MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES --------------------------------- TRAN NGUYEN QUYNH NHI AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF OUT-OF-CLASS ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES 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, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES --------------------------------- TRAN NGUYEN QUYNH NHI AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF OUT-OF-CLASS ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILLS BY FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.11 SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN VAN LONG, Asscoc. HUE, 2016 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ --------------------------------- TRẦN NGUYỄN QUỲNH NHI KHẢO SÁT CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG NGOÀI GIỜ HỌC NHẰM MỤC ĐÍCH CẢI THIỆN KHẢ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM NHẤT CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SỸ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. NGUYỄN VĂN LONG HUẾ, 2016 ii 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: Tran Nguyen Quynh Nhi Date: 19/12/2016 iii ABSTRACT This paper aims to investigate the use of out-of-class activities in order to develop their English speaking skills. The participants of study are 110 first year students and four English teachers from English department of Hue University College of Foreign Languages. The data in this study was conducted through student questionnaires, teacher interviews. The findings of the study indicate that the students are very conscious to out-of-class activities.
From the study, the findings show various out-of-class activities that the freshmen of English often used to improve their English speaking ability: (1) listening to music; (2) surfing the internet; (3) & (4) talking English to other students or foreigners; (5) participating English speaking clubs. The paper also gives some recommendations for students, teachers and administrators. Besides, some limitations are provided. Keywords: English speaking skills, classroom activities, out-of-class activities iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of this thesis, I have received great support from many people.
Without them, the study would not have been achieved. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Mr. Nguyen Van Long, Asscoc. This thesis could not complete without his patient, valuable suggestions and constant encouragement.
I also would like to show my gratitude to teachers at Hue University College of Foreign Languages for dedicating time to broaden my knowledge over past four years. Special thanks are also to first year students of English and teachers from English Department for spending time on completing the questionnaires and answering the interviews. Last but not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my beloved family who always encouraged me and support me endlessly in the process of conducting this thesis. v TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP.
v TABLE OF CONTENTS .vi LIST OF TABLES .ix LIST OF FIGURES .1 Background and rationale for the research .2 Aims and objectives of the research .3 Significance of the study .4 Scope of the study .5 Organization of the study .2 The importance of speaking .3 Learners‟ problems encountered in speaking.2 Lack of ideas .3 Lack of vocabulary .4 First language interference .5 Shortage of speaking opportunities.4 The current situation and issues of learning English speaking in Vietnam .2 Activities to develop English speaking skills .2 Out-of-class activities .2 Some out-of-class activities .3 Strengths and weaknesses of out-of-class activities .3 Previous research related to the study.3 Data collection instruments. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Students‟ perception of English speaking skills .1 Students‟ self-assessment of their English ability .2 The importance of English speaking skills .2 Problems that first year students of English at Hue University College of Foreign Languages often have in practice speaking in classrooms .1 Problems encountered when practicing English speaking in classrooms .2 The frequency of problems encountered to students in speaking classes .4 The frequency of taking part in these activities .5 Students‟ satisfaction toward classroom activities .2 The attitude of taking part in out-of-class activities.3 Some out-of-class activities to develop speaking skills .4 Reasons why students choose those activities for practice .4 The impact of out-of-class activities on their English speaking skills .1 The frequency of using out-of-class activities .2 How beneficial of out-of-class activities for improving speaking skills. Impact of out-of-class activities to practice speaking skills .1 Summary of the findings .3 Limitations and future research. 57 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Background information of students.2 Background information of teachers.1 Some out-of-class activities to develop speaking skills.
34 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: Students‟ self-assessment of their English ability .2: The importance of English speaking skills .3: Problems encountered when practicing English speaking .4: The frequency of problems encountered by students. 29 in speaking classes .6: The frequency of taking part in these activities .7: Students‟ satisfaction of classroom activities .8: Students‟ perception of out-of-class activities .9: The attitude of taking part in out-of-class activities .10: Reasons why students choose those activities for practice .11: The frequency of using out-of-class activities .12: The benefit of out-of-class activities for improving speaking skills .13: The impact of out-of-class activities on practicing speaking skills .43 x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The first chapter introduces the background and rationale for the study. The aims and research questions of the study are demonstrated clearly later. Then, the chapter also describes the significance and scope of the research.
