Difficulties in studying and acquiring English speaking skills for the firstyear Englishmajored students at Thuongmai University

I, Nguyen Ngoc Thien, hereby certify this thesis with the given name: “Difficulties in studying and acquiring English speaking skills for the first-yearEnglish-majored students at Thuong

I, Nguyen Ngoc Thien, hereby certify this thesis with the given name:

“Difficulties in studying and acquiring English speaking skills for the first-yearEnglish-majored students at Thuongmai University” belongs to my own effort ofresearching under the requirement of the Graduation paper at English Faculty –Thuongmai University Any substance of this research has not been submitted for adegree to any other university or institution

Signature

Nguyen Ngoc Thien

Speaking is known as one of the most necessary abilities to communicate aswell as interact with people in the real life Even though people are aware of itsimportance, a number of learners finds it difficult to acquire and master thisparticular ability As a result, this thesis will focus on the subjective and objectiveobstacles in trying to learn to speak fluently and properly After that, the reasonsbehind this problem as well as possible solutions will be mentioned based on thecollected data from the students In order to accomplish those tasks, the author had

to use qualitative method along with quantitative one to conduct the research Inaddition, methods of collecting data such as questionnaire survey and interviews arealso implemented All of these factors mentioned above will contribute to thesuccess of figuring out the difficulties in studying English speaking skills of first-year English-majored students at Thuongmai University

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the process of completing this graduation paper, I have received helpfrom many people around me such as my friends, family members and teachers,who have actively provided me with supportive encouragement, as well as helpfulassistance without any hesitation.

I would like to express my gratitude towards my supervisor – Mrs Pham ThiPhuong, the teacher of English Faculty for guiding and clarifyingmisunderstandings during researching Without her aid, this thesis in general couldnot have been completed in due time Moreover, I also would like to show mysincerest thanks to all of my teachers of the English Faculty at ThuongmaiUniversity, who have given me such academic documents containing backgroundknowledge to finish this graduation paper

Additionally, I am grateful because of the fact that a lot of K55N showed theirenthusiastic participation in my study

Last but not least, I would like to thank all the authors of the academicmaterials listed below for helping me with my study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF CHARTS, TABLES AND FIGURES

1 Table 3.1 Personal information of the students 23

3 Table 3.3 Frequency of using English speaking skills 25

4 Table 3.4 Time spent to practise English speaking skills 26

7 Table 3.7 Sources to learn English speaking skills 29

8 Table 3.8 Speed and plan of using English speaking skills in the future. 30

9 Table 3.9 Students’ opinions of the most difficult parts when speaking English. 31

10 Table 3.10 Explanations of considering them the most difficult 31

11 Table 3.11 Reasons why people pay little attention to English

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

No Abbreviation English meaning Vietnamese meaning

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale

As we all know, English has been known as a global language and plays animportant role in both daily life and other aspects, such as work, foreign relation,translation & interpretation Therefore, English is widely used in many countries inthe world, particularly, the number of nations using English as a second language,mother tongue or a language that is used for work is remarkably immense Also,English is a compulsory subject for Vietnamese students as it is being very crucialfor the country’s economy growth, and Vietnam is co-operating with other countries

in terms of economic and diplomatic aspects as well However, despite thepopularity of English, there seems to be a problem related to the proficiency ofEnglish among Vietnamese students, due to the fact that they have to balance theirstudying between other subjects and English, along with the fact that they have tolearn how to use 4 skills of English language: Listening, Reading, Writing andSpeaking at the same time Of these 4 skills, speaking has been recognized by far asthe most difficult one to be competent and mastered by lots of students in general.The problem is getting more complicated, as many students are incapable ofspeaking and talking in English to other Vietnamese peers, let alone foreigners Inthe context of the country developing, this in long-term may harm the nation oneway or another As an English-majored student, the researcher wishes to investigatethis situation and tries to solve it After observing multiple students in ThuongmaiUniversity encountered many problems with these specific skills, it is necessary forthis study to be made in conjunction with the relevant survey, with the title

“Difficulties in studying and acquiring English speaking skills for the first-year English-majored students at Thuongmai University” in order to figure out what

could be possibly hindering them, the reasons behind this cause as wells as certainsolutions to overcome

