A study on how to improve english speaking skills for first year students in faculty of english at thuongmai university

Derived from the urgency of the problem, the researcher has chosen the topic “A study on how to improve English speaking skills for first-year students in English Faculty at Thuongmai Un

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FACULTY

Supervisor: Pham Thi Xuan Ha (M.A)

Student: Man Thi Phuong Nam

Class: K52N3

Student Code: 16D170171

Hanoi, 2019

Speaking skills are considered to be one of the most important skills bylanguage learners Learners often measure their success in language learning by theextent to which they can use their spoken English However, speaking skills areregarded as one of the most difficult aspects of language learning Many studentsstruggle to talk and express themselves in English They are generally facingproblems in using the foreign language to express their thoughts effectively, evenstudents at that faculty Derived from the urgency of the problem, the researcher has

chosen the topic “A study on how to improve English speaking skills for first-year students in English Faculty at Thuongmai University ” Therefore, the study’s

purposes are to explore the reality of speaking English of first year students atEnglish Faculty, Thuongmai University, to identify the obstacles in speakingEnglish, to learn more about factors that affect the students’ speaking skills andthrough findings collected to recommend some feasible solutions to improveEnglish speaking skills for students

The study was carried out in Thuongmai University in the first semester ofthe school year 2019-2020 The participants consisted of 50 students studying atEnglish Faculty

The result of the study showed causes of students’ difficulties in speakingEnglish related to vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, learning environment,teaching methods and laziness Based on those, the researcher proposed somefeasible solutions for students to enhance their English speaking skills

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In the process of completing this research paper, I have received great deal

of help and encouragenent from many teachers, friends and my family

First of all, i would like to express the deepest gratetitude to the lecturers ofThuongmai University, especially the teachers of the faculty of Business Englishsince i came to the university I am grateful for your supporting and creating thebest conditions to study in an effective environment

Especially, i would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Ms PhamXuan Ha for her wholehearted guidance, invaluable advice, constructive criticismand encouragement in the completion of my graduation paper

My sincere thanks also go to 50 first-year students in Faculty of English atThuongmai University, who helped me complete the survey questionnaire with theresearch data

Last but not least, I am profoundly grateful to my family and friends, whogave me their supports and constant encouragements to complete this paper

To everyone, thank you so much!

Hanoi, 01 December 2019

Man Thi Phuong Nam

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACTS i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

CHAPTER1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1.Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.3 Aims of the study 4

1.4 Research subjects 4

1.5 Scope of the study 5

1.6 Research methodology 5

1.6.1.Participants and Sample of the Study 6

1.6.2.Research Instrument 6

1.6.3.Data Collection and Data analysis 6

1.7 Organization of the study 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Definition of speaking 8

2.2 The importance of speaking 9

2.3 Characteristics of speaking skills 10

2.4 Speaking problems 11

2.5 Factors affecting speaking skills 13

2.5.1.Language problems 13

2.5.2 Psychological problems 14

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 16

3.1 General introduction 16

3.2 Data analysis 16

3.2.1 Students’ background information 16

3.2.2 The attitude of students toward learning English speaking at the university 19

3.2.3 Students’frequency of speaking English at home 20

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3.2.4 Frequency of making mistakes when speaking English 21

3.2.5.Students’ difficulties in speaking English skills 22

3.2.6 Causes of students’ problems in speaking English 23

3.2.7 Students’ methods of studying English speaking skills 24

3.2.8 Reactions of tutors when students makes mistakes 24

3.2.9 Students’expectations 26

3.3 Discussion 28

3.3.1 Current situation of first-year English major students’ English speaking skills in Faculty of English at Thuongmai University 28

3.3.2.Difficulties and problems in speaking of the first-year students in English faculty 29

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 31

4.1 Recommendations and suggestions 31

CONCLUSION 37

5.2 Limitations 38

5.3 Suggestions for further studies 38

REFERENCES vii

APPENDIX ix

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

v

3 Figure 3.3: The levels of difficulty of speaking English 18

4 Figure 3.4: Students' levels of English speaking skills 19

5 Figure 3.5: Frequency of practising English speaking skills

8 Figure 3.8: The barriers in English speaking skills 22

9 Figure 3.9: Causes of students’ problems in speaking

English

23

10 Figure 4.0: methods of studying English speaking skills 24

11 Figure 4.1: Reactions of tutors when students makes

13 Figure 4.3: Suggested solutions to improve English

speaking skills for student

27

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CHAPTER1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1.Rationale of the study.

