An investigation into the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills to the 2nd year non-major english students at pre-intermediate level of proficiency at hanoi university of industry

An investigation into the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills to the 2nd year non-major english students at pre-intermediate level of proficiency at hanoi university of industry

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -HOÀNG BÍCH THỦY

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS TO THE 2 ND YEAR NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT

PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEVEL OF PROFICIENCY

AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

NGHIÊN CỨU THỰC TRẠNG VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC NÓI TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI VỚI SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI KHÔNG CHUYÊN TRÌNH ĐỘ TIỀN TRUNG CẤP

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Methodology Code: 601410

HANOI, DECEMBER 2008

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-***** -HOÀNG BÍCH THỦY

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS TO THE 2 ND YEAR NON-MAJOR ENGLISH STUDENTS AT

PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEVEL OF PROFICIENCY

AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

NGHIÊN CỨU THỰC TRẠNG VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC NÓI TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI VỚI SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI KHÔNG CHUYÊN TRÌNH ĐỘ TIỀN TRUNG CẤP

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: Ms Đỗ Thị Mai Thanh MA

HANOI, DECEMBER 2008

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

I certify that the minor thesis entitled: “An investigation into the Reality of Teaching and Learning Speaking Skills to the 2 nd year non-major English students at Pre-Intermediate level

of Proficiency at Hanoi University of Industry” is submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Master of Arts is the result of my own work, except where otherwise acknowledge and that this minor thesis or any part of the same had not been submitted for a higher degree to any other universities or institutions

Date:…….………

Signature: ………

ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS

During the process of wrting this thesis, I have been fortunate to receive supports and assistance from a variety of people

First and foremost, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Do Thi Mai Thanh, who allows me to draw fully on her wisdom and experience in implementing

this study Her guidance, encouragement and invaluable detailed critical feedback have been most generous

I would like to convey my thanks to all my teachers of the Post graduate course 14 whose fundamental knowledge about language teaching and learning is of great importance to the achievement of my academic study

It is my pleasure to acknowledge my debt to the Board of Management of Foreign Languages Department for their support and the favorable conditions they have granted me during my study

I would also like to take this opportunity to express my deepnest thanks to all the teachers and colleagues, especially Ms Le Thi Thu Huong in the non-major English group 2 at Hanoi University of Industry for their help in completing the survey questionnaires, for their constructive suggestions to this research, and for their willingness to share their relevant problems with me

I am most thankful to the students of K9 at Faculties of Economics, Engineering, Chemistry, Electronic and Computer Science at Hanoi University of Industry whose cooperation

is great significance to the completion of the study

Finally, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my parents, my husband whose loving support has been encouraging me to fulfill this thesis successfully

ABSTRACT

It is the fact that speaking is an important language skill However, in the reality, the teaching and learning English speaking are still far from satisfactory

The study focuses on the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill as well as the analysis of the present teaching and learning to speak English Once, problems have been identified, suggestions for teachers to improve the situation of teaching and learning speaking English to the 2 year non-major English students would be made

The thesis consists of three main parts: the introduction, the development, and the conclusion The introduction - gives rationale for the study and sets up the aims, scopes and methods of the study The develoment - which is considered as the main part of the study, includes three chapters with differents functions Chapter 1 provides theoretical background about Communicative Language Teaching, speaking skills, three main stages of speaking and motivation in a speaking lesson Chapter 2 investigates the current teaching and learning English speaking to the 2nd year non-major English students at Hanoi University of Industry, the problems encountered by both teachers and students as well as the materials used in teaching and learning English speaking to 2nd year non-major English students are exposed This chapter also deals with the research methodology which covers participants, the settings of the study, the data collection methods, the data analysis, and the findings and discussions Chapter 3 offers some possible suggestions to improve the teaching and learning English speaking to 2nd year non-major English students Part three - the conclusion - sums up the issues addressed and suggests some main points for further research

LIST OF ABREVIATIONS

Ss : Students

Ts : Teachers

HaUI: : Hanoi University of Industry

CLT : Communicative Language Teaching

N : Number

Voc : Vocabulary

Stru : Structures

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Tables:

Table 1: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill and the role of teaching

Table 2: Students’ purposes of learning English and their participation in learning to speak

Table 3: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards speaking materials and appropriate time for

teaching and learning English speaking 24 Table 4: Pre-speaking activities carried out by teachers and students’ responses 26 Table 5: While-speaking activities carried out by teachers and students’ responses 27 Table 6: Post-speaking activities carried out by teachers and students’ responses 28 Table 7: Teachers’ techniques to teach English speaking and students’ responses 29 Table 7.1: Teachers’ techniques to deal with students’ low speaking level and their

Table 7.2: Teachers’ techniques to encourage students to speak and improve their

Charts:

