VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------ LƯƠNG THỊ HẢI HÀ DESIGNING A SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING MATERIAL FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT TUYEN QUANG COLLEGE (Thiết kế giáo trình bổ trợ dạy kĩ năng nói cho sinh viên không chuyên Anh năm thứ nhất trường Cao đẳng Tuyên Quang) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.111 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 ------------------ LƯƠNG THỊ HẢI HÀ DESIGNING A SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING MATERIAL FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT TUYEN QUANG COLLEGE (Thiết kế giáo trình bổ trợ dạy kĩ năng nói cho sinh viên không chuyên Anh năm thứ nhất trường Cao đẳng Tuyên Quang) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60. Dương Thị Nụ Hanoi, 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION My name’s Lương Thị Hải Hà, I hereby certify that my M.A thesis entitled “Designing a supplementary speaking material for the first year non-English major students at Tuyen Quang College” is the result of my own research in the fulfillment of the requirement for Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies – University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. I commit that this thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any degree. Hanoi, 2015 Lương Thị Hải Hà i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Dương Thị Nụ, for her invaluable inspiration, assistance, guidance and encouragement during the time I have tried to complete this thesis. She has been willing to give help and advice whenever I expect. I wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to all lectures and the staff of Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their interesting and helpful lectures and suggestions for the topic of my study. I am in debt of many authors’ works and ideas, which enhance me to complete my study with sharp evidences.
My thanks also go to my colleagues and the first year students of Nursery and Primary Faculty at Tuyen Quang College, who participated in doing the survey and responding to my interviews. Last but not least, I wish to express my appreciation to my family, my beloved husband, my son for their constant encouragement, sympathy and supporting. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This minor thesis was conducted in an attempt to investigate the gaps between the speaking tasks offered in the course book “Lifelines” (Pre-intermediate) and the non-English major students’ demand at Tuyen Quang College, in the hope of designing a suitable supplementary material to teach speaking skills to suit students’ level. In the study, two instruments (survey questionnaires and interviews) were employed to achieve the purposes of the study.
The subjects involved in this study were 100 students, coming from Nursery and Primary Department. They were invited to participate in the survey questionnaires. Besides, five teachers of English agreed to join the study to support the researcher better her research. It can be said that the course book “Lifelines” (Pre- intermediate) by Tom Hutchinson (2006) does not really meet the students’ needs.
Although the speaking topics are familiar to students, there are not various types of speaking activities. Moreover, the course book does not supply enough vocabulary items and grammatical structures related to the speaking topics. Based on the findings, the students prefer to have a supplement speaking material which provides them with further practice in vocabulary, grammar as well as speaking. Therefore, it is necessary to design a supplementary speaking material to suit students’ level.
It is said that this supplementary speaking material can supply more language knowledge for the students and it can be a useful material for them to study speaking skills better. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv PART A: INTRODUCTION.
Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study.
5 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .1 An overview of speaking .1 Definition of speaking .2 Principles for teaching speaking skills.3 The techniques in teaching speaking skills.4 Some common activities to promote speaking skills.1 Information gap activity. 8 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 Definition of materials evaluation and its criteria .3 Supplementary materials for teaching speaking skills .1 Definition of supplementary materials .2 Goals of supplementary materials .3 Forms and process of supplementary materials .4 Review of previous studies related to supplementary materials .1 The research context .1 Description of the English teaching and learning situation at TQC .2 The first year students .1 Subjects of the study .3 Instruments of data collection .4 Procedure of data collection. 17 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS. The evaluation of the speaking activities offered in the course book .2 Data analysis on survey questionnaires.1 The students’ background and attitudes of English learning .2 The evaluation of the speaking activities in the course book by teachers and students.
21 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.3 Students’ needs when learning speaking skills .3 Data analysis on interviews. 30 CHAPTER 4: A PROPOSED SAMPLE OF SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING MATERIAL .1 Supplementary speaking material for unit 1 .2 Supplementary speaking material for unit 2 .3 Supplementary speaking material for unit 3 .4 Supplementary speaking material for unit 4 .5 Supplementary speaking material for unit 5 .2 Limitations and suggestions for further study. I vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION In this part A, the researcher will introduce the rationale, the aims, the research question, the scope, the method and the design of the study. Rationale As an international language, English plays an important role in society.
