4 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Background of Questionnaire Participants………………………… ….33
Table 2 Background of Interview Informants……………………………………35
Table 3 Practical constraints affecting teachers to conduct speaking
assessment…………………………………………………………………………… …39
Table 4 Speaking assessment tasks used by Nam Dinh teachers……… ………49
5


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
PART I
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale of the research 1
1.2 Research questions and research aims 2
1.3 Scope of the study Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.4 Methodology 4
1.5 Significance of the study 5
1.6 Design of the study 5
PART II
CHAPTER II: LIERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Constraints in oral teaching skill at Vietnamese lower secondary school and
tertiary education 7
2.2 Constraints in speaking teaching in Vietnamese upper-secondary schools 9
2.2.1 Educational system 9
2.1.1.1 Large classes 9
2.1.1.2 Lack of appropriate resources 11
2.1.1.3 Textbook 12
2.1.2 Teachers‟ problems 13
7

2.1.2.1 Traditional way‟s affection 13
2.1.2.2 Lack of English competence 14
2.1.3 Students‟ problems 15
2.1.3.1 Low English competence 15
2.1.3.2 Demotivation of speaking 17
2.3 Requirements of speaking assessment at Vietnamese upper-secondary school 18
2.3.1 An overview of speaking assessment criteria at upper-secondary school . 18
2.3.2 Continuous speaking assessment 19

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS 46
4.1. Overall findings 46
Table 3 - Practical constraints affecting teachers‟ English speaking
assessment 49
4.2.1. Difficulties caused by the educational system 49
4.2.1.1 Large classes 49
4.2.1.2 Excessive work in addition to classroom teaching 51
“The last tasks in speaking lessons in the textbook are difficult for students‟
speaking ability. I seldom quit speaking lessons but I can only use the first
two or three speaking tasks. I ask them to read aloud and learn by heart and
speak in front of the class. However, I cannot use the tasks of discussion. They
are too difficult for my students” (Teacher 1). 52
Being asked about the lack of speaking tests in the textbook, the teachers
shared their opinions: 53
4.2.1.4 Exams‟ negative backwash 53
4.2.1.5 Few opportunities for retraining 54
4.2.2. Difficulties caused by the students 55
4.2.2.1 Students‟ low English proficiency 55
4.2.2.2 Students‟ low motivation 55
All the teachers in the sample reported that students were demotivated to
learn speaking English: 56
4.2.3. Difficulties caused by teachers 56
4.2.3.1 Teachers‟ low English proficiency 56
The younger participants also shared some ideas about the problem: 57
4.2.3.2 Difficulty in eliciting students‟ responses 58
4.2.3.3 Difficulties in ensuring reliability of assessment 58
4.3 The extent that these constraints influence the ways teachers perform
assessment of English speaking with particular reference to the use of
assessment tasks 59
4.3.1. Topic 60

Lack of English input 73
Students‟ demotivation 74
Teachers‟ lack of teaching methodology in speaking test 74
Teachers‟ low consciousness of „backwash effect‟ 75
No inter-rater test reliability 75
Teachers‟ low proficiency 76
5.1.3.3 Constraints caused by the education system 76
Large classes 76
Excessive work in addition to classroom teaching 76
Textbook 77
Exams‟ negative backwash 77
Ineffective training classes 78
Teachers‟ personal beliefs 78
REFERENCES 86
Heaton, J. B. (1990). Classroom Testing. Pearson Longman 87
Pennington, C. M. (1999). Language Learning. Arnold 89
10


mentioned.
In our English teaching context, some subjective and objective causes limit us in
the conduct of English speaking teaching and assessment. The first cause, as mentioned
above is the current exams‟ pressure which demotivates us to teach oral English skills but
spending more time on grammar and reading skills as the requirement of the exams.
Secondly, teaching conditions such as large classes and insufficient facilities seem not to
support speaking because every class has more than 50 students but tables and chairs are
not conveniently arranged for speaking activities. Thirdly, in spite of being aware of the
role of speaking assessment, teachers are still under the impacts of traditional way
focusing on grammar teaching; even some do not have enough English competence to be
successful in teaching and assessing students‟ oral communication. Lastly, students‟
demotivation of speaking and low English competence also constrains us to assess
speaking as well as expected.

