THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY
ENGLISH FACULTY
------

GRADUATION PAPER
A STUDY ON THE REALITY OF ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL OF THE
FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT THUONGMAI
UNIVERSITY AND SOLUTIONS

Supervisor

:Hoang Thi Thuy, M.A

Student

: Danh Thi Ha

Class

: K51N2

Student’s number : 15D170080

Hanoi - 2019

Hanoi - 2018


ABSTRACT
The study is aimed at finding out the reality of learning English speaking skill of
the first-year English majored students at ThuongMai University and giving some

Ha Noi, 19th APR 2019
Ha
Danh Thi Ha

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TABLE OF CONTENT

iii


LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
No.
1
2
3
4

Charts and tables
Chart 1.1: Distribution of the student participants
Chart 3.1: Students’ purposes to learn English speaking skill
Chart 3.2: Students’ participation in speaking class
Chart 3.3: Students’ difficulties and problems faced in speaking

Page
5
27
29
30

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
1.1 Rationale
In recent times, it is undeniable that language is a pivotal part of our society’s
cultural richness in particular and of the world in general. In order to keep ourselves
keep up with the global standard in today’s world which is called international
community, we need to have knowledge and understanding of English as an
international language. English language is the dominant business language, and it has
become almost the necessity for people to speak English. It is the key to unlock the
door which helps us to explore new world, new culture and broaden the mind about the
big world.
Speaking is one of the basic language skills that need to be proficient by English
foreigner learners due to its significance and its use for communication. It is very
important to be able to speak English because it is the most commonly accepted
language in the global world so that it will be very beneficial for those who
comprehend it not only to improve their background knowledge but also to help them
get a good job. By speaking English fluently, they will not find difficult to
communicate and interact with people around the world when they travel.
Moreover, nowadays, Vietnam becomes one of the members of the World Trade
Organization, it is crucial for Vietnamese students of English to have good English
speaking skill in order to adapt to the increasing demand of integration into the world
economy and exchange culture with other countries. As a result, learning English
speaking skill is a great advantage for Vietnamese students. However, it is not easy for
student to fluent because of some influences on the different cultures, mother tongue
or their own limited language ability, and so on…
In the context of Thuong Mai University, learning English speaking is one of the
compulsory subjects at Faculty of English. However, most of students do not have
good marks in this course. In addition, from the observations during English speaking
course, the researcher found out that the student faced with many problems and
difficulties in learning English speaking skill. To improve teaching and learning
English speaking skill for the first-year English majored students at Faculty of English,

recordings. The results of the study revealed that majority of students considered that
speaking English is the most complicated skill to work out; the researcher noticed that
students sometimes spoke English but the majority of them did not speak English
during the English class.
In addition, other study on how to improve English speaking skill through extraactivities for the first-year English non-major students in Hai Phong Private University

2


conducted by Nguyen Thi Dieu Huyen(2008). The study identified the reality of
teaching and learning English at Hai Phong Private University, covered the
background knowledge of speaking. The research also proposed some appropriate
methods for teaching speaking lesson which draw student’s attention into the lesson.
Besides, Hamzad & Ting (2009) conducted a qualitative and action research
study on success of using group work in teaching speaking in English classroom in a
school called “SMK Damai Jaya” in Malaysia. The sample of the study was 33
students and 3 English teachers. Questionnaires, observations and interviews were
used as data collection instruments. The researchers carried out a series of
questionnaires in Malay language which helped students provide their opinions about
the group work activities to improve speech skills and their consciousness of
participation in those activities. The results of the study expressed enthusiasm in group
work activities and proficiency in spoken language.
To sum up, obviously these studies have been researched on different criteria of
the language learning. However, this research study will look into the reality of
learning English speaking skill of the first-year English majored students at
Thuongmai University and solutions
1.3 Aims of the study
The primary aim of this research is to find out the reality of learning English
speaking skill of the first-year English majored students at Thuong Mai University.
The study also aims to find out problems students faced when speaking English and

In order to identify the reality of learning English speaking skill of the first-year
English majored students at Faculty of English, Thuong Mai University, this study
concentrate on answering the following question:
1. What is the importance of the English speaking skill?
2. What strategies can be helpful for students to speak English well?
3.

