VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THI ̣HỒNG VINH

DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS TO TEACH SPEAKING
SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT
PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY
PHÁT TRIỂN TÀI LIỆU BỔ TRỢ ĐỂ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH
VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG
ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field

: English Methodology

Code

: 601410

Hanoi, 2011


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THI ̣HỒNG VINH


i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................

ii

ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................................

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................

vii

LIST OF TABLES .....................................................................................................

viii

LIST OF CHARTS ....................................................................................................

ix

PART A: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................

1


5

1.1. An overview of speaking skills and teaching speaking skills .............................

5

1.1.1. Definition and characteristics of speaking skills and teaching
speaking skill .............................................................................................................

5

1.1.2. Principles for Teaching Speaking Skills ..........................................................

5

1.1.3. Structure output and communicative output speaking Activities ....................

7

1.2. Materials Development in Language Teaching ..................................................

8

1.2.1. Definition of Language Teaching and Learning Materials ..............................

8

1.2.2. Effective Language Teaching and Learning Materials ....................................



14

1.3.2. Form and process of supplementation .............................................................

15

1.4. Related study on supplementary materials .........................................................

16

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................

17

2.1. Background to the study .....................................................................................

17

2.1.1. Study context ...................................................................................................

17

2.1.2. The textbook in use ..........................................................................................

18

2.1.3. The participants................................................................................................

18

3.1.1.1. Students’ motivation in learning English......................................................

22

3.1.1.2. Students’ difficulties in learning Speaking skill ...........................................

23

3.1.2. The evaluation of the textbook “Let’s Talk 1” by teachers and students. .....

24

3.1.2.1. The teachers and the students’ general evaluation of the content of the
textbook “Let’s Talk 1” .............................................................................................

25

3.1.2.2. The teachers and students’ detailed evaluation of the textbook’s content ...

26

3.1.3. The attitudes and preferences of students and teachers to the use of
supplementary materials in speaking lessons. ...........................................................

30

3.1.3.1. The students’ and teachers’ attitudes to the use of supplementary materials
in speaking lessons.....................................................................................................

30

39

3.3. Recommendations ...............................................................................................

40

3.3.1. Supplementary Materials for Vocabulary and Speaking activities ..................

41

3.3.2. Supplementary Materials for Grammar ...........................................................

41

3.3.3. Supplementary Materials for Pronunciation ....................................................

42

PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Conclusion .............................................................................................................

43

2. Limitations of the study .........................................................................................

43

3. Suggestion for further research ..............................................................................

45


XV

Appendix 7. Translation of student interviews .......................................................... XXIII
Appendix 8. Samples of supplementary materials..................................................... XXX


vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PDU

: Phuong Dong University

EFL

:English as a Foreign Language

ESL

:English as a Second Language

ELT

: English Language Teaching

B.A

: Bachelor of Arts


22

Chart 2. Students’ difficulties in learning Speaking skill as perceived by
themselves and their teachers ...............................................................................

22

Chart 3a. The general perception of the students about the textbook’s content ........

26

Chart 3b. The general perception of the teachers about the textbook’s content .......

26

Chart 4. Teachers and students’ attitudes to the use of supplementary speaking
materials .....................................................................................................................

31

Chart 5. Teachers’ preference of when to use supplementary speaking materials ....

31

Chart 6. The students’ and teachers’ preferences to which aspects should be
supplemented. ............................................................................................................

