CODE: 27 DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILLS FOR FIRST – YEAR STUDENTS OF FACULTY OF ENGLISH – HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITYHANOI,

Developing Speaking Skills for first – year students of Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF ENGLISH
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GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN
ENGLISH STUDIES
DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILLS FOR
FIRST - YEAR STUDENTS
OF FACULTY OF ENGLISH – HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Hong Minh, M.A
Student: Vu Thuy Dung
Date of birth : 11/ 08/ 1994

2016

Class: K19A07 (2012- 2016)

Hanoi, 2016
Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


Developing Speaking Skills for first – year students of Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University

DECLARATION

the Faculty for providing favorable conditions for my study to be carried out.
I also owe to Faculty of English. Hanoi Open University, all my
teachers and the librarians for their help, encouragement and supports.
Besides, I would like to express my deep thanks to my friends who
encourage me to choose the subject and supply me a lot of materials in the
writing of this paper.
Finally, I am debited to my beloved parents who give me the best
materials and intellectual condition to study.

Hanoi, 15th April, 2016
Student

Vũ Thùy Dung

Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


Developing Speaking Skills for first – year students of Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University

TABLE OF CONTENT

PART A: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 2
1. Rationale .............................................................................................. 2
2. Aims and objectives of the study ........................................................ 3
3. Scope of the study................................................................................ 3
4. Research questions .............................................................................. 3
5. Methods of the study ........................................................................... 4
6. Design of the study .............................................................................. 4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................ 5
Chapter 1: Literature review...................................................................... 5

Colloquial language .................................................................. 11

1.3.6

Rate of delivery.......................................................................... 11

1.3.7

Interaction ................................................................................. 11

1.4

Summary of this chapter ............................................................... 11

Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


Developing Speaking Skills for first – year students of Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University

Chapter 2: Analyses, Findings & Interpretations ................................... 12
2.1Design and methodology .................................................................... 12
2.1.1 The setting of the study ................................................................ 12
2.1.2 Data collection instrument ......................................................... 12
2.2

Preliminary results ........................................................................ 13

2.2.1 Student’s opinions on speaking skills ......................................... 14
2.2.2


Summary ........................................................................................ 32

Chapter 3: Suggestions to deal with the problems .................................. 33

Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


Developing Speaking Skills for first – year students of Faculty of English – Hanoi Open University

3.1

Develop speaking skills through Pronunciation ........................... 33

3.2

Develop speaking skills through Grammar ................................. 34

3.2

. Develop speaking skills through reflective listening.................. 36

3.4

Develop speaking skills through reading...................................... 37

3.5

Enrich general knowledge ............................................................. 38

3.6

LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Table 1. Student’s opinions on speaking skills .............................................. 14
Table 2. Student’s opinions on learning speaking skills in group work ........ 15
Table 3. Students assessment for the teachers frequent use of group work ... 16
Table 4. Students appreciation of their participation in group work............. 17
Table 5: Student’s appreciation of group work for the benefit of speaking ... 18
Table 6: The best group size and difficulties the students had when working in
group work ................................................................................................... 19
Table 7: Student’s desire for the better group work...................................... 21

Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1.

Rationale
Nowadays, with the development of economy and society, demands of

communication of human are increasing constantly. In the past, when mass
media was not developed yet, we could only communicated with the people
who spoke the same language with you, mother tongue for example, but now
the tide has turned. Communicative demands, associating new relationships
are essential for the youth today. In the aim of associating with the foreigners,
learning English is also a very important task. However, not everyone can be
confident in their speaking competence and their communicating competence
even students who study in faculties of English. Furthermore, non-native
speakers will have to face with many difficulties when learning speaking
English. It will take time, practice and perseverance. Mastering speaking

the first-year students of the Faculty of English at Hanoi Open University.
This study mainly relates to the difficulties of first-year student in speaking
skills and focuses on some strategies to help them speak better.
4.

Research questions

With the aims mentioned earlier are to find out some strategies which help
students develop their speaking skill and speaking competence. The research
questions were addressed as following and this thesis was hoped to answer
them:
• To investigate the theories of English Speaking Skills, importance
of Speaking skills and common components making Speaking skills
difficult.
• What do the first-year students of the Faculty of English at HOU
find the most difficult when using verbal English?
• What are some suggestions for the students to develop their
speaking abilities?

Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


5.

