1 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION I RATIONALE OF THE STUDY Since the open-door policy adapted to Vietnam, the need for integrating into the world has increased That is why, English teaching and learning have become very important to our country’s modernization and industrialization However, in some places in Vietnam English teaching has been strongly influenced by the traditional methods Teachers as well as students paid too much attention to the grammatical items In these classes, teachers mainly focused on explaining the grammatical rules and structures to students who were considered as passive recipients As a result, those students might be structurally competent but communicatively incompetent That causes a lot of difficulties in using English in their real-life communication In addition, the political and economic changes have a great positive impact on the teaching methods of teachers of English in Vietnam They have realized that students can only improve their language competence through communication It is the need for oral competence in English that has turned the teachers’ emphasis from teaching grammar into teaching communication Therefore, speaking skills nowadays play a much more important role in modern English than ever before In every English class, teachers would like to develop students’ speaking skills by applying the communicative language teaching method known as one of the most effective approaches that help students speak To meet the demand of students, English teachers in general and English teachers at Hanoi University of Industry (hereafter HaUI) in particular have been trying to find out the most suitable and effective method of teaching English Speaking Thus, the Communicative Language Teaching Approach (hereafter CLT) is applied to teach English Speaking at all levels at this university Teachers hope with this teaching method, they can help their students both improve their English knowledge and use it effectively and fluently in communication This idea is also suggested by many linguists and methodologists such as Nunan, 1991 and Das, B.K, 1985 As one teacher of English at this university I realize that although both the teachers and students try their best to reach their goals to teach and study English Speaking skills effectively, up to now the results have been still far from satisfaction Hence, I would like to something with a hope to improve Speaking skills for our students so that I have carried out the study entitled “An investigation into the Reality of Teaching and Learning Speaking Skills to the nd year non-major English students at Pre-Intermediate level of Proficiency at Hanoi University of Industry ” II AIMS OF THE STUDY The main purpose of this study is to research the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills to the 2nd year non-major English students at Pre-Intermediate level of Proficiency at HaUI in order to find out the problems preventing the students from willingly taking part in speaking activities at the English class The writer also makes some recommendations for the English teachers to consult and apply in their teaching speaking skills with a view to help the students improve their speaking competence III RESEARCH QUESTIONS The above aims of the study can be realized by the following research questions: (i) What is the present situation of teaching and learning English speaking skills at HaUI? (ii) Which problems the teachers and students have in a speaking lesson? (iii) What are the techniques to be used to improve speaking skills for the nd year nonmajor English students at HaUI? IV SCOPE OF THE STUDY The study focuses on the reality of teaching and learning English speaking to the nd year non-major students at Pre-Intermediate level of English Proficiency at HaUI Although the author is well aware that the survey statistics are not fully representative of all the non-major students of English at many universities in Vietnam, she hopes to propose some of the most popular facts that occurring in the study V METHODS OF THE STUDY In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the researcher collects information from the teachers of English who have been teaching non-major English students at HaUI Firstly, questionnaires are delivered to the teachers so that more information on the reality and problems they face and solutions implemented can be collected Then, questionnaires are also given to the students to investigate their problems in learning speaking skills The information from questionnaires can help to draw a general picture about the reality of teaching and learning speaking skills at HaUI and suggest some solutions for this situation VI DESIGN OF THE STUDY The thesis consists of three parts: Part one is the INTRODUCTION which presents the rationales, the objectives, the method and the design of the study It expresses the reason why the author decided to choose this study and the methods for the fulfillment of the study Part two, DEVELOPMENT, includes three chapters Chapter one deals with a historical overview of literature It starts with the theoretical issues on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which consist the definition, characteristics, communicative competence, using CLT in teaching speaking, conditions of applying CLT, and the factors affecting CLT application The next part discusses about the definition of speaking skill, the characteristics and three stages of teaching and learning speaking skills as well as the problems of speaking and speaking activities This chapter also presents the motivation and types of motivation which is considered to be a very important factor in a speaking lesson Chapter two emphasizes the study methodology The method of the study is carried out by investigating the teaching staff’s perception of communicative approach and the difficulties they confront with in their teaching process with a questionnaire distributing to 15 teachers and another one to 110 students Also, in this chapter the author would like to provide some information about the findings of the study Chapter three suggests some recommendations to improve the teaching and learning to speak English Part three, CONCLUSION, summarizes the thesis with key issues in the study, makes some suggestions for further study PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 1.1.1 Concept of CLT There are varieties of definitions about CLT Nunan (1989:194) overviews the methods, which are adapted below, certain aspects that are common to many definitions of CLT CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using language, which is meaningful to the learners Objectives reflect the needs of the learners; they include functional skills as well as linguistic objectives The learner’s role is as a negotiator and integrator The teacher’s role is as a facilitator of the communication process Materials promote communicative language use; they are task-based and authentic Nunan also asserts that in communication process, learners are negotiators and integrators