ABSTRACT
Recently, due to the development of globalization, there has been increasing a
demand for good communication. It is hence, speaking has been paid lots of attention.
Being one of the leading institutions in Vietnam in Foreign language educating and
training, University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) has been making
an attempt to enhance Speaking skills by including Forum as a compulsory activity in
speaking lesson for second year Fast track students. With a lot of advantages, Forum is
considered as an effective activity helping promote students’ speaking skills.
Firstly, background of the study, consisting of definitions and descriptions of
key concepts and related studies was given. Afterward, in order to achieve its purpose,
quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in this study. In the first place,
survey questionnaires were exploited to study 75 students in the Fast track group.
After that, 8 participants were interviewed with the purpose of elaborating on students’
responses in the questionnaires and probing for more details from the students.
Correspondingly, 2 teachers from Fast track group, who were in charge of teaching
Speaking skills for second-year Fast track students this academic year, were selected
as participants for both survey and interview. The description of the methodology
employed in this study was followed by the findings and discussions presented in the
fourth chapter. Finally, it is teachers’ pedagogical suggestions to minimize the
difficulties, together with the researcher’s pedagogical implications.
The most remarkable finding of this research is that the aspects of Interacting
with others and Sociolinguistic knowledge are most developed through Forum.
Moreover, based on these findings, implications were made for teachers and classroom
teaching. It is suggested that teachers should comment on both preparation and
complementation stages of Forum.
i
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CLT Communicative Language Teaching
FELTE Faculty of English Language Teacher Education
L2 Second language
ULIS University of Language and International Studies

Students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of Forum activity in developing speaking
skills ii
Aspects of speaking proficiency Students had gained (as perceived by themselves) ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
PART II. DEVELOPMENT 6
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 19
2.1.1. Students 19
2.1.2.Teachers 19
2.2.Data collection instruments 21
2.2.1.Questionnaire 21
2.2.2.Interview 24
2.3.2.Interview procedure 26
2.4.Data analysis method 27
Data analysis started with synthesizing the data obtained from the questionnaire and
classifying them to answer the research questions. Responses from close-ended questions
were calculated, transferred into numerical form and summarized into graphs.
Descriptive statistics were employed to display the findings from the survey. On the
other hand, those from open-ended questions were transcribed and categorized by key
words of the statements and used to support answers for 3 research questions 27
iv
Finally, qualitative data collected during the interviews were transcribed and
summarized to be referred to when data analysis was illustrated 27
Summary: So far, this chapter has justified the methodology applied in this paper by
elaborating the setting and two groups of participants involved the process of data
collection. Furthermore, the combination of two data collection instruments was also
clarified. These justifications of the methodology would help make the way for the
findings and discussion in the next chapter 27
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 28
In this chapter, all the data collected from the questionnaire and interview will be

(moderators) and participants. This statistic considerably support the validity of the
research as those participants would provide the data in all sides 29
After conducting Forum activities for at least 4 times, four fifths of the participants
agreed that Forum activity was interesting, which accounts for a large scale 29
Talking about in which way participants found Forum was an interesting activity, 7 out
of eight interviewees claimed that the first reason was compelling topics, which are not
only close to their daily life but also hot issues such as Facebook, homosexuality,
cosmetic surgery, etc. Moreover, since in each Forum, each group of students had their
own role, they had chance to debate the hot issue in different perspective of their
assigned roles, not from their own ones (Interviewee D, 2013) 29
There are still 16.4 percent of the participants who found Forum not interesting.
Interviewee C agreed that though Forum still has good side as the topics are stimulus,
questions raised in some Forums were too general and a few facilitators seemed to
highly control participants when they were supposed to encourage the participants to
speak 30
The chart below shows students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of Forum in
developing speaking skills 30
30
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Figure 2. Students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of Forum activity in developing
speaking skills 30
It can be seen from the chart, more than 80% of the students answered that this activity
is effective 30
According to 8 interviewees, Forum was effective in developing speaking skills as it
offered chances to broaden background knowledge about hot issues, enlarge vocabulary
in many aspects in life. It is because, in each Forum students would pick up a topic
related to any aspect of social life, from environment to political. Moreover, as everyone
in Forum are supposed to raise their voices, especially participants, the interviewee said
that they had to think quickly and critically in order to find convincing ideas to speak.
In this case, interviewee H even emphasized that “During this process, your mind works

