Part 1: Introduction

1. Rationale

Master of English as a second or foreign language comes down to how well a student

speaks. He may write well, for example get high marks on tests, or even have an accent nearly

identical to a native speaker, but if he cannot express ideas, opinions or instructions clearly in a

conversation could not call him proficient. Language is for communication after all, and that

primarily calls speaking. Nowadays, foreign languages in general and English in particular are

necessary to students in Vietnam. High command of foreign languages helps students so much

in finding jobs. For students of foreign languages, after finishing schools they are required to

be able to understand what others say and to express themselves in various situations. Since

labor market now tends to offer more and more opportunities for those who can communicate

well, the ability to communicate fluently and effectively has been of great importance to

foreign language students.

To learn foreign languages in general and English in particular well, learners are

supposed to be good at four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening and

Speaking are closely related as without expressing one’s ideas correctly, the communication

cannot be a successful one. Therefore, when learning English, people have to learn how to

speak effectively.

Basing on certain knowledge about Phuong Dong University students gained through

four years of experience as a student of Phuong Dong University, I find that Phuong Dong

university students like other learners experience a number of difficulties in their speaking skill

due to their limited vocabulary, background knowledge, lack of self-confidence and so on and

that leads to ineffectiveness when they conduct oral activities.

The above-mentioned reasons are the researcher’s primary concern and also the motivation for

doing the study. The choice of “A Study on English Speaking Difficulties of First-Year

English-Majored Students of Phuong Dong University and Suggested Solutions” as the topic

of this study, therefore, is not accidental.

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2. Aims and objectives of the study

The study is aimed at English speaking difficulties encountered by the first-year major students

of English, English Department, Phuong Dong University. And then some possible solutions

are given to help the students overcome those difficulties so as to make an improvement in

teaching and learning speaking English. The specific objectives of the study are:

To investigate the students' perceptions about the importance of speaking skill in their

future work

To get to know their evaluations of their success

To identify their major difficulties when speaking in English

To examine the causes of their difficulties

To give possible suggestions to improve their speaking skill

3. Scope and significance of the study

This study mainly focuses on speaking skill in English in the classroom setting. It involves the

participation of 121 first-year English majors who are in their second semester at Phuong Dong

University. The findings and suggested solutions most appropriately applied to the teachers of

English as well as the first-year English majors of Phuong Dong University. That is, the

teachers and students will be able to find ways to improve their process of teaching and

learning speaking skill. Specifically, the students will be able to attain better speaking skill and

have quite a good preparation for the course of “Speaking Skill” in their third term.

4. Methods of the study

The study has been conducted in the form of survey research with its technique of

questionnaire with informants of four classes of 121 first-year majors of English at Phuong

Dong University. In addition to the questionnaire, informal discussions with the informants and

their teachers and personal observation were also employed.

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5. Organization of the study

The study is organized as follows:

Part 1, introduction, presents the rationale for the study, the aims, scope, methods and

organization of the study.

Part 2, development, consists of the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Literature Review, presents the theoretical background: the theories and

concepts related to speaking skills

Chapter 2, namely “The study” describes the current situation of teaching speaking at

English Department, Phuong Dong University and reports the survey research which

was carried out at the beginning of the second term of the 2007-2008 academic year at

Phuong Dong University. The report includes the following information:

• Research questions

• Informants

• Questionnaire and procedure

• Data analysis and findings

• Suggested solutions

Chapter 3, implications and suggestions, offers pedagogical suggestions for teachers of

English at Phuong Dong University.

Part 3, conclusion and recommendations, summarize the study and suggest some

ideas for further study.

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development

Chapter I: Literature review

In the investigation into ways to develop students’ speaking ability it is believed that the study

needs to present the previous and current literature on speaking skill. Besides, it should show

the relation between knowledge and skill and then define and explore the nature of speaking,

types of classroom speaking, and some types of classroom activities. These issues are the focus

of the chapter.

1.1. Introductory Remarks

In Vietnam, there have been a lot of studies on language study. However, speaking skill has not

been extensively investigated. For example, there has been so far no study on the speaking

problems that learners of English might encounter. For that reason, I decided to have my own

research in which I tried to have an investigation of the first-year majors' difficulties when

speaking English and give possible suggestions on how to teach and learn speaking skill

efficiently. I do hope that what comes out of this study might contribute to the learning and

teaching speaking at our institution in general and those who share the same mandate in

particular.

1.2. Knowledge and Skills

One of the basic challenges in foreign language teaching is to make learners competent in

using the language. Being a competent user of a language means having both good knowledge

and skills of using the language. The relationship between knowledge and skills is clearly and

vividly illustrated in the book entitled “Speaking” by Bygate (1997). He gives lots of examples

and explanations as follows:

Bygate begins by pointing out the fact that in order to speak a language, it is necessary for

learners to know a certain amount of grammar and vocabulary and how to assemble sentences.

However, he emphasizes, the knowledge of the language is never sufficient. It is skill that is

“the most realisable” in a speaking class and in an oral exam: “...to test whether learners can

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speak, it is necessary to get them to actually say something. To do this they must act on the

knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. By giving learners “speaking practice” and “oral

exams” we recognize that there is a difference between knowledge about a foreign language,

and skill in using it”. (1987: 3). He then points out that the language teachers are supposed to

understand the difference and the interrelation among knowledge and skill. To illustrate his

point of view, he presents the example of a car driver, which I find the most convincing:

What knowledge does a car driver need? Clearly he or she needs to know the names of

the controls; where they are; what they do and how they are operated (you move the

pedals with your feet, not with your hands). 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 is not enough to drive in a straight line: the driver also has to be able to manage the

variations in road conditions safely.

Bygate gives further examples. The first one is a one-week course of cooking is conducted to a

group of five learners. On the sixth day, only two cooking apprentices are graded to be good

cooks. We do not think that the other three do not know many recipes. The second example is

that when a learner of English omits the “s” sound at the end of English words in his flow of

speech, we are not convinced that he/she does not master the rule. In fact, he knows it but as he

speaks, he fails to do something about that. Knowledge is then defined by Bygate (1991: 4) as

“what they conceive and memorize”. But what makes the three cooks in the example above

“not good” at cooking and the learner leaves the “s” sound? The answer to this question, as

Bygate argues, is a skill, that is a special ability to do something well. This is acquired only

when a lot of imitation and practice are done. For example, in the case of the learner who does

not pronounce the third person-s on the verbs, the best solution is practice. It is good to practice

because this phenomenon does not reveal that he is not rendered with that aspect of grammar.

To conclude, the knowledge of the language is only a part of the affair. We also need skill. And

skill can be gained with practice. But what skills does a learner of a foreign language need so

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as to obtain good oral communication? To answer this question, it is important to take a deeper

look at speaking skills, namely the nature of speaking.

1.3. Speaking Skills

1.3.1. Nature of Speaking

Of the four skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing), speaking plays a vital role since it is

the step to identify who knows or does not know a language. Pattison (1992) confirms that

when people know or learn a language, they mean being able to speak the language. Speaking,

according to Donough and Shaw (1993), is a skill that enables people to produce utterances

when communicating to achieve a particular end. This may involve expressing wishes, ideas or

opinions, negotiating or solving problems, or establishing and maintaining social relationships.

To reach these speaking purposes, a wide range of appropriate expressions is needed to fulfill

particular purposes.

