VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LAGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ MẾN USING THE “CASE-STUDY” ACTIVITY TO ENCOURAGE 2ND YEAR STUDENTS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AT HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY TO SPEAK ENGLISH SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG“CASE-STUDY” ĐỂ KHUYẾN KHÍCH SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI NGÀNH QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÒNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 Ha Noi - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LAGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ MẾN USING THE “CASE-STUDY” ACTIVITY TO ENCOURAGE 2ND YEAR STUDENTS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AT HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY TO SPEAK ENGLISH SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG “CASE-STUDY” ĐỂ KHUYẾN KHÍCH SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI NGÀNH QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÒNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 Supervisor: NGUYỄN VIỆT HÙNG, MA. Ha Noi – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv PART I: INTRODUCTION.
Background of the study. Aims of the study and research questions. The scope of the study. Significance of the study.
The methods of the study. Organization of the thesis. 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Definition of speaking .2 Teaching speaking according to communicative approach .3 Principles of teaching speaking.4 Speaking difficulties of language learners .2 Students‟ oral participation .1 Definition of students‟ participation .2 Factors affecting students‟ participation in oral activities .3 Characteristics of a successful oral activity.
17 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .1 The setting of the study. 21 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.4 Data collection procedure .5 Data analysis procedure. 23 CHAPTER 3: PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA.1 Students' degree of participation in the "case-study" activities .1 Students‟ speaking time per task .2 Factors encouraging students to speak in the "case-study" activity.3 Factors inhibiting students to speak in the case - study activity. 29 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS .1 The positive impact of the case-study on the students .2 Factors affecting student's participation in the "case- study" activity.
Developing learner autonomy in vocabulary learning .3 Oral correction technique .4 The emphasis on the case-study background and cultural features .6 Building a supportive learning environment. 42 PART III: CONCLUSION. Limitations and suggestions of the study. 49 APPENDIX I: OBSERVATION SHEET.
I APPENDIX II: QUESTIONNAIRES. III v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION This initial part states the background of the study, together with the aims, scope and the methods of the whole paper. Above all, it is in this chapter that the research questions are identified to work as clear guidelines for the whole research. Background of the study Since the spread of English to almost aspects of the world, people are getting more and more aware of the importance of the language.
In Vietnam, English has been seen as a necessary device to closer to a dreaming job, especially a job in a foreign company. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for learning the language for communication. In that context, the new framework of learner-center approach and the advent of communicative language teaching in the realm of teaching English as a foreign language have exerted the great impact on the teaching and learning English, in which students‟ oral skills and their active participation in class activities have come to take on added importance. Following the communicative approach, teachers make great effort to get their students to talk as much as possible in their classes.
According to the studies on what constitutes a “good language learner”, in the oral activities, student who raised their hands more often responded to teacher elicitation did better on test than other students (Naiman et al. 1978, cited in Breen 2001) However, in Hai Phong University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, where students need the ability to express themselves in English as a powerful device for their future career, especially in modern society where working with foreigners often occurs. After years of applying the communicative language teaching into practice, it has been noticed that student‟s active participation, particularly in observable speaking classes are 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com not prominent. Hence, the author takes the focus on the “case-study” activity, an activity in the text book “Market Leader”, the official ESP syllabus of Economics and Business Administration Faculty at Hai Phong University to carry out the research on “Using the case-study activity to encourage 2nd year students of Business Administration to speak English” 2.
Aims of the study and research questions “Case-study” is an activity in the text book “Market Leader”. This activity provides students with writing skills, speaking skills and problem solving skills. Therefore, this research aims at analyzing the ability of “case-study” activity applying in real learning situation to encourage students to speak English. In order to achieve the purpose stated above, the study revolves around the following questions: 1.
To what extent do students participate actively in the “case-study” activity from the perspectives of 2nd year students of Business Administration at Hai Phong University? 2. What are factors encouraging or inhibiting students to take part in the case- study activity? 3. What are the implications to enhance students‟ active participation in speaking lesson? 3. The scope of the study.
In the text book Market Leader, the official syllabus of 2 nd year students of Business Administration at Hai Phong University, the case studies are linked to the business topics of each unit. They give students opportunities to practice speaking skills in realistic business situations. Each case study ends with a writing task. The research only focuses on the oral tasks of the case-study activity.
