MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ CHE LE HIEN AN INVESTIGATION INTO PROBLEMS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL ENCOUNTERED BY HUE MONUMENTS CONSERVATION CENTRE’S STAFF MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2019 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ CHE LE HIEN AN INVESTIGATION INTO PROBLEMS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL ENCOUNTERED BY HUE MONUMENTS CONSERVATION CENTRE’S STAFF THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVISOR: ASSOC. TRUONG VIEN HUE, 2019 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------- CHẾ LÊ HIỀN PHÂN TÍCH NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ THƢỜNG GẶP TRONG KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA CÁN BỘ TRUNG TÂM BẢO TỒN DI TÍCH CỐ ĐÔ HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƢƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƢỜI HƢỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS.TS TRƢƠNG VIÊN HUẾ, 2019 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Signed:………………………… Date: ……………………… i ABSTRACT This study investigates the problems in English speaking skill encountered by the staff of Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.
The purpose of this research is to look into the overall problems encountered by employees when they communicate with foreigners in English. The understanding of issues is useful information because it will help staff identify their problems in speaking English. Also, this study was conducted to investigate what are the most common communication strategies used by the staff of Hue Monuments Conservation Centre to help them achieve their communication goals. The subjects for this research were 105 employees who were working at Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.
The data were collected through the means of questionnaires and interviews. The results of this study revealed that the employees encountered with a wide range of problems such as low of English listening skills (e. troubles with profession information during telephone calls; speaking speech of foreigners; accuracy in listening; understanding unfamiliar topics ; understanding specialized terminology ; and understanding different accents), low of English speaking skills (e. looking for appropriate words), grammar problems (e.
making grammatical errors during communication process; not using correct forms of tenses; not using correct plural forms), having insufficient vocabulary, fear of making mistakse, and shyness, of which, having troubles with grammar in English speaking accounted the highest portion. Moreover, the results of this study also indicated that there were a wide number of communication strategies used, of which, clarification, repetition, paraphrasing, and time gaining were the most common strategies used by the employees at workplace. Key words: speaking skills, problems, communication strategies ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and sincere thanks to my supervisor Assoc. Truong Vien, PhD., who gave me priceless feedback, warm support and excellent encouragement during the research process.
I am really thankful that he has spent a great deal of his valuable time meeting with me, instructing and giving comments. Second, my sincere thanks are sent to the Director, my Deputy Head of Department as well as other Departments, and my colleagues who helped me in many ways so that I could have peace of mind for my study. Last but not least, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my family and my friends because I could not have completed this study without their support and encouragement. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of original authorship.
iii Table of contents .iv List of tables. vii List of figures. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .5 Scope of the study .6 Structure of the thesis. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 The significance of English speaking skills at workplace .2 Oral communication process .3 Definition of speaking skills .4 Characteristics of speaking .5 Factors contributing to English speaking problems .2 Fear of mistakes .4 Lack of Confidence .6 Types of Communication Strategies .1 Designing the questionnaires .2 Participants and research site.1 The administration of the questionnaires .2 The administration of the interview .25 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Results from questionnaires .1 Problems in English speaking skills faced by the employees of Hue Monuments Conservation Centre .2 The communication strategies used by the staff of Hue Monuments Conservation Centre when communicating with foreigners .2 Results from interviews .4 Summary of the findings.
52 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION .1 Summary of major findings .2 Implications and suggestions .1 For the management staff .2 For the employees.4 Recommendations for further research .57 APPENDICES vi LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Clusters and items of part one .2 Clusters and items of part two .1 The reliability of the questionnaire .2 Meanscores of clusters .3 Mean score and percentage of Listening comprehensive.4 Meanscores and percentages of oral skills .5 Meanscores and percentages of Grammar problems.6 Meanscores and percentages of Vocabulary Using.7 Meanscores and percentages of other problems in speaking English .8 Meanscores of Achievement strategies .9 Meanscores of Avoidance Strategies .10 Meanscores of Time-gaining Strategies .37 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The Communication Process .7 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale The demand for communication in English has become very urgent in Vietnam since the Vietnamese government's Open Door Policy in the late 1980s. Since then, English communicative competence has been considered as an important key to the successful global integration in a great number of fields such as policy, culture, education, and health, etc. A high-quality profession will require the abilities to understand and communicate in English in the current working environment. In addition, Crosling and Ward (2001) claimed that effective oral communication skills are a social interaction leading to occupational achievement (cited in Veraporvanichkul, 2011).
