VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THI ̣HỒNG VINH DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS TO TEACH SPEAKING SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY PHÁT TRIỂN TÀI LIỆU BỔ TRỢ ĐỂ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG M. Minor Thesis Field : English Methodology Code : 601410 Hanoi, 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THI ̣HỒNG VINH DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS TO TEACH SPEAKING SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY PHÁT TRIỂN TÀI LIỆU BỔ TRỢ ĐỂ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG M. Minor Thesis Field : English Methodology Code : 601410 Supervisor : PHẠM THỊ THANH THỦY, M.A Hanoi, 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii LIST OF TABLES. viii LIST OF CHARTS. ix PART A: INTRODUCTION.
Scope of the study. Aims of the study. Significance of the study. Methods of the study.
Design of the study. 5 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW. An overview of speaking skills and teaching speaking skills. Definition and characteristics of speaking skills and teaching speaking skill.
Principles for Teaching Speaking Skills. Structure output and communicative output speaking Activities. Materials Development in Language Teaching. Definition of Language Teaching and Learning Materials.
Effective Language Teaching and Learning Materials. The Roles and Limitation of Textbooks. Definition of textbook evaluation. Methods for textbook evaluation.
Criteria for textbook evaluation. 12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Supplementary materials in teaching language skills. Definition of supplementary materials.
Form and process of supplementation. Related study on supplementary materials. 16 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY. Background to the study.
The textbook in use. Instruments of data collection. Data collection procedures. Data analysis procedures.
21 CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Presentation and analysis of data. Students’ motivation and difficulties in learning Speaking subject during their first semester. Students’ motivation in learning English.
Students’ difficulties in learning Speaking skill. The evaluation of the textbook “Let’s Talk 1” by teachers and students. The teachers and the students’ general evaluation of the content of the textbook “Let’s Talk 1”. The teachers and students’ detailed evaluation of the textbook’s content.
The attitudes and preferences of students and teachers to the use of supplementary materials in speaking lessons. The students’ and teachers’ attitudes to the use of supplementary materials in speaking lessons. The students’ and teachers’ preferences to the use of supplementary speaking materials. Students and teachers’ preferences of forms that the added materials for each aspect should be in.
34 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Students’ Difficulties in Learning Speaking Skills. Students and Teachers’ Evaluation of the Textbook “Let’s Talk 1”’s Content. Teachers and Students’ Attitudes and Preference of Supplementary Materials.
Supplementary Materials for Vocabulary and Speaking activities. Supplementary Materials for Grammar. Supplementary Materials for Pronunciation. Limitations of the study.
Suggestion for further research. Principles of teaching speaking skills. Checklist to identify gaps in a coursebook. Questionnaire for teachers.
Questionnaire for students (English version). Questionnaire for students (Vietnamese version). Translation of student interviews. Samples of supplementary materials.
XXX LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PDU : Phuong Dong University EFL :English as a Foreign Language ESL :English as a Second Language ELT : English Language Teaching B.A : Bachelor of Arts M.A :Master Degree LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1a. The detailed evaluation of the students and the teachers about the speaking topics in the textbook “Let’s talk 1”. The detailed evaluation of the students and the teachers about the language input in the textbook “Let’s talk 1”. The detailed evaluation of the students and the teachers about the speaking activities in the textbook “Let’s talk 1”.
28 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ix LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1. Students’ motivation in learning English. Students’ difficulties in learning Speaking skill as perceived by themselves and their teachers. The general perception of the students about the textbook’s content.
The general perception of the teachers about the textbook’s content. Teachers and students’ attitudes to the use of supplementary speaking materials. Teachers’ preference of when to use supplementary speaking materials. The students’ and teachers’ preferences to which aspects should be supplemented.
Students’ and teachers’ preferences to the forms of supplementary vocabulary materials. Students’ and teachers’ preferences to the forms of supplementary grammar materials. Students’ and teachers’ preferences to the forms of supplementary pronunciation materials. Students’ and teachers’ preferences to structure output speaking activities.
Students’ and teachers’ preferences to communicative speaking activities. 39 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION This part of the thesis will be dedicated to introducing the basic principles of a thesis including the rationale, the aims, the scopes and the significance of the study as well as the research questions. It will also present the research method and the design of the study. Rationale English has attained greater importance throughout the world in general and in Vietnamese in particular.
