VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Hanoi university of languages and international studies Department of postgraduate studies ---------- NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG NHUNG FACTORS AFFECTING ORAL PRESENTATIONS OF THE SECOND- YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY nh÷ng yÕu tè ¶nh h-ëng kü n¨ng thuyÕt tr×nh cña sinh viªn chuyªn anh n¨m thø hai tr-êng ®¹i häc c«ng nghiÖp hµ néi MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 HANOI, 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES Department of Postgraduate Studies NGUYEN THI PHUONG NHUNG FACTORS AFFECTING ORAL PRESENTATIONS OF THE SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY nh÷ng yÕu tè ¶nh h-ëng kü n¨ng thuyÕt tr×nh cña sinh viªn chuyªn anh n¨m thø hai tr-êng ®¹i häc c«ng nghiÖp hµ néi MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY CODE: 60 14 10 SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN THI VUONG, MA Hanoi, 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration. iii Table of contents. iv List of tables. vii PART I: INTRODUCTION.
Aims of the study. Scope and significance of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study.
4 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW. Knowledge and skills. Nature of Speaking. Types of Classroom Speaking Performance.
Definition and Structure. Types of Oral Presentations. Characteristics of a good presentation. Teaching Oral Presentation skills in the language classroom.
Factors affecting oral presentation skills. Students’ language proficiency. 16 CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Context of the study.
17 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Learning and teaching facilities. Data collection instruments. 19 CHAPTER III: MAJOR FINDINGS AND DICUSSIONS.
Results of the survey questionnaire and interviews. Students’ attitudes towards oral presentation skills. Students’ evaluations of their own presentation skills. Factors affecting the students’ oral presentations.
Students’ language proficiency. Students’ personality characteristics .2 Results from Class Observation. 32 CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATIONS. Recommendations for students.
Having thorough preparation. Taking part in self-evaluation and peer evaluation activities. Recommendations for teachers. Improving students’ oral proficiency.
Improving students’ nonverbal skills. Building up students’ confidence. 36 PART III: CONCLUSION. Summary of the study.
Limitations and suggestions for further study. 38 REFERENCES APPENDIXES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students’ difficulties in terms of language. 22 Table 2: Students’ personality characteristics. 25 Table 3: Students’ reflection to their teachers’ activities.
27 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Today, it is internationally acknowledged that English has become the world’s most important language that is used as a medium for international communication, especially in trade and business. Therefore, the demand for studying English is great. Many students choose to study this language as their major at university in the hope that they will be able to find a good job after graduation because employers always seek applicants who have excellent oral communication skills.
Capability to speak English fluently in general and presenting effectively in particular may be advantages for students in their future jobs. Making oral presentations brings students a lot of benefits which are bridging the gap between language study and language use, using the four language skills in a naturally integrated way, helping students to collect, inquire, organize and construct information, enhancing team work, and helping students become active and autonomous learners. As a matter of fact, a language learner's ability to present in the target language is dependent on a number of factors which are not solely related to their knowledge of the language systems (grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation) but personality factors such as timidity or self-confidence also play an important part. To get the best result for the presentations, students need to master a wide range of skills and techniques such as the use of language, the way to organize all ideas, the use of gestures, posture and eye-contact, and the ability to speak clearly and confidently.
Being a teacher of English, the researcher realizes that many second-year English majors at Hanoi University of Industry fail to deliver a presentation successfully and making effective presentations is always their desire. Some serious students who invest time and effort into an oral presentation do not always get the intended outcomes. Other students try to get through the ordeal as quickly as possible, but do not improve their speaking skills under such stressful situations. They have a lot of ideas for their presentations, but they do not perform well in the class to attract the audience’s attention.
These problems are the motivation for the researcher to carry out a study on factors affecting oral presentations of the Second-Year English major students at Hanoi University of Industry. Aims of the study LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 The main aim of the study is to investigate the factors affecting oral presentations of the Second-Year English Major Students at Hanoi University of Industry. The specific objectives of the study are: - To identify the students’ attitudes towards oral presentation skills - To get to know their evaluations of their presentations - To investigate the factors affecting their oral presentations - To give some suggestions to improve their presentation skills 3. Scope and significance of the study The study focuses on oral presentation skills in English in the classroom context of 82 second-year English majors at Hanoi University of Industry.