33


This part of the thesis will be dedicated to introducing the basic principles of a
thesis including the rationale, the aims, the scopes and the significance of the study as well
as the research questions. It will also present the research method and the design of the
study.
1. Rationale
English has attained greater importance throughout the world in general and in
Vietnamese in particular. This worldwide expansion has increased the demand to acquire
good communication skills in English. That is the reason why the teaching and learning
English has been paid more attention recently in Vietnam. Of four major language skills,
the mastery of speaking skills in English is put on the first priority by many Vietnamese
learners. This is because the success of learners in language learning is often evaluated on
the improvement in their spoken language proficiency (Richards, 2006). In order to aid
teachers and learners in their teaching and learning speaking skills, there is a variety of
speaking course books available in the market. At English Division of PDU, the course
book ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ (by Leo Jones, 2002) has been used as a core textbook to teach
speaking skills for first year English Majors. However, this textbook has not been
undergone any official evaluation to test its relevance to the students‘ needs and interests.
After being used for a while, the ineffectiveness of this textbook has posed some
considerable problems. Some teachers in English Division who have to directly work with
the book complain about spending a lot of time compiling and adapting materials so as to
meet their students‘ needs and make the speaking lessons more interesting and motivating.
A potential remedy for this situation, in the opinion of the researcher, is applying
supplementary materials to go with the textbook in speaking lessons. It seems to be a better
solution than choosing another new textbook since there is no textbook that perfectly fits in
a particular teaching and learning environment (Ansary & Babaii, 2002); and it is hard to
use a commercial textbook without some form of adaptation to make it more suitable for
the particular context in which it is used (Richards, 2005).
Furthermore, in the process of learning speaking skills, the first year English
Majors at PDU often express a feeling of stress, nervousness or anxiety. In addition, their


evaluation is only concerned with the content of the textbook. By the words ―contents‖, the
author means the language input, the speaking topics and the speaking activities.


3

3. Aims of the Study
Firstly, it is an attempt to figure out students‘ difficulties in their process of
learning speaking. Once the teachers realize the difficulties that their students have to face,
they can work out what should be selected as supplementary materials for their students.
Secondly, this study aims at examining the evaluation of the teachers and students towards
the course book ―Let‘s talk 1‖; then, based on that evaluation, the author hopes to identify
gaps between the course book and the needs of students. The last aim is investigating
teachers and students‘ attitudes as well as their preferences to the choice of supplementary
materials.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the study is designed to answer the
following questions:
(1) What are the difficulties of the first year English Majors at PDU when learning
speaking skills as perceived by themselves and by their teachers?
(2) How do the teachers and first year English Majors at PDU evaluate the
textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ in terms of its content?
(3) What are the attitudes and preferences of the teachers and first year English
Majors at PDU to the supplementary materials going with the textbook ―Let‘s
Talk 1‖ in the speaking lessons?
4. Significance of the Study
This study is of great importance to the author herself as well as to teachers
teaching speaking in that it will provide teachers with necessary and important information
to help them choose the most suitable speaking supplementary materials that have high
applicable value in practice.
5. Methods of the Study


5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1.An Overview of Speaking Skills
1.1.1. Definition of Speaking and Teaching Speaking Skills
Of the four macro skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, speaking is
complementary as Byrne (1991, p.9) proves ―if one man is good at speaking skill, other
skills will be much supported‖. Defining the term ―speaking‖, Florez (1999, cited in
M.Bailey, 2005) states that speaking is ―an interactive process of constructing meaning that
involves producing, receiving and processing information‖. In this process, there are five
elements involved including pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, gesture and mimics,
fluency and accuracy (Harmer, 2001). In the process of teaching and learning a foreign
language, teaching speaking skills means helping students develop the ability to produce
grammatically correct and logically connected utterances that are appropriate in specific
contexts with acceptable pronunciation (Fararwati, 2010). Besides, Vicka (2008) define
teaching speaking skills is the instruction of the teacher to the students to encourage them
in using the language orally to express their ideas, feeling and opinions to someone else.
Despite expressing in different ways, it can be inferred from these two definitions that the
most important goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency.
1.1.2. Principles for Teaching Speaking Skills
When teaching speaking, there are some principles that teachers should follow to
ensure the effectiveness of speaking lessons. Such principles are discussed in the work of
Nunan (1991) and Brown (1994) in which Nunan (1991) suggests five principles and
Brown (1994) proposes six ones (see Appendix 1) . Despite the difference in their lists,
both of them share one common thing that teachers should focus on both fluency and
accuracy when teaching speaking skill. This opinion is supported by Brown and Nation
(1997) saying that communicating effectively in a language requires both the knowledge of
the language as well as the ability to use the language in real time interaction; thus teachers

