Vietnam National University, HaNoi university of Languages and International Studies faculty of Post-Graduate Studies o0o NGUYỄN HỒNG HẠNH ENHANCING INPUT TO IMPROVE HANOI COLLEGE OF ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRO-REFRIGERATORY TECHNICS NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE Tăng cường kiến thức đầu vào để cải thiện kỹ nói cho sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh trường Cao đẳng Điện tử - Điện lạnh Hà Nội M.A Minor Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 601410 HANOI - 2010 Vietnam National University, HaNoi university of Languages and International Studies faculty of Post-Graduate Studies o0o NGUYỄN HỒNG HẠNH ENHANCING INPUT TO IMPROVE HANOI COLLEGE OF ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRO-REFRIGERATORY TECHNICS NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE Tăng cường kiến thức đầu vào để cải thiện kỹ nói cho sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh trường Cao đẳng Điện tử - Điện lạnh Hà Nội M.A Minor Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 601410 Supervisor : Đỗ B¸ Quý, Med HANOI - 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration Page Acknowledgements Abstract Table of contents List of tables PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale 1 Aims of the study Scope of the study Research questions Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter1: Literature Review 1.1 Communicative competence and oral communication 1.1.1 Popular views of communicative competence 1.1.2 Oral communication 1.2 The nature of speaking 1.2.1 Definition of speaking 1.2.2 The importance of speaking skill in the classroom 1.3 Some problems in speaking performance 1.4 Comprehensible input 1.4.1 What is input? 1.4.2 The role of input 1.4.3 What is comprehensible input? 1.5 Research into enhancing input through giving extensive readings and enriching vocabulary to improve speaking performance 12 1.5.1 Definition of extensive reading 12 1.5.2 Role of extensive reading 13 1.5.3 Definition of vocabulary 14 1.5.4 The place of vocabulary in foreign language teaching and Learning 14 1.6 Summary 15 Chapter 2: Methods of the study 16 2.1 Research questions 16 2.2 The context of the study 16 2.3 The participants 17 2.4 The syllabus 17 2.5 The data collection instruments 18 2.6 Data collection procedures 18 2.7 Summary 19 Chapter 3: Data, Data analysis and Discussion 20 3.1 Pre – input enhancement questionnaire 20 3.1.1 The students’ opinion on speaking skill 20 3.1.2 The students’ difficulties in speaking performance 22 3.1.3 The students’ desires to improve their speaking skill 24 3.2 Post–input enhancement questionnaire 25 3.3 Summary of the findings 30 PART C: CONCLUSION 31 Conclusion 32 Limitations and suggestions for further study 32 References Appendixes LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students’ opinion about speaking skill Table 2: Students’ difficulties in speaking performance Table 3: Students’ expectation for what to be done to improve their speaking skill Table 4: Students’ opinions about the activities intented to improve their vocabulary Table 5: Students’ opinions about extensive readings Table 6: Students’ assessment of the activities and extensive readings’ effectiveness Figure 1: Krashen’s combined model of acquisition and production PART A: INTRODUCTION This part presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods, research questions and design of the study Rationale of the study It is undeniable that English is considered as a means of international communication People with good English proficiency are extremely needed in many various fields such as economics, politics, science, tourism and so on Moreover, English is also a key to access the last achievement of science and technology which are very important and necessary for a developing country like Vietnam As a result, there has been increasing demand for English language teaching and learning across the country People learn English with many different purposes as meeting the growing requirements for communication in the society, finding a good job, achieving better position at work, or serving desire of studying or working aboard It is widely accepted that one of the main purposes of studying English is to use it for communications According to Don Xiao Hong (1994:31) speaking is ―one of the most necessary language skills for displaying their language proficiency‖ Be an English teacher, I think that speaking should be paid attention to in the process of teaching and learning However, it is a common issue at my college that the students rarely speak English, even in English classes, although they have been learning English since they started at the lower secondary school They often stand up without speaking any words or they have to think for a long time about what they intend to say when they required to talk in English The main causes of the Hanoi College of Electronics and Electro–Refrigeratory Technics students’ low speaking performance in particular and the non–English major students’ low speaking performance