Factors affecting students interest in learning speaking skills at finance and accounting department, hoa binh university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ---PHẠM THỊ VÂN FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN LEARNING S

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-PHẠM THỊ VÂN

FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS AT FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT, HOA BINH UNIVERSITY

(Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến sự hứng thú trong việc học kỹ năng nói của

sinh viên khoa Tài Chính Kế Toán trường Đại học Hòa Bình)

M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching MethodologyCode: 60140111

HANOI - 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-PHẠM THỊ VÂN

FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS AT FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT, HOA BINH UNIVERSITY

(Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến sự hứng thú trong việc học kỹ năng nói của

sinh viên khoa Tài Chính Kế Toán trường Đại học Hòa Bình)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching MethodologyCode: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Phạm Đăng Bình

HANOI - 2015

I, Pham Thi Van, hereby state that, this minor thesis entitled: “Factorsaffecting students' interest in learning speaking skills at Finance andAccounting Department, Hoa Binh University” is the result of my ownresearch and all the material in this study which is not my own work has beenidentified and acknowledged I also state that the substance of the thesis hasnot, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degree to any other universitiesinstitutions

Hanoi, April, 2015

Phạm Thị Vân

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSDuring the process of writing this thesis, I have been fortunate to receivesupports and assistance from many people.

First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Dr PhạmĐăng Bình, who has been ready and willing to help me make my studypossible He has put enormous effort into editing and in providing valuablecomments I would not have completed the thesis without his help andsympathy

I would also like to convey my deepest thanks to all my teachers of thepost graduate Department of University of languages and International studies

- Vietnam National University and Hoa Binh University whose fundamentalknowledge about language and language teaching and learning is of greatimportance to the achievement of my academic study

I am most thankful to the students of Finance and AccountingDepartment, Hoa Binh University who help me to gather information for mysurvey questionnaire

I would also like to take this opportunity to show my deep thanks to allthe teachers at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University fortheir constructive suggestion for this research, and for their willingness to giveinformation for my survey questionnaire

Last but not least, I owe my deep thanks to my family and friends whohave helped and encouraged me while I was conducting the research

The study focuses on the factors affecting students' interest in learningspeaking skills at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University.Once the problems have been identified, suggestions to improve the situation

of teaching and learning English for teachers and students at Finance andAccounting Department, Hoa Binh University would be made

In this paper, the researcher uses “survey questionnaire” for 150 students

at Finance and Accounting Department and seven teachers teaching thestudents

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

HBU: Hoa Binh University

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

1 Tables

Table 1: Students’ reasons for learning speaking skill

Table 2: Students’ interest in speaking activities

Table 3: Students’ factors make them not interested in speaking English Table 4a, 4b: Students’ opinions about your teacher’s method and

characteristics

Table 5: Students’ opinion about classroom’s size, facilities, and materialsfor speaking

Table 6: Teachers’ attitude towards speaking skill

Table 7a: Teachers’ method

Table 7 b: Teachers’ activities

Table 8: Teachers’ opinion of students’ factors making them less

interested in speaking English?

Table 9: Teachers’ suggestions to enhance students’ interest in speaking activities

2 Charts

Chart 1: Students’ years of learning English

Chart 2: Students’ opinions about the importance of English speaking skillChart 3: Students’ assessment about their own abilities in speaking skillChart 4: Teachers’ assessment about students’ speaking ability

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of abbreviations iv

List of tables and charts v

Table of contents vi

Part A: Introduction 1

1.Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3.Significance of the study 1

4.Scope of the study 2

5 Research method of the study 2

6.Organization of the study 2

Part B: Development 4

Chapter 1: Literature review 4

1.1.Interest 4

1.2.Theory of speaking 4

1.1.1.Concept of speaking 4

1.1.2.The role of speaking in teaching and learning 6

1.1.3.Teaching speaking skills in CLT approach 6

1.3 Factors affecting students’ interest in speaking 8

1.3.1 Students’ factors 8

1.3.1.1 Students’ language proficiency leve 8

1.3.1.2 Students’ personality factors 8

1.3.2.Teachers’ factors 9

1.3.2.1 Teachers’ teaching methods 9

1.3.2.2 Teachers’ knowledge and characteristics 10

1.3.3 Objective factors 10

1.3.3.1 Classroom size 10

1.3.3.2 Facilities in classroom 11

1.3.3.3 Reading materials and their roles 11

Chapter 2: Methodology 2 1 Background of the study 13

2.1.1 Short description of Hoa Binh University ( HBU) 13

2.1.2 The teachers 13

2.1.3 The students at the Finance and Accounting Department 13

2.1.4 The materials and syllabus 14

2.2 Research questions 16

2.3 Participants 16

2.4 Data collection instruments 16

2.5 Conclusion 17

Chapter 3: Results and discussions 18

3.1 Data analysis 18

3.1.1 Results from survey questionnaires for students 18

3.1.1.1 Students’ years of learning English 18

3.1.1.2 Students’ opinions about the importance of English speaking skill 19 3.1.1.3 Students’ reasons for learning speaking skill 19