The nature of speaking has been discussed by many scholars. Brown and Yule (1983) propose

a useful distinction between two basic language functions. These are the transactional function,

which is primarily concerned with the transfer of information, and the interactional function, in

which the primary purpose of speech is the maintenance of social relationships. They also

highlight another basic distinction when considering the development of speaking skills. They

are monologue and dialogue. The two authors state that the ability to give an uninterrupted

speech (monologue) is rather different from interacting with one or more other native speakers

for transactional and interactional purposes. They suggest that most language teaching is

concerned developing skills in short, interactional exchanges in which the learner is required to

make one or two utterances at a time. They further state that:

The teacher should realize that simply training the students to produce short turns will

not automatically yield a student who can perform satisfactorily in long turns. It is

currently fashionable in language teaching to pay a particular attention to the forms and

functions of short turns ... It must surely be clear that students who are only capable of

producing short turns are going to experience a lot of frustration when try to speak a

foreign language.

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(Brown and Yule, 1983: 19-20)

Another author examining the nature of speaking is Bygate (1987). He shows that in order to

be able to speak a foreign language, learners not only need to have micro-linguistic skills, that

is, to understand some grammar, vocabulary and the rules governing how words are put

together to form sentences but also interaction skills, which involve using knowledge and basic

micro-linguistic skills or motor-perception skills in deciding what to say and how to say it. The

reason, as he puts it, is that the motor-perception skills are not sufficient since while producing

sentences, people often have to adapt to circumstances to maintain the intended relations with

others. He then discusses the two interactional sub-skills that the speaker uses when he/she

speaks: the routine skills and negotiation skills. Routine skills are “conventional ways of

presenting information” (1987: 23). There are two kinds of routines: “information routines”

and “interactional routines”. Information routines frequently recur types of information

structures such as descriptions of people and places, comparisons, instructions, telling stories.

Interaction routines are “routines based not so much on sequences of kinds of terms occurring

in typical kinds of interactions. Routines thus can be characterized in broad terms to include

the kinds of turns typically occurring in given situations, and the order in which the

components are likely to occur” (1987: 25). So interactional routines can be found in

interactions in different specific situations like telephone conversations, or television

interviews, discussions.

Another issue concerning the ability to speak is that of fluency and accuracy. “Accuracy is the

extent to which students’ speech matches what people actually say when they use the target

language. Fluency is the extent to which speakers use the language quickly and confidently,

with few hesitations or unnatural pauses, false starts, word searches, etc.” (Nunan, D, 2003:

55). Scarcella and Oxford (1992: 156) have seen many educators who believe that in a

communicative class, “it is not necessary to teach conversational features or push students to

communicate accurately” and that “fluency can be developed by simply providing students

with lots of conversational practice”. However, Richards (1990) points out that accuracy is

important for the mastery of English. (quoted in Scarcella & Oxford, 1992: 156). As for Ur

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(1996), both fluency and accuracy are taken into consideration, apart from other factors. This is

a good balance. Although it is obvious that fluency and meaning should be considered the focal

point of the speaking lesson, as communicative initiators believed, for example, Canale &

Swain (1980), Brumfit & Robert (1983), this does not mean that accuracy could be ignored.

The reason is without appropriate correction and adequate attention to accuracy, the mistakes

made by the students may fossilize. Brown (1994: 254) also shares the same idea that “both

fluency and accuracy are important goals to pursue in CLT”. While communicative classes

place emphasis on fluency, he suggests that “accuracy is achieved to some extent by allowing

students to focus on the elements of phonology, grammar, and discourse in their spoken

output”. This is a very good point to make. In our own situation, most of the first-year majors

seem to lack confidence in speaking in English. Nonetheless, what they talk about is more

important than what they achieve. Thus, the teacher’s norm of tolerance and encouragement

may help students feel safe and heighten their motivation.

In a review of theories on spoken language, Brown (1994: 257-258) comes up with the

following list of skills and knowledge that a good speaker possesses:

- Producing the sounds, stress patterns, rhythmic structures, and intonation of the language.

- Producing reduced forms of words and phrases.

- Producing fluent speech at different rates of delivery.

-Applying strategies to enhance comprehensibility, such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing,

or checking for listening comprehension.

- Using grammar structures accurately.

- Using cohesive devices in spoken discourse.

- Selecting vocabulary that is understandable and appropriate for the audience, the topic being

discussed, and the setting in which the speech acts occurs.

- Using nonverbal language, such as facial expressions, hand gestures or body language and

verbal language to convey meanings.

- Paying attention to the success of the interaction and adjusting components of speech, such as

vocabulary, rate of speech, and complexity of grammar structures to maximize listener’s

comprehension and involvement.

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1.3.2. Types of Classroom Speaking Performance

According to Brown (1994: 266-268) there are six categories of oral production that students

are expected to carry out in the classroom. They are imitative, intensive, responsive,

transactional (dialogue), interpersonal (dialogue) and extensive (monologue).

To begin with, the imitative speaking performance is carried out in the form of imitation

drills when learners listen to the teacher, or a tape and repeat what is heard. The author

confirms that “drilling is a legitimate part of the communicative language classroom” (Brown,

1994: 266). The reasons, as he believes, are that “drills offer limited practice through

repetition. They allow one to focus on one element of language in a controlled activity. They

can help to establish certain psychomotor pattern ... and to associate selected grammatical

forms with their appropriate context” (Brown, 1994: 266).

The second type of speaking performance, intensive speaking is one step beyond imitative

speaking. It includes any speaking performance that is designed to practise some phonological

or grammatical aspect of language.

Next, responsive performance is understood as short replies to the teacher’s or students’

questions or comments. For example, students’ responses “Pretty good, thanks, and you?” to

the teacher’s question “How are you today?”. According to Brown (1994: 267) these replies

are usually sufficient and do not extend to dialogues, so they can be meaningful and authentic.

The fourth type, transactional (dialogue), is an extended form of responsive language. It is

carried out for the purpose of conveying or exchanging information or message. Conversations

are considered to have more of a negotiative nature than merely responsive speech.

The next type, interpersonal speaking performance, is the other form of conversation. It is

carried out more for the purpose of maintaining social relationships than for the transmission of

facts and information. These conversations are a bit challenging for learners because they can

involve some or all of the factors, namely, colloquial language, slang, ellipsis, sarcasm.

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The final speaking performance, extensive (monologue) is for learners at intermediate to

advanced levels. They are required to give extended monologues in the form of oral reports,

summaries or short speeches, which can be planned or delivered without preparation.

1.3.3 Types of classroom of activities

1.3.3.1 Pair work and group work

Based on TEFL Glossary’ definition, pair work is a process in which

students work in pairs for practice or discussion. And group work is a type

of activity in which learners work together in groups in order to learn some

things. These types of speaking activities have following advantages:

Firstly, in oral practice, group work helps increase learners’ speaking

time. When working in a small group even shy students can find something

to talk, because they fell less stressed and inhibited than having to express

themselves in front of the whole class. The feeling of being secure and

confident stimulates the group participants to contribute to the discussion.

As a result, individuals’ amount of talking is multiplied.

Secondly, working in-group helps participants shorten distance, which

makes their voices clearly audible and the surrounding personal.

Thirdly, learners can learn a lot from each other because the group’s

members are often of mixed ability. Some participants are more intelligent

or more gifted in learning language, while some are weaker or shier. When

they are grouped, all these types can mix, compensating for one another

strong parts and deficiencies as language learners.

1.3.2.2 Simulation and role-play

Simulation and role-play are tasks in a test of speaking performance in

which the test taker adopts a specified role in an interaction with one or

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more additional speakers (Eg: another test candidate, teacher,), as TEFL

Glossary’s defines.

Simulation is classroom activities which reproduce or stimulate read

situations and which often involve dramatization and group discussion (role

play does not include group discussion. In stimulation activities, learners

are given roles in a situation, task, or a problem to be solved, and are given

instructions to follow (For example, students monitor discussion over a

holiday trip).

Role play is drama – like classroom activities in which students take

the roles of different participants in a situation and act out what might

typically happen in that situation. For example, to practice how to express

complaints and apologies in a foreign language, students might have to

role-play a situation in which a customer in a shop returns a faulty article to

a salesperson.

