An investigation into the impact of bilingual education on students’ english speaking competence at a secondary school in hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN LAN HƯƠNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE I

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

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

NGUYỄN LAN HƯƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACT OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION

ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING COMPETENCE AT

A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN HANOI

Điều tra sự ảnh hưởng của giáo dục song ngữ tới khả năng nói tiếng Anh

của học sinh tại một trường trung học cơ sở tại Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Method Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi, 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

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

NGUYỄN LAN HƯƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACT OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION

ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING COMPETENCE AT

A SECONDARY SCHOOL IN HANOI

Điều tra sự ảnh hưởng của giáo dục song ngữ tới khả năng nói tiếng Anh

của học sinh tại một trường trung học cơ sở tại Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Method Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Prof Dr Nguyễn Hoà

Hanoi, 2018

DECLARATION

I, Nguyễn Lan Hương, an M.A student of the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies

of University of Languages and International Studies, hereby certify my authority of the study entitled “An investigation into the impact of Bilingual education on students’ English speaking competence at a secondary school in Hanoi” My study has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Teaching Methodology Except where the reference is provided, no other person’s work has been utilized without the acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Initially, I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor, Professor Dr Nguyễn Hòa for his guideline and support Without his precious advice and constructive suggestion, my thesis could have not been as flourishing Mr Nguyễn Hòa’s remarkable encouragement kept me moving forwards

I wish to thank the Management Board, lecturers and staff members of Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their tremendous encouragement to students throughout the course

Additionally, I would like also to extend my thanks to teachers and students at the local secondary school where I conducted my study Their dedication inspires me to complete my thesis regardless several emerging difficulties during the process

Finally, I also owe a great debt of gratitude to my dearest family and colleagues for accompanying and supporting me during my period of study and through the process of researching and doing the thesis

This accomplishment would not have been possible without all their support

Hanoi, May 2018

Nguyễn Lan Hương

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

CEFR The Common European Framework of Reference

CELTA Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other

Languages

ERB Educational Records Bureau

ESL English as a Second Language

ESOL English for Speaker of other Languages

ETS Educational Testing Service

ICT Information Communications Technology

IGCSE International General Certificate of Secondary Education

MOET Ministry of Education and Training

PET Preliminary English Test

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 Weekly subjects’ distribution

Table 2 Participants’ profile

Table 3 Cambridge PET exam procedure

Table 4 Participants’ English speaking level

Table 5 Participants’ length of learning in Bilingual school

Figure 1 Pre- test speaking results

Figure 2 While- test speaking results

Figure 3 Post-test speaking results

Figure 4 Participants’ speaking progress

Figure 5 Distribution of the interview reporting the reasons to choose

Bilingual Education Figure 6 Distribution of the interview reporting the expectation to

Bilingual education Figure 7 Distribution of the interview reporting the frequency of

speaking English at Bilingual school

ABSTRACT

This study was to determine the impacts of Bilingual program on the ability of speaking English of a secondary Bilingual school in Hanoi The participants were four eighth and ninth graders who have been enrolling in bilingual program The study used qualitative method; therefore, the data was collected through classroom observation and semi-structured in-depth interview with participants: four students and two teachers This study was based on an interpretive approach concerned with subjective meaning in a particular context with the collected data analyzed inductively The study revealed that those Bilingual school students were capable of speaking English quite well Besides, the study’s result was to suggest that bilingual education has had a concrete impact on the instructional approach of bilingual students, namely, the learning environment or the attitude towards English speaking

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1- 4

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Scope of the study 3

1.4 Significance of the study 3

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW 5 -10 2.1 Definition of Bilingual Education 5

2.2 Characteristics of Bilingual Education 6

2.3 The concept of speaking competence 8

2.4 Review of previous studies 9

CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY 11- 23 3.1 Context of the study 11

3.1.1 Description of the Program and the school’s philosophy 3.1.2 Curriculum, learning - time proportion and assessment 3.1.3 Type of Bilingual education in the context 3.2 Research instrument and design of the study 15