whereas teachers are facilitators The definition above, as with any definition of the language teaching method, represents a particular view of understanding and explaining language acquisition It is socially constructed and must be seen as a product of social, cultural, economic, and political forces Canale and Swain (1980) expanded on the theoretical basis of CLT for both teaching and testing In their reaction against an over emphasis on function and a lack of emphasis on grammatical complexity, they pointed out that externally oriental communication is not necessarily more essential than other proposes of language such as “self-expression, verbal thinking, problem solving, and creative writing” 1.1.2 Characteristics of CLT Language is not simply a system of rules It is now generally seen “as a dynamic resource for the creation of meaning” ( Nunan, 1989) This point of view is really supports CLT - CLT is aimed at (a) making communicative competence the goal of language teaching and (b) developing procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication (Le Van Canh, 2004) - The goal of CLT is to create a realistic context for language acquisition in the classroom to develop Hymes’ notion of communicative competence - CTL is also associated with learner-centered and experienced based tasks - The focus of CLT is on functional language usage and learners’ ability to express themselves In other words, for CLT, developing learners’ skills is more important than the content of the teaching and learning ( Johnson, 1982) - There are three major principles of CLT: (1) communication principle: emphasizes activities that involve real communication promote learning (2) task principle: purposes that activities in which is used for carrying out meaningful tasks promote learning (3) meaningfulness principle: claims that language that is meaningful to the learners supports the learning process (Le Van Canh, 2004) - In communicative classes, learners communicate with each other and learning tasks are completed by means of interaction between learners It is clear that learners’ completing a task is fore-grounded and communicating with each other is back-grounded This may lead to considerable use of pair work, group work and mingling activities - In ESL classes, teachers are facilitators and monitors, usually, without interruption and then to provide feedback on the success However, CLT is not a perfect method There still exist critical remarks on CLT like: its inappropriateness to local contexts and cultures; its negation of rote-learning, memorization, displaying questions, teacher’s talk, etc In spite of its limitations and shortcomings, no one can negate that CLT allows teachers to incorporate motivating and purposeful communicative activities and principles into their teaching, which later results in the improvement of their learners’ proficiency For the seasons mentioned above, CLT has served as the dominant approach to language teaching since the demise of the Audio-lingual Method 1.1.3 Conditions of Applying CLT 1.1.3.1 Authentic materials To overcome the typical problem that students can’t transfer what they learn in the classroom to the outside world and to expose students to natural language in a variety of situations, adherents of the Communicative Approach advise the use of authentic language materials Materials like newspaper articles, books in target language, live radio or television broadcast programs are only suitable for students of high intermediate level of proficiency For those with lower proficiency in the target language, simpler authentic materials are realistic and most desirable Besides, the lower level class can use authentic materials without containing a lot of complicated language items, but a lot of discussion could be generated 1.1.3.2 Teachers Teacher’s role is also one of the most important components in applying CLT In CLT class, teachers are not only facilitators of students’ learning but also advisors of the students’ wonderings Sometimes, they can act as a co-communicator to engage in the communicative activities along with students Teachers are the initiators of classroom activities but they not always interact with the students They give the students chances to express their individuality by having them share their ideas and opinions As for Littlewood (1981) this helps learners integrate the target language with their own personality and feel more emotionally secure with it For the ones who never or rarely attend any language courses on CLT, training or retraining in CLT is always necessary because teachers’ competence decides the success or failure of applying CLT 1.1.4 Using CLT in Teaching Speaking Skills When using communicative activities, it is important to make students feel comfortable and confident, feel free to take risks and have opportunities to speak According to Pica, Young and Doughty (1987), there are two kinds of classroom available to second language learners: Input has been modified or simplified such as a traditional “teacher-fronted” classroom; and authentic students-to-student interaction is emphasized It provides the learners more opportunities for speaking since the learners try to achieve mutual understanding and modify their language according to the demand of the situation Objectives for speaking are often given by the particular program in which the teacher must work In some cases, the syllabus will consist of a list of grammar structures to be taught The teacher needs to be flexible in making best use of what is available for teaching purpose In other words, the teacher must have some freedom in deciding what objectives to meet, what content to cover, and what activities to use In this case, the teacher can go beyond the more specific goals and objectives of the particular program to the speaking needs that the students have in the “real world” There are many speaking activities can be used in classroom such as scrambled sentence, language games, role-plays, problem-solving, discussion, cued story, picture story etc 1.1.5 Factors Affecting CLT Application It is commonly seem that any choice of an approach of teaching needs favorable conditions for effective application The following sections will deal with the factors often cited as influential to CLT application These factors are: Learners’ motivation, Learners’ beliefs and attitudes, Learners’ learning styles, Learners’ anxiety and confidence, Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs, Teachers’ qualities and personalities, Language environment, Classroom conditions, Syllabuses and textbooks, Tests and evaluations 1.2 Speaking Skill Many language learners consider speaking ability the measure of knowing a language As for them, fluency is the ability to converse with others much more than the ability to read, write or comprehend oral language They regard speaking as the most important skill they can acquire and they assess their progress in terms of their accomplishments on spoken communication Therefore, if learners not learn how to speak or not get any opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning On the contrary, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom a fun and dynamic place to be 1.2.1 Concepts of Speaking Speaking is fundamental to human communication Different linguistics have different concepts of speaking but they are all agreeing with this idea Brown (1994) defines speaking as an process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information In Brown and Yule’s opinions ( 1983), spoken language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation Usually, there is a great deal of repetition and overlap between one speaker and another Speaker usually uses non-specific references They also add that spoken language is made by using the loosely organized syntax, and non-specific words, phrases and filters such as oh, well, uhuh etc 1.2.2 Characteristics of Speaking As for Bygate M (1987:12), in most speaking the person to whom we are speaking is in front of us and able to put right if we make mistakes He/ She can also generally show agreement and understanding - or incomprehension and disagreement Unlike readers or writers, speakers may need patience and imagination, too While talking, speakers need to take notice of the other and allows listeners chance to speak it It means that we take turns to speak Brown (1983) and her colleagues point out that a listener helps speakers improve their performance as a speaker because being a listener gives learner models to utilize when acting as a speaker In addition, being a hearer first helps the learner appreciate the difficulties inherent in the task It is clear that giving speakers experience in hearer’s role is more helpful than simple practice in task in which a speaker is having real difficulties in appreciating what a particular task required Speaking has the following characteristics: Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving However, speech is not always unpredictable Language functions ( or patterns) that tend to recur in certain discourse situations can be identified and charted Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (“linguistic competence”), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language (“sociolinguistic competence”) Speech has its own skills, structures, and conventions different from written language A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and knowledge to succeed in a given speech act Bygate (1987) considers speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways The reason is that almost all people can speak, and so take speaking skill too much for granted He also asserts that speaking skill deserves attention every bit as much as literacy skilled Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in order to carry out many of their most basic transactions Bygate also highly appreciates speaking by stating that speaking is the medium through which much language is learnt To sum up, it is undeniable that speaking is key to communication By considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class, and what specific needs learners report, teachers can help learners improve their speaking and overall oral competency 1.2.3 The Development Approach of Speaking Skill There are three main phases in the teaching of a speaking lesson Byrne (1991:22-31) points out that there are three phases to develop learners’ oral ability, which are as follows: - The Presentation Phase ( when you introduce something new to be learned) In this phase, teachers are centre It means that they work as information provider, since they know English, select materials to teach and present the material in such a way that the meaning of the new language is as intelligible and memorable as possible while the learners are motionless As far as we know, oral materials are written mainly in two forms in every coursebook They are dialogues and prose And obviously these two forms must be presented in different ways According to Byrne (1991:22) 10 different steps are used to present a dialogue They are the following: Establish setting by using pictures At this phase English should be used as much as possible Draw out learners’ experience related to situation Explain some key words Set listening task by asking key information of the dialogue Ask learners listen without looking at the books Allow learners to have a look at their book when necessary for them Ask the learners to listen and repeat Ask learners to pick up difficulties ( good chance for them to speak) and explain difficulties Ask them to practice ( role-play) 10 Ask them to dramatize the dialogue It is known that this procedure is perfect and logically arranged However, it is dependent on learner’s competence so some steps can be left out It is quite hard for Vietnamese learners to conduct the step 10 because they are generally shy and time is limited other steps are used to present a prose Byrne ( 1991:26) suggests that teachers should use the following steps to present a prose passage 10 - Introduce the topic by asking to look at the picture or asking them about the related thing - Introduce the text New words and structures are given - Provide relevant practice - Set the reading task: make questions - Ask the learners to read the passage in silence and find the answer - Explain difficulties they still have - Do silent reading again because the learners need to go on with the step - Get the learners to talk about what they have to learn based on the previous answers - The Practice Phase (when you allow the learners to work under your direction) Unlike the presentation phase, this phase learners have to most of talking Teachers provide maximum amount of practice Practice is usually in the forms of activities to improve fluency of speaking At this phase, pair work or group work is used - The Production Phase (when you give learners opportunities to work on their own) At this phase learners need chances to speak English freely A real chance to speak English takes place when the learner is able to use English naturally for themselves, not for their teachers Group work plays an important part in making learners practice speaking here Doing group work, all learners can have chance to participate in talks Time can be saved and learners seem more confident Byrne ( 1988:2) concludes that in order to improve speaking ability of learners These three phases should be followed orderly But in fact, they might not be applied as expected due to time limitation, types of learners and materials in use 1.3 Problems with Speaking and Speaking Activities 1.3.1 Problems with Speaking Brown (1994:256) points out the characteristics of spoken language that make speaking skills difficult as follows: - Clusterings: In order to speak fluently, speakers have to select from their store of language clusterings, that is groups of words, not word by word - Reduced forms: Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc create difficulties in teaching and learning spoken English If learners not learn colloquial contractions, they can develop the kind of speaking