MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGO THI LE HUONG AN INVESTIGATION INTO DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS IN TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 11 NEW VERSION FOR SOME UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN QUANG TRI MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.11 SUPERVISOR: TON NU NHU HUONG, D. HUE, 2016 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------ NGÔ THỊ LỆ HƯƠNG NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI TRONG SÁCH THÍ ĐIỂM TIẾNG ANH 11 Ở MỘT SỐ TRƯỜNG THPT TẠI TỈNH QUẢNG TRỊ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. TÔN NỮ NHƯ HƯƠNG HUẾ, 2016 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.
NGO THI LE HUONG Date:. i ABSTRACT This research paper investigated some difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skills with textbook English 11 new version in some upper secondary schools in Quang Tri. In addition, the students‟ perception of learning and teaching speaking skills was cognized concretely after the pilot textbook English 11 had been used. Then, the research paper concurrently figured out effective ways of dealing with difficulties given before.
The subjects of this study were 103 grade 11 students at Vinh Linh and Huong Hoa upper secondary schools in Quang Tri. The data were collected through questionnaires for students and interviews for both teachers and grade 11 learners. The findings of the study revealed that the students had a strong awareness and positive attitudes towards learning Speaking skills. The data obtained showed that these students recognized many prominent and effective aspects of the new textbook such as interesting and stimulating topics, clear examples, active communicative tasks and authentic situations.
However, the students also showed some negative points they met when using the new textbook to learn Speaking skill such as long examples, difficult and complicated vocabulary, and the difficult level of the speaking tasks. Basing on the difficulties students faced, a lot of suggestions and solutions were proposed to overcome the limitations given before. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to express my cordial thanks to those persons who provided me with valuable advice and enthusiastic supports during the time I worked on this thesis. Firstly, I would like to express my genuine appreciation and grateful thanks to my supervisor, Dr.
Ton Nu Nhu Huong, for her enthusiasm, patience and profound knowledge. Thanks to her advice and excellent guidance, I was able to complete the dissertation during my research time. To be honest, I feel very fortunate to have such a brilliant advisor and mentor for my study. Under her supervision, I became more independent.
Without her help, this research would not have been possible to fulfill. Besides, I would like to express my sincere thanks towards Dr. Truong Vien, who introduced me to this research area. He was always willing to help and offer me valuable suggestions when the work was in the making.
I am much obliged to my close friends, for their experience and information sharing. Their advice was very useful for me to administer my research instrument effectively. Last but not least, I would like to give my deepest gratitude to my family: my parents and my sisters for supporting me spiritually as well as always standing by me throughout carrying out this research. Without their precious encouragement, I do not know whether I could have enough determination to make the best of things or not.
Thanks again for giving me the motivation to follow out this study. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS SUB COVER PAGE STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP…………………………………… ………i ABSTRACT .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF TABLES.
viii LIST OF CHARTS .The rationale of the study. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Structure of the study. Definitions of key terms. Definitions of Speaking. The nature of Speaking.
Aspects of Speaking. The relationship between accuracy and fluency in teaching Speaking. The issues related to learning and teaching Speaking skills. Definitions of teaching and learning Speaking skills.
Communicative Language Teaching Approach. Characteristics of CLT:. Communicative Competence – The desired goal of CLT. An introduction to the textbook English 11 new version.
The objectives and design viewpoint of Speaking lessons in the textbook English 11 new version. The Speaking activities in the textbook English 11 new version. The role of textbook. Criteria for textbook evaluation.
Previous studies related to the research. Data collection instruments. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Findings from questionnaires and interviews.
Students‟ awareness of the four skills and speaking skill in learning English. Students „opinions on the importance of learning speaking skills. Students‟ reasons to take part in speaking classes. Students‟ speaking ability.
Students‟ general evaluations for textbook English 11 new version. The difficulties students face in using the new textbook with respect to speaking skills. Students‟ opinions on limitations of textbook English 11 new version. Students‟ opinions on the number of speaking tasks in textbook English 11 new version.
Students‟ assessment on the situations in the speaking lessons of textbook English 11 new version. Students‟ opinions on the frequency of using communicative activities in the speaking lesson. Students‟ favorite activities in speaking lessons. Students‟ opinions on the difficulties they often faced in learning from the textbook.
Students‟ expectations of the new textbook and their teachers. Students‟ expectations of changes for textbook English 11 new version in speaking skills. Students‟ expectations of English teachers to improve their speaking skills in the speaking classes .CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of major findings.