Chart 1: Teachers’ attitudes towards Communicative Language Teaching 22 Chart 2: Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards students’ speaking competence 23 Chart 3: Teachers’ and students’difficulties in teaching and learning English speaking 25 Chart 3.1: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching English speaking skills 25 Chart 3.2: Students’difficulties in learning English speaking skills 25

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.3.2 Problems with Speaking Activities 11

2.1 Practical Situation of Teaching and Learning English Speaking Skills at HaUI 15

2.1.1 Description of the English Course and its Objectives at HaUI 15

2.2.4 Data Analysis of the Teachers’ and Students’ Survey Questionnaires 20

2.3.1 Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes towards Speaking and Speaking Materials 33 2.3.2 Teachers’ and Students’ Problems in Teaching and Learning to Speak

3.1 Improving Teachers’ Classroom Techniques to Teach Speaking Materials 38

3.1.1 Increasing Students’ Speaking Interest and Motivation 38

3.1.2 Applying Different Activities in Teaching Speaking 39

3.1.3 Activating Students to Work in Different Stages of Speaking 41

3.2.1 Making Students Aware of the Nature of Speaking Process 42

3.2.2 Encouraging Students to Develop Speaking Habits 42

3.4 Improving Teachers’ Professional Knowledge, Teaching Methodology and

3.4.1 Improving Teachers’ Professional Knowledge 45

REFERENCES

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Press

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Pegagogy Prentice Hall Regents.

Burkart, G S (1998) Spoken Language: What it is and how to teach it Washington, DC: Centre for Applied Linguistics Retrieved from www.nclrc.org.

Byrne, D (1991) Techniques for classroom interaction London: Longman.

Canale, M and Swain, M (1980) Approaches to Communicative Competence Singapore:

RELC

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APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS

This survey is designed to collect information for the study on “An investigation into the Reality of Teaching and Learning English Speaking to the 2nd year non-major English students

at Hanoi University of Industry” Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated You can be certain that this is for research purpose only and that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data

Before answering the questions, please fill in some information:

* Gender : Male/ Female

* Your age :

* How long have you been teaching English? (0-3 years; 4-5 years; 6-8 years; more than 10 years)

* What materials are you using to teach English at your University?

Please circle the appropriate answers for the following questions You may choose more than one option.

1 Which of these four following English language skills do you think the most difficult for your students?

2 What is your idea about teaching and learning English Speaking to the 2 nd year non-major English students at Pre-Intermediate level of Proficiency at your University?

A Very essential C Not very essential

B Essential D Not essential at all

3 What do you think of your students’ Speaking competence at HaUI?

A Really bad B Bad C Quite good D Good E Really good

4 What are the appropriate periods (45 minutes/period) for teaching and learning English Speaking to the 2 nd year non-major students?

A 1 period/ week C 3-4 periods/ week.

B 1-2 periods/ week D More than 4 periods/ week

5 What do you think of the materials used for teaching and learning Speaking to the 2 nd

year non-major English students at Pre-Intermediate level of Proficiency at your University?

A Difficult and boring C Interesting and stimulating

B Difficult but interesting D Easy and boring

6 What are your difficulties in teaching Speaking skills to the 2 nd year students at Pre-Intermediate level of Proficiency?

A Students’ low motivation E Large and heterogeneous class

B Students’ low level of English proficiency F Inappropriate materials

C Time limitation G Poor teaching equipments

D Students’ laziness H Others (please specify)

7 Does your university have enough modern equipments (such as radio, TV, computer, video, projector etc.) for teaching English Speaking skills?

A Yes B No C Some of the equipments

(please name)

8 As for you, CLT:

A always emphasizes fluency over accuracy

B is student-centered

C its final goal is students’ communicative competence

D does not teach grammar

E is used only for teaching Speaking skill, not for other skills

F focuses on meaningful tasks rather than the language itself

G gives students opportunities to communicate with each other

H Others ( please specify)………

9 Do you apply CLT in teaching Speaking?

A Yes B No I use method

10 What do you always do before a Speaking task?

A Do nothing and go straight to the task.

B Only instruct students how to do the task

C Give students some background knowledge about the topic

D Provide some necessary vocabulary and structures related to the topic

E Discuss with students to lead them to the topic

F Brainstorm the topic

G Others (please specify)

11 What do you do while students practice Speaking?

A Help students with useful vocabulary and structures

B Go around the class to monitor

C Stay at your seat and relax

D Take time to do other things

E Others ( please specify)………

12 What do you do when students show low motivation in Speaking activities?

A Carry out on-going assessments (giving students marks for participation)

B Let them choose their favourite partners

C Give them some more support about vocabulary, structures and ideas

D Encourage students to willingly take part in the activities

E Ignore them

F Others ( please specify)………

13.What do you often do after your students finish practising?

A Call some pairs to check

B Appoint one or two groups to present

C Exchange pairs to pairs / groups to groups

D Check as the whole class

E Don’t check at all

F Others ( please specify)………

14 What do you do when students keep making mistakes?

A Keep silent and encourage them to continue