in background knowledge With the main causes above, as a teacher at a college of technics, within my minor thesis, I would like to investigate enhancing input that are enriching their vocabulary and giving extensive readings for broadening background knowledge to improve speaking performance I hope that enhancing input will help the students overcome their difficulties in the process of speaking This has given me the impetus to carry out the study of ―Enhancing Input to Improve Hanoi College of Electronics and Electro–Refrigeratory Technics Non-English Major Students’ Speaking Performance‖ Aims of the study The study is aimed at: - Identifying the factors affecting the non-English major students’ speaking performance; - Investigating how input enhanced in terms of vocabulary and knowledge of the world affects the students’ speaking performance; - Making some suggestions for the teachers at Hanoi College of Electronics and Electro– Refrigeratory Technics to help the students improve their speaking performance Scope of the study Concerning the scope of the study, the following are to be taken into consideration First, the subjects of the study are the first-year students at Hanoi College of Electronics and Electro–Refrigeratory Technics They all have basic English knowledge and skills Second, the study only focuses on enhancing input to improve the students’ speaking performance Finally, as the time allowed for the study is limited, it concentrates only on identifying the effects of input enhanced in terms of vocabulary and knowledge of the world through collaborative activities and extensive reading on the students’ speaking performance Research questions of the study The two main research questions corresponding to the two major aims are: (1) What are the factors affecting the students’ speaking performance? (2) How does the enhanced input improve the students’ speaking performance? Methods of the study The study was carried out on the basis of relevant document analysis, material collection and survey questionnaire The data collected for the study came from the first year non–English major students at Hanoi College of Electronics and Electro– Refrigeratory Technics For the practical basis, survey research is chosen with questionnaire and interview with the first year non–English major students at the college All comments, remarks, conclusions and recommendations provided in the study were based on the data analysis 10 Design of the study The minor thesis consists of three parts: The first part is an introduction to the thesis which presents the factors as plan of the study such as the rationale, aims, scope, methods, research questions and design of the study The second part presents a theoretical background, research methods, presentation of the data, data analysis and discussions The final part focuses on the conclusions of the study, its limitations, recommendations and suggestions for further study 11 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW As any study should be based on certain theories, the following is a review of relevant-to-the-aims-of-the-study literature to form the theoretical basis for the study 1.1 Communicative competence and oral communication Popular views of communicative competence It is well-known that communicative competence underlies language performance; therefore the ultimate goal of language teaching is to build and develop the learner’s communicative competence In order to this, the learner should be provided with sufficient input, comprehensible input In the history of English language teaching, communicative competence is currently considered the primary goal of language teaching Many methodologists and linguistics who work on foreign language teaching tend to define communicative competence simply as interaction in the target language as definitions of Savignon, 1983 However, others who work in ESL tend to be in favor of Hymes’ theory of communicative competence In Hymes’ theory, communicative competence includes not only the linguistic forms of the language but also its social rulers, the knowledge of when, how and to whom it is appropriate to use these forms It means that the social – cultural rules for language use are also included in the teaching process Besides, Canale and Swain (1980) consider communicative competence as the combination of five areas’ competence: rule of grammar (grammatical competence), rules of discourse (discourse competence), sociocultural rules of use, and probability rules of occurrence and communication strategies Grammatical competence Savignon (1983:37) states ―Grammatical competence is the mastery of the linguistic code, the ability to recognize the lexical, morphological, syntactic and phonological features of a language and to manipulate these features to forms, words and sentences‖ Discourse competence 49 completing the follow questions is highly appreciated All the information provided by you is of great use and solely for the study purpose Thank you very much for your cooperation! Question 1: After the six weeks of input enhancement through