1 PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale It is obvious that communication among countries has greatly improved and become more important, and that one of the factors has contributed for this process and development is language Vietnam is not an exception for this, since the open door policy has been carried out especially, at the time of integration into the global development People and the government have been aware of the significance and necessity of foreign languages, especially English, an international language Teaching and learning of English in Vietnam has undergone changes to find the efficient ways for the language learners It is also realized that there are many teaching methods, and it seems that no specific one has proved the best for all learners, and nowadays, the combination of different methods has been suggested for language teachers There is also the fact that, although Vietnamese learners of English now have many good opportunities to acquire this language, they still are not very successful, this can be clearly seen in their speaking skill This problem has raised a question for many linguists and teachers to find the best solution to the language acquisition in general and speaking learning in particular It is also said that one of the problems that cause difficulties for the learner is that there exist the difference among languages and these are what the contrastivists are concerned with And contrastive analysis (one of the linguistic branch) has proved its influence in language teaching The scope of the study This study focuses on the application of teaching based on contrastive analysis in teaching speaking skill to non-English majored students at Vietnam Forestry University under the light of communicative teaching Because of the limit of the thesis, it will mainly concentrate on how to apply contrastive analysis effectively as a supporting method to develop the student’s speaking skill in particular Aims of the study With the knowledge and experience of language teaching, and in an effort to find out an appropriate approach and relevant techniques to help non-English majored students at the VFU to be successful in learning speaking The researcher will go into the application of Contrastive Analysis on Teaching Speaking with theoretical background and practical techniques and activities Furthermore, the study also provides suggestions and recommendations for the teachers and learners at the university for the improvement of English language teaching Significance of the study This study may be useful to the teacher who teaches at the university and other institutes It is also helpful to those interested in this field of study In order to achieve this aim, there will a brief analysis of different teaching approaches to second language teaching by highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches, and then an overview of contrastive analysis study and the application of contrastive analysis on teaching speaking under the light of communicative language teaching (CLT) Finally, the research result of this application and recommendations and suggestions for teachers and learners for further study and research will be provided Methods of the study The major method of the study is qualitative, based on academic research and practical experience, the observation, survey questionnaire and discussion Besides, specific procedures are also taken into account, along with the valuable comments and suggestions and advices from my experienced and enthusiastic supervisor, my colleagues and friends have helped me a lot to carry out this thesis Design of the study The thesis consists of three parts Part A is the introduction which presents the rationales, the focus, the objectives, the scope, the method and the design of the study Part B has three chapters Chapter I will give an overview of the local situation such as the course, the objectives of the course, physical setting, the learners and teachers and time allocation of the course Chapter II contains a brief analysis on different teaching approaches and language learning, an attention will be put on the communicative approach And then the study on contrastive analysis with the definition, the relationship between two branches of linguistics (microlinguistics and macrolingustics) and contrastive analysis, Contrastive Analysis (CA) and Error Analysis (EA) Further focus is on teaching based on contrastive analysis, its specific application on teaching speaking; this will be illustrated with different procedures and treatment of errors In chapter III, the detailed study on data analysis, research result and comment on the application of teaching speaking based on contrastive analysis to non-English majored students at Vietnam Forestry University will be presented, accompanied by the recommendations and suggestions for the teacher and the student Part C ends with a conclusion, which tells all issues in the research, the appendix with the survey questionnaires is also included, then a bibliography listing all reference books and materials used for this research paper PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY In this chapter, the general information about the current situation of English learning and teaching in Vietnam Forestry University (VFU) will be presented with the purpose of providing sufficient data for understanding the problems, and situation analysis of teaching speaking The information ranges from the description of the course, the teacher and the student, the objectives, physical setting and the time allocation of the course Description of the course Like many other colleges and universities in Vietnam, in which English is nonmajored, English learning is a compulsory subject for all full time students (except part time students) here All students have to learn English in the first three semesters of 300 periods, allocated as follows: 120 periods for the first semester, 90 each for the two last A few classes learn