VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
  

ĐỖ THỊ LAN HƯƠNG

USING ENGLISH READING TEXTS AS INPUT FOR
SPEAKING TASKS
AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY

SỬ DỤNG BÀI ĐỌC TIẾNG ANH LÀM NGUỒN NGỮ LIỆU CHO CÁC
HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG CÔNG NGHIỆP PHÚC YÊN MINOR PROGRAM THESIS Field: English methodology
Code: 601410
Field: English methodology
Code: 601410
Supervisor: MA. Pham Minh Hien HANOI, 2012
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Declaration i
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
Table of contents v
List of tables ix
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Rationale of the study 1
1.2. Focus of the study 2
1.3. Purposes of the study 2
1.4. Research questions 3
1.5. Scope of the study 3
1.6. Methods of the study 4
1.7. Design of the study 4
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 6
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 6
1. Theory of input 6
1.1. Definitions of input 6
1.2. The input hypothesis of Krashen‟s theory 6
1.3. Reading texts as comprehensible input 8
2. Communicative approach 9

3.2.1.2. Students‟ reasons for learning English 28
3.2.1.3. Students‟ attitude towards learning English speaking skills 29
3.2.1.4. Time and materials used for learning speaking at school 30
3.2.1.5. Factors that make students feel difficult in learning speaking 31
3.2.1.6. Students‟ desire from speaking lessons 32
3.2.2. Questionnaire No.2 33
3.2.2.1. Students‟ responses to question 1 33
3.2.2.2. Students‟ responses to question 2 34
3.2.2.3. Students‟ responses to questions 3, 4 35
3.3. Findings from the pre-test and the post-test 35
3.4. Data discussion 38
3.4.1. Students’ difficulties in learning speaking skills 38
3.4.2. The effects of English reading texts used as input for speaking tasks 39
PART THREE: CONCLUSION 40
1. Summary of the findings 40
2. Implications and suggestions for teaching speaking using English reading
texts as input for speaking tasks 41
3. Limitations of the study and recommendations for further study 41
4. Conclusion 42
References 44
Appendix 1 I
Appendix 2 II
Appendix 3 IV
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Appendix 4 VI


27
Table 2
Students‟ time of learning English
28
Table 3
Students‟ reasons for learning English
29
Table 4
Students‟ attitude towards speaking skills
29
Table 5
Time for learning speaking at school
30
Table 6
Materials used for learning speaking
31
Table 7
Students‟ difficulties in learning speaking
31
Table 8
Students‟ desire from speaking lessons
32
Table 9
Students‟ responses to question 1 (Questionnaire No.2)
33
Table 10
Students‟ responses to question 2 (Questionnaire No.2)
34
Table 11
Students‟ responses to questions 3, 4 (Questionnaire No.2)

term goals that language teachers would like to achieve in class. According to
Bygate (1987), the problem in teaching a foreign language or a second language is
to prepare the students to use the language. In mastering English, the students
should be able to know and apply four language skills such as listening, reading,
speaking, and writing, because they would make someone become perfect in using
language. Indeed, it is a demanding task for language teachers to provide sufficient
inputs for students to be competent speakers of English. Speaking is one of the
language skills that should be mastered by language learners. With speaking, the
students can make a good communication to the others. For most people, mastering
the art of speaking is the most important aspect of learning a second or foreign
language. A successful language learner is measured by their ability in carrying out
conversation in daily life, therefore, speaking is a main part of language. The fluent
speaking will be a positive impact for all people in studying language. Hence, in
teaching and learning of language, speaking should be the first purpose in
developing language in all levels of education.
As a teacher of Phuc Yen College of Industry, through self-observation and
my own five-year teaching experience, the author sees that during speaking lessons,
classroom interaction is restricted. Usually, students feel insecure about their level
of English and they face problems communicating as well as expressing themselves
in the target language. As a result, few students in the class get involved in the
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activities conducted by teachers while others rather remain silent as they are in fear
of making mistakes and do not know what and how to speak in speaking lessons.
Obviously, one of the biggest challenges to the teacher is to find effective ways to
improve their students‟ communicative skills.
This paper addresses this issue by using English reading texts as a means to
provide comprehensible input in learning speaking skills because reading texts are a
valuable source providing information, grammar structure, vocabulary, etc for
students in developing their English competence. While a considerable amount of

