Part one: Introduction
1. Rationale of the study
It can not be denied that English is very important nowadays. It is considered to be a
very significant and necessary tool used in many fields such as science, technology,
diplomacy and so on. It is seen as a means to bridge the gap and promote mutual
understanding and cooperation among countries in the world.
In Vietnam, at present, the role of English has been more and more increasingly
crucial because of the fact that Vietnam has succeeded in becoming an official member of
WTO since 2006.
Being aware of the great significance of English, more and more people desire to
master it in hope of making English an useful means to serve their own purposes.
For the above mentioned reasons, English has been taught not only in Universities,
Colleges but also at Foreign Languages Centres.
As a teacher of English at Hai Phong Foreign Languages Centre - Hai Phong
University where a great number of learners come to learn and hope to have a good command
of English. As for them, the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing are very
important but speaking skill is given the top priority among the four. “Speaking in a second or
foreign language has often been viewed as the most demanding of the four skills.” (Bailey,
Kathleen M. & Savage, Lance, 1994:vii). Bygate, Martin also shares the same opinion as of
Bailey M. & Savage Lance when he states “Speaking is, however, a skill with deservers
attention every bit as much as literary skill, in both first and second languages.” (1987:vii).
For the reason that speaking is the direct communication helping learners achieve their goals
of learning and working. With students, they can pass oral examinations at Universities or
FLC easily, and those who work with foreign partners wish to use English effectively to
negotiate and gain contracts as well as attract investment from foreign companies.
However, it is not as easy as that because to help students do what they need requires
teachers a great effort. Unlike schools or universities, learners at HP FLC are all of ages and
walks of life. They themselves are aware of importance of the four skills, especially speaking
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skill, however, not every time they can do as they expect. In fact, there is a large number of
students who may be good at reading, writing but find it difficult to speak in English. I often

The quantitative method is used in the study. The data collected for the study is from
the Intermediate-level learners and the teachers at HP FLC– HPU.
The former is from 80 non - major Intermediate learners at HP FLC – HPU. (See the
Appendix 1)
The latter is from 15 teachers teaching intermediate learners at the same centre (See
Appendix 2)
Survey questionnaires are used to collect data and evidence for the study.
In order to make the study more reliable, the researcher also carried out an observation
by attending some English speaking lessons at HP FLC.
5. Research Question
What should teachers do to maximize learners’ involvement in English speaking
lessons?
6. Significance of the study
The study hopes to contribute a small part to help teachers improve their teaching
speaking skills so that they can give a great assistance to learners with better involvement in
English speaking lessons.
7. Design of the study
This minor thesis consists of three parts:
Part one, Introduction, presents the rationale of the study, the aims of the study, scope
of the study, methods of the study, research question, significance of the study and design of
the study.
Part two, Development, includes five following chapters.
Chapter 1, Literature Review, introduces Nature of language skills, Nature of speaking
skills and Teaching speaking skills.
Chapter 2, An overview of Teaching and Learning at HP FLC- HPU, provides
information, including teachers’ background, students’ background and resources and
materials.
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Chapter 3, Methodology, presents subject of the study, Instrument, Procedure and
Method.

Fiske (1990) makes the important point that “Communication is one of those human
activities that everyone recognizes but few can define satisfactorily” (quoted from Thompson,
Meil, 2003:9). Communication, however, can be seen such a well-integrated part of our day-
to-day existence that we tend to take it for granted, rarely pausing to consider what it involves
or just how important it is to us.
He defines that communication is “social interaction through message”.
Communication takes place in a social context and that context will often have a very
significant being on the success and the very nature of that communication. And it is
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important to recognize that communication involves transmitting not only from one person to
another, but also in communicating a relationship.
In the opinion of Widdowson H.G (quoted from Brumfit C.J & Johnson K:118),
“Communication only take place when we make use of sentences to perform a variety of
different acts of an essentially social nature.
Bygate, Martine (1991:9) supposes that “Oral communication is effective only when
the learners are supplied with oral skills”. The nature of oral communication is comprehended
as a two way process between the speaker and the listener.
However, Bygate Martine (1987:22) states that in spoken interaction, speaker and
listener do not merely have to be good processors of the difficult circumstances of spoken
communication. It is also useful if they are good communicators, that is, good at saying what
they want to say in a way which the listener find understandable.
2. Nature of Speaking Skills and Teaching Speaking Skills
2.1 Nature of Speaking Skills
In recent trends in ESL/ EFL curriculum design and pedagogy have stressed the
importance of teaching communicative strategies and the functional use of language of the
four skills, speaking and writing are the productive skills in the oral mode.
As mentioned- above, speaking is regarded as the most important skill of the four.
However, it is necessary to get to know the nature of speaking skills.
2. 1.1 Definition of Speaking Skills
Bygate, Martin (1987) believes that speaking is the skill by which they are most

