VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LAGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

PHẠM THỊ MẾN USING THE “CASE-STUDY” ACTIVITY
TO ENCOURAGE 2
ND
YEAR STUDENTS
OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
AT HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY
TO SPEAK ENGLISH

SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG“CASE-STUDY”
ĐỂ KHUYẾN KHÍCH SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI
NGÀNH QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÒNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10

Ha Noi - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LAGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Background of the study 1
2. Aims of the study and research questions 2
3. The scope of the study. 2
4. Significance of the study 3
5. The methods of the study 3
6. Organization of the thesis 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1 Speaking skill 5
1.1.1 Definition of speaking 5
1.1.2 Teaching speaking according to communicative approach 6
1.1.3 Principles of teaching speaking 7
1.1.4 Speaking difficulties of language learners 8
1.2 Students‟ oral participation 10
1.2.1 Definition of students‟ participation 10
1.2.2 Factors affecting students‟ participation in oral activities 11
1.3 Characteristics of a successful oral activity 17
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 19
2.1 The setting of the study 19
2.2 Participants 21
2.3 The instruments 21
2.3 1 Questionnaires 21
v

2.3.2 Classroom observation 22
2.4 Data collection procedure 22
2.5 Data analysis procedure 23
CHAPTER 3: PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA 24
3.1 Students' degree of participation in the "case-study" activities 24

English has been seen as a necessary device to closer to a dreaming job,
especially a job in a foreign company. Therefore, there is an increasing
demand for learning the language for communication. In that context, the new
framework of learner-center approach and the advent of communicative
language teaching in the realm of teaching English as a foreign language have
exerted the great impact on the teaching and learning English, in which
students‟ oral skills and their active participation in class activities have come
to take on added importance. Following the communicative approach,
teachers make great effort to get their students to talk as much as possible in
their classes. According to the studies on what constitutes a “good language
learner”, in the oral activities, student who raised their hands more often
responded to teacher elicitation did better on test than other students (Naiman
et al. 1978, cited in Breen 2001)
However, in Hai Phong University, Faculty of Economics and Business
Administration, where students need the ability to express themselves in
English as a powerful device for their future career, especially in modern
society where working with foreigners often occurs. After years of applying
the communicative language teaching into practice, it has been noticed that
student‟s active participation, particularly in observable speaking classes are
2
not prominent. Hence, the author takes the focus on the “case-study” activity,
an activity in the text book “Market Leader”, the official ESP syllabus of
Economics and Business Administration Faculty at Hai Phong University to
carry out the research on “Using the case-study activity to encourage 2
nd
year
students of Business Administration to speak English”
2. Aims of the study and research questions
“Case-study” is an activity in the text book “Market Leader”. This activity
provides students with writing skills, speaking skills and problem solving

and data from each student grasping the comprehensive learning situation to
find out feasible solutions encouraging students to speak English.
4. Significance of the study
The finding of this study can draw learners‟ attention on their attitudes
towards classroom participation, thus making them aware of factors that
motivate as well as demotivate their participation in the case-study activity.
As a result, researcher can identify the roots of student‟s obstacles as well as
motivations, has a closer look at students‟ psychological features and their
own needs. In addition, student‟s desires, what they expect the teacher can
change in the case-study activity will also made known to teachers, who
hopefully will initiate possible adjustment in using case-study activity to
encourage students to speak English. Finally, future researchers who share the
same interest may find helpful information from this research to conduct
further studies into this area.
5. The methods of the study
The method of this study is survey study because it was conducted by
using questionnaires and teacher‟s self-observation to collect data. It was a
qualitative and quantitative study. Employing both approaches, it is hoped to
achieve the reliable results for the study.
6. Organization of the thesis
The thesis consists of 3 main parts
4
Part 1: Introduction deals with the background, the aims and the research
questions, the scope, the significance, the methods of the study, and the
organization of the thesis.
Part 2: Development
This part includes 4 chapters:
Chapter 1: Literature Review lays the theoretical foundation for the study by
discussing Definition of Key terms and Framework
Chapter 2: Research Methodology details the methods which have been

