VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** KHỔNG THỊ THU HẰNG Bản tóm tắt luận văn THE SITUATION OF TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL TO THE STUDENTS OF PRE-INTERMEDIATE LEVEL OF PROFICIENCY AT PEOPLE’S POLICE COLLEGE I: PROBLEMS AND SOME SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVITIES (THỰC TRẠNG DẠY KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC VIÊN Ở TRÌNH ĐỘ TIỀN TRUNG CẤP TẠI TRƯỜNG TRUNG CẤP CẢNH SÁT NHÂN DÂN I: KHÓ KHĂN VÀ ĐỀ XUẤT MỘT SỐ CÁC THỦ THUẬT VÀ HOẠT ĐỘNG DẠY HỌC PHÙ HỢP) M. MINOR THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 COURSE: 18 HANOI - 2011 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION………………………………………………………………………….iii TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………….iv LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS…………………………………………….vii LIST OF ABREVIATIONS………………………………………….viii PART ONE: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………. Rationale of the study…………………………………………………………. Aims of the study……………………………………….
Significance of the study…………………………………………………. Scope of the study……………………………………………………. Method of the study…………………………………………………………. Design of the study……………………………………………….3 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………….5 CHAPTER ONE - LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………….
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)…………………………………. Concept of CLT………………………………………. Characteristics of CLT………………………………………. Using CLT in Teaching Speaking Skill………………………….
Nature of language skills and oral communication………………………. Nature of language skills……………………………………………. Concepts of speaking………………………………………. Characteristics of speaking………………………………………….
The development approach of speaking skill………………………. Problems with speaking and speaking activities………………………. Problems with speaking………………………………………….14 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION………………………………………………………………………….iii TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………….iv LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS…………………………………………….vii LIST OF ABREVIATIONS………………………………………….viii PART ONE: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………. Rationale of the study………………………………………………………….
Aims of the study………………………………………. Significance of the study…………………………………………………. Scope of the study……………………………………………………. Method of the study………………………………………………………….
Design of the study……………………………………………….3 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………….5 CHAPTER ONE - LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)…………………………………. Concept of CLT………………………………………. Characteristics of CLT……………………………………….
Using CLT in Teaching Speaking Skill…………………………. Nature of language skills and oral communication………………………. Nature of language skills……………………………………………. Concepts of speaking……………………………………….
Characteristics of speaking…………………………………………. The development approach of speaking skill………………………. Problems with speaking and speaking activities………………………. Problems with speaking………………………………………….14 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Problems with speaking activities…………………………………….15 CHAPTER TWO - METHODOLOGY ……………………………………. The research context…………………………………………. Course and its objectives at People’s Police College I……………………. The students at the PPCI…………………………………………….
The teachers at the PPCI……………………………………………. Data collection instruments………………………………………………. Data collection procedures……….23 CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS…………………………. Questionnaire and interview for teachers………………………….
Questionnaire and interview for students……………………………. Teachers’ and students’ perception of speaking and speaking activities…. Teachers’ and students’ problems in teaching and learning to speak English……….Teachers’ problems in teaching 1st year English students……. Students’ problems in learning to speak English…………….
Inappropriate current techniques in teaching speaking skill …………. Problems from objective factors………………………………………. Summary…………………………………………………………………………43 PART THREE: SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION………………….44 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Some coping strategies for teachers…………….
Some suggested classroom techniques and activities for teachers to motivate students of English ……………………………………………………………………. Some suggested techniques in teaching speaking……………………. Teaching speaking strategies…………………………………. Base the activities on easy language………………………….
Use language in authentic ways………………………………. Design activities with a purpose………………………………. Use pair work and group work…………………………………. Adjust feedback/ Error correction………………………………49 2.
Some suggested activities in teaching speaking………………………49 3. Structured output activities/ Guided activities…………………50 3. Communicative output activities………………………………. Limitations of the study ……………………………………………………….
Suggestions for further study………………………………………….V TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vii LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Teachers’ perception of CLT Chart 2: Teachers’ current method in teaching speaking skill Chart 3: Teachers’ reaction when students keep making mistakes and frequency of correcting mistakes while students are performing their tasks Chart 3.1: Teachers’ reaction when students keep making mistakes Chart 3.2: frequency of correcting mistakes while students are performing their tasks Chart 4: The students’ reasons for learning English Chart 5: Students’ opinions on the speaking topics. Chart 6: Teachers’ reactions to students’ mistakes LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Teachers’ attitudes towards teaching and learning speaking skill at PPCI Table 2: Teachers’ difficulties in teaching speaking skill to the students at PPCI Table 3: Techniques to minimize the difficulties encounter in teaching speaking at PPCI Table 4: Students’ attitudes towards speaking skills Table 5: Factors that make the student reluctant to speak Table 6: Teachers’ current techniques to encourage students to speak TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com viii LIST OF ABREVIATIONS PPCI : People’s Police College I Ss : Students Ts : Teachers CLT : Communicative Language Teaching GE : General English ESP : English for Specific Purposes No. of teachers : Number of teachers No. of students : Number of students FLD : Foreign Languages Department TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 1 PART ONE : INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study Undeniably, English is a global language crossing many international boundaries. In fact, the English language is so popular, it is spoken in more than a hundred countries and has more than a million words. English is considered as the medium of communication in the fields of science, technology, diplomacy, and business, and so on. English has an inherent simplicity and flexibility allowing it to be learnt quickly, cementing English as a global language.
