1
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN ANH QUỲNH
FACTORS AFFECTING THE FIRST YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR
STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ORAL ACTIVITIES:
A SURVEY AT THAI NGUYEN COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

(NHỮNG NHÂN TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN SỰ THAM GIA VÀO CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG
NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT :
NGHIÊN CỨU KHẢO SÁT TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG SƯ PHẠM THÁI NGUYÊN) M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 601410
3
6. Organization of the study
3
Part B: DEVELOPMENT
5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
5
1.1. Theoretical background of speaking
5
1.1.1. Concept of speaking
5
1.1.2. The role of speaking in foreign language teaching
6
1.1.3. Approaches in teaching speaking
6
1.2. Students’ participation in oral activities
8
1.2.1. Concept of students’ participation
8
1.2.2. Factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities
8
1.2.2.1. Students’ factors
8
1.2.2.1.1. Students’ language proficiency level
8
1.2.2.1.2. Students’ personally factors
9
1.2.2.1.3. Students’ attitude and motivation
10
1.2.2.2. Teachers’ factors

17
2.3. The participants
17
2.4. Data collections instruments
17
2.4.1. Survey questionnaires
17
2.4.2. Interviews
18
2.5. Data collection procedures
18
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
19
3.1. Data analysis
19
3.1.1. Results of students’ survey questionnaire
19
3.1.2. Results of teachers’ survey questionnaire
26
3.1.3. Result from interviews with teachers
31
3.2. Findings and discussion
34
3.1.1 Students’ low level of participation in oral activities
34
3.2.2. Students’ factors
35
3.2.3. Teachers’ factors
35
3.2.4. Classroom factors
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TNCE: Thai Nguyen College of Education
CLT: Communicative Language Teaching
EFL: English as Foreign Language
ESL: English as Second Language


21 Table 1
19
Table 2
22
Table 3
23
Table 4
24
Table 5
24
Table 6
25
Table 7
26
Table 8
27
Table 9
28
Table 10
29
Table 11
30
students’ ineffective participation in speaking lessons. The reasons for that are
various. Tsui (1996), after carrying a research in Hong Kong, lists five principle
factors affecting the reluctance of students’ participation in classroom speaking
lessons: students’ perceived low proficiency in English, students’ fear of making
mistakes and derision, teachers’ intolerance of silence, uneven allocation of turns,
incomprehensible input (as cited in Nunan, 1999: 234).
In Vietnam, Phung (2006) conducts an experiment about techniques to overcome
factors affecting the participation in classroom oral activities at College of Social
Sciences and Humanities. The findings shows that factors affecting his students’
participation includes students’ learning styles, motivation, language level, gender
differences, teachers’ teaching techniques, characteristics, teachers’ knowledge,
implementation of teachers’ role in speaking activities, the available facilities and
classroom atmosphere.
Nguyen (2010) suggests strategies to increase the participation in communicative
activities of students at Dong Do high school, Hanoi. She also concludes that the
factors affecting her students’ participation in communicative activities are students’
poor background knowledge, lack of confidence, lack of motivation and passive
learning style.
Although there have been many studies about factors affecting students’
participation in oral activities, it is considered new in the EFL context of Thai
Nguyen College of Education (TNCE). As a teacher at this college, the
researcher sees that most of her students do not often enjoy speaking period, and
they do not actively contribute the speaking lessons. They always keep quiet,
passively take note, some listen to better students speaking but do nothing, and some
hard-working students discuss in Vietnamese. The study entitled “ Factors
affecting the first year non-English major students’ participation in oral activities:
a survey at Thai Nguyen College of Education” is an attempt to find out the reasons
for above problems, and give some suggestions to increase students’ participation in
oral activities.
2. Objectives of the study

