Certificate of Originality of Study Project Report I certify my authorship of the Study Project Report submitted which is entitled: ENGLISH SPEAKING ABILITY AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN VIETNAM: CHALLENGES, OBSTACLES, AND RECOMMENDATIONS in terms of the Statement of Requirements for Theses and Field Study Reports in Master of Art Programmes (TESOL) December, 2005 Author’s Signature Nguyeãn Thò Thanh Taâm 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Dennis Berg, Professor of California State University Fullerton, for his precious assistance, instructions and encouragement during the time this study was being done. I must say thanks to the Staff of The Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, especially Ms. Vu Thi Phuong Anh, Ph.
Nguyen Hoang Linh, M., for their help and suggestions. I am also grateful to my colleagues and students for their participation in my research work. 2 ABTRACT In Vietnam, English is considered the key to opening doors to higher education and promotion. Those who want to be successful in learning and working try their best to learn English.
Almost all high school students are aware of the importance of learning English due to the fact that English is one of the required subjects in their annual and final examinations. However, high school students generally do not acquire the English language in the common way (among native learners) that language develops; i., listening, speaking, reading and writing. Instead, they have a tendency to be good at reading skills and grammar because both the English textbooks designed for high school students and the English tests and examinations that high school students take focus on reading and grammar. Anyone who spends time to learn a foreign language desires to acquire it not only to pass a test or an examination but also to use the target language to communicate.
Many high school students are good at rules of grammar but they have difficulty expressing themselves orally in English. This study (thesis) investigates the situations in which high school students practice and develop their English speaking skills in an effort to identify the challenges and obstacles faced by high school students. It is hoped that the results of this study will allow for the development of recommendations which may be helpful to teachers and students in teaching and learning English speaking skills. This thesis consists of five chapters: 3 Chapter 1 introduces the study including the rationale, the background of the study, the aim and the significance of the study, along with the limitations and delimitations.
Chapter 2 presents a review of the literature relevant to the study. It introduces the research on the developing of speaking skills and the points of view of several authors about the nature of speaking, the factors that affect speaking skills in communication and teaching and learning of speaking skills at high schools. Chapter 3 describes the methodology that has been employed in this study. It also includes the research questions and the research design.
Quantitative is the main method of the study. The cross-sectional survey was conducted using two questionnaires: one for teachers and one for students in an effort to investigate the attitudes and pedagogy concerning the central questions of this research. Some interviews and class observations were completed as companion results to the survey. Chapter 4 contains the data analysis, the interviews and the class observation reports.
It also shows the findings which have been drawn from the results of the survey, the interviews, and the class observations. The results of the study have showed that the situations and conditions in which many high school students are learning English may not help them develop their speaking skills properly. 4 Chapter 5 provides summary, conclusions, and recommendations. The results of the study lay the foundations on which conclusions are drawn and recommendations are submitted.
The study has shown that the importance and development of speaking skills are not highly appreciated at high schools compared with grammar, reading and writing. It is necessary to make some changes to help high school students to learn English for the sake of the language – to communicate in both spoken language and written language, not solely to cope with tests and examinations. ____________________ 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Table of contents vii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Background to the study 3 1.
Aim of the study 8 1. Significance of the study 9 1. Limitations and Delimitations 10 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 12 2. What is speaking? 12 2.
Research in developing speaking skills 14 2. The characteristics of speaking 17 2. Speaking – a complex process 17 2. The importance of speaking skills in language learning 20 2.
Integration of speaking skills and others 25 2. Developing of speaking skills in classroom 28 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 43 3. Data collection 48 Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 50 4. The characteristics of the participants 50 4.
The participants’ points of view on speaking skills in language teaching and learning 58 4. The classroom conditions 66 4. Teaching and practicing speaking skills 71 4. Students’ interest in speaking skills and application of Further Practice Section 79 4.
Teachers’ remarks on Further Practice Section, practicing the dialogues in the textbooks, and factors affecting developing high school students’ speaking skills 87 4. The participants’ ideas and recommendations on improving oral ability 91 4. Findings 101 7 Chapter 5: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS 102 5. Recommendations 105 Bibliography 109 Appendix 114 8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Interest in the teaching of speaking to high school students must begin with an interest in and understanding of the syllabus used in high school English courses and the current methods used at high schools to teach speaking skills.