3.1.1.4 Students’ assessment about their own abilities in speaking skill 20

3.1.1.5 Students’ interest in speaking activities 21

3.1.1.6 Students’ factors make them less interested in speaking English 21

3.1.1.7 Students’ opinions about your teacher’s method and characteristics.22 3.1.1.8 Students’ opinion about classroom’s size, facilities, and materials for speaking 23

3.1.2 Results from survey questionnaires for teachers 24

3.1.2.1 Teachers’ attitude towards speaking kill 24

3.1.2.2 Teachers’ assessment about students’ speaking ability 25

3.1.2.3 Teachers’ method and activities 25

3.1.2.4 Teachers’ opinion of students’ factors making them less interested in

speaking English 27

3.1.2.5 Teachers’ suggestions to enhance students’ interest in speaking activities 28

3.2 Findings and discussion 28

3.2.1 Students’ little interest in speaking English 29

3.2.2 Students’ factors 29

3.2.3 Teachers’ factors 29

3.2.4 Classroom factors 30

3.2.5 Material factors 30

3.2.6 Conclusion 31

Chapter 4: Implications and recommendations 32

4.1 The students 32

4.2 The teachers 32

4.3 The classroom 33

Part C: Conclusion 34

1 Summary of the study 34

2 Limitation and suggestions for further study 35

2.1 Limitation 35

2.2 Suggestions for further study 35

References 37 Appendices I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study:

As an English teacher at Hoa Binh University (HBU), I realize that most of thestudents do not often enjoy speaking period and they do not actively contributethe speaking lessons They always keep quiet, feel bored, passively take note,some listen to better students speaking but do nothing Other students can dothe grammar exercises and know new words and structures well but they stillcannot apply them in learning speaking skill Moreover, there are quite a lot ofresearches on learning English speaking skill but there are no researches aboutfactors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills at Hoa BinhUniversity For the reasons, I would like to carry out a research with the title :

“Factors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills at Finance andAccounting Department, Hoa Binh University” to find out the common reasonswhy students are not interested in speaking to handle the problems if possibleand to help me and my colleagues enhance our teaching methods

2 Aims of the study:

The study is conducted to (1) investigate how students at Finance andAccounting Department, Hoa Binh University are interested in learningspeaking skill, (2) identify the factors affecting students' interest in learningspeaking skills

3 Significance of the study:

It is hoped that the result of the study will somehow be used as reference tohelp students to feel interested in learning speaking skill in the next semesters.Furthermore, the result of this study is also strongly believed to help me and

my colleagues at Hoa Binh University to better our own teaching methods, aswell as those who are in charge of teaching English speaking skill to non-

English major students at other universities and colleges in Viet Nam with thesame situation as at HBU

4 Scope of the study

The study will cover the possible factors affecting students' interest in learningspeaking skills including students’ language proficiency level, attitude andmotivation and personality, teachers’ teaching methods, classroom size,facilities in classroom and materials The subjects of the study are onlystudents at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University andteachers teaching the students

5 Research method of the study

The study will be conducted by using quantitative and qualitative methods Tocollect information, I will use survey questionnaires for both teachers andstudents All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion provided

in the study will be based on the data analysis

6 Organization of the study

Part A, Introduction, presents the rationale, aims of the study, significance ofthe study, scope of the study, research methods and organization of the study

Part B, Development, consists of three following chapters

1 Chapter 1: Literature Review presents the concepts relevant to the study

2 Chapter 2: The Study includes the background of the study,research questions, the participants, data collection instruments, and datacollection procedures

