VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO PROBLEMS FACED BY NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS IN LARGE CLASSES IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE TÌM HIỂU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN MÀ SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH TRONG LỚP ĐÔNG GẶP PHẢI KHI HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI TẠI HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student: NGUYEN PHUONG THAO Student code: 621275 Major: ENGLISH Supervisor: NGUYEN THI NGOC THU, M.A Hanoi - 2021 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES BA THESIS AN INVESTIGATION INTO PROBLEMS FACED BY NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS IN LARGE CLASSES IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE TÌM HIỂU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN MÀ SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH TRONG LỚP ĐÔNG GẶP PHẢI KHI HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI TẠI HỌC VIỆN NÔNG NGHIỆP VIỆT NAM Student: NGUYEN PHUONG THAO Student code: 621275 Major: ENGLISH Supervisor: NGUYEN THI NGOC THU, M.A Hanoi - 2021 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “An investigation into problems faced by non english major students in large classes in learning speaking skills at Vietnam National University of Agriculture” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor in English Language. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Nguyen Phuong Thao Approved by SUPERVISOR Date:…………………… i ABSTRACT English is regarded as a worldwide language, with millions of people speaking it throughout the globe. It is widely utilized as a means of communication in a variety of disciplines, including science, technology, aviation, international sport, and diplomacy, among others.
Even though they are from different nations and speak different languages, English allows them to interact with one another. Therefore, speaking English is a very necessary skill in modern life. Nowadays, English is getting more dominant and it is the most popularly used language by almost every country in the world. In Vietnam, the Ministry of Education and Training has put the foreign language into schools' curriculums as a key subject with an orientation of communicative English.
Among the four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, the last one is being paid the most attention. When you learn any language, what you aim to do is how to communicate naturally fluently with indigenous people. Maybe you have good writing skills because you have a strong grasp of grammar and vocabulary, but your reflection is poor. Some common causes for Vietnamese people who have difficulty in speaking English are fear of communication, lack of training environment, lack of vocabulary, poor grammar, etc.
For the above reasons, a study of the problems that non-English major students encounter in the large classes at Vietnam National University of Agriculture is implemented. This study aims to find some difficulties and solutions to overcome to improve speaking skills for students, to help students confidently communicate in class as well as in daily life and further work. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the process of completing this thesis, I have received a lot of help from my supervisor, teachers of the Faculty of Education and Foreign Languages at Vietnam National University of Agriculture. First of all, I owe my deepest gratitude to M.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thu - my supervisor who always promptly directed and commented, giving valuable advice to me in a timely manner to correct and complete my own shortcomings to complete this graduation thesis. Secondly, I would like to thank the teachers of the Foreign Languages department who helped me to complete my studies in class so that I can conduct this thesis. At the same time, I also thank the 240 students of K62, K63, K63 of non - English major classes and English teachers who are teaching general English 0,1,2 at Vietnam National University of Agriculture for helping me in surveying to find out the problems which they faced in learning English speaking skills. Last but not least, I would like to sincerely thank my family for always supporting and strengthening my strength and efforts and love for me to follow.
Thank you, friends, who always stand side by side, support and support me in my study and life. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
vi LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF FIGURES. vii PART I: INTRODUCTION. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY. SCOPE OF THE STUDY. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. DESIGN OF THE STUDY.
3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT. 5 Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. REVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS STUDIES (AT HOME & ABROAD). REVIEW OF THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.
Statement of theoretical framework chosen. Difficulties in learning speaking skills. Factors affecting speaking skills. Research setting/context.
Data collecting instruments. Data collecting procedures. 25 Chapter 3: FINDING AND DISCUSSION. PROBLEMS OF NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS.
34 PART III: CONCLUSION. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS. 36 The first reason is because of students’ passive learning styles. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDENTS.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY. 43 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VNUA Vietnam National University of Agriculture SLA Second Language Acquisition LSC Language Speaking Class ELT English Language Teaching EFL English as a Foreign Language L2 Second Language vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Teachers’ and students’ opinion about students’ favor of learning English speaking skills.2: Teachers’ and students’ judgment about speaking skills for students .3: Teachers’ and students’ judgment about students’ speaking competence.4: Students’ common difficulties in learning English speaking skill. 31 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.2 shows students’Figure 2.2: Students’ years of learning English speaking skills.3: Students' score of general English 2 at the second term at school year 2020 – 2021.