Foreign language teachers have paid more attention to the field of

simulation and, within that field, especially role-playing. According to

Klipper (1991) with these techniques:

Students are asked to imagine themselves in a situation that could

occur outside the class. This could be anything from a simple occurrence

like meeting a foreigner on the street and help him find a bookshop, to a

much more complex event such as a series of business negotiations.

They are asked to adopt a specific role in this situation. In some cases,

they may simply have to ask as themselves. In others, they may have to

adopt a stimulates identity.

They are asked to behave as if this situation really existed, in

accordance with their roles.

The advantages of these speaking activities are:

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Firstly, simulation and role-play really create situation outside the

classroom, where learners will need to satisfy a much wider variety of

communicative needs, arising from the events of everyday.

Secondly, they will need to cope with a greater variety of patterns with

its tightly controlled structure to the informal gathering, where everybody

competes on equal basis for turns to speak.

Thirdly, students will need to become involved in different kinds of

social relationship, for which different kinds of language will be appropriate.

1.3.2.3 Conversation

TEFL Glossary defines conversation activity is the use of speech for

informal exchange of views or ideas or information etc. The advantages of

conversation as follow:

Firstly, conversation opens up a rich stimulus for communicative

interactions, namely the varied experiences, interests and opinions of

learners. These maybe complemented by written and visual materials

where brings further aspects of the outside world into the class.

Secondly, conversation provides a context for a wide range of

communicative functions and domains of meaning. In addition, learners

most practice the skill required for managing longer session of social

interactions such as introducing a new topic, turn taking or sustaining the

conversation through different periods.

Thirdly, conversation provides learners with opportunities to express

their own personality and experiences through foreign language. It also

gives valuable experiences in using languages as a means of handling their

own relationship.

1.3.2.4 Discussion

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Based on the definition of TEFL Glossary, discussion is an exchange of

views on some topics. As a useful activity of speaking skill, discussion has

following advantages:

Firstly, it is a good way to improve the atmosphere in the class and to

help students to cooperate better with each other of getting students to

talk, stimulating their interests and imagination.

Secondly, it is a good source for oral or written follow-up action.

1.3.2.5 Communicative games

In the communication phase, using games is a good way of simulating

and entertaining. Language games bring learners fun and enjoyment after

having a concentration on more intensive forms of language practice.

Moreover, as Byrne, D (1976:99) remarks on the benefit of language games

“they provide new and interesting context for practicing language already

learnt and often acquiring new language in the process” Byrne places

special emphasis on the way “games introduce an element of competition

into a lesson” which other activities can hardly achieve.

A game, however, must be suitable for learners’ needs so that it can

be played with the utmost success and enjoy. Therefore, the teacher should

know when to use it. For example, using a game for practicing a particular

structure, vocabulary items, etc

Before setting a game, it is advisable for the teacher to consider the

following general procedures.

Choosing the game on the basis of their suitability in terms of

language they practice and also regard to the students themselves (E.g.

their age, interest and the class-size)

Preparing the game carefully beforehand. In particular, the game

should be open-ended and right level of language items needed.

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Explaining the rules of the game clearly.

Trying to involve as many students as possible, one of the ways is to

divide the students into teams.

Giving the students one or more “trial-runs” before the game is played.

1.3.2.6 Problem- solving

According to Brim (1983), Problem- solving is a common activity which

requires students to find solution after all. A correct solution is sometimes

found out but most of exercises lead to discussion of ways to solve the

problem. The problem tasks themselves range from the imagining to the

more realistic ones that provide situations that the students might

conceivably have to face outside the classroom. A part from the activities

focusing on the like and dislike of individual student, which need time for

students to work on their own, most of the problem- solving tasks require

pair work and group work throughout.

According to Klipper (1991), in a problem-solving activity, it is found

that the students will have chances to get acquainted with some real life

situations, be demanded to decide upon their opinions or views. Thus, there

is more creative use of English. Moreover, with this kind of activity,

students will get familiar with making suggestions, giving reasons,

accepting, modifying and rejecting suggestions and reasons given by

others.

1.3.2.7 Miming

It has been common that we use both verbal and non-verbal means of

language when we communicate. However, teachers and textbooks of

English have tended to concentrate exclusively on the former.

Miming is seen as an effective non-verbal aspect of communication. At

the first sight, miming may not seem directly relevant to the development

of oral activity but, in fact, it is an activity that gives students great

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opportunities to guess and practice objects, actions or people by way of

acting them out.

The goal of miming is not to develop in students their ability to mine

but to make them aware that there is more to communicating than simply

using words. By trying to get the students to communicate through actions

alone, teachers can help students to be aware of their importance first in

role-play in situations and ultimately when they use English in real life.

According to Klipper (1991), miming activities are valuable language

learning situation because guessing something acted by non- verbal means

is linked with a real desire to find out and thus is a true communicative

situation; Miming activities train students’ skill of observation and

improvisation. This kind of activity emphasizes the importance of gestures

and facial expressions as well as other paralinguistic means of

communication. In terms of language elements students practice question

forms and expressing possibilities.

1.3.2.8 Guessing

The popularity of guessing activities can be explained by their

structure. That is to say, both chance and skill in asking the right question

play a part in finding the right solution and the outcome tents to be

uncertain until the last moment. The basic rule of guessing is simple: one

student know something that another wants to find out, or all students

work in pair or group to find out a mystery in a story. How this is done

determine by an additional set of rule that lay down, (for example, the type

and number of question).

According to Klipper (1991), guessing activities are very important for

teaching and learning foreign language in general and English language in

specific because they are true communicative situation as the person

guessing has the real urge to find out something. They combine language

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practice with fund and excitement and they have to raise an element of

challenge to the students’ mind and a sense of achievement in successful

performance.

Chapter II: The study

2.1. An Overview of the Current Situation of Learning and Teaching Speaking at English

Department, Phuong Dong University (PDU)

2.1.1. Introduction of English Department, Phuong Dong University

PDU, a multi-disciplinary institution, receives about 1,500 students annually, of whom 200

major in foreign languages. The English Department is the biggest section in the Faculty of

Foreign Languages, with an average of about 70 newly enrolled students each year.

With regard to the teaching staff, there are 15 teachers of English whose ages range from 22 to

56 working in the Department of English. All of them graduated from the English Department

of CFL, VNU or University of Foreign Language Studies. Five of them have got an M.A

degree and three are doing M.A. In general, the teaching staff is always eager for knowledge,

energetic and willing to apply better ways to upgrade their teaching quality.

Concerning the student population, the levels of English proficiency of the students of English

Department at PDU are generally various and not as high as those of their counterparts from

Vietnamese public universities of foreign languages. The problem results from several causes.

The first one is that their academic results at entrance examinations are lower. The second

cause is many students display a quite passive attitude in learning: they do not realize the

expectations for their learning behaviors as university students are different from those for

school pupils. Therefore, they go on adopting the pupil’s teacher-dependent learning style. In

addition, PDU majors of English are not very self-confident. This, firstly, results from their

status as being private university students with lower marks at entrance examinations;

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secondly, their lack of confidence might be attributed to their place of domicile as most of

them come from rural areas with no favorable chances for learning English. For a long time

they had only focused on grammar exercises and vocabulary and they had hardly spoken

English. As a result, when they entered university, their learning strategies were not good

enough to become successful learners. The last problem here, as I believe, is the teacher-

centered approach that we have been adopting at PDU. As a matter of fact, our teachers have

been confining themselves to the burden of pushing the students ahead merely with their own

efforts. In so doing, they have forgotten the decisive role of the students in their learning

process and, consequently, created a teacher-dependent learning environment for the students.