learners‘ accuracy while communicative output activities give students opportunities to
develop their language fluency. In the following section, the author will introduce some
popular speaking activities that can be used as either structured output or communicative
output activities.
1.1.3. Structure output and communicative output speaking Activities
A large number of existing speaking activities can be found in resources. However,
due to the limitation of this small study, some applicable ones will be introduced. The
researcher prefers the list of speaking activities proposed by Harmer (2001). Harmer


7

(2001) recommends some examples of structured output activities are practical situation,
guessing game, information gathering activities and jigsaw; for communicative activities
such as role play, discussion, opinion sharing activity, and prepared talks.


Practical situations: Students can practice requesting and providing information in
situations such as asking for directions in a city and ordering meals in a
restaurant.



Guessing games: Students can do guessing activities in pairs or groups. There are
many variations. For example, one student chooses a famous person, and the others ask
yes-no questions until the identity of the person is determined.



Information gathering activity involves conducting interviews and searches in

individuals or different groups.



Prepared talks: a popular kind of activity in which students make a presentation on a
topic of their own choice with or without agreement with the teacher. Such talks are not
designed for spontaneous conversation and more ―writing-like‖.

Prepared talks


8

represent a defined and useful genre of speaking and if properly organized, can be
greatly interesting for both listeners and speakers.
In short, there are many authors discussing the issue of speaking activities in
language teaching and learning. A variety of speaking activities do exit and they can be
exploited effectively in different ways depending on particular teaching and learning
contexts. However, in this small study, the researcher only prefers to address those eight
speaking activities discussed above.
1.2.

Materials Development in Language Teaching
1.2.1. Definition of Language Teaching and Learning Materials
It is widely acknowledged that language teaching and learning materials constitute

a key component in most foreign language courses. Language teaching and learning
material is defined by Tomlinson (1998, p.2) as ―anything which is used by teachers or
learners to facilitate the learning of a language‖. He also gives a list of various things which
can be considered materials such as cassettes, videos, CD-Roms, dictionaries, grammar

Tomlinson (1998), the researcher finds two most interesting suggestions namely providing
appealing, challenging but achievable classroom tasks, and not forcing premature speaking
in the target language ―until they have gained sufficient exposure to the target language
and sufficient confident in understanding it‖ (p.19). This can be done by devising activities
which introduce new language points before asking students to speak.
In short, effective materials can inspire teachers and facilitate the learner‘s process
of foreign language acquisition. It is made clear by Cunningsworth (1979, p.31) that
―course materials are not intrinsically good or bad- rather they are more or less effective in
helping students to reach particular goals in specific situations‖. Therefore, when a teacher
evaluates that a particular material is good, what he/she really means is its effectiveness in
facilitating foreign language acquisition and learning. Referring to materials used in most
language courses, whether it is a skill-based course or an integrated skill basic series, there
is a core coursebook. According to McGrath (2002), the term ―coursebook‖ refers to a
textbook on which a course is based. Therefore, these two terms ―coursebook‖ and
―textbook‖ will be used interchangeably by the researcher in this minor thesis.

The

following section addresses the roles and limitations of textbooks.
1.2.3.

The Roles and Limitation of Textbooks

The undeniably important roles of textbooks have been discussed widely by many
linguists in different books and articles. For instance, Hutchinson & Torres (1994, p.135)
state that ―no teaching –learning situation, it seems, is complete until it has its relevant
textbook‖. Likewise, Sheldon (1988) concludes that ―textbooks represent the visible heart
of an ELT program‖. Furthermore, Schmidt, McKnight and Raizen (1997, cited in Kulm,
Roseman and Treistman, 1999) underline the dominant role of textbook saying textbook
makes ―the leap from intentions and plans to classroom activities, by making content

of such material to ensure its relevance and suitability for students‘ learning needs as well
as for their particular teaching and learning context with the final aim of maximizing
learning potentials. This implies that textbook evaluation has an important and special role
in teaching and learning process. The following section addresses the literature review of
textbook evaluation.
1.2.4. Textbook Evaluation


11

1.2.4.1.