that is stilted, bookish 35 lesson What is more, the class size is big and more than 40 students are not suitable for a speaking class because it is hard for the teachers to carry out any kinds of speaking activities effectively with those students Therefore, it is impossible for the teacher to help all the students in the class to develop their language skills within 45 minutes The next problems that all teachers admit are their lack of experience and the unfixed teaching time Every year, the English Group at the English Department, HaUI recruit a great number of new teachers who are really young with little teaching experience For almost these new coming teachers, working at HaUI is just their part-time job and they are not going to teach here for a long time Also, the English Department does not offer them any types of training in order to orient them to the unique university’s teaching methodology Besides, for non-major students at this university English is not considered as a main subject so the timetable for English classes is weekly changed depending on the major subjects of the students and even many teachers have evening classes (6-9p.m) in all the week It is really dangerous for the female and young teachers because the university is located very far from the centre Such changes in timetable and class time influence the teachers’ work and their enthusiasm much Finally, the teaching materials and the lack of modern classroom equipment cause other problems to the English teachers To many teachers (47%), the present course books are still difficult and boring They mainly focus on the speaking surface (topics, situations, etc.) not the root (vocabulary, phrases, and structures) Thus, the teachers need to devote much of their time to adjust the content of each lesson by providing the students with other authentic or supplementary materials and creating some more new speaking activities in such a way that suit the English level of their students As well, the poor teaching equipment makes teaching English speaking become more challenging This core problem may lead to ineffective classroom performance It would be better if facilities like video tapes, projectors, computers or internet access for English lessons are available so that the teachers can create interesting lessons to motivate their students to learn English speaking To sum up, these above problems may prevent the teachers from the efforts to improve the students’ speaking competence 2.3.2.2 Students’ Problems in Learning to Speak English 36 When learning to speak English, most non-major students find some barriers that impede their communicative competence These barriers include lack of vocabulary and structures, low English proficiency, interests, or motivation The result of the study shows that most of the students (47%) reveal their background knowledge especially their spoken English ability is at low level though 95% of the students have learnt English for more than years at secondary and/or high school Some students even not know how to express their ideas in English Apparently, students have limited vocabulary and are too dependent on teachers, peers and dictionaries Lack of vocabulary and structures makes them struggle while speaking and prevent them from actively taking part in the class speaking activities Gradually, they will lose their interest in learning to speak English As mentioned earlier, the low English level of proficiency and lack of the world knowledge put another problem to the students 50% of the students think that their speaking competence is bad and only 2% state they are good at speaking English However, efficient speaking performance requires the ability to relate the situational contexts to one’s own knowledge Thus, the degree of speaking competence depends upon the speakers’ social and language background knowledge It becomes clear that background knowledge facilitates speaking ability, and it therefore seems probable that students with weak second language skill will lean more heavily on background knowledge to help them to make meaningful sentences to talk to others All in all, speaking ability crucially depends on the speakers’ being able to relate his/her existing background knowledge to the communicative situations Besides, lack of self-confidence and being afraid of making mistakes when speaking a foreign language has been prove the biggest hindrance to affect the students’ speaking competence Resulting from their low level of proficiency, they not feel confident enough to speak English in front of the class They are afraid that if they speak something wrong or silly, they will lose their face in front of the teacher and other students To save their face, these students often keep silent and not participate in any activities at all Consequently, not many students (only 30%) at HaUI are willing to speak in English speaking lessons or actively take part in class speaking activities Hence, if the teachers not have an appropriate teaching method to encourage or motivate them to speak, they will never make use of the chances to express their ideas in English but in their mother tongue 37 Furthermore, the speaking materials and classroom equipments are another cause for the students’ poor speaking proficiency To many students (34%), the present course books are still difficult and not very interesting They mainly focus on business situations and complicated language items, and lack of exercises for practicing other skills such as writing, reading and listening Therefore, the course books need adjusting both in form and content so that they can contribute better to the improvement of the students’ motivation and their interest to achieve better results in speaking Also, the teaching and learning equipment is still far from satisfaction The teachers are provided with only course books, tapes and cassette players As a result, students find nothing interesting to get involved in speaking tasks in the class Lastly, the teaching and learning time is also a problem to the students Some classes have to study three shifts per day due to the lack of classroom at university In the first two shifts in the morning and afternoon, the students mainly study their major subjects and they learn English in the evening After each shift, the students only have little time ,about thirty minutes, to prepare for the next class That makes the students feel exhausted and hungry so they not want to study English in the class especially speaking Some of the students even bow their head on the desks or sleep during the English lesson although the teachers try to encourage their students to take part in many kinds of interesting activities, it seems worthless It is better for both teachers and students to propose their ideas to the university managing board to stop this problem to gain the students’ interests about the English subject 2.4 Summary In this chapter, the researcher has presented the practical situation of teaching and learning English speaking to the 2nd year non-major English students as well as