b) Knowledge of rules of speaking (e.g. knowing how to begin and end conversations,
knowing what topics can be talked about in different types of speech event, knowing
which address, forms should be used with different person one speaks to and in different
situations.
c) Knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts such as requests,
apologies, thanks and invitations.
d) Knowing how to use language appropriately (quoted from Nunan, David, 1999:
226)
According to Nunan, David (1999) what are needs to know and be able to do in order
to speak in another language is to know how to articulate sounds in a comprehensible
manner, one needs an adequate vocabulary, and to have mastery of syntax.
The socio linguist Dell Hymes (1974) prosed the notion of communicative competence
as an alternative to Chomsky’s linguistic competence. Communicative competence
includes linguistic competence, but also a range of other socio linguistic and
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conversational skill that enable the speaker to know how to say what to whom, when.
Sandra Savignon, in the early 1970, defined Communicative Competence as “ability to
function in a truly communicative setting”.
2. 2 Teaching Speaking Skills
Much of the very considerable momentum of present day language teaching may be
seen as a response to a problem which teachers have been aware of for a long time. It is the
problem of the student who may be structurally competent, but who can not communicate
appropriately. (Johnson K., 1979:192).
Newmark (quoted from Brumfit C. J. and Johnson K., 1979: 161) gives an example of
a person who wants to smoke but can not know how to speak to borrow a stranger’ lighter or
match. As for him, the person may know the structure taught by the teacher, yet can not know
the way to get his cigarette lit by the stranger when he has no matches is to walk to him and
say one of the utterances “Do you have a light?” or “Got a match?” or “Do you have a fire?”
or “Do you have illumination?” or “Are you a match’s owner?”
2.2.1. Aims of Teaching Speaking Skills

• In a balance activities approach, the teacher uses a variety of activities from
these different categories of input and output. Learners at all proficiency levels,
including beginners, benefit from this variety, it is more motivating, and it is
also more likely to result in effective language learning.
2.2.2 Prior Studies Related to Difficulties of Teaching Speaking Skills
2.2.2.1 The Reluctant Speakers
Nunan, David (1999) carried out a survey with colleagues, reluctance to speak on the
part of students was seen as their biggest challenge.
In his opinion, the possible mismatches can occur between teachers and learners from
different cultural background. An example is given by him as follows:
If learners come in to your classroom believing that learning a language involves
listening to the teacher or the tape, and doing written exercises, then they will be reluctant to
become actively involved in speaking.
Therefore, it will be necessary to engage in a certain amount of learner training to
encourage them to participate in speaking.
Burns and Joyce (1997) also agree with the point and identify three sets of factors that
may cause reluctance on the part of students to take part in classroom task involving speaking.
They suggest that this reluctance may be due to cultural factors, linguistic factor, and or
psychological affective factors. Cultural factors derive from learner’s prior learning
experiences and the expectations created by these experiences.
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2.2.2.2 Reasons for Learners Reluctance in Speaking ’
Also in the view of Nunan, David (1999), one of the main reasons explaining the
reluctance of speakers is partly due to their learning experience. Many of them were educated
in large classes in school situated in noisy neighborhoods where opportunities to speak are
severely limited. Others were taught in school where speaking was simply not encouraged.
According to Buns and Joyce, the linguistic facts that inhibit the use of the spoken
language include difficulties in transferring from the learners’ first language to the sounds,
rhythms, and stress patterns of English, a lack of understanding of common grammatical
patterns in English (e.g. English tenses) and how these may be different from their own

