VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES -------------------- PHẠM THỊ VÂN FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS AT FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT, HOA BINH UNIVERSITY (Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến sự hứng thú trong việc học kỹ năng nói của sinh viên khoa Tài Chính Kế Toán trường Đại học Hòa Bình) M.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES -------------------- PHẠM THỊ VÂN FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILLS AT FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT, HOA BINH UNIVERSITY (Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến sự hứng thú trong việc học kỹ năng nói của sinh viên khoa Tài Chính Kế Toán trường Đại học Hòa Bình) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Phạm Đăng Bình HANOI - 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I, Pham Thi Van, hereby state that, this minor thesis entitled: “Factors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University” is the result of my own research and all the material in this study which is not my own work has been identified and acknowledged. I also state that the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degree to any other universities institutions.
Hanoi, April, 2015 Phạm Thị Vân i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGMENTS During the process of writing this thesis, I have been fortunate to receive supports and assistance from many people. First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Phạm Đăng Bình, who has been ready and willing to help me make my study possible. He has put enormous effort into editing and in providing valuable comments.
I would not have completed the thesis without his help and sympathy. I would also like to convey my deepest thanks to all my teachers of the post graduate Department of University of languages and International studies - Vietnam National University and Hoa Binh University whose fundamental knowledge about language and language teaching and learning is of great importance to the achievement of my academic study. I am most thankful to the students of Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University who help me to gather information for my survey questionnaire. I would also like to take this opportunity to show my deep thanks to all the teachers at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University for their constructive suggestion for this research, and for their willingness to give information for my survey questionnaire.
Last but not least, I owe my deep thanks to my family and friends who have helped and encouraged me while I was conducting the research. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT It is considered that speaking is given the most important account of four skills in learning English. In comparison with other skills, speaking will be used most often in our life. However, in reality, students at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University are not much interested in speaking English.
The study focuses on the factors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University. Once the problems have been identified, suggestions to improve the situation of teaching and learning English for teachers and students at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University would be made. In this paper, the researcher uses “survey questionnaire” for 150 students at Finance and Accounting Department and seven teachers teaching the students iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT: Communicative Language Teaching HBU: Hoa Binh University iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS 1. Tables Table 1: Students’ reasons for learning speaking skill Table 2: Students’ interest in speaking activities Table 3: Students’ factors make them not interested in speaking English Table 4a, 4b: Students’ opinions about your teacher’s method and characteristics Table 5: Students’ opinion about classroom’s size, facilities, and materials for speaking Table 6: Teachers’ attitude towards speaking skill Table 7a: Teachers’ method Table 7 b: Teachers’ activities Table 8: Teachers’ opinion of students’ factors making them less interested in speaking English? Table 9: Teachers’ suggestions to enhance students’ interest in speaking activities 2.
Charts Chart 1: Students’ years of learning English Chart 2: Students’ opinions about the importance of English speaking skill Chart 3: Students’ assessment about their own abilities in speaking skill Chart 4: Teachers’ assessment about students’ speaking ability v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration .iii List of abbreviations. iv List of tables and charts. v Table of contents. vi Part A: Introduction .Rationale of the study.
Aims of the study .Significance of the study .Scope of the study. Research method of the study .Organization of the study. 4 Chapter 1: Literature review .Theory of speaking .Concept of speaking .The role of speaking in teaching and learning .Teaching speaking skills in CLT approach. Factors affecting students’ interest in speaking.
Students’ language proficiency leve. Students’ personality factors. Teachers’ teaching methods. Teachers’ knowledge and characteristics.
10 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Facilities in classroom. Reading materials and their roles. Background of the study.
Short description of Hoa Binh University ( HBU). The students at the Finance and Accounting Department. The materials and syllabus. Data collection instruments.
17 Chapter 3: Results and discussions. Results from survey questionnaires for students. Students’ years of learning English. Students’ opinions about the importance of English speaking skill.
Students’ reasons for learning speaking skill. Students’ assessment about their own abilities in speaking skill. Students’ interest in speaking activities. Students’ factors make them less interested in speaking English.
