VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATES STUDIES *********** TRẦN THỊ THU BUILDING UP STUDENTS’ SELF-CONFIDENCE IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI: A SURVEY OF METHODS (Xây dựng sự tự tin cho sinh viên khi học kỹ năng nói tiếng Anh ở một trường đại học tại Hà Nội: Khảo sát về các phương pháp) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Hanoi, 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATES STUDIES *********** TRẦN THỊ THU BUILDING UP STUDENTS’ SELF-CONFIDENCE IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI: A SURVEY OF METHODS (Xây dựng sự tự tin cho sinh viên khi học kỹ năng nói tiếng Anh ở một trường đại học tại Hà Nội: Khảo sát về các phương pháp) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor : Dr. Trần Thị Thu Hiền Hanoi, 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis entitled: “Building up students’ self-confidence in learning speaking skills at a university in Hanoi: A survey of methods” is the result of my own research for the degree of Master of Arts and has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other university or institution wholly or partially.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text. Signature Trần Thị Thu i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Ms. Tran Thi Thu Hien, for her guidance, helpful suggestions, invaluable critical feedback and encouragement during the time I tried to complete this thesis. I would like to sincerely thank the lecturers of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lessons that have helped in the clarification of my points.
I am also grateful to all the teachers and the students at Hanoi University of Industry, who have contributed data to my study. Without their enthusiastic cooperation, and assistance, I would never have been able to conduct my research. I would also like to thank all the members of my family for their love, care and encouragement. Last but not least, I would like to thank all those who read and comment this work in manuscript.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Speaking is considered an important skill among the four language skills and self-confidence in learning speaking skills plays an essential part to learner’s success. However, in reality, the level of self-confidence in speaking English of non-English major freshmen at Hanoi University of Industry is not high. The study focuses on factors affecting non-English major freshmen’s self- confidence in speaking English and methods to build up their self-confidence in learning speaking skills. The subjects in the study are 150 non-English major freshmen randomly selected and twelve teachers teaching English for these faculties’ students.
Findings from the questionnaires and interview show that non-English major freshmen at Hanoi University of Industry are not self-confident in learning speaking skills due to students’ factors, teachers’ factors and objective factor. Besides, three methods have been applied to increase freshmen’s self-confidence in speaking English namely designing pair or group work activities, letting students practice through many speaking activities and giving interesting topics of speaking. Based on such findings, some suggestions are given with the hope that they might be useful for teachers as well as non-English major freshmen at Hanoi University of Industry in particular and other universities in general to develop non- English major freshmen’s self-confidence in learning speaking skills. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION……………………………………………………………………….
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………… vii LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………. viii LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………… ix PART I: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………. Aims of the study…………………………………………………………………….
Methods of the study………………………………………………………………. Scope of the study…………………………………………………………………… 4 6. Significance of the study……………………………………………………………. Structure of the study……………………………………………………………….
4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………………………. 6 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND…………………………………. English speaking teaching………………………………………………………. Definition of speaking…………………………………………………………… 6 1.
The components of speaking skill………………………………………………. Problems with speaking activities………………………………………………. Stages of teaching speaking……………………………………………………. Definition of self-confidence…………………………………………………….
Importance of self-confidence in speaking English……………………………. Factors affecting students’ self-confidence in speaking class…………………. Methods of building students’ self-confidence in speaking English…………. 18 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………… 19 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
The context of the study…………………………………………………………. The data collecting instruments…………………………………………………. Questionnaire for teachers…………………………………………………………… 21 2. Questionnaire for students…………………………………………………………… 21 2.
Data collection procedure………………………………………………………… 22 2. 23 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION……………………………. Students’ general attitudes towards learning English…………………………. Students’ attitudes towards learning to speak English………………………….
Students’ awareness about the importance of English speaking………………. Comparison of teachers’ and students’ assessment of the importance of self- confidence in learning speaking skills………………………………………………… 26 3. Teachers’ and students assessment of students’ level of self-confidence in speaking English………………………………………………………………………. Factors affecting students’ self-confidence in learning speaking skills……….
Comparison of teachers’ and students’ judgment of the students’ factors .affecting students’ self-confidence in speaking English…………………………………… 28 3. Teachers’ and students’ judgment of the teachers’ factors affecting students’ self-confidence in speaking English…………………………………………………………… 29 3. Comparison of teacher’ and students’ opinion of the objective factors affecting students’ self-confidence in speaking English……………………………………. Students’ comments on teachers’ applied methods to increase students’ self- confidence in learning speaking skills………………………………………………… 31 3.
32 CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS………………………. Factors affecting the non-English major students’ self-confidence in speaking English at HAUI………………………………………………………………………. Teachers’ applied methods to increase students’ self-confidence in learning v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Suggestions for students………………………………………………………… 36 4.
