VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ---------------------***-------------------- TỐNG THỊ HOÀNG HẠNH A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP DISCUSSION APPROACH TO ENHANCE SPEAKING SKILLS OF ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT AN DUONG VOCATIONAL MIDDLE SCHOOL (Áp dụng đường hướng thảo luận theo nhóm để phát triể n kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ nhấ t tại Trường Trung cấ p Nghề An Dương) M. Minor Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.10 HANOI- 2010 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ---------------------***-------------------- TỐNG THỊ HOÀNG HẠNH A STUDY ON APPLYING GROUP DISCUSSION APPROACH TO ENHANCE SPEAKING SKILLS OF ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT AN DUONG VOCATIONAL MIDDLE SCHOOL (Áp dụng đường hướng thảo luâ ̣n theo nhóm để phát triể n kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên năm thứ nhấ t tại Trường Trung cấ p Nghề An Dương) M. Minor Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.10 Supervisor : Duong Thi Thuc, M. HANOI- 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….
iii TABLE OF CONTENT……………………………………………………………. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATION…………………………………………………………. vi Part I: Introduction 1. Aim of the study.
Scope of the study…………………………………………………………………. Methods of the study ……………………………………………………………. Design of the study………………………………………………………………… 3 Part II: Development Chapter 1: Literature review………………………………………………………. What is speaking skill?.
The requirements for speaking skill…………………………………………. Common problems during Speaking Activities……………………………… 7 1. Cooperative Language Learning……………………………………….The background of CLL……………………………………………………. Types of Cooperative Learning group……………………………………… 9 1.
The benefits of Cooperative Language Learning…………………………… 9 1. Group discussion in speaking class……………………………………………… 12 1. History of the group discussion………………………. The concepts of group discussions/group work……………….
The formation of group discussion…………………………………………. Seating arrangement in group discussion……. The role of learner in group discussion……………………………………. The role of teacher in group discussion…………………………………….
The advantages and disadvantages of using group discussion in the speaking class…………. 19 Chapter 2: Methodology LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Setting of the study………………………………………………………………. Current situations of teaching and learning English speaking skills at An Duong Vocational School.
Techniques for Collecting Data………………………………………. 24 Chapter 3: Findings and Recommendations 3. The importance of English speaking skill…………………………………… 26 3. Students’ interest in English speaking skill………………………………….
Students’ preference to how they like to practice speaking skill in class…… 27 3. Students’ opinion on speaking in group discussion…………………………. Students’ opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of group discussion. Students’ preference in group discussion…………………………………….
Factors cause difficulties when speaking in group discussion…………. Students’ desires in learning speaking through group discussion…………… 32 3. Teachers’ opinion on teaching speaking skill………………………………. Teachers’ opinion on the important role of group discussion in improving speaking skill….
Teachers’ opinion on group discussion in teaching speaking skill…………. The frequency of difficulties…………………………………………………. Teachers’ current teaching methods in using group discussion in speaking class…………. Reports on the students, teachers and the materials……………………………… 38 3.
Report on the students………………………………………………………. Report on the teachers………………………………………………………. Report on materials…………………………………………………………. Recommendations for students……………………………………………….
Recommendations for teachers………………………………………………. Recommendations for materials……………………………………………… 41 3. Recommendations for administrators………………………………………. 41 Part III: Conclusion 1.
Summary of the study……………………………………………………………… 42 2. Limitation of the study……………………………………………………………. Suggestions for further research…………………………………………………… 43 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………………… 44 APPENDIX 1 APPENDIX 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi LIST OF ABBREVIATION GD: Group Discussion. EFL: English Foreign Language.
ELT: English Language Teaching. CLL: Cooperative Language Learning. LIST OF Figures and table 1. Figures: Figure 1: The importance of English Speaking Skill.
Figure 2: Students’ interest in English speaking skill. Figure 1: Students’ preference to how they like to practice speaking skill in class. Figure 4: The frequency of difficulties. Tables: Table 2 : Students’ Profiles.
Table 3: Teachers' Profiles. Table 3: Students’ opinion on speaking in group discussion. Table 4: Students’ opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of group discussion. Table 5: Students’ preference in group discussion.
Table 6: Factors cause difficulties when speaking in group discussion. Table 7: Students’ desires in learning speaking through group discussion. Table 8: Teachers' opinion on teaching speaking skill. Table 9: Teachers’opinion on the important role of group discussion in improving speaking skill.
Table 10: Teachers’ opinion on group discussion in teaching speaking skill. Table 11: Teachers’ current teaching methods in using group discussion in speaking class. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Language is the most common form of communication of mankind.
Communication through language plays an important role in our social activities and daily life as our social contacts are increasing frequently. Economic global civilization requires people to learn more about cultural features, historical background and social realities from other countries. Only this can effectively strengthen the communication, co-operation and negotiation with other countries and establish firmly economic and cultural relationship. However, in this process, English as an international language has showed its importance than cannot be replaced.