Definition of and Reasons for Textbook evaluation.

Textbook evaluation plays a key role in education and it is important for the
teacher since it can provide valuable information for the future going of classroom
practice; for the planning of courses and for the management of learning tasks and
students. Tomlinson (1998) defines materials evaluation as the systematic judgment of
the value of materials in relation to the aims of the materials and the learners who are
using them. In addition, Hutchinson & Waters (1987, p.96) see evaluation as ―a matter of
judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose‖. They share with Tomlinson that
―the evaluation process should be systematic‖ and add that it ―is best seen as a matching
exercise: matching your analyzed needs to available solutions‖ (1987, p.105). The essence
of this definition is its attention to the students‘ needs in evaluating materials and therefore
is adopted in this thesis.
Reasons for textbook evaluation activities are also numerous and varied. One
of the major reasons is the need to adopt new coursebook. In other words, the
evaluation helps to select a relevant and appropriate textbook for a language course.
Another reason as Cunningsworth (1995) emphasizes is to identify particular strengths
and weaknesses in a coursebook which is already in use. Such activities, in turn, will let




It is explicit, and, provided the categories are well understood by all involved in the
evaluation, offers a common framework for decision-making.

Even though ―an ―off-the-shelf‖ checklist is likely to need tailoring to suit a particular
context‖ (McGrath, 2002, p.27), for these above advantages, the checklist method is
chosen as the major method to evaluate the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖.
1.2.4.3.

Criteria for textbook evaluation.

When the concern is the evaluation of materials, the selection of the criteria is
quite subjective. Prior studies on checklist evaluation have been carried out broadly with
various focuses (Williams (1983); Hutchinson and Waters (1987); Sheldon (1988);
Cunningsworth (1995); Ansary (2002)). However, the most important thing to consider
when designing or choosing a checklist is the appropriateness of criteria to the evaluative
purpose. In this study, the reason for textbook evaluation is to check its relevance and
suitability to students‘ needs and demands. In other words, the evaluative purpose is to
identify gaps in the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ and students‘ needs. Therefore among many
checklists available, the author prefers to base on the checklists proposed by Acklam
(1994, see Appendix 2) which emphasizes sufficiency, variety and relevance and the one
created by Richards (2005). Richards (2005) proposes a list of criteria for macro level of
evaluation which concerns three factors namely teachers, learners and tasks. Due to the
focus of this study, the criteria concerning learner factors are presented here. There are
five criteria as following:


The content interests the students

learning of language items‖ (p.13). As discussed above, ―textbooks represent the visible
heart of an ELT program‖ (Sheldon, 1988); however, Ansary and Babaii (2002) argue that
―no textbook is perfect; therefore, teachers should have the option of assigning
supplementary materials based on their own specific needs in their own specific teaching
situation‖ (p.6). In line with this idea, Biemer (1992, p.25) claims that teachers must
realize that ―textbook is not the only tool in classroom, it is a tool to be used. It may be the
major tool, but there are other materials that can be used too‖.
The reasons for teachers to use other materials beside textbook have been identify
by McGrath (2002) as follows. Firstly, they wish to bridge the gap or mismatch between
textbook and official syllabus or public examination or students‘ needs. Secondly, teachers
use supplementation because they think that students need to expose a wide range of
textual materials or have more practice of particular kinds, and lastly teachers need to
supplement a coursebook in order to cater for various language competence levels or
different needs of specific individuals in a class. Another reason for using supplementary
materials is raised by Brown (1994, p.152), that is, to promote learners‘ motivation, which
is one of the key factors in learning. Furthermore, Richards (2005) underlines the
importance of supplementary materials by claiming that when a textbook has some
limitations, it should be modified or supplemented to help teachers use them more suitably
and effectively. The researcher agrees with these opinions and also thinks that in the
process of choosing suitable supplementary materials for a language course, the role of
teachers is really significant. Teachers are those who directly use a textbook and directly