3.3 Data collection procedure 16

3.4 Data analysis 19

3.4.1 Testing

3.4.2 Semi- structured interview and interview protocol 3.4.3 Observation

CHAPTER 4 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24- 36

4.1 Testing 24 4.2 Semi- structured interview 29 4.3 Observation 33

CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSIONS 37- 39

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In recent years, bilingual education has continued to fuel controversy in the national and local areas “Bilingual schools are frequently found in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, and they are widely understood to be schools that promote bilingualism and literacy in two (or more) languages as goals for all students” (Baker, 2001, Crawford, 2004) The protesters assume that this program is a catalyst for the dominant culture while neglecting minorities found

in the society The advocates, nevertheless, strongly believe that bilingual education breaks down the language barrier to acceptance into a new culture as well as create a positive self-concept allowing students to learn more effectively Bilingual education provides human cultures with an opportunity to diverse It is

a chance of studying from the distinction instead of being scared of them Once people learn a second language, they will obviously found it will be much easier

to learn even more languages Bilingual education enriches brain and mind growth, encourages students’ concentration, and reduces the amount of transition time when switching tasks Tozer (2009) claimed that those students who experience discriminatory practices will retreat into “a posture of resistance

in which they stop working with the school and its agent” Therefore, bilingual education, to some extent, can boost students to feel being accepted and communicate more easily

As an international language, English has been widely used in all fields of activities throughout the world English is spoken in so many different countries and there are numerous schools and centers around the world which offer

programs in English Thus, there are various opportunities for students to find an appropriate school and course to suit their academic needs provided that they know English To catch the trend of the world, in Vietnam, learning English is apparently crucial for most of the students and it is a mandatory subject since students are at primary school Additionally, the rapid development of the integrated society also requires people to communicate English fluently For these following reasons, the educators know how committed the parents are to ensure that their children are able to acquire an international standard education, especially their English speaking skill With the purpose of meeting social demands, therefore, there have been numerous bilingual schools appearing in Vietnam so far It is definitely an opportunity to be part of a new school system that is developing in Vietnam The goal of bilingual schools is to provide an international education system for both domestic and foreign students, which creates a new English environment so that students are able to cultivate their English skills Specifically, for most of students in eighth and ninth grade who enroll in bilingual program at bilingual schools, speaking English fluently and confidently is one of the most fundamental skills which assist them to be more adaptable and easier to approach a new culture when studying abroad Thus, it is extremely essential to investigate the influence of bilingual education on speaking competence of secondary students at a secondary bilingual school where English currently has great additive value

1.2 Aims of the study

This study investigates the influence concerning the development of speaking competence of secondary students at the local bilingual school where

English currently has great additive value With this regard, one research question is developed

The research aims at answering the following question:

To what extent does bilingual education have impact on enhancing secondary students’ English speaking competence?

1.3 Scope of the study

The study limits its scope within the English learning context at a local Bilingual school with four student participants who have been learning in bilingual educational system for at least one school year These four participants were all in grade 8 and 9 The justification of choosing participants is that they had been learning English for such a long time that they could somehow produce English in pre-intermediate or intermediate levels Secondly, they were junior students who started to fulfill their cognitive competence as well as their critical thinking Moreover, the needs of improving bilingual education of students accounted for the vast majority of young learners Last but not least, those students were going to be in high school or apply for the international program IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) after finishing their program in grade 8 or grade 9

1.4 Significance of the study

There has been a new tendency of bilingual educational system in Vietnam recently Parents are concerned more about language learning for their children and they are willing to spend a fortune so that their children are able to receive the idealistic environment of accessibly new languages, especially

English To understand and meet such a social demand, a variety of bilingual schools have appeared Furthermore, Vietnamese students have got accustomed

to learning grammar, writing and reading skills only at school As a result, most

of students who graduated from secondary school or high school are not able to communicate fluently in English Therefore, parents now, to some extent, try to let their children learn in bilingual schools where they can practice English more often Besides, a language may be acquired by being in the environment where the language is spoken, and participating in that cultural setting, or may be learned in a classroom with field techniques that allow practice in the new language Bilingual education has been around for quite a while However, the question is whether bilingual education meets the expectation of parents and children remains unanswered Consequently, it is necessary for the research to consider the impact of bilingual school on students’ English speaking competence, which is likely to answer the above question

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition of Bilingual education