some general suggestions for teaching and learning to speak English The next chapter will suggest some techniques which can help to improve the students’ speaking efficiency 38 CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING AND LEARNING TO SPEAK ENGLISH It is obvious that from the results of the study, both the teachers and students have difficulties when teaching and learning to speak English Thus, within the scope of the study the author would like to put forward some recommendations to improve students’ speaking skills The techniques suggested hereafter hopefully can serve as a tool to enable both the teachers and students to become more successful 3.1 Improving Teachers’ Classroom Techniques to Teach Speaking Skills The findings of the study reveal that it is important and necessary for the teachers to vary their classroom techniques with the hope to help students overcome their difficulties in speaking These techniques include: increasing students’ speaking interest and motivation, carrying out different activities to teach speaking, employing three stages in a speaking lesson, and developing other language skills besides speaking 3.1.1 Increasing Students’ Speaking Interest and Motivation As it is shown in the result of the study, 37% of the students find the course books difficult and boring Thus, the foremost classroom technique the teachers can is to enhance students’ interest and motivation by adjusting the speaking materials to be fun and useful 3.1.1.1 Making English speaking fun In a speaking class, the teacher should warm up by saying some words about the speaking topic before asking his/her students to begin discussing and thereby arouse passion for speaking To this, the teacher needs to prepare some materials to make his/her speaking lessons fun Providing familiar and easy speaking lessons is the first device to make them interesting Students, in the first place, should be handed simple tasks for even difficult speaking sections The level of challenges will then reasonably be escalated Students will find themselves at ease and speak on However, increasing the scale of difficulty should be done with care otherwise they will find speaking boring Moreover, diversifying the techniques to introduce the lessons will help the teacher gain interest from his/her students A funny scene in a picture, a surprising story, an interesting video clip, and a humorous situation can all stimulate the students who are naturally expecting to learn to discover new things even the weak ones 39 Making English speaking interesting is not only necessary at pre-speaking stage but also at both while-speaking and post-speaking sections Working in pairs or in groups also helps to bring exciting speaking atmosphere Some games can warm the class up, and therefore win the love for speaking from the students Gradually, students with tactful assistance from their teachers, arouse their own interest in every speaking lesson, so the next lessons will be surely welcomed Varying speaking activities is additionally a good way to overcome speaking difficulties and to make the students happier Different speaking tasks should be given each day Asking the students to the same speaking techniques for every lesson will make them feel bored and soon lose interest Guessing the topics, role-playing, discussing, or playing the same game all the time will steal their love for speaking and drive them far away from the English speaking class 3.1.1.2 Making English speaking useful Funny as speaking may be, but it should be useful for the students Hence, it is important and necessary for the teachers to help their students realize how useful speaking is The teachers need to emphasize that although four English skills are interwoven, speaking skill is an important tool to enable students to find good jobs in the future especially if they expect to work for foreign or joint-venture enterprises The teachers can quote some of the advertisements in the website vietnamworks.com to stimulate and gain students’ interests Therefore, it is of great importance for the teachers to raise their students’ awareness towards speaking skill during the English course at university If one speaks English well, he/she will surely master the adequate knowledge of vocabulary, structures to understand reading passages, or ideas to write, particularly they will find themselves confident to communicate with everyone As well, he/she can find speaking the most meaningful ways of relaxation as it can let him/her explore a new world by chatting with native speakers throughout the world 3.1.2 Applying Different Activities in Teaching Speaking As it is clearly shown in the findings of the study, the students face many problems during the learning speaking process Thus, it is the teachers’ task to provide students with different activities so that students no longer feel fear when having English speaking lessons There are many kinds of speaking activities the teachers can use to teach speaking skills to their students 40 They include drill activities, role-play, problem-solving, discussion, cued story, picture story These activities will be presented in details as follows • Drill activities: This is a quite simple kind of activities as students only repeat or imitate These activities may be repetition practice of set of sentence prompted by pictures or word cues, asking and answering questions with only one predictable, correct answer In traditional classrooms, these activities are used frequently In many modern classrooms, this kind of activities no longer exists In my opinion, these activities are still very helpful for students with low level of proficiency like those at HaUI They help students improve the accurate use of words, structures, pronunciations and build up a stock of minimal responses and foster confidence • Role-play: This activity is very important in a speaking lesson because it gives students opportunity to communicate in different social contexts and different social roles Students in the class are divided into pairs or groups and given contexts (situations) and roles to act out The roles can be shopkeepers, businessmen, interviewers and so on who can be in different moods Furthermore, situations are usually true to life, so the speech is close to authentic discourse Students also receive feedback on whether or not they have effective communications • Problem-solving: This task works well in a speaking class because it usually includes the three features of communication: information gap, choice and feedback They can be structured so that students share information and work together to arrive a solution In this activity, the class is divided into groups of about four students and is given a “problem” Each group negotiates with each other and then selects a representative to report in front of the class after working out a solution to that problem • Discussion: It is very effective in a speaking activity because it gives students a practice in negotiating meaning and a chance to express themselves in the target language