MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY Lê Thị H¬ng THE MAJOR FACTORS AFFECTING SPEAKING SKILL OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TIONS TO IMPROVE THEIR COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến kỹ nói sinh viên năm chuyên ngành tiếng anh đại học Vinh số biên pháp tăng khả giao tiếp Master Thesis in Education Vinh, 2011 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY Lê Thị Hơng THE MAJOR FACTORS AFFECTING SPEAKING SKILL OF FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT VINH UNIVERSITY AND SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TIONS TO IMPROVE THEIR COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến kỹ nói sinh viên năm chuyên ngành tiếng anh đại học Vinh số biên pháp tăng khả giao tiếp Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 60.14.10 Master thesis in Education Supervisor: ngô hữu hoàng Vinh, 2011 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not complete my assignment without the great help and useful advice from my teacher, my family as well as my friends Firstly, I would like to express my great thanks to y supervisor, Doctor Ngo Huu Hoang for his enthusiastic help and expert advice Secondly, I would like to express my deep thanks to all the teachers in Foreign Language Department of Vinh University for giving me helpful lectures that can be considered very good source of background knowledge to support my ideas My thanks also go to my family as well as my classmates who have enthusiastically helped and encouraged me during the time I conducted this work To everyone, thank you very much Vinh, June 2011 Le Thi Huong ABSTRACT This thesis is written on the topic: The major factors affecting speaking skill the first year English major students at Vinh University and some suggested solutions to improve their communicative competence The paper is divided into five main chapters: Chapter is the general introduction of the thesis In this chapter, the information about the aims, scopes and the research methods of the study are mentioned The second chapter is named Theoretical background In this chapter, the theory basement of the study is given and developed Chapter is named Research Methodologies This chapter is about all the methods that are used to conduct this paper The fourth chapter is the analysis of the data from the survey conducted by the objects of the paper In this chapter, the author works on the statistics collected from the survey and put it into evaluations The last chapter is recommendations and conclusion In this chapter, the author gives some suggested solutions to improve students’ communicative competence Besides, she also gives the conclusion and suggests the further researches LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Communication strategies based on Faerch and Kasper’ classification (1983) Figure 2: Learning strategies based on Wedden and Rubin’s classification (1987) Figure 3: Students’ personalities Table 2: Students’ strategies to speak English Table 3: Students’ opinions about speaking topics Table 4: Students’ favorite topics Table 5: Students’ difficulty in creating sentences Table 6: Students’ listening comprehension Table 70: Students’ opinion about teachers’ teaching methods Table 81: Teachers’ teaching methods in pre-speaking phase Table 92: Teachers’ methods in speaking practice phase Table 10: Students’ motivation to learn English Table 11: Students’ recognition about the role of the target language Table 12: Students’ recognition about the role of English Table 13: Students’ interest in learning English Table 14: Students’ interest in speaking English Table 15: Students’ feelings when speaking English ABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Problem statement…………………………………… 1.1 Rationale of the study ……………………………………… .7 1.2 Aims of the thesis……………………………………………… 1.3 Scope of the study………………………………………… 1.4 Research questions……………………………………………… .9 Structure of the thesis………………………………………………… CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Skills …………………………………………………………… .10 2.1.1 Skills definition…………………………… ………………… .11 2.1.2 Speaking skill…………………………………………………… 12 2.1.2.1 Characteristics of speaking skill……………………………… 14 2.1.2.2 Micro skills……………………………………………………………….15 2.1.2.3 Learning speaking skill………………………………………… ……….15 2.1.2.4 Teaching speaking skill………………………………………….……….16 2.2 Strategies………………………………………………………… ………… 17 2.2.1 Definition……………………………………………………………………18 2.2.2 Learning strategies………………………………………………………… 20 2.2.3 Communication strategies……………………………………… ………….21 2.2.3.1 Avoidance strategies …………………………………………………… 23 2.2.3.1.1 Phonological avoidance…………………………………………………24 2.2.3.1.2 Morphological strategies……………………………….……………….26 2.2.3.1.3 Syntactic avoidance…………………………………………………… 27 2.2.3.1.4 Lexical avoidance……………………………………….………………28 2.2.3.1.5 Topic avoidance……………………………………………… ……… 29 2.2.3.1.6 Message abandonment…………………………………… …….…… 30 2.2.3.1.7 Meaning replacement…………………………………………….…… 31 2.2.3.2 Compensatory strategies…………………………………….………… 32 2.2.3.2.1 Code switching…………………………………………….….… …….33 2.2.3.2.2 Intralingua transfer……………………………………….….… …….34 2.2.3.2.2.1 Paraphrasing/ Circumlocution…………………….……….……… 35 2.2.3.2.2.2 Generalization………………………………………….….……… 37 2.2.3.2.2.3 Word coinage………………………………………….… ……… 38 2.2.3.2.2.4 Restructing…………………………………………….…….…… 39 2.2.3.2.2.5 Non-linguistic strategies……………………………………….…… 40 2.3 Communicative competence…………………………………………… … 41 2.3.1 Communicative competence…………………………………………… … 42 2.3.2 Components of communicative competence………………… …… …… 43 2.3.2.1 Grammatical competence…………………………………… … …… 45 2.3.2.2 Social linguistic competence…………………………………….