VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -----------o0o------------ TRẦN MỸ HẠNH IMPROVING ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES OF THE FIRST- YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HA NOI COMMUNITY COLLEGE Nâng cao các hoạt động nói tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ nhất không chuyên ngữ tại trường Cao đẳng Cộng đồng Hà Nội M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 HANOI – 2014 z VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -----------o0o------------ TRẦN MỸ HẠNH IMPROVING ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES OF THE FIRST- YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HA NOI COMMUNITY COLLEGE Nâng cao các hoạt động nói tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ nhất không chuyên ngữ tại trường Cao đẳng Cộng đồng Hà Nội M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: PROF. NGUYỄN HÒA HANOI – 2014 z DECLARATION I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled “Improving English speaking activities of the first-year non-English major students at Ha Noi Community College” is the result of my own research and that it has not been submitted for any other degree. Hà Nội, August, 2014 Student‟s signature Trần Mỹ Hạnh i z ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To accomplish this study, I am indebted to many people for their thoughtful help. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof.
Nguyen Hoa for his patient and enthusiastic guidance, encouragement, and invaluable assistance throughout my research. I am also grateful to the lecturers and all the staff members of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for providing me valuable lessons, support and encouragement in fulfillment of this thesis. My sincere thanks go to all my colleagues and my students at Hanoi Community College. Without their enthusiasm and help, I would not have been able to conduct my research.
I would like to express my appreciation to my friends and relatives who have contributed in the fulfillment of this study. Last but not least, my sincere thanks go to my dear family, my parents and my husband for their enormous spiritual support. Their great encouragement and love have helped me to overcome the difficulties during my study. ii z ABSTRACT This thesis is carried out to investigate the use of pair work and group work activities to develop speaking skills for the first year non-English major students at Hanoi Community College.
It sought the answer to the question: “How can pair work and group work contribute to improving speaking skills of the 1st year non- English major students at HCC?” The study is carried out in two classes (target class and control class ) which are taught differently by the researcher and another teacher at HCC. One class is taught according to the program of the course book “Lifelines - Pre-intermediate”. The other is designed to use pair/group work activities in speaking lessons. In this study, two data collection instruments are used: pre-test/post-test and questionnaires.
The results of the research indicate that pair/group work activities motivate the students in their speaking lessons. After seven weeks, the students‟ speaking competence improves. Besides, the students become more interested in pair work and group work activities. These activities help students feel confident to speak English.
These make them have high motivation in speaking lessons. Moreover, they have more opportunities to communicate in the teaching language in a variety of real life situation. iii z LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS HCC: Hanoi Community College LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS TABLES Table 1: Students‟ opinion about speaking skills Table 2: Students‟ opportunities to speak English in speaking lessons Table 3: The frequency of speaking activities in class Table 4: Students‟ attitudes to the topics of speaking Table 5: Students‟ participation in speaking lessons Table 6: Students‟ attitudes to classroom atmosphere Table 7: Totals (agree% + strongly agree%) measurement: Questionnaire CHARTS Chart 1: Results of pre-test of the target class and the control class Chart 2 : Results of post-test of the target class and the control class Chart 3: Comparing pre-test and post-test scores of the target class (KT1-K8) Chart 4: Comparing pre-test and post-test scores of the control class (KT2-K8) Chart 5 : Comparing post-test scores of the target class (KT1-K8) and the control class (KT2-K8) iv z TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration. iii List of abbreviations.
iv List of figures and tables. iv Table of contents. Aims of the study. Scope of the study.
Design of the study. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. The nature of speaking. Types of activities in teaching speaking skills.
Pair work and group work. Advantages and disadvantages of using pair work and group work. Advantages of using pair work and group work activities. Disadvantages of using pair work and group work activities.
The roles of the teachers and students in pair work and group work activities. The roles of the teachers in pair work and group work activities. The roles of the students in pair work and group work activities. Criteria of an effective speaking activity.
Procedures for pair work and group work. Selecting and organizing activities for pair work and group work. Planning pair work and group work activities. Previous research on pair and group work.
The setting of the study. Data collection instruments. Reasons for choosing questionnaire. Description of the questionnaire.
Data collection procedures. Data analysis procedures:. 24 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Findings and discussion from the pre-questionnaire.