Hopefully, the findings and recommendations of this study will be of some help for both teachers and students of English in the process of teaching and learning oral presentation skills. The results of this study may also be useful for those who are interested in this field. Methods of the study To fulfill the above aims, the study was carried out with different methods of data collection: - A questionnaire was delivered to 82 second-year majors - Informal interviews with students were also employed - Class observation was carried out to have deeper look at students’ presentations in the classroom. Design of the study The study is divided into three parts.
Part one, INTRODUCTION, presents reasons for choosing the topic, the aims, scope, significance, methods as well as design of the study. Part two, DEVELOPMENT, has four following chapters: Chapter one is the Literature Review which deals with theories and concepts related to speaking skills and oral presentations in English. Chapter two is Methodology in which the current situation of teaching and learning English in general and speaking in particular at Hanoi University of Industry is described. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 The research methods which cover research questions, the participants, and data collection instruments are also mentioned in this chapter.
Chapter three presents some major findings and discussions based on the results of the questionnaire, interviews, and class observation. Chapter four, namely recommendations, offers some suggestions for students and teachers at Hanoi University of Industry to improve students’ oral presentation skills. Part three, CONCLUSION, summarizes what are addressed in the study. The limitations of the study and suggestions for further study are also included in this part.
PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW In the attempt to investigate factors affecting students’ oral presentations in English Foreign Language classrooms, it is thought that the study needs to point out the relation LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 between knowledge and skills, particularly speaking skills. Then the nature of speaking, types of classroom speaking and some aspects of oral presentations are to be explored. These issues are the focus of this chapter. Knowledge and skills It is not easy for foreign language teachers to help learners become proficient in using the language.
Being a proficient user of a language means having both good knowledge and skills of using the language. From that point of view, Bygate (1987) indicates that foreign language teachers must understand the interrelation between knowledge and skills. Right from the start, he points out that one of the basic problems in foreign language teaching is to prepare learners to be able to use the language. For instance, in order to speak a foreign language, it is necessary to know a certain amount of grammar and vocabulary.
However, the knowledge of the language is never sufficient. He emphasizes the importance of skill; it is skill that is “the most realizable” in a speaking class and in an oral exam: “To test whether learners can speak, it is necessary to get them to actually say something. To do this they must act on knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. By giving learners “speaking practice” and “oral exams” we recognize there is a difference between knowledge about a language and skill in using it”.
To illustrate his viewpoint, he gives an example of a car driver as follows: “An analogy with the driver of a car may be helpful. What knowledge a car driver needs? Clearly he or she needs to know the names of the controls; where they are; what they do and how they are operated … However, the driver also needs the skill to be able to use the controls to guide the car along a road without hitting the various objects that tend to get in the way; you have to be able to do this at a normal speed…; you have to drive smoothly and without getting too close to any dangerous obstacles. And it is not enough to drive in a straight line; the driver also has to be able to manage the variations in road conditions safely.” He also gives another example in language: when a learner of English leaves “s” sound at the end of English words in his flow of talk. In this situation we are not convinced that he does not know the rule.
In fact, he knows it but as he speaks, he fails to follow that rule. Knowledge is defined by Bygate as “what they conceive and memorize”. But what make the above student exclude “s” sound? Bygate points out that the answer to this question is a skill, which is a special ability to do something well. This is acquired only when much imitation and practice are offered.
It seems that Bygate’s opinion of knowledge and skill is LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 true with students’ oral presentations. Many of them have knowledge of grammar, knowledge of the topic and content but they still can not produce a good presentation. In conclusion, “knowledge itself is not enough; knowledge has to be used in action”. That is the reason why we need skills, which can be gained with practice.
But what skills does a learner of a foreign language need in order to obtain good oral communication? To answer this question, it is necessary to have a look at speaking skills. Nature of speaking Language skills involve four-macro skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing, which are inter-related. According to Byrne (1986), the supportive relationship among these skills is clearly revealed when we look at oral communication which is a two-way process between speaker and listener (or listeners) and involves the productive skill of speaking and the receptive skill of listening. He states that “the speaker has to encode the message he wishes to convey in appropriate language, while the listener has to decode (or interpret) the message”.
Of the four skills, speaking plays a very important role since it is the first step to identify who knows and does not know a language. From Ur’s point of view (1996), speaking seems intuitively the most important: “people who know a language are referred to as “speakers” of that language as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing; and most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak”.