14

work with students; accordingly, they are the most likely to recognize different
backgrounds, experience and learning styles that students bring to class, as well as the gap
between the textbook and students‘ needs. This makes the researcher believe that teachers
are only ones who can choose suitable ways to supplement a textbook. The researcher‘s
idea is supported by Williams (1983) saying that ―the textbook can present examples of

prefers supplementation using published materials. This preference lies on the
assumption that ―materials are best prepared by professionals and by publishing houses
which can ensure a high level of production‖ (Sheldon, 1988).
Concerning the process of choosing supplementary materials, McGrath (2002)
classifies two types namely syllabus driven process and concept driven process. The
former states that teachers choose or design suitable supplementary materials after they
have identified what they need to supplement. Furthermore, teachers choose materials
with a particular class or particular group of learners in mind. The latter states that
teachers choose some interesting materials accidentally with the hope that they can use
such materials as supplementation in their future teaching. Unlike syllabus driven
process, in concept driven process, teachers have no class or no learn groups in mind
when choosing materials. In this present study, the researcher follows syllabus driven
process.
In summary, the relevant literature for this small study has been presented. Firstly,
a variety of ideas on materials development have been viewed in order to provide
foundation knowledge to supplement the currently-used textbook ―Let‘s Talk1 ―. Secondly,
definitions and characteristic of speaking skill as well as the process of teaching speaking
skill have been discussed. Furthermore, two most important elements in speaking process,
fluency and accuracy, along with the speaking activities used to develop either fluency or
accuracy are also the concern of the literature review. The following section will devote the
literature on related studies about supplementary materials in order to prove the suitability
of the present study in the research area.
1.4.

Related Studies on Supplementary Materials
Research on supplementary materials has sought to mainly focus on using

authentic materials to supplement a coursebook (Rogers and Medley, 1988; Senior,
2005; Huong Do, 2008), developing supplementary material for reading skills (Thuy Le,
2009; Thuy Pham, 2007; Hoa Dao, 2010). For example, Thuy Pham (2007) does a study

to supplement the existing textbook in the listening and speaking course.
In summary, there are studies on development of supplementary materials;
nonetheless, little has been documented concerning the development of supplementary
speaking materials, especially in the context of Vietnam. This study fills this gap by
developing supplementary speaking materials for first year English Majors at Phuong
Dong University who are using the textbook ―Let‘s talk 1‖ in their speaking lessons.
More specifically, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the textbook and then from that
evaluation, the researcher hopes to figure out the mismatch between that textbook and
students‘ needs so that she can suggest ways to choose suitable supplementary materials to
be used in the speaking lessons.


17

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY
This chapter is covered with information about the context, the textbook in use, the
subject under investigation and then the research methods and the instruments are
followed. More importantly, data collection and data analysis procedures are presented.
2.1. Background to the Study
2.1.1. The Study Context
The study is conducted at Phuong Dong University, one of the most famous private
universities in Hanoi. In this university, Department of Foreign Language takes an
important position, especially English Division that has the most numbers of students
yearly enrolling. The strength of English Faculty lies in the teaching staff with 25 teachers
permanently employed. 13 of them have Master Degrees in TESOL or TEFL, five are
studying master courses and 7 already have B.A degrees. Most of them are active,
enthusiastic, and full of inspiration for teaching though they are very busy due to heavy
workload. In English Division, all English Majors have to spend the first two semesters
focusing on learning four language skills and pronunciation, each of which is taught
separately and counts for 2 credits. This means there is one lesson per week during the 15