STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------o0o----------- GRADUATION THESIS PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WITH ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS: PERSPECTIVES OF EFL STUDENTS AT BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM STUDENT: PHAN THI KIEU TRINH STUDENT ID: 23A7510146 ACADEMIC YEAR: 2020-2024 CLASS: K23ATCB SUPERVISOR: Dr. HOANG QUOC THINH HA NOI, May 2024 STATE BANK OF VIETNAM BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------o0o----------- GRADUATION THESIS PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WITH ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS: PERSPECTIVES OF EFL STUDENTS AT BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM STUDENT: PHAN THI KIEU TRINH STUDENT ID: 23A7510146 ACADEMIC YEAR: 2020-2024 CLASS: K23ATCB SUPERVISOR: Dr. HOANG QUOC THINH HA NOI, May 2024 Graduation Thesis CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I declare that the graduation thesis titled "Psychological problems with English speaking skills: Perspectives of EFL students at Banking Academy of Vietnam ". This is my own research project under the guidance of Dr.
Hoang Quoc Thinh belongs to the Department of Foreign Languages, Vietnam Banking Academy. The work inherits a number of related research results that have been published. The data and documents in the thesis are honest, objective, and original. All the sources and data I referenced are accurately listed in the references section.
The content and results of this study have not been used in any previous research. Hanoi, May 2024 Signature Phan Thi Kieu Trinh Phan Thi Kieu Trinh i Graduation Thesis TABLE OF CONTENS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY .iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .v LIST OF TABLES .vi LIST OF FIGURES. vii LIST OF APPENDICES .ix CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Background of the study.
Significance of the study. Scope and limitation of the study .3 CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of speaking- skill. Importance of speaking skill.
Difficulties of speaking. Psychological Factors with Speaking- skill. Review of Previous Studies. Difficulty in speaking English.
Previous studies on psychological problem .Other studies on psychological factors. Methodological Approach – Mixed Methods. Locale of the study .21 Phan Thi Kieu Trinh ii Graduation Thesis 3. Data gathering procedure.
Quantitative Data Analysis. Qualitative Data Analysis. Reliability and Validity .26 CHAPTER 4: FINDING AND DISCUSSION. The reality of the frequency of psychological problems when learning English speaking skills of the senior English majors of BAV.
Students’ self-assessment of their speaking skills. The frequency of psychological problems encountered by EFL students. Fear of making mistake factor. Self – confident factor.
Fear of making mistake factor. Self – confident factor .45 CHAPTER 5 - CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION. Summary of findings. Recommendation and Implication.
For English-majored students. For teachers of Faculty of Foreign Language. For further studies .52 Phan Thi Kieu Trinh iii Graduation Thesis ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who provided enthusiastic and sincere help, support, and advice during the conduction of my thesis. First of all, I would like to extend my most sincere thanks to the teachers of the Foreign Language Department - Banking Academy for their interest in helping me, wholeheartedly teaching me during my time studying at the school and for giving me honored to do my graduation thesis.
Second, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Hoang Quoc Thinh. His perceptive guidance and invaluable expertise throughout the entire research process were most valuable for my thesis, it helped me have the right direction for my research. His insightful feedback and constructive criticism motivated me to sharpen my thinking and helped me develop as a researcher.
Third, I would like to send my sincere thanks to the lecturers of the department, Ms. Can Thuy Lien and Ms. Tran Thi Thanh Giang, who supported me in collecting data to complete this research. Fourth, I would like to express a special thank you to all third-year and final-year students of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, especially those who participated in filling out the survey and participating in the interview, which contributed to a huge part in the success of my research.
Last but not least, I would like to sincerely thank my dear family and friends for always being by my side, supporting and encouraging me to persevere in completing this thesis. Phan Thi Kieu Trinh iv Graduation Thesis LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESL: English as a Second Language EFL: English as a Foreign Language SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences M: Mean/ Average L2: Second language Phan Thi Kieu Trinh v Graduation Thesis LIST OF TABLES Table 1.Demographic Information about the Participants of the Questionnaire. Classification of Questionnaire Items. Levels of Agreement or Disagreement's Values.
Five contributing levels .Reliability Scale of Anxiety. Level of anxiety factor. Reliability Scale shyness. Level of shyness factor.
Reliability Scale Fear of making mistake. Level of Fear of making mistake factor. Solution of Fear of making mistake factors. Reliability Scale of Self - confident.
Level of Self- confidence factor. 37 Phan Thi Kieu Trinh vi Graduation Thesis LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Students' self-assessment their speaking skills. The frequency of psychological problems encountered by EFL students.