Groups of four or ten students are working on a topic of common interest for about ten or more minutes and then a representative is chosen to report what they have discussed • Cued story: 41 This is used effectively for the beginners because it helps them improve their speaking skills and be familiar with speaking in front of the crowd Students work individually, imagine or devise a complete story based on the given cues Then, they are invited to speak from their memory with some help in the paper sheet • Picture story: This is like cued story but students learn to work and negotiate meaning with their partners or people in group to act the tasks Students work in pairs or in groups, make up a story from a chain of pictures Then one student in the group is summoned up to the front to tell the story 3.1.2 Activating Students to Work in Different Stages of Speaking It is clear that a successful speaking lesson depends largely upon how willingly the students join in three speaking stages In the current context of the teaching and learning speaking at HaUI, the teachers in charge of teaching speaking should bear in mind the following things to enhance the students’ confidence and skills In the first place, in the pre-speaking stage the teachers make sure that the students clearly understand what they are expected to before the tasks so that they can go on the journey confidently and reach the finishing line successfully Therefore, techniques should be varied to get the students happily involved in the first speaking stage It means that the students are to plenty of pre-speaking work for an appropriate type so that they will succeed in what ever speaking tasks they are asked to It is clear that this stage is aimed at getting the students’ mind around the topic of the speaking tasks So, to help students be active in this stage, teachers should give the students clear instructions; warm them up with some related questions or relevant information; allow the students to make connections with what they already know, increasing the relevance of the information; provide students with necessary concepts and vocabulary, structures to aid their comprehension Secondly, in the while-speaking stage, the teacher should not a lot of teaching because students are doing the tasks by themselves, in pairs or in groups It is time for students to develop the tasks with their own knowledge During this process, in order to activate students, the teachers should set up and vary speaking tasks at different levels and different cases; encourage students to work independently first to make up their own language and ideas about the topic; 42 give students help whenever it is needed, but not offer inflicting help to those who not need it; encourage students to help each other so that the emphasis is on the meaningful tasks rather than on grammar or structures; encourage students to give as many of their own opinions about the speaking topic as possible Finally, in the post-speaking stage it is important for teachers to give students chances to present their own speaking work in pairs or in groups to check and ask the rest of the students to listen and give their comments At the same time, teachers can give immediate assessments for what they have done by giving students marks to motivate both strong and weak students to speak more Also, there are many other activities teachers can create for the students to express themselves such as discussing further about the topic, writing about the issue, role-playing the related situations and so on This is the time for students to widen their knowledge about the topic as well as the world 3.2 Training Students to Become Efficient English Speakers Besides teachers’ efforts and good materials, students play a major part in the success of the speaking lesson On the other hand, the students’ inappropriate way of learning and their attitudes towards speaking hinder them from becoming efficient English speakers Thus, in order to motivate students to speak English, teachers should make their students aware of the nature of speaking process as well as encourage their positive speaking habits 3.2.1 Making Students Aware of the Nature of Speaking Process It is the teachers who should help their students realize the nature of speaking as well as be aware that speaking is an active process which involves in a large number of skills and strategies at the same time During a speaking process, the speakers use a certain amount of the language units such as pronunciation, accent, intonation, stress, words, sentences, structures, grammar, etc to transfer their ideas This understanding enables the students to actively and confidently take part in the speaking activities and overcome limited knowledge and lack of skills to communicate in the most effective way It might also help students to develop positive attitudes towards speaking, one of the factors ensuring the success of the speaking process 3.2.2 Encouraging Students to Develop Speaking Habits It is apparent that teachers should help students form the positive speaking habits Teachers should encourage students to practice speaking with their roommates, classmates or 43 even by themselves Also, students should be aware that speaking is very important for their future careers as they have to communicate a lot Nuttall (1996:168) asserts “the best way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language is to go and live among its speakers”, so it is a perfect way to improve students’ speaking competence if they can find some foreigners around the quarter streets, parks or some other famous places and practice English with them By doing so, students are not only fluent in speaking but also enrich their vocabulary, structures, slang as well as understand their ways of life, behaviors and thoughts and social aspects of Englishspeaking people Moreover, it is advisable for the teachers to help students overcome the fear for lack of words, structures or ideas while speaking Teachers should make their students believe that these are unavoidable in speaking The more they speak, the richer vocabulary and knowledge of English structures as well as new ideas they get For one way, the teachers may prepare for a variety of speaking exercises with different forms and levels of difficulty such as speaking for filling information gap, exchanging personal information, describing things or people, notetaking, role-playing, discussing and so on These exercises may be used as a warm-up activity before the lesson or as further activities during each speaking lesson This, to some extent, will make the students themselves decide which speaking strategies to employ to fulfill the task In other words, it will bring students chances to practice speaking The students should be encouraged to express their own opinions about the questions involved or talk about difficulties they encounter in doing the tasks This is of great importance for the teachers to know the students’ problems to help in the right time In addition, the study also shows that students