Cambridge has used the term “bilingual education” to refer to “the use of two or more languages as mediums of instruction for content subjects such as science or history” Bilingual education is another term that requires clarification The reason lies on its variation of meaning in different circles; the following is a commonly accepted definition of bilingual education The three main concepts which have been used in bilingual education indicate the crucial distinctions in practice: language immersion, monolingual, and bilingual Bilingual education is sometimes referred to as language immersion Bilingual education, on the other hand, supplies two languages in form of instruction with the goal of language proficiency in one or both of the languages used Cohen (1975) revealed bilingual education as “the use of two languages as media of instruction for a child or a group of children in part or the entire school curriculum” Ovando and Collier (1985) indicated bilingual education consisted

of the concept of “bicultural education” Porter also claimed bilingual education includes "instruction in the native language most of the school day" (Porter, 1994; cited in Brisk, 2006, p 31) Besides, bilingual education was also defined

by Garcia (2008) as those instructional techniques that contribute to surpass learning opportunities to language minority students

There are various program models which are used in bilingual education May (2008) stated that bilingual education programs were divided into one of two categories, either additive or subtractive A subtractive program promotes monolingual learning in the dominant language and in that sense is only

bilingual during the programs transitional stage from one language to another In contrast, an additive program aims to supervise students to achieve bilingual education over the long term May also suggested other ways to categorize bilingual education, including: transitional, maintenance, enrichment, and heritage model Transitional bilingual education involves the partial or total use

of the child’s home language when the child enters school, and later a change to the use of the school language only The goal of transitional bilingual education

is to transition students into English-only classrooms as quickly as possible It is sometimes called early exit bilingual education Maintenance bilingual education, on the other hand, involves the use of the child’s home language when the child enters school, then a gradual change to the use of the school language for teaching some subjects and the native language for teaching others

For the purposes of this study, a school is considered to be bilingual when the primary language of language students is used for instruction for at least one year In these schools, some forms of bilingual education comprised a substantial strand for most English learners English is used for instruction throughout the grades and is taught as a language The use of two languages was considered to be among the defining characteristics of the site by the school community

2.2 Characteristics of bilingual education

It is estimated that about 60 to 75 percent of the world is bilingual, and bilingual education is a common educational approach used throughout the world Good bilingual education programs recognize and build upon the knowledge and skills children bring to school They are designed to be

linguistically, culturally, and developmentally appropriate for the students and have the following characteristics such as an English-language development component, high expectations for students and clear programmatic goals Baker (2011) stated the following criteria which were considered to be effective bilingual schools and classroom share in common Initially, he mentioned the shared vision, mission, and goals among staff A numerous number of the teachers, teaching assistants, administrative and staff in bilingual schools were supposed to be well-advanced in dual languages, which created a communicative environment between school and students as well as their parents Furthermore, Baker claimed staff professional development and training together with curriculum intellectually challenging, active and meaningful lesson Indeed, teachers and teaching assistants were required to discuss with each other weekly about the planning and team teaching training For example, there would be monthly training for teachers to discuss and learn from what they had been through in teaching as well as the advices from their colleague Besides, M.R Montecel and J.D Cortez conducted a research of investigating

10 bilingual programs whose students met high achievement goals on standardized tests They found out that the curriculum in these effective bilingual programs reflected and valued the students’ culture and adheres to high academic standards Moreover, Cummins supported a basic principle of bilingual education that children's first language skills were likely to be well-developed to guarantee that their academic and linguistic performance in the second language is maximized

2.3 The concept of speaking competence

Speaking is a part of oral productive skill Brown (1997) referred speaking

is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing the speech of sound as the main instrument Furthermore, Underwood (1997) mentioned speaking as creative process; an active interaction between speaker and listener that involves thought and emotion Besides, Thornburry (2005), speaking is a speech production that is going to be a part of our daily activities

According to Oxford Advanced Dictionary, competence is (of person) having ability, power, authority, skill, knowledge, etc Brown (2004) identified people who had got speaking competence as those who were imitative and intensive They are able to produce utterance so as to demonstrate skill in a narrow band of grammatical, phonemes, lexical or phonological relationship They can be also responsive and interactive when they can reply a comment, feedback, short conversation or even exchange information Speaking competence of a person is defined when that individual is interpersonal and extensive Therefore, speaking competence means conversation ability or conversation skill It performs a conversation of mutual interdependent and interactive nature Similarly, Vaclav Hemerka (2009) indicated that competence

is used to describe the learner´s capacity to produce a language It is an awareness activity as well as feedback activity so that a series of tasks is developed to sharpen the students’ awareness on the activity and assess their own progress performance