English is a global language which most people use to interact with otherfrom all over the world With the view to globalization, English has become anoptional subject and been taught in some levels of education in many countriesincluded Vietnam such as elementary school, secondary school, and high school.This will create the favorite conditions to make young generations exchange thevalues and access to the modern things in overseas As a global language, English isused a lots we find in many fields of daily life, such as many kinds of moderntechnology, computers, social media, electronic machines, banking, even used inmany labels of products such as medicine, cosmetics, foods and beverage Otherimpact of English as a global language is that several companies in Vietnam recruitand require their employees who can communicate in English A competence ofEnglish will access to the information easily and widely

English language consists of four skills, namely: listening, speaking, reading,and writing Listening and reading are input materials while speaking and writingare output competence Listening and speaking are considered as the two mostimportant skills which serve in human communication daily life One of them whichare elaborated more is speaking Speaking is a crucial part of the language learningprocess and it is a key of active communication However, speaking as theimportance of language skills get less proportion in the English teaching andlearning People usually spend most of time learning writing and reading skillswhich students assumed that they will make them more settled and quiet and seems

to get a better and more effective condition of teaching-learning process Inaddition, the English examination in formal education focus on reading and writingtests which require students focus more on these skills There is rarely speaking test

or oral production test Consequently, speaking is not the priority to study andbecomes the most difficulty in the process of learning Speaking is productive skillwhich involves communicative performance, and other important elements, such aspronunciation, intonation, grammar, vocabulary Speaking is the skill that the

learners will be judged upon most in real-life situation It is an important part ofeveryday interaction and most often the first impression of a person is based on his/her ability to speak fluently and comprehensibly (Liao, 2009).

However, Vietnamese learners, especially the first year students in EnglishFaculty have faced with a flood of obstacles in learning and practicing Englishspeaking skills They often fall into confusion when speaking English because oflacking of knowledge, confidence, and the appropriate method as well Besides,students also do not have the good learning environment which restricts them topractise and gain English knowledge That is the reason why they usually get thebad marks and find hard to achieve the best performance in learning English,especially with speaking skills Based on the things mentioned above, the researchertry to make English speaking activities more effective for students in learning byfiguring out students’ problems and determining the techniques which areappropriate and effective to learn speaking with the hope to help the first-yearstudents in Faculty of English at Thuongmai University better their Englishperformance This is the reason why the researcher decided to choose the research

with the title “A study on how to improve English speaking skills for first year students in Faculty of English at Thuongmai University ”.

1.2 Previous studies.

The problem of learning English to students, especially the problem of oralcommunication is a debateable issue which has not been solved yet and grabbed alot of attention from hundred researchers These following studies are outstandingand helpful which mentioned some materials related to English speaking skills

In 1985, Jen Allwood has listed some problems of communication such aslacking of understanding, meaning the failure in interpreting parts or all of what aperson has said to another person; communication on the conditions of only oneparty, meaning that there is a power difference between both communicatingindividuals; interruption and breakdown One among the many reasons to take intoconsiderations might be the lack of confidence and anxiety about making errors asstated by Trent (2009) and in other related studies

Backlund (1990) assigns three areas of knowledge that influence oral

communication effectiveness: social knowledge, self-knowledge, and content knowledge If any one of these is weak oral communication will be somewhat

impaired Other problems that hinder oral communication are: dominating theconversation, using inappropriate volume and pitch, using excessive small talkignoring someone and constantly interrupting people