Specifically, the study addressed the following three research questions:
- What are the students‟ difficulties in English speaking?
- Are English reading texts used as input for speaking tasks effective in
teaching non-English majors‟ speaking skills?
- If yes, how effective is it?
1.5. Scope of the study
The study concentrates on improving first-year non-English majors at Phuc
Yen College of Industry by using English reading texts as input for speaking tasks.
Within its scope, the research was only aimed at justifying the effectiveness of
using English reading texts as input in teaching English speaking skills to first-year
non-English majors. Only accuracy of speaking skills will be considered in order to
evaluate students‟ improvement after using English reading texts.
1.6. Methods of the study
This study is conducted as an action research because it is aimed at
improving first-year non-English majors‟ speaking skills. In order to get data, a
combination of different instruments, namely class observation, questionnaire and
audio-recording is used. The combination of different instruments used in this
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research would help to gain reliable data and help the research have a close
investigation into the problem that the students were having. The data collected
from the observation will be analyzed by qualitative method, and the data collected
through the questionnaires and audio-recording will be analyzed by quantitative
method.
1.7. Design of the study
The study is presented in three parts: Introduction, development and
conclusion.
Part one INTRODUCTION introduces the rationale, focus, research
questions, scope, methods and design of the study.
Part two DEVELOPMENT includes three chapters:
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Theory of input
1.1. Definitions of input
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According to Encyclopedia II (2005), input is information processing. In
information processing, input refers to either information received or the process of
receiving it. In human-computer interaction, input is the information produced by
the user with the purpose of controlling the computer program. The user interface
determines what kinds of input the program accepts.
Input is an indispensable component in second language acquisition (SLA).
According to Ellis (1985), input may be provided by interaction with native
speakers in a natural setting or by formal instruction. Input can be spoken or
written, and it is the data that learners use to determine the rules of the second
language. By defining input, Ellis establishes two important distinctions in the field
of SLA research. First, he makes the traditional distinction between incidental and
intentional acquisition, frequently referred as acquisition versus learning (Krashen,
1981) or implicit versus explicit learning (Bialyatok, 1978; Ellis, 1990). When input
is provided by interaction in a natural setting, learners are concerned mainly with
trying to understand and to produce a message, although they can also acquire
second language rules incidentally. Second, if learners focus on the language form
itself, they acquire the language intentionally. By considering input to be both
spoken and written data, Ellis considers both comprehension and production
processes that may occur in the learner in response to language input.

SLA takes places. Thus, the input hypothesis is only concerned with “acquisition”
not “learning.” (Krashen, 1988). The “acquired system” or “acquisition” is the
product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo
when they acquire their first language. It requires meaningful interaction in the
target language – natural communication – in which speakers are concentrated not
on the form of their utterances, but in the communicative act.
Krashen makes the following claims:
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a. Learners‟ progress along a natural order by understanding input that contains
structure a little bit beyond their current level of competence.
b. Although comprehensible input is necessary for acquisition to take place, it is not
sufficient, because learners also need to be disposed affectively to “let in” the input
that they comprehend.
c. Input becomes comprehensible as a result of simplification and with the help of
contextual and extra-linguistic clues.
d. Speaking is the result of acquisition, not its cause. If the learner receives a
sufficient amount of comprehensible input, speech will “emerge” on its own.
Learners‟ production does not contribute directly to acquisition.
e. If input is understood and there is enough of it, the necessary grammar is
provided automatically.
The input hypothesis answers the question of how a language acquirer
develops competency over time. It states that a language acquirer who is at “level i”
must receive comprehensible input that is at “level i + 1”. “We acquire, on other
words, only when we understand language that contains structure that is „a little
beyond‟ where we are now.” This understanding is possible due to using the context
of the language we are hearing or reading and our knowledge of the world.
(Krashen, 1987)
1.3. Reading texts as comprehensible input
Stephen Krashen has emphasized the importance of reading for language

