VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES **************** ĐỖ THỊ CẨM VÂN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT VINH PHUC TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE (Nghiên cứu những chiến lược giảng dạy nhằm nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ hai Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Vĩnh Phúc) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.11 Hanoi – 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES **************** ĐỖ THỊ CẨM VÂN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS AT VINH PHUC TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE (Nghiên cứu những chiến lược giảng dạy nhằm nâng cao kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ hai Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Vĩnh Phúc) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Tô Thị Thu Hương Hanoi - 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I, Do Thi Cam Van, hereby declare that the work in this thesis is the result of my own research.
It is recognized that should this declaration be found to be false, disciplinary actions could be taken and penalties could be imposed in accordance with university policies and rules. Hanoi, 2014 Đỗ Thị Cẩm Vân i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would love to express my sincere thanks to a number of people whose invaluable support and encouragement were of great help in completing of this study. First of all, I would like to advance my special gratitude to Dr. To Thi Thu Huong - my supervisor for her guidance, invaluable advice as well as critical comments during the research process.
Without her tireless help, this study could not have been finished. Secondly, my thanks go to Dr. Le Van Canh for his contributions through giving me helpful advice when I started the study. I am thankful to all the staff of the Post- Graduate Department of University of Language International Studies, VNU for giving me assistance and encouraging me to complete the thesis A further acknowledgement goes to my dear friends from the Master's Course.
I would also like to acknowledge the 15 English teachers and 60 second -year students from K17, English Department, Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College for their participation and cooperation during the data collection process. Finally, special words of thanks are sent to my beloved family for their encouragement even in the hardest time when I was confused and exhausted. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The study is entitled “An investigation into the instructional strategies to develop speaking skills for the second year students at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College”. It was conducted to examine the second year students’ difficulties in their English speaking skills, find out the instructional strategies applied by English language teachers in speaking classes, and show how role- play practice affecting students’ performance in speaking skills.
The study was carried out on sixty second- year students and fifteen English teachers at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College during 8 weeks by questionnaires, semi- structured interviews, test, and personal observations. The findings indicated students’ good awareness and varied attitudes towards the problems they have to face, and the difficulties they had in the learning process. In addition, the study showed a range of the instructional strategies the teachers applied to motivate their students’ participation in speaking lessons. And role- playing was the most popularly used at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration ………………………………………………………………. iii Table of contents. iv List of appendices. vi List of abbreviations.
vii List of figures. vii List of tables. Scope of the study. Aims of the study.
Significance of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study. 4 DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
Overview of speaking skills .1 Definition of speaking and teaching speaking skills .2 Principles for teaching speaking skills. Communicative Language Teaching Today .1 Definition of communicative language teaching .2 Current trends in communicative language teaching .3 Classroom activities in communicative language teaching .2 Instructional strategies model. 13 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 1.1 Description of the English speaking classe and its objectives at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College .2 Description of the students .3 Description of the teachers. Method and procedure .1 Selection of participants .2 Data collection methods .2 Semi-structured interviews.3 Data collection procedures.
20 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 1. Teachers’ instructional strategies in English speaking classes .1 Instructional strategies used by teachers in speaking lessons .2 Which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their difficulties in speaking lessons? .1 Students’ difficulties in the speaking classes .2 Which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their difficulties in speaking lessons?. Effect of role- play practice to students’ performance in English speaking classes. Summary of the study.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies. I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Transcripts of student interviews (schedule 1) Appendix 2: Transcripts of student interviews (schedule 2) Appendix 3: Transcripts of teacher interviews (schedule 1) Appendix 4: Transcripts of teacher interviews (schedule 2) Appendix 5: Teacher interview schedules Appendix 6: Student interview schedules Appendix 7: Mid- term test Appendix 8: Mid- term test: K 17 English A Appendix 9: Mid- term test: K 17 English C Appendix 10: Students’ questionnaire Appendix 11: Teachers’ questionnaire Appendix 12: Findings from observation vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ED: English Department EFL: English as a Foreign Language CLT: Communicative Language Teaching MA: Master of Arts PhD: Doctor of Philosophy Q: Question S: Student T: Teacher VTTC: Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Importance of the teachers’ instructional strategies from the teachers’ points of view Figure 2: Instructional strategies the teachers applied in English speaking lessons Figure 3: The instructional strategy motivated the students the most in English speaking lessons Figure 4: Importance of the teachers’ instructional strategies from the students’ points of view Figure 5: Instructional strategies the teachers used from the students’ points of view Figure 6: Instructional strategy motivated the students the most from the students Figure 7: Students’ difficulties in English speaking lessons Figure 8: Students’ difficulties from the teachers’ points of view Figure 9: Students’ result from the mid- term test vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Speaking activities and topics designed for the second year English majored students Table 2: Importance of the teachers’ instructional strategies from the teachers’ points of view Table 3: The instructional strategies the teachers applied and which instructional strategy motivated the students the most in English speaking lessons Table 4: Importance of the teachers’ instructional strategies from the students’ points of view Table 5: The instructional strategies the teachers applied and which instructional strategy motivated the students the most in English speaking lessons from the students’ points of view Table 6: Students’ difficulties in English speaking lessons Table 7: Students’ difficulties in English speaking lessons from the teachers’ points of view Table 8: Students’ perceptions towards role- play Table 9: Students’ result from the mid- term test viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION This part of the thesis is dedicated to introducing the rationale, the aims, the scopes and the significance of the study as well as the research questions. It also presents the research method and the design of the study.