totally 150 periods (divided as 60; 45; 45), after finishing these courses of General English, a few classes will learn English for specific purposes (ESP) The text book used to teach General English at the moment is “New Headway”, which aims to develop students’ four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking The ESP textbooks such as English for Forestry Students, English for Economics and Business etc are designed by the local teachers and some are taken from other university in the country These textbooks focus mainly on reading, writing and translation, a little on speaking The students and teachers Many students in the university are from rural or mountainous areas, and some of them are from urban areas, their English is so different Some have learnt English for about more than or years, some have never studied it before, while a major number have learnt it for about years In general, almost of them are beginners and they mainly acquire grammar, and other skills are not very good, especially, their speaking The teacher, the most significant factor in teaching process and at the tertiary level in Vietnam their role is even more important, because of the fact that many students ignore their foreign language learning at school or they were taught under the light of Grammar – Translation Method at school In VFU, there are 11 teachers in the Foreign Language Department, three of them used to be teachers of Russian and French, the rest all graduated from Vietnam National University – College of Foreign Languages And the methods of language teaching mainly, used are Grammar-Translation Method and Audio-lingual method Luckily, most of them show a great desire to acquire knowledge of communicative teaching and claim to apply it, but there seems to be difficulties Description of the Physical Setting “Setting” mentioned here in the sense of class arrangements, the task of the lesson and activities inside and outside the classroom In VFU, learning and teaching activities are almost carried out in the classrooms Most of the lessons are performed in such fixed condition, so it is very difficult for the teachers to apply new ideas of language teaching The class size is usually of more than forty five students in each class, this is a big problem for the teachers, especially, when teaching speaking skill The available teaching facilities mainly consist of an overhead projector, overhead transparencies, a cassette recorder, but the cassette is preferable, because there are few classes equipped with projectors and some teachers are not interested in using it, it is not convenient and available when the teachers want to use it and speaking skill is not much of attention, there is only a written test at the end of each semester The material for reference and self study is often designed and given to the student by the teachers, there are not many reference books available for the student, the students also not have many opportunities to read magazines or newspapers in English, and chances to expose to the language they have studied All of the classrooms are designed for lecture lessons with the seating, which is orderly arranged in front of the teacher and classroom equipment is just a chalkboard The objectives of the course After graduating from VFU, the students will work in forestry field such as institutes, companies, factories or farms etc And for them English is just a “tool” to support their work So the requirements for the graduates may be: - To acquire the general knowledge of English and a certain amount of vocabulary - To be able to read the specific materials and documents in English of their specialties - To be able to translate related documents and material into and from English at an intermediate level From the objectives of the course and the student’s needs, it implies that speaking skill is not much of attention, and there exists the fact that the student pronunciation and speaking is not very good So it is important to realize this problem in language teaching and learning in the university CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW An overview of language learning In an effort to help the teacher understand about the language learning, one of the important point in language teaching, because it is the understanding how language is learned, there will be a study of different views of language learning It is said that language theory doesn’t draw any significant distinctions between human learning in general and language learning in particular Language learning can only be properly understood as a reflection of human thought process It is conditioned in the way in which the mind observes, organizes, and stores information In other words, it is important to acquire the structure and processes of the mind for the successful learning and teaching Although the fact that there is still little understanding how a person learn What we can is to make our teaching efficient should be based on principles of learning 1.1 Behaviorism There have been a number of language learning theories, but in this section, we will have a look at some of these views of language acquisition which are foundation for the approaches in language teaching One of these is behaviorism, behaviorists thought that language acquisition is a product of habit formation Habits are constructed through repeated association between some stimulus and some responses, which would become bonded when positively reinforced And second language learning is viewed as a process of replacing those habits of the mother tongue by a set of new habits of the target language, as the result, the old L1 ( mother tongue) interfere with this process, either helping or inhibited it This view led to the belief that contrastive analysis of languages is invaluable in language teaching, the learning will be easy if the structures in the L2 (target language) are similar to those in the L1 However, it will be difficult if the structures in L2 and L1 are different Emphasis