3 Chapter 3 The results and discussions presents data analysis of the study, findings and discussions

4 Chapter 4: Implications and recommendations gives some suggestions to increase students’ interest in speaking lessons.

Part C Conclusion summarizes all the main issues of the study and the limitations as well as the suggestions for the further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEWChapter 1 includes three parts The first part states the concept of interest Thesecond presents the theory of speaking consisting of concept of speaking, therole of speaking in foreign language teaching and teaching speaking skills inCLT approach The third part mentions the factors affecting students’ interest

in speaking

1.1 Interest

Ellis ( 1994) states that interest is one of the main elements of motivation and apositive response to stimulate based on existing cognitive structure in such away that learner’s curiosity is aroused and sustained In other words, interestshows learners’ desire to learn the target language It can be seen that studentswho are given opportunities for communication will be interested in the lesson

Ellis (1985) also points out that “interest is engendered if learners become centered” This means they are able to determine their learning objectives,choose their own way of achieving these, and evaluate their own progress

self-I share the same ideal with Ellis that to have interest in learning a language isvery important

1.2 Theory of speaking

1.1.1 Concept of speaking

Although there are a variety of concepts of speaking by different linguists,most of them share the same idea that speaking is very important tocommunication and it is the productive skill

Bygate ( 1987) states that speaking is a skill which is very important andrequires as much attention as other skills, in both first and second languages

In order to carry out most of their basic interactions and transactions, he needs

to be able to speak and express their ideas to other people He also said that

“interaction is the use of language for maintaining communication betweenparticipants” and “interaction skills are skills of deciding what to say, when tosay it and how to say it clearly ( Bygate, 1987, p.115) Besides, he says thatspeaking is the choice of the right sounds in the patterns of rhythm andintonation and the choice of words and inflections in the right order to conveythe right meaning Therefore, in learning speaking skill, learners should knownot only how to produce specific points of languages such as grammar,pronunciation, or vocabulary, but also the situations language is produced

As stated by Burn and Joyce (1997), speaking is an interactive process ofconstructing meaning concerning three periods: producing, receiving andprocessing information ( Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997)

Chaney and Burk ( 1998) states that speaking is the process of building andsharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verb symbols, in manydifferent contexts

In the study of Brown and Yule (1983), spoken language consists of short,fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation Besides, speaking is shown

to have two main types of conversation namely dialogue and monologue Inmonologue, you give uninterrupted oral presentation while in dialogue youinteract with one or more other speakers for transactional and internationalpurposes

According to Florez (1999), speaking is an interactive process of constructingmeaning that involves producing`, receiving and processing information It isoften spontaneous, open-ended and evolving

To summarize, there are many different points of view of speaking Each ofthem has their own strong points However, in this study the author follows

Bygate’s concept of speaking, which said that speaking not only involvesgrammatical competence but also sociolinguistic competence.

1.1.2The role of speaking in teaching and learning

According to Ur (1996), speaking is the most important of all four skills:speaking, writing, listening and reading Besides, it is also considered as thefirst step to confirm who knows or does not know a language Hymes &Rogers (1986) said that, “ the goal of language teaching is to developcommunicative competence” This means the main purpose of learning alanguage is to speak the language well Pattison (1992) shared the sameopinion that when people mention knowing or learning a language, theyactually mean that they are able to speak the language Especially, Bygate(1987) mentions that “ speaking is a skill which deserves attention every bit asmuch as literacy skills, in both first and second languages”

As the researchers, I totally agree with Ur that speaking is the most important

of four skills For that reason, speaking skill plays an important role in foreignlanguage teaching because effective speaking ability helps learners not only toacquire the language better but also to communicate successfully In thelanguage classroom, speaking skill should be paid great attention to andfrequently judged Moreover, our learners should try their best to be able tospeak with confidence in order to carry out many of their most basictransactions

1.1.3.Teaching speaking skills in CLT approach

Many years ago, traditional approaches in teaching English speaking such asGrammar-Translation Method, Direct Method, Audio-Lingual were mostlyused but in recent years, CLT (Communicative Language Teaching Approach)interests many English teachers The approach appearing between the 1960sand 1970s marks the beginning of major innovation within

language teaching and it has been widely accepted nowadays because of itssuperior principles Mitchell (1994) said that CLT covers the four skills of thelanguage including listening, reading, speaking and writing, which can lack inother methods.