This partly explains why at our university, speaking lessons are not very effective. A variety of

PDU students and teachers have voiced their worries about the slow improvements in the

learning and teaching speaking skills.

In a nutshell, the teaching and learning atmosphere at our institution are not as adequate as we

expected. Therefore, PDU is putting the focus on enhancing the effectiveness of speaking

lessons. That requires a lot of patience, guidelines and efforts from both PDU practitioners and

learners to make remarkable progress in teaching and learning English in general and speaking

in particular.

2.1.2. The Syllabus for Speaking

For the first semesters at university, English is taught in the integrated approach. That means

the students learn the target language with four-skill textbooks. The course books are the

Reward series (Reward Elementary, Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate). From the second

semester onwards, each skill (speaking, listening, reading and writing) is taught as an isolated

subject. For speaking skill, the target for first-year students is to achieve the pre-intermediate

level, which is the ability “to handle successfully most uncomplicated communicative tasks

and social situations, and to initiate, sustain and close a general conversation with a number of

strategies appropriate to a range of circumstances and topics” (Phuong Dong University’s

Speaking Syllabus for first-Year English Majors-2005). The total time allowed for speaking

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for the second term for PDU majors is 45 class hours. The syllabus is theme-based, as briefed

below: (Refer to appendix 2 for the list of the topics that we worked on in the second term)

Student life (9 class hours)

Environment (9 class hours)

Diet and Food (9 class hours)

Home (9 class hours)

Cultures of the world (9 class hours)

At the beginning of the second term, teachers and students are handed in a list of those topics.

To prepare for the class activities, the students are encouraged to refer to the relevant theme-

based reading passages in the reading textbook entitled “Interaction-Reading’’ published by

McGraw-Hill Education. This textbook is used as the material for teaching reading to these

groups of students.

2.2. The Study

2.2.1. The Research Questions

In order to uncover the difficulties of the first-year English majors at PDU when speaking English, it is necessary to answer the following questions:

1) What are the first-year English majors’ perceptions of the importance of speaking skill in their future work?2) What are students’ evaluations of their speaking skill?3) What are the first-year English majors’ perceived difficulties when speaking English?4) What do they perceive as the causes of their difficulties?

5) What do the students think should be done so that they can improve their speaking skill?

2.2.2. The Informants

The research was undertaken with the participation of 121 students of four classes, of which

101 were female and 20 were male. The majority were aged nineteen (Only four students were

aged twenty as they had failed in the previous university entrance examinations). Most of the

informants came from the countryside (52 students) and from towns (39 students) while 30

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were from big cities like Haiphong, Thanh Hoa, Nam Dinh or Hanoi. Their different places of

domicile somehow led to greatly various experience in their language learning.

The number of years they spent on English study ranged from three to eight years. 30 students

(25%) had been learning English for two years or more, but fewer than five years. More than

half of them-80 students (66%)-had spent five years or more, but fewer than ten years studying

this language. Only 11 students (9%) had experienced ten years or more learning English and

none of them had studied English for one year or more, but fewer than two years.

The learners had been studying one semester at university. Their average marks in speaking in

the first semester varied from 5 to 9, but just centered on between marks 6 and 7. 8 students

(7%) had marks 5. 51 of them (42%) had got mark 6, and 45 students (37%) got mark 7.

Meanwhile, 16 students (13%) got mark 8. And only one student (1%) had mark 9.

In terms of language proficiency in the first year, they are supposed to be at pre-intermediate

level. These students had studied English for at least three years at high schools, where

vocabulary and grammatical structures were the main focus. They used Vietnamese, their

mother tongue, to communicate in everyday conversations. Rarely did they have the chance to

use English as a means of communication.

The notable things about the four groups are, firstly, they were mixed-ability groups of English

learners with diverse personalities. The majority of the students coming from northern

provinces other than Hanoi were generally shy, introvert and hardworking. The others who

were Hanoians can be said to be more outgoing and confident. Secondly, in spite of their low

English proficiency, they showed enthusiasm in speaking, especially speaking in English.

However, many students complained to me about their speaking being met by yawning from

their fellow students. They followed the instructions by their teachers, for example, they chose

interesting topics, but their poor pronunciation, lack of confidence, monotonous voice etc. so

far failed to help them make substantial progress in conducting speaking activities.

19

All these facts explicitly indicate the necessity of greater attention to speaking in English,

which is a very important skill for our students. Giving them the chance to get familiar with

effective speaking skill will be a useful and valuable part in the process of teaching and

learning.

2.2.3. The Questionnaire and Procedure

2.2.3.1. The Questionnaire

Basing on certain knowledge about the students’ problems gained through four years of

experience as a student in English Department at Phuong Dong University, the investigator

designed this survey questionnaire to find out the difficulties the first-year English majors

might encounter when speaking English. Specifically, the researcher studied the issues: the

students’ perceptions about the importance of speaking skill in their future work, their

evaluations of success, difficulties they encountered and what they would like to be done to

improve the situation.

The questionnaire was written in English. However, the students were advised to use either

Vietnamese or English to give their answers to the open-ended questions (Refer to appendix1).

With the mixture of closed and opened questions, the questionnaire was organized as follows:

Part one was about the students’ demographic information which included the students’ age,

gender, place of domicile, the number of years they had been learning English and their

average speaking marks in the first semester.

Part two was designed to elicit the students’ evaluations of the importance of speaking skill in

their future work and their evaluations of their speaking skill. It comprised three closed

questions.

Part three focused on the students’ difficulties when speaking in English, the causes of their

difficulties and their suggested solutions.

20

The author was aware that the survey questionnaire could not cover the specific problems that

the students might encounter in different university periods, different courses, etc. Also, within

the scope of the study, the questionnaire did not address the question whether students from

other institutions would share the same mandate. Thus, the result is believed to be tentative and

suggestive. In addition, as the questionnaire is designed for students only, the evaluations of

the students’ performance might be limited and incomplete. Further research in which

questionnaires are designed to investigate both the teachers’ and students’ problems in learning

and teaching speaking skill seem to be of great usefulness.

2.2.3.2. The Procedure

The draft questionnaire was an adaptation of a variety of sources drawn from literature on the

field of problems of learning English as a second language (see Chandrasegaran, 1981; Bock,

2000). First, the questionnaire was given to some teachers, who have expertise in the area for

judgment and comments. After getting their feedback, the questionnaire was adapted: some

examples were added because the students might find it hard to understand them. Then the

final version was established and it was piloted on some students. Finally, the final

questionnaire was delivered to 121 students by the researcher and they were asked to return

the questionnaire within one week. Before that, the researcher had asked the teacher for

permission to have a personal contact with the study population in order to explain the

purpose, relevance and importance of the study, as well as to clarify any questions that the

learners had.

2.3. Data Analysis and Discussion of the Findings

2.3.1. The Students’ Assessment of the Importance of Speaking Skill in their Future

Work

Research question 1: What are the first-year English majors’ perceptions of the importance of

speaking skill in their future work?

21

Overall, the students believed in the importance of speaking skill in their future work.

They all considered this skill indispensable as they wanted to become interpreters, teachers of

English, personal assistants, tour guides, which involved a lot of speaking in English.

According to the survey, all 121 students (100%) shared the same opinions that speaking

skill was important or very important for their jobs in the future. “Speaking skill is essential in

my job. No matter which company I am going to work [for], I am supposed to express my

plans and report [reports] to my seniors in English. This is particularly true when I work for a

foreign company”. The reasons, as they believed, were that speaking skill, first of all, could

help improve some qualities such as confidence, courage and flexibility. They thought that

being able to speak well meant being confident, courageous, active, well adjusted and

knowledgeable in their jobs. Some explained: “I think it [speaking skill] is very important. It

helps me more confident, active and well-adjusted” or “As far as I know, it is a challenge for

most people to speak in front of a crowd. I think that being able to speak well means having

confidence, courage and good knowledge”. Secondly, speaking skill could help improve and

develop their logical thinking, presentation skills and organization skill, which would be

essential for their jobs. They wrote: “ In my opinion, speaking skill plays a vital role in my

future job. It helps me think logically and perfect in organizing and presenting my ideas”, etc.

