VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Phan Thị Thu Huyền USING ROLE PLAY TO IMPROVE THE FIRST YEAR NON-MAJOR STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE HANOI, 2021 VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Phan Thị Thu Huyền USING ROLE PLAY TO IMPROVE THE FIRST YEAR NON-MAJOR STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Đỗ Thị Thúy Vân, Ph. HANOI, 2021 DECLARATION BY AUTHOR I declare that the study entitled “Using role play to improve the 1st year non-major students' speaking skills at a University in Hanoi” is created by my own findings and I am the sole author. To the best of my knowledge, with the exception of the indication of reference, this is carried out without using any other author’s work and is submitted after a carefully checking progress in order to fulfill the requirements of the M. Except where reference has been made in the text, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person.
The study reported in this thesis was approved by Graduate Academy of Social Sciences. Author’s Signature Phan Thị Thu Huyền i ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS Although only one name appears as the author of this work, writing a thesis is indeed a collaborative effort. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the many people who made it possible. First and the foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Đỗ Thị Thúy Vân, Ph.
for all of her kind support to complete this research paper. If it had not been for her guidance, as long as the consultation and comprehensive comments from her, I would have not Next, I would like to send my special thanks to Mr. Đặng Nguyên Giang - Dean of the Department of Foreign Languages and the other staff at Graduate Academy of Social Sciences the Department of Foreign Languages, Graduate Academy of Social Sciences for affording me the honor of writing this thesis. Additionally, I would like to convey my special thanks to the teachers and students of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering – Hanoi University of Industry whose kind participation and patient co-operation and encouragement have helped me much in this study.
They provided me with valuable data for the study so that I could have broader prospects of teaching and learning English speaking activities at Hanoi University of Industry in general and at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in particular. Last but not least, millions of my sincere thanks go to my beloved family, who are always supportive and enthusiastic to me during the progress of making this. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION BY AUTHOR. vi LIST OF TABLES.
vii LIST OF CHARTS. viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the Study.
Scope of the Study. Significance of the Study. Structure of the Study. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definitions of Speaking. Characteristics of speaking. Principles of Teaching Speaking. Teacher’s Roles in Teaching Speaking.
Methods of Teaching Speaking. Activities to Improve Speaking Skills. Definition of Role Play. Types of Role Play.
The Steps for Role Play Activities. Significance of role play in teaching speaking skill. Review of the previous research works. 27 iii CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY.
Conducting preliminary investigation. Planning the action. Implementing the action. Observing the action.
Reflecting the action. Data Collection Instruments. 37 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Data Analysis from Questionnaires.
Questionnaire for teacher. Questionnaires for students. Data Analysis from Observations. The First Observation.
The Second Observation. Reflection of the Students’ Speaking Performance. Data Analysis from Interviews. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies.
76 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS. I APPENDIX 2: PRE-TASK QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS. IV APPENDIX 3: POST-TASK QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS. VI APPENDIX 4: ROLE PLAY ACTIVITY EVALUATION FORM.
VIII APPENDIX 5: LESSON PLANS. XI Lesson Plan for Role Play Activity – Cycle 1. XI Lesson Plan for Role Activity – Cycle 2. XIV APPENDIX 6: INTERVIEW FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS.
XIX v ABSTRACT This study is designed and carried out in the hope of exploring the method of using role play to develop English speaking skills for first year non-major students at universities in general and at Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) in particular. Basing on the theoretical foundation about role play implementation, this study aims at investigating the real situation of teaching and learning speaking skill to the first year non-major students at HaUI including the quality and methods of teaching and learning speaking skills. It also studied how the speaking skills of the first year non-major students at HaUI can be improved through using role play activities and examined the students’ attitudes toward role play activities application in teaching and learning English. The study analized the effects of using role play and the difficulties of applying for teacher and students as well as suggesting some solutions to these problems.
In order to achieve the target survey questionnaires, observation and interviews were employed to collect the required information. Based on the findings, some implications would be given for both the teachers and the students. With all these information, this study is expected to be useful to both teachers and students in teaching and learning English speaking skills. vi LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1.
Teachers’ techniques to encourage students to speak and improve their English speaking skills. Students’ knowledge about what students do in role play. Students' interest in learning if role play is applied in speaking lessons. Results from Post -task questionnaire for students.
Results of students ’ speaking performance in cycle 1. Results of students’ speaking performance in cycle 2. 63 vii LIST OF CHARTS Page Chart 1. Teacher's opinions about the role of speaking skill.