In the process of seeking for literature supporting my thesis, I was much
impressed and inspired by a study of Kim Hyun Sook entitled “The types of speaking
assessment tasks used by Korean Junior Secondary school English teachers” from
Asian EFL Journal, December 2003 Articles. The study both explored the speaking tasks
which were used at junior secondary schools in Korea and found out the deep roots of
12

Korean EFL constraints to teachers‟ English speaking assessment. In fact, even though
CLT has been applied in Korean schools since 1900s, English teachers still have many
difficulties in realizing it in their classroom practice similar to the current situation in
Vietnam. Besides that, Korea and Vietnam share many things such as a Confucianism-
based culture and education system resulting in a conserving attitude toward knowledge,
toward the expected roles of teachers and students in the classroom (Ballard & Clanchy,
1991, cited in To Thi Thu Huong 2010: 97) and the author‟s ideas appears to very closely
relate to my study on the theme of assessment of English speaking skills of secondary
students, so I decided to replicate her study in my thesis so that the types of constraints in

Nam Dinh.

Other factors affecting the practice of English speaking assessment or English language
assessment at upper-secondary schools in Vietnam are beyond the scope of the present
study due to the time and financial restrictions of a Master thesis.
1.4. Methodology:

This study employs a mixed research approach combining different methods, using both
qualitative and quantitative data so that valid, reliable thick and rich information could be
obtained to answer the two research questions. The main method is case study.

The cases were 10 teachers who were teaching English in two upper-secondary schools in
Nam Truc district and in one in Nam Dinh city.

The case study used qualitative approach to explore the constraints affecting Nam Dinh
upper-secondary English teachers‟ speaking assessment.

Two main instruments used in the study were questionnaire and semi-structured
interview. The questionnaire was used to identify the classroom constraints in assessing
speaking, the types of speaking assessment tasks as well as the ways teachers were
conducting speaking assessment. Meanwhile, the semi-structured interviews are
considered more important to help the researcher to explore the deep roots of these
constraints to suggest effective measures and solutions in the teaching context.
14 Regarding the data collection procedures, first of all, a list of five questions was sent to
the 10 teachers to get some general information. After that, the researcher conducted in-
depth interviews with six individual teachers to explore the roots of the problems in the
ways of speaking assessments currently used in upper-secondary schools in Nam Dinh as


Chapter III: Methodology presents definition of case study, two steps in the selection of
participant, data collection and data analysis.

Chapter IV: Findings include the overall findings and the other findings of the practical
constraints in conducting communicative speaking assessment and types of speaking
assessment tasks used by Nam Dinh upper-secondary school English teachers.

Chapter V: Discussion aims to discuss about constraints in speaking assessment at upper-
secondary school and give suggestions for conducting communicative speaking
assessment

Part III: Chapter VI (Conclusion) highlights the research aims, the results and shows
some limitation, suggestions for further study. 16


students at entrance exam into upper-secondary school. The biggest problem in ELT in
general and teaching English speaking in particular is students and teachers‟ lack of
efforts to develop communicative competence as required in CLT.

Le Van Canh (2000) in his article asserted that communicative language teaching was too
challenging in Vietnam where the teacher‟s English proficiency was low, classes were
large, the buildings, furniture and other facilities were not basic, and only low levels of
support could be provided in terms of materials, libraries and advisory services. New
teaching methods required new understandings and skills. The contrary was that teachers
were required to spend more time doing additional preparatory work, while there were
already many demands on teachers‟ time in addition to their syllabus teaching work.

Bock‟s study (2000:25-26, cited in Canh & Barnard, 2009) reported that during CLT
application in Vietnamese universities and language centres, “students were not
interested in achieving communicative competence or working in groups, being more
motivated to pass examinations, sometimes referred to as „required‟ motivation”. The
study also mentioned other factors affecting CLT in Vietnam were “large class sizes of
mixed students (between 40 and 105) and the lack of helpful facilities such as flexible
seating and consistent power supply and the difficulties of testing communicative
competence”.