….……46 2.3.2.3 Strategic competence…………………………………………… .47 2.3.2.4 Discourse competence…………………………………………… .48 CHAPTER 3: METHODS OF THE STUDY 3.1 Questionnaires…………………………………………………… .50 3.2 Observation …………………………………………………………… 51 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Overview of the survey…………………………………… … 52 4.1.1 Aims of the survey………………………………… 53 4.1.2 Informant and settings……………………………………… 54 4.2 Description of questionnaires……………………………… 55 4.3 Results and discussion……………………………………… .57 4.3.1 Objective factors……………………………………… 59 4.3.1.1 Age ……………………………………………………60 4.3.1.2 Gender………………………………………… 60 4.3.1.3 Speaking strategies……………………………… 62 4.3.1.4 Speaking topic…………………………… 63 4.3.1.5 Language knowledge……………………… 64 4.3.1.6 Listening comprehension…………………………… 65 4.3.1.7 Teachers’ teaching methods………………… .65 4.3.2 Subjective factors……………………………… 66 4.3.2.1 Motivation…………………………………… 66 4.3.2.2 Interest……………………………………… .67 4.3.2.3 Self-confidence…………………………… 68 4.3.2.4 Personality……………………………………… 69 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Teaching Implications……………………………… 70 5.1.1 Preparing lesson plan…………………… 71 5.1.2.1 Suitable topics…………………………… 71 5.1.2.2 Audio aids……………………………………… 73 5.1.2.3 Listening in motion…………………………… 74 5.1.2.3 Repeating hard work……………………………………… 74 5.1.2.4 Supplying students with speaking strategies…… 75 10 Playing card as it name sounds, it is a relaxing activity however, very effective in teaching speaking In this game, students should form some groups of four people Each suit will represent a topic For instance: - Heart: Love -Diamond: Money - Spades: Friends - Clubs: Career Each of the group members will choose a card then each student will write about four or five sentences about their topic to ask the other people in the group For example: Student with the card of heart may ask: ← - Can you give a simple definition of love? ← - Do you believe in love at the first sight? Why? ← - What should people to forget a person? Etc ← Or the student with the card of diamond may ask: ← - Is money important in our life? Why? ← - What is the easiest way to earn money? ← - What you think about lottery? Etc Teachers should notice students that they should not ask too many yes/no questions as they not require others to give much information so that they can not practice speaking skill much Open questions should be made to exploit students’ speaking as much as possible This activity is very interesting to the students because most of the students taking part in the game are given a chance to choose their card corresponding to the topic they like Thus, they will be satisfied with the topic they are talking about and that is the reason why many students are longing for doing this activity in the class Teachers who teach oral language had better to consider this activity one of the regular ones in speaking class 5.1.3.11 Using Pictures 82 Picture is a useful visual aid to teach students so that there may be different activities with the pictures to teach speaking Using pictures to teach speaking can bee seen an effective ways especially for those who are visual learners Among them, the most used activity is picture description Teachers may ask students to look at a given picture to describe it The pictures should be clear enough and there should not be too many people to help students find the main character(s) easily Teachers will prepare a picture and then give students some minutes to observe it Then teachers ask them to describe them according to their ideas For example, students are asked to describe this picture: This activity is designed to increase students’ imagination and ability to present in front of the audience And from this activity that is based on this is picture narrating Picture narrating is the activity in which students are asked to observe a series of pictures and then required to base on the ideas of each picture to tell a complete story Teachers should prepare some pictures that have the relationships together Then teachers can ask the students to retell the story based on the given sequential pictures These pictures may be in fixed order or students may rearrange them to create new content due to their imagination For example, teachers may ask the students to tell a story about the 83 character named Peter in these pictures, the pictures are put in the order of time, students can based on to tell the story: This activity helps students create the logicality of the ideas This is an important factor to help them speak better Besides, teachers can supply students with linking words to connect the ideas of the story 84 Another activity designed with pictures is finding differences Teachers can give students some pairs of pictures that contain some small differences and students’ task is to quickly find the differences and then talk to other people in the class their findings The pictures should be given in the order from the simple pictures to more complicated ones For example, finding the differences between these pairs of pictures: This pair is rather simple However, it is more difficult to find the differences in the following pair: The activities used pictures are welcomed by the students as they like watching pictures no matter how old they are However, these activities are especially effective to the young students Watching pictures can be the relaxing time for the students 85 Teacher should care about when and how to carry out these pictures to make use of the technique 5.1.2 Giving feedbacks and correcting In teaching speaking class, giving