Students’ opinion about speaking skills. Students’ opportunities to speak English in speaking lessons. The frequency of speaking activities in class. Students’ attitudes to the topics of speaking.
Students’ participation in speaking lessons. Students’ attitudes to classroom atmosphere. Findings and discussion from the post questionnaire. Findings from the pre-test and post-test.
Results of the pre-test. Results of the post-test. Comparing pre-test and post-test scores of the target class (KT1-K8. Comparing pre-test and post-test scores of the control class (KT2-K8).
Comparing post-test scores of the target class (KT1-K8) and the control class (KT2- K8). The correlation between results of post-questionnaire and post-test scores. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study.
I vii z PART A: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the rationale, aims, scope, research questions, research methods and design of the study. Rationale Nowadays, English has been used more and more widely and important in every part of the world. It is considered to play a crucial role on the path of industrialization and modernization of the country as well as in the process of intergration and globalization in the world. Therefore, the need for learning it has increased rapidly.
English is a useful means they need for their future career since it equips them with linguistic, social and cultural knowledge and provides them with access to the modern world in the era of informatics and technology. It is used as the official language in many powerful and developed countries. In addition, it is also considered as the medium of communication in many fields such as science, technology, business, education, commerce, and so on. In Vietnam, English is also a compulsory subject to be taught and learned at schools and universities.
It plays an instrumental role. Understanding the necessity of English in the development of the society in general and of each individual in particular, every learner wants to be competent in English and uses it to communicate with foreigners. That‟s why most schools now focus on developing students‟ ability to speak English. Among the four skills in learning English, speaking and writing are the productive skills.
However, speaking is regarded as very important for language teaching and learning. Speaking is the bridge to reach other skills. Speaking helps learners to read better, to listen more effectively and write more accurately. Speaking is surely the most effective means of communication (Ur, 1996).
So learners of English should have motivation and positive attitude to learn English speaking. At Hanoi Community College, students seem to have lost interest in learning English and they are not active in participating in speaking activities. Teachers tried 1 z to organize some activities such as pair work, group work, role play, games, etc to stir up the atmosphere, to help students to have chances to speak English as well as to improve their speaking skills, but they find difficulties of the use of these activities in the speaking class. They find that their students are not very active with these activities, sometimes some students do not want to participate in the activities at all, they do not pay much attention to their speaking skills, they often keep quiet in speaking lessons.
Moreover they apply these activities in speaking lessons unsuccessfully. These lead to the underachievement and have a negative effect on students learning English as a foreign language. As a teacher of English at Hanoi Community College, I would like to make these activities effective and successful to help my students to master the language and have an ability to communicate confidently in English. For the above reasons, I choose the topic “Improving English speaking activities of the first-year non-English major students at Hanoi Community College”.
I hope that the research will make a contribution to confirming the advantages of pair work and group work activities in teaching and learning English and it can help other teachers of English be aware of these advantages and apply pair work and group work activities in their teaching. Aims of the study The aim of the study is to improve English speaking skills and develop communicative skills for the first year non – English major students through using pair work and group work activities. Research questions The study intends to find out the answer to the question: “How can pair work and group work contribute to improving speaking skills of the 1st year non-English major students at HCC?” 4. Scope of the study The study examines how to use pair work and group work to improve the speaking 2 z skills of the first year non-English major students at HCC 5.
Methods To examine the effectiveness of pair work and group work activities on teaching and learning speaking skills, two data collection instruments are used: pre-test/post- test and questionnaires. The data collected from the questionnaires and test will then be analyzed by SPSS version 22. Design of the study The study consists of three main parts: Part A provides an introduction which includes the rationale, aims, scope, research questions, methods and design of the study. Part B provides a development which is divided into three chapters.
Chapter 1 presents some key theories related to the study such as definition of speaking, definitions of pair work and group work. The chapter also mentions advantages and disadvantages of using pair work and group work as well as the roles of teachers and students in these activities. Chapter 2 presents methodology including the background information of the context where the study is conducted, the subjects, the instruments used to collect data, and the procedures of data collection. Furthermore, a detailed description of data analysis is presented; and some explanations and interpretations of the findings of the study are given in this chapter.
Chapter 3 provides discusses the findings of the study. Part C is the conclusion of the study and makes some recommendations on how pair work and group work should be used to improve speaking skills for the first- year non-English major students at HCC. It also discusses the limitation of the study and made some suggestions for further research.