In the study “Improving Adult English Language Learners’Speaking Skills”

by Mary Ann Cunningham Florez, National Center for ESL Literacy Education(June 1999) showed that communicative and whole language instructionalapproaches promoted intergration of speaking, listening, reading and writing inways that reflected natural language use But opportunities for speaking andlistening requires structure and planning if they were to support languagedevelopment This study focused on what speaking involved and what goodspeakers did in the process of expressing themselves It presented an outline forcreating an effective speaking lesson and for assessing learners’ speaking skills

Bashiruddin (2003) conducted a study to improve student's OralCommunication Skills in lower secondary public school in Karachi, Pakistan Thesample of the study consisted of two schools systems work side by side One is theprivate English medium school and second is government Urdu-medium school.English is learnt as a second language in both cases Both students and teachers usethe regional language to communicate inside the class, and practice traditionalmethods which focus on reading and writing skills, but productive skills such as:speaking is given on important The results of the study discussed the reasons ofweakness of students in communication were the English language teachers are notproficient in speaking English and this is the main obstacle in the way to teachingEnglish in Pakistan

Many researchers like Baily (2005) and Goh (2007) have proposed methods

to enhance speaking skills by mean of syllabus design, teaching principles, andspeaking assessment

Cotter (2007) argues that as students learn to use English in the classroomsetting, they should also be involved in learning about how language works.Theyshould be asked to reflect on various aspects of language, to develop a commonlanguage for talking about language, and to use this knowledge to evaluate texts

critically in terms of effectiveness, meaning and accuracy He said “ Someone who speaks well would similarly understand when to use different grammar points’’

Moreover, (Alimi, 2015) claims that spoken product as the majorconsideration that had better be developed gradually On the other hand, speakingskill is considered as humans’ necessary to show their ability to have a greatinterpersonal toward persons’ answers and questions So, speaking ought to belearned for every single pupil in the classroom since it was the concert identity forEnglish speakers Here, the supportive study, in case of enhancing students’speaking skill, was conducted by (Sari & Syarfi, 2014) had already succeeded tosolve a basic problem in the classroom The study highlighted the improvement ofspeaking skill through Community Language Learning, it obviously helps students

to be more active and aware; the result showed through a speaking test, observationsheet, and field note could improve the students’ behavior and its’competence inspeaking skill

1.3 Aims of the study.

The aim of this thesis is to research how to improve English speaking skillsfor first year students in Faculty of English at Thuongmai University(TMU).Therefore, the following points are expected to be achieved:

What are the factors affecting such performance concerning Englishspeaking in students?

How do first-year students in English Faculty become master of Englishspeaking skills?

1.4 Research subjects.

The subjects of this study were first-year English major students at Englishfaculty of Thuongmai University The reason that the researcher has chosen the

first-year undergraduate students, who study English to be the participants in thisstudy, is that English is the first compulsory English course in the university, should

be trained to acquire certain speaking skills after they finish the course and this issuitable for the present study

The sampling population was 50 English major students from K55N1 toK55N5 who were selected randomly as the research participants in first -yearstudents of English Faculty

1.5 Scope of the study.

This study will concentrate on the reality of using English of the students inEnglish Faculty, then identify the issues students face when speaking English topropose some feasible solutions to improve their English speaking skills However,the study focused mainly on the solutions The researcher hope that this study was agood reference material for the students in English Faculty in particular and allstudents at Thuongmai University in general to get the higher speaking level

1.6 Research methodology.

Data of the study is collected by questionnaires which delivers to students.The selected approach for this research project was both the qualitative andquantitative research method The qualitative method is used to analyze andevaluate the characteristics of the skills when expressing opinions and exchanginginformation in questionnaires This type of the research is used to help theresearcher understand how people feel and why they feel as they do and as

Merriam (1998) explains:" in qualitative studies the key concern understands the phenomenon of interest from the participant’s perspective, not the researchers"

The quantitative method is used to count percentage of the factorsinfluencing the students’ English speaking skills which was designed anddistributed to the students in Faculty of English This method is also helpful foranalyzing the information coming from a survey conducted by the researcher

To implement this study, the method of assessing, comparing andsummarizing are also utilized which would provide reliable data, based on whichthe conclusion and suggestions were made in the following parts.