Finally, speaking well could mean increasing their employment options. Some of them wrote:

“In the future, when I’m good at speaking English, I’ll be very self-confident in my job and I’ll

be able to become a manager and persuade my colleagues to follow my arguments” or ”Maybe

I and my competitor have the same qualifications and knowledge, but speaking skill give me

competitive edge”, etc.

To sum up, all the first-year majors of English were totally aware of the importance of

speaking skill in their future work because this skill could develop their confidence, flexibility,

logical thinking, presentation skills and organization skill, which accordingly might bring

better career prospect.

2.3.2. The Students’ Evaluations of their Own Speaking Skills

Research question 2: What are students’ evaluations of their speaking performance?

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It can be said that speaking in English is not something new to the first-year majors as 100% of them said Yes to question 2: “Have you ever conducted a speaking in the speaking lesson?”. However, they tended to consider their success low and limited. Details of the responses to the question are as follows:- Almost half of the informants-56 students (46%) thought they were not successful.- 45 out of 121 informants (37%) stated that they were a little bit successful.- 11 students (9%) believed they were successful.- Only a small percentage of the informants-9 students (8%)-claimed that they were very successful.The students, to some extent, seemed to have a negative evaluation of their speaking skill. When asked to evaluate the students’ speaking performance, 5 teachers commented that their English proficiency levels were low, which affected their speaking skill. However, 4 other teachers still believed in their ability. They thought that the students’ English was good enough but they did not give effective speaking activity because they were not confident enough. One of them said, “I believe it [students’ level] is adequate, but I think our students don’t think so. They can conduct simple speaking activities or much more but they aren’t confident in what they can do, so that stops them from speaking effectively”. In fact, according to the record of the students’ weekly speaking performance and marks given to them, it could be said that many of them did not conduct effective speaking activities. In conclusion, according to the students’ and teachers’ evaluations, the majority of the first-year majors of English were somehow not really successful with speaking in English. Only a few of them did the job quite well. The following part will focus on the difficulties that they might encounter.

2.3.3. The Students’ Perceived Difficulties in Speaking skills

Research question 3: What are the first-year English majors’ difficulties in speaking skill?

Pronunciation difficulties

Speaking does not simply mean uttering a meaningless chain of sound. One may write out

words in a very expressive way but not be able to perform that orally due to pronunciation

problem. Or if even the words are spoken out with very poor pronunciation, listener will cope

with lots of difficulties understanding what the speaker means.

The following table is about pronunciation problem of the first year English-majored students

at Phuong Dong University.

A Q a (%) b (%) c (%) d (%)

23

7 100

8 65 55 58 53

9 33 35 26 4

10 21 23 47 9

Table 1:Pronunciation difficulties (see appendix)

The table showed that all the students liked to use the simple form of word consisting only one

syllable. Four listed factors that the students considered the barriers to speaking process

received quite equal proportion; intonation 79 students (65%), word stress 56 students (55%),

sentence stress 70 students (58%), sound linking 64 students (53%). 33% of the respondents-40

students found it very difficult to pronounce word-final consonants. 43 students (35%)

admitted having difficulties at a lower degree. 32 out of 121 informants (26%) stated that

pronouncing word-final consonants was quite easy. Only 4% of the respondents-5 students

found it have no difficult at all. The result also revealed that majority of the students (47%)

could deal with pronuncing consonant clusters. 23% seemed to have difficulties and 21%

found very hard to do with these clusters.

As the sound systems of English and Vietnamese differ greatly, Vietnamese speakers may have

quite severe problems in English pronunciation. Because Vietnamese is a tone language; that is

pitch changes distinguish word meaning. Most word, if not all, in Vietnamese consist of only

one syllable; there are fewer consonants than in English and there are no consonant clusters.

On the other hand, the Vietnamese vowel system makes a large number of distinctions and,

therefore, speakers of Vietnamese do not experience too many difficulties with English vowels.

Vietnamese uses a modified Roman alphabet but many of the letters have quite different sound

values from those of English. For example, in Vietnamese the voiceless stop consonants occur

at the end of a word, but these consonants are never released in final position and much shorter

than their English equivalents. It means that even when Vietnamese people pronounce these

consonants in the final position, English speakers may have difficulties hearing them.

Furthermore, Vietnamese has no voiced at the ends of words, so they need practice in

distinguishing voiced and voiceless stops in this position.

24

Moreover, Vietnamese has no consonants clusters in initial or final position, the students must

learn to produce a large variety of new syllable types that contain consonant clusters.

Generally, the students tend to delete one or more consonants from a difficult cluster.

From the data analysis, we can see that first-year majors of English students at Phuong Dong

University also had a lot of difficulties when dealing with stress, both word and sentence stress.

They considered stress one of the biggest challenges in learning English. About half of those

who were asked in the survey admitted the fact that they were not aware of stress and even

sometimes they just added the so-called stress randomly. This is because Vietnamese language

normally consists of only one syllable. The students may have difficulty in pronouncing the

longer words of English with appropriate stress patterns. Furthermore, each syllable of an

utterance will receive equal weight; giving Vietnamese learners’ English a staccato-like

rhythm.

Like most Vietnamese learners learning English, the Phuong Dong students also have problem

with linking sound. As being stated above, Vietnamese learners often omit consonants at the

end of words. Consequently, words cannot be linked in connected speech.

The last problem shown in the table is about intonation, simply because pitch functions

differently in Vietnamese – a tone language. It can be clearly seen from the table that though

there are plenty of difficulties arise in speaking process, a considerable amount of the students

would try to speak out words that they even did not know how to pronounce. This is quite hard

at first in making others understand, especially when directly communicating in a Vietnamese-

free context. However, this should be an initially good sign to show that the students were

really want to get involved in learning and somehow they could minimize psychological

factors in speaking; having fear when speak.

Grammatical difficulties

Grammatical competence is an umbrella concept that includes increasing expertise in grammar

(morphology, syntax), vocabulary, and mechanics. With regards to speaking, the term

mechanics refers to basic sounds of letters and syllables, pronunciation of words, intonation,

and stress. In order to convey meaning, learners mush have the knowledge of words and

sentences; that is, they must understand how words are segmented into various sounds, and

25

how sentences are stressed in particular ways. Thus, grammatical competence enables speakers

to use and understand English language structures accurately and unhesitatingly, which

contributes to their fluency. This table is to show grammatical difficulties that the students of

Phuong Dong University admitted in learning speaking English.

26

A

Q

a (%) b (%) c (%) d (%)

1 68 23 9 0

2 92 8 0 0

3 37 34 25 2

4 48 36 12 4

5 23 42 35 4

6 21 28 45 6

Table 2: Grammatical difficulties (see appendix)

On looking at the table above, it can be observed that most of the students accounting for 68%

admitted high level of difficulty when using appropriate types of clause in speaking and 23%

found it difficult. And a big proportion, 92% stated that they found hard to use correct forms

when presenting an oral activity. 8% said it was difficult job to do in speaking process. When

spoken language is considered much casual than written, learners still have lots of trouble

using flexible types of sentence as 37% stated. Other 34% found it quite difficult. In another

question, 48% admitted high level and 36% of a lower level of difficulty when showing

relationship between ideas like using conjunction, parallel structure, or adverb clause. Since

learning auxiliaries is very important in English, most students are familiar to using auxiliaries

as they experience them daily in their English learning, 35% of the students found almost no

difficulty in using auxiliaries, 42% said it was hard in which 23% was in a higher level.

