DESINGING A SUPPLEMENTARY ENGLISH SPEAKING SYLLABUS
FOR THE 10
TH
FORM STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN HIGH SCHOOL THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH NÓI BỔ TRỢ CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10
TRƯỜNG THPT THÁI NGUYÊN

M.A MINOR THESIS
FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10 HANOI - 2010


FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10
SUPERVISOR: Dr. HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA

HANOI - 2010

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ii
ABSTRACT
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
iv
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1
I. Rationale
1
II. The aim of the study
2
III. Research question
2
IV. Scope of the study
2
V. Methods of the study

11
I.2.3.2.4. Surveys
11
I.2.3.2.5. Role - plays
11
Chapter II. research methodology
12
II.1 Present situation
12
II.1. 1. General background
12
II.1.2. The teachers
13
II.1. 3. The students
14
II.1. 4. The textbook
14

v
II.2. Research Methodology
15
II.2.1. Research Subjects
15
II.2.2. Instruments
16
II. 2.3. Procedures of data collection
17
II. 2.4. Data Analysis
17
II.2. 5. Summary

III.3.4.1. Listing:
32
III.3.4.2. Talk about routines
32
III.3.4.3. Gap- filling
34
III.3.4.4. Problem solving task
36
III.3.4.5. Sharing personal experiences
36
PART C: CONCLUSION
37
References
39
Appendix
I

1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale
There is a saying „A man who knows two languages is worth than two men‟ this
shows the importance and developing tendency of learning foreign languages. Nowadays
English becomes more popular than ever before. It is spoken all over the world and appears in
all spheres of human life. It is considered a bridge connecting country with country, culture
with culture. It is language of economy, education, entertainment, sports, etc. Although
English is an international language, learning and teaching English is a complicated process.
In many countries, where English is learned as a second language, those responsible

students, the textbooks.
+ analyzing the students‟ needs in terms of speaking skills.
+ identifying the objectives of the supplementary speaking syllabus and then selecting
the content of the syllabus for these students.
It is hoped that the proposed speaking syllabus will be useful and interesting, thus
involving them practicing speaking and then developing their speaking skills.
III. Research question
In order to achieve these goals, the study is carried out to answer the following research
question:
- Can the 10th form students at Thai Nguyen High school develop their speaking skills
through a supplementary English speaking syllabus?
IV. Scope of the study
Due to the duration of time and the length as well as the references available, this
thesis does focus on designing a supplementary speaking syllabus, which is suitable for the
local situation of Thai Nguyen School. It aims at only students in grade 10.
V. Methods of the study
To do this study, a number of references, books, and websites have been selected and
helpful information have been collected. The data of the study was mainly collected by means
of material analysis, and a survey questionnaire. Observations and interviews were also
conducted to collect supplementary information for the study.
VI. Design of the study
This study consists of three parts, excluding the appendixes and the references.
Part A, Introduction, consists of the rationale, the aims and objectives, the scope, the
methods, and the design of the study.
Part B, Development, is the heart of the study which directly deals with speaking
syllabus. This part is divided into three chapters including chapter I: Literature review and
theoretical background; chapter II: Presents methodology of the study including background

3
situation, data analysis, findings and discussion; chapter III: Presents the proposed

have been given by acknowledged researchers, of which some are really worth noticing. A syllabus is
generally taken as an expression of opinion on the nature of language and learning; it acts as a guide
for both teachers and learners by providing some goals to be achieved. Widdowson (1984: 26) defines
syllabus as " simply a framework within which activities can be carried out: a teaching device to
facilitate learning. " Analogically speaking, if learning process is seen as a journey, the syllabus can be
viewed as a statement of a predicted routes with which teachers and learners not only have an idea of
where they are going, but how they might get to the destination (Hutchinson and Water 1987: 84). They
further simplify its nature: "At its simplest level a syllabus can be described as a statement of what is
to be learnt. It reflects of language and linguistic performance."
Unlike Yalden (1987:87) who defines a syllabus simply as " A summary of the content to
which learners will be exposed", Dubin and Oshtain (2000:27-28) bring about another
meaning: "For what we are calling 'syllabus' might have the title of 'curriculum ', 'plan', 'course
outline, or any number of other names. Whatever it is called, it is a document, which ideally
describes:
• What the learners are expected to know at the end of the course, or the course
objectives in operational terms.
• What is to be taught or learned during the course, in the form of an inventory of items;
• When it is to be taught, and at what rate of progress, relating the inventory of items to the
different levels and stages as well as the time constraints of the course;
• How it is to be taught, suggesting procedures, techniques, and materials;
• How it is to be evaluated, suggesting testing and evaluating mechanisms;
The stand point of Dubin and Oshtain is practically useful and detailed for any attempt to
design a syllabus. Therefore, it is used as a guideline for the researcher during the syllabus designing
process of this study.