1.2 Previous studies

This issue is very common amongst not only students but also other groups ofpeople as well, such as employees Therefore, it is obvious to mention that there hasbeen a lot of studies conducted by many previous researchers It is also a fact thateven though the methods and conclusions might vary, the aims are still similar toeach other To complete such studies, they had to acquire a great deal of usefulinformation from books and other materials before researching and making surveys.However, in general, they always provided the readers what they needed to knowabout the researches before reading them, such as the definition, the figures, etc…There are a few studies from both domestic and foreign researchers that the writerwould like to present

1.2.1 From domestic researcher(s)

The research of a group of female linguists whose names are Vo Phuong

Quyen, Pham Thi My Nga and Ho Thao Nguyen on “Challenges to speaking skills encountered by English-majored students: A story of one Vietnamese university in the Mekong Delta” concerned the proficiency and fluency of EFL English-majored

freshmen regarding English speaking skills in Can Tho university, and alsodiscussed some internal and external factors affecting their learning They proposedsome suggestions to help the students improve their overall English speaking skills

1.2.2 From foreign researcher(s)

The research on “Improving English Language Speaking Skills of Ajloun National University Students” by a linguist whose name is Abdel-Rahman Al-

Eiadeh (2016) concluded that many students faced many problems that were related

to speaking skills, which were confusion and embarrassment, as well as the fact thatthey studied incorrectly at university and encountered difficulties when pronouncingwords That’s why he aimed to present some practical solutions for the students atANU

As we can see, there are a lot of researches and surveys targeting at onerealistic problem: “Speaking is not a priority to focus on” and one goal: “How to

improve this ability” That is the primary reason why the writer of this study alsowants to make contribution towards this existing problem.

1.3 Aims of the study

As mentioned previously, the targets of this study are the students of majored at Thuongmai university, who are currently first-year The reason why theresearcher chose this group to conduct a research is that they are not acquaintedwith being introduced to new methods of learning English at university,consequently, they must have certain hardships in learning English, especiallyspeaking – the skills that in high school were not paid enough attention to

English-Secondly, the researcher would like to know their proficiency of Englishspeaking skills in order to categorize them from being incompetent or able to speakfluently and give them suggestions or improvements accordingly

In order to achieve the outcomes, the specific objects should be defined as:

• Evaluating the students’ English proficiency through surveys and interviews

• Acknowledging what the difficulties are based on the results of the survey and thereasons why such obstacles exist

• Suggesting some solutions to improve their speaking skills

1.4 Research subjects

Of all 4 skills in the English language, speaking is known as one of the most,

if not, the most important skills, and it could be the most difficult ability to attainbecause there are many people who are not capable of using it to communicateproperly with others at work or on a daily basis That’s why the subject focuses onthe difficulties in speaking English faced by 1st-year students at Thuongmaiuniversity to help them improve for future career

1.5 Scope of the study

This study focuses on the first-year students at Thuongmai university who arebeing members of English faculty As the time and knowledge are insufficient, aswell as the materials for referencing are inadequate, this study is unfortunatelyunable to solve every issue of speaking skills In addition, the study only aims at

one specific group of students, not everyone at Thuongmai university Nevertheless,the writer will try his best to deliver the finest content on the speaking skills.

1.6 Research methodology

In order to complete the study, it was carried out with the help of bothquantitative and qualitative methods at the same time On top of that, the writerchose the questionnaire to conduct the research

First and foremost, questionnaire on English speaking skills was created andprovided to approximately 50 first-year English-majored students at ThuongmaiUniversity Upon doing that, the overall information would be collected based onthe frequency of students using English to speak, and some difficulties as well.The second method that was implemented was interviewing, as it was used toget direct answers and personal opinions from many students that might not beappeared in the questionnaire, and the attitude could be observed as well, thushelping the researcher have a deeper understanding about their problems.Particularly, 10 students were interviewed to obtain the valuable information

1.7 Organization of the study

This study consists of 4 chapters, namely (1): Overview of the study, (2)Literature review, (3) Research Methodology and Findings and (4)Recommendations and Suggestions

In chapter (1), the researcher introduces general overview of this study,starting with “Rationale”, which gives a brief background of the existing problem.Then “Previous Studies” which are relevant to the present research and the “Aims

of the study” are discussed as well Moreover, “Research subjects”, “Scope of thestudy” and “Research methodology” are also to be mentioned Finally,

“Organization of the study” is included at the end of first chapter

The second chapter provides the overview of speaking skills, discovers somedrawbacks when speaking English along with the causes, and the summary of thewriter

In the third chapter called “Research Methodology and Findings”, this studyshows the results and the information collected from questionnaire surveys andinterviewing, has the results commented and give conclusions.