Negotiation of meaning between students and teachers should be essential in the
implementation of tasks with resulting comprehensible input. While in
traditional second language classroom, learners play passive roles in class, in
CLT class, learners are encouraged to contribute as much as he gains, and learn
in an independent way.
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2.2. Communicative activities
Communicative activities refer to the techniques which are employed in
the communicative method in language teaching. The activities involve “doing”
things with language.
3. Speaking skills
3.1 What is speaking?
It is obvious that speaking is the key to human communication. Speaking
consists of producing systematic verbal utterances to convey meaning. According to
Frorez (1999), speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that
involves producing and receiving and processing information”. Its form and
meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants,
their collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for
speaking. It is often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving, but it is not completely
unpredictable. Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce
specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary
("linguistic competence"), but also that they understand when, why, and in what
ways to produce language ("sociolinguistic competence").
Byrne (1976) states that “speaking is a two-way process between the
speaker(s) and the listener(s) involving the productive skill of speaking and the
receptive skill of understanding”. Both the listener and the speaker have a positive
function to perform: the speaker has to encode the message conveyed in an
appropriate language while the listener has to decode the message.
Chaney (1988) defined that “speaking is the process of building and sharing

Richard has made useful classification with talk as interaction, talk as transaction,
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and talk as performance. Each of these speech activities are quite distinct by form
and function and needs different teaching approaches.
Talk as interaction normally is what we mean by “conversation” describing
interaction served as a social function. The style of talk as interaction can be casual
or formal depending on the situations the speakers are in, and the people to whom
they are talking. The focus is more on the speakers and how they wish to present
themselves to each other than on the message. The main features of talk as
interaction can be summarized as follows:
- Has a primarily social function
- Reflects role relationship
- Reflects speaker’s identity
- Maybe formal or casual
- Uses conversational conventions
- Reflects degree of politeness
- Employs many generic words
- Uses conversational register
- Is jointly constructed
Some of the skills to perform well interaction are listed as:
- Opening and closing conversations
- Choosing topics
- Making small-talk
- Recounting personal incidents and experiences
- Turn-taking
- Using adjacency-pairs
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- Interrupting

- Justifying opinion
- Making suggestions
- Clarifying understanding
- Making comparisons
- Agreeing and disagreeing
Talk as performance refers to public talk such as giving presentations,
lectures. Talk as performance tends to be in the form of monolog rather than dialog
and is closer to written language then conversational language.
The main features of talk as performance are showed by Jack C Richard as
follows:
- There is a focus on both message and audience
- It reflects organization and sequencing
- Form and accuracy is important
- Language is more like written language
- It is often monologic
Some skills needed in talk as performance are:
- Using an appropriate format
- Presenting information in an appropriate sequence
- Maintaining audience engagement
- Using correct pronunciation and grammar
- Creating an effect on the audience
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- Using appropriate vocabulary
- Using appropriate opening and closing
Which speaking activity should be taught to learners is the key factor
deciding how classroom activities should be designed and what teaching method
should be used.
3.4. The nature of teaching speaking
Speaking is so much part of daily life that we take it for granted (Thorndike,

- use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is
called as fluency. (Nunan, 2003 cited in Kayi 2006)
Brown & Nation (1997) assert that in speaking classes students must be
exposed to three key items, namely: (1) form-focus instruction, that is, attention to
details of pronunciation grammar vocabulary and so forth; (2) meaning-focused
instruction, that is opportunities to produce meaningful spoken messages with real
communicative purposes; and (3) opportunities to improve fluency.
To gain those targets in teaching speaking, there needs to be mutual
cooperation between teachers and students by being active in the speaking practices.
Krashen (1981) as cited by Wenden (1987) says that students physically needed to
be developed through interactional activities among the teacher-student and student-
student. In line with Krashen, Celce-Murcia (2000) says that the most important
feature of a classroom speaking activity is to provide an authentic opportunity for
the students to get individual meaning across and utilize every area of knowledge
they have in second or foreign language. In other words, creating circumstance for
speaking practice in practice in classroom is very important in the teaching of
English to develop students‟ speaking skill.

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English major students of all other faculties at the college. Every year, the college
admits nearly 1500000 newly enrolled students for a course of three-year study.
After graduating, those students, apart from their professionals, need to
communicate in English fluently. Therefore, the authority in our college has decided
that English is the main subject with the purpose of helping the non-English majors
to develop their English communicative skill to meet the demand of their future
employment.
2.1.2. Students’ background
The students of Phuc Yen College of Industry come from all parts of Vinh
Phuc province and surrounding areas. Most of these students commonly spent most
of the time learning three subjects: mathematics, physics, and chemistry. As a