is therefore paid on the need to regulate the stimuli by grading the input into a series of steps so that each step forms a suitable and appropriate level of difficulty for the learner 1.2 Cognitivisim The second one is cognitivism, which views the learner as a passive recipient of information and portrays the learner as an active processor of information Learning is not just behaviour, but involves mental processes in which the learner learns by thinking about and trying to make sense of what he or she hears, sees and feels (Canh, LV, 2004, p37) Cognitive psychologists are therefore interested in the mental processes that are involved in learning Cognitive psychology is based on the assumptions that: people develop at different rates; development is relatively ordered; and development takes place gradually So the basic teaching technique which they are most interested in is problem solving With this approach, the teacher selects learning tasks according to the learner’s developmental level, and elicits learner reasoning in relation to those tasks 1.3 Contructivisim Constructivism is the third one, which characterizes learning as sense – marking and the learner as an actor, not a passive recipient of information Cognitive constructivist theories emphasize the exploration and discovery on the part of each learner as explaining the learning process Another theory is the interactionist view, which takes the learner as an active processor of information, and considers the language acquisition is the result of an interaction between the learner’s mental abilities and the linguistic environment The learner’s processing mechanisms both determine and are determined by the nature of input Learning, then, is a process in which the learner actively tries to make sense of data, and learning is said to take place when the learner tries to impose some sort of meaningful interpretation or pattern on the data Moreover, it is significant to realize the affective factors in language learning, it is said that the age of the learner determines the rate of learning, and motivation to learn, individual differences in aptitude for language learning, personal intelligence and learner’s preferences are also contributed to the success of language learning Among those factors, motivation to learn is very important, it involves the attitudes and affective states that influence the degree of effort that learners make to learn second language And according to Brown (1981), there are three types of motivation: global motivation (always motivated to things); situational motivation (depended on the time); task motivation (tasks to do) Or as Gragner and Lambert (1972) stated, there are two types of motivation: Integrative motivation (the learner wants learn to a language just for personal development); instrumental motivation (the learner studies for economic reasons: for a job, higher study etc ) In some situations, an integrative motivation may be more powerful in facilitating successful second language learning, but in other situations, instrumental motivation may better, so level and type of motivation is strongly influenced by the social context in which learning takes place Approaches to language teaching Through the history of language teaching in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular, there have been changes in the recognition of theories and practice of teaching methods towards the proficiency of the learner There have been some methods, which have proved their remarkable roles in language teaching, although there still exist controversies about their advantages and disadvantages, and there is a continue to find appropriate and effective methods So I will briefly look at the different methods with the comment on some influenced ones and their advantages and disadvantages 2.1 The Grammar –Translation Method The method is characterized by an emphasis on memorization of verb paradigms, grammar rules, vocabulary, and translation of literary texts It was based on the written word and texts, since the ability to read literature to be the goal of studying foreign language The medium instruction is the mother tongue, which is used to explain conceptual problems and to discuss the use of a particular grammatical structure, central to this method is accurate use of language items This method is characterized by presenting the rules of a particular item of grammar and the use of the item is illustrated several times in a text Then opportunities are given to practice using the item through writing sentences and translating it into the mother tongue The text is often accompanied by a vocabulary list Reading of difficult texts can be early introduced in the course with little emphasis on speaking, listening and pronunciation The advantages of this method are easy to apply and cheap to administer, it also requires not many resources This is why it is still used by many teachers However, the Grammar Translation method concerns itself primarily with the written language of classical literature and ignores authentic spoken communication and the social variation of language In other words, it overemphasizes the rules and neglects the communicative skills, as a result, students learn rules of grammar and vocabulary without much feeling of progress in the mastery of the target language, which will lead to lack of motivation in learning because they have little opportunity to express themselves through it 2.2 The Direct Method The Direct method is characterized by the use of the target language as a mean of instruction and communication in the classroom, and by the avoidance of the use of the first language and translation as a technique (Stern, 1983) The lessons often begin with a dialogue in the target language, the language items are introduced orally with actions or pictures without translation, grammar is taught inductively with rules being generalized from the practice and experience with the target language There is an emphasis on correct pronunciation