The aim and the significance of this study are to provide information that might be used to modify both syllabus and pedagogy to bring about more effective teaching of speaking skills. This Chapter will provide an introduction to this study, along with limitations and delimitations applying to this study.1 Rationale Almost all teachers of English who work in a high school have experienced that English speaking periods make them embarrassed and annoyed because their students do not seem to be willing to take part in the speaking activities. They just say nothing, keep silent, look at each other and appear to become tongue-tied when teachers ask them to answer some questions in English or to practice speaking the target language. Sometimes teachers feel the sense of failure and have to talk all the time while students listen to them passively.
Actually, English speaking periods are also a difficult time for high school students. As Brown (1994) writes, one of the major obstacles students have to overcome in learning to speak is the anxiety which generates over 9 the risks of blurting things out that are wrong, stupid or incomprehensible; many of them have claimed that they feel nervous and worried when they have to express something in English and they feel hard to put their feelings and ideas into oral language. Even those students who usually get good marks in tests and examinations have the difficulty when speaking English in front of their classmates. “Nothing to say” is also a common problem of high school students.
They do not seem to have the need to communicate in English in spite of the fact that their teacher tries to elicit them to say something. They cannot think of anything to say, they have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should speak (Ur, 1996). It is their anxiety and inhibition that prevent them from using English orally. Another problem is that high school students often practice speaking in written English.
In fact, spoken English is different from written English in many ways (Sesnan, 1997). Many high school students cannot distinguish the difference partly because of their lack of exposure to spoken language and partly because of the fact that the English syllabus is designed mainly to develop written language. They have profound knowledge of English vocabulary and grammar but do not have enough opportunities to use English to communicate. Meanwhile, various studies have shown that people spend about 70 percent of their waking hours engaged in communication activities, with about 10 percent of this communication time spent in writing, 15 percent in reading, 30 percent in speaking, and 45 percent in listening (Brooks and Heath, 1993).
Therefore, it is worth spending time practicing speaking skills 10 and classroom activities that develop the students’ ability to express themselves through speech appear to be an important component of a language course (Ur, 1996). It is the contention of this thesis that the whole situations in which high school students learn their speaking skills need to be changed in order to help them speak English better. Background to the study The English syllabus for high school students is designed to train them in the four skill areas: listening, speaking, reading and writing; gradually the focus of teaching shifts to developing their reading skills. It is a combination of the structural syllabus and the skill-based syllabus.
In the English textbooks (English 10, English 11 and English 12 by Tu Anh, Phan Ha, May Vi Phuong. The Education Publishing House) used for high school students, academic vocabulary and grammatical rules are the dominate contents. They are designed to develop four basic skills of language learning but more emphasis is placed on the development of the students’ reading skills (Tu Anh, Phan Ha, May Vi Phuong, 1989). English 10 contains 14 teaching units and two consolidation units (Unit 8 and Unit 15).
English 11 contains 9 teaching units and one consolidation unit (Unit 10). 11 English 12 contains 9 teaching units and one consolidation unit (Unit 10). Each of the teaching units includes a reading text, comprehension practice, word study, further practice, test, and more exercises. - A Reading Text, which helps students practice their reading skills and widen their knowledge of academic vocabulary and expressions, is about 300 – 350 words.
The contents of the reading texts are about society, sports, medicine, science and technology. - Comprehension Practice, which checks the students’ understanding of the reading text they have read, consists of comprehension exercises such as True or False, Questions and Answers, and Cloze tests. - Intensive Controlled Practice supplies students with some knowledge of grammar and structures; tenses, clauses, and sentence connectors are the main contents. - Word Study helps students enrich their vocabulary.
It presents some word formations of compound nouns and compound adjectives, as well as prefixes and suffixes. - Further Practice offers students opportunities to practice speaking skills with short dialogues or open dialogues (two interlocutors and about 4 or 6 utterances) based on the contents of the reading texts. - Test and More Exercises give students various exercises to reinforce the grammar points and vocabulary they have just learnt from Reading text and Practice. The consolidation units help students to review the language material that they have learnt and prepare them for tests and examinations.
Multiple- 12 choice exercises on grammar and vocabulary and some more reading texts are dominant. As a whole, in the English textbooks designed for high school students, vocabulary and grammatical rules are the most significant. There are 99 periods (a period lasts 45 minutes) each school year, which means 3 period a week. For the 10th grade, each teaching unit is taught in 7 periods (Reading text and Comprehension: 2 periods, Practice and Word Study: 2 periods, Further Practice: 1 period, and Test and More Exercises: 2 periods) and each consolidation is covered in 5 periods.
In addition, there are 4 periods for 45-minute tests and 2 periods for semester examinations. Unit 5 and unit 10 are omitted.