organization of the study.
Part B, Development, including the following chapters:
Chapter 1, Literature review, presents the theoretical background of speaking in
which concept of speaking, the role of speaking in foreign language teaching and
learning, approaches in teaching speaking are considered, issues of students’
participation in oral activities including concept of students’ participation and
factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities.
Chapter 2, Methodology, includes background of the study, research questions, the
participants, data collection instruments, and data collection procedures.
Chapter 3, The results and discussions, presents data analysis of the study, findings
and discussions which discover factors affecting both students and teachers in oral
activities
Chapter 4, Implications and Recommendations, gives some suggestions to increase
students’ participation in oral activities.
Part C, Conclusion, summarizes all the key issues of the study as well as the
limitations of the study and suggestions for further study.
Part B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter consists of three sections. The first section reviews the theoretical
background of speaking which includes the concept of speaking, the role of
speaking in foreign language teaching and learning, approaches in teaching
speaking. The second section deals with the issues of students’ participation in oral
activities. The last section is the relevance of this study.
1.1. Theoretical background of speaking

language.
For that reason, speaking skill plays an important role in foreign language teaching
because effective speaking ability helps learners not only to acquire the language
better but also to communicate successfully. In the language classroom, speaking
skill should be paid great attention to.
1.1.3. Approaches in teaching speaking
There are several approaches in teaching English speaking such as Grammar-
Translation Method, Direct Method, Audio-Lingual Approach, and a more modern
approach, namely Communicative Language Teaching Approach (CLT). However,
in recent decades, CLT mostly employ on the belief that helps to develop the
learners’ communicative language ability. Therefore, in this section, the researcher
only discuss on CLT as an approach for teaching speaking skill.
Many researchers say that CLT has prevailed over traditional methods such as
grammar translation method or the audio-lingual method. This is due to several
reasons. According to Mitchell (1994), CLT covers the four skills of the language
which are listening, reading, speaking, and writing (receptive and productive skills),
which can be lacking in certain methods like grammar translation method or the
audio-lingual method. Today, communicative language teaching is viewed as the
most effective and widely used approach in EFL/ESL teaching, most modern
methods and techniques emphasize it (Kumaravadivelu 1993; Savignon 2000), and
most materials and textbooks are designed for it.
Moreover, Savignon (2000: 126-128) says that the essence of CLT is the
engagement of learners in communication to allow them to develop their
communicative competence. He also emphasized that the focus of CLT is to
promote the development of functional language ability through learner
participation in communicative events. A further definition of CLT is explicitly
characterized by Li (1998:679) as follows: A focus on communicative function; A
focus on meaning tasks rather than on language per se (e.g. grammar or vocabulary
study); Efforts to make tasks and language relevant to a target group of learners
through an analysis of genuine, realistic situation; the use of authentic, from life

development of an improved classroom learning experience. 1.2.2. Factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities
Students’ participation in oral activities can be affected by a variety of factors
originating from students, teachers and classroom. In the following sections, some
of the major factors will be discussed.
1.2.2.1. Students’ factors
1.2.2.1.1. Students’ language proficiency level
It is undeniable that students’ language proficiency is one important factor affecting
students’ participation in oral activities. According to Rod (1985) proficiency
consists of the learners’ knowledge of target language; it can be synonymous with
“ competence” . Proficiency can be viewed as linguistic competence or
communicative competence. Second language proficiency is usually measured in
relation to native speaker proficiency. Moreover, Stern (1992) defines proficiency
in terms of objectives or standards. These can serve as criteria by which to assess
proficiency as an empirical fact that is the actual performance of given individual
learners or group of learners.
Language proficiency ranges from Beginning to Fully-English Proficient. However,
historically, few students achieve Fully-English Proficient.
In fact, in a class if students’ language proficiency is rather low, they will not be
confident to participate in speaking lesson. Moreover, if students’ language
proficiency level are low or students are of different language proficiency levels,
teachers may cope difficulties choosing a suitable teaching method, and activities
used in class.
To conclude, the limitation in the students’ language proficiency levels can directly
affect their participation, how much they like the activities. Thus, in order to develop
their second language proficiency, students should try their best to overcome all
their difficulties, practice English as mush as possible and teachers should choose
the topics and activities of students’ levels to encourage their participation.

