MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ PHAM DUY TAN A STUDY OF TEACHER ROLES IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AT UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY: TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS & PRACTICES, AND STUDENTS’ EXPECTATIONS MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2019 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ PHAM DUY TAN A STUDY OF TEACHER ROLES IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AT UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY: TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS & PRACTICES, AND STUDENTS’ EXPECTATIONS MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVISOR: PHAM HONG ANH, Ph.D HUE, 2019 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------ PHẠM DUY TÂN NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC VAI TRÒ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG CÁC LỚP DẠY NÓI TẠI KHOA TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ: NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN & THỰC TẾ, VÀ SỰ MONG ĐỢI CỦA SINH VIÊN LUẬN VĂN THẠC SỸ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. PHẠM HỒNG ANH HUẾ, 2019 Statement of Original Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. i Abstract The present study aims at investigating teachers’ perceptions, teachers’ practices and students’ expectations about teacher roles in a speaking class at University of Foreign Languages, Hue University.
The teachers and students in English Department at University of Foreign Languages, Hue University are the participants in the research. In order to carry out the research, questionnaires and classroom observations were chosen as instruments of collecting data. The questionnaires were designed for both teachers and students with both English and Vietnamese versions. After collecting data from the questionnaires and classroom observations, the result revealed that almost all teachers have perceived about common roles such as resource, organizer, assessor, etc.
Besides, the research has revealed some other roles suggested by the teachers like “a person who passes inspiration”; “a person who creates classroom vibe”, “a guide for out-of-class activities”. The results also showed that there are some roles that were performed by all teachers but some other roles were only performed by one teacher such as “IT expert”, “participant” and some was not observed like “Demonstrator”. The data from the students’ questionnaire revealed that students had a positive look at teacher roles and they considered teacher roles in a speaking class as very important to help them develop speaking skill. The study aims to emphasize significance for teachers to raise their awareness about their roles besides their skills and methods.
The study also emphasized that further research should be focused on teacher roles that aims to connect feelings, interpersonal relationships not just teacher-learners. ii Acknowledgement During the development and completion of this thesis, I have received a great deal of help and encouragement from lectures in Hue University of Foreign Languages, Hue University, family, friends. Without their great assistance and encouragement, I could have been unable to fulfill my thesis. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr.
Pham Hong Anh, my supervisor, for her patient guidance, careful reading, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques at every stage of the development of this study. Secondly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the librarians of University of Foreign Languages, Hue University for their enthusiasms. Also, I am greatly indebted to all teachers and students in the English Department in HUFL for their enthusiastic participation in my study. Without them this paper could not have been completed.
My grateful thanks is also extended to Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai Yen for her assistance in keeping my progress on schedule. Finally and always, my heartfelt thanks go to my family, my beloved friends and my classmates whose support is indispensable for the fulfillment of my thesis. iii TABLES OF CONTENTS Statement of Original Authorship.
iii Tables of contents. iv List of tables. vii List of figures. viii List of abbreviations.
ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Aims of the study .3 Scope of the study.4 Significance of the study .5 Structure of the study. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .2 Teacher role in a language classroom.3 Teacher role in a speaking class .3 Teachers’ perceptions about teacher roles in a speaking class .4 Teachers’ beliefs and their practices .2 Nature of beliefs .3 The relationship between beliefs and practice.6 The previous studies .7 Summary of the chapter .2 Research site and context .4 Instruments and procedures of data collection .1 Design of the classroom observation checklist .2 Implementation of classroom observations .6 Summary of the chapter.
25 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS & DISCUSSION .1 Teachers’ perceptions of teacher roles in an EFL speaking class .2 Teacher’s implementation of their roles in a speaking class .3 Students’ expectations about teacher roles in an EFL speaking class .1 The absence of the role “a demonstrator” in a speaking class at university level.2 The little appearance of the role “an IT expert” in a speaking class and the effect .3 Teachers as “a person who passes inspiration” in a speaking class .4 Teachers as “a person who creates the classroom vibe” in a speaking class.5 Teachers as “consultant” in a speaking class .6 Teachers as “a guide for out-of-class activities” in a speaking class. 47 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION .1 Summary of findings .1 Teachers’ perceptions of teacher roles in a speaking class .2 Teacher’s implementation of their roles in a speaking class .3 Students’ expectations about teacher roles .2 Limitation of the study .1 Suggestions for teachers .2 Suggestions for researchers. 58 vi List of tables Table 3.1 Information about teacher participants .2 Information about student participants .1 Teacher roles in a speaking class and Classroom practices .2 Teacher roles in developing students’ speaking skill and classroom practices. 34 vii List of figures Figure 4.1 Teachers' perceptions about teacher roles in a speaking class .2 Teachers' perceptions about teacher roles in developing students' speaking skill.3 Students' comments about teacher roles in a speaking class 35 Figure 4.4 Students' satisfaction with the Speaking subject in class .5 Students' expectations about the roles the teacher will carry out in a speaking class.6 Students' perceptions about the importance of teacher roles in a speaking class .7 Students' expectations about the roles the teacher plays in students’ development of speaking skill.