Implications of the study. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research. 88 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT : Communicative Language Teaching EFL : English as a foreign language MOET : Ministry of Education and Training vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Objectives of units in the textbook English 11 .2: Activities and Topics of units in English 11 new version .3: Summary of Ellis‟s (1997, pp.
36-42) approach to evaluation .4: Summary of Tomlinson‟s (2003, p. 24) approach to textbook evaluation .1: Profile of teacher participants .2: Questionnaire items in survey .1: Clusters of questionnaire items .2: Students‟ reasons to take part in speaking English class .3 : Students‟ opinions on using the new textbook to learn speaking skills .4: Frequency of using communicative activities of the speaking lesson in the textbook English 11 .5: Students‟ favorite activities in speaking lessons .6: Students‟ opinions on the general difficulties they often face in learning speaking from the textbook.7: Students‟ expectations of changes of textbook English 11 in speaking skills.8: Students‟ expectations of English teachers‟ help to improve their speaking skills in the speaking classes. 53 viii LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: Students‟ opinions on the importance of speaking and learning speaking skills .2 : Students‟ own assessment on their speaking ability .3 : Students‟ general evaluation for textbook English 11 new version .4 : Students‟ opinions on the number of speaking tasks in each unit of the textbook English 11 new version .5 : Students‟ assessment on the situations in the speaking lesson. 46 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the rationale for the study.
Then, the aims of the study are also provided followed by the significance and the scope of the study. Finally, the structure of the study concludes the chapter. The rationale of the study Along with the development of global education, learning English is becoming more and more important to students in Vietnam. Moreover, in a new market economy in Vietnam with the growth of international businesses and trades, the number of foreign tourists has been continuously increasing.
Thus, the ability to communicate in English becomes more and more necessary. In conjunction with the goals of national educational system and the international cooperation at the moment, English is not only a compulsory subject but also the means to help learners become more successful in communication (Hoang Van Van, 2006). In other words, there is a strong requirement for students to develop communicative skills in order to fluently communicate in English, which is the key to their success in the future. However, in reality, at upper secondaryschools, students‟ level of language proficiency is just somewhere between elementary and lower - intermediate (Le Hung Tien, 2013).
Many students can neither read simple texts in English nor communicate with English speaking people even in some common cases. According to Minh Nhat (2012), Vietnamese students‟ speaking and listening skills are too bad. In fact, only few students can talk about their life in English. On account of that, English learners need to become proficient in all the four language skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Honestly, those four skills are all significant. However, the ability to speak skillfully provides the speaker with the indispensable capacity of putting words together in a meaningful 1 way to reflect thoughts, opinions, and feelings of the speaker (Gerald Gillis, 2013). Unfortunately, Speaking skills are not easy for English learners because: Speaking is one of the most difficult skills language learners have to face. In spite of this, it has traditionally been forced into the background while we, teachers of English, have spent all our classroom time trying to teach our students how to write, to read and sometimes even to listen in a L2 because grammar has a long written tradition (Bueno, Madrid and Mclaren, 2006, p.
Given these facts above, Speaking should be given special attentions from teachers and students in teaching and learning English. Despite the importance of spoken English, from my own observations, when students at upper secondary schools are required to talk in English, they seem to get stuck or find it difficult to express themselves. To raise the efficacy of teaching speaking as well as other skills, the pilot textbook has recently had important contributions which Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training would like to conduct completely. Since 2008, Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has conducted some new projects to integrate the effect of teaching.
From these concerns, the MOET prescribed a new series of English textbooks for all grades and school types under the National Foreign Language 2020 Project (Hoang Van Van, 2015). Together with the Government‟ investments, the curriculum innovations have been conducted for 7 years. One of the recent changes of the textbook innovation is English 11 new version which has been applied to teach in a lot of upper secondary schools in some provinces in Vietnam. Along with curriculum innovation, at the end of the upper secondary level, the students will be able to use English as a means of communication at upper intermediate level (MOET, 2007).
As one of the main aids to learners, the textbook is a key component to help them in most language programs. In the context of the educational system, the textbook is a book used as a standard source of information for formal study of a subject and an instrument for teaching and learning (Graves, 2000, p. According to Richard (2005), in EFL context, it may even create the main and 2 perhaps only source of language input that learners receive and the basis for language practice that occurs both inside and outside the classroom. Consequently, it is necessary to emphasize that the English textbook continues to play a significant role in EFL teaching and learning.