and grammar With this method, students are exposed to target language situations, so their ability to think in target language will be developed; it is also an interesting way of learning a language through activity (River, 1981, p33) But the development of the student’s thoughts in the target language may lead to the inaccurate fluency if they are not properly guided, this originated from their trying to express them in the target language with insufficient knowledge about the language 2.3 The Audio-lingual Method As Stern (1983) claimed Audio- lingual Method was the first language teaching method that was derived from linguistics and psychology It reflects descriptive, structural and contrastive linguistics and the behaviors principles of psychology It was based on the principle that language learning is a process of habit formation through repetition and 10 imitation and drills in term of stimulus and response Rivers (1964) summarized the principles of the method as follows: (p19) - Foreign language learning is a process of mechanical habit formation Good habits are formed by providing correct responses rather than making mistakes - Language skills are learned more effectively if the spoken form is learned before the written form - Analogy provides a better foundation for language learning than analysis Drills can enable learners to form correct analogies - The meaning that the word of a language has for the native speaker can be learned only in the context, not in isolation In this method, the order of presentation should be strictly observed, listening and speaking are considered as fundamental skills on which reading and writing are built The techniques used by the teacher are based on imitating memorization where students listen and repeat; on repetition individually or in chorus; on role – play and dramatization; and on the use of drills and pattern practice for structures The first advantage of this method is to develop students’ listening comprehension skill and fluency in speaking in the target language, the student has a sense of being able to use what they have learned, moreover, the study is reinforced by repetition, so students have good repetition and this is suitable for different abilities In spite of those good points, the success and failure of this method depends largely on the quality of the teacher and availability of resources The teacher must be a fluent speaker as most of his work is done orally in the target language Furthermore, the teacher must vary the techniques to make learning more interesting and meaningful; otherwise, students might be bored with mechanical repetition 2.4 Communicative Language Teaching There have been a variety of definitions and ideas about CLT, and the method is said to be efficient in some cultures, but there are still questions about its use and application So I will analyze some of the ideas around this method and comment on the application Firstly, Nunan (1989, p194) views this method as follow: 33 process Errors also come from various sources (language transfer, overgeneralization, communication strategy, developmental sequence) and two main sources are of language transfer and overgeneralization Most of the students learning foreign language, except the very young, have the ideas that the new language will behave like their own mother tongue, so the errors are inevitable if there are differences between the two languages So the teacher should bear this idea and transmits this attitude to the learner And it is important for the teacher to build up the confidence that could help the learner to be successful, and to avoid undermining this confidence by emphasizing the difficulties he/ she faces However, it is essential for the teacher to distinguish some differences between overgeneralization and language transfer although both of them result from the fact that learners use what they have already know about language to make sense of the fact or new experience Overgeneralization is intralingual errors; this process is common in both first and second language acquisition e.g.: a learner may use “childs” in stead of ‘children” when referring to the plural because they over-generalized the general rules making a noun plural in English Overgeneralization is, of course, a fundamental learning strategy, in order to make sense of our world, we allocate items in categories, on these bases of these categories, we construct ‘rules’ which predict how different items will have However, sometimes our prediction is wrong, probably for one of two main reasons indicated below: + The rule does not apply to this particular item, even though we have allocated it to the appropriate category Therefore, exceptions to general rule should be presented + The item belongs to a different category, which is covered by another rule, so we need to reallocate the item to different category or we must construct a new category or rule In order to avoid a remarkable quantity of these errors, the teacher should make the learner aware of exceptions of the rules in the target language There have been different points of view toward error treatment because they look at errors from different aspects, and their attitude toward errors So there are various methods of error treatment, this method can pay attention to overcome errors of this kind and ignore the other types, and the question is what method will be chosen, depending on the aspect which focuses on This is very important for the teacher and learner to distinguish between accuracy 34 and fluency practices Learning language has two distinct objectives: learning to use the language as an effective means of communication and more formally, using the language accurately Traditionally, the language teaching put an emphasis on accuracy and teachers were encouraged to correct mistakes and mostly, errors of structure and pronunciation Teachers worried a lot when to correct – immediately a mistake was made or after the end of practice There is also a tendency for