What is the reality of the first-year English majored student’s English

speaking skill?
4. How can students improve their English speaking skill?
1.5.3 Participations of the study
There were 50 randomly first-year students in Faculty of English selected to take
part in the study. They all were learning English speaking skill. Among them, there
were 10 males and 40 females. The information of the students who participate in this
study was shown in the chart 1.1 below.

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Chart 1.1 Distribution of the student participant
1.5.4 Methods of the study
A variety of methods were considered and selected to fulfill this research as the
following:
-

Reference materials including reference books, reference previous studies

were carefully chosen, researched and analyzed.
- A survey questionnaire and personal question interview was conducted by

specifically two steps used to collect data in this study. The first step was collecting
data from the survey questionnaire. And the second ones was collecting data from the
personal interview.
1.5.6.1 Procedures for conducting the questionnaire.
The questionnaire was designed on Google form and sent the link for the
participants to fill out its. At the same time, lots of copies of the questionnaire were
printed and delivered to participants. When the survey questionnaire was completed,
the researcher gathered and analyzed them.
1.5.6.2 Procedures for conducting the personal interview.
The interviews were conducted randomly with some students. The researcher
will ask the interviewees and take note the primary information which are necessary
for the study.
1.5.7 Data analysis procedures
The researcher collected data from two different sources and analyzed it in two
main parts as follows:
1) The student’s perception on the importance of learning English speaking skill
2) Solutions to improve student’s English speaking skill of the first-year English
majored students at TMU.

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The data through survey questionnaire will be presented and analyzed in the
forms of charts. While, the other one from opened-ended questionnaires and personal
interviews were presented by quoting relevant responses. Finally, the data were
analyzed both descriptively and interpretively.
1.6 Organization of the study
This research was organized into four main chapter:
Chapter 1: Overview of the study: this chapter provides a general overview of
the study. It includes the rationale, aims of the study and some previous studies related

considered as a type of work or activity which requires special training and
knowledge. In contrast, if it is uncountable noun, skill is the knowledge and ability that
enables you to do something well. Skill is developed though practice, through a
combination of sensory input and output.
Skill is usually understood as an ability to do something well, either manually,
mentally, or both. In contrast to terms that denote only potential for acquiring some
abilities (such as natural ability, talent, aptitude, or capacity), the term skill usually
means actual competence that has been acquired by training, schooling, or practice.
The concept used in several disciplines (most importantly economics, sociology,
psychology, education, and ergonomics), has many meanings, and is applied for
different purposes and in a variety of contexts. The term skill is mainly used to refer to
(1) a level of individual performance, in the sense of accuracy and speed in performing
particularly tasks, or (2) qualities required for successful performance in particular
jobs and tasks.
2.1.2 The definition of speaking skill
There is a variety of definitions of speaking as noted, speaking is defined as the
delivery of language through the mouth. To speak, we create sounds using many parts
of our body, including the lungs, vocal tracts, vocal cords, tongue, teeth and lips.
According to Widdowson (1994), speaking is considered the most important
active skill for a foreign language learning. Rodriques (2000:32) stated that speaking is

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the producing utterances for communicating messages. It starts from infancy to be
developed during childhood to maturity (Levelt,1989: 2) whereas Abdel Salam (2002)
showed that speaking identified as a collection of micro-skills which include syntax,
grammar, morphology, pragmatics or social language, semantics and phonology.
According to Burns & Joyce (1997), speaking is defined as an interactive process
of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing

speaking). It is the means through which learners can communicate with others to
achieve certain goals or to express their opinions, intentions, hopes and viewpoints. In
addition, people who know a language are referred to as ‘speakers’ of that language.
Furthermore, in almost any setting, speaking is the most frequently used language
skill. As Rivers (1981) argues, speaking is used twice as much as reading and writing
in our communication. It has been classified to monologue and dialogue. The former
focuses on giving an interrupted oral presentation and the latter on interacting with
other speakers (Nunan,1989: 27). Speaking can also serve one of two main functions:
transactional (transfer of information) and interactional (maintenance of social
relationships) (Brown and Yule, 1983: 3)
2.2 Types of speaking
Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. It, like the other skill, is more
complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words.
There are three kinds of speaking situations in which we find ourselves:
 Interactive
Interactive speaking includes face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, in
which we alternatively listening and speaking, and in which we have a chance to ask
for clarification, repetition, or slower speech from our conversation partner.
 Partially interactive
Some speaking situations are partially interactive, for example giving a speech to
a live audience where the convention is that the audience does not interrupt the speech.
The speaker nevertheless can see the audience and judge from the expression on their
faces and body languages whether or not he or she is being understood.
 Non-interactive
Some few speaking situations may be totally non-interactive, such as when
recording a speech for a radio broadcast, performing in a play, reciting a poem or singing.
2.3 Speaking process.
Through observations and study, we have seen that the speaking process involves
multiple stages. At each stage, there is a potential for barriers to be formed or problems
to arise. Konar (2011:161) identified activities involving in the speaking process as