2.4 Review of previous studies

There have been several researchers who conducted studies about bilingual education The majority of these researches, nonetheless, were about the classification of bilingual education, bilingual program evaluation or the effectiveness of bilingual education to language learning in general Trueba (1979) and Hornberger (1991) distinguished between bilingual education models and programme types Meanwhile, Bialystok (1986) indicated that children’s bilingualism positively affects their increasing ability to solve problems involving high levels of control of linguistic processing Research over the past two decades has showed a number of differences that emerge from growing up with at least two languages (Bialystok, 2009a; Grosjean, 1989) In addition, Krashen (1996) argued that bilingual education is vital to an immigrant child’s language educational program, which enhances both heritage language education and the gradual exit program On the other hand, Cheng (1996), Lopez and Mora (1998), Federman (2000), Mora (2000), and Lopez (2003) focused on the effects of primary language instruction, usually in academic subject Similarly, the study mandated by California’s Proposition 227 found insignificant effects of bilingual education on student-level mathematics and reading test scores (Parrish et al 2006) Aimee (2012) revealed the impact of bilingual education programs on limited English proficient students and their peers in a school in Texas, the USA by examining the effects of bilingual education programs (ESL programs alone) on the achievement of intended beneficiaries (limited English proficient students) and their classmates (non-limited English proficient students)

In Vietnam, there have been some previous studies about bilingual education These researches, nonetheless, mainly focused on bilingual education for Vietnamese ethnic minorities students, which offered solution to some of Vietnam’s yawning socioeconomic gaps The other limited studies, to some extent, mentioned bilingual education of English learning in Vietnam Dong (2013) launched the research about successes and challenges of bilingual education in Vietnam He found that proficiency in English is becoming “a must” for the youngsters in Vietnam but bilingual education contains a large amount of challenges in terms of the school’s side, students’ side and teachers’ side Another study, on the other hand, concentrated on the bilingual program Tran and Phan (2017) researched bilingual education program proposed in Vietnam with the context was a primary school in Dong Thap They implemented the partial early immersion bilingual school program, which aimed

to help students to become bilingual and bi-literate in Vietnamese and English

Overall, these studies have investigated the mixed effects of bilingual education on academic achievement as well as bilingual program According to those studies, the researcher decided to study the impact of bilingual education

on one of the most crucial and recognized skill- speaking competence

CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY

3.1 Context of the study:

3.1.1 Description of the program and the school’s philosophy

This bilingual school was officially launched and started its first academic year in August, 2011, with the goal of providing a multi-level educational system from grade 1 to 12 in Hanoi, Vietnam It is the first bilingual school in Vietnam recognized by Cambridge International Examinations as Cambridge standard school and is also a member of other international organizations such as ERB, Cambridge ESOL and ETS, College Board Test Site It is one of those schools that are equipped with the most modern teaching and learning system in Vietnam With the aim of providing students with a comprehensive learning environment, this bilingual education has invested to build a modern school system in Vietnam and is designed to optimize all of the teaching activities

My interview with the General Director – the Principal of this school revealed that the teaching philosophy is to provide not only an educational product but also a happy learning environment, which help children to get interested in learning, growing and developing in happiness Moreover, these school student generations can be trained with exceptional qualities such as: Knowledge, Independent thinking and Confidence, Adaptability, Enthusiasm and Motivation “It is not only a school but also a happy learning environment Everything from learning spaces to learning program is designed and built for children, for the happiness of learning, creativity and exploration”, said the Head

of School Furthermore, researcher investigated the task of this bilingual program is to “Ignite the passion for life” within each student, which reflects

their aspirations and unleashes the potential in each student Education is no longer simply conveying theoretical knowledge; it is to inspire passion for learning, teaching students with creativity and vision which are not inferior to any education systems in the world Thus, the aims of this bilingual program are

to help students familiarize themselves with studying in an English speaking academic environment; come out of the course confident in a wide range of communicative skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing (See Appendix)

