STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere. Author Le Kieu Lan Phuong i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been completed without the help of many people. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Ngu Thien Hung, for his professional guidance and excellent support at the very beginning of the research. Second, I would like to save my deep gratefulness to Dr. Le Pham Hoai Huong for her suggestion about my thesis’s title. Third, my warm thanks also go to my cousin, Ms.
Huynh Ngoc Mai Kha for all her kind help she gave me during the time I conducted my study. I would like to send my special thanks to English teachers and grade 10 students at Tran Cao Van High School who took part in my research as samples. ii In addition, I would like to express my deep thanks to Ms. Tran Thi Thu Suong for making helpful comments on my thesis.
Finally, I want to show my profound gratitude to my parents, my younger brother, my husband and my daughter for their understanding, support and love during the implementation of this project. iii ABSTRACT Developing students’ English speaking performance is one of the challenges facing teachers of English. It is not only concerned with the nature of language teaching and learning from linguistic perspectives, but also influenced by other factors. So, this study has been conducted with the aims to find out factors affecting students’ English speaking performance to help English teachers understand the difficulties of students in their English speaking performance and to draw better solutions to improve English speaking performance of students at Tran Cao Van High School.
Three instruments (1) questionnaires for students and teachers, (2) students and teachers interviews and (3) class observations were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. The participants of the study are 100 grade ten students and twelve teachers teaching English at Tran Cao Van High School in Tam Ky City- Quang Nam Province in the school year of 2010-2011. Basing on the analysis of the statistical data from the interviews and questionnaires, this paper focuses on the discussion of the impacts of the factors, especially the factors relating to students themselves on their speaking in English at high schools. The findings reveal that students at Tran Cao Van High School have many problems in their speaking class, including having difficulty in speaking and expressing their ideas in English, taking little participation in the speaking activities, being teacher and peer pressure and having no chance to practice speaking English.
Also, there are also many factors leading to problems students at Tran Cao Van High School have in their English speaking class and affecting their English speaking performance. They consist of external factors and factors relating to students themselves. Additionally, many suggestions made by both teachers and students for the sake of helping students overcome the factors affecting students’ English speaking performance, especially the ones relating to themselves to improve their English speaking performance better and better have also been given. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1 LIST OF FIGURES. 4 LIST OF TABLES. 5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .1 Rationale of the research .2 Aims and objectives of the research .1 Aims of the research .2 Objectives of the research .3 Scope of the research .4 Significance of the research .5 Organization of the research .1 English speaking performance .1 Definition of speaking skill .2 Definition of speaking performance .3 Linguistic aspects contributing to the evaluation of English speaking performance.2 Factors affecting students’ English speaking performance .1 Internal factors of language users .3 Previous studies related to English speaking performance .1 Studies proposing activities used to improve students’ English speaking performance.2 Studies proposing how to organize teaching activities to improve students’ English speaking performance .3 Other related studies .4 Data collection methods.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.1 Problems encountered by students in their speaking classrooms .1 Students’ opinions about speaking in English .2 Problems students have in their speaking classrooms .2 Factors leading to problems encountered by students at Tran Cao Van High School in their English speaking class and affecting their English speaking performance .1 Reality of students’ English speaking performance .2 Factors leading to problems students have in their English speaking class and affecting their English speaking performance .2 Factors relating to students themselves .3 Suggestions for the improvement of students’ English speaking performance. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS .1 Summary of Findings .2 For school administrators .3 Limitations of the study .4 Suggestions for further research. 77 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONS FOR STUDENT INTERVIEW APPENDIX 4: QUESTIONS FOR TEACHER INTERVIEW 3 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: Students’ feelings of learning speaking in English (Data collected from interviews and questionnaire for students).2: Students’ expressions of the interests in speaking in English (Data collected from interviews and questionnaire for students) .3: Student’s opinions about the importance of speaking in English (Data collected from interviews and questionnaire for students).4: Reality of students’ English speaking performance (Data collected from interviews and questionnaire for students).5: Students’ opinions about the role of ELP on students’ ESP.6: Teachers’ opinions about the role of ELP on students’ ESP.7: Grades for Students’ English Speaking Performance.8: Students’ difficulties in ESP with low ELP (Data collected from questionnaire for students).9: Students’ difficulties in ESP with low ELP (Data collected from questionnaire for teachers).10: Students’ perspectives of influence of shyness to their ESP.11: Students’ perspectives of influence of topical knowledge on their ESP.12: Percentage of students agreeing the effect of topical knowledge on ESP. 64 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Problems students have in the speaking class (Data collected from interviews and questionnaire for students).2: Problems students have in the speaking class (Data collected from interviews and questionnaire for teachers).3: Factors affecting students’ English speaking performance (Data collected from questionnaire for students).4: Factors affecting students’ English speaking performance (Data collected from questionnaire for teachers).5: Students’ perspectives of necessary aspects of ELP for ESP.6: Teachers’ perspectives of necessary aspects of ELP for ESP.
