VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES LƯƠNG THỊ HẢI HÀ DESIGNING A SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING MATERIAL FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT TUYEN QUANG COLLEGE (Thiết kế giáo trình bổ trợ dạy kĩ nói cho sinh viên không chuyên Anh năm thứ trường Cao đẳng Tuyên Quang) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.140.111 Hanoi, 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES LƯƠNG THỊ HẢI HÀ DESIGNING A SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING MATERIAL FOR THE FIRST YEAR NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT TUYEN QUANG COLLEGE (Thiết kế giáo trình bổ trợ dạy kĩ nói cho sinh viên khơng chun Anh năm thứ trường Cao đẳng Tuyên Quang) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.140.111 Supervisor : Dr Dương Thị Nụ Hanoi, 2015 DECLARATION My name’s Lương Thị Hải Hà, I hereby certify that my M.A thesis entitled “Designing a supplementary speaking material for the first year non-English major students at Tuyen Quang College” is the result of my own research in the fulfillment of the requirement for Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies – University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi I commit that this thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any degree Hanoi, 2015 Lương Thị Hải Hà i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Dương Thị Nụ, for her invaluable inspiration, assistance, guidance and encouragement during the time I have tried to complete this thesis She has been willing to give help and advice whenever I expect I wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to all lectures and the staff of Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their interesting and helpful lectures and suggestions for the topic of my study I am in debt of many authors’ works and ideas, which enhance me to complete my study with sharp evidences My thanks also go to my colleagues and the first year students of Nursery and Primary Faculty at Tuyen Quang College, who participated in doing the survey and responding to my interviews Last but not least, I wish to express my appreciation to my family, my beloved husband, my son for their constant encouragement, sympathy and supporting ii ABSTRACT This minor thesis was conducted in an attempt to investigate the gaps between the speaking tasks offered in the course book “Lifelines” (Pre-intermediate) and the non-English major students’ demand at Tuyen Quang College, in the hope of designing a suitable supplementary material to teach speaking skills to suit students’ level In the study, two instruments (survey questionnaires and interviews) were employed to achieve the purposes of the study The subjects involved in this study were 100 students, coming from Nursery and Primary Department They were invited to participate in the survey questionnaires Besides, five teachers of English agreed to join the study to support the researcher better her research It can be said that the course book “Lifelines” (Pre- intermediate) by Tom Hutchinson (2006) does not really meet the students’ needs Although the speaking topics are familiar to students, there are not various types of speaking activities Moreover, the course book does not supply enough vocabulary items and grammatical structures related to the speaking topics Based on the findings, the students prefer to have a supplement speaking material which provides them with further practice in vocabulary, grammar as well as speaking Therefore, it is necessary to design a supplementary speaking material to suit students’ level It is said that this supplementary speaking material can supply more language knowledge for the students and it can be a useful material for them to study speaking skills better iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims and objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 An overview of speaking 1.1.1 Definition of speaking 1.1.2 Principles for teaching speaking skills 1.1.3 The techniques in teaching speaking skills 1.1.3.1 Pair work 1.1.3.2 Group work 1.1.4 Some common activities to promote speaking skills 1.1.4.1 Information gap activity 1.1.4.2 Interviews 1.1.4.3 Role play 1.1.4.4 Discussion 1.2 Materials evaluation iv 1.2.1 Definition of materials evaluation and its criteria 1.2.2 Materials adaptation 1.3 Supplementary materials for teaching speaking skills 10 1.3.1 Definition of supplementary materials 10 1.3.2 Goals of supplementary materials 10 1.3.3 Forms and process of supplementary materials 11 1.3.4 Review of previous studies related to supplementary materials 12 1.4 Summary 13 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 14 2.1 The research context 14 2.1.1 Description of the English teaching and learning situation at TQC 14 2.1.2 The first year students 14 2.1.3 The teachers 15 2.2 Methodology 15 2.2.1 Subjects of the study 15 2.2.2 Research methods 16 2.2.3 Instruments of data collection 16 2.2.4 Procedure of data collection 17 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 18 3.1 The evaluation of the speaking activities offered in the course book 