5
I.1.2. What is an effective syllabus?

• Include materials that support learning outside the classroom
• Serve as a learning contract (Grunert, 1997: 14-19)

6
In addition, it is widely recognized that Bachman's model of communicative
competence provides a potentially useful framework for the design of language syllabus.
Thus, as Phan (2005) states, these competences are suggested "as having to be equally
combined in a teaching syllabus to offer learners a fuller understanding of the language".

I.2. Speaking skills and speaking activities
I.2.1. The nature of spoken language
People use spoken language to express their ideas, opinions and feelings. They also
use it to make sense of and confirm their understandings, to question and test their
assumptions and to explore meaning. In other words, they use spoken language to interact
with others for different purposes and to develop their understanding of different registers,
tones, and the use of expression language. To reach the purpose of communication, it is true
that spoken language is helped by different means of non-verbal communication. The speaker
can vary his voice quality, adopting posture, gesture to express a great deal.
Another noticeable feature of spoken language is that it typically contains many
incomplete sentences. Byrne (1976: 95) says, "in contrast to written language where sentences
are carefully structured and linked together, speech is characterized by incomplete and
sometimes ungrammatical utterances and frequently false starts and repetitions".
Brown and Yule (1982:68) also discuss spoken language in comparison with written
language that: "written language is characterized by well-formed sentences which are
integrated into highly structured paragraph. Spoken language, in contrast, consists of short,
often fragmentary utterances in a range of a pronunciation. There is often a great deal of
repetitions and overlaps between one speaker and another, and speakers usually use non-
specific references. In addition, the use of fillers such as "oh", "well" makes spoken language
less conceptually dense than other types of language"
With the nature of spoken language, the main goal of teaching and learning speaking

listening, reading and writing as well as makes them better at communication. It is clear that speaking
involves responding to what has been heard. Good speaking also means that the speakers have a
large volume of both theoretical and social knowledge, which will help them more confident and
better at reading and writing. In other words, when speaking skill is in progress, other skills also
become better.
Secondly, good speaking is said to be a good source of motivation for students. It helps
them use the language appropriately and flexibly in every day communication. This is true
because when students get high motivation, they will get progress in their study. Harmer (1998:
8) also says that whatever kind of motivation students have, it is clear that highly motivated
students do better than ones without any motivation at all.
Another reason to say speaking is a huge source of motivation that it can help students
express their ideas naturally and rapidly, in addition, through speaking students may realize how

8
much language they have mastered and how they have used it. From that, they will study harder
to improve their language competence.
Thirdly, thanks to students' speaking, the teacher can get feedback from students quickly
and accurately. Through students' speaking activities in class and outside class, the teacher can
know how much students understand the lesson. Therefore, she/he can know what their weak and
strong points are in language to have suitable solutions and plans.
For all these advantages, speaking skill plays a significant role in teaching language at
high schools in Vietnam. In new textbooks, all skills: speaking, writing, listening, reading are
designed appropriately for only one purpose which is to lead students to real communication
ability.
Speaking skills not only allow the speakers to convey their message in a passionate
thoughtful and convincing manner, but speaking skills also help assure that they will not be
misunderstood by those who are listening. In short, they give people the ability to communicate
effectively, thus reducing misunderstanding. There are three kinds of speaking situations in
which speakers find themselves: interactive, partially interactive and non- interactive.
Interactive speaking situations include face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in

activities are successfully performed. So the next focus is on what may make a speaking activity
successful.
First, a speaking activity is considered to be successful if it is the learners who talk a lot.
By "a lot" here means "most of the time allotted to the activity". It must be the type of activity
where there is a maximum of learners' talk and a minimum of teacher' talk, intervention or
pauses. Teachers in this case function as consultants, supervisors or guides who only give help
when learners meet difficulty.
Second, it is an activity where the students participate evenly, or, all get a chance to
speak. In such an activity every one gets involved in the discussion, and therefore, the
contributions are evenly distributed. There is no domination of a minority of talkative participants.
Third, that motivation must be high is rather vague but it may mean that every learner is
eager and has a desire to speak because they are interested in the topic. They either have
something new to say about or want to get information about They want to contribute to achieving a
task objective.
Lastly, the language used in a successful speaking activity must be of an accepted
level, in an activity of such type, participants express themselves in utterances that are
relevant, easily comprehensible to each other and of an acceptable level of language
accuracy.
10

I.2.3.2. Some common speaking activities
These are useful activities to promote students' speaking. Depending on each lesson, and
the number of students, teacher can use one of these activities to make speaking lessons more
interesting.
I.2.3.2.1 Discussion
Before the discussion, it is essential mat the teacher set the purpose of the discussion activity.
In this way, the discussion points are relevant to this purpose, so mat students do not spend their time

sure that topics must be secret so that students will find information gaps and, thus the interviews
are more communicative. Information gap activities are those in which students exchange
information in order

to complete a required lesson plan activity. Most information gap activities
are done in pairs, with each student having a part of the information.