For them, what happens in the classroom will be of great importance in
determining their attitudes to language and in supplying motivation. Intrinsically
autonomy and self-actualization whereas extrinsically motivated learners anticipate
a reward from outside and beyond the self such as money, prize…
Therefore, it seems to be the problems that learners with different reasons will be
differently motivated to learn the language.
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Chapter two: An overview of English Teaching and
Learning at Hai phong Foreign Languages Centre
Hai Phong University
1. Teachers and Their Background
It can be said that HP FLC – HP U has been the largest and most famous centre in
Hai Phong city because of good training quality and experienced and enthusiastic teachers. At
present, about 36 teachers are teaching at the centre, including both full-time teachers and part
-time teachers of which 18 are fulltime teachers and the others are part-time ones. These
teachers have graduated from different universities in Vietnam. Some have been trained at
Hanoi National University, College of Foreign Languages. Some have been trained at Hai
Phong People Founded University and Hai Phong University and some are former teachers of
Russian who have been trained from in-service training courses. Although they come from
different backgrounds, they have many things in common: enthusiasm of teaching, eagerness
of learning experiences from experienced teachers and taking part in intensive and higher
training courses. Up to now, 8 teachers have successfully gained Master degree, and other 7
are preparing for their Master Thesis and will get Master degree at the end of 2007 which ups
the number of Master degrees to 12 .With the regular over 90 classes, the centre employs over
50 visiting teachers from other universities, colleges and high school teachers.
2. Learners and Their Background
Like other Foreign Languages Centres, learners at HP FLC- HPU are of all ages and
walks of life, including university or college learners, working- learners, school- learners and
school children, which can be said to be one of difficult tasks and various challenges for
teachers at HP- FLC. They have reasons and purposes of learning English and their language

The first Questionnaire consists of 14 questions, the aim of which is to find out
learners’ opinions toward English speaking lessons, their difficulties of speaking and teaching
methods used by their teachers. The results colleted from the Questionnaire will be the base
for discovering important findings, from which the researcher will be able to help to promote
learners’ speaking skill.
The second Questionnaire is composed of 10 questions, the purpose of which is to find
out teachers’ current teaching method, their difficulties in teaching speaking to learners,
which the researcher will base on the current context or situation to make some suggestions to
help teachers improve their teaching method in order to maximize learners to get involved in
speaking lessons.
In addition, observation, at the same time, will be also carried out by the researcher at
HP FLC to make the study more reliable.
3. Procedures
The questionnaires were prepared to hand out to 15 teachers and 80 learners at HP
FLC- HPU to collect important information for the study. The two questionnaires include both
multiple- choice and open-ended questions. The questionnaires take 15 minutes to fill in
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before being collected. After that the responses to each question were calculated and
converted into percentage for analysis and discussion.
4. Method
The major method used in this study is the Quantitative one to fulfill the aims of the
study. The data analysis comes from the 2 following sources.
The C level part – timer student and the teacher respondents at HP FLC.
All considerations, comments, assumptions, suggestions and conclusions provided in
the study based on the analysis of the statistic data collected from Questionnaire Survey and
Observation.
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Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Interpretation
The main source of data is derived from the answers of the two questionnaires.
Questionnaire 1 (for learners) and Questionnaire 2 (for teachers) are included in Appendix 1

40
50
60
often: 51.7% sometimes: 18.4% rarely: 15.3% not at all: 14.6%
Percentage
Figure 2: Learners reluctance degree in speaking lessons’
Figure 2 shows that the number of surveyed learners often feel reluctant to get
involved in English speaking lessons accounts for 51.7% while 18.4% of the participants are
sometimes reluctant to speak. Only 15.3% of the surveyed are rarely reluctant to get involved
in speaking lessons, and 14.6% of the total do not feel reluctant to involve in speaking lessons
at all.
It can be concluded that most of the learners feel reluctant to speak in speaking lessons
due to many reasons, and one of those is that topics are not interesting to learners.
1.3 Factors making learners reluctant to speak in speaking lessons (Question 3)
46.4%
14.6%
17.5%
21.5%
A: 17.5%
B: 14.6%
C: 46.4%
D: 21.5%
Figure 3: Factors making learners reluctant to speak in speaking lessons
As clearly stated from Figure 3, up to 46.4% of the respondents suppose that
uninteresting lessons are one of many factors deterring their involvement in speaking lessons,
whereas 21.5% of the participants say that boring teaching method make them reluctant to
speak. Besides, subjective factors have a certain influence on their interest in speaking lessons
such as feeling shy only accounts for 17.5 and not being accustomed to speaking in front of
other people makes up 14.6%.
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