3.1.2 Curriculum, learning - time proportion and assessment

This school system has the bilingual program for the level of education: Primary, Secondary and High school In this research, the researchers just focus

on Secondary level There are 22 classes in Secondary level, each class has maximum of 25 students and classes are arranged according to students’ English level Every student who wants to learn in this school is required to do placement tests of both Vietnamese and English so that School Enrolment is capable of checking and classifying students’ level About the curriculum, students are able to learn both Ministry of Education and Training dictated subjects and English subjects For Ministry of Education and Training dictated subjects, students follow the basic national subjects such as Vietnamese Math, Literature, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Art, and Music and so on Besides, they have chance of learning one more subject which is distinct from other public schools, Life skills This subject provides students with knowledge of sexual education, financial management or cooking; therefore, students can apply those skills into their social life About international program, there are five subjects

learnt in this bilingual School: ESL (English as a Second language), Reading, Writing, ICT (Information Communications Technology), Science and Math Students have opportunities to learn the International curriculum which is appropriate to each level and the ESL curriculum is based on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) Thus, students will be able to attend international exams, be assessed and then get internationally recognized certificates Every week, students in this school have 45 periods, including 18 periods of International programs, 24 periods of Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) dictated subjects, two periods of club time and one period of homeroom Specifically, International programs comprise six periods of English

as a second language (ESL), four Reading periods, two Writing periods, two Science periods, two ICT periods and two Math ones (Table 1) It can be seen obviously that the proportion of teaching time in bilingual school is somehow equal to both Ministry of Education and Training dictated subjects and International program

Last but not least, formative and summative assessment throughout two semesters provides an accurate evaluation of students’ performance Students will participate in continuous assessment throughout the year which will form part of their final grade Teachers guide students to do skills on their own in interactive classes, with more focus on integrating skills like presentations, writing and projects The assessment scales are distinguished for each subject (See Appendix)

Areas

Number of weekly periods (hours)

Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9

Table 1: Weekly subjects’ distribution

3.1.3 Type of Bilingual education in the context

Baker, (2011) revealed that “Effective bilingual education is not a simple

or automatic consequence of using a child’s home language in school (as in heritage language education) or a second language (as in immersion education) Various home and parental, community, teacher, school, stakeholder and society effects may act and interact to make bilingual education more or less effective Any effectiveness equation is complex, variable across regions and politics, multivariate, and often contested” Hence, there can be numerous criteria to evaluate a type of bilingual school In this case, this type of bilingual school has some characteristics Initially, the aims of this bilingual school are clear and

focus on students’ needs Besides, school environment is eco- friendly and facility is modern equipped Moreover, all of the textbooks and supplementary books are international materials that are qualified by well-known publishers such as Cambridge Press or Oxford Press Teachers, on the other hand, are well- qualified staffs who have trained English teaching methodology or CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Last but not least, students need to improve and show their good performance in the formative and summative tests throughout the whole school year

For the learning distribution, the proportion time of English and Ministry

of Education and Training dictated subjects, 18 periods and 24 periods respectively The time here seems to be equal to both programs so the domain here is both English and Vietnamese For higher level classes, students tend to develop their English skills while students in lower level, to some extent, prefer

to speak Vietnamese Besides, students are required to ensure the quality of both International program and Ministry of Education and Training’s program

3.2 Research instrument and design of the study

I used Case study – a description of an actual administrative situation involving a decision to be made This study would adopt qualitative approach to gain information and data so as to achieve the study goals This qualitative research is based on an interpretive approach concerned with subjective meaning

in a particular context Furthermore, quantitative analysis will be also used in this study so as to strengthen the objectiveness of the study The study was conducted through the class observation, the tests (pre-test, while-test, post-test)

and semi-structured in-depth interview as instruments for gaining the required information For the testing, the while-test is a diagnostic test, which is used to form the level of the students after a long time of summer vacation The next two tests are taken based on the standard of PET (Preliminary English Test), which contributes to keep track these four participants’ English speaking competence

3.3 Data collection procedure

Maxwell (2013) claimed that the case study researcher’s aim was “not to generalize from the sample to a population” Instead, it was to give the explanation, description as well as to perform the interpretation Hence, the selection of research participants is a combination of purposeful sampling and stratified sampling The purposeful sampling here was carried out at a bilingual education program which was investigated as an English immersion bilingual program in Hanoi, Vietnam The participants were four eighth and ninth graders who have been learning at bilingual program, including two female students and two male counterparts Specifically, two participants (a male- a female) have been learning in bilingual environment for more than two school years; the other male and female counterparts, meanwhile, have been learning bilingual program for one year and a half and two years respectively Furthermore, grade 8 and 9 students were those who can choose to continue bilingual program or apply for IGCSE program in Vietnam