Rationale At present, Vietnamese people consider English to be an important foreign language, and thus, a great number of people study it. In the context of global integration, in general, and in Viet Nam in particular, the demand for learning English gets stronger and stronger power. This worldwide expansion has increased the demand to acquire good communication skills in English. That is the reason why the teaching and learning English has been paid more attention recently in Vietnam.
English is regarded as an indispensable tool for academic and career advancement. It cannot be denied, therefore, that English is now the dominant language, especially in language teaching programs in many schools. In the era of communicative language teaching, teaching and learning the four language skills are inevitable (Bailey, 1998). Of four major language skills, the mastery of speaking skills is put on the first priority by many Vietnamese learners.
This is because the success of learners in language learning is often evaluated on the improvement in their spoken language proficiency (Richards, 2006). In order to aid teachers and learners in their teaching and learning speaking skills, there is a variety of speaking instructional techniques available. In addition, Shumin (1997) stated that learning to speak a foreign language requires more than knowing its grammar and vocabulary. The ways the teachers teach English can affect the academic achievement of the learners especially at higher level.
Nunan (1998) argued that it is very important for the teachers to be aware that motivation is a consideration in determining whether or not learners are willing to 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Clearly, the more meaningful the materials, the tasks and the teachers’ instructional strategies are for the learners involved, the better the outcome will be. Ur (2005) developed this further by suggesting that good speaking skills classrooms are ones where learners talk a lot, participation is even, motivation is high and the language is at an acceptable level. Ur (1991) reminded motivation is one of the most important matters for the class teachers and suggested that “learners motivation makes teaching and learning immeasurably easier and more pleasant, as well as more productive” (Ur 1991: 274) Furthermore, in the process of learning English speaking skills, the second year English majored students at VTTC often express a feeling of stress, nervousness or anxiety, in-confidence… In addition, their results in the final speaking examinations are usually low.
This fact can be triggered to many difficulties the students have to face in their learning process. In order to help the second year English majored students to overcome their difficulties in learning speaking skills, and help the English teachers to have some useful instructional strategies in teaching are the inspiration of conducting the study entitled “An investigation into the instructional strategies to develop speaking skills for the second year students at Vinh Phuc Teacher Training College”. Scope of the study As this thesis is only a small-sized scale study, it is only concerned with the difficulties the students had in the speaking class, the suitable instructional strategies that teachers at VTTC choose for the second year English majored students in their speaking lessons as well as to help the students learn English speaking skills better. Aims of the study The study is carried out to help the English teachers at VTTC find out which instructional strategies are suitable in the actual context of teaching English speaking skills at VTTC.
Firstly, the thesis is an attempt to explore the instructional strategies 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com being applied by English language teachers by questionnaires, interviews, and observation so as to see which instructional strategies help the students to overcome their difficulties in English speaking lessons. Secondly, the study investigated the effectiveness of role- play practice to students’ English speaking performance. In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the study is designed to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the instructional strategies applied by the English language teachers in speaking classes at VTTC? 1. What instructional strategies are commonly used by the English language teachers in their speaking lessons? 1.