VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN VĂN TOÀ N USING WORKSHEETS TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON-MAJOR STUDENTS OF HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (Sử du ̣ng bảng biể u nhằ m phát triể n kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên không chuyên năm thứ nhấ t của Trường Đa ̣i ho ̣c Công nghiêp̣ Hà Nô ̣i) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Hanoi, 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN VĂN TOÀ N USING WORKSHEETS TO DEVELOP SPEAKING SKILL FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON-MAJOR STUDENTS OF HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (Sử du ̣ng bảng biể u nhằ m phát triể n kỹ năng nói cho sinh viên không chuyên năm thứ nhấ t của Trường Đa ̣i ho ̣c Công nghiêp̣ Hà Nô ̣i) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor: Lê Văn Canh, Ph.D Ha Noi - 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration………………………………………………………………….iii Table of content…………………………………………………………….iv List of tables and charts……………………………………………………vii PART A. The rationale of the study.
Purposes of the study. Significance of the study. Definitions of terms. The design of the study.6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definition of speaking skill………………………………………6 1. The functions of speaking skill…………………………………. Talk as Interaction………………………………………………7 1. Talk as Transaction………………………………………………7 1.
Talk as Performance……………………………………………. Goals of teaching speaking………………………………………. Principles of teaching speaking…………………………………10 1. Developing speaking activities………………………………….
Pre-activity stage………………………………………………. During activity stage…………………………………………. The concept of worksheets…………………………………….16 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The pedagogical significance of worksheets……………….
Benefits for students from using worksheet activities…………. The teachers’ roles in worksheet activities ……. Preparing a lesson plan for worksheet activities ………………21 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY………………………………………………25 2. The current situationof teaching and learning English at HaUI…………………….
Participants of the study…………………………………. The research procedure…………………………. Follow-up class observation………………………………….33 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS…………………………. Effectiveness of worksheet activities in English speaking lessons……………………………………………………………34 3.
Students’ attitudes towards applying worksheet activities and their effectiveness ……………………………………………. Need for worksheet activities…………………………….Suggestions for further studies………….38 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vi REFERENCES…………………………………………………………….40 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Student’s questionnaire (in Vietnamese) Appendix 2: A sample worksheet Appendix 3: Teacher’s self-reflection (in English) Appendix 3: Student’s self-reflection (in Vietnamese) TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: English curriculum at HaUI 26 Table 2: Syllabus for teaching the coursebook “New Headway 27 elementary” Table 3: Students‟ attitudes towards worksheet activities 34 LIST OF DIAGRAM AND CHARTS Diagram 1: Phases of a lesson plan 22 Chart 1: The effectiveness of worksheet activities in English 34 speaking lessons Chart 2: Need for worksheet activities 35 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The rationales of the study Language is a means of communication. People can transfer information or messages and express their ideas and emotions with language.
Language is also used to express everyone‟s hopes, ambitions, and thoughts. Moreover, language can serve the human needs in their communication in all sectors, such as industry, military, business, tourism, transportation, sports, international relations, and especially in education. Why is it important to develop speaking skill? L2 learners regard speaking as the most important skill they can acquire, and they (or their friends/family) assess their progress in terms of their accomplishments in speaking skill. The fact is that speaking is one of the important and essential skills that needs a lot of practice to acquire.
People who have ability in speaking will receive the information better. As a matter of fact language is not only taught and learned, but it is used as a habit. Therefore, students of English must be able to speak English well because people identify the English mastery with their English speaking. From the researcher‟s short experience as a teacher, he noticed that many teachers teach student passively.
They speak a lot while their students listen for most of the time. Students have very little time for practicing this skill. As a result, the students are not interested in the English learning process. They become passive in English learning and they are not able to speak.
Speaking is one of the basic skills that require communicative competence, pronunciation (intonation, stress, and pitch), grammar, vocabulary, fluency, accuracy, comprehension and gesture improving, in order to build a good TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. These elements are needed to measure the capability of the students in speaking using appropriate technique. 103) states that speaking is a skill in producing oral language. It is not only an utterance but also a tool of communication.
It occurs when two or more people interact with each other aiming at maintaining social relationship between them. According to Widowson (1994), speaking is the active production skill and use of oral production. It is the capability of someone to communicate orally with others. Thus, speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information.
By speaking with others, we are able to know what kinds of situations are there in the world. English has become a must-have tool for people to pursue personal goals or studies in Vietnam. Although it has been taught from Elementary School up to Higher Education, students are lack of capability and self-confidence in speaking. They often find difficulties in mastering speaking skill.