It seeks to find out the Students‟ degree of participation in the case-study 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com activity, factors encouraging as well as inhibiting them in those tasks and their desires, the expectant activities from the teacher to enhance their active participation in the speaking period. It should also be noted that within the scope of a graduation paper, the sample of the research is limited to 40 second year students of K11A class of Business Administration at Hai Phong University so that the researcher can get the specific and accurate information and data from each student grasping the comprehensive learning situation to find out feasible solutions encouraging students to speak English. Significance of the study The finding of this study can draw learners‟ attention on their attitudes towards classroom participation, thus making them aware of factors that motivate as well as demotivate their participation in the case-study activity. As a result, researcher can identify the roots of student‟s obstacles as well as motivations, has a closer look at students‟ psychological features and their own needs.
In addition, student‟s desires, what they expect the teacher can change in the case-study activity will also made known to teachers, who hopefully will initiate possible adjustment in using case-study activity to encourage students to speak English. Finally, future researchers who share the same interest may find helpful information from this research to conduct further studies into this area. The methods of the study The method of this study is survey study because it was conducted by using questionnaires and teacher‟s self-observation to collect data. It was a qualitative and quantitative study.
Employing both approaches, it is hoped to achieve the reliable results for the study. Organization of the thesis The thesis consists of 3 main parts 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part 1: Introduction deals with the background, the aims and the research questions, the scope, the significance, the methods of the study, and the organization of the thesis. Part 2: Development This part includes 4 chapters: Chapter 1: Literature Review lays the theoretical foundation for the study by discussing Definition of Key terms and Framework Chapter 2: Research Methodology details the methods which have been adopted and the procedures which have been followed when researchers conducted the study. Chapter 3: Presentation and analysis of data presents and discusses the degree of students‟ participation in the case-study activity and some demotivative factors affected their performance.
Chapter 4: Findings and pedagogical implications presents the findings with comment and suggests what teachers should do to enlarge the students‟ participation in speaking activities Part 3: Conclusion ends the study by summarizing the main points, revealing the limitations and suggesting further studies. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter aims to shed light on the literature of the study, specifically, the theoretical background and the theoretical framework will be reviewed. To begin with, an overview of the theoretical background will be presented from definition of speaking, approach and principles of teaching speaking, definition of students‟ participation. Subsequently, factors affecting students‟participation and characteristics of a successful oral activity will also be discussed, which is to form a theoretical framework for the study.1 Definition of speaking There is a long history of the study of the speaking skill in language learning.
Many variants of speaking definition were provided by different linguistics. First of all, it is worthy to consider the Byrne‟s view. He suggested that “oral communication is a two-way process between speakers and listeners, involving the productive skills of speaking and receptive skills of understanding” (p. 19) in which the speaker functions as the person encoding the massage and the listener functions as the one decoding the massage.
Moreover, a clear distinction between written and spoken language was made: “…in contrast to the written language, where sentences are carefully structured and linked together, speech is characterized by incomplete and sometimes ungrammatical utterances and by frequent false and repetitions” 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Bygates (1987) held the similar idea that “speech is not writing- speaking like a book is, in two words, disagreeable and difficult. 102) According to the author, conditions and the reciprocity are the two primary differences between speech and writing. In speech, the former includes time factor and other associated problems like planning, memory and production under pressure affect the form of spoken language.
Besides, the later indicates that listeners can generally show their agreement or disagreement with speakers; thus, speakers can pay attention to listeners and adapt their message according to their reaction. Meanwhile, in writing, readers‟ understanding and potential problems such as what readers want to read are factors that the writers have to anticipate or predict in each of their works. From these two first points of view, it is clearly seen that the researchers have defined speaking basing on the emphasis on the differences between spoken and written language. Besides, Brown and Yule (1983) suggested that spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation.
Therefore, speaking is “an inter-active process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and process information (Florez, 1999 as cited in Bailey, Kathleen, 2005). The author also described it as a process which is spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving but it is not completely unpredictable. In a nutshell, speaking is basically defined as a productive, oral skill which is spontaneous and comprehensible. Within the framework of this study, the well-rounded definition of Byrne has been adopted as the core foundation for the development of the research.2 Teaching speaking according to communicative approach The focus on communicative proficiency rather than the mastery is the most striking feature provided in the theory of Communicative Language 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Teaching expanded in 1970s.
According to Richards (1986), one of this teaching method‟s aims is to make communicative competence the goal of language teaching. As a result, speaking has its place in syllabus setting.