often have difficulties when they try to speak partly because they lack of motivation Thus, teachers should keep in mind that extensive speaking should be speaking for pleasure on topics that attract students so that it can raise their motivations, and give them more positive attitudes towards the target language Another way to encourage students to speak English widely with purposes is to organize the English Speaking Clubs The students can join the clubs once a week to share their own experience, interests, benefits as well as difficulties in learning English speaking Therefore, teachers and other stronger students can help them get over their current problems Each week starts with a different interesting topic If students want to make full use of the chance, they have 44 to search for necessary information related to the topic in advance to get more involved in all speaking activities in the clubs Besides, such entertaining activities as making friends, singing English songs, telling funny English stories, acting famous plays in English, etc should be given to attract students Actually, these activities will help students develop not only their speaking skill but other language skills as well To sum up, the variety of task types plays a key role in arousing students’ interests in speaking Also, encouraging students’ positive and extensive speaking habits can help to enhance their speaking competence 3.3 Developing English Speaking Materials It is clear that though English speaking course books are chosen carefully by the English Department, both the teachers and students at this university have negative attitudes towards the materials Discussions with the teachers of English in English Group at HaUI reveal that one of the main reasons for the students’ speaking difficulties is that topics in the course books are not very interesting or stimulating Therefore, to ensure the success in activating students and improving their English speaking skills, attention should be paid to selecting speaking materials Materials should be chosen with care and guarantee the students’ interest Choosing materials must base on the criteria such as the level of difficulty, the relevance of the subject matter Topics chosen must be relevant to the students’ knowledge, to their needs, their interests or to the English speaking teaching and learning objectives Findings from the survey suggest that not a large number of the students are much interested in speaking topics in the course books Hence, to raise students’ interest and improve their speaking skill, the teachers need to make full use of the topics by setting up various tasks for their students Three stages of teaching speaking lessons with different activities must also be taken into consideration Moreover, some topic-based activities should also be put in use such as encouraging brief discussions about the relevant speaking topics for warming-up, providing taskbased guided questions, employing different speaking activities (brainstorming the topic, discussing with students to lead them to the topic, giving students some background knowledge about the topic, instructing students how to the task), designing various types of exercises 45 (pair work, group work or individual work), and assigning different follow-up activities (discussion, role-play, writing, …) Because the current teaching materials are rather difficult and boring, teachers should continuously pay attention to the layout and content of the book and the feedback from the students Adaptations and adjustment should be considered to have more appealing teaching materials Choosing supplementary materials like visual aid, stories, songs, video clips, movies, etc is not simple for the level of the non-major students at HaUI Thus, the researcher suggests that teachers should be very flexible in working with materials and try to add more “flavor” to the extra materials That means the reference materials should not be confined to the international and authentic materials When selecting extra materials, teachers can reduce the level of difficulty of the speaking task by changing the task requirements and adjusting other speaking activities so as to make the materials more suitable for the students’ level and to build up a sense of selfconfidence when speaking Gradually, students will be able to explore materials independently without the teachers’ guidance 3.4 Improving Teachers’ Professional Knowledge, Teaching Methodology and Responsibilities From the findings in the previous chapter, it is undeniable that teachers of English who are teaching speaking to the 2nd year non-major English students should be trained further in terms of CLT knowledge and teaching methodology as well as they should increase responsibilities for their teaching 3.4.1 Improving Teachers’ Professional Knowledge As mentioned above, teachers’ misconception about applying the CLT in teaching English speaking often leads to the thought that they not understand deeply about the CLT In fact, the CLT does not exclude the teaching of grammar (Thomson, 1996) because grammar is the central part of the language and also “the support system of communication, [which] we learn to communicate better” (Alexander, 1990) Besides that misunderstanding of the CLT, the teachers also believe that the CLT means only teach speaking skill not other skills or focuses only on meaningful tasks rather than on the language itself In order to minimize those misconceptions the English Department at HaUI should offer the teachers of English especially the young and new teachers a further training course about CLT and CLT application in teaching speaking By 46 doing so, the teachers will not feel CLT an ineffective approach and they no longer use the traditional method but modern one to teach English speaking 3.4.2 Improving Teachers’ Teaching Methodology To meet the objectives of the course, the requirements of the students’ future jobs and the needs of the society, the teachers must be aware of the students’ purposes to study English Teachers should consider the speaking activities in the course books to see whether they are appropriate with the language knowledge and circumstances of Vietnamese students so as to make some adjustment or changes that can enhance students’ speaking ability For example, the exercise is talking about the tradition of the Halloween Festival, students will find hard to speak because they have no background knowledge about it Thus, for such a situation teachers should introduce this festival to students and make comparison between that in the USA with the Midautumn Festival in Vietnam The lesson may continue with either discussing the similarities and differences between these festivals or only discussing the tradition of Mid-autumn Festival in Vietnam In addition, teachers should try to find the best way to deal with the problems affecting the students’ speaking ability such as being afraid of losing face in front of other people if they speak something wrong, being afraid of being judged or commented by the classmates, and