1.6.1.Participants and Sample of the Study

The participants of the study were first-year students at Faculty of English,Thuongmai University, Hanoi To achieve the aim of the study correctly, there were

50 students opted randomly from different classes of Faculty The study wasconducted in the first semester of their first year (November 2019) Therefore, theyalso could understand and know about the learning environment and teachingmethods in Thuongmai University.national Journal of English and Education

The survey questionnaire was administered to 50 students includingquestions with an aim to get information about students’ opinions on the importance

of English speaking skills, students’ desires in speaking English, the problemswhich they encountered in speaking and their suggested solutions to improveEnglish speaking skills All 50 participants were guided how to complete thequestionnaire carefully, and also required to complete all of the questions

1.6.3.Data Collection and Data analysis

The researcher asked the students to fill in the questionnaires which related

to the subjects’information, their ability and their own thinking After someminutes, the researcher could get back these papers as the reference to conduct thestudy

After collecting data from students of English faculty, it was analysed andevaluated through charts and pies which allow readers to comprehend significantlyabout the problems.

1.7 Organization of the study

This research paper consists of four main chapters:

Chapter I: Overview of the study, this first chapter included the rationale for

choosing the topic of the study, previous studies, the aims of the study, the researchsubjects, the scope of the study, and the research methods

Chapter II: Literature review which dealt with the theoretical background

relevant to the research topic including basic concepts about English speakingskills, difficulties in speaking English and causes of difficulties

Chapter III: Research findings presented and analyzed findings and

discussion by means of data collection instruments This chapter answered theresearch questions raised during the research process

Chapter IV: Discussion and Recommendations that provided some

comments and suggested solutions to reduce students’ difficulties in speakingEnglish

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In the international relationship, English speaking ability is very important to

be able to participate in the wider world of work when almost all the people fromseveral different countries use it as a tool to communicate The speaking skill ismeasured in terms of the ability to perform a conversation in the language.However, to speak English is not easy because speakers should be able to follow alot of rules as well as have good emotions in speaking English This chapter willdescribe more information about the main causes of English speaking problems andsome solutions according to related theories The key concepts reviewed in thischapter included definition of speaking, the importance, features, speakingproblems, factors and solutions

2.1 Definition of speaking.

In fact, several definition of the word “speaking” have been suggested by

researchers in language learning which may contain some possible approaches toenhance English speaking Each of researchers has their own ideas and deliveriestheir messages differently

In Oxford Advanced Dictionary, the definition of speaking is to express or communicate opinions, feelings, ideas, or as talking and it involves the activities in the part of the speaker as psychological, physiological (articulator) and physical (acoustic) stages Johnson and Morrow (1981: 70) said “ speaking is an activity to produce utterance to oral communication” It means that this is an activity

involving two or more people in which hearers and speakers have to react to whatthey hear and make their contributions at a speed of a high level According to

Chaney (1998), “Speaking is the process of making and sharing meaning by using verbal and non-verbal symbols in different contexts” Brown (1994) and Burns and Joyce (1997) defined “Speaking as an interactive process of making meaning that includes producing, receiving, and processing information”.

Furthermore, Finnochiaro and Brumfit (1983: 400) propose that speaking means giving oral expression to thoughts, opinions and feelings in terms of talk or

conversation To be able to do this, language learners should have sufficient

knowledge of the sound, structure, vocabulary and cultural system of Englishlanguage The learners also have to think about the ideas they wish to express Theyhave to be able to articulate English sound well by changing the positions of lips,jaws, and tongue Besides, the learners should be consciously aware of theappropriate functional expression as well as grammatical, lexical and culturalfeatures needed to express the idea, be sensitive to the change of register or stylenecessitated by the person to whom they speak and also the situation in which theconversation takes place Lastly, the learners must have the abilities to change theirdirection of their thoughts on the basis of the persons’s responses