People‟s ability to master a foreign language, especially English, has been an essential component in evaluating the power of a nation. More and more people find it necessary and useful to have a good competence of English. Some people recognize „tongue, finance, computer‟ as three powerful arms in the modern world. The ability to express one-self orally has become an important factor to influence one‟s life and decide the success or failure of his understanding.
The ability to express one-self is one of the qualities that we must possess. Meanwhile, English is widely used in the world. People in most of the countries communicate with each other in English in the fields like politics, economics, culture, science, technology etc. So learning English well seems to be an evitable necessity in the modern world.
Furthermore, oral English is the necessary aspect of learning because of the high-speed development of the society, whether you can express your-self fluently and properly shows how well you master the language. In Vietnam, English is the most popular foreign language to be used as a mean of communication. The use of English has dramatically increased in Vietnam, especially in the last decade. English is spoken by many Vietnamese and is considered a necessity for those who are studying or doing research and for those who are working in places like foreign companies, holiday resorts, banks, hotels, universities, colleges, school and other public places.
Despite the widespread emphasis on the acquisition and use of English, many students (including the final year graduates) still struggle to communicate in English for academic purposes. One of the primary reasons is that they lack the confidence and skills LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 needed to successfully speak in English. As a result, they become apprehensive when asked to speak in public. The feeling of apprehension or fear when speaking in English has become a serious matter because it affects their employability and their self-esteem.
Many students admit that they are unable to secure their dream jobs after they have graduated. This is likely due to their high levels of apprehension and their lack of confidence when asked to communicate in English during job interviews. Speaking in a foreign language has often been considered as the most demanding of the four skills: listening, writing, reading and speaking. When attempting to speak, learners must muster up their thoughts and encode those ideas in the vocabulary and syntactic structures of the target language.
Moreover, English Language Teaching (ELT) in Vietnam has affected the traditional teaching model through which students learn English just to pass exams and teachers lecture mainly to help students achieve this goal. The result is that students do not have enough English to communicate effectively with others. Obviously, students‟ overall skills cannot be enhanced, especially among students at the college and university level. Being a teacher of English at An Duong Vocational School, I am well aware that teaching speaking is not an easy job because there are many problems still existing in teaching speaking skills.
For example: the lack of vocabulary will make students unable to say words during speaking class. In addition, most of students do not feel confident enough to use English in speaking class. Moreover, students often speak their Vietnamese language, and so on. Therefore, it is necessary to create conductive and authentic learning environments for students to be able to practice speaking in order to reduce their apprehension.
A group discussion before a speaking task is one of the very good ways to create such environments. Group discussions are very important in oral English classes. It maximizes students‟ speaking time in a specified-time period. Group discussions have a strong positive effect on the atmosphere in the classroom and the behaviors of the students as they can get more ideas from their friends.
The most important reason for using group discussions before speaking tasks is to reduce students‟ nervousness of making mistakes. And this encourages students to be more active in completing their task. Moreover, using group discussions can open skills of participation, cooperation, negotiation and so on effectively for the students in studying and working. With a view to providing students with professional atmosphere to speak the international language easily and freely, the writer decided to do a research entitled “A LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 study on applying group discussion approach to enhance speaking skills of English for the first year students at An Duong Vocational Middle School”.
I hope that the research will be a big contribution to ideal strategy approaches in teaching and learning English to improve speaking skills for students. Aim of the study The purpose of this study is aimed at investigating the reality of the use of group discussion in the speaking- class of the first year students at An Duong Vocational School. To be specific, the aims of the study are: Investigating the current situations of English speaking teaching and learning at An Duong Vocational School. Indicating the difficulties that the students and teachers usually meet during group discussions.
Considering how group discussions enhance students to speak English in the class. Scope of the study To improve speaking skill of the first year students at An Duong Vocational School, the teachers can apply diversified methods and techniques. However, the study is limited to the applying group discussions to enhance English speaking skill for 1 st year students at An Duong Vocational School. Methods of the study By observing and reviewing 100 1st-year students and 7 teachers of English in speaking-class at An Duong Vocational School, the researcher received necessary information to be able to create the framework of the questions from the interviews with 7 teachers and the questionnaire with 100 students in five classes: Mechanics, Industrial Sewing, Vehicle Repair, Industrial Electricity and Computer Science.
To be able to receive as much valuable information as possible from the interview and the questionnaire, the researcher took notes of every conversation with each teacher and some specific students. Design of the study The writer organizes this research paper in order to make the readers easily understand the paper. Apart from INTRODUCTION that presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study and CONCLUSION that reviews the main content and findings of the study, summarizes the limitations revealed during the process of LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 completing this research paper and suggests the further research, the paper is divided into three chapters: Chapter 1, Literature review, presents the basic concepts relevant to the study as English speaking skills, the requirements for speaking skills and group discussion in speaking skills. Chapter 2, Methodology, provides an overview of the current situation of English teaching and learning for the non-major intermediate students at An Duong Vocational School including general introduction of An Duong Vocational School, students, teachers, classroom condition, the English syllabus of the course training.
The detailed statistic results from the data collection are also presented in this chapter.