With the contribution of those four participants, researcher is capable of answering the research question: To what extent does bilingual education have impact on enhancing secondary students’ English speaking competence

Afterwards, the researcher can look for the improvements of students’ speaking competence after a period of time learning in bilingual educational environment This helps the researcher, as an English teacher, is likely to understand and get approach to new aspect of bilingual education and apply it into practice

Participants Gender English level

(Before the research)

The total years of learning in bilingual education

Student A Female Upper- Intermediate 6 years

Student B Male Upper- Intermediate 3 years

Table 2: Participants’ profile

The data was collected based on the tests, semi- structured interview and the observation reports The initial stage of the research was the pre-test conducted in September, 2017 The participants completed the placement test with the questions of all levels Consequently, the research can assess each student’s English level through the pre-test through the criteria (See Appendix) After that, throughout the research time, the researchers asked the participants to take two more different tests, one in the end of the first semester and another was in the end of the whole school year The researcher called them while-test and post-test respectively The two English tests are standardized examinations that have been administered by Cambridge English Language Assessment (previously known as University of Cambridge ESOL examination) It is called

Preliminary English Test (PET), which is basic level qualification testing students’ ability to use English to communicate in simple situations Overall, the tests were carried out on these four participants triply: at the beginning of the term (placement test), end of term I (PET) and end of the whole school year (PET) so that the researcher could keep track their English speaking progress The following stage was semi-structured in depth interview with the participants The researcher collected the data by interviewing participants in order to understand their view of bilingual school, the reason why they and their family chose this bilingual education as well as their reflection of speaking skill Since then, I could strengthen the test results and find out the impact of bilingual education on speaking competence of four participants All of the interviews were taken in English in order to guarantee that students can express their own opinion without ambiguity and to avoid the misunderstandings when the researchers transcribe the answers (See Appendix)

Last but not least, I observed those four bilingual participants at school in order to look into students’ English speaking competence as well as their confidence when speaking English in a bilingual environment The aim of the observation was to explore the verbal communication and non-verbal communication of those participants The verbal communication can be assessed

by the participants’ response or discussion in class while the non-verbal one can

be collected by the number of times that those participants raise their hands to answer the questions or by their posture and gesture The observations were conducted lastly since they were supplementary evidences which show students’ speaking performance and behavior

3.4 Data analysis

The data collection methods involved the three test results, individual interviews with each student and the observations of students’ interaction in their bilingual classrooms Qualitative data from the observation and interviews were analyzed by using an interpretive approach The researcher delivered the tests, observed and recorded participants’ English speaking performance in class, then the interview was also recorded to ensure the objectiveness After all

of the data was collected, the researcher could conclude the improvements of the participants’ speaking competence then find out the extent that bilingual education has the impact on students’ speaking competence In this way, the study can suggest some implications to the English teachers in this bilingual school together with other ESL teachers in their teaching

3.4.1 Testing

I carried out three different tests in three stages: Pre-test (in the beginning

of the school year), While-test (in the end of the first semester) and Post-test (in the end of the school year) The purpose of three tests was to assess participants’ English speaking competence with the criteria such as pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and interactive communication (fluency and listening) The pre-test was different from the other two tests as it was the diagnostic test, which was to check and group the appropriate levels for participants at first Then the other two speaking tests were conducted to see how better the participants speak English throughout the research time In addition, to ensure the reliability of the speaking test, the researcher asked a favor to a foreign teacher so the foreign teacher helped to deliver the questions These questions

were about their life, their hobby and their opinion towards an event or a situation

At the end of the first semester, I gave them the while-speaking test It was the standardized test named PET (Preliminary English Test) which was suitable for intermediate level of English speaking The speaking test lasted for around 10 to 12 minutes The two participants did in a pair There were three parts to the speaking test

Speaking part 1 short questions and

answers between candidates and the examiner

2-3 minutes

Speaking part 2 look at a visual and

discuss it with the other

candidate

6-7 minutes

Speaking part 3 you have a 'long turn' to

speak about a photograph for one minute

2- 3 minutes

Table 3: Cambridge PET exam procedure

With the while-test, the researcher could identify the differences among the participants as well as between this latest test to the former pre-test The while-test could analyze students’ strengths and weaknesses and form an impression of how ready students were to take the speaking test The Cambridge

