MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY NGO LY TAN THUY SPEAKING SKILL EVALUATION FOR SECONDARY STUDENTS AT UK ACADEMY SCHOOL (BA RIA VUNG TAU PROVINCE): A TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION STUDY Major: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Course code: 8140111 MASTER THESIS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGE Supervised by Assoc. Phạm Huu Duc, Ph. BA RIA VUNG TAU- 2022 i DECLARATION BY AUTHOR I, the undersigned, hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Speaking skill evaluation for secondary students at UK Academy school (Ba Ria Vung Tau province): a teachers’ perception study” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Language. The substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any other degree to any other universities or institutions.
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 the Graduate Faculty of Ba Ria Vung Tau university. Author’s Signature Ngô Lý Tấn Thủy ii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled: Speaking skill evaluation for secondary students at UK Academy school (Ba Ria Vung Tau province): a teachers’ perception study. In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s programs issued by Higher Degree Committee of Postgraduate Institute, Ba Ria Vung Tau University Ba Ria Vung Tau province, 2022 NGO LY TAN THUY iii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Ngo Ly Tan Thuy, being a candidate for the degree of TESOL accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan, and reproduction for theses. Ba Ria Vung Tau, September 2022 Signature …………………… Ngo Ly Tan Thuy iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In order to complete the thesis “Speaking skill evaluation for secondary students at UK Academy school (Ba Ria Vung Tau province): a teachers’ perception study”, the author has been supported by many people. Through this opportunity, I would like to express my gratitude to these people for helping me finish this thesis. First of all, I would like to express my genuine appreciation to Assoc.D, my supervisor, for his considerate guidance and his passionate inspiration as well as his thorough explanation on my research paper.
Secondly, I would like to thank Mr. Pierre and Mr. Robin, Mr Alex, my colleague at UK Academy School for supporting me during my research. Thirdly, I am very thankful for all the participants of this study, who have cooperatively taken part in taking questionnaires as well as contributed their opinions on the textbook and the course.
In addition, I would like to thank all of the lecturers who gave me interesting lessons, dedication and advice during my study at Ba Ria Vung Tau University. Last but not least, I must express my appreciation to my superior at my workplace who has encouraged me to continue my learning path and has always believed in my ability to complete this thesis and to have a brighter future. v TABLE CONTENTS DECLARATION BY AUTHOR. ii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY.
iii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS. 3 LIST OF TABLES .2 Aims of the study.4 Scope of the study .5 Significance of the study .7 Structure of the study. 9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. The role of teaching speaking.
Definition of Speaking. Characteristics of speaking. Importance of speaking. The Factors of Speaking Skills.
Types of Speaking Performance. Factors Affecting the Students' Performance in Speaking Activities. The Roles of the Teacher in Speaking Class .1 Definition of materials evaluation .2 Reasons for materials evaluation .3 Types of materials’ evaluation .4 Approaches and Criteria for materials evaluation. Speaking skill evaluation.
Definition of speaking skill evaluation. The advantages of classroom evaluation .3 Reasons for speaking skill evaluation. Teaching speaking skill. Previous studies on ELT speaking.
Nature of oral skills. Evaluation of speaking skills. Data collection instruments. Data collection procedures .53 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .1 The current status of classroom speaking evaluation conducted in UK Academy school.
Teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of classroom speaking evaluation. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. Suggestions for further research .73 2 ABSTRACT It is widely known that language acts as a crucial and characteristic product of every country according to the fact that it is the typical nature of each country. Once students are exposed to an international language, they must master four skills, especially listening, speaking, reading, and writing in order to effectively master and use it.
Among the above four skills, oral English is probably considered to be one that requires a lot of study and practice time. A large number of students encountered challenges in early phonetic learning. In fact, a decent language acquisition is one of the keys for students to gradually open the door to this magical language. The aim of the study is to evaluate the speaking skill of secondary students at UK Academy School in Ba Ria city, Ba Ria Vung Tau province to investigate whether the students using their language ability through their speaking skill suitably meet the requirements of the school curriculum in terms of their language proficiency and especially the speaking skill.
Teacher-based speaking evaluation conducted in the classroom are not only strongly recommended at UK Academy policies but are also the only tool used to evaluate students’ speaking skills in the formal schooling system. The data was collected from questionnaires and interviews of 26 English teachers who are recently working at UK Academy school. The result of the survey showed that the teaching quality and the curriculum of school highly met the stakeholder’s requirements in terms of aims. The research also suggested the designing aspect of materials and teaching methods to make them more interesting for students to learn how to speak English better.