Furthermore, According to Savignon (2000:126-128), CLT helps Englishlearners to develop their communicative competence He also said that CLT isfocused on promoting the development of functional language ability throughlearner participation in communicative events

CLT focuses on learners, so the role of teachers and learners in CLT isn’tsimilar to that in traditional teaching methods While in traditional methodsteachers talk much more than students and control them, in CLT methodsteachers is as a supporter for students Nunan (1992) believes that teachersshould give students opportunities to talk by using group work and pair work.Besides, Larsen- Freeman (1986) thinks that teachers in communicativeclassroom talk less and listen more

They should only set up the tasks, give instruction and check the answers orgive a feedback while students do most the speaking Thanks to that, studentswill gain more confidence in speaking and sharing their ideas

Richards (1994) also affirm that CLT is associated with its learner-center andexperienced-based tasks view of second language teaching In CLT context,learners are seen as active participants in the construction of knowledge, ratherthan passive recipients of information provided by the teacher of the textbook

In contrast, language teachers are no longer viewed as the authority of theknowledge, playing a dominant role Rather, they share different roles such ascommunication facilitator, counselor, and group process manager to createmore fascinating experiences for the learners

To summarize, CLT is the most appropriate way to teach speaking skills.

Therefore, the researcher considers it as one of the bases of the study

1.3 Factors affecting students’ interest in speaking

According to Larsen (1986), factors affecting teaching speaking skills maystem from students, teachers and objective factors such as classroom size,classroom’s facilities and materials

1.3.1 Students’ factors

1.3.1.1 Students’ language proficiency level

It is undeniable that student’s language proficiency is one important factoraffecting students’ participation in speaking According to Rod (1985), it isundeniable that student’s language proficiency is one important factor affectingstudents’ participation in speaking According to Rod (1985), proficiencyconsists of the learners’ knowledge of target language; it can be synonymouswith “competence” Proficiency can be viewed as linguistic competence orcommunicative competence Second language proficiency is usually measured

in relation to native speaker proficiency

1.3.1.2 Students’ personality factors

It is obvious that personality has a great influence on students’ participation inspeaking lesson Participation usually means students speaking in class:answer and ask questions, make comments, and join in discussions, etc.Students who do not participate in those ways mentioned above are oftenconsidered to be passive and are generally penalized when participation isgraded Brown (2000) argues that personality is one of the affective factors thatare equally important for explaining differential success among secondlanguage learners Personality may be divided into extroversion andintroversion

To sum up, in a class, students with different personality characteristics mayresult in different level of participation in lessons and different of level ofsuccess as well.

1.3.2 Teachers’ factors

1.3.2.1 Teachers’ teaching methods

Teacher’s teaching methods are very important because it can demotivate ormotivate students to get involved in speaking activities

Activities

According to Le (2000) Vietnamese students’ passiveness in learning is theproduct of traditional teaching Therefore, teachers should use a variety ofteaching and learning methods in a single period so as to provide a greatvariability of activities in the teaching and learning process to increasestudents’ involvement Moreover, Harmer

( 1991:12) says that in the class, teachers use a variety of activities, studentswill be more interested in lesson than the class in which teachers use the sameactivities An activity can not appropriate all students, so teachers should usedifferent activities and methods interchangeably

Teachers’ roles:

Unlike the roles of teachers in Grammar- Translation Method, Audio-LingualApproach or other traditional methods, the roles of teachers in CLT have beenchanged significantly

In CLT method, teachers should limit their speaking time so that students havechance to speak in the class According to Chaudron (1988), teachers tend tomake up over 70 % of the total talk in the classroom When they talk too much,students will have less opportunity to further practice the language andtherefore, they cannot enhance their speaking skills

In CLT method, students are the centre in speaking activities and teachers play

a role as a controller, an organizer, and an assessor Byrner (1986) points outthe roles of teachers according to three stages of teaching speaking: thepresentation stage, the practice stage and the production stage At the firststage, teachers play a role as an informant to prepare materials and present thelanguage to the students At the second stage, teachers act as a conductor togive all students as much time as possible to practice the presented language

At the final stage, teachers play a role as a manager and a guide Teachersshould encourage students try their best to speaking in spite of makingmistakes After that, teachers should correct student’s mistakes or makecomments on their speaking

1.3.2.2 Teachers’ knowledge and characteristics

Teachers’ knowledge and characteristics are the important factors affectingstudents’ participation and interest in lesson According to Barry (1993),teachers should be natural, warm, pleasant and approachable in order to createclose relationship with students, which encourage them to participate inspeaking activities

Especially, when teachers correct students’ mistakes, they should make nice,gentle and tactful correction Ur (2000) mentions that students may lose theirconfidence and feel disappointed if teachers correct their errors in aninsensitive way In short, teachers should be sensitive and tactful in correction

in order not to make students be shy and embarrassed

1.3.3 Objective factors

1.3.3.1 Classroom size

In Hayes’ definition (1997), any classes with over 40 students can beconsidered a large class Teaching large classes is difficult for both teachersand students in many reasons First, teaching large classes requires more work

for the teacher as there are more learners to assist Then, it is not easy forteachers to motivate all students, make all of them concentrated, to have theminvolved, and to get them promptly responded.