2.4 Purposes of speaking
It was argued that the purpose of speaking can be either transactional or
interactional. Apparently, there are some differences among the spoken languages used
in both transactional and interactional discourse.
In transactional discourse, language is used primarily for communicating
information. Language supporting this purpose is 'message' oriented rather than
'listener' oriented (Nunan, 1989: 27). Clearly, in this type of interaction, accurate and
coherent communication of the message is important. Examples of language being
used primarily for a transactional purpose are: news broadcasts, descriptions,
narrations and instructions (Richards, 1990: 54- 55)
On the other hand, some conversations are interactional with the purpose of
establishing or maintaining a relationship. It plays an importantly social role in oiling
the wheels of social intercourse (Yule, 1989: 169). Greetings, small talks, and
compliments are considered as examples of interactional. Apparently, the language
used in the interactional mode is listener oriented. Speakers' talk in this type tends to
be limited to quite short turns (Dornyei & Thurrell, 1994: 43 and Richards, 1990: 5455).
Analyzing speaking purposes more precisely, Kingen (2000: 218) combines both
the transactional and interpersonal purposes of speaking into an extensive list of
twelve categories as follows:
- Personal - expressing personal feelings, opinions, beliefs and ideas.
- Descriptive- describing someone or something, real or imagined.
- Narrative- creating and telling stories or chronologically sequenced events
- Instructive- giving instructions or providing directions designed to produce an
outcome.
- Questioning- asking questions to obtain information.
- Comparative- comparing two or more objects, people, ideas, or opinions to
make judgments about them.
- Imaginative- expressing mental images of people, places, events, and objects.
- Predictive- predicting possible future events.

knowledge. Notice that the goal is not to encourage people to use that knowledge in
any specific way.
•To persuade
The second general purpose people can have for speaking is to persuade. That is
the ability to attempt to get listeners to embrace a point of view or to adopt a behavior
that they would not have done otherwise. A persuasive speech can be distinguished
from an informative speech by the fact that it includes a call for action for the audience
to make some change in their behavior or thinking.
•To entertain

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Entertaining speeches are very common in everyday life. The fundamental goal
of an entertaining speech is audience enjoyment, which can come in a variety of forms.
Entertaining speeches can be funny or serious. Entertaining speeches are not designed
to give an audience a deep understanding of life but instead to function as a way to
divert an audience from their day-to-day lives for a short period of time. This is not to
say that an entertaining speech cannot have real content that is highly informative or
persuasive, but its goal is primary about the entertaining aspects of the speech and not
focused on the informative or persuasive quality of the speech.
2.5 The importance of speaking skill
Speakers can't produce effective and appropriate outcomes until they have been
exposed to some specific linguistic competences such as grammar, pronunciation and
vocabulary, as well as the sociolinguistic competence such as register of the
expressions and the contextualizing of the language. Teachers were used to focusing
on teaching grammar and vocabulary in isolation which made it difficult if not
impossible for teachers and assessors to evaluate language use ability (Mckay, 2006:
48)
Speaking has a meaning when it enables children and young people to explore