successful communication. Interestingly, students seemed to be well aware of this and
they have gained this speaking aspect the most through Forum 32
Interviewee F said that “…I found that my ability to interact with others was improved
a lot. I knew how to ask them to express their ideas as well as sometimes stop their ideas
due to misunderstanding the questions.” 33
Following the above aspect is the aspect of Socio-linguistic knowledge accounting for
nearly 60% of total. Socio-linguistic knowledge, as mentioned in Literature review
chapter, is the speaking aspect by when speakers know what comments are appropriate,
how to ask questions during interaction and how to respond nonverbally. Explaining
this point, interviewee simply said that “…By my experience and the structures teacher
gave, I know how to interrupt others politely and effectively when they’re speaking…”
34
It can be inferred that these two students had paid lots of attention to the
professionalism when participating in a Forum. They knew clearly that they did not only
speak out their ideas but also listen to others, evaluate others’ ideas; thus helps them
know what to say and when to say, when to interrupt appropriately and politely. This
supports the definition of “socio-linguistic language” given by To et al (2012) 34
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Ranking at the third place is the aspect of “Compensating language” which accounts for
40% of total. According to interviewee A’s sharing, during the Forum, she would
observe her friends together with noticing that some were interested while some were
not. This is thus; she would invite the second ones to speak out their ideas. It could help
everyone create a more comfortable atmosphere and keep the debate on going 34
Interviewee D shared that “When arguing in the forum, I need to make clear my ideas
and arrange them reasonably to be persuasive. Saying something spontaneously without
ordering makes the ideas so confusing and incomprehensible” She further explained
that she normally did not speak out her ideas immediately as it would be funny and
unconvincing. She would find suitable supporting reasons to defend her ideas instead.
This interviewee said that she gained this skill thanks to her teacher and peers’
comments 35

first…”. Interviewee F, on the other hand, gave an example to illustrate the proficiency
“Language processing” “Well, I can react quickly with my classmates’ questions and
give them a satisfactory answer…” 36
Nevertheless, this example could not be generalized since perhaps interviewee F is good
at speaking so she could react quickly to facilitators’ questions. This might not be true to
others 36
“Expressive devices” proficiency ranked at the 7th place with 36.4% number of
participants chose it. Illustrating this aspect, interviewee A took one example from her
experience: 37
[…] when I was a facilitator or a forum participant I had to defend my ideas and debate
with the other side on their own ones so I had to change my pitch or my stress to express
my feeling and my ideas about the aspects. For example, when I spoke out my own ideas,
I would do that strongly and briefly, but when I just partly agreed or gradually agreed
with my opponent’s ideas, I would repeat the ideas not with all my might, but softly
enough […] (Interviewee A, March 23, 2013) 37
Interviewee C, added: 37
x
[…] I try to listen to my classmates in how they put stress in a word and in sentences to
give the real expression beyond the words or ask them how to do. When I get used to it, I
have no difficulty in understanding others’ ideas as well […] (Interviewee C, March 23,
2013) 37
From these examples, it can be seen that the students clearly knew the importance of
speaking in perfect English. Hence, there was much attention paid on word stress, pitch,
volume as they varied their voice, speed and intonation when speaking to convey not
only the ideas but also their attitudes towards them. This makes the speech livelier and
more persuasive 37
Being chosen by 30.1% number of participant, sharing the lowest proportion it is the
aspect of “Real-time information processing”. This speaking proficiency is defined as the
ability to process the information other tell us at the moment we get it (To et al, 2012).
One typical example illustrating that has been extracted from the interview with