English: Preliminary Assessment Scales were divided into six bands from 0 to 5,

with 0 being the lowest and 5 the highest Descriptors for each criterion are

provided for bands 1, 3 and 5 and indicate what a candidate is expected to demonstrate at each band Cambridge English: Preliminary is at Level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), and the descriptors for band 3 and above generally indicates performance of at least B1 level

After a school year at bilingual environment, the four participants took the test so that I could check the improvement of participant’ English competence The results showed that all of those four students got the higher results than their while-test A participant exceeded the scores and was much better than her previous test

3.4.2 Semi- structured interview and interview protocol

Besides testing, researcher conducted semi-structured interview with the four participants, which contributed to gaining more information about their personality trait as well as check their speaking competence through the standardized test The interviewer could establish rapport with participants to make them feel more comfortable and at-ease, which generated more insightful responses A list of questions (in both English and Vietnamese) was sent to students via emails so that they have time to familiarize with the questions and think carefully about the answers These four participants could write down their answer in Vietnamese so as to avoid ambiguous After that, the researcher made

an appointment with each individual to conduct English face-to-face interview

so that I could double check their answers in both two languages Before interviewing, I asked them the purpose of the study was not for checking or

judging their perspective or interfering their private life Instead, it was to investigate the impact of bilingual education on speaking skill Therefore, the four participants could feel free to share their thoughts Finally, the interview was transcribed then the data was analyzed and recapitulated Besides, the interview will be recorded later so that the study can avoid the subjectivity The interview contributed to analyze the impacts of bilingual education into students’ English speaking, the reasons why they chose bilingual education together with

their reflection of their English speaking progress

3.4.3 Observation

It is apparent that observation was a beneficial way to get the data for the research I could observe participants’ reaction, perception, verbal and non-verbal communication in close-up The observations were carried out with the participants were four students in two different classes According to researcher’ choice, there were two students in grade 8 and they were 13 years old while the others were two ninth grade counterparts who were at the age of 14 The justification was that I wanted to ensure the validity, the accessibility and the accuracy of students’ information as well as to deeply investigate how those four participants worked in class through their facial expression and body language, which could somehow express their attitude towards English speaking in class After completing testing and interview, I carried out observations to these four students in their English class The purpose of observation is to investigate how students behave in class, whether they like speaking English and how confident they are when participating in class’s activities The two classes I chose was Writing and ESL class with two foreign teachers Before observing, I contacted

to teachers and told them about my purpose of observation that day It was not for teacher’s progress but for the participants in my study They allowed me to film one class period to seek for students’ behavior On the other hand, I talked

to four students about my observation, which helped them to avoid the feeling of suddenly being observed Observation could show the real situations, which helped researcher get through the context and interpretation of the participants according to what they said and did Observation is also one of the most common and the simplest methods of data collection because of its accessibility

By observing a scenario for a long time, the researcher could get well acquainted with the observed, which helped form a hypothesis on them Through the advantages of observation in collecting data, researcher decided to observe two classes of these four participants to seek for their English learning and participation in class Researcher carried out the observations in Writing and ESL classes The two criteria that the researcher used were students’ participation in class and their speaking performance throughout the whole lessons For the participation, I would observe whether students participate in the class activities or their behavior to the lessons Since then, researcher was likely to assert the participants were confident enough in the bilingual classes Similarly, researcher observed students’ speaking skill or the number of times that they gave their opinion about the exercise or their response to teachers’ request Therefore, I could define participants’ English speaking ability

CHAPTER 4 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the result of the data collection and analyzes them

in reference with background knowledge attained in the Chapter 2- Literature Review For the study was carried out in accordance with methods, the research question would be analyzed and explained through three data collection instruments: testing, semi- structured interview and observations

This part is aimed at answering the question:

To what extent does bilingual education have impact on enhancing Secondary students’ English speaking competence?