Finally, the structure of the study is outlined.1 Background and rationale for the research It is obvious that English has been becoming an effective and indispensable tool for people around the world to communicate, to carry out their affairs internationally and easily. At the moment, it is the most frequently used international language. Additionally, the globalization makes English become a significant bridge connecting, enabling people to exchange information, various kinds of value such as: culture, spiritual and others values among countries. Hence, it is necessary for people to master English well, which means having the ability to use four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Among these skills, speaking plays an important role that enables learners to express their feelings and ideas directly, exactly and academically in communication. Mo (2011) stated that effective oral communication is especially difficult because it requires the ability to use language applying in social interaction. To learners of English, speaking is regarded as one of the biggest challenges to them. In primary and secondary schools, English is taught as a compulsory subject where most of the students and teachers pay too much attention to grammar for the examinations.
Therefore, it is quite challenging for many students to communicate in English, especially, at university, for students whose major is English; each skill is taught separately and requires a higher standard, which is very different from the way they used to learn before. Many freshmen find it difficult to express their opinion precisely and fluently in English. Although there are a lot of activities used in class to practice their speaking, many first year students are advised to find some out-of-class activities to improve their English speaking competence. Hence, I highly take interest in carrying out this research on speaking skills, namely “An investigation 1 into the use of out-of-class activities to develop speaking skills by first year students of English at Hue University College of Foreign Languages”.
With this topic, I will try to find out some problems that most of the first year students of English at Hue University College of Foreign Languages often encounter in speaking English as well as find out some out-of-class activities to overcome problems and enhance their ability on speaking skills.2 Aims and objectives of the research Firstly, this study attempts to seek out problems encountered by the first year students‟ English majors in Hue University College of Foreign Languages during learning speaking skills. Secondly, it investigates perceptions of students toward the importance of out-of-class activities. Thirdly, it figures out some activities outside the classroom that students often use and its benefits to their speaking ability. Finally, it hopes to recommend some effective out-of-class activities from successful learners as well as teachers‟ advice in order to be appropriate for students to improve their speaking competence.
For these recommended purposes above, the research tries to deal with these following questions: 1. What are problems that first year students of English at HUCFL often have in practice speaking? 2. What out-of-class activities are often used to develop learners‟ English speaking skills? 3. How beneficial do these out-of-class activities impact their English speaking skills? 1.3 Significance of the study By carrying out this research, I myself get a quite deep understanding of the importance of speaking skills in learning and teaching English in second language acquisitions, some issues faced by the first-year students‟ English majors as well as effective out-of-class activities that help students on learners‟ speaking skill development.
Hopefully, the research paper is, to some extents, helpful for not only English major students who express a desire to interact well with other students but 2 also teachers who want to come up with a creative teaching method for speaking classrooms.4 Scope of the study The research aims to investigate the obstacles that students generally encounter during their process of learning speaking skills in the classrooms and how they overcome all obstacles to improve their ability. Two research methodologies used in this study are quantitative and qualitative methods. In other words, questionnaires were delivered to first year students of English major at Hue University of Foreign Languages in order to collect the data. Some first year students of English major and teachers of English Department were invited to interview.
Finally, some suggestions in terms of teaching and learning will be given.5 Organization of the study The study includes five main parts: Chapter One is an introduction, which presents the background and rationale of the study. It also contains the aims and objectives, significance, scope and organization of the research. Chapter Two gives a theoretical background, which aims to provide readers with an overview about speaking skills, classroom activities, out-of-class activities and reviews several previous studies related to the topic. Chapter Three illustrates the research methodology used in this paper, including research approach, participants, data collection and data analysis.
Chapter Four gives findings and discussion, which specifically analyzes the data and interpret the data. The research questions are discussed in this part. Chapter Five summarizes the key findings of the research paper, giving an overview of implications for teachers, for learners and for further researches, as well as offers an explanation about unavoidable limitations of the thesis and suggestions for further related studies. 3 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW The second chapter reviews the theoretical background for the study.
This chapter is divided into three parts. First, it introduces the concept of speaking skills, current situation of learning English speaking in Vietnam and some common problems encountered in speaking. Second, some activities to promote speaking skills, including classroom activities and out-of-class activities are provided later. Finally, the third part reviews various previous studies related to out-of-class activities.1 Definition The term “skill” simply means ability, expertness, or proficiency.
Skills are gained incrementally during the language development process. According to Chaney (1998), speaking is considered as “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts” (p. Brown (2007) indicates that speaking is to say things, express thoughts aloud, and use the voice.