MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES VO NGUYEN DA THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE ON FACTORS INFLUENCING ORAL FLUENCY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING HUE, 2022 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES VO NGUYEN DA THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE ON FACTORS INFLUENCING ORAL FLUENCY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 9140111 SUPERVISOR: Assoc. TRAN VAN PHUOC Dr. TRAN QUANG HAI HUE, 2022 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ VÕ NGUYÊN DẠ THẢO NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ SINH VIÊN VỀ CÁC YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN VIỆC NÓI TIẾNG ANH LƯU LOÁT Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC TẠI VIỆT NAM LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH HUẾ, 2022 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ SINH VIÊN VỀ CÁC YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN VIỆC NÓI TIẾNG ANH LƯU LOÁT Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC TẠI VIỆT NAM LUẬN ÁN TIẾN SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 9140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. TRẦN VĂN PHƯỚC TS.TRẦN QUANG HẢI HUẾ, 2022 ABSTRACT The present study investigates teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the factors influencing the oral fluency of Vietnamese tertiary English majors.
Also, it explores teachers’ perspectives of affective and external factors that would influence the speaking fluency of EFL students. The study was a mixed-method sequential explanatory model (Creswell & Clark, 2007). The data was collected from 45 EFL teachers and 115 EFL students at universities in Vietnam by means of a forty-seven- item questionnaire. Six semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted.
The findings revealed that EFL teachers were knowledgeable about factors contributing to the speaking fluency of EFL students. Specifically, there was a high consensus on technology as the most influential factor, while task type is the least influential one. Their perspectives, however, were not totally and successfully reflected in their responses. Although EFL teachers made great efforts in their teaching approach, they showed high attitudes toward instructional factors.
among which instructional and technological factors were the most prominent. Due to the limited timeframe, an emphasis is placed on the affective factors and external factors of EFL learners. From the findings, methodological and pedagogical implications are made for improvements to LOF. i TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.
i TABLE OF CONTENTS. ii LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURES. viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Background of the study. Statement of the problem. Purpose of the study.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Definitions of key terms. Organization of the thesis.
9 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE. Overview of teaching speaking and speaking Fluency in Vietnam. Fluency as proficiency. Fluency versus Accuracy.
Gardner’s socio-educational model. Second language acquisition contexts. Krashen’s Monitor Theory. The Acquisition and Learning.
The Monitor Hypothesis. The Natural Order hypothesis. The Input Hypothesis. The Affective Filter Hypothesis.
L2 Oral fluency factors. Summary of Theoretical Framework .4 The Gaps in the Literature. Data collection instruments. Questionnaires for teachers and students.
Semi-structured interviews for teachers and students. Data collection procedure. Piloting the questionnaires. Piloting the semi-structured interview.
Administering the semi-structured interview. Data analysis procedures. Reliability and Validity. 86 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
The quantitative analysis of teachers’ and students’ perspectives on LOF. The descriptive analysis of teachers’ perspectives on LOF .2 The descriptive analysis of students’ perspectives on LOF. The qualitative analysis of teachers’ and students’ perspectives on LOF. The overall analysis of teachers’ and students’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF.
The overal analysis of teachers’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF. The overal analysis of students’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF .4 The quantitative analysis of teachers’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF. Behavior and attitude factors. Task Type Factors.
Environment – Class Size Factors.The qualitative analysis of teachers’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF. The descriptive analysis of students’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF. Behavior and attitude factors. Task Type Factors.
Environment – Class Size Factors. The qualitative analysis of students’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF. Discussion on LOF from EFL students’ and teachers’ perspectives. Discussion on teachers’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF.
Discussion on students’ perspectives on factors influencing LOF. Discussion on teachers' and students' perspectives on factors influencing LOF. Summary of the Study. Summary of the Findings.
Limitations of the study. Implications and contributions of the study. Recommendations for Future Research. 130 LISTS OF AUTHOR’S WORK.
167 v LIST OF TABLES Table 2. The Krashen's Input Hypothesis with the teaching instruction. Krashen's Input Hypothesis with the technology. Summary of the student participants’ personal information.
Summary of the teacher participants’ personal information. Show how data were collected for this study. Summary of the Questionnaire Instrument with closed-ended items for quantitative data. Interview questions for teachers and students.
Coding for interviewing teacher participants. Coding for interviewing student participants. The reliability of teachers’ pilot questionnaire. The reliability of students’ pilot questionnaire.
The reliability of the official questionnaire- Teachers. The reliability of the official questionnaire- Students. The reliability of the theme - Teachers. The reliability of the theme - Students.
EFL students’ and teachers’ perspectives towards LOF. EFL teachers’ perspectives towards the importance of LOF. EFL students’ perspectives towards the importance of LOF. Summary of the Themes for Interview Question One - Teachers.
below presents the summary of emergent themes from students’ responses. Summary of the Themes for Interview Question One - Teachers. Summary of the Themes for Interview Question One - students. EFL teachers’ and students’ perspectives towards factors influencing LOF.