activity as perceived by teachers? 38
3.4.Research question 3: What are the difficulties faced by 2nd-year Fast track
students in the facilitation stage in Forum as perceived by themselves? 40
3.4.1.For Facilitators 40
87.3% number of participants agreed that they encountered some difficulties in the
facilitation stage in Forum. The chart below would show more details: 40
41
Figure 4. Facilitators’ difficulties in the facilitation stage 41
As can be seen from the chart, option A was most chosen by facilitators, which means
students faced a lot of difficulties in pronunciation. That is the reason why 5 out of 9
students circled this option. Interestingly, teacher Y did claim pronunciation was the
problem for both participants and moderators. Her students seemed to “struggle” with
pronunciation. Besides, from students’ sharing, the main reason making they
mispronounced words is they had to speak out their ideas quickly when more attention
was paid on the content or meaning of the ideas. Thus pronunciation was somehow
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disregarded. Interviewee B shared that “During a forum, we need to act immediately
and sometimes I had some spelling mistakes because I just focus on the content of the
answer. And I see this happens in other classmates as well…” Interviewee E even
pointed out her typical mistake in terms of pronunciation as forgetting adding ending
sounds like /s/, /t/, /d/, etc. Interviewee F, in addition, explains that pronunciation was
her biggest problems as it resulted from her nerve. In interviewee D’s opinion,
mispronouncing also led to another difficulty, which is conveying ideas to participants 41
“… Mispronouncing will make people hard to catch the words. As a result, they cannot
catch the ideas of a presentation… Besides, the misused stress can drive listeners to
wrong directions and they may misunderstand what we mean to say…” 42
For this difficulty, both two teachers said that there was no other way than practicing
pronunciation. Teacher X even claimed that pronunciation would not be commented
much on Forum as pronunciation checking would be done in Presentation activity. In
Forum, she would like to focus on the way of arguing instead. On the contrary, teacher

materials. Teacher X claimed that “those sent the materials normally had better
performance”. In this case, students need to be independent as responsible for their
work as teachers would not ask them to hand-in 43
3.4.2. For Participants 43
43
Figure 5. Participants’ difficulties in the facilitation in Forum 43
It is clearly seen from the chart that “Expressing ideas clearly and effectively” earns the
highest proportion of all 4 options. To illustrate this point, interviewee A admitted that
sometimes her speaking was lengthy and not clear enough. Additionally, according to
interviewee E, she found it quite difficult to express exactly what she thought when
being a participant. She then explained as she needed much time to choose the words
and sometimes, they do not really express my thoughts effectively 44
Interviewee D, according to her experiences, in some cases it was easier to find the
disadvantages than the advantages but according to the role, she had to say about the
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advantages though she did not want to do it. Interviewee C even shared her experiences
as: 44
[…] When participating in debating part of a forum, I often find it difficult to rack my
mind and find out the ideas that are valuable for protecting our opinions and debate
other opinions. Some ideas are just for fun and of course they are out of topic, or I find
the ideas that oppose to myself […] (Interviewee C, March 23, 2013) 44
Regarding this difficulty, teacher X explained that the main reason was students still
lacked of critical thinking. As critical thinking could not be improved in a short time,
teacher X suggested that teachers should correct students’ mistake in reasoning right
after the Forum as she did. Hence, students will gradually know how to think critically.
44
Owning the second large proportion, which is 66.7%, is the aspect of “Finding valuable
ideas and information which suit your role to speak”. Interviewee D, she found in some
case it was easier to find the disadvantages than the advantages but according to the role
she had to say about the advantages although she did not want to do it. This case is