in terms of two factors: learners’ communicative need and their attitudes towards
the second language community (Lightbrown and Spada, 1999:56). In language
learning, motivation is considered as “ a key consideration in determining the
preparedness of learners to communicate” (Gardner, 1985:10). He also indicates that
the motivation of foreign language learning contains four aspects: a goal, effortful
behavior, a desire to attain the goal and the attitude. It can be understood that if
students have strong learning motivation take positive attitude towards study and
make great efforts to master English with clear goal and desire, they will gain better
grade than those who have not acquired motivation.
According to (Sass, 1989: 86-88) there are many factors affecting student's
motivation to work and to learn: interest in the subject matter, perception of its
usefulness, general desire to achieve, self-confidence and self-esteem, as well as
patience and persistence. And, of course, not all students are motivated by the same
values, needs, desires, or wants. Some students will be motivated by the approval of
others, some by overcoming challenges.
Dornyei (2001), Oxford and Shearin (1994: 19) suggests some ways that teachers
can do to increase students’ motivation in English speaking activities: capitalize on
students’ existing needs, help students set achievable goals, give clear explanation,
create a comfortable atmosphere, vary teaching activities and methods, make
learning visual, increase students’ self-confidence, promote co-operative learning,
make students active participants in speaking activities, respond to students’ work
and reward success.
In brief, motivation plays a very important role in teaching and learning as “ positive
attitudes and motivation are related to success in second language learning”
(Gardner, 1985). Whatever factors affecting students’ motivation, it is a duty for
each language teacher to increase students’ motivation in speaking lesson.
1.2.2.2. Teachers’ factors
1.2.2.2.1. Teachers’ teaching method
Teachers’ teaching methods refer to a set of techniques or activities used to get
students involved in learning to achieve a goal. It means that teachers’ teaching

1.2.2.3. Classroom factors
1.2.2.3.1. Classroom size
The number of students is an important factor in foreign language classes. In Hayes’
definition (1997), any class with over 40 students can be considered a large class.
Teaching large classes is difficult for both teachers and students in many reasons.
First, teaching large classes requires more work for the teacher as there are more
learners to assist. Then, it is not easy for teachers to motivate all students, make all
of them concentrated, to have them involved, and to get them promptly responded.
Moreover, large classes are often more difficult to control because of the number of
learners. Noise is greater, and discipline problems are more likely to become
uncontrollable. Next, many of techniques and materials we use in smaller classes
are difficult to use with larger classes because of students’ different learning
preferences, different English proficiency level. If there is little classroom space, for
example, arranging seats in groups can be difficult or impossible.
In short, large classes cause problems for both teachers and students. Therefore both
teachers and students have responsible to reduce those problems to have effective
lessons. Students should actively participate in the lessons. Teachers should choose
suitable method or techniques to involve all students, such as group work, pair work,
etc.
1.2.2.3.2. Classroom atmosphere
Many teachers do not take the atmosphere of a classroom into consideration when
they conduct their classes, but the atmosphere is an essential part of learning in a
classroom. Creating a positive and engaging classroom atmosphere is one of the
most powerful tools teachers can use to encourage students’ learning and prevent
problem behaviors from occurring. Language learning is considered one of the most
face-threatening school subjects. Language anxiety has been found to be a powerful
factor that hinders students’ participation in oral activities. In order to get learners
more involved in class, especially in speaking activities, a favorable classroom
atmosphere is considered indispensable. According to Underwood (1987:34-44),
both teachers and students should create a pleasant teaching and learning

issues of students’ participation in oral activities, accompanied by the relevance of
the present study. The research methodology employed in the present study will be
presented in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the methods for carrying out the study will be discussed. These
include background of the study, research questions, the participants, data
collection instruments and data collection procedures.
2.1. Background of the study
2.1.1. An overview of Thai Nguyen College of Education

