VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------------------o0o--------------------- NGUYỄN THANH THUỶ FACTORS AFFECTING THE PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING ACTIVITIES OF THE FIRST YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HAIDUONG MEDICAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY AND SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS ( NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG NHÂN TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG TỚI VIỆC THAM GIA VÀO HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ NHẤT TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KỸ THUẬT Y TẾ HẢI DƯƠNG VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP KHẢ THI) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 0111 Hanoi, 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------------------o0o--------------------- NGUYỄN THANH THUỶ FACTORS AFFECTING THE PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING ACTIVITIES OF THE FIRST YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HAIDUONG MEDICAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY AND SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS ( NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG NHÂN TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG TỚI VIỆC THAM GIA VÀO HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ NHẤT TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC KỸ THUẬT Y TẾ HẢI DƯƠNG VÀ MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP KHẢ THI) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 0111 SUPERVISOR: Dr. TRẦN THỊ THU HIỀN Hanoi, 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I certify that this thesis is entirely my own work.
I have provided fully documented references to the work of others. The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal course of study. Hanoi, August 20th 2014 Signature Nguyen Thanh Thuy LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadi : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completion of this thesis, first of all I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Tran Thi Thu Hien for her experienced guidance, invaluable advice, and encouragement since the very beginning until the completion of the thesis.
I am indebted to all the lectures of Vietnam National University, Hanoi – Faculty of post-graduate studies for their valuable lectures which help me to orient the topic. I also wish to acknowledge the great support and precious help with the data collection and analysis of my colleagues and students at Haiduong Medical Technical University. Without them, I could not have completed my thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my family, my dear friends from the master course who gave me support and encouragement during the time the study was carried out.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The study was carried out in the hope of investigating some factors affecting the first year non-English major students’ participation in speaking activities at Haiduong Medical Technical University. The respondents were 12 English teachers and 165 first year non-English major students. In this paper, the researcher used two data collection instruments: questionnaires and interviews for both teachers and students. The findings showed that factors affecting students’ involvement originated from students, teachers, classroom and materials’ sides.
On the basis of the findings, the study also provides some possible solutions for the teaching and learning process of English concerning the effective factors to maximize the students’ involvement in speaking activities. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS .vii PART A: INTRODUCTION.
Rationale of the study. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study.
Significance of the study. Structure of the study. 3 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .Speaking in second language learning and teaching .1 Definitions of speaking. Characteristics of speaking.
The roles of speaking in language teaching and learning. Approaches to the teaching of speaking. CLT and teaching speaking. Concept of CLT.
Characteristics of CLT. Conditions of Applying CLT. Student’s participation in oral activities. Concept of students’ participation.
Factors affecting students’ participation in speaking activities. Context of the study. Data collection instruments. 19 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.4 Data collection procedures.
20 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS. Results from students’ survey questionnaire and interview questions. Students’ assessment of their speaking ability. Students’ attitudes towards speaking skill.
Students’ level of participation in speaking activities. Students’ assessment of speaking activities in the class. Students’ evaluation on learning speaking English. Students’ assessment of the topics in the textbook.
Students’ evaluation on the teachers. Factors affecting students’ participation. Students’ suggested solutions to increase their participation. Results from teachers’ questionnaire and interview.
Teachers’ attitude towards speaking skill. Teachers’ assessment about students’ speaking ability. Teachers’ method and activities. Factors affecting students’ participation in speaking activities.
Teachers’ suggestions to increase students’ participation in oral activities. Findings and discussion. Students’ level of participation in class speaking activities. Summary of the study.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research .I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching EFL: English as a Foreign Language HMTU: Haiduong Medical Technical University M.: Master of Arts vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Chart 1: Students’ assessment of their speaking ability. 21 Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards speaking skill. 21 Chart 3: Students’ level of participation in speaking activities.
22 Chart 4: Students’ assessment of speaking activities in the class.23 Chart 5: Students’ assessment of the topics in the textbook New Headway pre-intermediate- the third edition. 26 Table 1: Students’ learning styles. 23 Table 2: Students’ motivation. 24 Table 3: Students’ anxiety.