studies 46
1.Summary of the findings 46
Generally speaking, this research has investigated on the use of Forum as a compulsory
activity helping develop speaking skills for 2nd-year Fast track students, Faculty of
English Language Teacher Education, ULIS, VNU 46
First and foremost, the study indicated that speaking skills had great importance and
played a crucial role in helping learners communicate as well as acquire the language
effectively through communicating. Added to this, Forum is corroborated to be an
interesting and effective speaking activity providing useful help for students to develop
their speaking skills 46
Through the in-depth analysis of the data collected from two sets of questionnaires and
interviews, significant findings of the research are summarized as follows 46
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The study has discovered the aspects of speaking proficiency gained by students as
perceived by themselves as well as evaluated by their teachers. Among eight aspects,
Interacting with others, Sociolinguistic knowledge and Compensating language are the
aspects that students gained the most through Forum 46
Moreover, based on students’ opinions and teacher’s evaluations, Pronunciation,
Controlling the Forum, Finding suitable ideas to argue and expressing ideas clearly and
effectively stand out as the most basic difficulties encountered by students while
conducting Forum 46
2.Contribution of the research and pedagogical implications 47
First of all, this study has revealed many advantages as well as difficulties when
implementing a Forum. Besides, suggestions for students’ better performance are also
provided. Thanks to that, teachers may have adjustments for the format of a Forum and
students can create their own styles to participate in Forum so as to enhance their
speaking skills the most efficiently. Furthermore, this finding is hoped to become one of
the useful references for teachers of different classes when they want to apply this
activity for students of lower levels 47
Secondly, a clear and brief summary of CLT method were also elaborated to equip

not specific enough for participants to give detailed responses. Hence, this limits the
feasibility of the research as well 48
Nevertheless, in the data analysis, details and illustrations extracted from the Interview
were attached as relevant references to equip the readers a clear depiction of studied
speaking skills 48
4. Suggestions for further studies 48
As this paper has remained its limitations, suggestions for further studies are inevitably
mentioned 48
Firstly, classroom observation method should be employed to have more reliable as well
as detailed evaluation 48
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Secondly, developing speaking skills is a very broad research area. It is hence other
researches may concentrate on investigating a single aspect of speaking skills such as
Interacting with others or Sociolinguistic knowledge. In this way, they are enabled to dig
deeper into the issue and discover more hidden problems which cannot be found in a
large scale research like this one 48
Last but not least, since Critical thinking, as found out in this study, could be improved
through Forum, other researchers can use the idea of developing Critical thinking skill
through Forum activity to conduct their research papers 49
Summary: So far, the research’s major findings, the pedagogical implications have been
discussed in the final part. Also, future researchers can consider the current study’s
limitations and suggestions to implement further investigations into the issue 49
REFERENCES 49
Akers, R 1997, Web Discussion Forums in Teaching and Learning, viewed March 25
2013,< /> 50
APPENDICES 53
APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE 53
(For students) 53
APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE 56
For Teachers 56

an issue very deeply and usually, we were not stopped talking unless we talked too
lengthily. Fourthly, we could be able to listen to many interesting ideas that we had
never thought of. In this way, we learnt a lot from others. Last but not least, I have
increased my confidence when presenting or speaking English because I had to speak
and sometimes conducted the forum 60
xx
INTERVIEWER: So informative. Ok now, in the 5th question, according to your choice,
Forum is an effective activity helping develop your speaking skills, could you please be
more specific? 60
INTERVIEWEE A: Well, to me, to speak and survive any talk or discussion, I think
background knowledge is very important 60
INTERVIEWER: Can you be more specific? 60
INTERVIEWEE A: Yep. Through forums, I have gained for myself some background
knowledge in some fields, for example, I learnt what distance learning is. I have
improved my ability to express ideas in long sentences. Besides, I had chance to practice
informal language and the formal one 60
INTERVIEWER: Ok. Now move to question 6, about aspects of speaking proficiency,
you circled 6 out of 8 aspects. The first option you chose is "Lexis and grammar" Could
you please kindly provide one or some examples to illustrate your point? 61
INTERVIEWEE A: Uhm… I just simply practiced presentation language and used
some slangs in my facilitation 61
INTERVIEWER: Thanks. How about “Language processing”? 61
INTERVIEWEE A: Regarding Language processing, when I was a facilitator or a
forum participant I had to defend my ideas and debate with the other side on their own
ones so I had to change my pitch or my stress to express my feeling and my ideas about
the aspects 61
INTERVIEWER: Any examples? 61
INTERVIEWEE A: Yep. For example, when I spoke out my own ideas, I would do that
strongly and briefly, but when I just partly agreed or gradually agreed with my
opponent’s ideas, I would repeat the ideas not with all my might, but softly enough 61

