3
TABLE OF CONTENT
Number
1.
Introduction
2.

Content

Literature review

Page
5
5

Definition of speaking
The importance of speaking skill
3.

Methodology

7

Research context
Participants
Research instruments
4.

Some problems grade 10 students have before making the

8

10.

Conclusion

20

References

21

Appendices

23


4

THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ SÁNG KIẾN
1. Tên sáng kiến: Some ways to improve speaking skills of grade 10 students at
Nguyen Huu Canh high school
2. Lĩnh vực áp dụng sáng kiến: phương pháp giảng dạy bộ môn
3. Tác giả:
- Họ và tên: Nguyễn Thị Xuân Mai

Nam (nữ): Nữ

- Trình độ chuyên môn: thạc sĩ giảng dạy
- Chức vụ, đơn vị công tác: giáo viên trường THPT Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh
- Điện thoại: 0918806338


speaking skills help to make sure that one will not be misunderstood by those
that are listening.
In the opinion of Everson (2009), speaking is the crucial skill of
language in the sense that it enables individuals to communicate through the
use of verbal codes or words that are understood by both sender and the


6
recipient. Cohen (1996) stated that speech contains its own skills, structures,
and conventions different from written language. Learning to speak English
through interaction with each other is not an easy task because it is Shumin’s
(2002) contention that students require much more than knowing grammatical
and semantic rules. Through interaction, especially in speaking activities,
students get chances to develop their own communication and express what
they gain rather than learning the structures of a language. Furthermore, in
Nunan’s (2011) view, speaking consists of producing systematic verbal
utterances to convey meaning. Also, according to Kaikala (2012) speaking is
both a factor of language learning and teaching achievement and an important
skill in human interaction. In short, there are many of different concepts of
speaking, i.e. speaking as an action, a process and a skill. As English is
universally used as a means of communication, English speaking skills should
be developed along with the other skills in order that these integrated skills
will enhance communication competence.
The importance of speaking skill
It is universally accepted that language is a tool for communication.
When we communicate with others, we want to express our ideas, and to
know others’ ideas as well. Although the four language skills of listening,
speaking, reading and writing are all well connected, Zaremba (2006) claims
that speaking seems to be the most important skill required for
communication of all the four macro English skills. Speaking is “the process

Research instruments
At the beginning of the school year, in every speaking lesson the
classroom atmosphere tended to be deadly dull. Most of my students were so
afraid of taking turns speaking English that they did not look at me. I tried my
best; however they seemed not to cooperate with me. I wondered how I made
my students get involved in my English speaking lessons.
In this school year students were asked to do three speaking tests. The
first test was after Unit 1 to test students on speaking skills. The second test
was in the final first term test (there were 4 parts and speaking skills


8
accounted for 20% of the total) to check whether my students made progress.
The third speaking test was in the middle of the second term in order to come
to the conclusion on how much my students made progress.
After students did the first speaking test I realized their speaking skills
were not good enough. Therefore, my students were asked to complete the
first questionnaire. The aims of this questionnaire were to understand the
problems students had in learning speaking skills. After that, I conducted this
research to find some ways to help my students improve their speaking skills.
Another questionnaire was given to students after I finished my research to
find out more about the results of my application for improving students’
speaking skills and how successful I was. The time between two
questionnaires was six months.
Furthermore, when I was teaching, I often made observations about
students’ attitudes in class. From that I could adjust my ways of teaching to
help them develop their necessary skills more.
4. Some problems grade 10 students have before making the research
By observing students while teaching and analyzing the first
questionnaire, I realize that my students have some of the following problems:

input, comprehensible input is very necessary. It is teachers’ input that
students can understand with great ease owing to its high quality as well as
relevance. Comprehensible input helps students acquire language naturally
rather than learn it consciously (Krashen, 1985), so teachers should be
sensitive and skillful in selecting input materials for students and input
materials should be suitable for students’ developmental process.
Creating interactive process
After providing good input, teachers should provide interactive process
for students to communicate and control their production. In interactive
process students are motivated as teachers create an atmosphere of attention
and participation; therefore, lessons that help students enrich their vocabulary


