VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ĐẶNG QUỲNH LIÊN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH PROBLEM-SOLVING ACTIVITIES TO SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY Dạy nói thông qua các hoạt động giải quyết vấn đề cho sinh viên năm thứ hai không chuyên Tiếng Anh Trường Đại học Kinh doanh và Công nghệ Hà Nội M.A MINOR THESIS Field : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY Code : 60.10 HANOI, 2012 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ĐẶNG QUỲNH LIÊN TEACHING SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH PROBLEM-SOLVING ACTIVITIES TO SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY Dạy nói thông qua các hoạt động giải quyết vấn đề cho sinh viên năm thứ hai không chuyên Tiếng Anh Trường Đại học Kinh doanh và Công nghệ Hà Nội M.A MINOR THESIS Field : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY Code : 60.10 Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỤY PHƯƠNG LAN, M.A HANOI, 2012 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration……………………………………………………………….………vii List of abbreviations…………………………………………………….viii List of tables and charts…………………………………………………….viii PART A: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………. Rationale of the study……………………………………………. Aims and research questions of the study………………………………. Scope of the study……………………………………………………….
Significance of the study………………………………………………. Methods of the study…………………………………………………. Design of the study………………………………………………….5 Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………. Communicative language teaching and Collaborative learning….
Communicative language teaching (CLT)…………………………………. An overview of speaking skill…………………………………. Definition of speaking skill……………………………………. Components of speaking……………………………………….
Characteristics of a successful speaking activity……………. Problem-solving activities in teaching speaking……………. What is the problem-solving activity? ………………………. Benefits of using problem solving activities in teaching speaking….
Types of problem-solving and procedures of problem-solving activity in speaking lesson………………………………………………………………. Types of problem-solving activities……………………………. Problem-solving activity procedure…………………………………. Setting of the study…………………………….
The learning materials…………………………….…19 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Action research procedure……………………………. Plan of action…………………………………………………. Evaluating students‟ speaking proficiency………………….
Methods of data collection………………………………. The teacher‟s classroom observations……………………. English speaking tests………………………………………. Data collection procedure………………………………………….26 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS and Discussions……………….
Research question 1: How would problem-solving activities improve students‟ speaking English skill?. Research question 2: What are students‟ attitudes towards problem-solving activities in speaking lessons?. Students‟ attitude towards speaking skills………………………………. Students‟ attitude towards problem-solving activities in speking lessons….
Factors of problem-solving activities affect on students‟ interest in speaking English…………………………………………………………………. Limitations and suggestions for further study…………………….vii v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com APPENDICES Appendices page Speaking criteria and marking sheet I Record of Students‟ scores in pre- and post-tests II Marking sheet for oral test Module 3 III Marking sheet for oral test Module 4 IV Speaking Communicative observation form V Interview Questions for students VII Post-intervention survey questionnaire (English version) VIII Post-intervention survey questionnaire (Vietnamese version) XI Sample oral progress test A2 XIV Sample oral progress test A3 XVI Sample oral progress test A4 XVIII vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONs HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology CLT: Communicative language teaching CL: Collaborative learning ESL/ EFL: English as a second or foreign language List of tables and charts List of tables page Table 1: Participants‟ characteristics 20 Table 2: Data collection instruments 28 Table 3: The tendency of the test scores 30 Table 4: Number of students Number of students increased their score in each component 30 in post-test. Table 5: Students‟ comment on the difficulty of speaking skill 34 Table 6: Students‟ self-assessment in their speaking English performance 35 Table 7: Students‟ comment on teachers‟ problem-solving activities 36 List of charts Chart 1: Student‟s score of pre-oral test and post-test 29 Chart 2: Students‟ performance in speaking lesson 31 Chart 3. Student‟s attitude towards speaking skills 32 Chart 4: Students‟ feeling about speaking activities 33 Chart 5: Students‟ evaluation of the improvement in their speaking skill 34 Chart 6: Students‟ evaluation on problem-solving activities given in their speaking lessons 37 Chart 7: Factors affect students‟ interest in speaking English 38 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Part A: Introduction This chapter is to introduce the rationale and the way she identified the problem facing her students’ English speaking skills.
Besides, the scope, the objectives, and the research questions as well as the methods and design of the study are also stated clearly. Rationale of the study With the globalization of trade and economy and the continuing increase of international communication in various fields, English has become the most essential language in the world and it is used by most people from many countries for international communication. That entitled English as a required language for schools in many countries around the world in general, and in Asia in particular. In a country like Vietnam where English is used as a foreign language and up to 98% Vietnamese students choose to study English (among English, Russian, Chinese, French) as a foreign language subject (Do, 2000 quoted in Canh, 2007), Vietnamese educators and administrators are putting big concern in how to improve the quality of English learning and teaching.