your roles to speak” are your difficulties when being a participant. Could you be more
specific? Have you ever thought of any solution for these difficulties? 62
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INTERVIEWEE A: Ok. About Expressing ideas issue, I think I should have used more
strong words to express my Ideas, avoiding lengthy expressions 62
INTERVIEWER: I see 62
INTERVIEWEE A: Regarding to Finding valuable ideas, as I experienced, there are a
lot of ideas and information on the internet 62
INTERVIEWER: Yeah I agree 62
INTERVIEWEE A: However, within the limited time for a forum, I had to choose the
most valuable ideas and this was really hard because the strong aspects that I chose may
not suit to debate with the point the opponent was making. Also, some figures and
information on the internet but I don’t know if they are truthful 62
INTERVIEWER: Well. I can understand it 62
INTERVIEWER: That’s the end of the interview session today. Thanks so much for
your time and cooperation. Wish you a successful semester in CLC! 62
INTERVIEWEE A: Thanks. You’re welcome! 62
APPENDIX 4 62
INTERVIEW 2 – INTERVIEWEE B 62
Date: March 23, 2013 62
INTERVIEWER: Hello. Thanks so much for coming to the interview session today. Are
you ready for the interview? 62
INTERVIEWEE B: Yep 62
INTERVIEWER: Ok. Now, n the first question, in your opinion, speaking skill is the
most important skill, why do you think so? 62
INTERVIEWEE B: Speaking is the most important skill, at least to me, because it is the
fastest way to show ourselves. For example, when we meet a foreigner, we can
communicate easily as well as show our knowledge by speaking, not writing, so that
speaking is more popular in our social life than writing, reading or listening. We can
show ourselves and knowledge by speaking. For example, in our university, the speaking

thoughts and train speaking skills such as debating, agreeing, disagreeing, 63
INTERVIEWER: Now move to question 6, about aspects of speaking proficiency, you
circled 3 out of 8 aspects 63
The first option you chose is "Lexis and grammar" (the use of a number of lexical,
especially to perform language functions such as agreeing, disagreeing, expressing
surprise, approval, etc.). Could you please kindly provide one or some examples to
illustrate your point? 64
INTERVIEWEE B: My speaking teacher, Ms. X, somehow in charge of our speaking
and presentation skill gave us some function lists such as introduction, interrupting,
asking for a reaction…. For ex, we‘re moderators and we need to say “We declare to
open the forum”. It sounds quite professional so we’re quite excited about this.
Moreover it helps the participants catch the moderators’ ideas easily so that the forum
can take place smoothly 64
Besides, I can apply these lists into other projects such as debating skill or reacting
skill…. In our presentation assignment, we have a Q & A part so we really need the way
to reply others; ideas or explain and prove for something 64
INTERVIEWER: Very informative. How about “Interacting with others”? 64
INTERVIEWEE B: Well, Interaction in conversation can’t be absent. For example, as
moderators, we need to have a good interaction with the audience to catch their ideas
and then have a suitable solution for a particular situation. It is the way to show your
flexibility with everyone 64
INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I see. Ok now, move to the difficulty you have to face when
being a Facilitator controlling the Forum, You circled “Pronunciation” and
“Summarizing ideas of participants”. What can you say about these? Can you be more
specific? 64
INTERVIEWEE B: Pronunciation is somehow my difficulty. During a forum, we need
to act immediately and sometimes I had some spelling mistakes because I just focus on
xxv
the content of the answer. And I see this happens in other classmates as well. Actually I
realize that the more we practice, the better we are so now I somehow have less spelling