In the last chapter - “Recommendations and Suggestions”, the writer mentionssome tips in order to help the students improve or have them as references forprospective studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview of speaking skills

2.1.1 Definition of speaking skills

To the best of the writer’s knowledge, speaking is defined as a process ofusing words to express a person’s thoughts and feelings for different purposes viauttering to other people In the world, there are many linguists having differentperspectives of the speaking skills, but still remaining the similar ideas of whatspeaking is, for example, According to Brown, (1994); Burns & Joyce, (1997),speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involvesproducing and receiving and processing information

Burns and Joyce also stated that “Its form and meaning are dependent on thecontext in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collectiveexperiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking It is oftenspontaneous, open-ended, and evolving However, speech is not alwaysunpredictable Language functions (or patterns) that tend to recur in certaindiscourse situations (e.g., declining an invitation or requesting time off from work),can be identified and charted.”

In addition, a group of linguists (Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter & McCarthy,

1995; Cohen, 1996) proved that speech has its own skills, structures, and

conventions different from written language A good speaker synthesizes this array

of skills and knowledge to succeed in a given speech act

There are also many other linguists in the 1990s period having their own ideas

of what speaking is According to Revell (1979), communication is an exchangebetween people, of knowledge, of information, of information, of ideas, of options,

of feeling, so there must be concept, ideas, in the fellow speakers of what they aregoing to say and Widdowson (1985) stated that an act of communication throughspeaking is commonly performed in the face to face interaction and occurs as a part

of dialogue or rather form of verbal exchange What is said therefore, defends on anunderstanding of what case has been said in the interaction In this further

discussion, Widdowson proposes the term “speaking” for the manifestation oflanguage as usage and reverse to the realization as “talking”.

Even though many people might have different points of view regarding thedefinitions and the use of speaking, all of them have 1 fact in common: they all aregiven chances to understand and clarify the intrinsic aspects of the speaking skills,which is considered as an important means to acquire and master a language

2.1.2 The importance of speaking skills

As we all know, English has four distinctive skills: listening, speaking, readingand writing The fact that all of these skills are highly relevant to each other in terms

of the proficiency Noticeably, speaking skill is recognized as the ability thatbenefits not only learners but also common citizens the most as it allows them toarrange the words that they want to say in a logical way, as well as help them toexpress their feelings and emotions with ease Particularly, it gives people:

• Ability to attract and persuade

There are a lot of professions in the society that strongly rely on thedominance of speaking skills, such as politicians, teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs,etc…To them, speaking is considered as a means to grab people’s attention and toconvince people about certain aspects However, in order to do that, the users have

to master the logical arrangement of words they want to utter, as well as takeadvantage of the superior knowledge they gained via different methods, thuscreating messages that are straightforward, comprehensible and professional to theaudience with different perception

• Ability to be outstanding

Speaking is usually being underestimated as being a regular skill that anyonecan achieve easily In contrast, the ability to stand in front of many others anddeliver a well-prepared speech is not something that can be gained with ease Infact, there are multiple people in the society who find it difficult to speak

confidently in public Additionally, there are also people whose minds and thoughtscannot be expressed properly although they spend lots of time thinking before theysay, which definitely prevents them from claiming their fruition That being said,anyone whose speaking skills are well-developed can stand out.