which is to form a theoretical framework for the study.
1.1 Speaking skill
1.1.1 Definition of speaking
There is a long history of the study of the speaking skill in language
learning. Many variants of speaking definition were provided by different
linguistics.
First of all, it is worthy to consider the Byrne‟s view. He suggested that
“oral communication is a two-way process between speakers and listeners,
involving the productive skills of speaking and receptive skills of
understanding” (p. 19) in which the speaker functions as the person encoding
the massage and the listener functions as the one decoding the massage.
Moreover, a clear distinction between written and spoken language was made:
“…in contrast to the written language, where sentences are carefully
structured and linked together, speech is characterized by incomplete and
sometimes ungrammatical utterances and by frequent false and repetitions”
6
(p. 24). Bygates (1987) held the similar idea that “speech is not writing-
speaking like a book is, in two words, disagreeable and difficult.” (p. 102)
According to the author, conditions and the reciprocity are the two primary
differences between speech and writing. In speech, the former includes time
factor and other associated problems like planning, memory and production
under pressure affect the form of spoken language. Besides, the later indicates
that listeners can generally show their agreement or disagreement with
speakers; thus, speakers can pay attention to listeners and adapt their message
according to their reaction. Meanwhile, in writing, readers‟ understanding and
potential problems such as what readers want to read are factors that the
writers have to anticipate or predict in each of their works.
From these two first points of view, it is clearly seen that the researchers
have defined speaking basing on the emphasis on the differences between
spoken and written language.

1.1.3 Principles of teaching speaking
According to Nunan (2003), teaching is sometimes considered a simple
process, which explained why many language schools hire native people with
no teaching certification to teach conversational English. Even though
speaking is natural; speaking another language is far more complex, which
requires teachers to strictly follow its own principles. Among various studies,
the simple principles suggested by Nunan (2003) are worth consideration.
First and foremost, teachers should be aware of the differences between L2
and foreign language learning contexts. Moreover, it is the teachers who
provide students opportunities to talk by using group- work or pair-work with
the practice of both fluency and accuracy while limiting teacher talk. Besides,
8
lesson plan plays a very important role in making a successful speaking period,
in which the plan speaking tasks that involve negotiate for meaning and the
design of classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both
transactional and interactional speaking should be carefully prepared.
More specifically, Burns and Joyce (1997, p.105) examined speaking and
principles of teaching speaking in a broader and more systematic way. They
concluded that as speaking involves a wide range of skills; teachers should
consider four vital guidelines. First of all, learners need to understand the
cultural and social purposes of spoken interactions, which may be broadly
classified as transaction or interaction. The second principle factor is that
speaking involves an understanding of the way in which context influences
the voice of language made. Furthermore, learning and practicing vocabulary,
grammatical structure and pronunciation should be related to the use of the
whole contexts. Finally, spoken discourse types or text can be analyzed with
learners for their typical structures and grammatical patterns.
As can be seen, while Nunan provided detailed guidelines for planning a
speaking lesson, Bums and Joyce put more emphasis on the role of context on
teaching speaking besides learners‟ communicative purposes. By saying that,

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 their relatives
or their family members because all of them are Vietnamese and they only use
Vietnamese in communication. As a matter of fact, the lack of real English
communication environment is the big challenge that Vietnamese students
have to face with when learning English.

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1.2 Students’ oral participation
1.2.1 Definition of students’ participation
Educators at Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo,
Canada defined students‟ participation as a “lengthy conversation with the
whole class”, which can include short dialogues between instructors and
students, or within small groups of students. More specifically, Green (2008)
has examined the term “students‟ participation” as perceived by students and
teachers. According to the author, students‟ responses often coincided their
class participation, in general, as the act of being involved in the class,
including an active intervention and showing interests to classroom‟s
activities. Conversely, teachers highlighted the aspect of student involvement
in class activities by interacting freely with classmates and with the teacher,
expressing themselves without inhibitions, completing teachers‟ thoughts,
answering or asking questions, and responding to comments or instructions.
Allwright (1984) stated that there are three types of oral engagement
language lessons. In the most frequent type, called „compliance‟, students‟
utterances are very much dependent on the teacher‟s management of
classroom communication. In the second type, known as „navigation‟, learners
take the initiative, to overcome communication breakdowns, as in requests for
clarification of what has been said. The less frequent type is „negotiation‟, and

 Personal relevance
 Anticipated value of outcomes
 Intrinsic value attributed to the activity
Sense of agency
EXTERN AL FACTORS
Significant others
 Parents
 Teachers
 Peers
The nature of interaction with
significant others
 Mediated learning experience
 The nature and amount
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 Locus of causality
 Locus of control re: process and
outcomes
 Ability to set appropriate goals
Mastery
 Feelings of competence
 Awareness of developing skills and
mastery in chosen area
 Self- efficacy
Self- concept
 Realistic awareness of personal strengt
hs and weaknesses in skills required
 Personal definitions and judgments of
success and failure
 Self - worth concern
 Learned helplessness

demotivation suffered by students. Stimulated recall methodology was used to
collect retrospective data. Based on the nature of the demotive categories,
Trang classified demotive factors into 2 groups: internal attributions and
extemal attributions. The former included students‟ attitudes towards English,
their experiences of failure or lack of success, and incidents related to their
self-esteem; the latter consisted of teacher-related factors, the learning
environment, and other external factors.
Internal attributions
Attitudes
towards English
Experiences of failure or lack of success
Self-esteem
- difficult to
pronounce
- large vocabulary
- complicated
grammar
- fail to understand lessons (lost
background knowledge)
- left behind classmates
- fail to answer teacher‟s questions, do
exercises, tests
- fail to communicate in English
- get low marks despite having studied
seriously
- feel insulted
- unconfident (fear of
losing face/
incompetence/afraid of
not being able to