feedbacks and correcting are very important because they directly affect students’ attitude while they are speaking Thus, how to give the feedbacks and correct students’ mistakes is an issue that many teachers should care about These are some suggestions to give feedbacks effectively to the students according to Hayriye Kayi (Nevada, USA): First, teachers should always marks the positive signs to give feedbacks to the students Teachers may say things like “Your presentation was really great It was a good job I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use of your voice…" or something like that to start the feedbacks Praising before commenting is a good way to save students’ face in front of the class Especially for the students at university, they have the needs to be respected so that if they are directly criticized in the class, they will not be willing to talk in the class for the next times Besides, while students are speaking, teachers should not interrupt them to correct their mistakes in pronunciation; otherwise their wrong pronunciation causes difficulty to other students to understand the ideas because interrupting may distract students from the talk They may forget the ideas they are about to talk Furthermore, teachers should give students help to express their ideas while they are pausing to find the way to express For example, “Yesterday, I saw a man, he is tall er tall er very tall er two times .er tall .uhm ”, teachers should give him support after a short pause letting him brainstorm, if he still gets stuck, teacher can help him: “He is twice as tall as .” And the student can remember the structure to express his ideas Supporting at the right moment is a technique that teachers can learn from the reality of teaching speaking Correcting can be given to students not only when they are presenting but also when they are carrying out the task While students are implementing the task, teachers 86 may go round the class to check if they are on the right track or if they need any assistance or to correct some mistakes Teacher may also diagnose some problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing themselves in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice the spoken language If the teachers respect these techniques in the speaking class, it will give positive results to the students’ speaking skill 5.2 Recapitulation As people already knew, teaching speaking is a very important part of language learning because the ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of the learner not only in school but also the success later in every phase of life Thus, it is essential that language teachers hold pay a great deal of attention to teach speaking skill It is better if teachers provide students with a rich environment where meaningful communication takes place than giving students just pure memorization There is no doubt that English has become an international language and play an essential role in communication Considering its importance, English teaching and learning have recently gained mush consideration Among the four skills, speaking has been received a great deal of consideration of the scholars Although not much of research is in fact conducted to prove the relationship between the factors affecting speaking skill and the communicative competence, it can not be denied that students can improve their ability to communicate if their teachers adapt appropriate activities satisfying the factors affecting their speaking skill In addition, the study focuses on the actual situation of speaking learning fact of the first year students at Vinh University By doing this thesis, the author’s main purpose is to investigate the factors affecting students’ speaking skill on which she is based to suggest the recommendations to improve students’ communicative competence However, because of the limitation of time and the author’s knowledge, this study can not cover all the aspects of relating matter Besides, this research has been 87 done within the author’s limited understanding, there may be unavoidably the mistakes, it would be a pleasure to receive the recommendations from the readers By doing this research, the author hopes that her findings will be a useful material for those who are interesting in teaching and learning speaking skill and have intention to study how to improve learners’ communicative competence 5.3 Suggestions for further researches Due to the scope of the graduation thesis and the limitation of the author’s knowledge as well as experiences, she can not cover all the aspects of the matter in this study Within this work, the author only focuses on dealing with the factors affecting speaking skill of the first year students at Vinh University Besides, she tries to find out some helpful solutions to make the speaking class more effective and interesting with the final purpose of enhancing students’ communicative competence However, this paper can be developing to work on the factors affecting speaking skill of not only first year students at Vinh University but also students at any school This is a promising topic as speaking skill is newly cared by the learners as well as researchers in the time of practical language to communicate After all, the author is hopeful that this study can be the basis for the people who pay attention on communicative skill to enlarge and deepen to make it more adequate She recommends that future studies about the topic relating to students’ oral skill will be carried out and other authors will give more and more pedagogical recommendations to help their student communicate better