Barry (1993) shares the same idea that in large class, students have differentlearning styles, preferences and levels of English proficiency Therefore,teachers cannot pay equal attention to all students in a large class and it is alsovery difficult for teachers to organized suitable activities for all students in theclass

Mathews (2006) said that multilevel classes can cause a lot of difficulties toteachers in organizing the activities in speaking classes Dalle (2003) also hadthe same idea about this issue

In short, to create good language learning environment, students should bestudied in small size classes with the equivalent students’ English level

1.3.3.2 Facilities in classroom

According to Unnderwood (1987), facilities in classroom include desks, chairs,radios, lights, air-conditioners, projectors, and things in classroom to supportfor studying Facilities in classroom have great effect on students’ learning aswell as their attitude towards the subject matter

1.3.3.3 Reading materials and their roles

Materials play an important role in exposing learners to the language,especially in teaching and learning speaking skill Therefore, selectingspeaking materials is very important Selecting materials involves makingchoices and decisions To make good choices, we need to have good criteria onwhich to base the decisions These criteria such as factors about the learners,the role of materials, the topics, the language, the presentation have been putforwards for the analysis of materials and each of them has validity A goodESP material must contain interesting texts and enjoyable activities

which make students think, give them opportunities to use their existingknowledge, skills and content that they and their teachers can cope with; trulyreflect what you think and feel about learning process; provide clear andcoherent unit structure to guide the students through various activities tomaximize the chances of learning; create a balance outlook which both reflectthe complexity of the task, yet make it appear manageable; introduce teachers

to new techniques and provide models of correct and appropriate language use

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGYThis chapter provides the methods for carrying out the study includingbackground of the study, research questions, the participants, the instrumentsfor collecting data and the procedures of data collection.

2.1 Background of the study

2.1.1 Short description of Hoa Binh University ( HBU)

Hoa Binh University , located in My Dinh II, Tu Liem, Ha Noi, wasestablished in 2008 It is known as one of the good private universities withmore than 70 % of the teachers being masters, doctors, associate professorsand professors It has the big decrease in number of students from 236 students

in 2008 to more than 4000 students in 2014 The university has twelvebranches of learning in university education and six in college education.Finance and Accounting Department is one of the best and biggest departments

of HBU with the number of students accounting 35% of the students at theuniversity

2.1.2 The teachers

There are seven teachers teaching in Finance and Accounting Department All

of them are temporary female teachers They are all young with the age from

25 to 37 and have at least 3 years of English teaching experience Five of themhave acquired an M.A degree and two of them are following an M.A course atHanoi University of Foreign Languages and International Studies and HanoiUniversity

2.1.3 The students at Finance and Accounting Department

The number of students at Finance and Accounting Department is more than

1400 They are from different places in Vietnam Most of them have studiedEnglish before but they are not good at English and they are not interested in

English, especially speaking At the university, they only study grammar and vocabulary to pass written exams but do not pay much attention in speaking 2.1.4 The materials and syllabus

Market Leader Elementary is used for the second year-students at Finance andAccounting Department Each week, students have 6 English periods Thetwelve units in the book cover the whole academic year comprising of two -18week semesters, so in each semester, the students study 6 units In class,teachers and students not only deal with students’ books but also othercomponents of the set like Practice File ( listening and pronunciation practice)and Text Bank ( reading materials) In each unit of the material, the languagecontents include starting up, vocabulary, listening, language focus, reading,skills, and case study The topics of the units are business-related topicsranging from basic topics like introduction, work and leisure, travel to morebusiness-focused topics like sales, markets, companies, the Web

Market Leader has been developed in association with the Financial Times,one of the leading sources of business information in the world and it is made

by David Falvey, Simon Kent and David Cotton who have many years’teaching experience in business

Book objectives: Market leader elementary is an elementary level businessEnglish course for businesspeople and students of Business English This book

is designed to greatly improve the ability to communicate in English in a widerange of business situation It is good for students of business to develop thecommunication skills They need to succeed in business and enlarge theirknowledge of the business world Besides, it helps students become morefluent and confident in using the language of business; therefore, studentsincrease their career prospects

Starting up: students are offered activities in which they discuss the topic ofthe unit and exchange ideas about it

Vocabulary: Students learn important new words and phrases that they can usewhen they carry out the tasks in the unit A good dictionary, such as theLongman Basic English Dictionary, will also help students to increase theirvocabulary