In addition, the political and economic changes have great positive impact on the teaching methods of teachers of English in Vietnam. They have realized that students can only improve their language competence through communication. It is the need for oral competence in English that has turned the teachers‟ emphasis from teaching grammar into teaching communication. Therefore, speaking skills nowadays play a much more important role in modern English than ever before.
In every English class, teachers would like to develop students‟ speaking skills by applying the communicative language teaching method known as one of the most effective approaches that help students speak. However, in some places in Vietnam English teaching has been strongly influenced by the traditional methods. Teachers as well as students pay much attention to the grammatical items. In these classes, teachers mainly focus on explaining the grammatical rules and structures to students who are considered as passive recipients.
As a result, those students might be structurally competent but communicative incompetent. That causes a lot of difficulties in using English in real-life communication. To meet the demand of learners of English, teachers of English in general and teachers of English at People's Police College I (hereafter PPCI) in particular have been trying to find out the most suitable and effective method of teaching English Speaking. Therefore, the Communicative Language Teaching Approach (hereafter CLT) is applied to teach English to learners of all levels.
They hope that by using this teaching method, they can help their learners improve their English and use it effectively and fluently in communication. That is TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 also the idea suggested by many linguists and methodologists such as Nunan (1991) and Das (1985). Nevertheless, there still exist many difficulties facing English Language teachers in Vietnam in general and English Language teachers at the PPCI in particular. Many Vietnamese learners can write and read English quite well but they cannot speak fluently and correctly in communication.
Certainly there are many reasons for this. As one teacher of English I realized that although both teachers and learners try their best to reach their goals to teach and study English speaking skills effectively, up to now the results have been still far from satisfaction. This has given me the desire to conduct this research to examine the teaching and learning English speaking skill as well as to find techniques and activities to improve the quality of the teaching of speaking skill at the People's Police College I where I am working full time. Aims of the study The main purpose of this study is to investigate the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills to the students at Pre-Intermediate level of proficiency at PPCI in order to find out problems preventing the students from willingly taking part in speaking activities in the English class.
The writer also makes some recommendations for the English teachers as reference in their teaching speaking skills with a view to help the students improve their speaking competence. The specific objectives of the study are: To investigate the current situation of teaching English speaking skill at PPCI. To identify the problems that the teachers and students face in teaching and learning speaking skills. To suggest some techniques and activities to improve the quality of the teaching of speaking skill at PPCI.
Significance of the study The study is significant for the following reasons. Firstly, it finds out how teachers and students perceive the concept of speaking and speaking activities. Secondly, it find out the TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 3 problems that teachers and students face. Furthermore, it gives some suggestions for the teachers to adapt the textbook and provides some techniques to help motivate learners.
Scope of the study The study focuses on the difficulties that the English language teachers meet when teaching speaking skill to students of Pre-Intermediate level of English Proficiency at the PPCI and some suggested techniques and activities which help them improve the quality of their teaching. The study of difficulties, recommendations of other language skills such as reading, writing and listening to ameliorate the quality of learning English skills would be beyond the scope of this study. In addition, due to the time constraints and the narrow-scale study, the study only involves in the number of the 1st year students of Reconnaissance Investigation Police at People‟s Police College I. Method of the study This study is designed to use both quantitative and qualitative.
In order to gain the most successful results, the quantitative data has been collected through survey questionnaires. One survey questionnaire is for students of pre-intermediate level of English language proficiency at the PPCI and the other is for English language teachers of Division of Foreign Languages and Informatics – The PPCI. Collected data, then, will be processed and analyzed to yield conclusions about the study. Together with the quantitative method, the qualitative data has been obtained by informal interviews with some students and teachers to gather in-depth information about the real situations of teaching and learning speaking skills at PPCI.
All comments, remarks and recommendations assumptions and conclusion provided in the study based on the data analysis. Design of the study This minor thesis is composed of three parts: PART ONE, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, the aims, significance, scope, methods and design of the study. PART TWO, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three following chapters. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 4 Chapter one, Literature Review, presents the concepts relevant to the study.
It starts with the theoretical issues on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which consist the definition, characteristics, using CLT in teaching speaking. The next part discusses about nature of language skills and oral communication, speaking skill with the definition of speaking skill as well as the development approach of speaking skill. This chapter also presents related theories to the problems in teaching English speaking skill. Chapter two, Methodology, mentions the research context, research questions, participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, data analysis.
Chapter three, Findings and Discussion, the study and the presentations of the statistical results and presents and discusses findings of the difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students of English at PPCI including the difficulties caused by teachers themselves, students and objective factors. PART THREE, SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION, is some coping strategies and classroom techniques and activities in reducing those difficulties suggested by the participants of the study, the conclusion of the study which presents overview of the study. Besides the limitations of the thesis are pointed out and the areas for further study are also proposed. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 5 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) It is known that the history of language teaching has shown the change on methods, which have reflected recognition of changes in the sort of proficiency learners needs. What has changed in a second language teaching is not the way we teach but in the aim of language teaching and learning (Le, 2004).