10
and use their knowledge in situations resembling real life become more
interesting. The teachers’ role is not limited as a controller, instead we should
communicate with them. In teacher-student communication, the two-way
interaction such as teacher-student and student-student is set up in which
students regulate their speech to achieve the end, e.g communication itself.
Apart from being communicator, teachers should also select supportive and
motivating styles in order that learners can develop different language and
communication skills as well as the ability to search for information.
Tolerance of silence
There are different kinds of levels of students in class; therefore, in
speaking class, there is, usually silence. For silence, there are two
interpretations. One is the long silence; the other is the short silence. The long
silence often refers to the beginners or slow, weak students. It takes long time
for them to output their speech. According to Baurain (2011) silence means a
multifaceted, often determined border between thoughts and speech or
between thoughts and words. Silence might reflect that thoughts cannot be

however, it is more suitable for low- level students. The other kind of activity
that promotes speaking is topic or function based. This way helps students
have more opportunities to express their thoughts, ideas, or even arguments.
Whether teachers adopt structure focused or function or topic focused
activities depends on students’ level.
There are two kinds of speaking activities. One is factual information
exchange; the other is personal idea exchange. By factual information
exchange, students can exchange information based on facts, do not have to
express their own opinion. They just need to share information or complete
the missing information. Such activity is called information-gap exchange.
This activity can keep students talking as they have information to say. The
other activity expressing their own ideas can be productive or non-productive.
If students are interested in the topic or have a lot of things to say, they can


12
fill the classroom with their talking voices, but the topic is not what they feel
interested in or what they do not have a lot to say, silence will occur.
Therefore, teachers should design activities having a sense of control
for students and also prepare them for further speaking development in order
that they can move from controlled activities to automatic production in
speaking.
Dealing with students’ errors
In speaking class, most of the students surely make mistakes in their
speaking practice. How teachers deal with students’ mistakes and errors is
very important to individual learner. If teachers correct theirs too much or too
frequently, we may kill students’ enthusiasm or willingness to continue
speaking or even destroy the flow of the class. If we do not correct at all,
some of the mistakes can become unchanging. Therefore, we should know the
nature of what kinds of mistakes of students so that we can deal with their

that they may reach the objective and how they get this information. My
instructions should be brief, easy to understand and clear so that all students
know what they have to do. These help attract students’ commitment to the
lesson and avoid confusion.
After all my students understand what to do, I reduce my speaking time
in class while increasing student speaking time. I observe my students while
they are practising. At that time I circulate around classroom to ensure that
my students are on right track and see whether they need my help while they
are working in pairs or groups. By this way I want my students have more
time to practise speaking and I can find ways to help slow or weak students.
One of the problems that often prevent speaking English process of
students is shortage of vocabulary. Most of the students do not spend time
learning vocabulary, so their vocabulary is very limited. When speaking they
often get stuck or cannot finish the sentences they want to speak. One simple
way is that before teaching speaking I often give students vocabulary that are
relating to the topic. Another way is that in pre-speaking stage I use “mind


14
map” to give students the topic so that they can work in groups to find out as
many words relating to topic as possible. By this way I want to help my
students enrich their vocabulary and they can memorize new words more
easily.
Some of my students feel very shy to speak because they do not acquire
the target language. They do not even interact with other students or keep
silent when they are asked to speak English all the time. Therefore I try to
create a comfortable atmosphere in the classroom where students are not
afraid of speaking and enjoy communicating with me. I try to let them feel
relaxed and comfortable in English periods. There is a close relationship
between my students and me as we are enthusiastic about learning and

was really great. It was a good job”. By this way, I can encourage my students
to speak more.
7. Some illustrations of the ways to help students improve their speaking
skills
In this part, two illustrations are given to make everything more clearly.
In Unit 3: People’s background - Lesson B: Speaking
1. Activity 1: “Word square”
Find 9 words about Marie Curie
H

B

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L

L

I

A

N

T

U


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B

S

R

A

C

R

E

C

D

K

I

E

C

N


D

I

U

M

E

M

S

I

G

B

T

O

W

P

O


R

S

T

R

S

T

T

N

O

B

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V

A

W


traditional zoo and a new kind of zoo.

A traditional zoo

A new kind of zoo

In this activity, I would like my students to understand little by little
how a traditional zoo and new kind of zoo are different by describing two
pictures. If my students get stuck I can help them by asking some questions
such as:
+ In traditional zoo where is the tiger kept?
+ In new kind of zoo is the tiger kept in a cage?
.........
Expected answers:
- In traditional zoo, animals are kept in cages. They can have better food,
their health is looked after but they have no freedom, ..........
- In the zoo of the new kind, animals can live in their natural environment.
They aren’t kept in cages but they can die of hunger or disease, .......