Discussion: Students can build up their confidence in using English andimprove their fluency through discussion activities

Reading: Students read adapted articles on topics from the Financial Times andother newspaper They can develop their reading skills and learn essentialbusiness vocabulary They can also be able to discuss the ideas and issues inthe articles

Listening: Students listen to the interviews with businesspeople They will develop listening skills such as listening for information and note taking

Language review: this section focuses on common problem areas at elementarylevel Students will be more accurate in their use of language Each unit

contains two Language review boxes which provide a review of key grammar items

Skills: Students develop essential business communication skills such asmaking presentations, taking part in meetings, negotiating, telephoning andusing English in social situations Each skills section contains a “usefullanguage box” which provides students with the language they need to carryout the realistic business tasks in the book

Case study: the case Study is linked to the business topics of each unit Theyare based on realistic business problems or situations and allow students to usethe language and communication skills they have developed while workingthrough the unit

Therefore, students have opportunities to practice speaking skills in realistic business situations Each Case Study ends with a writing task Models of

writing text types are given in the Writing File at the end of the Course book Afull writing syllabus is provided in the Market Leader Practice File Revision unit: four revision units are based on material covered in the preceding three course book units

2.2 Research questions

As it has been stated, this study was carried out to find out Factors affectingstudents' interest in learning speaking skills at Finance and AccountingDepartment, Hoa Binh University Thus, the study was designed in an attempt

to seek answers to the following questions:

1 To what extent are students interested in learning speaking skills

2 What are the factors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills

2.3 Participants

The participants of the study were 150 students at Finance and AccountingDepartment and seven teachers teaching the students The students are chosenrandomly from students at Finance and Accounting Department The studentsinclude 73 girls and 77 boys The teachers have more than 2 years of teachingexperience The study was implemented in the second term of the school year

2.4 Data collection instruments

In the study, the researcher uses questionnaires for both students and lecturersThe researcher chooses questionnaires because they can provide accurateinformation in short time Besides, this method allows the researcher to collectthe data needed in ‘quantitative form’ Also, a strong point of this method isthat it is quite easy to summarize, analyze and report the collected data as allinformants submit the answer to the same question

The questionnaires for teachers and students consist of open-ended and end questions Thus, the informants can express their opinions on teaching andlearning the speaking skill in a free way as their personal information is notincluded in the questionnaires.

closed-The questionnaire for students includes 8 questions to find out their feelingtoward English speaking lessons, their problems in speaking, how interestedthey in speaking lessons, the teaching methods their teachers use in speakingperiods and their expectation to speaking lessons

The questionnaire for teachers comprises 7 questions, which is to find out theirteaching methods used in speaking, their opinions about factors affectingstudents’ interest in learning speaking skills, especially their suggestions toenhance students’ interest in speaking English

2.5 Conclusion

This chapter has presented the methodology of the study including thebackground of the study, the research questions, participants, instrumentsand data procedure

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DICUSSIONThis chapter offers a descriptive data analysis of the collected data and

discusses its findings

3.1Data analysis

3.1.1 Results from survey questionnaires for students

3.1.1.1 Students’ years of learning English

Student’s years of learning Result (%)

English

A Less than 1 year

B 1-3 years

C More than 3-6 years

D More than 6 years

Table 1: Students’ years of learning English

According to table 1, most of the students at Finance and AccountingDepartment, Hoa Binh University have learnt English for a long time 75,3 %

of the students have studied English for more than 6 years since they were atsecondary school Besides, 23,4 % students said that they have studied Englishfrom 3 to 6 years However, few students studied English from 1 to 3 years and

no one has studied English less than 1 year

3.1.1.2 Students’ opinions about the importance of English speaking skillStudents’ opinions about the importance of English

Table 2: Students’ opinions about the importance of English speaking skill

From table 2, we can see that most of the students ( 73,4 %) consider that English speaking skill is important while 20,6 % think it is very important skill Only few students think that it is little important or not important with 4,7 % and 1,3 %, respectively From this result, we can see that students at Finance and Accounting Department are fully aware of the important role of speaking skill

3.1.1.3 Students’ reasons for learning speaking skill

Students’ reasons for learning speaking skill

( you can choose more than one option)

A Because it is a skill of a compulsory subject

B Because it is interesting

C Because it is useful for the future job

D Because it is helpful for you to

communicate with foreigners

E Others ( please specify):

Table 3 Students’ reasons for learning speaking skill