25 Table 4: Students’ opinion about teachers’ method and characteristic. 26 Table 5: Teachers’ techniques to encourage students. 27 Table 6: Factors affecting students’ participation. 28 Table 7: Students’ suggested solutions to increase their participation.
28 Table 8: Teachers’ attitude towards speaking skill. 29 Table 9: Teachers’ assessment of students’ speaking ability. 29 Table 10: Teachers’ method and activities. 30 Table 11: Factors affecting students’ participation in speaking activities.
31 Table 12: Teachers’ suggestions to increase students’ participation in speaking activities. 32 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study These days, English is very popular in Vietnam. English has become a crucial means of communication and it is widely used in different fields of the society such as international commerce, science & technology, education, medicine and so on.
That is why, English teaching and learning have become a great necessity for Vietnamese people. Especially, learning speaking gains a great stature as the need of communication is paid much more attention. However, in some places in Vietnam, English teaching has been strongly influenced by traditional methods. Teachers as well as students pay too much attention to the grammar items.
Teachers mainly focus on explaining the grammatical rules and structures to students who are considered as passive recipients. As a result, those students are often reluctant in speaking activities. In recent years, English teachers have changed their teaching methods and focused on teaching speaking to the students. One top concern of most teachers is students’ ineffective participation in speaking lessons.
The reasons for that are various. Having been teaching English at Haiduong Medical Technical University (HMTU) for seven years, the author of this paper has realized that most of the students do not often enjoy speaking periods, 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 while some other students even discuss in Vietnamese. That is the reason why the topic “Factors affecting the participation in speaking activities for the first year non-English major students at Haiduong Medical Technical University and some possible solutions.” was chosen as an attempt to find out the reasons for the above problems, and propose some suggestions to increase students’ participation in speaking activities.
Aims of the study The study investigates current teaching and learning of speaking skill for and of the first year non-English major students at HMTU to identify factors affecting the first year non-English major students’ participation in speaking activities and from that gives some possible solutions to increase students’ participation in speaking activities. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research questions To achieve the aims which are mentioned above, the following research questions were raised for exploration: 1. What are the factors affecting the students’ participation in speaking activities? 2.
What are the possible solutions to increasing these students’ participation in speaking activities? 4. Scope of the study The current research concentrates on investigating factors affecting the first year non-English major students’ participation in oral activities and from that gives some possible suggestions to increase students’ participation in oral activities at HMTU. All of the attempts working with other types of students, other skills at other institutions are out of the scope of the study 5. Methods of the study To conduct the study, both quantitative and qualitative methods are used.
The data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews. Survey questionnaires, one for students and the other for teachers were used to gather information and evidence for the study. To make the data more reliable, interviews for teachers and students were conducted. All the comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion provided in the thesis were based on the analysis of the data collected.
Significance of the study The information of the factors affecting the participation in speaking activities is helpful for students and teachers of English in general and teachers at Haiduong Medical Technical University in particular. Suggestions to increase students’ participation may help the teachers overcome the challenges and find ways to have successful lessons. Structure of the study The study is divided into three parts: Part A (Introduction) presents the rationale, aims, research questions, scope, methods, significance and structure of the study. Part B (Development) includes three chapters: Chapter 1 (Literature review) gives some theoretical background about speaking skill and factors affecting students’ participation in speaking activities.
Chapter 2 (Methodology) presents the context of the study, participants, data collection instrument, data collection procedures Chapter 3 (Data analysis, findings, and suggestions) includes data analysis, finding, the author’s discussion, and suggestions Part C (Conclusion) presents major findings of the study, its limitations and some suggestions for further research. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking in second language learning and teaching 1.1 Definitions of speaking Of the four language skills ( listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking is considered a productive skill. It is also a difficult skill for non-major English students in Vietnam in general and for the first year non-major English students at HMTU in particular. According to Chaney (1998:13), speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non verbal symbols, in a variety contexts”.
In addition, Brown (1994) defines speaking as a process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information. In Brown and Yule’s opinions (1983), spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation. Usually, there is a great deal of repetition and overlap between one speaker and another. Speaker usually uses non-specific references.
They also add that spoken language is made by using the loosely organized syntax, and non-specific words, phrases and filters such as oh, well, uhuh, and so on. 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.