the teacher to believe those are the beginners require only accuracy practice, and more advanced only fluency practice This is not true the best teaching needs to provide both kinds of practice for the learner at all levels In order to solve these problem teachers should bear in their mind that “is the emphasis of the activity on accuracy or fluency?” If the emphasis is on accuracy, teachers should make clear to the students during this practice all important mistakes will be corrected If the fluency is emphasized teachers must not correct every mistake, and must positively encourage students to use all their means at their disposal to get their message across This also occurs in real life when people try to get a message across in a language they know only imperfectly It is also suggested that it will be appropriate to correct immediately during accuracy practices, but to avoid disturbing spontaneity of fluency practice In accuracy practices, it is usually best for the teacher to indicate a mistake immediately – usually by facial expressions or gestures But in the case of fluency practices – often called situations, communicative practices, free practice, teachers should take a pad of paper to make note the important mistakes (they are important because they are common, they may lead to misunderstanding, they show a gap in the student’s knowledge) It is better to discuss those mistakes after practice, and if it’s possible, to ask students to repeat the practice rather than correct them It can be included that treatment of errors depends on the objective of practice activities, whether on accuracy or in fluency and on the source of errors such as from overgeneralization, interference between languages, communication strategy, developmental sequence The teacher will decide when and how to correct errors For the contrastive teaching, teachers should keep in mind and make learners aware that errors from interference is inevitable part of language learning, the teacher’s job is to decide what mistakes should be corrected and when to correct those mistakes Traditionally, language teachers have 35 concentrated on certain types of mistakes-poor pronunciation, wrong choice of vocabulary and mostly structural errors, but with the increasing emphasis on communicative language teaching, other important mistakes should be considered (Michael Lewis and Jimmie Hill, 1986, p93) - Stress: it is sometimes difficult to listen or even misunderstand if the stress patterns are non – standard, or put on the wrong position - Intonation: In English intonation is very important, particularly to express emotion and attitude in oral communication The student may be more advanced – has good vocabulary, structure, and pronunciation – but uses flat, uninteresting intonation will frequently be misunderstood not in terms of actual content of the message, but in terms of attitude - Register and appropriacy: Certain language is appropriate only to certain situations, or for use with certain people Even more advanced students, they can give wrong expression of their attitude to other people or to a topic by the choice of grammatically correct but inappropriate language They need be corrected in the sense that they will need to be given alternative more appropriate ways of expressing themselves - Omissions: With free communicative practice, pair-work or situations, students usually omit the important items, and then the student needs to be corrected by being asked to say something different Moreover, it seems that each method has its own strong and weak point, it may fit well to this type of error but not for the others, therefore, the teacher should combine different methods harmonically and flexibly in order to make use of them The following are some suggestions of treating errors - Give the students the chance to correct themselves, and encourage them to correct themselves: Mistakes are said of different kinds, of different sources, so if the teacher jumps immediately with correction, an opportunity for real understanding will be lost So it is sufficient when the student makes a mistake, the teacher decides when to stop them either by facial expressions or gestures, then gives them a moment of thought to wait if s/he can correct him or herself, if they can nothing is said this is the principle of self-correction Even if they 36 failed to correct themselves, it is still not necessary for the teacher to provide correction immediately, the teacher can repeat the incorrect utterance and pause after the mistake highlight it in the hope that it may help to encourage a student to produce correct answer - Involve the class: If the student can no provide self – correction the teacher should invite other students in the class to give comment before correcting (peer–correction) By doing this the teacher can involve the class in their corporate learning, and reduce the teacher’s domination in correction, or as Julian Edge (1997) stated “ The more the students are involved in correction, the more they have to think about the language used in the classroom” (p.27) - Isolate the problems: If the student makes a small mistake in the whole sentence – this means most of what s/he said was correct Isolating the mistake both helps to correct, and avoids de-motivating effect of suggesting that all of what the students said was unsatisfactory Correction should not mean insisting on everything being absolutely correct Correction means helping students to become more accurate in their use of language - Don’t over correct: Mistakes are a natural part of the language learning Overemphasis on mistakes can have a de-motivating effect, so the teacher needs to select those mistakes worth correcting, for example, in the accuracy practices, most of the mistakes need to be corrected, however, in fluency practices, the student can make a lot of mistakes, a few important mistakes will be selected to correct after practice, those mistakes of pronunciation or structures can be passed Some specific