Methods of the study

To achieve the aims stated above, I read some referenced books in the library
as well as books from my teacher. Moreover, I found some useful information
on Internet which relate to my study. I also discussed with my supervisor,
teachers and classmates who are learning English. To complete this study, I



1.1The definition of the English speaking skills
As far as the researcher is concerned, there has been a myriad
of definitions of speaking. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Current
English(2009, p.414), speaking is “the action of conveying information or
expressing ones’thoughts and feelings in spoken languages.
Merriand – Webster online dictionary gave a general definition of
speaking:
“Speaking is uttering words or articulating in sounds with the ordinary
voice. Speaking is the way to covey thoughts, opinions, exchange orally, or to
express oneself.”
We can simply understand this definition that if we propose our
opinions, share ideas of express something, we have to use our voice, our
words to make other people what we mean. By this way we can communicate.
Chaney (1998, p.13), however, considered speaking a process:
“speaking isthe process of building and sharing meaning through the use of
verbal or non-verbal symbols in a variety of contexts”. Sharing the same
viewpoint,Florez (1999, p.1) added that speaking is an “interactive” process,
which consists of three main stages “producing, receiving and processing
information.”
In language teaching and learning, speaking is considered a skill
topractice and master. In this light, Nunan (2003, p.48) put it that “speaking
isthe productive oral skill. It consists of producing systematic verbal utterance
toconvey meaning.” Also considering speaking as a skill, Bygate (1987,
Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


p.3)investigated the distinction between knowledge and skill in speaking
lesson,which he considered as crucial in the teaching of speaking. Indeed, to

to be maintained. In the interaction, the speaker gives out message to the
listener. The listener gets the message from the speaker and gives the speaker
feedback as to whether or not the listener has understood what the speaker has
Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


just said or asked for more information. This process will be repeated for
many times to get clear meaning of communicative interaction (McDonough
and Shaw, 1993; Harmer, 1994).
The definition of speaking skills is much diversified. In Cambridge
Dictionary, speaking skills are defined quite simply. They are skills “to say
words, to use the voice, or to have a conversation with someone”. Another
famous dictionary, Oxford Advanced Dictionary defined speaking skills as
skills “to press or communicate opinions, feelings, idea, etc; by or as talking
and it involves the activities in the part of the speaker as psychological,
physiological (articulator) and physical (acoustic) states.”
In conclusion, the definitions of speaking are numerable because of the
complexity of this process. Speaking is a productive skill and the main
purpose this process is to transfer information and communicate or to express
the speaker’s opinions and thoughts. It helps learners express their ideas
clearly and smoothly. A good speaking skill plays an important role to help
learners make a successful conversation. Therefore, learners should make all
their efforts to be effective speakers by becoming involved active in speaking.
1.2The importance of the English speaking skills
Among the four skills in learning English, speaking and writing are the
productive skills. However, speaking is regarded as very important for
language teaching and learning. Speaking is a bridge to reach other skills.
Speaking helps learners to read better, to listen more effectively and write
more accurately. Speaking is surely the most effective means of
communication. (Ur, 1996).



possible that is depended on the certain contexts etc. Thus, it is really hard for
them in practicing not only speaking skills but also the other skills.
Here are some popular difficulties that may make students confused
during practicing speaking. Of course, there are many other phenomena in
language they may meet. However, in this scope of this study, I only mention
to some difficulties that are easy to recognize in speaking.
1.3.1 Clustering
Fluent speech is phrasal, not word by word. Learners can organize their
output both cognitively and physically (in breath groups) through such
clustering.
1.3.2 Redundancy
The speaker has an opportunity to make his/her meaning clearer
through the redundancy of language. Learners can capitalize on this feature of
spoken language.
1.3.3 Reduced forms
Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc. all form special problems in
teaching spoken English. Students who don’t learn colloquial contractions can
sometimes develop a stilted, bookish quality of speaking that in turn
stigmatize them.
1.3.4 Performance variables
One of the advantages of spoken language is that the process of
thinking as you speak allows you to manifest a certain number of performance
hesitations, pauses, backtracking, and corrections. You can actually teach
learners how to pause and hesitate. For example, in English our “thinking
time” is not silent, but rather we insert certain “fillers”: uh, um, well, you
Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)