Efrizal (2012) Pourhosein Gilakjani (2016) expressed that speaking is of great
significance for the people to interact. Speaking is the way of communicating ideas
and messages orally. If we want to encourage students to communicate in English, we
should use the language in real communication and ask them to do the same process.
2.6 Problems in speaking English
English is becoming increasingly popular and it is taught as a compulsory subject
from grade one to university. All universities are supposed to use English as their main
working language.
There are some problems for speaking skill that teacher can come across in
helping students to speak in the classroom.
2.6.1 Outer impacts
Unlike reading, writing or listening activities, speaking requires some degree of
real-time exposure to an audience. Leaners are often inhibited about trying to say
something in foreign language in the classroom. Some outer impacts students faced
when speaking English such as worried about making mistake and fear of criticism,
fear of being laughed by their friend as they have no idea about pronunciation and
grammar that they use. Littlewood (2007) expressed that a language classroom can
also create inhibitions and apprehension for the students.
2.6.2 Nothing to say
The second problem is that leaners complain they can not remember anything
when speaking and they do not have any motivation to express themselves. This is
supported by Rivers (1968) who thinks that learners often have nothing to say
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probably because their teachers had selected a topic that is not appropriate for them or
they do have enough information about it. Baker and Westrup (2003) also supports the
above idea and stated that it is very difficult for learners to answer when their teachers
ask them to tell things in a foreign language because they have little opinions about
what to say, which vocabulary to apply, or how to use grammar accurately.

obstacles can be scrutinized. According to Scarcella & Oxford (1994: 165) and Florez
(1998), these are as follows:
•The conflict between fluency and accuracy: though a student may gain
confidence in using the new language by being let uncorrected, his language will
continue to be incorrect.
•Lack of confidence: some students feel unconfident in their presentation or
when they must speak English in public.
•Pronunciation: the most prominent problems are: phonetic confusion,
interference from the written form, interference from the mother language and failure
to use the weak forms. Thus, in the light of the previous constraints speaking is always
scarified.
2.7 Factors influencing student’s English speaking skill.
2.7.1 Lack of motivation
Yufrizal (2008: 111) states that the factors which influence the second language
learning are motivation and attitudes, anxiety, age difference, personality factors,
cognitive factors, and other factors. Motivation can push someone to complete a
course of work. Motivation is also a passion to do something. Therefore, motivation
plays a very important role in language learning.
Motivation can influence and be influenced by the components of language
learning. According to Merisuo-Storm (2007), an integrative and friendly view
towards the people whose language is being learned makes sensitize learners to the
audio-lingual aspects of language and making them more sensitive to pronunciation
and accent of language. If learners have an unfriendly attitude towards the language,
they will not have any substantial improvement in acquiring the different features of
language. Without positive attitudes towards the speaking performance, the aim of
speaking will not be obtainable for learners.
Motivation is a process. It is a tool that helps us gain our goals. Firstly, we feel
excited and set up goals to achieve its. Then, we try to maintain our excited and make
an effort to fulfill those purposes. This process is very useful in learning language.
Slavin (1997,345) describes this process in the general sense: “….motivation is what

listeners and speakers. It can be concluded that students are not able to reply if they
cannot comprehend what is said. That is to say, speaking is very closely related to
listening.
2.7.3 Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the foundation for the development of all other skills: reading
comprehension,

listening

comprehension,

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speaking,

writing,

spelling,

and


pronunciation. Vocabulary is an effective tool for students in their effort to speaking
English fluently.
In reality, students often realize that it is difficult to speak English fluently just
because of lacking the necessary vocabulary to get their meaning across, and
consequently, they cannot keep the interaction going. Other students faced with
problems of forgetting words after the teacher has suggested their meaning or after
they have looked them up in the dictionary.
Cardenas (2001) states that vocabulary is used to determine a student’s level of

The fundamental goal of teaching is to realize combined goals, permit restructuring,
focus on accuracy and increase fluency.
Runmei Yu and Suzhen Ren (n. d., p. 54) claimed that “Grammar, on the one
hand, seems not so attractive to foreign language learners, whenever the word
“grammar” is always mentioned so the learners will relate it to the complex sets of
rules, which are tedious and require a great deal of memorization. On the other hand, it
has always been the best concern in the process of learning English. Grammar is
considered as one of the crucial components in language.” Batstone (1994, p. 3) also
emphasized the importance of grammar when he claimed that if there were no
grammar, language would be disorganized, leaving us seriously handicapped.
2.7.5 Pronunciation
When learning English speaking skill, pronunciation is considered the most
important thing that needs to be mastered by English learners. According to Penny Ur
(2001), Jack C. Richard (2002), pronunciation is the sound of language, or phonology;
tension and rhythm; and intonation and can insert each sound and segment and
ultrasound
Learners who have proficiency in English pronunciation can understand what
others say even if they have some errors in other fields. When you talk to a person in
real life, they may not notice your limited vocabulary or grammar mistakes. But
they will

notice

right

away if

your

pronunciation