EFL teachers’ perspectives towards factors influencing LOF. EFL students’ attitudes towards factors influencing LOF. EFL teachers’ attitudes towards Student Behavior and Attitude factors. EFL teachers’ attitudes towards Motivational factors.
EFL teachers’ attitudes towards Anxiety factors. EFL teachers’ attitudes towards Task Type Factors. EFL teachers’ attitudes towards Instructional factors. EFL teachers’ attitudes towards Environment – Class Size factors.
EFL teachers’ attitudes towards Exposure factors. EFL teachers’ attitudes towards Technology factors. EFL students’ attitudes towards Behavior and Attitude Factors. EFL students’ attitudes towards Motivational Factors.
EFL students’ attitudes towards Anxiety factors. EFL students’ attitudes towards Task Type factors. EFL students’ attitudes towards Instructional factors. EFL Students’ attitudes towards Environment – Class Size factors.
EFL Students’ attitudes towards Exposure factors. EFL students’ attitudes towards Technology factors. Summary of the Themes for Interview Question four - students. 113 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
Aspects of L2 fluency – Segalowitz’s model. Gardner’s socio-educational model (adapted from Gardner, 1985). The framework of oral fluency factors. Four elements of research design .1: EFL teachers’ perspectives towards factors influencing LOF.
EFL students’ perspectives towards factors influencing LOF. 96 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT Communicative Language Teaching EMI English Medium Instruction ELT English Language Teaching IELTS International English Language Testing System L2 Foreign Language or Second Language LOF L2 oral fluency MOET Ministry of Education and Training MALS Mobile Application for Listening and Speaking PhD Doctor of Philosophy TEFL Teaching English as a Foreign Language TBLT Task-Based Language Teaching TL Target Language SD Standard Deviation SLA Second Language Acquisition SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Background of the study Internationalization has arisen as a popular trend in the worldwide landscape of higher education to recruit a more diversified student population and facilitate global, regional, and domestic institutional competition for students (Wallitsch, 2014). Because English is continuously becoming the world's most influential international language, it is widely regarded as the primary means of communication for people in many parts of the world (Chen, 2009).
Also, the English language is now exploited by many people around the globe for multiple communication patterns in different social contexts (e., academic settings and workplace environments). Consequently, the widespread use of English worldwide has posed many challenges to learning and teaching English these days. Saying that the way English is learned and taught has begun to change. There is no longer a concern about the specific or most effective teaching pedagogical method but rather a focus on obtaining teaching principles (Jacobs & Renandya, 2016, p.
Furthermore, this shift applies to such pedagogical adjustments. Thus, EFL teachers should concentrate on developing procedural knowledge (i., knowledge of how or negotiation strategies) in their classrooms rather than propositional knowledge (i., knowledge of what or norms and conventions of a language) (Canagarajah, 2014, p. By doing that, procedural knowledge will provide students with comprehensive strategies to deal with the language of globalization. Moreover, it seems reasonable to admit that the ultimate goal of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) is to foster and promote learners' communicative competence to meet the growing demand for English as a communication tool around the globe today.
Oral language competence in speaking and listening is a crucial indicator of students' academic, personal, and professional success (Morreale et al. Correspondingly, Emanuel (2011) discovered that oral communication activities, such as listening and speaking, accounted for more than three-quarters of their daily time in a study of how college students spend their time communicating academically. In contrast, reading and writing made up barely a quarter. Thus, this is an essential aspect for instructors because it shows that they should facilitate and encourage their students to adopt more effective oral communication skills.
After all, the fact is that language is communication, and language teaching is for communication. In order to advocate and support a balance of opportunities for teaching 1 practices in the classroom, Nation (2014) claimed that it is essential for a language course to balance the four strands of meaning-focused input, meaning-focused output, language-focused learning, and fluency development. However, fluency development seems to be given less attention in the whole teaching practices framework. Meanwhile, each strand should be given an equal amount of time in a learning course.
In pursuit of promoting the fourth trend, for language learners to maximize their progress in language learning, the relevant factors responsible for enhancing their language skills, especially speaking fluency, must be taken into consideration. This is extremely important because fluency might be considered a goal for learning and teaching English as a second language. As can be seen, a large amount of research postulates that temporal and lexical factors, speaker factors, and speaker-external factors influence individual foreign language speaking achievement (Kopnická & Calgary, 2016). Even though EFL teachers and learners often assume that "practice will help the mechanisms of production, how precisely this does happen is not clear" (Biancarosa, Shanley, Biancarosa, & Shanley, 2016).
It is stated that fluency cannot be coached or taught and that it will arise naturally, for instance, due to living overseas (Chambers, 1997; Leonard, 2015). However, on the other hand, it concluded that fluency serves as one of the components of proficiency (Chambers, 1997). As a result, appropriate methods and well-planned instruction provided by EFL teachers are critical components in achieving ultimate fluency (Segalowitz, Gatbonton, & Trofimovich, 2009; Kopnická & Calgary, 2016). This means that language teachers must recognize the relevant factors influencing fluency, which helps to improve oral fluency significantly.