Teachers' opinions about students' attitude towards. Assessment on students' speaking competence. Teachers' difficulties in teaching speaking skill. Teachers' opinions about the material.
Teachers' opinions about benefits of role play. Teachers' opinions about difficulties of role play implementation. Teachers' assessment on students' improvement. Students' opinions about the role of speaking skill.
Students' opinions of being afraid in front of the class. Students’ difficulties in learning speaking English. Students’ opinions about the role of speaking skill. Students' self-assessment towards speaking competence.
Students' opinions about the material. Students' speaking Performance at Good Level (Cycles 1&2). The improvement of students’ speaking skill under role play implementation. 69 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AR: Action Research HaUI: Hanoi University of Industry T: Teacher Ss: Students ESL: English as a Second Language EFL: English as a Foreign Language TESL: Teaching English as A Second Language ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale In the process of globalization and economic integration, there is a great demand for a linguistic means of international communication. As a result, English has gained the most dominant status among many existing languages in our world. It is widely used in all parts of the world, in every aspect of life, in every branch of the world economy and in many other fields. Therefore, in order to approach the modern world in a way with fewer obstacles, learning English is necessary.
Our lives in Vietnam have become far more connected through technology, a global economy, and social media thus English has become more and more important. At present, high command of foreign languages helps students so much in finding good jobs, students’ ability to use English fluently and effectively in their communication has been of great importance. Since the emergence of a global movement that calls for a new model of teaching and learning for the 21st century, it has been argued that formal education must be transformed to enable new forms of teaching and learning that are needed to tackle complex global challenges. Experts recognize that the “transmission” or lecture model is highly ineffective for teaching 21st century competencies and skills.
The concern about transforming the goals and daily practice of teaching and learning is characterized as knowledge and technologically driven. How teachers and educators can best support learners develop essential skills is a big issue. People learn in a variety of ways, so the challenge for teachers is to discover which methods help them most to acquire the language. 1 In the general context of the world, Vietnamese education is not an exception.
Only good basic numeracy and literacy skills will be no longer suffice to provide learners. Accordingly, the Ministry of Education and Training is working on an ambitious reform to optimize learning and promote the competencies needed to master content and apply knowledge. Training human resources to adapt to the development of society, to meet the demands of the new era, in addition to intensive knowledge, the education needs to equip the appropriate skills for students. There are four skills in teaching and learning a language: listening, speaking, reading and writing, but out of the four skills, speaking is considered as the most essential skill to be mastered.
For O’Malley and Pierce (1996), speaking seems to be an important skill focusing on learners’ ability to communicate effectively through oral language because the disability of the learners to speak may make them hard to express their ideas even in a simple form of conversation. However, speaking in English is not simple as learners have to master certain important elements of English such as pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. In that case, teachers are supposed to be creative in developing their teaching learning process to give attention to the elements of speaking, improve students’ speaking skill, and make their teaching more exciting. With various elements of the teaching speaking, many problems occur in such process.
In learning English speaking skills, students often cope with several problems. Students are not enthusiastic and not confident enough to use English in speaking class. The influence of their native language, their low motivation and their shortage of vocabulary make it difficult to use the language. And the sad fact is that only a small proportion of them can perform communication in the language well after finishing college.
The majority of 2 them still remain embarrassed when they have a conversation in English. This problem may be resulted by the way students are trained in colleges which is not conducive to learning English as a tool of communication. In classroom, many students are reluctant to speak English even when they have opportunities. The author has noticed that those problems are also experienced by the first year non-major students of HaUI.
The problems with students’ speaking skills can be caused by a lot of different factors including students’ interest and attitudes towards learning English, the material, and even teachers’ monotonous and inappropriate use of teaching techniques, which makes students bored and unmotivated in the speaking lesson, and not confident about their speaking skills. Thus, it is crucial to propose appropriate techniques to overcome the students’ low speaking ability. It is the responsibility of the teacher to find out an effective technique in order to stimulate the students’ positive attitude towards the speaking class and their speaking skills (Burns & Joyce, 1997, p. In searching the best method possible to teach speaking skills for students, the author decided to choose role play activities as an effective one.
The effectiveness of role play activities in improving students’ speaking skills has been demonstrated in a number of research studies. In specific, role play has an important role in teaching speaking because it offers students a chance to practice communicating in different social contexts and different social roles. In role play activities, students act to be another one in the actual world situation that is brought into the classroom.