Another good sign when 45% of the students had good sense of using singular and plural forms

while 28% found it difficult, and 21% ranked it very difficult.

To most of the students, 3 or more years studying English as an obligatory subject is not

enough to master a good grammar background. Needless to say, grammar plays a very

significant part in learning a language, and learning English speaking in particular as English

language itself consists of quite many grammatical rules that cannot be acquired thoroughly

without serious consideration.

27

Besides, Vietnamese and English are so much different from each other in terms of

grammatical rules in which verb forms is one of the most prominent features. Students get

confused when there are quite a lot of changes in the form of words, verb forms in this case,

they change in accordance to person, tense… and more complicatedly change in unpredictable

ways as in irregular verbs. The students may know the meaning as well as the pronunciation of

the root word but they may get no idea of its past form. This may cause some pauses in

speaking. The s-called “tense’ in Vietnamese is marked by adding more words to indicate time.

Some of the students said they could not be sure when in English we get no words added.

To most authors, speaking, in its early stage, should be done regardless the correctness of

grammar, but the fact is that serious students often try their best to correct their grammar even

in casual talks. That means whenever there is an ambiguity they will reluctant to speak.

Another weakness found in the survey was how students show the relationships between ideas.

This is fairly easy to be understood when the students choose to use simple sentence in most

cases and as being early mentioned, they preferred to simplify the sentence. The highest

frequency of conjunction found in their speech was in parallel structure as these conjunctions

are quite easy to use as in case of and, but, or, nor, also, either…or, neither…nor,… but in

other cases such as using adverb clauses to show time or cause and effect relationships, using

prepositions, transitions to show cause and effect and many others, the frequency is in a much

lower level, or it just happens in some prominent students’ speech.

It can be observed from the two last questions of the set that the students are more and more

getting familiar to the use of auxiliaries as well as singular and plural forms of noun.

Auxiliaries take a very important part in English language when being used to form negatives

and interrogatives. They are particularly important in conversation where the purpose is

seeking and exchanging information. Quite similar to the situation of auxiliaries, nouns and its

number are also very important in learning English language. Things should be carefully

considered here is the ways they change from singular to plural both regularly and irregularly.

These changes cause some difficulties to Vietnamese learners in learning the language and

directly effect speaking in particular. Because Vietnamese does not have any changes in the

forms of words, therefore, there is no change in pronunciation.

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2.3.4 Factors causing the Students’ Difficulties

Research question 4: What do they perceive as the causes of their difficulties?

Causes of DifficultiesTrue Not true

No. % No. %

1. My English proficiency is not high

enough.

108 89 13 11

2. I lack background knowledge. 75 38 46 62

3. I lack confidence. 99 82 22 18

4. I lack feedback and assessment from the

teacher(s).83 69

38 31

5. I don’t have a good voice quality. 68 56 53 44

Table 3: Students’ Causes of Difficulties

Part 3 of the questionnaire was set up to examine the students’ personal views of sources of

speaking difficulties. The research results drew that many of our students failed to speak

English successfully because of their low proficiency in English, lack of confidence, and lack

of teachers’ frequent feedback and assessment. Responses for each item are as follows:

Learners’ low proficiency in English was a major factor that prevented them from speaking

effectively according to the survey findings. 108 students (89%) reported that their proficiency

level of English was not good enough. Although the informants of the study had learnt English

for quite a few years at high school, the vocabulary, grammar, especially pronunciation of most

learners were still so poor that they could not express in English appropriately. Gradually, they

lost their confidence in speaking. This explains why more than 82% of them agreed that they

lacked confidence. This finding was quite consistent with the findings from table 1: students

found to pronounce well and feel confident when speaking English the most challenging.

29

Table 3 also shows that the lack of background knowledge resulted in more than 38% of the

students’ bad performance. The reason, as they gave in the informal discussions with the

researcher, was that most of them did not have a T.V set, or they could not afford to buy

newspapers/magazines frequently to improve their knowledge of the world. Therefore, using

examples, facts and statistics might be problematic for them.

Besides, there were also a high percentage of students (69%) who blamed the teacher(s) for not

providing regular feedback and assessment. They added that they wanted to be corrected but

the teacher(s) did not do much of that.

Finally, 68 students (56%) affirmed that they did not have a good voice quality. The researcher

agreed with them because most of them spoke in a low, monotonous voice, which cannot be

found in a good presenter.

2.3.5. The Students’ Suggested Solutions

Research question 5: What do the students think should be done so that they can improve their

speaking skill?

To answer this question, the students were asked to list down all the solutions they would

suggest for themselves, for the teacher(s) as well as for the institution. The details are as

follows:

2.3.5.1. For the Students

Improving their knowledge of the target language

As students and teachers perceived, the first-year majors’ English proficiency level was still

poor. That was why in response to the survey questionnaire, all the students believed that they

had to improve their knowledge of English.

To begin with, besides the lessons at university, students thought that they should practice and

revise a lot at home. The first thing they believed they had to do was to read a lot to enrich

their vocabulary and structures. In addition, they needed to do a variety of grammar exercises

30

on awareness rising, such as verb forms, word building, error correction, sentence

transformation, translation as much as possible. Specifically, they had to practice speaking a

lot. One of them wrote: “ Theo em kỹ năng nói tiếng Anh rất quan trọng đối với công việc

trong tương lai của chúng em vì vậy chúng em cần luyện tập nhiều không chỉ trên lớp mà còn ở

nhà, tập nói với bạn, tập nói một mình trước gương và mạnh dạn giao tiếp với người nước

ngoài mỗi khi có cơ hội” [In my opinion, speaking skill is very important to our job in the

future so we have to practice speaking a lot not only at school but also at home with friends or

even alone in front of mirror and talk with foreigners whenever have chance.]. Also, the

students thought that they needed to learn from their oral activities. The reasons, as they

believed, were that they might have more experience, they would not make the same mistakes

again and they would be able to make more successful speaking activities next time. Below is

what they wrote:

- In my opinion, we must draw experience from our last speaking so that we can make

more successful speaking next time.

- I think we should learn from our previous speaking, for example, grammar mistakes,

pronunciation mistakes so that we won’t make the same mistakes.

Improving their personality traits

Most of the first-year majors of English agreed that they needed to improve their personality.

They thought they should be more self-reliant, self-confident and optimistic as they were not

confident and active enough. “Em nghĩ chúng em phải luôn lạc quan, phải biết kiểm soát và

khắc phục sự thiếu tự tin trong khi nói tiếng Anh. Rất nhiều bạn hay đổ lỗi sự yếu kém của

mình cho giáo viên, cho hoàn cảnh mà không thấy nghuyên nhân chủ yếu là do bản thân mình”

[I think, we should always be optimistic, confident when speaking English . Actually, many

students tend to blame teachers and circumstances for their low level of success, while the very

reason for this can be ultimately be found in themselves.] In addition, they realized that during

the lesson, they had to take an active part in performing activities or tasks in pairs or groups.

Success or failure would, in the end, be determined by what they themselves contributed.

31

In short, the first-year students of English agreed that should try to find the best ways to

improve their knowledge of English and personality traits. They must learn how to enhance

their learning outcomes/academic results by drawing on their strengths and minimizing the

effects of their weaknesses.

2.3.5.2. For the Teacher(s)

Improving the students’ linguistic skills

According to most of the students’ responses, it was important for the teacher(s) to help the

students to improve their linguistic skills.

Firstly, they wanted the teacher(s) to give them regular checklists to help them put the advice

into practice. The main reason, as they put it, was that they felt very bewildered and confused

after practicing speaking at home as they did not have any certain evaluation criteria for self-

assessment. So a checklist was a must.

