HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES VO NGUYEN DA THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON FACTORS INFLUENCING ORAL FLUENCY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 9140111 HUE, 2022 The work was completed at: University of Foreign Languages, Hue University Academic supervisors: Assoc. TRAN VAN PHUOC Dr. TRAN QUANG HAI Reviewer 1: Reviewer 2: Reviewer 3: The thesis will be defended in front of the thesis committee of ………… at ……………………. The thesis can be found at: CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Background of the study Regarding EFL learners, some studies show that speaking ability in English and many other foreign languages is the most challenging component of foreign language learning since a successful speaker must integrate a variety of abilities in order to speak sufficiently well (Young, 1990; Price, 1991; Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1991; Ztürk & Gürbüz, 2014). This is because speaking skills depend on the context of the situation, including the participants, their shared experiences, the physical surroundings, and the reason for speaking. Hence, promoting speaking skills necessitates learners' awareness of not only how to produce specific parts of the language (grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary) that are linguistic competence but also when, why, and in what manner to produce language (socio-linguistic competence). More importantly, there are the components that underpin effective communication.
It is said that "the affective side of the learner is probably one of the most important influences on language learning success or failure" (Oxford, 1990, p. Also, learners experience other dominant factors while speaking, leading to the development of speaking fluency (Heyun, 1999; Bahrani, 2011; Davies, 2014; Samuel, 2020; Marisca, Venansia & Norma, 2020). Students, particularly in EFL contexts like Vietnam, lack fluency practice opportunities because their language exposure and use are generally limited to the classroom, which may be further hindered by a lack of fluency exercises in the classroom. Statement of the problem Focusing on the importance of English in the workplace, the principal factors influencing LOF are arguably more significant and should be recognized and emphasized as a part of the language learning process.
This is due to the fact that a large proportion of the student population is leaving universities because their English is failing to meet the demands of real life and work. Although English language teaching is officially launched in the third grade of elementary public schooling in Vietnam and continues until university studies, communicative fluency in spoken English appears to be a constant struggle for Vietnamese students conducting academic programs and workplace communication in English. According to Stern (1983), despite years of instruction based on such syllabuses, language learners could communicate in an L2 to some extent. Furthermore, issues related to communication failure, especially LOF, involve a complicated set of problems.
Purpose of the study The core purpose of this research is to review the range of factors related to oral fluency as affective and external problems, which includes 1 the concept of oral fluency, the importance of LOF, the factors hindering it, and identify ways to develop it when teaching majored English students at Vietnamese universities. The results of this study demonstrate teachers' and students' perspectives on oral fluency and factors influencing the speaking fluency outcomes in the circumstances of universities in Vietnam by means of oral fluency teaching and learning, and the implications of the findings may be used to facilitate Vietnamese EFL learners' oral fluency. Furthermore, the evidence found in the current study may benefit both teachers and students in EFL contexts and increase their confidence in effective teaching and learning oral fluency. What are the students' and the teachers' perspectives on oral fluency? 2.
What are teachers' and students' perspectives on the factors influencing the oral fluency of tertiary English majors? 1. Scope of the study Regarding second language acquisition theory, speaking performance, especially oral fluency, is affected by linguistic, cognitive, social, and affective factors. These factors are also challenging for Vietnamese EFL students to speak English fluently and accurately. One of them is effective factors related to the learners' learning.
In other words, the scope of the current research focuses on the affective factors, concluding with anxiety, motivation, and attitude. It is believed that affective factors play a vital role in learning a language and the willingness to participate in fluency activities (Yang, 2014). More than that, this research also examines external factors in second language acquisition. The external factors include technology, instruction, exposure to English, task type, and environment-class size factors.
Significance of the study To my knowledge, previous L2 fluency research has not examined teachers’ perspectives on speaking fluency. The academic work and the understanding of specific characteristics or factors influencing Vietnamese L2 learners’ speaking fluency have been almost absent. Although fluency is widely regarded as one of the fundamental skills that most L2 learners fully expect to acquire, the perspectives of EFL teaching staff members have mostly been neglected in concrete empirical research. Accordingly, the significance of this research is confidently expected to make outstanding contributions to both the theoretical and practical aspects of the field of language studies.
In considering the aspects of the theoretical approach, this research is associated with the fluency in oral speaking among Vietnamese EFL students in tertiary education, which may represent the nature and components of the learners' speaking proficiency. This is partly due to the learners' background, 2 and characteristics of learning EFL identified through the data collection, which may reveal possible triggers regarding oral fluency outcomes. The results may thus raise the heightened awareness of the main components affecting fluency in students’ communication in Vietnam. Definitions of key terms Oral fluency Teachers’ and students’ perspectives 1.
Organization of the thesis CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2. Overview of teaching speaking and speaking Fluency in Vietnam This study was carried out at universities in Vietnam. The specific research context shares similar learning situations with others worldwide, especially in Asian countries where spoken English is taught and practised as a compulsory subject from grades 1 to 12. However, there are differences, and what is used in one setting cannot be used in another.
It means that the context should identify similarities and differences with other situations. Therefore, it is primarily suggested that the setting of the study focuses on English-major students at Vietnamese Universities. Theoretical background The current study looks into teachers' and students' perspectives in their current situations and conditions. It is safe to assume that no particular theory has been set for the research on LOF.