their anxiety when speaking in public, etc Students can put a new twist on Mark Twain’s quip that “it is better to keep your mouth closed and have others think you are ignorant than to open it and remove all doubt” Teachers play crucial factors in dealing with this problem to enhance students to speak For example, they should create a non-threatening speaking environment by making students feel more relaxed, free and flexible to express their own opinions with their peers 3.4.3 Increasing Teachers’ Responsibilities As mentioned in section 2.1.3 chapter part two, many teachers belonging to English Group are really new and young, and they teach English at this university as their part time jobs These teachers only go to university to teach students English but not spend time observing the lessons by experienced teachers Despite this fact, the English Department does not give them any further training to make them more suitable in a new teaching environment It is advisable for the English Department to ask these teachers to obverse the class of more experienced teachers so as to learn from their good teaching methodology Moreover, the leader of Group should 47 regularly have class observation of these teachers to improve their teaching method Also, it is better for both part time and full time teachers in Group to work together to share and exchange their teaching experience with each other Teachers can share and discuss their lesson plans to find the best activities and to choose the most appropriate supplementary materials for their students’ English level What is more, they can cooperate to prepare necessary visual aids and design exercises for further practice for a successful English lesson As well, the English Group can organize an English teaching contest each month for all teachers to share their English teaching experience In short, with the above ideas I think both the part time and full time teachers will devote more time to prepare well for the lessons before the class 3.5 Summary To conclude, this chapter has dealt with suggestions to improve the teaching and learning to speak English to the 2nd year non-major English students A number of recommendations such as improving teachers’ classroom techniques, training the students to become efficient speakers, developing speaking materials, and improving teachers’ CLT knowledge, teaching methodology and responsibilities have been discussed 48 PART THREE – CONCLUSION I Summary of the study The importance of speaking for non-major English students is undeniable It is obvious that both teachers and students often encounter difficulties when dealing with English speaking To better the situation, the study has presented some useful techniques for improving teaching and learning to speak English By reviewing the relevant literature on speaking, it is of great importance for the teachers to deeply understand the nature of speaking, approaches of speaking skills The literature review also provides the concept of CLT, its classification, necessary conditions to apply CLT such as materials and teachers, factors affect CLT application in speaking lessons This chapter mentions the motivation and its classification which is considered as one of the students’ problems In order to find out the problems in teaching and learning English speaking to the nonmajor students, a survey was carried out with the participation of 15 teachers of English and 110 2nd year non-major English students at Hanoi University of Industry to examine their attitudes towards speaking skill, English speaking materials, their speaking difficulties, their learning styles and the teachers’ and students’ preferable activities in a speaking lesson From the results of the study, it can be clearly shown that the teaching and learning English speaking is still far from satisfactory The students are not equipped with necessary speaking skills or strategies to become successful English speakers Moreover, the present course books are claimed to be difficult and not very interesting to the teachers and students Additionally, inefficient teaching method is considered to be another problem The thesis comes up with several suggestions for both teaching and learning to speak English These include ways to make English speaking more interesting and useful, to train students to become efficient speakers, to develop speaking materials, to train teachers in terms of CLT background knowledge, teaching methodology and their teaching responsibilities The teachers should take into consideration such things as the speaking materials, learning strategies, learning conditions, speaking activities and students’ preferences It is true that there are no perfect textbooks Success, therefore, depends largely on the degree of flexibility and adaptability of the individual teacher in working with the textbooks and other selected supplementary materials which are accessible to achieve the expected teaching objectives 49 It is hoped that the study will make a significant contribution to better the current situation of teaching and learning English speaking to the nd year non-major English students Great as efforts have been, certain errors are inevitable The researcher would appreciate every speaker’s comments and tolerance for the shortcomings and deficiencies of the study II Limitations and suggestions for further research As a matter of fact, nothing is perfect and limitations are unavoidable The study presented in this thesis is of no exception Firstly, the author’s practical experience in teaching to speak English for non-major students and the knowledge of the subject matter are limited, therefore, the suggestions in the last chapter are likely to be subjective and incomplete, leaving the issue open for debate Secondly, due to the time constraint and the limited knowledge of the writer, the study cannot deal with other factors affecting the speaking process such as the speakers’ language aptitude, their ages, motivation, personal feelings, personalities etc These call for further research Finally, the study merely focuses on the teachers’ and students’ attitudes and their problems in teaching and learning English speaking Further research on teaching and learning other skills seem to be of great usefulness Also, series of exercises for practicing vocabulary and language skills including speaking should be designed to supplement the present speaking materials ... four language skills that acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication (Le Van Canh, 2004) - The goal of CLT is to create a realistic context for language acquisition in the classroom... claims that language that is meaningful to the learners supports the learning process (Le Van Canh, 2004) - In communicative classes, learners communicate with each other and learning tasks are... for years and others have never learnt English but French Students from big cities like Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Nam Dinh seem better However, they are only good at grammar, not speaking They can grammatical