-low
credibility
- teaching language
skills incomprehensively
- speed of teaching is too
fast
- ineffective
distribution of L1 & L2
use
- lessons limited to
textbook
- repeated lessons from
class to class
- different teaching
methods among
different teachers
- frequently test students
-inappropriate workload
- not equal to
students‟ levels of
proficiency
- no corrective
feedback

Learning enviromental demotivating factors
Classroom
atmosphere
- quite and
boring
- stressful

Textbook

- boring
- not equal
with students‟
levels of
proficiency
- availability
of instruction
books
15
outside class
proficiency
between
classmates
- lack of extra
curricular
activities

Table 2: Categories of demotivtaion (Trang, 2007, p. 90-92)
In spite of a solid and scrupulous foundation for the sources of factors
affecting students in the oral activities, in the work of William & Burden and
Trang, there is no distinction between inhibiting and motivating factors as in
Green (2008)‟s paper. In her approach, Green investigated factors and their
influence on both teachers and students in terms of motivating and inhibiting
their in-class performance.
INHIBITING FACTORS
MOTIVATING FACTORS
Students
Students

participation (Green, (2008), p. 56-57)
Besides, she demonstrated a detailed list of actions representing participation,
including:
 Giving opinions
 Answering questions,
 Making a commentary
 Making a spontaneous unsolicited
contribution
 Asking questions
 Having a dialogue between teachers
and students and/or between students
 Following classes with attention
 Being involved in the class
 Listening to others
 Helping teacher to “make her class”
 An attitude a student adopts in
class
 Talking about a topic
 Showing interest
 Reading
 Participating in group
discussions
 Making a thought public
 Making an intervention

Table 4: Action representing participation (Green, 2008, p.58)
In the context of this paper, on considering the factors affecting students‟
participation in the case study activity, the researcher would like to put aside
the broader context as stated in Williams and Burden‟s and Trang‟s
17

motivating and help students to develop the speaking ability.
SUMMARY
In short, this chapter has employed to present definitions of key terms and
issues regarding speaking skill, student‟s participation and characteristics of a
successful speaking activities. The knowledge gained from this part was put in
the hope of shedding light on the results and findings of the study.

19
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In the previous chapter, the literature on the research topic was reviewed
for the theoretical basic of the whole study. On the more practical side, this
chapter provides a detailed picture of methodology as the participants, the
instruments, as well as the procedure of data collection and analysis are
discussed in detail.
2.1 The setting of the study
The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Hai Phong
University was established in November, 2007, originated from the
Economics and Management Department, Faculty of In-service training-HPU.
The major missions of the faculty are to provide highly qualified human
resources in line with the demands of international economic integration and
the development of the country, at the same time offer high quality consulting

information or note-taking.
+ Skills will develop essential business communication skills such as making
presentation, taking part in meetings, negotiating, telephoning, and using
English in social situations.
+ The last one is the case study which is linked to the business topics of each
unit. They are based on realistic business problems or situations and allow
students to use the language and the communications skills that they have
developed while working through the unit. Case studies give students the
opportunities to practice the speaking skills in realistic business situations. In
addition, each case study ends with a writing task to provide students with
writing form necessary in the business field.
One semester will last for 15 weeks with 3 periods of ESP for each week,
so that case studies are often taught and learnt within one period-45 minutes.
21
The other periods are spent on teaching and learning others parts and skills of
the unit.
2.2 Participants
Since the study focus on using the case study to encourage students to
speak English, the participation of students in the study is very important. A
number of 40 students from K11A class who have actually handed back the
questionnaires took part in the survey. The students reported to have studies
English for at least 4 years and at most 10 years, with the majority of them
voted for a study period from 7 to 8 years. These students are regarded as the
primary target of the research because they are ones facing with the matter of
low degree of participation in speaking period, the fundamental reason for the
low proficiency in English communication skill.
2.3 The instruments
For a collection of sufficient reliable and vivid data for the study,
questionnaires and classroom observation were utilized as methods of the
qualitative approach.