• Confidence

Another benefit that speaking grants to its users is confidence Thanks to thethoughts and expressions that have been fully developed, along with the knowledge

of different things that they learned, the speakers are able to achieve a lot of things

in their daily lives and fulfill their desires Especially, when it comes to businesses,confidence is an important factor for any entrepreneurs to negotiate successfullyand offer conditions which are favorable to both parties

• Promotion

With the rapid pace of development in terms of technology and labor market

in the world, more and more people are searching ways to study and acquire thespeaking skills in order to boost their opportunities of promotion in workingenvironment, as verbal interaction is crucial for the survival of any firms existing inany countries As a consequence, employees who are willing to spend their time andeffort doing so should be rewarded and appreciated

To conclude, speaking is important for anyone to climb their career ladder, and

is able to improve people’s lives as well

2.1.3 Methods of speaking

According to a group of researchers whose names are Jason S Wrench, AnneGoding, Danette Ifert Johnson, and Bernardo A Attias (2011), they mentioned thatcurrently, there are 4 main methods of speaking, which are: Impromptu speaking,Extemporaneous speaking, Speaking from memory and Speaking from amanuscript

Firstly, “Impromptu speaking” can be easily understood as a short answer tocertain questions or messages without proper preparation There are many kinds ofspeech similar to this in our daily lives, such as when you are asked to give a briefintroduction about yourself when you are in an interview

• Advantages

This form of speaking can offer speakers many advantages, as one of them is

to make the conversation more natural and instantaneous to the listeners

• Disadvantages

As the time to think of a response is relatively inefficient, there will be caseswhen the words and thoughts are not carefully prepared, causing the speakers todeliver disorganized messages that are not straightforward and incomprehensible.Secondly, “Extemporaneous speaking” is considered as a kind of presentationthat are well researched and prepared in order to deliver the best content to theiraudience, however, this form of speaking will only require users to use some notesrather than a full manuscript

• Advantages

It has a greater advantage compared to the previous one of keeping eye contactconstantly with their listeners, thus gaining their attention at your speech, andproviding more information if there exists terminologies or misunderstandings,which a lot of listeners are not familiar with

• Disadvantages

This form of speaking does not include everything that the speaker needs, as aconsequence, he may forget what needs to be mentioned next In order to avoid this,the speaker may have to practise immensely if he does not want his audience tocontinuously stare at and secretly critique him when standing idly

Thirdly, “Speaking from memory” is a way of speaking when the speakers saywhat they remember For example, actors or actresses illustrate their characters’lines and expressions in a play or movie, or a student presents a problem in front ofthe whole class

• Advantages

The benefit of this method of speaking is that the speakers no longer have torely on notes or manuscript constantly, and they can walk around as they please, eyecontact is also feasible with this style

• Disadvantages

When using this method, it costs the speakers lots of time and effort toremember everything without the need of cue cards, or notes; more importantly,continuously talking without a break will result in making the speech completelydull and preventing their audience from grabbing the main points of the messages orspeeches In the worst case, when speakers cannot remember what the followingstatements needed to be mentioned, it’s difficult to track the correct places tocontinue, which will lead their audience to start noticing their behavior and realizesomething is wrong

Finally, “Speaking from the manuscript” is the easiest type of speaking in thewriter’s opinion, because it involves the action of holding a piece of paper and thenreading out loud every single word from it

• Advantages

The speaker may not need to spend time preparing the speech and make thespeakers more confident

• Disadvantages

This form of speaking is notoriously less interesting compared to all of theother methods since the audience may not pay attention to what the speaker’s trying

to read during the presentation or possibly by doing something else and completelyspacing out, moreover, eye contact between the speaker and the audience isneglected as the speaker’s eyes totally focus on the script, and he/she may notclarify misunderstandings when one of the terminologies confuses people

2.2 Difficulties in studying speaking skills

There are manifold difficulties that will slow the speakers’ pace in trying tosucceed in acquiring these skills Particularly, the researcher believes that there are

4 major obstacles:

2.2.1 Teaching methods being unsuitable for the students to follow

As a common fact, speaking is similar to everything else existing in the worldbecause we need guidance from people with greater experience in order to help usperform with precision in the shortest amount of time Noticeably, speaking isrecognized as one of the skills that Vietnamese citizens in general and students inparticular have a tendency of being reliant on other people’s assistance in order toimmensely improve

However, in reality, there are a large number of people being mistakenlyguided in terms of the ways of being introduced to learn how to speak properly andfluently, as a result, it will impact people’s progress in long-term negatively