communicative activities and extensive reading, is your speaking proficiency improved? (Sau sáu tuần tăng cường kiến thức đầu vào thông qua hoạt động giao tiếp đọc mở rộng, lực nói em có cải thiện không?) Yes No If No, why? (Please specify) Question 2: In your opinion, how effective were the activities aimed towards improving your vocabulary? (You can circle more than one answer) (Theo ý kiến em, hoạt động đưa nhằm tăng vốn từ vựng cho em hiệu nào?) (em đưa nhiều phương án trả lời) a Not effective at all (Không hiệu quả) b Effective (Hiệu quả) c Very effective (Rất hiệu quả) 50 d Similar activities should be added (Nên có thêm nhiều hoạt động hay vậy) Question 3: In your opinion, which activity improved your vocabulary the most ? (Theo ý kiến em, số hoạt động cải thiện từ vựng đưa hoạt động cải thiện vốn từ vựng bạn nhiều nhất?) a Combining words with structures (Kết hợp từ với cấu trúc) b Doing vocabulary exercises as multipile choice, gap fills, matching (Làm tập từ vựng nhứ chọn phương án đúng, điền từ chỗ trống, nối ) c Describing pictures, naming pictures (Mô tả gọi tên vật tranh) d Playing vocabulary games (Chơi trò chơi liên quan đến từ vựng) Question 4: what you think about extensive readings? (Ý kiến em đọc thêm?) a suitable for the students’ interest and proficiency Phù hợp với lực sở thích sinh viên b unsuitable for the students’ interest and proficiency Không phù hợp với lực sở thích sinh viên Question 5: Tick where appropriate: Statement Strongl y agree Agree Strongl Disagr No y ee idea 51 disagre e Extensive reading helped you to speak about the topics in the course–book more effectively (Các đọc mở rộng giúp cho bạn nói chủ đề giáo trình hiệu hơn) Extensive readings broadened your knowledge of the world (Các đọc thêm mở mang kiến thức bạn giới) Extensive readings helped students to improve your vocabualry (Các đọc thêm giúp tăng cường vốn từ vựng bạn) Extensive readings was time and money consuming (sử dụng đọc thêm lãng phí thời gian tiền bạc) 52 Question 6: In your opinion, how is your vocabulary and knowledge of the word improved from extensive readings? (Theo ý kiến em, vốn từ vựng nhận thức vấn đề giới em cải thiện từ đọc thêm) Vocabulary Social knowledge Greatly Quite effective effective Effective Not effective 53 APPENDIX Interview questions Do you find the speaking topics represented in class, based on New Headway – Elementary boring? (Em có cảm thấy chủ đề giáo trình New Headway – Elementary tẻ nhạt không?) Which most difficulty deter you in the speaking performance? (Em cảm thấy yếu tố gây trở ngại nhiều q trình nói mình?) What you think about other factors such as grammar, pronunciation? (Vậy yếu tố ngữ pháp hay pháp âm có cản trở em q trình nói hay khơng?) Why are the activities of combining word with structures and doing vocabulary exercises also effective but less attractive to many students than using pictures and games? After six weeks’extensive reading, you think it helps you improve your speaking proficiency? And Why? (Từ sau cung cấp thêm đọc liên quan đến chủ đề nói giáo trình lớp, em có thấy lực nói cải thiện phần khơng sao?) 54 APPENDIX Activities Aims: practice oral and written pronunciation of activities they relate to Organization: group Time: 10 minutes Procedure: a Ask students to get into groups often - Each students has to say: ―I like… ‖ to teacher and then use body language to describe the activities for his/her group and other groups to guest, for example running, dancing, singing, sleeping, eating, etc… - The other students have to say what they think the student is miming - The group in which the member guest correctly will get one mark - The end of the game, the group which has higher score, will be winner b Correct the mistakes if there are any c Have the students write six sentences about what the other students in their group like doing Describing people Aims: Practice the adjective – noun combinations to describe people in the picture Organization: groups Time: 10 minutes Preparation: paper and pen Procedure: - Divide the class into small teams 55 - Assign each team a picture of a person and set a limit time - Students in each team have to discuss to find out adjectives and nouns to describe the person who is in the picture - Teacher corrects pronunciation mistakes if there are any - The team which has the more numbers of exact adjective and noun combinations wins the game Puzzle: Topic: Holiday – summer holiday Rules: - Two teams (10 members in each team) - Each team has 10 seconds to find the answers for each question - One point for a right across word, 10 points for a right down word Questions: Across: It is used to protect your eyes Special seat for the sun Two – piece swimsuit Along the sea 11 Eaten a lot in summer 12 Your skin goes brown Down: it shines a lot in summer Protects your skin Popular summer sport Children make castles with this 56 Open shoes 10 Place for swimming and water sports 57 Topic: Careers – Memory Testing Rules: - Divide the class into teams - Each team has 45 seconds to look at 10 pictures and one minute to write down the careers in the pictures on the