It is broadly used in many different fields of life such as science, technology, medicine, economy, education, so forth. With the wide spread of globalization and the rapid expansion of information technologies, there has been an explosion in the demand for English. That is the reason why teaching and learning English has been paid more attention to recently in Vietnam. There has been an increasing number of people desiring to know English and master English with different purposes and a large percentage of the purpose of language learners studying English is to develop proficiency in speaking.
Richards (2008:19) points out that “of four major language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing; the mastery of speaking skill in English is a priority for many second - language or foreign language learners.” Consequently, the success of learners in language learning is often evaluated on the improvement in their spoken language proficiency. In fact, there are many speaking course books to cater teachers and learners in their teaching and learning speaking skills. At Foreign Language Faculty (FLF) of Tuyen Quang College (TQC), the course book “Lifelines” (Pre-intermediate) by Tom Hutchinson (2006) has been recommended and used as a core one to teach speaking skills to the first year non-English major students because it is supposed to be a rather reliable source to enhance students’ speaking ability. However, this course book is not really suitable for the first year students.
The ineffectiveness of this course book has caused some considerable problems. In the teaching process, some teachers at FLF complain about spending much time compiling and adapting materials in order to meet their students’ needs and make the speaking lessons more interesting and motivating. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Although the topics of speaking lessons are familiar to students, there are a few activities which make the speaking lessons boring. Moreover, almost speaking lessons do not supply enough vocabulary items and grammatical structures to students.
It is the problem that makes students feel less confident when learning speaking skills. Therefore, it is necessary to design a supplementary speaking material in order to provide enough adequacies in terms of speaking activities to help them speak English better. Hopefully, with a supplementary speaking material, the gaps between the course book and the students’ needs can be narrowed down. The above reasons have urged the author to conduct a study entitled “Designing a supplementary speaking material for the first year non-English major students at Tuyen Quang College”.
Aims and objectives of the study The study was carried out with the aim to propose an additional speaking material in the speaking sections of the course book “Lifelines” (Pre- intermediate) in the hope of satisfying the students’ demand and helping them improve their speaking ability. In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, the main objectives in carrying out this study are as follows: + To describe characteristics of non-English major students at Tuyen Quang College in terms of English speaking competence in order to investigate their difficulties, demand and preferences. + To find out the inadequacies in terms of speaking activities in the course book “Lifelines” (Pre- intermediate) compared to the students’ needs. + To propose a sample of supplementary speaking material that may help improve students’ speaking skills.
Research questions The study includes two major research questions: 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1, What are the gaps between the speaking tasks offered in the course book “Lifelines” (Pre-intermediate) and the non-English major students’ demand at Tuyen Quang College? 2, What are the contents of the supplementary speaking material? 4. Scope of the study The study was conducted at Tuyen Quang College. Because of limited time, it only focused on finding out the inadequacies in terms of speaking activities in the course book “Lifelines” (Pre- intermediate) according to the students’ needs with the aim of designing a supplementary speaking material to suit the students’ level. The participants were 100 first year students of Nursery and Primary Faculty and five teachers.
Focusing specifically on speaking skills for the first year students is to help them understand and communicate daily in English at A2 level based on the framework language skills. Methods of the study To achieve the aims stated, quantitative and qualitative methods were mainly used. The collected data for the study comes from 100 first year students at TQC who have just finished studying English 1 with 45 periods and five teachers have taught English 1 to the first years for at least 5 years. Survey questionnaires were used to collect information and evidence for the study.
In addition, the researcher also used qualitative method based on the personal interviews. The researcher hopes that the research methods will supplement each other to ensure the data reliability. Design of the study The study consists of three main parts, a list of reference and appendices. Part A: provides an overview of the study including rationale, aims, research questions, scope, method and design of the study.
Part B: consists of 4 chapters 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com + Chapter 1: provides an overview theoretical background to speaking skills, materials evaluation and supplementary material development. + Chapter 2: briefly presents the methodology framework of the study. It covers the setting, the subjects, the instruments and procedure of data collection and data analysis. + Chapter 3: pressents detailed data analysis and findings discussion + Chapter 4: Proposes a sample of supplementary speaking material for the first year non-English major students at TQC.
Part C: comes up with the recapitulation of the study, limitations and suggestions for further study. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1. An overview of speaking skills 1. Definitions of speaking skills Many researchers have given different definitions of speaking skills.