Secondly, the students believed that the teachers should teach them the verbal skills necessary

for an effective speaking. Many students thought that the teacher could do this by defining and

demonstrating for them such concepts as tone, inflection, pace, pause, and articulation. Then,

the teacher could ask the students to listen to the cassette at least twice, and finally, by

supplying them with a copy of the passage being read and ask them to read along with the

recording, practicing tone, inflection, pace, pause, and articulation. They added that whenever

they began their speaking, it was important for the teacher(s) to raise their awareness of using

their voice.

Finally, they commented that teachers needed to help the students improve their pronunciation.

One of the students’ frequently made complaints was that some teachers often seemed not to

do much about their pronunciation. So, all of the students (100%) believed that it was the

teacher’s job to insist the students to focus on their pronunciation. Some of them suggested that

before they started their speaking, the teachers should draw their attention to their

pronunciation, for example, emphasizing the key words, using appropriate intonation patterns.

32

Also, they reported that the teachers ought to give the students as much practice as they could

so that the students would be able to apply the teachers’ advice into practice. According to

them, one of the pronunciation practice was to help the students notice the correct

pronunciation of a word or phrase in English. Finally, they thought the teacher(s) should train

them to speak the language with reasonable fluency. They all believed that their teachers’ focus

on frequent exposure to authentic recorded materials might improve their oral fluency as well

as accuracy.

2.3.5.3. For the Institution

Providing conductive facilities

According to the students, in general, the teaching and learning facilities at the Department of

Foreign Languages were not well-equipped. The researcher also agreed with them because

apart from the availability of radios, there is still no language lab. Many first-year majors of

English complained in the survey questionnaire that the university should have invested in

more conductive facilities because teaching and learning facilities might affect the learning

process positively or negatively. Additionally, the informants of this study were sure that if

classrooms were provided with videos, the teachers/students of English would be able to make

use of the availability of equipment. The students accordingly would have more chance to see

the way an actual speaking activity processed and speaking activities carried out in the class

would be more effective. To conclude, the students thought that the university should care

about how students felt and what they needed. They should buy some equipment for students

to facilitate teaching and learning process.

Organizing speaking clubs and oratory contests English

Oral articulation of ideas is one of the important areas in which many students thought they

needed practice. 100 % of the informants in the study suggested that speaking clubs should be

opened and organized so widely and regularly that the students could take an opportunity to

attend. In this relaxing atmosphere, students would be able to work together in groups. They

33

would be able to give their opinions and talk about their ideas on a single topic. One of them

wrote: “Khoa chúng ta nên tổ chức câu lạc bộ nói tiếng Anh để sinh viên có thể nâng cao khả

năng nói, diễn thuyết và thuyết phục người nghe, đồng thời giao lưu học hỏi để tăng cường

hiểu biết cho sinh viên, đưa đến cho sinh viên sự tự tin cần thiết”. [Our Department should

hold English speaking clubs so that the students can improve their speaking skills, presentation

skills and persuade the listeners. They can, at the same time, get to know each other for more

knowledge, which makes the students more confident in oral communication.]. Besides, about

half of the informants expected the concerned staff of the Department to hold an oratory

contest in English every semester so that they could have a chance to take part in. These

students strongly believed that the organization of the contest might create a competition

among them, which would be likely to make a rapid improvement in learning speaking skills.

Finally, a significant number of the students thought that the Head of the Department ought to

encourage the students to attend formal speaking occasions, such as the graduation ceremony

or workshops and conferences in English.

34

Chapter III: Implications and Suggestions

In the previous part, the first-year English majors’ oral speaking difficulties and their causes of

difficulties have been investigated. The findings show that most of the students’ difficulties

came from their lack of confidence, low language proficiency and infrequent and inadequate

feedback and assessment from teacher(s). These difficulties might result in the students’ bad

performance. Therefore, on the basis of the findings and the students’ responses, the following

section will offer some pedagogical implications and suggestions regarding how to help the

students overcome those difficulties.

3.1. For Students

Setting up good speaking habits

According to experts on speaking skill, in order to become effective speakers, students should

set up good speaking habits, namely, they should adopt good speaking strategies because

speaking strategies are the tools to improve one’s speaking competence.

Of all the strategies, voice quality is considered one of the most important things. No matter

how well the speaker has prepared for his/her talk the mistakes caused by using the voice may

have a great deal of effect on his/her success. It may even ruin all his/her efforts (Powell:

2000). One of the major problems that many first-year majors had was that they spoke in a

monotonous voice. That is why they had to practise using their voice right at the beginning of

the language course to create the effect they wanted. The University of Canberra’s Academic

Skills Program about giving oral presentations offers some tips for voice improvement. The

speaker, first of all, should speak loudly enough and speak slowly and clearly. He/she must not

rush as key words are important. In addition, he/she must vary his volume and rate of the

speech. When he/she begins a new point, use a higher pitch and slow down for key points.

Using pauses is important, too as it is a good chance to gather his/her thoughts and the

audience’s. Dwyer(2000: 204) and Reinhart (2002:12) also highlight the importance of practice

and they suggest some good methods for improving students’ voice. In their opinions, students

should practise the talk three times orally in front of a mirror, with someone listening, or with a

35

video or tape recorder, they can evaluate themselves: they can hear what their voice sounds

like and observe their nonverbal communication. As they practise they can decide how loudly

or softly they want to speak, which parts of the speaking to emphasize and where to pause.

They can check how long the speech will take. They can also pick up all the fillers such as

“you know”, the “wells”, the “ums’ and “ers”, and other listeners may help them pick up any

errors in pronunciation. For more pronunciation practice, the students are advised to refer to

exercises in “Presenting in English” written by Mark Powell. (Refer to appendix 3 for sample

pronunciation exercises)

3.2. For Teacher(s)

3.2.1. Improving students’ nonlinguistic skills

The teacher ought to teach students the nonverbal skills necessary for effective public

speaking. Glencoe/McGraw-Hill offers teacher some teaching tips to teach nonverbal

behaviors. He/she can, first, help his/her students define and demonstrate for them such

concepts as eye contact, gestures, stance, and facial gestures. Then he/she can provide students

with a videotape of a famous speech being delivered and ask them to watch and note the

nonverbal behaviors that the presenter uses. After that, supply students with a copy of the

speech and invite them to read the speech with the presenter in chorus and then work in groups

to deliver the speech, mimicking the presenter’s nonverbal communication.

Besides, teachers should videotape the students’ speaking because of its great advantages. First

of all, unlike tape recording, whose focus is primarily on the verbal aspects of giving a speech,

videotaping deals with both verbal and non-verbal aspects of a speaking such as eye contact

and gestures. Secondly, videotaping motivates students. In my experience, when students are

informed in advance that their speaking will be videotaped, they might work very hard for the

speech with great care and enthusiasm, and they pay more attention to what they say as they

are taking part in a kind of performance (it is being recorded) and the results are surprisingly

great. Thirdly, videotaping provides good feedback. Through videotaping both teachers and

students can evaluate how well or badly the students have performed and students, as a result,

can learn something from their speaking, namely, what they achieved and what they failed to

36

achieve and then perform better ones next time. In addition, teacher(s) and students can keep a

copy of the video for their own use. For example, they will be able to review the speaking

situations again and again for more analysis. Finally, according to Underhill (1987:34),

analysis and discussion of the video can provide the basis for a rapid improvement. Students

not only become more aware of gaps in their speeches but also can see how their speeches are

improving.

3.2.2. Building up students’ confidence

Language anxiety has been found to be a powerful factor that hinders second language learning

achievement (MacIntyre, 1999; Young, 1999, Tsui, 1996 quoted in Bock, 2000, Hedge, 2000).

