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. On the other hand, L2 teachers should know how to reduce their talking time and create ample opportunities for interaction among L2 students through learning activities and tasks. These chances are more likely to optimize their speaking fluency and eventually prepare them for academic achievement and successful real-life conversations in the target language.
In these respects, it suggests that "fluency is mainly of interest because it is related to communicative effectiveness" (Bygate, 2009, p. Regarding EFL learners, some studies show that speaking ability in English and many other foreign languages is the most challenging component of foreign language learning since a successful speaker must integrate a variety of abilities in order to speak sufficiently well (Young, 1990; Price, 1991; Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1991; Ztürk & Gürbüz, 2014). This is because speaking skills depend on the context of the situation, including the participants, their shared experiences, the physical 2 surroundings, and the reason for speaking. Hence, promoting speaking skills necessitates learners' awareness of not only how to produce specific parts of the language (grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary) that are linguistic competence but also when, why, and in what manner to produce language (socio-linguistic competence).
More importantly, there are the components that underpin effective communication. It is said that "the affective side of the learner is probably one of the most important influences on language learning success or failure" (Oxford, 1990, p. Also, learners experience other dominant factors while speaking, leading to the development of speaking fluency (Heyun, 1999; Bahrani, 2011; Davies, 2014; Samuel, 2020; Marisca, Venansia & Norma, 2020). Students, particularly in EFL contexts like Vietnam, lack fluency practice opportunities because their language exposure and use are generally limited to the classroom, which may be further hindered by a lack of fluency exercises in the classroom.
Although researchers and educators have been drawn to investigate new theories and methodologies for developing proficiency as well as oral fluency in English as EFL learners when the 21st century began, improving the English speaking fluency of EFL students in Vietnam is believed to be unsuccessful. Teaching English as a foreign language is a difficult task, and helping EFL students develop speaking fluency is much more difficult. Given these issues, the thesis was carried out with the title: AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE ON FACTORS INFLUENCING ORAL FLUENCY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM 1. Statement of the problem Vietnam is entering the period of industrialization and modernization to become a modern industrialized country by 2020 (according to documents of the 11th National Party Congress in 2011) and integrate with the international community.
Besides, the evolution of human resources is considered a critical factor in industrialization, modernization, and international integration, consisting of the two most prominent educational and training components. Learning English as a foreign language (EFL) is essential for successful integration into communities worldwide. According to Hoang (2008), English has likely played the principal role in the foreign language teaching curriculum at Vietnamese higher education institutions for the last few decades. Notably, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) adopted the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) as the learning outcome for the 3 tertiary levels in 2014.
However, the learning outcomes, mainly speaking oral fluency, have not been satisfied as expected (Huyen & Ha, 2013; Tran, 2013; Tuan & Mai, 2015; Thi & Diep, 2017). More significantly, these problems can be seen as a scarcity of literature about the factors influencing speaking fluency and the teaching strategies for this component, with minor empirical studies on teachers' perspectives on higher education in Vietnam circumstance. Before developing oral fluency and communicative competence, it is necessary to gain a thorough understanding of the challenges at hand, as well as the possible factors that influence how students speak English fluently. Focusing on the importance of English in the workplace, the principal factors influencing LOF are arguably more significant and should be recognized and emphasized as a part of the language learning process.
This is due to the fact that a large proportion of the student population is leaving universities because their English is failing to meet the demands of real life and work. Although English language teaching is officially launched in the third grade of elementary public schooling in Vietnam and continues until university studies, communicative fluency in spoken English appears to be a constant struggle for Vietnamese students conducting academic programs and workplace communication in English. According to Stern (1983), despite years of instruction based on such syllabuses, language learners could communicate in an L2 to some extent. Furthermore, issues related to communication failure, especially LOF, involve a complicated set of problems.
Thus, these concerns almost inevitably lead to the question of whether any main contributing factors influence communication, particularly speaking fluency. This study is supposed to be in search of ways to help the students overcome challenging obstacles and actively promote their speaking fluency. Given the pivotal role of speaking English fluently in different situations in general and particularly in studying, it is vital to evaluate responsible factors influencing speaking fluency in universities in Vietnam. Purpose of the study The core purpose of this research is to review the range of factors related to oral fluency as affective and external problems, which includes the concept of oral fluency, the importance of LOF, the factors hindering it, and identify ways to develop it when teaching majored English students at Vietnamese universities.
The results of this study demonstrate teachers' and students' perspectives on oral fluency and factors influencing the speaking fluency outcomes in the circumstances of universities in Vietnam by means of oral fluency teaching and learning, and the implications of the findings may be used 4 to facilitate Vietnamese EFL learners' oral fluency. Furthermore, the evidence found in the current study may benefit both teachers and students in EFL contexts and increase their confidence in effective teaching and learning oral fluency. Research questions The term fluency may appear vague, and it's difficult to define it clearly (Brumfit, 1984). When sharing knowledge, ideas, or even sentiments with others, EFL students face limitations.
Speaking requires more than just delivering a message; it also entails engaging in lengthy debates with others. In order to investigate factors influencing speaking among EFL Learners at Vietnamese universities, the study hopes to get invaluable responses to these questions: 1. What are the students' and the teachers' perspectives on oral fluency? 2. What are teachers' and students' perspectives on the factors influencing the oral fluency of tertiary English majors? It will be evident that these research questions do not lend themselves to rigorous 'scientific', positivistic research, with the related production of quantitative information and the consequent statistical analysis.
By all means, concepts like views, attitudes, practices and beliefs regarding research questions imply that what is being examined are the perspectives of teachers and students that are grounded on their actual practices and attitudes. Therefore, this study takes an exploratory, meaning- centered approach to understand students' perspectives. It is a context-embedded, qualitative, interpretive inquiry with a component of quantitative data, or "quasi- statistics" (Becker, 1970; cited in Maxwell, 2010, p.476), gathered from questionnaire responses, as will be seen below. Scope of the study Regarding second language acquisition theory, speaking performance, especially oral fluency, is affected by linguistic, cognitive, social, and affective factors.
These factors are also challenging for Vietnamese EFL students to speak English fluently and accurately. One of them is effective factors related to the learners' learning. In other words, the scope of the current research focuses on the affective factors, concluding with anxiety, motivation, and attitude. It is believed that affective factors play a vital role in learning a language and the willingness to participate in fluency activities (Yang, 2014).
More than that, this research also examines external factors in second language acquisition. The external factors include technology, instruction, exposure to English, task type, and environment-class size factors. 5 More specifically, and particularly pertinent to the focus of the present study, it explores affective and external factors that would contribute to the speaking fluency of EFL students. The results of the study are from the teachers’ and students’ perspectives on speaking skills only.