4.1 Findings

4.1.1 Testing

With the purpose of checking students’ English speaking competence levels, the pre-test reflected their first speaking test after the vacation The researcher did not standardize this test because students had been through a vacation and there had numerous external factors affecting to their result, for example, they might not use English for the time-off from school

Participants Gender

The total years of learning in bilingual education

English level (After the Pre-test)

Student A Female 6 years Upper- Intermediate

Student C Male 2 year Intermediate

Table 4: Participants’ English speaking level

According to the pre-test, the chart revealed that all of those four participants had the average or high proportion of speaking competence Specifically, participant C and participant D, who have been learning English for two years or less showed the average result, about 14 to 15 of all five categories Meanwhile, the other two counterparts got higher result, approximately 16 to 16.5 of those criteria In this pre-test, the data was used to make comparison with the other two standardized tests so that I could find the progress of students and see whether they spoke better or worse or their speaking competence remained unchanged through the whole research time

Figure 1: Pre- test speaking results

After the first semester, I carried out the while- test, which is a standardized Preliminary English test The result of the while- test revealed an improvement of students’ English speaking skill Comparing with the pre-test, all of students got the higher result according to the vocabulary and grammar, discourse management, pronunciation and interactive communication Their test scores were about 3.5 to 5 per each criterion, which was quite high and the deviation was quite low among the categories Especially, participant B made a huge progress in speaking English He got maximum scores for Interactive Communication and 4.5 for pronunciation, which showed his confidence in English communicating Similarly, participant A could use various range of vocabulary and grammar in her performance together with the highest score of pronunciation; therefore, it was quite clear that she improved her speaking skill throughout a semester Moreover, participant C and D performed really well for their intermediate level They got high scores for Interactive Communication and pronunciation, which strengthen their positive attitude towards speaking English

Figure 2: While- test speaking results

Last but not least, after a school year of learning at school, these four participants seemed to be well-prepared and confident in their post speaking test, which was shown by their stunning results Particularly, participant A exceeded the scores with 20 in total Compared with the pre-test and while- test, she developed herself very well She could extend her sentences as well as give her critical thinking in the test Likewise, the other three participants performed extremely well They enhanced their speaking competence and used flexible conjunctions and linking words Besides, they spoke fluently and confidently

Figure 3: Post-test speaking results

In general, the three tests revealed the advancement of four participants Their results were much better than their previous ones, which was shown in the four charts below

Participant A Participant B Participant C Participant D

Post - test result

Vocabulary and Grammar Discourse Management Pronunciation Interactive Communication

Figure 4: Participants’ speaking progress

4.1.2 Semi-structured interview

After conducting semi-structured interview with four participants, I could find out some information relate to the impact of bilingual education on their speaking competence Eight questions were answered and transcribed in both English and Vietnamese For the first question about their general information, 100% of participants’ nationality is Vietnamese; they spoke Vietnamese at home and interchanged English and Vietnamese at school However, they mainly used English at school

Question 2 is about the length of learning in this bilingual education This question aimed at checking the information of four participants’ study time at this school, which ensures the subjectivity of the research The findings are identical to what I had investigated before

Participants Gender The total years of learning in

bilingual education

Table 5: Participants’ length of learning in Bilingual school

Question 3 aimed at checking the background that may influence participants’ English speaking The interviewer asked if the participants had ever lived/ studied abroad The responses of those four students were the same They had never lived or studied abroad It is crucial since I can eliminate the external factors that effect to the validity of the research

In question 4, the reason why the four participants chose to take part in bilingual education was interviewed Their answers were vivid and straightforward According to the figure below, most of them thought that bilingual school is a suitable and comfortable environment for them to prepare for their studying in the future (75% of students wanted to study abroad in the next two years and 25% of student tended to take IGCSE course after this summer) Another justification lies on the modern equipped facility and infrastructure of this bilingual education In addition, the curriculum and English subjects’ distribution is also the reason why they participated in bilingual education

Figure 5: Distribution of the interview reporting the reasons to choose Bilingual

education

When were asked about the expectation while learning in bilingual education, a variety of responses have been revealed Initially, 50 % of participants expected to get scholarships while learning at school and 75% of them desired to be familiar with foreign study environment which is suitable for their fortes Besides, 50% of those students hoped his study to be interactive and involving because he had not had the chance to speak up when he had been in a public school and it hindered his soft skills Last but not least, 100% of participants expected to improve their English speaking skill throughout the time

of learning in bilingual education

English-Vietnamese environment

Facility and infrastructure

Curriculum English subjects' distribution

Reasons to choose Bilingual Education