Some recent research for Master theses which were conducted at Vietnamese colleges
and universities support the above ideas when teachers meet too many challenges in
teaching English speaking.

Luu Thuy Duong (2006) conducted a study of teachers‟ difficulties at teaching speaking
for the 1
st
year students at Hanoi Open University, Faculty of Tourism. The statistics
18

never been trained in CLT. Even though 73% of the participants had been trained of
19

CLT, they rarely conducted communicative activities for students. Instead, 81%
participants responded that they used just grammar translation as a routine in speaking
lessons. In fact, students just hoped to pass the exams at the university and teachers
hoped to help them do so. 100% of the teachers admitted that large class size, multi-level
classes, learners‟ low English proficiency and lack of time contributed to make them skip
teaching English speaking. 2.2 Cited constraints in teaching English speaking in Vietnamese upper-
secondary schools

2.2.1 Educational system
2.2.1.1 Large classes

Vietnamese upper-secondary classes often have more than 40 students, even some
schools have more than 50 students in a class. In the case of schools in Nam Dinh, the
number of students in a class is over 50. These over-sized classess not only make teachers
difficult to manage studtents but also make students hard to move and communicate
(Gorlach (1995, Bui Thi Minh Hong, 2006). In large classes, students seem like speaking
Vietnamese without being recognized by teachers.

A study with the participation of teachers at Yen Dinh high school showed that most
teachers (70%) complained about difficulties in controlling students when they taught in
large classes. The author explained that the noise in the class was impossible because
“the majority of the students enjoyed speaking Vietnamese more than speaking
English”(Luu Thi Lan (2008:55).


2.2.1.2 Lack of appropriate resources

In fact, speaking and other communicative skills needs the support of facilities such as
cassettes, videos, CD-ROMs, pictures, computers and language labs (Van et al, 2006:16)
but these conditions seem so far from the reality. Canh and Barnard (2009) approved that
21

Vietnamese schools are almost poorly equipped. Tables and chairs are not arranged
suitably to support students‟ speaking activities.

A study conducted in 2008 Nguyen Thi Huong Giang at Son La Ethnic Boarding high
school showed that 75% teachers could not teach speaking as well as expected because of
poor teaching condition such as lack of equipment and mismatch in tables and chairs‟
arrangement. Luu Thi Lan (2008) in the study conducted in her school reported that 50%
of the teachers were not satisfied with school‟s lack of facilities supporting speaking
teaching. The basic materials supporting speaking activities such as pictures, handouts,
etc were self-prepared by teachers but there was no assistance of schools‟ administrators.

The lack of facilities was also explored in Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa‟s study (2009) at Chi
Linh high school. 75% of the teachers who was asked to show that it was one of the most
serious problems of teaching speaking. Besides of lack of space for speaking activities,
“three cassettes players were in bad conditions” and “there was no photocopier” (p.42).
The lack of material resources seem to make teachers less responsible for the job. Le Thi
Tuyet Mai (2009) in the study of teachers‟ classroom management in Hai Phong
mentioned that lack of space made teachers impossible to control the noise and
Vietnamese speaking in Vietnamese EFL classroom. As a result, teachers felt tired,
frustrated and demotivated to teach speaking.

2.2.1.3 Textbook



However, the official guide book encourages teachers to use textbooks to teach and
assess speaking actively. According to Hoang Van Van et al. (2006:51), “because of the
difficulties of managing and organization, teachers can use marks in small tests of 10 and
15 minutes in classroom lessons” and speaking accounts for 20% in forty minute tests
and final tests like other skills. It seems to be discrepant because oral assessment causes
teachers and school administrators more troubles than other skills. Therefore, how much
23

successful teachers apply communicative approach and new series of textbook is still a
big question.