in target language 88 REFERENCES Yule, G, Tarone, E (1999) Focus on the Language Learners Oxford: OUP Chandrasegaran, A (1981) Problems of Learning Language as a Second Language Singapore: Singapore University press Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching Cambridge: CUP Mc Dounough, S H (1995) Strategy and Skill in Learning a Foreign Language Britol: JW Arrowsmith Ltd Bygate, Martin (1987) Speaking Oxford: OUP Jack C, Richard Teaching Speaking Theory and Methodology Grace Stovall Burkart Spoken Language: What is it and How to Teach It Washington DC Center for Applied Linguistics 1998 Thao Le (2005) Falcuty of Education University of Tasmania Australia Nisbet, John & Shuck Smith Janet (1986) Learning Stratergies London: Routledge & Kegan Paul PLC 10 Weden, Anita & Rubin, Joan (1987) Leaner Strategies in Language Learning Cambridge: Prentice Hall International 11 Faerch, G and Kasper, G (1986) Strategies Competence in Foreign Language Teaching Archus University: Archus University press 12 Oxford, R (1990) Language Strategies: What Every teacher should know New York: New Burry 13 Wardaugh, R (1998) An Introduction to Social Linguistics Massachusetts: Blackwell Publisher Ltd 3rd Edition 89 14 Canale, M And Swain, M (1980) Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing 15 Hymes, D H (1966) Two Types of Linguistic Relativity In W Bright (ed) Social Linguistics The Hague: Mouton 16 Chomsky, N (1965) Aspect of the Theory of Syntax Cambridge MA: MIT Press 17 Channey, A L And T L Burk (1998) Teaching Oral Communication in Grades K-8 Boston: Allyn & Bacon 18 Harmer, J (1984) The Practice of English Language Teaching London: Longman 19 Mc Dounough, J And C, Shaw (2003) Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teacher’s Guide Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell 20 Brumfit, C J And Johnson K (1985) The Communicative Approach to Language Teaching Oxford: OUP 21 English Language Institute (1990) Language Teaching techniques Wellington: Victoria University 90 APPENDIX Questionnaires This survey questionnaire is designed for the research into “The factors affecting speaking skill of first year English major students at Vinh University and some suggested solutions to improve their communicative competence” Your cooperation in answering the following questions is highly appreciated This is for the purpose of studying only and you can be sure that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Do you have your own strategies to speak English better? a Yes b No How you think about the speaking topics that your teacher gives to you? a Very interesting b Not very interesting c Boring What types of topic you like the most? a Romantic b Political c Social d Others (please specify) 91 How many years have you been learning English? Is it difficult for you to create grammatical sentences when you are involving in a conversation? a Yes b No When you are having a conversation, you understand your partners’ ideas a Understand easily although they sometimes express inappropriately b Sometimes it is difficult to see what they mean if they can not make it clear c Usually get troubles with understanding their ideas Are you satisfied with the teacher’s teaching methods in speaking class? a Yes b No Which of the following activities does your teacher often provide you at the prespeaking phase? a No activities b Teaching vocabulary c Providing brief introduction to the specific skill d Giving guiding questions e Asking you to perform a particular task relating to the skill introduced How your teachers teach you after introducing you to the lesson? 92 a Getting you as many activities as possible b Activities combining games c Reading the conversations in the handout and then role playing 10 Do you have any special motivation to learn English? a Yes b No 11 Do you think that English is important? a Very important b Important c Not Important 12 What you think about speaking skill? a It is very important to find a good job b It is not very important, it is only a skill of four c I learn the skill just as it in included in the curriculum 13 Do you like learning English? a Yes b No 14 Do you like speaking English? a Yes b No 93 15 Do you feel comfortable when you are speaking English? a I am really comfortable, I can express whatever I want in English b I am comfortable but sometimes I find it difficult to express my ideas c I not very comfortable however I still can control my speaking d I often find it hard to express my ideas because I am afraid of being wrong 16 How you describe your personality? a Talkative e Self-esteemed b Conservative f Socialable c Reserved g Shy d Sensitive h active 17 Which factors are important to help you speak English well? (rank – 12 from most to least important one) a Motivation f Your language knowledge b Teacher’s methods g Self confidence c Age h Speaking strategies d Gender i Listening comprehension e Interest e Speaking topics 18 To improve your speaking skill, you have any suggestions? Thank you very much! 94 ... first stage To some extend, I try to conduct the study entitled ? ?The factors affecting speaking skill of first year students at Vinh University and some suggested solutions to improve their speaking. .. investigate the factors affecting speaking skill of the first year students at Vinh University To investigate the working mechanism of these factors on the students through which the implications... questions are generated: • What factors affect speaking skills of first year students at Vinh University? • What strategies should be used to improve their speaking skill? • What are the solutions