VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NHỮ THU SANG CHALLENGES FACED BY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN PRACTICING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS (KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC RÈN LUYỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI VỚI HỌC SINH THPT) (M.A MINOR THESIS) Major : English Language Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 HA NOI – 2024 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NHỮ THU SANG CHALLENGES FACED BY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN PRACTICING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS (KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC RÈN LUYỆN KỸ NĂNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI VỚI HỌC SINH THPT) (M.A MINOR THESIS) Major : English Language Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231., PhD Nguyễn Thu Hạnh Date: 10/7/2024 Assoc., PhD Nguyễn Thu Hạnh HA NOI – 2024 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby declare that this thesis was carried out by myself under the guidance and supervision of Assoc. Nguyen Thu Hanh; and that the work contained and the results in it are true by the researcher and have not violated research ethics. The data and figures presented in this thesis are for analysis, comments, and evaluations from various resources by my own work and have been duly acknowledged in the reference part. In addition, other comments, reviews and data used by other authors, and organizations have been acknowledged, and explicitly cited.
I will take full responsibility for any fraud detected in my thesis. University of Language and International Studies is unrelated to any copyright infringement caused on my work (if any). Hanoi, …… June 2024 The Researcher Nhữ Thu Sang Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Assoc. Nguyen Thu Hanh iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A completed study would not be done without any assistance.
Therefore, the researcher who conducted this research gratefully gives acknowledgement to all the supports and encouragements during the time of doing this research as a requirement of completing my Master Thesis. First of all, I would like to express my endless thanks and gratefulness to my supervisor Assoc. Nguyen Thu Hanh. Her encouragement and comments had significantly enriched and improved my work.
Without her motivation and instructions, the thesis would have been impossible to be done effectively. So far, I would like to give my sincere thanks to groups and students who took charge in the process of data collection and data entry for doing this research as a part of the project. Their kind assistances and support in participating in the surveys gave me strength and lift me up all the trouble. With the limited theoretical level and practical experience, I cannot avoid shortcomings.
I look forward to seeing comments from teachers to help my report be better and more explicit. This also helps me get more knowledge for my future career. Thank you very much for your great support! iv ABSTRACT This research was conducted to investigate the challenges impeding the grade 10 students at a high school in Hanoi (School A) when practicing speaking in English classes. Also, some feasible solutions for these difficulties were fully presented to innovate teaching and learning of English speaking skills.
The data in the findings section were collected through questionnaire distributed to 100 grade 10 students and interview with six participants during the second semester of 2022-2023 academic year. These instruments were used to gather and analyze the perception and notion of students towards these challenges. The data analyses indicated that students appeared to confront four main groups of challenges: personal, social, instructional, and linguistic ones. Most of the students could individually identify the problems themselves and figured out several feasible solutions.
On the basis of data analysis and discussion, some practical implications for further studies were also presented in this field. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT. v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES.
Background of the study. Statement of research problems and questions. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
The nature of speaking. The importance of speaking skills. Students’ problems in English speaking practice. Data collection instruments.
Semi-structured interviews. Data collection procedures. Data analysis procedures. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Students’ participation in English speaking practice. Challenges faced by the students in English speaking practice. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research.
SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW. 48 viii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 4. Research results for instructional challenges ……………. Research results for linguistic challenges ………….1 Frequency of English speaking participation …………….
Research results for personal challenges…………………. Research results for social challenges…. Background of the study To study English effectively, learners need to master four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among them, listening and speaking seem to be more difficult to English learners from both linguistic and psychological perspectives.
Moreover, speaking seems to be the most important skills as people who know a language are usually referred to as speakers of that language (Ur, 2000). The major goal of all English language teaching should be to give learners the ability to use English effectively, accurately in communication (Davies & Pearse, 1998). However, not all language learners after many years studying English can communicate fluently and accurately because they lack necessary knowledge. Consequently, some teachers tend to focus more on reading and writing skills instead of listening and speaking skills.
According to Alam & Uddin (2013), teachers usually employ their traditional teaching methods which emphasizes on reading and writing while the productive skill of speaking is treated as trivial. In addition, Hodson (2006, as cited in Alam & Bashiuddin, 2013) claimed that the explicit teaching of speaking and listening has been neglected. As a result, students spend long hours learning grammar and vocabulary yet insufficient time for listening and speaking. Statement of research problems and questions In high school, students are not really good at speaking English.