18 3.2 Data analysis on survey questionnaires 18 3.2.1 The students’ background and attitudes of English learning 18 3.2.2 The evaluation of the speaking activities in the course book by teachers and students 21 v 3.2.3 Students’ needs when learning speaking skills 25 3.3 Data analysis on interviews 30 3.4 Summary 30 CHAPTER 4: A PROPOSED SAMPLE OF SUPPLEMENTARY SPEAKING MATERIAL 32 4.1 Supplementary speaking material for unit 32 4.2 Supplementary speaking material for unit 34 4.3 Supplementary speaking material for unit 35 4.4 Supplementary speaking material for unit 36 4.5 Supplementary speaking material for unit 37 4.6 Summary 38 PART C: CONCLUSION 39 5.1 Conclusions 39 5.2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I vi PART A: INTRODUCTION In this part A, the researcher will introduce the rationale, the aims, the research question, the scope, the method and the design of the study Rationale As an international language, English plays an important role in society It is broadly used in many different fields of life such as science, technology, medicine, economy, education, so forth With the wide spread of globalization and the rapid expansion of information technologies, there has been an explosion in the demand for English That is the reason why teaching and learning English has been paid more attention to recently in Vietnam There has been an increasing number of people desiring to know English and master English with different purposes and a large percentage of the purpose of language learners studying English is to develop proficiency in speaking Richards (2008:19) points out that “of four major language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing; the mastery of speaking skill in English is a priority for many second - language or foreign language learners.” Consequently, the success of learners in language learning is often evaluated on the improvement in their spoken language proficiency In fact, there are many speaking course books to cater teachers and learners in their teaching and learning speaking skills At Foreign Language Faculty (FLF) of Tuyen Quang College (TQC), the course book “Lifelines” (Pre-intermediate) by Tom Hutchinson (2006) has been recommended and used as a core one to teach speaking skills to the first year non-English major students because it is supposed to be a rather reliable source to enhance students’ speaking ability However, this course book is not really suitable for the first year students The ineffectiveness of this course book has caused some considerable problems In the teaching process, some teachers at FLF complain about spending much time compiling and adapting materials in order to meet their students’ needs and make the speaking lessons more interesting and motivating Although the topics of speaking lessons are familiar to students, there are a few activities which make the speaking lessons boring Moreover, almost speaking lessons not supply enough vocabulary items and grammatical structures to students It is the problem that makes students feel less confident when learning speaking skills Therefore, it is necessary to design a supplementary speaking material in order to provide enough adequacies in terms of speaking activities to help them speak English better Hopefully, with a supplementary speaking material, the gaps between the course book and the students’ needs can be narrowed down The above reasons have urged the author to conduct a study entitled “Designing a supplementary speaking material for the first year non-English major students at Tuyen Quang College” Aims and objectives of the study The study was carried out with the aim to propose an additional speaking material in the speaking sections of the course book “Lifelines” (Pre- intermediate) in the hope of satisfying the students’ demand and helping them improve their speaking ability In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, the main objectives in carrying out this study are as follows: + To describe characteristics of non-English major students at Tuyen Quang College in terms of English speaking competence in order to investigate their difficulties, demand and preferences + To find out the inadequacies in terms of speaking activities in the course book “Lifelines” (Pre- intermediate) compared to the students’ needs + To propose a sample of supplementary speaking material that may help improve students’ speaking skills Research questions The study includes two major research questions: ... improve their skills in the process of learning a foreign language 1.2.2 Materials adaptation It is said that materials adaptation has a close relationship with materials evaluation and it has the. .. FIRST YEAR NON – ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT TUYEN QUANG COLLEGE (Thiết kế giáo trình bổ trợ dạy kĩ nói cho sinh viên không chuyên Anh năm thứ trường Cao đẳng Tuyên Quang) M .A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS... be said that materials adaptation is an important task in the teaching process with the hope of maximizing the appropriateness of the materials 1.3 Supplementary materials for teaching speaking