I.2.3.2.3. Information gaps
Harmer (1998:88) describes information gap as one type of speaking activity which
involves the so- called “information gap”- where two speakers have different parts of
information making up a whole. Because they have different information, there is a “gap”
between them. This type of speaking activity is highly motivating, there is a real purpose for
communication taking place (the information gap, completion of the task), and almost any
language can be used. Popular information gap activities are “Describe and Draw”, Story
telling, interview, etc.

I.2.3.2.4. Surveys
According to Harmer (1998:89), one way of provoking conversation and opinion
exchange is to get students to conduct questionnaires and surveys. If the students plan these
questionnaires themselves, the activity becomes even more useful.
To do the survey, students have to go round the class questioning the other students and
noting down what they say. While they are doing this, the teacher listens and prompts where
necessary and he then gets them to tell the class of any interesting experiences they have
uncovered.

I.2.3.2.5. Role - plays
According to Joanna Budden (British Council, Spain), role- playing is described as a
group problem solving method that allows students to explore and analyze human problems in
a “safe” environment- the kind of rehearsal possibilities. In role- play activities, students are
asked to imagine that they are in different situations and act accordingly. We may tell them to

knowledge than other language skills as many of them frankly say that their purpose of
studying English is to circle options in multiple- test to pass exams. This has suggested us to
find ways to improve the situations. One of the solutions is designing supplementary syllabus
and it is believed to bring good effects in the light of my 9- year teaching experience.
13
II.1.2. The teachers
Teachers play a fundamental role in the process of education in general, and in foreign
language learning in particular. To anyone‟s surprise, there were no English teachers working
full- time in the first three years of this new - born school. Now three young teachers of
English (the researcher is among them) are employed to be in charge of teaching under the
leadership of an English teacher from TUE who has been employed working part - time at
school. These young teachers graduated from English Faculty at TUE, and two are doing the
M.A in the language field. Every year, teachers of English are invited and given chances to
attend summer workshops held by Thai Nguyen Education Office to study how to use the new
7 - year course textbook and to update professional knowledge. Moreover, TUE often hold
conferences and workshops in English field with native speakers from Britain, America,
Holland and certainly English teachers receive their invitation to be special participants to
share practical experiences and reflect the teacher- students‟ practicum at the School. In
addition, teachers of English from Thai Nguyen High School have also attended some
workshops held by the British Council in Hanoi and gained a lot in the field of English
language as well as teaching skills.
Other advantage of the school is a large number of invited teachers from English
Faculty at TUE and some other famous schools in Thai Nguyen city. They are selected
because of their fame for English knowledge and teaching skills.
In addition, the strength of the school is a large group of teacher- students doing their
practicum every year. Unlike other schools, our school is in TUE; so many good university
students with their coming graduation papers are allowed to work near their supervisors to get

course, the goals of the CLT and the students‟ purpose in learning English are contradict.
Needless to say, losing interest in learning English of the students is the consequence the
teachers have to face when they enter the School. To make the matter worse, the classes are
big with about 55 students in one class. This loads their teachers with more work and to get
them all practice speaking in English seems impossible.
With regard to learning strategies, especially speaking ones, the researcher realizes
that the students do not develop their own ways of learning. They enjoy doing accuracy
activities, which usually bring them satisfaction. They do not feel confident enough to express
ideas themselves in fluency activities and are passive in interacting with each other. As a
result, they need a lot of practice to improve their ability in speaking, especially speaking in
front of an audience.

II.1. 4. The textbook
It can not be denied that the textbooks play as an important part in the teaching and
learning process. Cunnings Worth (1995: 7) states the roles of textbook in ELT as:
- A resource for presentation material

15
- A source of activities for learner practice and communicative interaction
- A reference source
- A syllabus
- A resource for self- directed learning or self- access work
- A support for less experienced teachers
The textbook materials can control the learning and teaching. Teachers and students
always rely on textbooks in many cases and textbooks determine the components and methods
of learning. When the teachers prepare lessons, they have to study the lessons in the textbooks
and decide whether they should use the whole lesson or they should make some alternatives if
they decide some parts are not appropriate for their students.
Harmer (1998:120) suggested 4 options: Omit; replace; add and adapt.
The 7- year course English textbooks are welcomed by the majority of teachers for

observe speaking lessons to see how appropriate the task for the students is and how the
students do the task easily.