activities for application 4.1 Activities used at the very beginning classes Learning speaking through listening Drill 1: Contrasting sounds: / / in think and / / in that The letters “th” can be pronounced in two different ways / / ( as in think), and / / ( as in the Listen to these words and put them in the correct order think the bath thank this theatre that other month three there thirty / / / / Listen to these sentences and repeat 37 Is that the theatre? It’s not this month It’s the other month I think there are three rooms with a bath Drill Contrasting sounds: / i / and / i: / 2.1 The short /i / and the long / i: / sound are often confused Listen and repeat /i/ thirty it live sit this / i: / thirteen eat leave seat these 2.2 Now say these sentences There are thirty names, but only thirteen people are here It’s time to eat He lives in London and he leaves home at eight A: Can I sit down? B: Yes, please take a seat This is my book and these are yours Drill 3: Word Stress Listen to the tape and put the following words in the correct column according to stress pattern o O o O o o a stamp a camera a dictionary a bag a ticket a newspaper a key o o O a magazine a postcard Drill Weak form of was and were - and does; weak form using / / Listen to these conversations Underline the stressed words How does pronunciation of “was and “were” changed when they are not stressed? A: Where were you? I called but there was no answer on this number B: I was in Paris from Thursday to Saturday A: Were you? 38 C: There were three of us at the conference D: Was Christian there? C: Yes, he was E: How was the conference? F: It was interesting, but by eight we were all tired E: I’m sure you were 4.2 Repeat each sentence Make sure you stress the correct words Drill Linking sounds: In spoken English, a word beginning with a vowel sound is usually linked in pronunciation with a word ending in a consonant before it e.g.: an opera look at this Say these sentences and mark the linked words Could I have your name? Can I leave a message? Hold on a moment? Could you ask Ellen to call me back? I’m afraid she’s not in the office at the moment 4.2 Other activities for higher levels: This is one of the same kind activities aim to develop the student’s speaking skill in the ways of inviting, offering, requesting through role play and work in pair or group and at the same time provide linguistic items and expressions as well as a contrast between Vietnamese and English when it is appropriate Drill 1: Inviting A: Pre_ speaking : Match the following sentences Do you want to dance? Ah Can I get back to you on that? Would you like to go hiking this weekend? Sounds like a great idea Where you want to go How about going swimming on Friday? Sure, I'd love to What time should we meet? How would you like to play golf No thanks I'm kind of tired right now? tomorrow? - Phrases for these situations in English Do you want to / wanna (very informal) 39 Would you like to Will you (with me) How about V+ing How would you like to I was wondering if you would (like to) I would like to invite you to (more formal) B: While speaking: Role play the following situations with a partner Include details and give a variety of responses Invite your partner to go fishing this weekend Invite your partner to your home for dinner Invite your partner to see the circus Invite your partner to attend your violin concert Invite your partner to attend a political rally Findings and Discussion In order to have a good assessment of the theoretical and practical field of the research, in this part, the description of the study design and methodology employed are presented The statistical results are also analyzed to get the information for the analysis and conclusion 5.1 The subjects Due to the limit of the study so there is only one type of questionnaire prepared to get information from the student at the forestry university for the research The questionnaire and observation are administered to different classes (4 first year classes and second year classes) These classes are those I applied the teaching method To have reliable variables, all the members of classes should be included in the survey 5.2 Measurement Instruments The procedure of data collection is the survey method, employing self- administered questionnaire for the students Classroom observations are also carried out to investigate 40 whether students’ response to the application of CA in teaching speaking and difficulties they encountered These measurements were developed for data collection and included in the Appendix In order to make sure that the students properly understand the questions, the questionnaire is written in Vietnamese The researcher directly taught these classes so he could observe and record all the activities occurred in each class: teacher’s method, questions and explanation, the student’s answer, activities and responses 5.3 Collection of Data The questionnaire was administered at the end of June, 2006 As it was almost the end of school year Altogether 357 questionnaires were administered and the same number returned Incompletely filled questionnaires were rejected, leaving 315 for analysis 5.4 Data Analysis Data analysis was carried out using the procedures of cross – tabulation and correlation aimed at some categories such as: the difficulties resulted from language interference, the activities used in a speaking class and those the student prefers, the treatment of errors and finally, the collection of the student’s ideas about successful speaking lessons 5.5 Presentation of Statistical Results In this part the results of the statistical analyses will be presented in the order of the questions and hypotheses relating to the study Question 1: What is your major difficulty when practising speaking? Table 1: Total Percentage lack of words and structures and to express your ideas 220 70 % lack of ideas 30 10 % afraid of making mistakes 75 24 % not have enough time to practise 40 13 % Question 2: Do you find the following