Scharle and Szabo (2000) emphasize that self-confidence is the feeling that should be

strengthened in learners because self-confidence and success are also mutually related.

In order to help students to be effective and confident speakers, teachers should, first of all,

provide students with as much practice as possible because of the fact that speaking skill are

largely developed by practice and practice will help students feel better prepared and thus more

confident (Reinhart, 2002: 12). It may be more effective to introduce more opportunities for

students to develop their oral communication skills in a series of short, informal exercises, for

example, pronunciation practice which enables learners to develop and apply their skills in a

less intimidating environment such as working in pairs or groups. Students can then proceed to

more formal activities and develop and apply their skills progressively. The teacher may also

help students to develop their oral communication skills by setting the task of discussing issues

or problems in small groups. After individuals have practised speaking in a small group, they

can give their final speech, in brief, to the whole class. Students, in fact, can be more confident

when they are presenting collective opinions, rather than their individual thoughts. In addition,

it is advisable for the teacher(s) to give students regular and useful feedback. The issue of

feedback and assessment of oral activities was also raised by a large proportion of students.

From the research, students stated that they were under the impression that they did not receive

adequate feedback from their teachers. However, this may be an issue of how feedback is

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delivered: it is possible that verbal feedback is not always recalled by a student who is likely to

be in a nervous state. This area, therefore, needs further investigation.

“When we perform our speaking badly, we are immediately criticized by the teacher. We all

feel very upset about that because we have been trying our best”. This is a common complaint

among many of first-year majors of English. Thus, teachers, moreover, should give students

more praise, compliments, encouragement than criticism. It is recognized that students’

confidence may develop from this technique but it is easy to make teachers become hard to

please because some of the students’ speaking are full of mistakes. Nonetheless, what they talk

about is more important than what they achieve. Thus, the teacher’s norm of tolerance and

encouragement may help students feel safe and heighten their motivation. It is very important

to make students know that mistakes are a natural part of learning, and to ensure that they will

not be criticized if they make mistakes. This could make them feel confident to keep on

speaking next time. At the end of the speaking class, an outline of the topic should be

suggested so that students can know that whether they were on the right tract or not. Last but

not least, it is extremely important for teachers to teach their students how to be good audience

members. This seems to be a bit challenging task when some of the students’ speaking are not

satisfactory enough. It is still the teacher’s job to teach his/her students how to respond to the

speaker, to be quiet, to sit still, to look at the speaker, to smile when the speaker uses humor,

and to nod at appropriate times. It can be frightening to stand in front of a peer group, but a

receptive and warm audience can alleviate nervousness and contribute to a successful speaking.

In conclusion, in order to improve first-year majors’ speaking skills, teachers need to improve

their linguistic skills as well as nonlinguistic skills. Also, they need to help the students to build

their confidence, which is a key to the success of their oral activities.

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3.3. For the Institution

Conducting speaking-oriented testing

It is suggested that speaking-oriented testing should be conducted formally and informally.

According Brown (1994), “informal testing means assessing learners in the process of forming

the competencies and skills with the goal of helping them to continue that growth process”. On

the other hand, formal testing occurs at the end of the unit, module, or course attempting to

measure or summarize what a leaner has grasped. The argument is that tests can serve positive,

intrinsically motivating aims as they spur learners to master all of their abilities for a particular

performance and then provide feedback on their process toward goals. However, teachers

should be aware of the fact that tests are sometimes seen by learners as “dark clouds hanging

over their heads” (Brown, 1994: 373), giving them a lot of anxiety. For the reason, it is certain

that teachers should make tests positive experiences for learners by creating tests with care and

effort. One of the points to be mentioned in tests and exams is that tests should relate with high

degree to course content and program objectives. Therefore, choosing the topics for the

speaking-oriented test is extremely important. According to Underhill (1987: 47), the choice of

the topic “should be relevant to the aims of the program or the needs of the learners and should

contain new information or put over a new point of view”. So the tester needs to choose topics

that the learners know something about, and the testees, therefore, are going to be able to speak

about with some confidence.

Take one question from the sample speaking test

in the second semester of the first-year majors of

English at Phuong Dong University for example:

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CARD 1

Part 1: Introduction: (2 minutes)

Introduce something about yourself to the interviewers (your name, class, interest, dreams,

etc.)

Part 2: Situation: (5 minutes)

Student A: You are the patient. You forgot about the doctor’s appointment at 3.00 p.m today.

The doctor’s secretary calls you to ask what happened. Answer his/her phone call.

Student B: You are the doctor’s secretary. One of the patients forgot about the doctor’s

appointment at 3.00 p.m today. Call him/her to ask what happened.

Part 3: Topic: (5 minutes)

Do you think that smoking should be banned in public places? Why?

It is suggested that part 3 should be speaking-oriented tested in which speaking skills must be

evaluated and marked, for example, expressing opinions or arguments, summarizing, and so

on.

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Part 3: Conclusion and recommendations

The aim of the study is to find out the speaking difficulties perceived by the first- year majors

of English at PDU. Basing on the findings the study has offered some implications to help the

students speak in English more effectively not only in their language classroom, but also in

their future jobs.

To achieve this aim, the researcher employed survey research with the participation of 121

students of four classes, English Department, Phuong Dong University. Specifically, the author

studied the issues: 1) the students’ perceptions about the importance of speaking skill in their

future work, 2) their evaluations of success, 3) difficulties they encountered and 4) what they

would like to be done to overcome those difficulties. The major findings of the study are as

follows:

• Firstly, most difficulties are found in two aspects: grammatical and pronunciation

• Secondly, the learners also had problems with their non-verbal communication, such

as keeping eye contact and using appropriate hand gestures.

• Next, the mentioned-above difficulties were attributed to the learners’ lack of

confidence and experience in speaking English, lack of conductive facilities and lack of

adequate feedback and assessment from the teachers.

• Finally, the students’ difficulties were wholly or partially due to their poor language

knowledge, or in other words, either inadequate teaching or learning.

Basing on the findings, the study is concluded with several suggestions for the learners, the

teachers and the institution to help learners overcome their difficulties. For the teachers, they

need to improve their students’ linguistic and nonlinguistic skills and build up their confidence.

For the institution, especially the concerned staff at Foreign Languages Department of Phuong

Dong University, they ought to invest in conductive facilities, conduct speaking-oriented

testing and organize speaking clubs and oratory contests in English. On the part of the students,

they are supposed to, first of all, improve their knowledge of the target language and

personality traits, then, set up good speaking habits. These suggestions may prove to be helpful

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to follow in the teaching and learning of speaking skill. However, how to apply them

effectively requires both the teachers and the students’ efforts and patience as speaking in

English is not something that can be achieved in a short period of time. Instead, this is an

ongoing process that needs to be perfected in a step-by-step manner.

Overall, this research can be of usefulness for the following reasons:

• It has identified the problems that the first-year majors at Department of English of

Phuong Dong University have encountered when they make oral activities. It has also pointed

the underlying causes of the difficulties and offered possible solutions.

• It has emphasized the importance of the students’ awareness of verbal and nonverbal

skills in speaking English, especially using their voice and being confident. In order to be

effective speakers, learners must believe that they are capable of delivering the speaking

successfully and that they can rely on themselves.

Obviously, what has been discussed in the study might be beneficial to both teachers and

students in teaching and learning English in general and speaking skill in particular as it helps

them to learn about their weaknesses and strengths and thus identify room for improvement

and further development

The study is not without limitations due to time constraints and scope of the study. For

example, as mentioned above, the questionnaire did not touch upon the teachers’ problems

when teaching speaking skill. In addition, it could not deal with the first-year majors’

difficulties in different periods of their learning process. These limitations, therefore, call for

further research for the long-term benefits of the learners.

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