STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere. Author LI BIN i ABSTRACT Normally, EFL students with academic difficulties, is widely known as lack specific skills such as proper study habits, lack preparation of learning and feel anxiety in doing classroom activities. Helping the academic difficulty students do well in speaking English is the major job for most of the English speaking teachers nowadays.
The aim of this study was to explore the Conversational Implicature and Cooperative Principle employed by 2nd-year students of English major in learning speaking skills; the perceptions of students on using Conversational Implicature and Cooperative Principle in overcoming academic difficulties, the types of learning and suggestions raised from students and teachers in learning speaking skills were then investigated. Data were mainly collected through questionnaire for students and interview as a supplementary for a accomplishment. One hundred 2 nd-year English major students at Hue University, College of Foreign Languages took part in the questionnaire survey as well as nine students and five teachers who are teaching speaking skills joined in the interview to probe their perceptions on Implicature and Cooperative Principle, and suggestions raised for preparation of both students and teachers before speaking classes. The important findings include: (1) Most of the students and teachers are satisfied with using Conversational Implicature and Cooperative Principle in speaking English classes.
(2) Two third of students are suffered from academic difficulties. (3) Teachers‘ teaching methods, the classroom activities, and group works could meet the requirements of students to overcome academic difficulties. Key terms: academic difficulties; English speaking learning; English speaking skills ii Acknowledgement First of all, I would like to gratefully acknowledge to my supervisor, Asso. Tran Van Phuoc, for his whole-hearted guidance, valuable feedback and support.
I own all of the contents and the look of my thesis to him. I would like to say thank you to the 2nd-year students and teachers of English Major, who participated in my research survey and provided me with helpful suggestions. Finally, thanks are due to all my teachers, classmates and students who are studying in Hue University, College of Foreign Languages. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .…iv TABLE OF CONTENTS.iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.iv LIST OF APPENDICES….…iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ……………………………………………….iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.Background of the study.Purpose of the Study………………………………………………………….Significance of this Study…………………………………………………….Scope of this Research…………………………………………………………4 1.Structure of this thesis………………………………………………………….5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………6 iv 2.
Cooperative Principle and Converstional Implicature in this study…………6 2. Previous Study of AD………………………………………………………8 2. The Importance of Studying Students‘ AD in English Speaking Classes……. The significant of this study………………………………………………….11 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…………………………… …12 3.
Reliability of collected data………………………. Data Collection Procedures…………………………………………………. Data analysis Methods……………………………………………………….16 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS………………….1 Research Q1: What are students‘ perceptions on CI in learning English speaking skills?. Discussion of the responses from questionnaire to using CI in learning speaking skills…………………………………………………………………….
Discussion of the responses from interview to using CI in learning speaking skills…………………………………….2 Research Q2: How have 2nd year students of English major learnt speaking skills in Hue University, College of Foreign Language?.3 Research Q3: What suggestions should be recommended improving to overcoming academic difficulties in learning English speaking skills in Hue v University, College of Foreign Language?. Students‘ Preparation of Learning English Speaking Skills………………32 4. Teachers‘ Preparation of Teaching English Speaking Skills…………….1 Summary of Findings…………………………………………………………37 5. Suggestions for learning and teaching speaking skills………………………38 5.Limitation of the study and suggestions for future study…………………….40 REFERENCE…………………………………………………………………46 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 3.1 Students‘ Perceptions on Learning Speaking Skills…………………13 Table 3.1: Reliability of the data collected from the students………………15 Table 4.1 Speaking Conditions of 2nd –Year EFL Students…………………….2 Degree of Satisfaction to Using CI in Learning Speaking Skills…….3 The Organization of Speaking Classes……………………………….4 the length of time in studying speaking skills……………………….5 Teachers‘ Teaching Material………………………………………….6 Organization of Classroom Activities……………………………….7 Students‘ Satisfaction after Speaking Class………………………….8 Students‘ Role in Speaking Class……………………………………26 Table 4.9 Evaluation of Speaking Level……………………………………….10 Students‘ AD in Learning Speaking Skills…………………………29 Table 4.11 Students‘ Confusion about Subject Matter…………………………30 Table 4.
Three Types of Learning AD………………………………………31 vi LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1 …………………………………………………………………45 Appendix 2………………………………………………………………….53 Appendix 3……………………………………………………………………57 Appendix 4……………………………………………………………………58 Appendix 5……………………………………………………………………59 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AD : academic difficulty CI : Conversational Implicature CP : Cooperative Principle viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Background of the study With the development of world economics, English is becoming more and more important in Vietnam, as the same to all over the world. It‘s no hard to see that English has become the most global of languages. Crystal (1997) notes that a total of 670 million people in the world use English with a native or near native command.
With so many people communicating in English every day, it will become more and more important to have a good knowledge of English, especially spoken English. In many cities in Vietnam, English has become a compulsory subject in secondary school. At these levels, English teacher tends to focus on heavily on grammar, reading and writing, whereas listening and speaking generally receive little attention. As Brown and Yule (1983) pointed out that language teaching has been concerned with the teaching of written language in a long history.