It is widely recognized that English is really difficult for a lot of students who can use and understand English language. Therefore, students need more opportunity to practice English and use it communicatively inside and outside the language classroom. Florze & Burt (2001) emphasize that "pair and group work activities can provide learners with opportunity to share information and build a sense of community". 90) suggests, such activities “force the students to use communication strategies whether they want to or not”.
Kurt & Akdeniz (2002) defined that worksheets are materials by which students are given transaction steps regarding what they are supposed to learn. Also, they include activities which give the students main responsibility in their own learning. Worksheet activities involve the learners in getting the information from other TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 3 partners to complete a given task, gather enough information and report back to the whole class. Worksheet is the activity, in which the students may be in pairs or in groups of two or more students.
They can be given different pieces of information about a topic to enable them to complete a task by sharing this separated information. Worksheet activity is a useful and interesting technique because it gives every student opportunity to speak, and it reflects the way we use language as a means of communication in real life. In addition, speaking with peers is less frightening than presenting alone in front of the whole class and being evaluated. Teachers only give simple explanation about the activity and review the vocabulary needed for the activity.
Students, on their turn, get an opportunity to develop their communicative competence more freely. Demircioğlu (2004) investigated that worksheets are found useful and practical materials for conceptual understanding if they were effectively used in learning environments. From the above knowledge, the researcher is considering that teaching speaking by using worksheet activities can help overcome these challenges and weakness of students' speaking ability. Based on this, the researcher would like to apply the technique into the present classroom by doing a small scale research on “Using worksheets on developing speaking skill for the first-year non-English major students at HaUI”.
Purposes of the Study The study aims at achieving the following objectives: 1. Exploring the effectiveness of worksheet activities on developing speaking skill for the first year non-major students at HaUI. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. In the light of the research results, some recommendations, suggestions and pedagogical implications will be expounded for both students and learners who seek to develop speaking skill through using worksheet activities.
Significance of the Study It is hoped that this study will be beneficial for the following reasons: 1- It takes its importance due to the absence of the previous studies which deal with the use of worksheet activities in teaching speaking skill of English language at HaUI. 2- It sheds light on the importance of communicative approach, teaching speaking skill and worksheet activities. This may encourage teachers of English language to design suitable situational contexts and adapt the implementation of worksheet in the speaking skill. 3- It can be used to increase the students‟ achievement in English language and improve their speaking skill.
4- The study will provide data-based evidence of how worksheets can be used in the speaking lessons to encourage the students to speak English more in the classroom. Definition of Terms The researcher includes some definitions of key terms to support the readers' understanding for this thesis easily. They are as follows: - Effectiveness: it is the degree of improvement in the students' speaking skill in English language as a result of using worksheet technique. - Worksheet: it is where two students or more work together where each has to make the questions and complete the answers of the other(s).
Precisely, TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 5 worksheet activities are those in which students exchange information in order to complete a required task. - Speaking: according to Oxford Advance Learner's Dictionary (1995, p. 827) speaking is making use of words in an ordinary voice; uttering words; knowing and being able to use a language; expressing oneself in words; making a speech. In short, the speaking skill is the ability to perform the linguistic knowledge in the actual communication.
- The first year non-major students: are the students who have just completed the secondary school and study the first year at Hanoi University of Industry and English is a basic subject of their course. The Design of the Study The study consists of 3 parts: PART A. INTRODUCTION, briefly states the rationales, the purposes, the significance, the definitions of terms, and finally the design of the study. DEVELOPMENT includes 3 chapters CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW includes 2 parts: Part 1.
Reviewing the related literature to speaking skill. Reviewing the related literature and previous studies related to worksheet activities. CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY focuses on the subjects, instruments and procedures of the research methods applied in the study. CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS presents study results and discussion PART C.
CONCLUSION deals with a recapitulation of findings and discussion, limitations of the study, and the recommendations for further research. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews the relevant literature to create a theoretical framework for the study. It first reviews the literature on theoretical issues related to speaking English as a second or foreign language as well as principles of teaching speaking skills.
Then, it reviews the literature related to the use of worksheets in speaking lessons. Definition of Speaking Skill Channey (1998, p. 13) stated that "speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non- verbal symbols in a variety of contexts". 8) also said that, "speaking is a two way process between speaker and listener and involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of understanding".
In the same respect, Nunan (2003, p. 48) agrees with Bryne that speaking is the productive oral skill and it consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning. According to Chastain (1998, pp. 330-358), speaking is a productive skill and it involves many components.
Speaking is more than making the right sounds, choosing the right words or getting the constructions. For the purpose of this study, speaking is defined as skills of using English as a foreign language to communicate orally. The skills involve comprehending, pronouncing, and being fluent and accurate in using grammar and vocabulary. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.