Nowadays, more and more countries are making English to be their lingual Franca to communicate with the world in international settings (Tran, 2000). Thanks to this, Vietnamese companies can also easily expand their operations with foreign countries and call for investment from overseas. Consequently, staff who are working at these companies are required not only communicating well everyday at workplace such as greetings and small talks, but also being able to get higher levels of English speaking such as negotiations and presentations with foreign partners (Veraporvanichkul, 2011). Additionally, he claimed that due to the effect of international cooperation and investment from foreign partners, communication in English with people from different countries is avoidable.
It should be understandable because people can share their ideas, concepts, desired projects, and information exchanges to each other. Hence, the employees are required to not only communicate well in daily life such as greeting or chatting but also be able to negotiate, discuss, or present in the important situations at workplace. At Hue Monuments Conservation Centre, the need of English proficiency is required to support the director and supervisors in working when they have to exchange information or profession information with foreign partners or visitors. As a result, most employees have to practise and get over their problems in English speaking to get high results and success at their workplace.
However, although most of the employees have studied English for a long period of time and got different types of certifications in English examinations, it is agreed by most employees that oral communicative competence of non-English majors at the 1 completion of university education in Vietnam is far from their expectation of the labor force market. Obviously, they are looking forward to something beyond their expectations like effective communication in English after finishing their English courses at university. However, their English speaking skill does not meet the practical requirements, specifically because of the following reasons: Firstly, it can be seen from the process of working together that many employees can write and read in English quite well, but they are not good at speaking skills. Some employees acknowledge that most lessons they have learned during the courses focused mainly on reading and writing rather than speaking.
The reason is that the grammar-driven teaching model is quite popular and it is a major factor affecting the students‟ oral production in a majority of English classes. Moreover, teaching English in Vietnam is greatly affected by examination-oriented practice and curriculum highlights the theoretical information and does not provide students with adequate space for English speaking practice (Canh, 2011). As a result, the learners do not have chances for hands-on experience in learning a language, which causes the limitation in their English speaking. Secondly, many learners admit that they had spent so many years studying English but they cannot speak it appropriately and understandably.
Additionally, a majority of non-English employees can listen and understand well what is said by foreigners, but they cannot respond or react quickly enough to give appropriate answers to the foreigners, which lead to a breakdown in communication. Thirdly, there is only a case study with an aim at increasing the translation skill for the employees at Hue Monuments Conservation Centre, where the researcher has been working for a couple of years. It plays a pivotal role in developing the quality of specialized translation at this Centre. However, there has not been any investigation mentioning the difficulties of English speaking encountered by the staff of Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.
For this reason, the researcher would like to carry out an investigation into the English speaking skills with the hope to help them improve one of their most important occupational skills. With all of the above-mentioned reasons, “an investigation into problems in English speaking skill encountered by Hue Monuments Conservation Centre‟s staff” needs to be conducted.2 Research aims The purpose of this research is to investigate the problems encountered by employees when they communicate with foreigners in English. The understandings of problems are useful information because it will help the staff identify their limitation in their English speaking skill. Also, this study is conducted to find out what are the common communication strategies used by the staff of Hue Monuments Conservation Centre to help them achieve the communication goals at their workplace.3 Research questions In order to help the employees improve their English communication skill, this study focuses on the following questions: 1.
What are the problems in English speaking skills faced by the staff of Hue Monuments Conservation Centre? 2. What are the common communication strategies used by the staff of Hue Monuments Conservation Centre when communicating with foreigners? 1.4 Research significance The success in English speaking is considered an essential factor for employees when working with foreign partners. Hopefully, the results of this research can be used as a guideline for the staff to help them understand their problems deeply, and then improve their English speaking skills at workplace. Once the staff are confident and able to enhance their English speaking skills, the efficiency of their work will also increase and develope.
For those reasons, this study is conducted at the workplace.5 Scope of the study This research was carried out at Hue Monuments Conservation Centre in Hue province where the researcher is currently working. Data collection took place at this Centre and lasted nearly two months from March to May, 2019. The participants of this study are 105 employees who have graduated from universities in different fields of working.6 Structure of the thesis The thesis is organized into five chapters as follows: Chapter one introduces the research consisting of rationales, aims, research questions, scope, and significance of the research. 3 Chapter two provides the relevant literature review about speaking skill, characteristics of speaking, factors contributing to speaking skills, and related studies on relevant to the present study.
Chapter three describes the methodology applied in the research.