From those definition, the researcher concludes that speaking is totallyessential to communicate with other people and it is considered as a vehicle todelivery ideas, opinions and feeling to other

2.2 The importance of speaking.

Language is a tool for communication Through speaking, we communicatewith others to express our ideas and to know others’ ideas as well Without theability to English speaking, we find it difficult to communicate with other peopleand learn other skills related to a language Therefore the importance of speakingskills is enormous for the learners of any language If there is any misunderstanding

of English speaking, it will cause many problems seriously

According to Efrizal (2012) and Pourhosein Gilakjani (2016), “speaking is one of great significance for the people interaction where they speak everywhere and everyday Speaking is the way of communicating ideas and messages orally”

Richards and Rodgers (2001) stated that “in the traditional methods, the speaking skills were ignored in the classrooms where the emphasis was on reading and writing skills For example, in The Grammar-Translation method, reading and writing were the important skills and speaking and listening skills were not of great significance” According to Ur (2000), of all the four language skills called

listening, speaking, reading and writing, “speaking is the most important one that is very necessary for the effective communication”.

Additionally, the importance of English speaking is shown by the integration

of the other language skills such as listening, writing and reading In term ofwriting, speaking requires a lot of rules which comply with structure, correct wordsaccording to context which allow learners to develop their vocabulary and grammarskills and then better their writing skill Through listening, leaners also can improvevocabulary and grammar when they have to listen what people say and learn newthings Reading skills also are strenthen significantly because learners have a goodknowledge of structures, vocabulary and pronunciation Thanks to communicating,students can express their emotions, ideas, tell stories, request, talk, discuss andshow the various functions of language Moreover, speaking is of vital importanceoutside the classroom when a flood of companies require their employees to have atleast the ability of communicating and provide proofs by certification such as Toeic,Ielts Therefore, it is true that language speakers have more chance to seek jobs indifferent organizations and companies These statements were supported by Baker

and Westrup (2003) who said that “learners who speak English very well can have greater chance for better education, finding good jobs, and getting promotion”.

In brief, English is extremely significant in the modern world these days asEnglish is considered as a common language which allows all parts of the world to

do businesses and exchange cultures easily Due to English, many countries cancoorporate and expand their relationship with other nations dramatically and thenboost their countries’ growth

2.3 Characteristics of speaking skills

According to Mazouzi (2013), learners’ activities should be designed based

on an equivalence between fluency and accuracy achievement Both fluency andaccuracy are important elements of communication The practice can help learnersdevelop their communicative competence Therefore, they should know how thelanguage system works appropriately

The first characteristic of speaking performance is fluency and it is the mainaim of students in learning speaking skill According to Hughes (2002), fluency isthe learners’ ability to speak in understandable way in order not to break downcommunication because listeners may lose their interest Hedge (2000) expressedthat fluency is the ability to answer coherently by connecting the words and phrases,pronouncing the sounds clearly, and using stress and intonation.

The second characteristic of speaking performance is accuracy Learnersshould be fluent in speaking a foreign language Learners should pay enoughattention to the exactness and the completeness of language form when speakingsuch as focusing on grammatical structures, vocabulary, and pronunciation(Mazouzi, 2013)

According to Thornbury (2005), learners’ correct use of grammaticalstructures requires the length and complexity of the utterances and the well-structured clauses To gain accuracy in terms of vocabulary means to select suitablewords in the suitable contexts Learners sometimes apply similar words orexpressions in various contexts which do not mean similar things So learnersshould be able to use words and expressions correctly Thornbury (2005) declaredthat pronunciation is the lowest level of knowledge learners typically pay attention

to it In order to speak English language accurately, learners should masterphonological rules and they should be aware of the various sounds and theirpronunciations Learners should also know the stress, intonation, and pitch All ofthese elements help learners speak the English language easily and effectively

To sum up, it is undeniable that speaking is key to communication Byconsidering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class, andwhat specific needs learners report, teachers can help learners improve theirspeaking and overall oral competency