28 Phan Thi Kieu Trinh vii Graduation Thesis LIST OF APPENDIX Appendix: 1 Questionare.68 Appendix 3: Reliability Scale of Anxiety - Item-Total Statistics.69 Appendix 4: Reliability Scale of Shyness - Item-Total Statistics .71 Appendix 5:Reliability Scale of Fear of making mistake - Item-Total Statistics .72 Appendix 6:Reliability Scale of Self - confidence - Item-Total Statistics .73 Phan Thi Kieu Trinh viii Graduation Thesis Title: Psychological problems with English speaking skills : From the perspective of EFL students at Banking Academy of Vietnam Author: Phan Thi Kieu Trinh, a senior student of Faculty of Foreign Languages in Banking Academy of Vietnam. Key Words: English speaking skill, psychological problem, mix- methold, EFL students, Banking Academy Advisor: Dr. Hoang Quoc Thinh, a lecturer of Faculty of Foreign Languages in Banking Academy of Vietnam. ABTRACT The large number of studies conducted on psychological issues in speaking skills, but only a few authors in Vietnam have devoted their research to this topic.
That number shrinks significantly when looking only at articles revolving around university students, especially EFL students. The study aims to describe the psychological factors of third-year and final-year students majoring in English at Banking Academy of Vietnam when speaking English and their influence on learners as well as solutions to solve these factors. To achieve this goal, the analytical method used in the study was a mixed - method approach including questionnaire and interviews. 117 participants completed the questionnaire developed from Qureshi et al.
Through purposive sampling, four students were selected to participate in the interviews. According to study results, psychological factors such as anxiety, shyness, fear of making mistakes and lack of confidence affect students' English speaking ability. Through research finding, factors such as anxiety, shyness, and lack of confidence affect EFL students' speaking skills to a high degree. Meanwhile, the factor of fear of making mistakes only has a moderate impact on students.
The cause of these psychological problems is that students are scared to speak English in public, afraid of making mistakes that will make their friends laugh and criticize them. Based on the research results, many solutions for teachers and students have been proposed. Phan Thi Kieu Trinh ix Graduation Thesis CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Without the English language today, we can not move our day to day life with ease in the up-to-date world (K. Manigandan et al.
People from all over the world use English in their everyday conversations, whether for official or personal reasons. The importance of English cannot be denied because English is the most popular language used everywhere in the world. With the advancement of technology, English has become increasingly important in all fields. Today, practically everyone uses it to discuss the status of the English language in the modern world.
Background of the study When learning English, students need to master four skills include listening, speaking, reading, and writing. They are significant and interrelated with each other. Tang (1997) stated in her book untitled “A Course in Language Teaching: Practice in Theory'' that among the four skill (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), speaking is the most important skills because when speaking, someone is having background knowledge and also many of foreign language learners are interesting in learning speaking. From her point of view, it is stated that speaking is the most essential skill rather than the other skills because someone who is able to speak in foreign language means that she/he is knowledgeable.
Speaking is definitely one of the most challenging but important skills for ESL/EFL students (Brown, 1994; Tran & Tham, 2015; Ur, 1999). It plays an important role in building communication, and it is considered as the basic skill that should be mastered by EFL students. Through speaking, students can share ideas, feelings, thoughts, and opinions, to give information and messages to others. Sharing the ideas, opinion, thoughts, message, and knowledge would not happen in just a method, but it must happen in two ways.
There must be a speaker and listener to get interactive communication. The ability to communicate in English is necessary in the era of globalization because it is recognized as an international language. As a result, EFL students in many countries including Vietnam are expected to master this language, and speaking can be considered one of the skills that have some problems constrained by foreign languages. Recent research results show that today, one of the major problems Phan Thi Kieu Trinh 1 Graduation Thesis affecting students' speaking ability is not only general problems such as lack of vocabulary and grammar, but also related to psychological factors.
Psychology is the number one key to success for most EFL students in their English speaking performance (Braine, 2005). The majority of EFL students who have been learning English for a long time struggle to utilize the language due to a limited vocabulary. Furthermore, it stems not only from a lack of grammar and vocabulary, but also from the mentality of the pupils. Most students lack motivation; they never gain confidence in themselves, are fearful of making errors, and are embarrassed to speak up in front of others.
To improve their English speaking ability, EFL students also need to overcome psychological problems. Therefore, this study is an attempt to understand the basic impact that causes psychological problems when learning English speaking skills in English majors at Banking Academy, Vietnam. Research aim The research aims to survey the influence of psychological factors on the speaking ability of English major students at the Vietnam Banking Academy, from there, the research finds appropriate solutions to these factors. To what extent do EFL students encounter psychologicalProblems at Banking Academy, Vietnam? 1.
What are the psychological problems? 1.What is the level (low/medium/high) of psychological problems? 2. What are the strategies to overcome psychological problems in speaking English? 1. Significance of the study Investigating English learning psychological problems is significant to improve students’ learning experience. According to Braine (2005), psychology is the number one key to success for most students.
Therefore, this research has important value for stakeholders such as institutions, lecturers and students, who contribute to creating a more effective educational environment. In particular, first of all, the results of this study can increase teachers' awareness of the presence and causes of psychological problems in their classrooms. Instructors can apply these implications to find ways to solve basic psychological problems when using speaking skill, thereby encouraging Phan Thi Kieu Trinh 2 Graduation Thesis students to speak more in class. Second, research can create conditions for students to gain more knowledge about their psychological problems when speaking English and find some suitable solutions to solve this factor problems.
Furthermore, Banking Academy of Vietnam can also benefit from this study as it offers some suggestions on potential improvements in curriculum development, management and evaluation to help create a positive learning environment for students.