VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------- NGUYỄN ANH QUỲNH FACTORS AFFECTING THE FIRST YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES: A SURVEY AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (NHỮNG NHÂN TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN SỰ THAM GIA VÀO CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT : NGHIÊN CỨU KHẢO SÁT TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM THÁI NGUYÊN) M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 HANOI-2012 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Page DECLARATION .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.vii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES .viii Part A: INTRODUCTION. Statement of problem and rationale. Aims of the study. Significance of the study.
Scope of the study. Organization of the study .5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Theoretical background of speaking. Concept of speaking.
The role of speaking in foreign language teaching. Approaches in teaching speaking. Students’ participation in oral activities. Concept of students’ participation.
Factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities. Students’ language proficiency level. Students’ personally factors. Students’ attitude and motivation.
Teachers’ teaching method. Teachers’ knowledge and characteristics .12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Classroom physical conditions. Relevance of this study.
Background of the study. An overview of Thai Nguyen College of Education. The materials and syllabus. Data collections instruments.
Data collection procedures .18 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Results of students’ survey questionnaire. Results of teachers’ survey questionnaire. Result from interviews with teachers.
Findings and discussion .1 Students’ low level of participation in oral activities .37 CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .40 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part C: CONCLUSION. Summary of the study. Limitation and suggestions for further study.43 APPENDICES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TNCE: Thai Nguyen College of Education CLT: Communicative Language Teaching EFL: English as Foreign Language ESL: English as Second Language LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1.30 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part A: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of problem and rationale Undeniably, in learning English, the four skills namely reading, writing, speaking, listening are very important but speaking seems to be the most significant.
Any learners of English want to achieve this skill. However, speaking is generally considered the most demanding of the four skills (Bailey and Savage, 1994: vii). For this reason, being aware of the necessity of speaking, English teachers though trying to improve all four skills, always pay much attention on speaking for their students. However, the teaching and learning of English speaking skill in Vietnam has encountered many difficulties.
For Vietnamese learners, speaking is a very difficult skill. It takes learners lots of time practicing if they want to be skillful at it. In fact although most of Vietnamese learners pay much attention to grammatical structures and vocabulary, they are often reluctant in speaking skill. In recent years, English teachers have changed their teaching methods and focused their teaching on speaking to the students.
One top concern of almost all teachers is students’ ineffective participation in speaking lessons. The reasons for that are various. In Vietnam, Phung (2006) conducts an experiment about techniques to overcome factors affecting the participation in classroom oral activities at College of Social Sciences and Humanities. The findings shows that factors affecting his students’ participation includes students’ learning styles, motivation, language level, gender differences, teachers’ teaching techniques, characteristics, teachers’ knowledge, implementation of teachers’ role in speaking activities, the available facilities and classroom atmosphere.
Nguyen (2010) suggests strategies to increase the participation in communicative activities of students at Dong Do high school, Hanoi. She also concludes that the factors affecting her students’ participation in communicative activities are students’ LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com poor background knowledge, lack of confidence, lack of motivation and passive learning style. Although there have been many studies about factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities, it is considered new in the EFL context of Thai Nguyen College of Education (TNCE). As a teacher at this college, the researcher sees that most of her students do not often enjoy speaking period, and they do not actively contribute the speaking lessons.
They always keep quiet, passively take note, some listen to better students speaking but do nothing, and some hard-working students discuss in Vietnamese. The study entitled “ Factors affecting the first year non-English major students’ participation in oral activities: a survey at Thai Nguyen College of Education” is an attempt to find out the reasons for above problems, and give some suggestions to increase students’ participation in oral activities. Objectives of the study The study was conducted to (1) investigate the current teaching and learning of speaking skill of the students at TNCE, (2) identify the factors affecting the first year non-English major students’ participation in oral activities, then (3) give some recommendations for teachers and students to increase students’ participation in oral activities. Significance of the study Theoretically, it is hoped that this study can be used as a reference for other researchers who want to conduct the study related to teaching and learning speaking in general and factors affecting students’ participation in oral speaking activities in particular.
The result of the study can be useful for English teachers to implement suitable teaching method to their students. Practically, the study will hopefully better the researcher and her colleagues’ teaching, help the students be aware of their problems in learning and solve these problems. The researcher also hopes that this study will benefit both the teaching and learning of English speaking. Scope of the study The current research mainly covers the possible factors affecting the students’ participation in oral activities including students’ language proficiency level, attitude and motivation, personality, teacher’ s teaching methods, characteristics, LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com classroom size, atmosphere, and materials.