Suggestions for teachers………………………………………………………… 37 4. Suggestions for the administrators……………………………………………… 38 4. 38 PART III: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………. Limitations and suggestions for further studies………………………………….
I vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT : Communicative Language Teaching HaUI : Hanoi University of Industry MA degrees : Master of Arts degrees vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: Students’ awareness about the importance of English speaking….…25 Table 2: Comparison of teachers’ and students’ assessment of the importance of self- confidence in learning speaking skills………………………….…26 Table 3: Teachers’ and students’ assessment of students’ level of self-confidence in speaking English ………………………………………………………….…26 Table 4: Comparison of teachers’ and students’ opinion of the objective factors affecting students’ self-confidence in speaking English ……………….…30 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Students’ general attitudes towards learning English ……………….23 Figure 2: Students’ attitudes towards learning to speak English …………….………24 Figure 3: Comparison of teacher’ and students’ judgment of the students’ factors affecting students’ self-confidence in speaking English …………………….………27 Figure 4: Teachers and students’ judgment of the teachers’ factors affecting students’ self-confidence in speaking English …………………………………….……28 Figure 5: Students’ comments of teachers’ applied methods to increase students’ self- confidence in learning speaking skills…………………………………….31 ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Nowadays English has become one of the most important languages in the world. Speaking English has always been considered the most essential skill to be mastered. (1996:120) states that “of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking seems intuitively the most important.” According to Pattison, P.
(1992), when a person learns a language, he intends to be able to speak the language. The need for speaking mastery in English has been dramatically increasing because of the confirm position of English as a language for international communication. Many language learners think that speaking ability is regarded as the measure of knowing a language. Fluency in English as the ability is to converse with others, much more than the ability to read, write, or comprehend oral language.
They regard speaking as the most important skill that they can acquire. In Vietnam, the issue of how to speak English fluently has also gained much concern in recent years. However, Vietnamese students have to face many difficulties in managing this skill. Today an alarming situation in Vietnam is that many Vietnamese students graduating from colleges, universities cannot speak simple English sentences or are not confident to communicate in English.
This is a problem that universities in general and HaUI in particular have been considering and trying to find out effective methods in order to improve the quality of teaching English, especially speaking skills. According to the article “Students lack confidence to use English” by Hieu (2011), Vietnamese students are not confident to speak English due to the following causes as limited amount of vocabulary, incorrect pronunciation, fear of mistakes, shyness, focusing much on learning grammar and little using English in reality. The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. Learners should be able to make themselves understood, using their current proficiency to the fullest.
According to Kelly, L. (1986:4), students’ confidence is one of the 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com important factors to improve their learning. Chen (2003) adds that confidence is a direct factor that affect students spoken English. In fact, language learners who lack confidence in their ability often listen in silence instead of participating in oral activities.
HaUI is using New Headway Elementary (the third edition) as the course book for non-English major freshmen. Although the book covers all four skills in English, most of non-English major freshmen feel embarrassed and unconfident in speaking skills. It seems that it is very difficult for them to speak English fluently. Besides, HaUI is doing the innovation of improving the quality of education and training, especially teaching English.
Thus, teachers of English need to research and enhance the methods of teaching, and students need to have new styles of learning to raising the learning outcomes. All above reasons have urged me to do research to figure out methods to increase non-English major freshmen’s self-confidence in learning speaking skills. Up to present, there have been a number of studies that deal with methods to build students’ self confidence when learning speaking skills. These studies have lit up ideas for this paper.
(2004) has an investigation on building student confidence by using games within a simple framework. (2009) does research on confidence and fluency building for college students in Japan through extensive pair taping. (2011) investigates increasing the students’ confidence in speaking: An Iranian Experience. In Vietnam, a research by Lien, P.
(2012) studies on using group work to improve students’ confidence in English speaking classes at faculty of finance and banking, Vietnam University of Commerce. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com All these researches succeed in building students’ confidence through using interesting games, pair taping, and students’ interaction in pairs and in groups. However, not any researchers have done research to find various methods to build up non-English major freshmen’s self-confidence in learning speaking skills based on factors affecting their self-confidence in speaking English. That is the reason why I choose the topic “Building up students’ self-confidence in learning speaking skills at a university in Hanoi: A survey of methods”.
Aims of the study The aims of the study are: To find out the factors affecting non-English major freshmen’s self-confidence in speaking English at HaUI To find out the methods to increase non-English major freshmen’s self- confidence in learning speaking skills 3. To achieve the above–mentioned aims, the following research questions are proposed: 1. What factors affect non-English major freshmen’s self-confidence in speaking English at HaUI? 2. What methods build up non-English major freshmen’s self-confidence in learning speaking skills? 4.
Methods of the study In order to conduct the study, both quantitative and qualitative methods of research are used, namely the survey questionnaires and the interview.