A3 paper - One point for a correct picture Pictures: 58 (1) (2) (3) (4) 59 (5) (6) Keys: Teacher Doctor Taxi driver Worker Accountant Chef The knowledge of the world Rules: - Divide into the class into two teams - Each team has 10 seconds to choose the best answer A, B, C for each question - Two points for each correct answer Questions: You shouldn’t wear colorful or stripped tie when you meet your partner coming from……… A England B France C Africa The Malaysian don’t often ………….in the party 60 A Drink wine B Talk C pick up food and put in into the guest’s bowl In Finland, when you are invited to someone’s house you should present the hostess A flowers in even number B Flowers in odd number C either flowers in even number or odd number When you meet your partner from Japan you shouldn’t wear………… A a dark color shirt B a bright color shirt C either a dark color shirt or a bright color shirt When you meet your partner from South America, you should wear…… A a dark color shirt B a bright color shirt C either a dark color shirt or a bright color shirt In Bulgaria, a person shakes his/ her head, which means that……………… A He/ she agrees B He/ she doesn’t C she/ he is angry When you have a talk with a foreigner you shouldn’t ask………………… A his/her age B his/her income C all are correct Who invented telephone? A Thomas Edison B Kazl Benz C Alexander Graham Bell Keys A, 2.A, 3B, 4A, 5A, 6A, 7C, 8C Fill each blank with a suitable word in the box below There are two extra words 61 Think working machines by computers over Given sizes to engine can not programs People are fascinated (1)……………robots Science fiction books and movies feed people’s imagination, making them wonder about the possibilities of robots living and (2)………… with them It is possible for robots to look like people, work like people, and (3)…………like people? In the future, anything is possible Already today, there are tens of thousands of robots doing work all (4)……………the world Robot is the name (5)………… to any machine that can a certain job automatically These machines come in any shapes and (6)………… is possible to build a robot in the shape of person, but most look like machines built for specific purpose They are controlled by (7)……….The computer tell the robots what to and how to it People write (8)…………….for computers that control the robots Robots can sense the environment around them and respond (9)…………… it They can complete several steps in a process and can try other methods if one doesn’t work Ordinary machines (10)…………….do these things 62 APPENDIX Reading 1: English - The international language Aims: raising knowledge of English as the international language, enriching vocabulary Time: 15 minutes Preparation: copy extensive readings for delivering to students Procedure: Deliver extensive reading to the students and ask them to skimming it Task 1: Decide whether the following statements is true or false a We can know how many people speak English as a foreign language b English is the native or official language all over the world c English does not have many words d English grammar is simple but its spelling is difficult e Everyone wants to study English Task 2: Choose the best answer There are more than ………… languages in the world a 3,000 b six c 5,000 d 4,000 English is the native language of ………………… a South Africa b Australia c all of Canada d Malaysia England started a colony in India in the …………………… a 1600s b 1800s c 1700s d 1900s After the Second World War, ……………became very powerful a England b France c The United States English spelling is ………………… d China 63 a easy b simple c fun d difficult Reading 2: The Dump Water Aims: raising knowledge of ways of introductions, enriching vocabulary Time: 15 minutes Preparation: copy extensive readings for delivering to students Procedure: Deliver extensive reading to the students and ask them to skimming it Task1: Circle the best answer for each following sentences: Line 2: What a very sweet name! means a Your name is very nice c your name is old b your name is like a sweet d What is your name? Line 5: How nice of you to like so much means a you are my friend c It is very nice if you like me so b You are very kind to me d Aim happy much Line With pleasure means: a I am not sure c No you can’t b Yes, please d I am happy Task 2: Fill one suitable word into each blank Jackie: Please let me introduce yourself My … Is Jackie Joseph:… Jackie (moving to him and shaking hands) … to meet you …….name is…… Bensen And please call me Joseph ... intend to say when they required to talk in English The main causes of the Hanoi College of Electronics and Electro Refrigeratory Technics students low speaking performance in particular and the non English. .. Hanoi College of Electric and Electro- Refrigeratory Technics non English major students speaking performance 1.4 Comprehensible input 1.4.1 What is input? According to Tomasz P Szynalski, Input. .. input for the non major students at Hanoi College of Electronics and Electro Refrigeratory Technics improve their speaking performance In order to obtain the goal of the study, we had to follow two