2.1.1 The setting of the study
My survey questionnaire was hand out to 60 first-year students at
Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University. They are both males and females
at the age of 18 to 20. They are in the pre-intermediate level and are very
interested in English. The study is carried out with a main aim of improving
the speaking skills for the first-year students major at Hanoi Open University.
There are many good reasons for choosing the freshmen as the subject of the
study. First of all, these students have just left high school where they never
do acquainted with speaking skills so when they began their study at a
university, speaking is really strange to them. On the contrary, at the
university they have to cope with many problems such as: listening, writing,
reading and speaking. Besides the freshmen always lack self-confidence when
being engaged in speaking practice. They also lack speaking environment and
have problems of using their mother tongue. For instance, when they join in
speaking activities they usually get troubles with expressing their mind in
English. Finally, to help those who have tried much but still not become good
speakers. These are reasons why I decided to do the study on using games for
the first-year students to improve speaking skills.
2.1.2 Data collection instrument
Some aspect of teaching and learning can be investigated through
administering a questionnaire. Questionnaires are useful for gathering
information about effective dimensions of teaching and learning and enable a
teacher to collect a large amount of information quickly. Advantages of using
questionnaire which Gillham (2000) highlights are: less pressure on
respondents, not under pressure of interview bias and analysis of answer is
straightforward. The researcher used the survey questionnaire as the main
sources to fulfill its aims. Two collections of questionnaires were created to
the opinion of both teacher and student about the use of teamwork in the
Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


d

16

10

60

54

54

6

0

0

54

6

0

0

Question
1

a. English

d. Not at all

Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


This table reveals opinions of Faculty of English’s students on speaking
skills. It can obviously be seen that all the students asked (100%) said that
Speaking was necessary for their future job and 90% of them were interested
in speaking skills while a small amount of them (26%) said they learned
speaking skills because English was compulsory at their university. They
found English really interesting while there were only a few student (17%)
who wanted to learn speaking skills just to pass the oral test. 90% of them
stated that English was so important for them.
2.2.2 Student’s opinions on learning speaking skills in group work
Table 2. Student’s opinions on learning speaking skills in group work
Not at

Little

Rather Very

all

1. Individually

0

60

0

their own. From this, it can be understood that most of the students saw the
importance of working in group for the better speaking skills. In addition to
that, group work is surely the most suitable activity for speaking skills.
2.2.3 Students appreciation of the use of group work in the speaking class at
Faculty of English
Table 3. Students assessment for the teachers frequent use of group work
Options/
a
B
c
d
Question
5

a. Always
b. Often

0

51

9

0

c. Sometimes
d. Never

Not very surprising information from table is that the students (85%)
affirmed that the teachers in their university used the group work in the


a. Work with great interest
b. Remain silent all the
time.
c. Chat with other group
members

about

other

topics
d. Speak in Vietnamese to
discuss with other while
other discuss in English

As can be seen from table 4, just only 30% of the students asked (18
out of 60) reported that they had taken part in the group work activities
enthusiastically and the number of the students who did not participate in
group worked by chatting with other group or speaking Vietnamese is rather
high (29% and 32% irrespectively) that it must be looked into consideration
about the group work among these students in these two classes. In addition
to that, the number in the table also indicates that the students in these two
classes may have very low proficiency of speaking skills or not enough
English background knowledge to communicate with their partners or may be
the topic is no interest to them.
When being asked why some of them kept silent in the speaking lesson,
they said they did not know what to speak and how to speak. The teacher
Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


you

more

opportunities

60

for

exchanging ideas
d. Learn from each other

18

41

It can be surely seen from the table that almost all the students (97%:
58 out of 60) found that the group was so beneficial for their speaking skills
that they can speak more in English, they can be much more confident and
they also have chance to exchange their ideas with their friends. Regarding
the benefit of learning from each other of group work, 68% (41 out of 60) the
Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)


students stated that it was rather beneficial but only 30% (18 out of 60)
thought it is a little beneficial.
2.2.4 The best group size and difficulties the students had when working in
group work
Table 6: The best group size and difficulties the students had when working in


26

0

b. More than five
c. The more the merrier
d. It depends on the kind of activities

9

a. Yes, often
b. Yes, sometimes
c. Yes, but rarely
d. No, never

10

partners
b. The other partners talk over you
c. The other partners talk less than you
d. Other

Vũ Thùy Dung – K19A07 ( 2012 – 2016)