Furthermore, since the National Entrance Examination just focuses on English grammar, reading and writing, as a result, most secondary school teachers don‘t want to provide students with the knowledge of listening and speaking. Therefore, when students become EFL students, to learn speaking English may be the most challenging job for them. Mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of learning a second or foreign language. (Nunan, 1991) To most EFL students, learning to speak a foreign language is quiet difficult---- they must recite the vocabulary and basic grammar, acquire the linguistic knowledge of how the English native speakers use in communication.
(Kang, 1997) Contemporary, in speaking classes under traditional teaching patterns, the teacher spent a lot of time in lecturing, leaving the students receiving linguistic knowledge passively. As Kayi (2006) said today‘s world requires that the goal of teaching speaking can help students express themselves and follow the cultural rules in communicative circumstance. For this reason, the purpose of learning speaking English is not only to handle this language but also to know how to use this language properly to communicate with people from other countries. Hence, ―for foreign language learners, effective oral communication is especially difficult because it requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interactions.‖ (Mo, 2011) For the reasons above, teaching and learning speaking skills might be a big challenge in non – English speaking countries.
In order to help EFL students do well in learning speaking skills, many researchers have focused on studying the requirements and difficulties in students‘ language learning. On the grounds of a study from Abbas (2011), learners with bad pronunciation will not be understood by others even if no any mistakes in their grammar and such learners may avoid speaking in English and employ difficulties in further study. And from another researcher Fu (2006), who did a study, showed that 90.5% students kept silence in speaking classes because they felt their English speaking skills are poor; meanwhile, large a number of students felt nervous or lacked of courage to speaking in front of their teachers and peers. In terms of classroom teaching, it is difficult for teachers and students to exchange ideas by English in large classes‘ size; as a result, the large classes will have fewer opportunities for teachers to aid individual students.
To help students overcome these problems, teachers need to plan appropriated teaching methods on the basis of their needs, monitor their learning interesting to get good results in learning speaking skills. Additionally, CP and CI are the rapidly growing fields in contemporary linguistics. It is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated by a speaker or a writer, and interpreted by a listener or a reader. It has greatly influenced foreign language teaching.
Therefore, this research intended to explore how to help 2nd- year English major students 2 overcome AD in learning speaking skills in Hue University, College of Foreign Languages. Although most of students lacked previous knowledge in English speaking, they still need to attend speaking classes once a week. It seemed that most of them are suffering from AD: dare not open the mouth, feel nervous in speaking English, have no ideas to go on a speech ect. In sum, most of students appear to have AD in learning speaking skills but they still hope to learn speaking well.
Problem statement The learning purpose of EFL students is to communicate with English native speakers; however, most of the EFL students still meet some AD when they are learning spoken English. Even the increasing of research have focused on speaking English in non-English speaking countries, but few of the researchers study AD based on the linguistics. Facing this situation, the researcher combined the AD and students‘ perceptions on English speaking skills, studying the AD among the 2nd –year students based on the CI and CP. That is the reason why the researcher chooses the title of ―An Investigation into the Academic Difficulties among the 2nd- Year Students of English Major in Speaking Classes at Hue University, College of Foreign Languages‖ 1.
Purpose of the Study This research will aim to find out the academic difficulties when the 2nd – year students of Hue University, College of Foreign Languages develop their English speaking skills in classes. This study will be based on the Conversational Implicature (CI) and Cooperative Principle (CP) 1. Significance of this Study Traditional English teaching focused more on usage than on use of language. At the meantime, Vietnam has opened its door, the demand for English 3 speaking to be competent enough to communicate verbally with the outside world and to access technology has rapidly increased.
As a result, the way of traditional teaching and learning has not matched the growing demand of Vietnamese society. For a long time, AD has been confused by most of the EFL students with learning English speaking skills. Owing to the wide spread of learning CI and CP, this study aims at drawing teachers and researchers‘ attention to help students overcome AD by CI and CP when they teach speaking skills. Moreover, this is the first research in the field of AD in Hue University, College of Foreign Languages.
The author hopes that this survey can, to some extent, help students overcome AD and success in learning speaking skills. Research Questions This study will answer the following questions: 1. What are students‘ perceptions on CP and CI in learning English speaking skills? 2. How have 2nd year students of English major learnt speaking skills in Hue University, College of Foreign Language? 3.
What suggestions should be recommended improving to overcoming AD in learning English speaking skills in Hue University, College of Foreign Language? 1. Scope of this Research The field of this study limited on AD involves factors like students‘ speaking English, learning background, and their feeling of the language learning and teachers‘ teaching methodology, excluding the practical or technical skills which also involve in learning speaking. Furthermore, all the research data only reflect the perception of 2nd –year students of English Major in Hue University, College of Foreign Language in AD, not related to the students of other colleges or universities in Vietnam. Structure of this thesis Chapter 1: Includes a general introduction to the research, which presents the background, problem statement and the purpose of the study; Chapter 2: Provides a review of the literature and the theoretical background on AD, and CI and CP, and describe what kind of the AD did the second year EFL students meet in speaking classes; Chapter 3: Deals with the methodology of this research.