difficult when learning speaking English? Table 2: 41 Yes Pronounce the new and difficult sounds No 24 78% 70 22% 215 68% 100 32% The linkage of sound in English 200 63% 115 37% Put stress in which syllable in a word 235 75% 80 25% Put stress in a sentence 210 67% 105 33% Intonation 260 83% 55 17% Difference of expressions in English and Vietnamese 230 73% 85 27% Pronunciation of the weak form and strong form of a word in English Question 3: In your opinion, is it necessary to focus the teaching on those mentioned above difficulties? Table 3: A B C D Students 235 (75 %) 80 (25 %) (0%) ()%) 315 A: Very necessary B: Necessary C: Not necessary D: No idea Question 4: In which group you practise speaking in class? And which group you prefer? Table 4: A B C D Choices often used activity 145 (46%) 15 (5%) 85 (27%) 90 (29%) 335 preferred activity 85 (33 %) 50 (19 %) 15 (6%) 110 (42%) 260 A: in pair B: group of C: group of more than D: work with teacher Question 5: If you make mistakes in speaking class what should the teacher do? Table 5: 42 A B C D E Number 55 (17%) 60 (19%) 180 (57%) 20 (6%) (0 %) 315 A: stop the student and correct the mistake B: Make note of the mistake and correct later C: Make note of the mistake and involve all the class to correct first D: Make note of the mistake and let the student who made the mistake correct E: Neglect the mistake Question 6: Table 6.1 - You find your speaking class interesting because A B C Total 75 (24%) 165 (52%) 75 (24%) 315 A: have enough time to practice B: learn more words and structures C: enrich your knowledge Table 6.2: - You not find your speaking class interesting because A B C Total 185 (59%) 25 (11 %) 95 (30 %) 315 A: have little time to practise B: learn nothing more C: make many mistakes and much corrected by the teacher Question 7: In a speaking class which activities you prefer? Table 7: A free speaking 240 76 % B controlled or guided by teacher 75 24% Question 8: In the following activities, which you like most? choose four activities you like most Table 8: 43 A B C D E F Choices 265 (23%) 230(20%) 155(14%) 180(16%) 185(16%) 145 (12%) 1160 A: Role play B: Picture description C: Problem solving tasks D: Discussion E: Reorder scrambled sentences F: Listen to a sample talk (dialogue) and then act the same Question 9: In your opinion, what is an interesting and useful speaking class? Their ideas are summarized as follows: - have many chances to talk - learn more new words and structures - mistakes are corrected 5.6 Discussion of the results Looking at the statistical results shown in the above tables, there are some points of discussions as follows: - It can be concluded from table that almost students (70 %) at VFU lack of words and structures to express their ideas, they are also afraid of making mistake when practising speaking in the class - In addition to this, those predicted problems such as articulating new and difficult sounds, making stress, intonation and specifying the differences of the two languages also make their speaking learning difficult as shown in table And 80 percent of them think it is necessary to focus teaching on these difficulties - From table and 7, the activities often used in speaking classes are ‘work in pairs and work with the teacher, and they prefer these if they are under the control and guidance from the teacher - When the students make mistakes many of them would like those mistakes to be corrected after they have finished speaking and by themselves first, and then by the teacher And it is advisable if the teacher interrupts and corrects them (Table 5) 44 - They find a speaking class interesting if they can have enough time to practise and learn more new words and structures as well as their mistakes are corrected But it is not interesting if they have a little time to practise, learn nothing new and get much correction - The tasks many students prefer to act are ‘role play, picture description’ because they are easier for them than the others They also think that during speaking lesson, the guidance and help from the teacher is essential and useful And some hope to involve in plays, games and outdoor activities such as picnics, camping or English speaking club where they can apply or expose the language into the real life (Table & 8) Summary This study is set out to investigate the application of teaching speaking based on contrastive analysis to non-English major students at Vietnam Forestry University with the case study of some big classes of different levels from the elementary to intermediate The main focus was application of different techniques and procedures based on contrastive analysis and error treatments to develop the learner’s communicative competence The results indicate that the interference from Vietnamese is one of the difficulties for the learner at VFU And the contrastive analysis has proved its valuable role in predicting those areas for teaching focus, and finding suitable techniques and procedure toward error treatment There is strong evidence to increasing the degree of exposure to English more naturally by requiring first the teacher to provide more opportunities for the learner to so, and secondly the learners try to find their own suitable learning strategies that search for meaning and constant practice to obtain their goal 45 PART C: CONCLUSION Recapitulation Having been aware of the significance of English as an international language, which is used as a means of communication all over the world and during the process of global integration in Vietnam, has given rise to the need to put English in a right position in the education development in particular and the development of the country in general This general social requirement also influences the English teaching to change to be suitable for our needs and settings Changes in language teaching are inevitable because in some educational institutes and universities in Vietnam, traditional English teaching is no longer useful in the new social situations, and has