As discussed in the thesis, addressing definitions for LOF and related concepts is critical for understanding the factors influencing LOF. There are various definitions of LOF and different ways to distinguish speaking Fluency, to the point that people involved in learning more about oral Fluency often become bewildered (Préfontaine, 2010). He further argued in favour of a multi-dimensional construct of Fluency. Fluency In discussions of speaking Fluency, drawing on earlier work by Fillmore (1979), he classified oral Fluency into four essential characteristics.
The first characteristic is "the ability to talk at length with few pauses, the ability to fill time with talk" (2000, p. 51), which implies automaticity of language processing. The second dimension is the production of coherent sentences using the "semantic and syntactic resources of the language" appropriately. The third is "the ability to have appropriate things to say in a wide range of contexts" (p.
The last is "the ability some people have to be creative and imaginative in their language use" (ibid. It should be duly noted that his understanding of Fluency is not intimately linked with the speed 3 of speech but rather the complexity and quality of sentences spoken. More interestingly, he was more likely to assume that the Fluency of the speaker could vary with the different contextualizations and situations. His definition of Fluency is reasonably detailed and extensive, but it is difficult to discern how this description differs from the perspectives of global oral proficiency.
Gardner’s socio-educational model Gardner's socio-educational model identifies four factors that influence language learning: social milieu, individual differences, contexts for second language acquisition, and learning outcomes (Gardner 1979). Gardner's early model (Gardner, 1979) is being used as the basic framework for the current study. However, the new version (Gardner 1985) stresses the importance of attitudes and the role of a number of various individual characteristics of learners in L2 acquisition. The model is illustrated in the diagram below.
Gardner’s socio-educational model (adapted from Gardner, 1985) 2. Krashen’s Monitor Theory Krashen’s Monitor Theory (1987) explains how learners acquire an L2. It consists of five hypotheses: the acquisition/learning hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the natural order hypothesis, the input hypothesis, and the affective filter hypothesis. The theoretical framework exploited in this research is the input hypothesis.
This model was developed and published by the linguist Stephen Krashen in 1977. The Krashen's Input Hypothesis with the teaching instruction Optimal input The teaching instruction 1. Input To help learners to acquire and understand the comprehensibility meaning of an utterance or a sentence in the target language by choosing the material that is not so demanding on the student. Interesting and To help the learners to acquire the new words that they relevant input need for success in their everyday activities and the new words by designing textbooks to cater to their needs.
4 Optimal input The teaching instruction 3. Input grammatical To avail the materials which help learners to understand the sequence target language grammatical rules implicitly. Input quantity To expose the learners to sufficient, rich and comprehensible target language learning resources by engaging them in conversations rather than listening comprehension exercises. Krashen's Input Hypothesis with the technology Optimal input The technology 1.
A Tool for Conversational To help learners to interact with the target management language speakers and thus to improve their communication skills. Filter Strength To help learners to improve their communication skills in the target language. The Affective Filter Hypothesis 2. L2 Oral fluency factors Aligning this conceptual framework of the L2 fluency of Segalowitz and its influences with the setting of the present study, the factors influencing LOF may be divided into two main categories based on its dimensions' central roles and consequences.
These classifications include speaker factors and speaker-external factors, providing a theoretical background for an investigation into EFL teachers' perspectives. Oral fluency factors Affective factors Externalfactors Figure 2. The framework of oral fluency factors 2. Speaker factors (i) Age (ii) Attitude (iii) Motivation (iv) Anxiety factors 2.
External factors (i) The task type (ii) Environment – class size (iii) Exposure to English (iv) Instruction (v) Technology 5 2. Communicative competence (i) The grammatical competence perspective (ii) Strategic competence perspective (iii) Sociolinguistic competence perspective (iv) Discourse competence perspective 2. Summary of Theoretical Framework 2. Previous studies In recent years, L2 oral fluency (LOF) has received a lot of attention and research (Ascione, 1993; Kormos & Dénes, 2004; N.
Segalowitz & Freed, 2004; Wood, 2006; Segalowitz, 2010; Parish, 2011; Préfontaine, 2013; Yahaya & Kheirzadeh, 2015; Segalowitz, 2016a;). Likewise, some language researchers assert that speaker factors and speaker-external factors impact speaking fluency (Kopnická & Calgary, 2016; Milli Marie Antonia, n. Furthermore, most studies focus on the factors of LOF in the second language (Préfontaine & Kormos, J., 2015; Huensch & Tracy-Ventura, 2017) and language fluency improvement during studies overseas (Hall & Burgess, 2000; Savicki, Arre, & Binder, 2013; Son, 2013; Kim et al., 2015; Leonard, 2015; Leonard & Shea, 2017). Additionally, students and teachers have different perspectives on L2 oral fluency (LOF) in English (He, 2013).
However, how these factors contribute to the LOF of higher education, Vietnamese students has not yet been extensively studied. In particular, there is little research on the LOF of EFL students in Vietnam and the factors that may influence their learning process in terms of speaking fluency. This lack of research is a concern because oral language competence is a significant feature of Western education.