28 vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY Nowadays, in the trend of globalization, English has become an international language and has been widely used in many parts of the world. With the development of modern science and technology along with the integration policy, no one can deny the universality of English. Outside English- speaking countries, English has become a compulsory component of education in many countries.
This trend is also applied in Vietnam. At many schools and universities, English is chosen as a compulsory subject for students because English is considered to be a useful tool to access the world's knowledge. Learning English language is, therefore, interesting to many young people, especially students at universities for plenty of reasons such as getting a job in foreign companies, studying abroad and so on. Most learners of English agree that the ability to express themselves freely in communication is of great importance for their future career, especially in modern societies where contacting with foreigners often occurs.
On the other hand, many people equate the English ability as being able to speak in English. Many students regard English speaking ability as the measure of knowing that language. They define fluency as the ability to converse with others, much more than the ability to read, write, or comprehend oral language. They consider speaking as the most important skill they can acquire, and they assess their progress in terms of their accomplishments in spoken communication.
However, there still exist many difficulties in learning English in general and speaking skills in particular. Due to limited budgets, lack of human resources, space and learning facilities, etc., learning speaking skills in large classes are currently popular at Vietnam National University of Agriculture ( up to 60 non – English major students per class). This makes it difficult for the 1 language teachers to manage, control and arrange activities as well as students practice speaking skills in large classes. On the other hand, mostly in high school, students have almost no chance to practice speaking English, but only focus on grammar and vocabulary for the final exam.
The reason why makes students afraid to speak, afraid to say wrong or fewer reflexes, etc. In addition, many Vietnamese learners, after many years learning English at schools and universities, cannot use English to communicate properly and fluently in real life communication even though they can write and read English quite well. There are quite many researches on learning English speaking skill and difficulties in learning this skill; however, there are still few researches about difficulties in learning speaking skills by non - English major students at VNUA although it is a quite big university in Vietnam and the number of non-English major students is also quite large. Being a students at this university, I would like to carry out a research to find out the common difficulties in learning this skill by those students in order to help them to improve the situation in the next semesters.
These above facts have provoked me to conduct a research with the title: “An investigation into problems faced by non- English major students in learning speaking skills at Vietnam National University of Agriculture". AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The study is carried out to investigate non - English major students’ problems in learning English speaking skills in large classes at Vietnam National University of Agriculture. The author will find out the current situation of learning speaking skills of non - English major students as well as identify problems they face in large classes at Vietnam National University of Agriculture. Then, some solutions will be generated to overcome the problems.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS All these above aims and objectives can be realized by answering two 2 following research questions: 1. What problems do non - English major students in large classes encounter in the process of learning English speaking skills? 2. What are suggested solutions for non – English major students to overcome the problems? 4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY There are many problems that learners can meet when they learn English speaking skills.
However, due to the limitation of time and the narrow scales, the study focuses on English speaking skills of non – English major students of K62, K63, K64 who learned English 2 in the first term at school year 2020 - 2021, and some general problems faced by non - English major students. The study will limit itself to the problems of 240 non - English major students and five teachers in General English subjects (English 0,1,2) in learning speaking skills in the first term at school year 2020 – 2021 at Vietnam National University of Agriculture. Then, some possible solutions will be suggested in order to help students learn speaking skills better. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Theoretically, this study helps to discover non – English major students’ obstacles in learning speaking skills in large classes of General English subjects at Vietnam National University of Agriculture.
A clearer look into the reasons for these difficulties will also be gained. Practically, it suggests some certain ways to help the students overcome these difficulties since then they can improve their English speaking skills. DESIGN OF THE STUDY This study consists of three parts: Part 1: entitled “INTRODUCTION” provides the reason why the topic is chosen. It then provides the aim and objectives of the study.
It is also in this section that we are concerned with the scope and the design of the study. 3 Part 2: named “DEVELOPMENT” deals with the main contents of the study. Chapter 1: "Literature review” considers a slight overview of some previous research on the same subject. At the same time, it gives a theoretical background to this study with theoretical preliminaries directly related to English speaking skills, large classes and factors affecting speaking skills.