partly delayed the development process So it must be adapted to meet the social demands However, we should take consideration in particular situations to apply certain methods in order to make full use of the advantages of both traditional and modern methods and finally to make language teaching and learning as efficient as possible This study is aimed at that goal, when the researcher observed the fact of overuse of traditional grammar-translation method in language teaching, and a little attention on speaking at the VFU This has resulted in the limited communication competence of the students Moreover, with his five-year experience of language teaching at this university the application of CA on teaching speaking has proved its role in improving the speaking skill for non – English majored students there Therefore, there are some recommendations for the teacher to apply this method in teaching speaking skill Recommendations for Teaching and Learning 2.1 For teaching It is noted again that the application was on the big classes of non-English majored students and this research has discovered the significant findings to help improve the speaking teaching at VFU The main findings for the teachers are as follows: - In an effort to develop the student’s communicative competence under the light of CLT, the use of CA has its role in predicting the difficulties from the learner due to language interference, or in other words, those differences which brought about problems should be 46 paid attention to language teaching But we need to adapt it to be suitable to local situations to certain learners - In order to overcome the students’ lack of motivation in learning English, especially, in speaking, we must create interesting topics and design exercises of various types, relevant and suitable to different students of different levels, and create the English speaking environment Besides, the teacher should pay attention to less able students by asking them to carry out easy tasks, giving them compliments, involving all the class in the error correction, reducing the anxiety by forming pair-work and group-work with both good and bad students, changing group leader alternatively so that every student can have a chance to speak, praise from teachers frequent at the right time is needed, negative comments which can demotivate learners should be avoided Moreover, organizing English speaking club, seminar and outdoor activities is also necessary to give learners more opportunities to talk, discuss about their interest and exchange experience in learning English and their real life These activities will create English speaking and learning environment for them to study - For error treatment mentioned in the previous chapter, the teacher should let the learner recognize that mistakes are a natural part of language learning, and correction is also a part of teaching Learners need a clear idea of the language that exists outside them, and a strong feeling that the language is developing inside The teacher’s job is to help learners to develop their language and always bear in mind that: “Whether to correct, when to correct, what to correct and how to correct” in an effort to motivate, encourage and help learners to achieve the goal 2.2 For learning In order to be more successful in acquiring speaking skill, learners need to have a right attitude toward English learning in their curriculum and the significance of speaking in their learning English Speaking is important and is one of the goals of English study In addition, learners must fully realize their role in classroom and language learning They are no longer passive recipients They are communicators in the classroom; they should take part in class activities and outdoor activities and can be free to express their own ideas, to put questions to the teacher and their partners They should play an active role in learning language in general 47 and speaking in particular Teachers on the other hand are no longer ‘knowledge–transmitter’; they just play a role as a facilitator of the student’s learning, a manager of class activities and an advisor to answer learners’ questions in the classroom Recommendations for Further Research There is a need for further research into the application of Contrastive Analysis in teaching other language skills for the student at VFU such as reading, writing, listening and grammar in order to find the most efficient ways for teaching to match the local context, because this research only focuses on applying CA in teaching speaking skill Moreover, the number of subjects for the research is small which may influence the implications of the study to some extent There should be research work on the larger number of the subjects the result would be more convincible The application of this research is on large classes with the number of students around 50 and the student’s language competence of different level and at elementary and preintermediate level so the further research should be conducted to discover the implication on small classes and for the students at a higher level Although the researcher has tried his best to conduct this thesis, there undoubtedly exist limitations because of the limit of the thesis and inevitable shortcomings originating from the researcher’s subjectivity Therefore, I would be grateful to receive any comments and suggestions to make this thesis better ... choices that either language makes available and relating these choices There are three types of choices: optional choices; obligatory choices and zero For example, an optional phonological choice... she hears, sees and feels (Canh, LV, 2004, p37) Cognitive psychologists are therefore interested in the mental processes that are involved in learning Cognitive psychology is based on the assumptions... method that was derived from linguistics and psychology It reflects descriptive, structural and contrastive linguistics and the behaviors principles of psychology It was based on the principle that