3 LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Purpose of classroom speaking evaluation. The importance of classroom speaking evaluation. Using methods of evaluation. Test tasks/activities used in classroom speaking evaluation.
The classroom speaking evaluation meet the school’s requirements. The classroom speaking evaluation meet the school’s output (B1) .1 Rationale It is widely known that language acts as a crucial and characteristic product of every country according to the fact that it is the typical nature of each country. Once students are exposed to an international language, they must master four skills, especially listening, speaking, reading, and writing in order to effectively master and use it. Among the above four skills, oral English is probably considered to be one that requires a lot of study and practice time.
A large number of students encountered challenges in early phonetic learning. In fact, a decent language acquisition is one of the keys for students to gradually open the door to this magical language. It is globally known that English, as the most popular language used by people in the world, English is a great second language to learn, whether it is for personal reasons, daily routine, travel or business. Learning any new language takes hard work, commitment, and a desire to make mistakes.
Similarly, Learning English is not an exception. English is taught in all schools in Vietnam and at all stages of education, from kindergarten to university. However, if you take into account the users of the second language, the problem is here, it is difficult to rule out, people respond better to the language they develop. To effectively sell products to people, it is not enough to speak a language they understand, especially when their understanding is limited.
You must talk to them in the language they use in their hearts. There is a reason why the demand for learning English nowadays is booming. English has been periodically crowned as “the global language,” especially in the international school, oral language is more and more important for students so that they can challenge themselves and go out the world. So, 5 speaking skill is one of the most significant factors to help them achieve their goal leading to the bright future.
UK Academy bilingual school in Ba Ria city, Ba Ria Vung Tau province was founded on June 2016. During the past 5 years with all effort of UK Academy teachers and staff, the academy has been recognized and appreciated for its training quality by the modern and integrated teaching method it is one of the education system that takes humanity as philosophy, UK Academy provides pupils the foundation for comprehensive development, from learning, skills to physical health through the combination of seven programs: Cambridge English International program, Program of the Ministry of Education and Training, Living skill and Living value program; British music Program, Junior Business Program JA (Junior Achievement), STEM (Science Technology Engineer Math) Robotics in combination with utmost physical development program. Learning in UK Academy, the students are ready to be integrated into the international program to accomplish high school with 2 certificates. These 4 educational criteria of philosophy generate comprehensive humanitarian capacity.
At UK Academy school, the curriculum was designed to help the students to comprehensively develop 4 skills: active listening, speaking confidently, reading for thoughts and creative writing to acquire necessary academic skills such as responding thinking, teamwork, researching and communicating naturally as 6 native speakers, to be prepared to take examination for English Cambridge certificate after each class and grade. It also helps students master the English Moet program to make sure that they can take the national examination. In the teaching speaking skill, teachers have been using more than 3 kinds of book to train students and having them familiarizing with special tests like those in the MOET program and the IELTS program, and practical knowledge is brought to them through extra materials that would be really useful for their further study and their future. However, up to now, some drawbacks have been found that many students are not able to improve their speaking skills.
Additionally, the 10th grade and the 11th grade students still find it hard to be good at speaking skill. Furthermore, together with some subjective reasons beyond the school expectation, it seems obviously necessary to conduct the research on evaluation of this skill. The findings of the study, hopefully, will help the researcher and teachers of English department to improve or change the materials, and more importantly, to promote their language teaching. On those above-mentioned grounds, the researcher has decided to undertake this study to evaluate whether the speaking skill suitably meets the requirements of the school output in terms of learning and teaching.
At UK Academy school, the focus has been on the speaking skill since the establishment of UK Academy school as this skill is designated to those in grade 11 and 12 students. Since its first use in teaching, there has been no official evaluation from researchers or teachers conducted to review the suitable methodology for teaching this skill. Furthermore, complaints about the problems arising during the learning process regularly emerge, especially the complaints on the teaching methods, vocabulary and pronunciation. Moreover, some teachers still question the relevance of this skill students’ needs.
Therefore, a study to evaluate teaching and learning speaking skill is urgently needed.2 Aims of the study The aim of the study is to evaluate and improve the speaking skill of secondary students at UKA school to investigate whether the teaching methods are suitable for students and whether students’ speaking fluency suitably meets the requirements of school output in term of teaching and learning speaking.