VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
********************* LƢƠNG THỊ HUYỀN AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING AND LEARNING
SPEAKING ENGLISH AT BINH GIA HIGH SCHOOL - LANG SON:
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Thực trạng dạy và học nói Tiếng Anh tại trƣờng Trung Học Phổ Thông
Bình Gia - Lạng Sơn: Những khó khăn và cách giải quyết
M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES


I certify that the thesis entitled “An exploratory study on teaching and
learning speaking English at Binh Gia high school - Lang Son : Problems and
solutions ” is the result of my own study and the substance of this research has not been
submitted for degree to any other university or institution. Hanoi, August 2014

Signature
Luong Thi Huyen

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Hoang
Thi Xuan Hoa, PhD for her precious instructions, helpful suggestions, and especially,
invaluable critical feedback and correction during the research.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all of my lecturers at
the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies,
Vietnam National University Ha Noi, whose support and considerations have enabled me
to pursue the course.
I also wish to acknowledge the great support and precious help with the data
collection and analysis of my colleagues and students at Binh Gia High School. Without
them, I could not have completed my thesis.
Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks are due to my beloved family members who
are always besides me to support and encourage me to fulfill my study.

difficulties in learning and teaching English speaking skill of students and teachers were
large and multi-level classes, current testing system and lack of class time. From these
findings, some recommendations were made with the aim to improve the teaching and
learning English at Binh Gia High School.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi
LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES. vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aims of the study 3
3. Method and procedure of the research 3
4. Scope of the study 4

3.1. Data analysis 18
3.1.1. Results of the survey questionnaires. 18
3.2. Findings 30
3.2.1. Difficulties from the students 30
3.2.2. Difficulties from the teachers 31
3.2.3. Problems from other factors 33
PART III: CONCLUSION 35
1. Conclusions 35
2. Solutions perceived by teachers and students to overcome teachers‟ and students'
difficulties 35
2.1. Teachers‟ solutions 35
2.2. Students' solutions. 37
3. Limitations of the study 39
4. Recommendations for further study 40
REFERENCES 41
APPENDIX 1 I
APPENDIX 2 IV
APPENDIX 3 VII
APPENDIX 4 X
APPENDIX 5 XI
APPENDIX 6 XII vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communication Language Teaching
BGHS: Bình Gia High School
%: Percentage


Chart 1: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinion about the importance of English speaking
skill
Chart 2: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinion about the importance of English speaking
kill in comparison with other skills
Chart 3: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about students‟ passion of learning
English peaking skill
Chart 4: Teachers‟ and students‟ judgment about students‟ speaking competence

Tables
Table 1: Information about students and teachers participating in the survey
Table 2: Teachers‟ years of teaching English and students‟ years of learning English
Table 3: Students‟ reasons for learning English speaking skill
Table 4: jj Teachers‟ difficulties when teaching speaking skill
Table 5: Teachers‟ solutions to improve the speaking lessons
Table 6: Teachers‟ suggested solutions to improve the speaking lesson
Table 7: Students‟ difficulties when learning English speaking skill

1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
O‟Malley and Pierce (1996) stated that speaking is an important skill that a learner
should acquire. It is very important in order to enable students to communicate effectively
through oral language because the disability of the students to speak may lead them to be
unable to express their ideas even in a simple form of conversation. In addition, Burn and

English language teaching in Vietnam showed that this is the skill that students usually
neglect and are not good at even though they have very good grammatical knowledge.
Students‟ learning methods depended much on teachers, students still were quite passive in
their learning process. In order to improve the students‟ speaking ability, teachers could
use many kinds of communicative activities.
There is a fact that students must pass examinations in English to graduate, but
many of them fail to learn it successfully. Students have lost their communicative
competence on which means little attention has been paid to communicative skills such as
listening and speaking. In addition, under the effect of old-fashioned methods, students are
believed to be indifferent to such skills. They mentally withdraw or look for strategies to
pass the required exams with minimum effort.
Among the four skills known as listening, speaking, writing and listening, speaking
skill plays an important part in language teaching in the context of Vietnam. For many
learners, speaking skill is the most important of the four skills in a second language in
general and in English in particular. However, it is the fact that most of students at Binh
Gia High School seemed to consider speaking skill to be the most challenging. From
observations and teaching experiences, the author realized that students paid little attention
to communicative skills such as listening and speaking. They lost interest in learning
English and they were not active in participating in speaking activities. They felt nervous
in speaking class and became demotivated in learning speaking. These led to the
underachievement and had a negative effect on students in learning English as a foreign
language.
There still exist many difficulties facing English Language teachers in Vietnam in
general and English Language teachers at the Binh Gia High School in particular. Many
Vietnamese learners can write and read English quite well but they cannot speak fluently
and correctly in communication. Certainly there are many reasons for this. As one teacher
of English I realized that although both teachers and learners tried 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.