2.2.2 The environment being unable to provide standard conditions for learners

This factor also affects the progress of studying the speaking skills Because ofthe fact that when students are taught in a Vietnamese environment, it becomesdifficult for them to approach and adapt to the new ways of thinking and reactingnaturally in English, therefore it will negatively impact their pronunciation, the pace

of their speaking and the intonation

2.2.3 Students being shy and fear of mistakes

Since Vietnam is a country whose feudal ideals still remain heavily eventhough the society is modern now, the students or learners are taught to rememberthat they only need to listen to their teachers and don’t voice their opinionsregardless of any questions they have in mind, as a result, they will eventuallybecome shy to ask their teachers to have them clarify misunderstandings, which inlong-term will make them inactive whenever they try to learn new things

Moreover, people in Vietnam generally are afraid of critiques and judgements,which leads to the fact that they don’t want to be commented, though they knowthat it’s beneficial for them Consequently, students may keep repeating the similarmistakes without being aware of them

2.3 Factors affecting English speaking skills

2.3.1 Listening compatibility

Listening actually has a pivotal impact on speaking skills, because it isimpossible for the speakers to understand and try to come up with a response withlogical selection of words and grammatical combination if they aren’t able to listen

to what other people convey If the listening ability of the users is limited, thelikelihood to reply is nearly impossible or extremely low

2.3.2 Lexical resources

Vocabulary is necessary in any languages in order to not only communicateproperly but also used in other aspects of a language, such as writing or reading Inorder to speak properly, users must have a decent amount of vocabulary to responsecorrectly and appropriately in certain situations One example to demonstrate iswhen talking to a friend, the words chosen should be simple, informal andcomprehensible, whereas when doing presentations, it’s better to use terminologies

to illustrate the complexity of the subject rather than common words

2.3.3 Grammar

Grammar plays a crucial role in contributing to the fluency of the speakingskills as well As we speak with a phenomenal mixture of grammaticalimplementation, the sentences or statements will become logical andstraightforward If grammatical use is limited, it is likely to accidentally cause theconversations to be awkward, thus spending more time thinking about andcorrecting them There is 1 common fact about the learners trying to study English

is that they are not familiar with the grammar, as a consequence, it costs them tospend more time acquiring and mastering this ability

2.3.4 Self-confidence

It is necessary to be confident regardless of anything we try to accomplish.Upon doing so, our skills and flexibility will be further enhanced The similar resultalso applies to speaking skills, because it becomes truly difficult, or maybeimpossible to speak properly if the users are not confident about themselves, abouttheir abilities and their strengths as well as weaknesses, which in long-term, willlimit their overall capabilities

2.3.6 Pronunciation

Pronunciation is recognized as one of the most pivotal factors for not onlypeople who’s been experiencing and learning English for a long time, but also for

new ones who are not very familiar with, as it causes the meaning to differdepending on the words, for example: “decisive” is correctly pronounced as /dɪˈsaɪ.sɪv/, not /dɪˈsɪ.sɪv/ If we pronounce the words that we want to say in a wrongway, the listeners will not be able to completely understand what we aim to imply.Consequently, confusion will definitely arise, especially in special and importantevents such as conferences or meetings

2.4 Summary

To conclude, chapter 2 has basically summarized all the theories, opinions andideas which are relevant to the speaking skills From this, theoretical framework hasbeen established in order to illustrate relevant literature In the following chapter,the author will show the methodology as well as results of the research inaccordance with all being mentioned above

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS

Chapter 3 shown below will include the data and information collected from the questionnaire survey as well as direct interviews regarding the difficulties in studying English speaking skills of 1st-year students at Thuongmai university Additionally, it also illustrates the causes stopping them from achieving their fruition and suggestions to improve the students’ speaking ability.

3.1 Participants of the study

In this study, thanks to the collective assistance of 50 first-year students whoare English-majored at Thuongmai University, there are 35 male and 15 femalestudents who have participated in this questionnaire survey.