The subjects of the study are 6 teachers of English and 160 first year non-major English students at TNCE 5. Research methods To conduct the study, quantitative and qualitative methods were used. To collect information and evidence for the study, survey questionnaires for both teachers and students and interviews for teachers were used. All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion provided in the study based on the data analysis.
Organization of the study This minor thesis is composed of three parts: Part A, Introduction, presents the statement of problem and rationale, aims of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, research methods, and organization of the study. Part B, Development, including the following chapters: Chapter 1, Literature review, presents the theoretical background of speaking in which concept of speaking, the role of speaking in foreign language teaching and learning, approaches in teaching speaking are considered, issues of students’ participation in oral activities including concept of students’ participation and factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities. Chapter 2, Methodology, includes background of the study, research questions, the participants, data collection instruments, and data collection procedures. Chapter 3, The results and discussions, presents data analysis of the study, findings and discussions which discover factors affecting both students and teachers in oral activities Chapter 4, Implications and Recommendations, gives some suggestions to increase students’ participation in oral activities.
Part C, Conclusion, summarizes all the key issues of the study as well as the limitations of the study and suggestions for further study. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter consists of three sections. The first section reviews the theoretical background of speaking which includes the concept of speaking, the role of speaking in foreign language teaching and learning, approaches in teaching speaking. The second section deals with the issues of students’ participation in oral activities.
The last section is the relevance of this study. Theoretical background of speaking 1. Concept of speaking In language teaching, speaking can be regarded as the productive skill. Different linguists have different concepts of speaking.
According to Chaney and Burk (1998:13), speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols in a variety of contexts”. As stated by Burn and Joyce (1997), speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information. Moreover, speaking, as Bygate (1987) defines, involves not only the use of the right sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words and inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning. In the study of Brown and Yule (1983), spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation.
Besides, speaking is known to have two main types of conversation namely dialogue and monologue. In monologue, you give uninterrupted oral presentation while in dialogue you interact with one or more other speakers for transactional and international purposes. From the above definitions, speaking is making use words, knowing and being able to use language; expressing in words and making speech. Therefore, we can infer that speaking is the ability to make use of words or a language to express oneself in actual communication.
The role of speaking in foreign language teaching and learning It has been accepted for many years that communication is the proper aim for language teaching. According to Hymes (1972) “ The goal of language teaching is to develop communicative competence” (as cited in Larseen-Freeman, 1986). That means we learn a language to communicate well in that language. In the study of Ur (1996), speaking seems intuitively the most important of all four skills.
Speaking is LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com regarded as the first step to confirm who knows or does not know a language. Abbot (1981) remarks that just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so the proof of language-learning lies in the learner's ability to perform, communicate in the foreign language. Pattison (1992) shared the same opinion that when people mention knowing or learning a language, they actually mean that they are able to speak the language. For that reason, speaking skill plays an important role in foreign language teaching because effective speaking ability helps learners not only to acquire the language better but also to communicate successfully.
In the language classroom, speaking skill should be paid great attention to. Approaches in teaching speaking There are several approaches in teaching English speaking such as Grammar- Translation Method, Direct Method, Audio-Lingual Approach, and a more modern approach, namely Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT). However, in recent decades, CLT mostly employ on the belief that helps to develop the learners’ communicative language ability. Therefore, in this section, the researcher only discuss on CLT as an approach for teaching speaking skill.
Many researchers say that CLT has prevailed over traditional methods such as grammar translation method or the audio-lingual method. This is due to several reasons. According to Mitchell (1994), CLT covers the four skills of the language which are listening, reading, speaking, and writing (receptive and productive skills), which can be lacking in certain methods like grammar translation method or the audio-lingual method. Today, communicative language teaching is viewed as the most effective and widely used approach in EFL/ESL teaching, most modern methods and techniques emphasize it (Kumaravadivelu 1993; Savignon 2000), and most materials and textbooks are designed for it.
Moreover, Savignon (2000: 126-128) says that the essence of CLT is the engagement of learners in communication to allow them to develop their communicative competence. He also emphasized that the focus of CLT is to promote the development of functional language ability through learner participation in communicative events. A further definition of CLT is explicitly characterized by Li (1998:679) as follows: A focus on communicative function; A focus on meaning tasks rather than on language per se (e.