Moreover, English language teaching focuses on not only in linguistic competence of the language learners but also in the development of their communicative ability. In this context, Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT), where thousands of students graduate to become businesspeople, knows that English plays an essential role in their future job as business; hence; with good English knowledge, students are more likely to have better opportunities as well as do a good job after their graduation. However, only a few of them can speak in English well after graduation. Most of them said that speaking is an important skill and they worries about their slow improvement in their speaking ability, but they do not pay much attention to speaking lessons.
They are often not interested and engage in speaking activities. The reasons may be due to both teachers and learners. The teachers teach the students traditionally. The activities given for speaking may not be interesting enough to get students involved in, and offer them few opportunities to practice with target language.
To students, in learning speaking skill, they often 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com find several problems. The most frequently found problem is the influence of their native language. Other obstacles are the lack of motivation, vocabulary, enjoyment to practice the foreign language. They are also too shy and afraid to take part in conversations.
These require teachers to find and apply more effective speaking activities that in developing learners‟ communicative competence and help students get more involved in speaking lessons. To deal with these problems, many learner-learner interactive activities are paid more attention. One of them is problem-solving activities. Problem-solving is a form of discussion has received a lot of supports from scholars, educators, teachers for many years.
According to Nunan (1989), communicative problem-solving tasks which learners undertake in small groups can facilitate language acquisition. Besides, the communication skill is also improved via talking together to find out a solution for a problem or task given that stimulate the interaction between the student- student and student-teacher. Actually, problem- solving works well in creating situation and atmosphere for students to practice, Klippel (1984) claimed that in general, students will have to make suggestions, give reasons, and accept, modify or reject suggestions and reasons given by others in problem-solving activities. Other advantage of problem solving is that the ability to communicate and the self-confidence of students increase when they share their information and opinion to reach the solution to a problem.
In problem-solving activities in which students use target language as a mean to solve a problem also increase their motivation, participation and the use of the L2. The reason for this high interest and involvement lies in the fact that students have to use their cognitive skills and logic to arrive at solutions to problems relevant to their own lives. Students learn and acquire the target language by using it for critical thinking and problem solving. For these above reasons, the researcher has decided to conduct an action research on “Teaching speaking skills through problem-solving activities to second-year non- English major students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology” with the aim to investigate if the activities help learners to improve speaking skills.
2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Aims and research questions of the study This research is carried out in order to examine the use of problem-solving activities to develop the 2nd- year non- English major students‟ English speaking ability at Hanoi University of Business and Technology. Additionally, it is planned to explore students‟ attitude towards problem-solving activities applied in speaking lessons. To reach the aims of the study, the two research questions are raised as follows: (1) How would problem-solving activities improve the students‟ speaking skills? (2) What are the students‟ attitudes towards problem-solving activities in speaking lessons? 9.
Scope of the study To improve speaking skill, the teacher can apply diversified methods and techniques. However, this study was limited to the application of problem-solving activities group work to enhance English speaking skill for the second-year students who were studying English as a minor subject at Hanoi University of Business and Technology. In addition, this researcher also attempts to find students‟ attitudes towards problem-solving activities after the six-week implementation. Significance of the study The study is carried out with the intention to provide teachers of English at HUBT with a deeper understanding of using problem-solving activities in teaching speaking skills.
In addition, it is expected that this study will serve as a source of references for teachers of English on the teaching of speaking skills, especially for those who are searching alternative activities to help their students develop speaking skill and not get bored in speaking lessons. Methods of the study As mentioned above, this research adopts an action research in an attempt to improve students‟ speaking skill and teaching speaking in the teacher – researcher‟s own class. In so doing, the method including interview, questionnaires and class observation sheets, oral tests were employed during the process of data collection. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Design of the study The study is divided into three main parts as follow: Part A- Introduction: This part presents the rationale, the aims and the research questions, the scope, significance as well as the methods and design of the study. Part B- Development: This part consists of three chapters Chapter 1 – Literature review: In this chapter, relevant literature regarding speaking skill and problem-solving activities are reviewed. Chapter 2 – Methodology: In this part, the context of the study is introduced, the problem is identified, the plan of action is presented, and explanations are given to instruments of collection, as well as data and data collection procedure. Chapter 3 – Data analysis and discussions: the data is interpreted, research questions are answered and major finding are discussed in this section.
Part C– Conclusion: In this part, the finding is summarized. The limitation of the research and recommendations are also presented in this part. Besides, the list of references and the appendixes are also parts of this study 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the writer attempts to provide a review the theories related to problem-solving activities in speaking lessons. All of these serve as a basis for an investigation into using problem-solving activities to teach speaking skills for students.
Communicative language teaching and Collaborative learning. Communicative language teaching (CLT) It is difficult to define which teaching method is the most effective if you don‟t consider the context in which it is applied because most teaching methods bear both advantages and disadvantages. With the aim of my thesis, I only focus on CLT which is considered as one of the most effective method to teach speaking skill with the aim to “develop learners‟ ability and willingness to use the target language appropriately and accurately for the purpose of effective communication (Seils, 1993). There are many definitions of CLT by different methodologists.