2.2.2 Teachers‟ problems

2.2.2.1 Traditional ways of teaching

Before the new English curriculum with CLT orientation was applied, many Vietnamese
teachers of English at secondary school levels had a long time of using the old English
textbook, so it was hard to make them immediately adapted to the new way of teaching.

Since the English curriculum innovation with the assistance of new series of textbooks
was implemented four years ago, short time workshops of two or three weeks have been
organized to train teachers to adapt to CLT approach. However, “the effectiveness of
these workshops has not been formally evaluated” (Canh and Barnard, 2009). Thus,
many teachers seemed not to be ready for teaching English communicatively. On the
contrary, “these teachers considered that they were not sufficiently competent for the
delivery of the intended curriculum” (p.29).

A range of current studies reviewed following support the idea that Vietnamese teachers
at upper-secondary school lacked teaching methodology of CLT. Especially, they still


Out of many English teachers, a large number taught Russian before teaching English
(Canh and Barnard, 2009:29), another number were trained in in-service classes to avoid
a lack of EFL teachers a long time ago. Thus, their English competence might be enough
for the old English programme but they failed to teach along the communicative
approach. Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa (2009) reported that 85.7% of the teachers joining her
study had problem of deficiency in spoken English that constrained them to make the
process of teaching speaking skill. These teachers admitted that they had a lack of
vocabulary, pronunciation, stress, etc which was basic background in speaking skill. It
was surprised that some teachers reported that “they learnt the term CLT somewhere but
did not quite understand how it worked” Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa, 2009:40).
25 2.2.3 Students‟ problems

2.2.3.1 Low English competence

In CLT, especially speaking, students‟ English competence must be good enough to
match the difficulty of speaking tasks. However, the recent studies showed that a large
number of Vietnamese upper-secondary school students did not have good English
knowledge to speak English.

Students at Son La Ethnic Boarding high school in Nguyen Thi Huong Giang‟s thesis
(2008) were supposed not to have enough qualities to adapt oral communication of the
programme even though they had learnt English for 3 years at lower-secondary school.
The author explained that students had serious problems in vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation. The statistics in the study showed that 100% teachers had the difficulty of
students‟ low level of English.


types of communicative activities in the classroom. Students were asked to do simple
speaking tasks like dialogue practice, text –reading, etc because they could not do other
complicated activities. 2.2.3.2 Demotivation of speaking English

In EFL teaching and teaching, motivation plays an important role to be successful. In
Gardner and Lambert‟ s view (1972, cited in Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, 2008:13), “if
learners need to speak the second language in a wide range of social situations or to fulfill
professional ambitions, they will perceive the communicative value of the second
language and will therefore be motivated to acquire proficiency in it.” However, it seems
27

that Vietnamese students at upper-secondary school do not have enough motivation to
enjoy speaking activities. This idea will be explained in the summary of the following
studies and theses.

In fact, Vietnamese students are still under affection of teacher-based approach. Canh and
Barnard (2009) explored that teachers talked much more than students in the lessons
when students enjoyed doing exercises without any argument with teachers. Passive way
of learning English and the habit of speaking Vietnamese were the main reasons to
ineffectiveness of learning speaking. Besides, students have motivation of learning
grammar for examinations and the mismatch of Vietnamese and English culture also
make students to speak English.

Nguyen Thi Huong Giang (2008) reported that minority students at Son La Ethic

textbooks English 10 and 12.
 English 10 is guided to follow continuous assessment and variable
assessment (p.51)
 Because of the difficulties of managing and organization, teachers
can use marks in small tests of 10 and 15 minutes in classroom lessons
(p.51)
 English 10 is guided to test all the skills (listening, speaking,
reading and writing) in the examinations (p.55)
 The percentage of all the skills are fairly divided in the tests:
listening 20%, speaking 20%, reading 20%, writing 20% and language
focus 20% (p.55)

Van et al. (2006)

Five criteria in language testing and assessment are listed as follows:

 Insurance of comprehension: assessment must reflect all the aspects of
students‟ background, skills, competence, attitude and behaviors.