17
By providing my students with good input, I can help my students
prepare more carefully so that in Activity 2 they can discuss the questions
about the features of the zoo of the new kind. At the end of the lesson in
Activity 3 students can share their ideas about which kind of zoo they choose
for animals and explain why they choose it.
In every lesson, I always encourage my students to make progress. I
often give them my compliments such as: “you’re really working hard today”,
“you are very good at that”, “not bad”, “I knew you could do it”, “keep
working on it. You’re improving”, “that’s not half bad”, “you outdid yourself

students’ speaking skills. I try to find ways to help my students improve their
speaking skills. These efforts of both teachers and students can be evaluated
after six months. As can be seen in Appendix D - Questionnaire results (page
28) most of the students realize how important speaking skills are. Moreover,
all of them (100 %) feel confident when they are good at speaking skills.
Being good at speaking skills can help them many things such as being
friendly to others (97,5 %), listening with attention (85 %), speaking less and
effective (80 %), respecting opinions of others (75 %), and improving the
presence of mind and memory enhancement (72,5 %).
That my students become aware of the need for improving their
speaking skills outside classroom is significantly better. All of them (100 %)
try free online learning activities. 90 percent of them enjoy songs and films.
Besides, they carry out many things in order of show an improvement in
speaking skills such as meeting English speakers (85 %), reading English
books aloud (80 %), and playing games (67,5 %). All these results show that
students are motivated to learn speaking skills than ever before.
And now have a look at Appendix E - Test results (page 29) it can be
clearly seen that a number of students getting below average marks dropped
dramatically from 22,5 % in the first test to 7,5 % in the second test and this
number continued going down to 2,5 % in the third test. This showed all
students made good progress. Moreover, the percentage of above average
marks increased significantly. The first test reached the number of 77,5 % (60


19
% + 17,5 %) meanwhile this number of second one was 92,5 % (55 % + 37,5
%) and the third test got the highest percentage (97,5 %).
From the two Questionnaire results and the test results I eventually
came to the conclusion that my efforts were appreciated as all of my students
make progress more and more.

success of students in school and success later in their future life. Therefore, it
is essential that teachers pay more attention to teaching speaking.
After I have finished conducting this research I realize that making an
English speaking lesson effective is not easy. Teachers should take time to
find the ways that are suitable for their students. This motivates students to
learn more enthusiastically. The more teachers try, the more effectively
students learn.
I commit not to copy or infringe copyright.

Bien Hoa city, June 15th 2020
HỘI ĐỒNG CÔNG NHẬN SÁNG
KIẾN TẠI CƠ QUAN, ĐƠN VỊ
NƠI TÁC GIẢ CÔNG TÁC

(Xác nhận: công nhận hoặc không
công nhận sáng kiến)
(Ký tên, đóng dấu)

Composer

Nguyễn Thị Xuân Mai


21
REFERENCES
Brown, H. D. (1994). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to
Language Pedagogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.
Burns, A., & Joyce, H. (1997). Focus on Speaking. Sydney: National Centre
for English Language Teaching and Research.
Chaney, A. L., & Burk, T.L. (1998). Teaching Oral Communication in

23
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A – QUESTIONNAIRE
(given before the research was conducted)
Dear students,
This questionnaire is to collect information about some problems grade 10
students often encounter when studying speaking skills. This is NOT a test.
Please kindly answer the following questions. For each question, please cross
the answer corresponding to your response. Your information will be kept
confidential.
1. How often do you speak English in English class time?
 a. always

 b. usually

 c. sometimes

 d. rarely

 e. never except when asked by teacher

2. Do you feel reluctant to speak English in class?
 a. Yes, always

 b. Yes, often

 d. No, I like speaking very much

 c. Yes, sometimes
 e. No, I speak willingly

 j. Taking advantages of power point presentation
 k. others (please specify) _______

Thank you very much for your cooperation


25
APPENDICES
APPENDIX B – QUESTIONNAIRE
(given after the research was conducted)
Dear students,
This questionnaire is to collect information about the usefulness of speaking
skills to students and the things students do to improve speaking skills outside
classroom. This is NOT a test. Please kindly answer the following questions.
For each question, please cross the answer corresponding to your response.
Your information will be kept confidential.
1. How are speaking skills important to you?
 a. very

 b. normal

 c. not at all

2. Being good at speaking skills can help you __________.
(you can choose more than one answer)
 a. be confident
 b. respect opinions of others
 c. listen with attention
 d. speak less and effective
 e. be friendly to others


b. usually

10

English class time?

c. sometimes

22,5

d. rarely

35

e. never except when asked by

25

teacher
Question 2: Do you feel a. Yes, always

37,5

reluctant to speak

b. Yes, often

27,5


English in class

class?(you can choose

d. Teacher’s uneven allocation of

more than one answer)

turns

72,5
90

67,5

e. Teacher’s boring teaching

2,5

f. Teacher’s intolerance of silence

2,5

Question 4: Which do

a. Being unable to find words and

92,5

you think often prevents


b. Giving diversity of materials

95

period? (you can

c. Creating interactive process

92,5

choose more than one

d. Showing tolerance for silence

answer)

e. Arranging the classroom so that

process? (you can
choose more than one

100

60
67,5

students can sit in rows facing each
other
f. Picking topics and activities that