

of the questionnaire needed further explanations via the use of the interview

3.6.2.2 Students’ interview

After the questionnaire, to prepare for the interview, initial analysis was conducted

to find out issues of interests and participants for the following step The interview was organized in group, group interview was undertaken to provide students the opportunity to have more detail about their answers It was organized in-group in order that students could feel comfortable because they had friends around them, and it also elicited a wide range of ideas in certain topics and synergistic effects to encourage participants to be involved

The interviewees were chosen from students from two classes who responded to the questionnaire and provided information to contact In each class, the researcher chose two students randomly; it meant that the interviewees were narrowed to four

students The interview included six open-ended questions, which were developed from the results of the questionnaire to assist the flow of discussion; it would provide more details for some aspects of the questionnaire such as students’ opinions about the importance of speaking, English learning especially speaking learning both inside and outside the class, more details about their difficulties in learning speaking, and their opinions about how they overcame the difficulties The questions were written in Vietnamese (see Appendix 2), and the language used in the interview was Vietnamese Because the participants’ English ability varied, so it was difficult for them to express their ideas and to understand what the interviewer and other participants said in English, the choice of Vietnamese language would help participants be more comfortable to give their opinions because it was their mother tongue Then the data collected was transferred into English for analysis With participants’ permission, the interview was recorded and transcribed; the personal information would be confidential For descriptive convenience and students’ identical security, the interviewees’ name was coded SS1, SS2, SS3, and SS4

3.7 Data analysis

In order to analyse the data from the questionnaire and the interview, descriptive analysis was used to indicate the mean and the frequency distribution of the respondents’ answers Descriptive research was aimed at casting light on current issues or problems through a process of data collection that enabled them to describe the situation more completely than was possible without employing this method. These descriptive statistics were numbers that summarized the data Through that, the researcher could get answers for the research questions The results were presented in tables and figures

3.8 Summary

This chapter presented the methodological issues of the study It described the research site of the study, and how the research was shaped to answer research questions With the focus on understanding and exploration, data was collected via the questionnaire and the interview The participants, research instruments, data collection procedures, and data analysis were also presented The following chapter will analyse data collecting from the questionnaire and the interview

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS

4.1 Introduction

The previous chapter described the methodology of the study, which used both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques It addressed the general issues of the study, procedures for data collection and analysis The questionnaire was the first data collection step, and interview was the second one There were threefold purposes mentioned before: firstly, to investigate students’ opinions on the role of speaking in their English course; secondly, to find out difficulties students could encounter in learning English speaking; thirdly, to propose some suggestions

to help students overcome the difficulties

This chapter will present findings from the questionnaire and the interview

4.2 Findings from students’ questionnaire

The questionnaire was delivered on September 2016 with the total of 67 copies and obtained 67 respondents Relating to part 2 at the end of the questionnaire about students’ name and class they were in, because it was not obligatory, there were 55 students out of 67 students providing information It meant that 55 students were willing to take part in the interview, and 12 students did not want to join in the interview

4.2.1 Students’ opinions on the role of speaking in their English course

The first question in the questionnaire concerned time that students started to learn English, the statistics showed that students’ time length of English learning was the same 100% of students have learnt English for seven years (since grade 3) It was also obvious that students had the same English background knowledge, they were trained with the same English curricula and syllabi implemented by the Ministry of Education and Training