understand the students‟ difficulties in learning speaking skill.
First, the survey questionnaires were carried out to find out teachers' and students'
difficulties. Then the interviews with teachers and students were conducted to clarify
aspects which were inadequate and vague in the survey questionnaires. 4
4. Scope of the study
The study aims at finding out the difficulties in teaching and learning speaking
skill faced by students and teachers at Binh Gia High School. There are many types of
difficulties that teachers and learners met when they taught and studied a foreign language.
However, due to the limitation of time and the narrow scale, the study only focused on the
most common difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill faced by students and
teachers at Binh Gia High School from the perspectives of students and teachers. Then, this
study also gave out some suggested solutions generated from the teachers in the interview
for students to overcome those difficulties and improve their speaking skill.
5. Organization of the paper
The minor thesis is composed of three parts: Introduction, Development, and
Conclusions.
Part A- Introduction presents the rationale, aims, method and procedure, scope and
organization of the study.
Part B - Development consists of 3 chapters:
Chapter 1- Literature review gives the theoretical background of speaking skill.
Chapter 2 - Methodology includes the description context of the study , research questions,
participants, research questions, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, data
analysis).
Chapter 3- Data analysis and findings describes the data of the questionnaires and
interviews, then gives some findings through the data analysis.
Part C - Conclusion suggests some solutions perceived by teachers and students to the
current problems and focuses on the conclusions of the thesis, some limitations and

information. 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.
1.1.2. Characteristics of speaking
As for Bygate (1987), speaking has the following characteristics:
Firstly, 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.
Secondly, the learners must know how to produce specific points of language such as
grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary, but also they understand when, why, and in what
ways to produce language. 6
Thirdly, speech has its own features, structures, and conventions different from
written language.
Lastly, Bygate (1987) considered 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. Bygate also highly appreciates speaking skill by stating that speaking is the
medium through which much language is learnt.
To sum up, it is undeniable that speaking is the 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.
1.1.3. The role of speaking in foreign language teaching
In the view of language teaching, language has been divided into four macro-skills:
listening, speaking, reading and writing based on the purpose of analysis and instruction. It
is undeniable that speaking skill plays the most important part in foreign language teaching

and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998, p. 13). Speaking is a
crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its importance, for many
years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have
continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues.
However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve
students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves
and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative
circumstance. In order to teach second language learners how to speak in the best way
possible, some speaking activities are provided below, that can be applied to ESL and EFL
classroom settings, together with suggestions for teachers who teach oral language.
Teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability
to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of
the learner in school and success later in every phase of life. Therefore, it is essential that
language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking. Rather than leading students to
pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes
place is desired. With this aim, various speaking activities such as those listed above can
contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life.
These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time
make their learning more meaningful and fun for them.
In the communicative model of language teaching, instructors help their students
develop this body of knowledge by providing authentic practice that prepares students for
real-life communication situations. They help their students develop the ability to produce 8
grammatically correct, logically connected sentences that are appropriate to specific
contexts, and to do so using acceptable (that is, comprehensible) pronunciation.
1.2.2. Learning speaking skill
Practice for behaviorist is seen as a process of habit formation by reinforcing
"right" answers. Practice should take central place because that is how language is learnt,

up a set of cognitive skills. Congruent with their idea of controlled practice I might
conclude that mistakes will be corrected from the very beginning. Within the context of
meaningful learning a mistake is being noted only if it prevents conveying idea.
Conversation theory sees errors as a good start for scaffolding. Basically, they provoke
learning process. Acculturation theory emphasizes a role of low affective filter as a key
factor in success of SLA, so it should deal with error correction gently as it usually affects
the filter in a negative way
1.2.3. Problems in teaching and learning speaking skill
If the aim of the English course is to enable the students to communicate in
English, then speaking skills should be taught and practiced in the language classroom.
However, it is true that when teaching speaking skill, the teachers can encounter many
problems. The most popular ones can be listed as follows:
First, the class size is one of the major concerns. Teaching the target language for a
class of 40 or 45 students is quite a hard job and not effective. The teachers have to deal
with many problems of large class, so the results of teaching and learning speaking skill
are unsatisfactory.
Second, students‟ lack of motivation also prevents the success of the speaking
activities in class. They almost have no interest in learning the foreign language. They just
take part in the communicative activities because of the teachers‟ presence, the
requirements of the exams, etc.
Another difficulty in teaching and learning speaking skill is mother-tongue use. In
classes where all learners share the same mother-tongue, they tend to use it because: it is
easier, it is unnatural to communicate in a foreign language and they feel less exposed in
their mother-tongue. If the students work in small groups, it can be quite challenging to get
them - especially the less disciplined and motivated ones- to speak the target language.
Nevertheless, teaching and learning English in non – English speaking
environment such as Vietnam, the learners do not have many chances to practice English
outside the classroom. This picture can be described as almost every student only speaks
English, discuss the English topics when they come to class. After the lesson, they come
back to their real life with their family and their work. The learners never speak English to