Hutchinson, Oxford University Press, 2002). There are 14 units lasting 150
periods divided in three terms. Each week students have 3 or 4 English periods and
they continuously learn in 15 weeks. The book provides students with general
knowledge classified into 5 main parts: grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing,
listening and speaking, and pronunciation. The aim of the book is to enable the
students communicate in the target language. However, at TNCE, the tests and
examinations are in written form. So the teachers and students focus most of
activities on grammar, and reading comprehension to help students pass the exam.
2.1.5. Classroom facilities
At TNCE, English teaching and learning are mostly carried out inside the
classrooms, which are designed for lectures. All the seats are arranged in fixed rows
and classroom equipment is just a chalkboard. Besides, each English teacher is
provided with a cassette player to support the listening lessons. There are 8
classrooms which are equipped with projectors for all teachers at TNCE. The
numbers of such classrooms do not meet the demand of all teachers in the college.
There are not enough rooms if many classes want to use them at the same time. At
TNCE, there is no language lab. Besides, equipments and facilities are inadequate
such as lack of TV set, videotape, laboratory, headphone/microphone and projector.
The materials for reference and self-study are not enough. In the library, English
books, newspapers and magazines, which are good sources of current target
language, are not available. This is a big disadvantage for both teachers and students
who want to seek for reference materials for further study.
2.2. Research questions
This study determined the factors affecting the first year non-English major
students’ participation in oral activities at Thai Nguyen College of Education and
gives some solutions to in crease students’ participation. The research was
implemented to answer these questions:
1. How do the students participate in oral activities?
2. What are the factors affecting the first year non - English major students’
participation in oral activities?


2.4.2. Interviews
Besides survey questionnaires, the researcher used semi-structured interviews
for teachers as a supplementary data collection method. Semi-structured interviews
were employed for reasons that they could bring the interviewer great flexibility to
focus more on remarkable points (Nunan, 1992). Three teachers were invited to the
interview and kindly requested to answer the interviewer’ s questions. The writer
took notes right at the place of the interview. Each interview included three
questions so that the researcher could base on to keep track with the objectives of
the study during the interviews. However, as the interviews went along, possible
relevant questions would be added to generate more useful details.
2.5. Data collection procedure
The researcher delivered the questionnaires to 166 participants, 6 English teachers
and 160 students. The participants were asked to complete at class in 30 minutes.
Each participant completed the questionnaire without discussion with the others.
After collecting the information from the questionnaires, she started interviews with
three teachers to get further information.
In this chapter, the background of the study, the research questions, participants,
instruments and data collection procedure are presented. In the best attempt to
build a scientific methodology, the researcher hopes to achieve a reliable and valid
data of the study.


Q2

Why do you learn English speaking?

A. because it is a compulsory subject
52.5
B. because it is interesting
13.75
C. because I like it
10
D. to have a good job in the future
15
E. Others (please specify): ……………… ………….
8.75
Table 1: Students’ motivation in speaking
In response to question 2, only 13.75% of the students stated that they learn English
speaking because it was interesting, 10% studied English speaking for personal
interest, 15 % believed that English speaking was necessary for their future job,
while 52.5% claimed that they learned English speaking because it was compulsory.
27.5%
25.0%
0.0%
47.5%
very important
important
little important
not important
Some students gave other answers: to communicate with foreigners, to listen to
songs, read books, magazines and watch movies in English, to go abroad after

25
30
35
A B C DA. I always take every opportunity to
speak English.
B. I only speak if I like the topic.
C. I only speak when teacher orders me.
D. I rarely speak and often keep quiet in
speaking lessons.

Figure 3: Students’ level of participation in speaking activities
0.00%
8.75%
32.50%
43.75%
15.00%
Excellent
Good
Acceptable
Bad
Very bad
It can be seen from figure 3 that only 12.5% of the students always spoke English in
class, they actively took every chance to speak English. 20% only spoke if they
liked the topic, 35% only spoke if teacher ordered them. One third of them (32.5%)
rarely spoke in class. We can see that this number is not small. Many students often
kept quiet and were passively in speaking lessons. From the results shown in the
figure, a conclusion can be drawn that levels of students’ participation in oral

lessons were boring (15%) or not very interesting (47.5%) and they didn’ t
participate in speaking. 27.5 % answered that their speaking lessons were all right,
many students were very active and willing to speak. Only 10 % said their speaking
lessons were interesting.
In brief, from the above result, it can be seen that students’ participation is very
limited. Teachers should do something to improve students’ involvement in
speaking lessons.
Question 6 is students’ assessment of given speaking tasks in the book “ lifelines
elementary” that they study in the first and second term.
Level of difficulty: 1. difficult 2. not very difficult 3. easy
Level of interest: 1. interesting 2. not very interesting 3. boring