VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -------- LÊ XUÂN HƯƠNG TRANG STRATEGIES TO ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES AT HAIPHONG SECONDARY VOCATIONAL SCHOOL OF TECHNICAL – PROFESSIONAL TRAINING Những chiến lược tăng cường sự tham gia của học sinh trong các giờ học kỹ năng nói tại Trường Trung cấp Kỹ thuật - Nghiệp vụ Hải Phòng M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English teaching methodology Code: 60.11 HANOI, 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -------- LÊ XUÂN HƯƠNG TRANG STRATEGIES TO ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES AT HAIPHONG SECONDARY VOCATIONAL SCHOOL OF TECHNICAL – PROFESSIONAL TRAINING Những chiến lược tăng cường sự tham gia của học sinh trong các giờ học kỹ năng nói tại Trường Trung cấp Kỹ thuật - Nghiệp vụ Hải Phòng M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English teaching methodology Code: 60. Dương Thị Nụ HANOI, 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Strategies to encourage students to participate in English speaking activities at HaiPhong secondary vocational school of technical – Professional training" is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts, and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution.
Hanoi, 2015 Lê Xuân Hương Trang i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I offer my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Duong Thi Nu, who has supported me thoughout my thesis with her patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. Without her support and active participation in every step of the process, this thesis may never have been completed. I would like to thank the teachers of the Faculty of post – graduated studies for their interesting lectures who provided me with the strong inspired statation for this study.
This study would not have been possible without the corporation and support extended by teachers and students at HaiPhong Secondary Vocational School for Technical – Professional Training. Their patience and willingness to respond to my survey questionnaires are very much appreciated. I would also like to thank my colleagues who listened and discussed ideas about this thesis with me on many occasions. Their informal support and encouragement has been indispensable.
Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement and support during the course of my writing. Without their support and assistance, it is impossible for me to finish this research. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This research has been done in an attempt to encourage students to take part in oral presentations and improve their speaking skill at HaiPhong Secondary Vocational School for Technical – Professional Training. Specifically, the researcher puts focus on students’ attitude towards speaking skill, their degree of participation in classroom speaking activities, reasons that make them hesitant to participate in oral activities, current methods applied to teach speaking as well as teachers’ view of CLT, their attitude towards unwilling speakers and mistake makers, their difficulties in teaching speaking and techniques and activities applied in teaching speaking.
The research was carried out among nine teachers and 100 students at HaiPhong Secondary Vocational School for Technical – Professional Training. The data were collected by means of survey questionnaires, classroom observation. It was firstly unveiled from the results that the level of students’ participation in speaking lessons is rather low. Secondly, students’ talking time in speaking lessons is limited.
Thirdly, regarding to factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities, there were five main ones namely uninteresting speaking topics, poor background knowledge, lack of confidence, lack of motivation and passive learning style. Fourthly, teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking was also highlighted. Lastly, the current methods were shown that most of the students feel uncomfortable learning with the teachers’ teaching activities which lead to the inability, or the unwillingness of the students to express themselves through oral activities. Basing on these findings, some implications are recommended for both the teachers and the students.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES 1. List of Figures Figure 1: The importance of speaking Figure 2: Interest degree in speaking Figure 3: Opinion of speaking topics Figure 4: Degree of participation in oral activities Figure 5 A, B: Current methods in speaking teaching Figure 6: Students’ exectation from their teachers Figure 7: Students’ expectation for speaking activities Figure 8: Applied teaching methods Figure 9: Teacher’s attitude towards oral activities Figure 10: Difficulties in speaking teaching Table 11: Activities to motivate students to participate more in oral activities 2. List of Tables Table 1: Students’ attitude towards speaking skill Table 2: Factors that make students hesitant to participate in oral activities Table 3: Teachers’ opinion of CLT Table 4 A, B: Teachers’ reactions towards unwilling speakers and mistake makers Table 5: Techniques to make students more interested in speaking lessons Table 6: Time on-task, off-task for students in speaking activities iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study.
Design of the study. 5 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW. Nature of speaking skill and principles in teaching speaking. Nature of speaking skill.
Principles of teaching speaking. Teacher’s roles in teaching speaking. Students’ participation in oral activities. Concept of students’ participation.
Factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities. 9 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY. Subjects of the study. Data collecting instrument.
Data collection procedure. Data analysis procedure. 14 CHAPTER THREE: STATISTICS AND ANALYSIS OF DATA. Results of questionnaires for students.