II.2.2. Instruments
According to Oxford (1990:5), there are different data collection instruments that can
be employed to gather data such as questionnaire, tests, checklist, interview and observation.
The instruments are used to collect data in this study were questionnaire and personal
observation and interview.
Firstly, questionnaire is an effective tool for gathering, measuring attitudes because of
its advantages as follows. First, as pointed out by Zolt¸n Dornyei (2003:10), it is a cost-
effectiveness instrument for collecting data. In other words, it is inexpensive. Second,
questionnaires are self-administered and can be given to large groups of subjects at the same
time. And it can elicit information about participants’ internal meanings and ways of thinking;
therefore, the data are more standard. Third, it is the quickest way of collecting data.
Moreover, close-ended items can provide exact information needed by researcher while open-
ended items can provide detailed information in respondents’ own words. Finally, it helps the
researcher easily analyze the results. However, it has a few limitations. Some participants do
not want to cooperate. Moreover, people filling out questionnaires may not remember some
related information and may lack self-awareness. Although there are such limitations,
questionnaire is still an effective tool for data collection. Therefore, the researcher chose it as
the main instrument to gather the data for the study.
Secondly, observation is also one of the useful methods of data collection. According
to Kumar (1996:105), observation is a purposeful, systematic and selective way of watching
and listening to an interaction or phenomenon as it takes place. As also is denoted by Kumar,
there are two types of observation: participant observation and non-participant observation. In
this study, the researcher chose observation as the suitable method for gathering data because
of its explicit benefits. First, it allows one to directly see what people do without having to rely
on what they say they do. Second, non-participant observation (direct observation) tends to be
more focused than participant observation. The researcher is observing certain sampled



II. 2.4. Data Analysis
First, the data collected from questionnaire was synthesized and applied Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), Version 15.0 for calculating figures including frequency
and percentages. These figures were coded into charts which is the underpinning base for
analyzing.

18
Second, observation and interviews were to find out problems with speaking lessons
and speaking tasks, and then they were studied to help select the content of the supplementary
speaking syllabus for the students.
II.2. 5. Summary
The researcher chose the questionnaires and observation as the main methods of
gathering data in this study, and provided the basic elements for selecting this method. A
hundred students were chosen as the participants in the current study depending on some
criteria. Finally, data collected from questionnaire was synthesized and applied Statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), Version 15.0 for calculating figures including frequency
and percentages.
II.3. Data analysis and discussion
II.3.1. Survey questionnaire
The questionnaire was designed with 14 questions to elicit the necessary information.
The first three questions were to elicit the students‟ background. Questions 4 and 5 were
about students‟ attitude towards learning English. Questions 6,7,8,9 and 10 aimed at finding
the students‟ attitude towards speaking activities. Question 11 asked students about the
familiar topics. The last three questions investigated the students‟ attitude towards extra
activities.
The survey questionnaire was administered to 100 students from the 10 form Thai
Nguyen High School (see Appendix 1). They all have used the same course book “English
10”. Table 1 shows the results of questions 1, 2 and 3.
Option

26
64
-
Table 1: students’ background

19
Question 1 was to indicate the students‟ social background, which was said to be
related with their condition for learning English. Table 1 showed that the majority of students
(68%) come from Thai Nguyen city, a good place for educations. 10 % of the students were
from country and 22 % of the students were from towns.
Question 2 was to identify students‟ process of learning English. In answering this
question, all the students said they have learnt English since they were at grade 6.
The answer to question 3 relating students‟ extra studying, about a fourth of the students
attended other language institutions.
Reason for learning English
Number of students
(%)
Study
30
30
Work
30
30
A combination of study and work
32
32
Examination
58
58
Promotion

Pie-chart 1: attitude towards speaking English

20
Questions 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 were designed to find out students‟ attitude towards
speaking activities.
Question 6 asked students about pair work and group work. Table 3 indicated that
20% of the students liked working individually much while 56% of them liked working in
pair. Over half of the students enjoyed working in small groups. Only a few students (6% and
8%) said that they felt rather like working in pairs and groups. None of them thought they
disliked these kinds of activities.
When answering about working in the whole class, 40 % of the students liked working
in lockstep very much. One third of them liked it much. 6% of them did not enjoy this kind of
activities at all.

Very much
Much
Rather
Little
Not at all
Individual
0
20
36
30
14
With a partner
8
56
28
8

94
6
Learn more from each other
98
2 Chart 2 showed the data for question 8 which was intended to find out kinds of
speaking activities students liked to work in pairs/groups. As can be seen from it, students
liked the games the most (72%); then discussion (50%); and conversation (38%). In contrast,
students liked the activity of information-gap the least (10%). There also were the same
Table 4: students’ attitude towards the benefit of pair and group work 21
number (22%) of students who liked the activities of role playing, interviewing, and
brainstorming.

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Brainstorming
Conversation
Disscusing