56 5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation EFL: English as a Foreign Language ELP: English language proficiency ESP: English speaking performance L2: Second language 6 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I will describe in details the rationale of the research in relation to the ability of speaking English of students at Tran Cao Van High School in Tam Ky City- Quang Nam Province, the aims and objectives of the research, the scope of the research, the significance of the research and the organization of the research.1 Rationale of the research With the tendency of integration and globalization, especially with the recent popularity of English as an international language of communication, the role of English can not be denied nowadays. English has become more and more popular and significantly important “for foreign travel, business or other professional reasons” (Donough, 1999, p. So, proficiency in English communication is becoming more than just an educational requirement. Besides the new curriculum designed and changed by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training for the sake of helping learners approach the new tendency of the world, the renovation in methodology of teaching and learning English has been the prime focus of many debates in workshops in Vietnam.
There has been a shift of emphasis from passive learning to active learning. As a result, many new textbooks and syllabus are designed according to communication- oriented and learner-centered approaches, which all require teachers of English to improve their teaching skills to make students more competent to deal with the real communication. Accordingly, learners should not only be good at grammatical knowledge, but also be able to communicate successfully. In reality, it is very difficult for teachers to improve students’ language competence, especially English speaking competence.
Speaking has long been considered a difficult and boring subject by many language learners. In fact, among the four basic skills- listening, speaking, reading and writing- that all learners have to develop when they learn a foreign language, speaking is the hardest for teaching and 7 learning. “To most people, mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of learning a foreign language and the success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in a language” (Nunan, 2000, p. Speaking is, in fact, a real challenge to both language teachers and language learners.
As stated by Thornbury (2005, p. iv), “speaking is interactive and requires the ability to co-operate in the management of speaking turns. It also typically takes place in real time, with little time for detailed planning”. It is also reaffirmed by Nunan (2003, p.48) that “unlike reading or writing, speaking happens in real time: usually the person you are talking to is waiting for you to speak right then”.
So, it is very difficult for you to “edit and revise what you wish to say, as you can if you are writing”. Being English teachers, we are responsible for helping students understand the importance of learning English and use English in communication as well. It is also necessary for us to understand what students want to learn, how they learn and what difficulties affect their process of learning so that we can determine our philosophy of education, teaching style, approach, methods, class techniques and activities to help them overcome the obstacles in learning English as well as improve their communication competence in English more and more effectively. The question regarding how to improve students’ English speaking performance (ESP) is indeed a matter of concern for both EFL teachers and learners.
It is indeed bitter to notice that even though serious efforts have been made to improve students’ English speaking performance, students do not perform well in English communication as they are supposed to do. There may be many factors affecting students’ English speaking performance. From the way English is taught in Vietnam and in my school, Tran Cao Van High School, we can see that the teaching of speaking skill is not paid attention to as much as other skills such as reading and writing. The English teaching tends to focus mainly on grammar, reading and writing skills while speaking and listening skills generally receive little attention, which detracts the basic goal of learning a foreign language.
Most students do not pay attention to English speaking skill; conversely, they only want to learn what involved in their final examination and the National 8 Entrance Examination to be admitted to university. As a result, their English speaking performance is not good. Moreover, speaking is a basic language skill that is not easy to master when there are no conditions, environments and time for students to practice it. It is the regular practice that helps students be more self-confident to communicate with people who use that language in unrehearsed situations.
In reality, there are few opportunities for students in my school to use and perform their speaking in English outside the classroom, which is also an important factor more and less affecting students’ improvement in their ESP. Besides, English language proficiency (ELP) is also a big challenge facing students in learning English speaking skill. It is clear that developing student’s communication competence is not only concerned with the nature of language learning from linguistic perspectives, but could also be influenced by many exogenous factors. In this stance, it is my decision to conduct “An investigation into factors affecting students’ English speaking performance at Tran Cao Van High School in Tam Ky City- Quang Nam Province”.
I strongly believe that identifying the factors that lead to problems students have in their speaking class and that affect students’ English speaking performance is very important to our English teaching.