Most of them have 1 fact in common, which indicates that they have studiedEnglish for a long time, primarily because a number of students came from ruralareas, thus showing that they all received the similar curriculums in terms of theEnglish teaching methods prior to entering university However, since many of themdidn’t have a lot of opportunities so as to practise their English skills, theirproficiency of speaking were not being paid attention enough and caused themmany issues when studying at TMU

3.2 Methods of collecting data

3.2.1 Questionnaire survey

As a common and by far the most effective method, questionnaire survey hasbeen recognized and implemented many times by others in order to collect datawith ease in terms of the opinions, attitudes and perceptions In the writer’s case, it

is efficient to use as it is straightforward to investigate and gain information fromthe target students

To briefly talk about it, this survey questionnaire has a total amount of 17questions and is divided into 3 parts: Part 1 is to obtain general information aboutthe students regarding their English speaking proficiency; Part 2 is to find out thereality of the students using speaking skills which includes many aspects ofspeaking particularly; Part 3 mainly aims at the difficulties along with the reasonswhy the students think so, and ultimately, the last part is about solutions

3.2.2 Interviewing

Even though this method causes them to spend a lot of time preparing thequestions and choosing the suitable participants to begin interviewing, as well asrequires lots of effort, the researchers can have a deeper understanding about the

students’ opinions and attitudes without having to rely on questionnaire heavily Inthe interview, the writer asked 10 students to self-evaluate their English speakingability, and then continued to have them answer what has been troubling them whenthey learned how to speak properly, what the reasons might be behind the causesand their own suggestions to improve speaking skills in general The interview wassuccessfully implemented because all of the students showed enthusiasm whenbeing asked and agreed to co-operate.

3.3.2 Interviews

Initially, the researcher came up with a set of questions that he needed tocollect information, then approached 10 random K55N students that he met atTMU After asking for their consent to be interviewed, the writer began to take notewhat the participants said and then compile their answers

3.4 Data analysis

As mentioned previously, the researcher chose to conduct the interview with

10 students who have never done his questionnaire before By doing that, it ensures

that it’s up to the researcher to select primary information that is more subjectiveand displays the opinions of the participants Moreover, the information gatheredcan be sufficient and background knowledge of the writer will be enhanced as well,thus assisting him to explore the reasons behind the problem, and ultimately, it isinexpensive.

However, the researcher observed that there were some students when beinginterviewed refused to give their answers in English because they mentioned that itwas not necessary, and they couldn’t express their opinions more freely and flexiblywithout using their mother tongue, as a result, he had to interview them inVietnamese instead

The data will be presented below, along with the questions and key commentswhich will be summarized

3.4.1 Results from the interview

3.4.1.1 Self-evaluation regarding their English proficiency

In general, before the students or the participants were interviewed to givemore information about their speaking abilities, they were first asked somequestioned regarding their overall English proficiency The answers weresurprisingly expected as many students claimed that their English skills in generalwere imbalanced Although the statements might differ, what they meant wasmostly similar to each other

Particularly, they said that in high school, their English teachers guided them

to mainly focus on studying their reading and writing abilities, as a result, theypartly or completely showed an ignorant attitude towards listening skills along withspeaking skills, and only practiced when they were required to In the end, eight out

of ten students affirmed that they spent most of their time and effort aiming atgetting high grades when being tested in terms of grammatical and lexical

resources, and getting decent scores when writing essays, whereas the last 2managed to develop all of their English skills evenly.

To talk about speaking specifically, they stated that they were not reallyinterested in studying speaking skills, consequently, they only did that to passexaminations in high schools, which was a solid proof of why their pronunciationand intonation were below average, some even said low

• Interviewee 2

In high school, my English teachers mainly taught me how to use grammaticalstructures and vocabulary properly for the sole purposes of passing exams, and getinto a well-known university

• Interviewee 3

Other skills such as listening or speaking were not paid enough attention, andthe teachers sometimes cut speaking classes to focus more on the Graduation orUniversity Entrance Exam (UEE) when I was at grade 12th

• Interviewee 4

I really don’t need to study how to speak fluently because I planned to work

by using other English skills

• Interviewee 5

I spent a lot of time reading online articles and writing essays to prepare for

my examinations, so I don’t have time to study speaking

• Interviewer 8

I didn’t have a proper guidance, and for that reason, I had to self-study but itwas too difficult compared to other skills So I quitted