Students’ opinions about your teacher’s method and characteristics. Students’ opinion about classroom’s size, facilities, and materials for speaking. Results from survey questionnaires for teachers. Teachers’ attitude towards speaking kill.
Teachers’ assessment about students’ speaking ability. Teachers’ method and activities. 25 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Teachers’ opinion of students’ factors making them less interested in speaking English.
Teachers’ suggestions to enhance students’ interest in speaking activities. Findings and discussion. Students’ little interest in speaking English. 31 Chapter 4: Implications and recommendations.
Summary of the study. Limitation and suggestions for further study. Suggestions for further study. I viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study: As an English teacher at Hoa Binh University (HBU), I realize that most of the students do not often enjoy speaking period and they do not actively contribute the speaking lessons. They always keep quiet, feel bored, passively take note, some listen to better students speaking but do nothing. Other students can do the grammar exercises and know new words and structures well but they still cannot apply them in learning speaking skill. Moreover, there are quite a lot of researches on learning English speaking skill but there are no researches about factors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills at Hoa Binh University.
For the reasons, I would like to carry out a research with the title : “Factors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University” to find out the common reasons why students are not interested in speaking to handle the problems if possible and to help me and my colleagues enhance our teaching methods. Aims of the study: The study is conducted to (1) investigate how students at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University are interested in learning speaking skill, (2) identify the factors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills. Significance of the study: It is hoped that the result of the study will somehow be used as reference to help students to feel interested in learning speaking skill in the next semesters. Furthermore, the result of this study is also strongly believed to help me and my colleagues at Hoa Binh University to better our own teaching methods, as well as those who are in charge of teaching English speaking skill to non- 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com English major students at other universities and colleges in Viet Nam with the same situation as at HBU 4.
Scope of the study The study will cover the possible factors affecting students' interest in learning speaking skills including students’ language proficiency level, attitude and motivation and personality, teachers’ teaching methods, classroom size, facilities in classroom and materials. The subjects of the study are only students at Finance and Accounting Department, Hoa Binh University and teachers teaching the students 5. Research method of the study The study will be conducted by using quantitative and qualitative methods. To collect information, I will use survey questionnaires for both teachers and students.
All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion provided in the study will be based on the data analysis 6. Organization of the study Part A, Introduction, presents the rationale, aims of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, research methods and organization of the study. Part B, Development, consists of three following chapters 1. Chapter 1: Literature Review presents the concepts relevant to the study 2.
Chapter 2: The Study includes the background of the study, research questions, the participants, data collection instruments, and data collection procedures 3. The results and discussions presents data analysis of the study, findings and discussions 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Chapter 4: Implications and recommendations gives some suggestions to increase students’ interest in speaking lessons. Conclusion summarizes all the main issues of the study and the limitations as well as the suggestions for the further study.
3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Chapter 1 includes three parts. The first part states the concept of interest. The second presents the theory of speaking consisting of concept of speaking, the role of speaking in foreign language teaching and teaching speaking skills in CLT approach. The third part mentions the factors affecting students’ interest in speaking 1.
Interest Ellis ( 1994) states that interest is one of the main elements of motivation and a positive response to stimulate based on existing cognitive structure in such a way that learner’s curiosity is aroused and sustained. In other words, interest shows learners’ desire to learn the target language. It can be seen that students who are given opportunities for communication will be interested in the lesson. Ellis (1985) also points out that “interest is engendered if learners become self-centered”.
This means they are able to determine their learning objectives, choose their own way of achieving these, and evaluate their own progress I share the same ideal with Ellis that to have interest in learning a language is very important. Theory of speaking 1.1 Concept of speaking Although there are a variety of concepts of speaking by different linguists, most of them share the same idea that speaking is very important to communication and it is the productive skill. Bygate ( 1987) states that speaking is a skill which is very important and requires as much attention as other skills, in both first and second languages. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com In order to carry out most of their basic interactions and transactions, he needs to be able to speak and express their ideas to other people.