This worldwide expansion has increased the demand to acquire good communication skills in English. That is the reason why the teaching and learning English has been paid more attention recently in Vietnam. Of four major language skills, the mastery of speaking skills in English is put on the first priority by many Vietnamese learners. This is because the success of learners in language learning is often evaluated on the improvement in their spoken language proficiency (Richards, 2006).
In order to aid teachers and learners in their teaching and learning speaking skills, there is a variety of speaking course books available in the market. At English Division of PDU, the course book ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ (by Leo Jones, 2002) has been used as a core textbook to teach speaking skills for first year English Majors. However, this textbook has not been undergone any official evaluation to test its relevance to the students‘ needs and interests. After being used for a while, the ineffectiveness of this textbook has posed some considerable problems.
Some teachers in English Division who have to directly work with the book complain about spending a lot of time compiling and adapting materials so as to meet their students‘ needs and make the speaking lessons more interesting and motivating. A potential remedy for this situation, in the opinion of the researcher, is applying supplementary materials to go with the textbook in speaking lessons. It seems to be a better solution than choosing another new textbook since there is no textbook that perfectly fits in a particular teaching and learning environment (Ansary & Babaii, 2002); and it is hard to use a commercial textbook without some form of adaptation to make it more suitable for the particular context in which it is used (Richards, 2005). Furthermore, in the process of learning speaking skills, the first year English Majors at PDU often express a feeling of stress, nervousness or anxiety.
In addition, their LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 results in the final speaking examinations are usually low and under syllabus requirement. This fact can be triggered to many difficulties the students have to face in their learning process. It seems that the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ which is designed for a wide international audience, cannot cater for every specific need of individual learner in such a particular local learning and teaching environment as Phuong Dong University. Several students claim that the textbook gives them little help to overcome their difficulties in learning speaking skills.
According to Williams (1983, p.81), ―the textbook can present examples of common difficulties, but there are problems specific to different language groups which are left for teacher to deal with‖. In order to help the first year English Majors at PDU overcome their specific difficulties in learning speaking skills, the option of selecting or designing supplementary materials comes to the research‘s mind as a first and foremost choice. With the supplementary materials, the gap between the textbook and students‘ needs can be narrowed down. Choosing the most suitable and relevant supplementary material, however, necessitates careful research.
In addition, in Phuong Dong University, research to date of this topic is inadequate. There exist some researches about developing supplementary reading and writing materials for first year English Majors, but there is no research concerning speaking skills. This has inspired the author to conduct a research entitled ―Developing supplementary materials to teach speaking skills for first year English Majors at Phuong Dong University‖. Scope of the Study As this is only a small-sized scale study, it is only concerned with providing necessary information to help teachers at PDU choose suitable supplementary materials for first year English Majors in their speaking lessons of the second semester.
The matter of applying such materials in real teaching and examining their effectiveness is beyond the scope of this small study. Furthermore, in this study, the course book ―Let‘s talk 1‖ is evaluated in order to identify the gap between it and the students‘ needs. However, this evaluation is only concerned with the content of the textbook. By the words ―contents‖, the author means the language input, the speaking topics and the speaking activities.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Aims of the Study Firstly, it is an attempt to figure out students‘ difficulties in their process of learning speaking. Once the teachers realize the difficulties that their students have to face, they can work out what should be selected as supplementary materials for their students. Secondly, this study aims at examining the evaluation of the teachers and students towards the course book ―Let‘s talk 1‖; then, based on that evaluation, the author hopes to identify gaps between the course book and the needs of students.
The last aim is investigating teachers and students‘ attitudes as well as their preferences to the choice of supplementary materials. In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the study is designed to answer the following questions: (1) What are the difficulties of the first year English Majors at PDU when learning speaking skills as perceived by themselves and by their teachers? (2) How do the teachers and first year English Majors at PDU evaluate the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ in terms of its content? (3) What are the attitudes and preferences of the teachers and first year English Majors at PDU to the supplementary materials going with the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ in the speaking lessons? 4. Significance of the Study This study is of great importance to the author herself as well as to teachers teaching speaking in that it will provide teachers with necessary and important information to help them choose the most suitable speaking supplementary materials that have high applicable value in practice. Methods of the Study This study focuses on developing supplementary materials for teaching speaking skills to first year English majors.
A survey method is employed to collect quantitative and qualitative data. In order to seek answers to the above research questions, two sets of questionnaire were designed and delivered to the teachers and the first year English Majors. Besides, with the hope that the reliability of the obtained information from the LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 questionnaires will increase, semi-structured interviews with first year English Majors were carried out.