They can pass the regular exams but they find it difficult to use English to communicate. To help the students improve their speaking skills, it is necessary to find ways to help them overcome their problems. Moreover, the teachers need to know the factors that affect their students’ speaking performance so that they can deal with these factors to help the students improve their speaking performances. However, until now, there is no research conducted at high school about these areas.
As a result, the research named “Challenges faced by high school students in practicing English speaking skills” is conducted with a view to illustrating and analyzing deeply about this term, which may be beneficial to the next generations and teachers as well. In this study, the following question will be answered: What are the English speaking challenges faced by the grade 10 students at a high school in Hanoi (School A)? (catergorized into personal, social, instructional and linguistic aspects) 1. Scope of the study The research solely focuses on the challenges in learning English speaking skills encountered by the students in a high school in Hanoi. These challenges belong to 4 aspects namely personal, social, instructional and linguistic difficulties.
The research was conducted based on the viewpoints of grade 10 students who have experienced several challenges when practicing speaking English. Therefore, the figures and results would show significant reliability. Significance of the study Through the study, the research includes a list of latest findings to the limit literature review about high school students’ tackling English speaking skills. Also, it went deeply to demonstrate which specific factors lead to the difficulties of students and the reason why students find them challenging.
From that, students of the EFL-speaking course could identify the problems and possibly solve them individually. What’s more, the study performs as a notice for high school ELT teachers to comprehend the current state so that they could make necessary 2 adaptation to reduce the struggle for their students during the process of English-speaking practice. Last but not least, the research is beneficial to all the high school students especially who may participate in conducting the study. They would all be aware of the matter, how it is challenging for both teachers and students in teaching and learning speaking skills at school.
So, with the provided feasible solutions, they could apply to experience the effectiveness of them and lessen the struggles. Thesis organization There are five chapters in this research: CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION includes the background of the study, statement of problem, scope of study and the significance of this work. LITERATURE REVIEW displays the theory of speaking skill as well as the difficulties when dealing with it.
The findings about challenges faced by high school students when learning speaking skills would be demonstrated as well, so as to create a base for further research and discussion. METHODOLOGY focuses on the research methodology, which involves the setting and participants of the study, data collection instruments, procedures of data collection and data analysis. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS provides the results collected from researching sources, the discussion around the findings and states the answers for the research questions. CONCLUSION summarizes the findings of the research, states the limitations of the study and offers suggestions for further study.
LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter will present the theoretical background about speaking skills, types of speaking skills, and the common difficulties found in English speaking practice. Additionally, a review of previous studies on barriers hindering students’ English speaking skills both in the world and Vietnam will be also briefly mentioned. The nature of speaking Speaking is a skill which is used by someone to communicate in daily life, whether at school or outside the school. Speaking is an activity involving 2 or more people in which the participants are both the listeners and the speakers having to act what they listen and make their contribution at high speed (Brown (2004, p.
Speaking is a skill and such as needs to be developed and practiced independently of the grammar curriculum (Thornburry, 2005, p. Speaking is a productive skill, because the people produce language by speaking. Speaking is one of an observable skill in language skills (Nunan, 1999).140) states that “Speaking skill can be directly and empirically observed. Those observations are invariably colored by the accuracy and effectiveness of a test-taker’s listening skill, which necessarily compromises the reliability and validity of an oral production tests” Speaking defines as reciprocal and physically situated face-to-face interaction (Al Hosni, 2014).
Reciprocal means that speakers can give simultaneous contribution to the discourse and respond to each contribution as soon as possible. Whereas, physically situated face-to-face interaction means that speakers can see each other thus they can understand some physical context and physical signal to show their attention to the interaction and their intention for responding the utterances. Furthermore, speaking also defines as physically 4 situated face-to face interaction which means that both of speaker and interlocutor can see each other. They can use physical context and physical signal for indicating their attention or intention to the interaction and for making some contribution or for responding the topic being discussed.
On the other hand, Berns (1999) sees that speaking is not an oral form of written language because it requires learners’ ability to use its sub skills to form a complete competency of spoken language. With this argumentation can be concluded that speaking differs from oral form of written language because to achieve speaking competency learners are not only required to be able to speak but they also need to be able to master speaking sub-skill such as pronunciation, stress, intonation, turn-taking ability, and so on. When the speakers involve in speaking activity, speaking sub-skills will give some important contributions for maintaining or managing speakers’ relation with the other speakers in speaking activity. This relation is useful for delivering their message clearly and for communicating successfully.
Speaking is active uses of language that makes on learners of language in term of sharing meaning (Shumin, 1997). In other words, speaking is the active use of language to express meanings so that other people can make sense of them.