2.4 Speaking problems

There are a lot of problems hindering learners’ speaking performance whichhave been discussed and found the effective methods The researcher divided theminto two aspects: internal and external factors

In term of internal factors, Littlewood (1984) believe lack of motivation inspeaking English is one of the top problems affecting students’performance Withthe same opinion, Ur (1996) also shows some issues related to learners’ speakingskills such as learners’ worries of making mistakes, which lead to their fearful ofcriticism, learners’ low or uneven participation, or learners’ fear of other goodlearners’performances These internal challenges have also been found in thestudies by Rabab’ah (2005), Dil (2009), Le (2011), Ngo (2011) and Izadi (2015) asthe most considerable obstacles of learners In addion to, Le (2011), Ngo (2011) andIzadi (2015) further place a great focus on other internal factors, namely lack ofvocabulary, grammatical structures, sentence formation which make them tend touse their domestic language instead of imaging and speaking English

Besides the challenges related to internal factors, some difficulties forspeaking skills also come from a wide range of external factors The teachers’ use

of mother tongue in speaking class is one of the factors impacts negatively learners’speaking motivation Harmer (1991) states that teachers’ feedback is given whiletheir students are performing can be considered to reduce the learners’confidence

As a result, it is necessary to have positive ways to correct learners’ speakingmistakes combined with appropriate stimulation to learners (Baker & Westrup,2003) Another external factor to speaking skills of English learners is the content

of teaching syllabus and English teaching curriculum In other words, learners’performance can be limited if the content of English teaching curriculum is tooboring or too focus on theory instead of practising Ambu and Saidi (1997) alsoshare this concern by indicating inappropriate distribution of time for teachingspeaking skills and teaching syllabus without satisfying English learners’communicative needs Izadi (2015) examined the views of lecturers and students ofEnglish speaking difficulties in the context with Iranian as their native language.The study particularly analysed the difficulties with regard to linguistic problems,negative emotions, and opportunities to speak English The main factor emergedfrom the finding was linguistic problems, and the study proposed several solutions

to tackle them with the focus on lecturer’s and students’ efforts which were alsojustified and reconfirmed as feasible measures in Kabir (2014) in Bangladesh

tertiary context along with more supports from administrators for the same vein InVietnam, Le (2011) also examined the same research concern in the context of BaRia - Vung Tau University where students faced challenges in English speakingskills The findings emphasised the challenges with regard to learners’ issues such

as learning styles, worries and language proficiency; lecturers’ issues, namelyteaching methodology; and teaching facilities Another study related to difficultiesfor students’ speaking skills was Ngo (2011) at Thai Nguyen University The studymainly focuses on three possible challenging aspects: psychology, linguistic, andsocial-culture From then, the same suggestions as Kabir (2014) and Izadi (2015)were recommended for both lecturers’ and administrators’ assistance to improvestudents’ speaking performance Additionally, although Nguyen and Tran’s (2015)study was slightly different from previous studies with respect to high schoolstudents’ English speaking barriers, the findings similarly analysed challengesstemmed from learners’ weaknesses in speaking English and proposed the necessity

of teachers’ ready supports by diversifying their teaching activities

2.5 Factors affecting speaking skills.

Speaking skill in second or foreign language is a challenge for the learners,because to speak a foreign language such as English requires more than knowinggrammar but also the use of English in a real context

There are two main problems which actually serve as the important reasonsbehind poor academic performance and may become barriers for the students tobecome a good English speakers is the language and psychological problems

and how to reply Students are clearly know what they are going to say in the sourcelanguage, but when they have to switch the language itself into the target languagesuch as English, they often get confuse to combine and use the proper vocabulariesneeded

Grammar

Grammar is a study in which sentences are structured and formatted, so that

it may be considered a bit boring to study correct grammar since it really is worththe time and effort If learners do not know the rules of grammar, they will never beable to communicate using English effectively Several errors may appear when thestudents speak since they have not mastered the English grammar