41 viii List of abbreviations CEFR: Common European Framework of References for Languages CLT: Communicative Language Teaching EFL: English as a foreign language ELT: English Language Teaching ESL: English as a secondary language HUFL: Hue University of Foreign Languages IT: Information Technology ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study In Vietnam, English is becoming a need because it has become a Lingua Franca in the worldwide market. It is so popular that we can find the use of English in mostly every field such as business, education, diplomacy, transportation, etc. Everyone who wishes to benefit from the advances of the modern society nowadays cannot ignore the importance of English.
Being aware of the need of English – the global language used by Asian Economic Community, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training has chosen English as a compulsory subject at both lower and upper secondary levels in the new general curriculum (Hoang, 2010). In communication, a person is considered as a successful communicator when he or she is good at four basic language skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among them, speaking should be the skill that receives the most concern from learners. It is the means through which learners can communicate with others to achieve certain goals or to express their opinions, intentions, hopes and viewpoints.
Speaking is necessary for effective communication in any language, particularly when speakers are not using their mother tongue. It cannot be denied that speaking skill will be used by most of EFL learners in their work when they want to communicate with foreign partners or simply have some chat with people coming from another country. At university level, English is also a compulsory subject applied across the university educational system in Vietnam (V. University students have to pass the required English standard level according to each university’s curricula.
At Hue University of Foreign Languages (HUFL), from the year 2020 onwards English-major students must pass C1 level according to the Common European Framework of References for Languages (CEFR) to meet the graduation requirements. This is a real challenge for not only students themselves but also teachers, who hold the main responsibility in directing and helping their students to achieve the success. From my experience as an ex English-major students at HUFL, I have recognized that many students still encounter a lot of difficulties, especially when studying the speaking subject. At high school students focus mainly on studying grammar 1 and speaking might not be paid much attention.
Therefore, when getting to university the students often have problems in speaking. Moreover, a speaking class at HUFL is usually large with up to forty students, so there might be few chances for all of them to speak out. Therefore, many of them keep silent during the class time and gradually they feel afraid of speaking in front of people. Another reason might be that students are not used to ways of how the subject speaking is taught at university.
That implies a critical demand on the part of the teacher.123) mentioned that in speaking teaching process, sometimes teacher rarely considers whether what they say in class is able to encourage the students to be active to speak or not. As the fact, the teaching of English speaking was somehow out of expectation. Teachers who teach speaking skill are required to have various strategies in teaching this course. Teachers not only deliver the knowledge to students but also conduct strategies to enable students to speak and to be more active in a speaking class.
According to Koran (2015), it is necessary for language teachers to implement some natural strategies such as: role plays, group work, projects, etc. to help learners overcome their shyness and unwillingness of the learners to participate in the speaking activities in the classroom. Therefore, the primary job of a speaking teacher is to design activities and provide opportunities for students to stimulate them to use English. Besides, teachers also have to play many different roles during a speaking period.
This requires a teacher to be knowledgeable and flexible so teacher can control an active and organized speaking class. In any teaching situation, the role of the teacher in the classroom is of significance because it is central to the way where the classroom environment evolves. Teacher is not just an instructor anymore, however, a teacher is the one who boosts the confidence of the students and aids them to produce good output. That means a huge demand of teacher in terms of not only the perceptions of various roles but also the ability to carry out the roles in specific stages of the class.5) claimed that “what teachers say they do and what they actually do in their classes may not always be the same”.
Exploring teachers’ perceptions and their classroom practices can somewhat increase teacher’s awareness of what he or she believes is being reflected in his or her own performance in the classroom.