Students’ attitude towards speaking skill. 15 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Students’ degrees of participation in classroom speaking activities. Reasons that make students hesitant to participate in oral activities.
Current methods applied to teach speaking. Students’ expectation from their teachers. Results of questionnaire for teachers. Teachers’ view of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).
Teacher’s attitude towards unwilling speakers and mistake maker. Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking. Techniques and activities applied in teaching English speaking. Results of classroom observations.
28 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Levels of students’ participation in speaking lessons. Students’ talking time in speaking lessons. Learner’s factors affecting participation in oral activities.
Teacher’s difficulties in teaching speaking. Current teaching methods. Recommendations from the study. Recommendations for the learners.
Recommendation for the teachers. Limitations and suggestions for further study. I vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION This part, which includes rationale for the study, aims, research questions, scopes, methods and design of the study, would hopefully provide readers an overview of the whole research. Rationale Speaking skill, the most important aspect of learning a second language, is still a challenge for most students at vocational schools in general, HaiPhong Secondary Vocational School for Technical – Professional Training in particular.
Many students do not have a clear purpose of learning English in their mind and they are passively motivated to learn English basing on the textbooks and teachers’ method of delivery. As a result, most of students consider English as a compulsory subjects at schools and find themselves unable to use English for day-to-day communication. Many research has been done on English language teaching and learning at secondary vocational schools toward a greater emphasis on communication and student centeredness. While efforts have been made to encourage the participation of students in writing, reading, listening, far less attention is paid to teach necessary techniques to develop good speaking skill.
Besides, numerous difficulties in teaching and leaning speaking such as error correction, overcoming nervousness, etc… helping students to develop their ability in communication has not been emphasized much yet. In terms of my experiences of teaching English at HaiPhong Secondary Vocational School for Technical – Professional Training, I found that most of my students are unwilling to participate in oral activities. Reasons or this are various including teaching methods focus on grammar, teachers’opinion of English learning, student’s lack of idea or language devices, etc. To bridge the gap, this research aims at exploring some real situations about English speaking teaching and learning at HaiPhong Secondary Vocational School for Technical – Professional Training, and search for some reasons that affect the students’ participation in oral activities as well 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com as to suggest some appropriate teaching strategies to stimulate learner’s involvement in oral activities.
Aims of the study This study is designed to bring a fresh atmosphere into English classes for the students at HaiPhong Secondary Vocational School for Technical – Professional Training. In general, it has three purposes. Firstly, it is to investigate the impacts of oral activities on the students’ performance in English speaking lessons. Secondly, it aims at finding students’ attitudes towards the participation in oral presentations in the classroom.
Finally, it is to provide both teachers and students with some suggestions to encourage students’ participation in speaking activities. Research questions In order to reach the aims of the study, the research questions are as followed: 1. What are teachers and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill? 2. What are the factors affecting students’ participation in speaking activities? 3.
What should teachers do to increase students’ participation in speaking activities? 4. Scope of the study The research is conducted with view to current situation of teaching and learning speaking at HaiPhong Secondary Vocational School for Technical – Professional Training and find out the reasons why the students are not ready to speak and suggest some strategies to attract their attention. There are two groups of subjects in the study. The first group contains 100 students who have learned English for 4 years at lower secondary schools.
The second group includes 9 teachers of English to help find out what teaching methods and techniques were currently exploited in their teaching. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methods of the study With the aims mentioned above, this survey research will use both quantitative and qualitative methods including survey questionnaire and classroom observation. The data serving the research analysis and discussion were collected from a large number of teacher and student participants.
Classroom observation about the average amount of the students’ ‘time-on-task’ and “time-off-task” was used as the indispensable method to make the study more reliable and more valid. As for data analysis, the quantitative data from survey questionnaires would be calculated and from classroom observation would be transcribed and summarized. Then, all the data would be presented in charts, tables and for better visualization. Design of the study This assignment is divided into three main parts, including: Part A, INTRODUCTION, presents the research problem, the purpose, scope, design of the study.
Part B, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three following chapters: Chapter one, Literature Review, presents concepts relevant to the research topic including nature of speaking skill and principles of teaching speaking and definition of students’ participation, and factors affecting students’ participation Chapter two, Methodology, describes the subjects of the study, data collecting instrument, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure Chapter three, “Statistics and Analysis of data” analyses the collected data to answer the three research questions. Chapter four, “Findings and Recommendations” presents the findings with conclusions and comments after the experiment was finished, and suggestions to stimulate the students’ participation in speaking activities Part C, CONCLUSION, presents recapitulation, conclusions, limitations and suggestions for further study 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.