speaking, the newly approved teaching approach - CLT, and the necessity of teaching and
learning speaking skill in a communicative class. These concepts and ideas will serve as
the theoretical background for all the analysis and discussions of the data in the following
chapter.
1.3. Using CLT in teaching speaking skill
Language teaching is a dynamic process, which involves constant changes and
shifting of different methods. 11
Communicative language teaching aims broadly to apply the theoretical perspective
of the Communicative Approach by marking communicative competence the goal of
language teaching and by acknowledging the interdependence of language and
communication.
According to Richards & Rodgers (2001), Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT) originated from the changes in the British Situational Language Teaching approach
dating from the late 1960s . Stemming from the socio-cognitive perspective of the socio-
linguistic theory, with an emphasis on meaning and communication, and a goal to develop
learners‟ “communicative competence”
When using communicative activities, it is important to make students feel
comfortable and confident, feel free to take risks and have opportunities to speak. As for
Harmer (2001) teachers should be aware that teaching speaking closely relates to receptive
skill work. Teachers should pay attention to: Output and input, Texts, Reception and
production. Output and input: output is the language the students produce; input is the
feedback or prompters from students‟ interlocutor (teacher). Teachers can modify their
students‟ output. Texts: offer students a model to follow, especially when working on
specific functions (agreeing, disagreeing, expressing surprise, approval ), also act as
stimuli which then help create language production: discussion (from controversial reading
passage), response (after listening to a tape about a story or opinion. Reception is a part of
production: conversation between two people is a blend of listening and speaking;

foreign language teaching. Given the purpose of the study, it was mainly focused on the
discussion of learning and teaching speaking skill. It included learning and teaching
speaking skill and problems in teaching and learning speaking skill. Besides, method
applied in English language teaching have been presented as well.
The following chapters will present the investigation, the findings and suggested
solutions to the problems under the light of the above mentioned theories.

13
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. The context
2.1.1. Overview of the English textbook
The main material for teaching English at BGHS is a new set of English textbook
approved by the Ministry of Education and Training. The textbook English 10 consists of
16 units including five parts: reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus. The
book was designed according to communicative approach. For speaking skill, its objective
is to develop students competence and ability to exchange information at a simple level
about the situations relating to the topics they have learnt. Generally speaking, the new
English textbook has proved to be more relevant and appropriate to the current context of

2.1.3. The students at BGHS
Most of the students come from the villages in the district. The majority of students
are ethnic minority and live very far from school .The teaching of English in general and
the teaching of speaking English in particular has encountered with many difficulties.
Although most students are aware of the importance of English, few students have real
interest in learning English. In other words, the majority of the students do not pay much
attention to English. Their speaking skills are not quite good. Although all students started
learning English from grade six, their English proficiency is very low. They study English
just to prepare for the tests and exams, so what they need in learning English is to learn
grammar lessons and to do exercises. It seems that a lot of students can not communicate
successfully despite knowing a lot about English grammar patterns. Only a few students
wish to take university entrance exams in English, which means few students have real
interest in learning English. In other words, not much attention is paid to English by the
majority of the students.
2.1.4. The teachers at BGHS
There are 12 teachers of English currently working at Binh Gia High School.
Among them, nine of them are female and three of them are male, and their age ranks from
25 to 39. All of them have got the University Bachelor‟s Degree in English, four of them
graduated from Vietnam National University - University of languages and international
studies, and two graduated from Thai Nguyen University of education and one graduated
from Thai Nguyen Agricultural and Forestry University and they are helpful, enthusiastic
and willing to make some renovations in teaching methodology. However, they are
inexperienced and are not well-trained so they have to face with many difficulties.
2.2. Research questions
In order to uncover the difficulties of students and teachers in learning and teaching
speaking skill at BGHS, it is necessary to answer the following questions:
1. How do teachers and students perceive concepts of speaking skill? 15

difficulties which teachers and students encountered in teaching and learning speaking and
what they done to overcome these difficulties. 16
The teachers‟ survey questionnaire: The survey questionnaire for teachers consisted of 8
questions (see appendix 3). All these questions were focused on the following categories:
 Teachers‟ background. (Question 1)
 Teachers‟ attitudes towards teaching and learning speaking skill.
(Question 2,3,4,5)
 Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students at BGHS
( Question 6)
 Teachers' suggestions in teaching speaking skill. (Question 7)
 Teachers‟ solutions. (Question 8)
 The students‟ survey questionnaire: The survey questionnaire for students consisted of
9 questions (see appendix 2) in which 9 questions were multiple choice. All these
questions were focused on the following categories:
 Students‟ background and their learning experience (Question 1)
 Students‟ attitudes towards learning English speaking skills. (Question 2,3,4,5)
 Reason for learning English (Question 6)
 Students‟ difficulties in learning to speak and their solutions to improve speaking
skill. (Question 7)
 Students ' suggestions in teaching speaking skill. (Question 8)
 Students solutions. (Question 9)
2.4.2. Interview
An interview was conducted in English with a group of 20 students and 5 teachers.
The questions in the interviews were basically based on those in the questionnaire, but
were extended to include more open-ended questions to get more thorough understanding
of the reasons behind each student‟s choice. Each conversation lasted for about 7 minutes.
The data were then transcribed and translated into English.