Pronunciation

Phonology is a difficult aspect of language learning for English learners.Pronunciation of English words is not similar to their spellings Words with similarspellings are sometimes pronounced differently because of their surroundingcontexts like tenses and phonemes that come after them This can cause a lot ofproblems for non-native speakers of English and they sometimes get confused in

producing the English words Therefore, correct pronunciation is very necessary to

develop speaking skill Pronunciation also has close connections to the other fieldssuch as listening and even grammar Once a person can pronounce correctly theendings of the words, he can, at the same time give grammatical information

2.5.2 Psychological problems.

Lack of Self-Confidence

Lack of self-confidence may bring the students into a threat of believing thatthey are not going to be a good English speaker This lack of self-confidence alsobecomes a great problem which affect students’ speaking performance It is difficultfor the students to master English speaking if they are not confident with their ownspeaking ability

Anxiety refers to a transitory emotional state or condition characterized byfeeling of tension and apprehension and heightened automic nervous systemactivity They may confront certain feelings such as nervous, anxious, worry, shy,feeling afraid or fear of something worse happen whether they are trying to speakbetter

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 3.1 General introduction

In this chapter, the researcher presented the results obtained with the aim offinding out the difficulties in learning speaking comprehension skills for Englishmajor students as well as identifying the causes of those problems The participantswere 50 first-year English major students at Thuongmai University To achieve themost effective result, participants were randomly selected from a total of 250 first-year students at Faculty of English

Because the number of respondents was small, the data was manuallyanalyzed by using descriptive statistics (percentage) and interpretations Theinformation was then displayed in forms of charts, pie, table and bar

3.2 Data analysis

3.2.1 Students’ background information

The subjects in this study were 50 freshmen in Faculty of English whichranged from K55N1 to K55N5 There are 10 males and 40 females which accountedfor 20% and 80% respectively Data collected by the questionnaire to these student

participants The data of the participants are summarised as follows:

14.00%

66.00%

20.00%

Figure 3.1: The number of years learning English

Less than 3 years 3-10 years More than 10 years

It is clear from the chart that the majority of students have spent less than 10years on learning English

In detail, 66% had allocated to students who have learned English from 3 to

10 years In other words, they had started learning process since the elementary.Because English is one of the compulsory subjects at both the secondary and highschools, most of them studied at least 7 years in schools ( in which four years atsecondary school and three years at high school) Besides, there was 20% ofstudents studying English for more than 10 years, which means that they startedlearning the second language when they were still small The lowest percentageswas of the participants who chose less than 3 years with 14%, which means theyhad started learning English since high school These students may come from theremote areas, where there were no good opportunities for studying English or theychanged their orientation and pursued English in a short time before taking theentrance exam

Generally, these figures indicate that all of students also have spent a certaintime on learning English which provides them with the basic knowledge to be able

to continue conquer this kind of language in the university as a major

Figure 3.2: The importance of English

These numbers indicate that English plays a very important role with the firstyears at Faculty of English English not only serves for studying at university butalso meets their requirements after graduation

Figure 3.3: The levels of difficulty of speaking English

Very Difficult Difficult Normal Less Difficult Easy

It is obvious that English included many skills such as listening, speaking,reading and writing and each skill has a unique difficulty level However, several

students also had the same idea that speaking is the most difficult skill which makesthem confused and less motivated.

Figure 3.3 shows how difficult first-year students felt about speaking skills.English speaking skills were evaluated difficult and very difficult with 50% and20% respectively Besides, 16% of students thought that speaking is quite normal.With small figures, it was said that speaking is not really difficult much or eveneasy to learn compared to other skills

Speak according to the topics

Say individual sentences

Say word by word

Speak incorrectly grammar

This chart shows what the participants think about their ability of Englishspeaking

40% was the highest percentage which means that a lot of students just sayindividual sentences simply and find hard to speak complex sentences 25% and19% came next which students say word by word and speak according to the topic.The two smallest proportions was those who speak incorrectly grammar and speakfluently with 10% and 6% respectively Through these figure, we can see thatalthough the first year students majored in English, levels of good English speaking