A STUDY ON IMPROVING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS TO 10TH FORM MINORITY STUDENTS AT GIA PHU HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NEW SET OF ENGLISH TEXTBOOK

Part one: introduction
I. Rationale of the study.
It is undeniable that English is an international language. English is considered as the
medium of communication in many different fields such as: science, technology, aviation,
international sport, diplomacy, and so on. English is also the official language of many
international organizations, such as: ASEAN, WTO, WHO, UN, etc. With the spread of
globalization and the rapid expansion of informational and technologies, there has been an
explosion in the demand for English worldwide.
In Vietnam, in recent years, the study of English has gained momentum. Because it is
partly the change in education policies of our government, and partly the people’s need.
English has been widely taught in schools, universities, companies as well as in organizations.
There are also many different English teaching programs available on radio, television and
internet.
It is widely accepted that one of the main purposes of studying English is to use it for
communications. Being able to speak English is an important criterion to assess a learner of
English. However, it is a common issue at my school that the students rarely speak English,
even in English classes, though they have been learning English since they started at the lower
secondary school.
Being a teacher of a high school, within my minor thesis, I would like to investigate the
reasons of the students’ inhibition and unwillingness to speak English, and I hope to be able to
make some recommendations that can help the students overcome their inhibition and
unwillingness, and thereby improve their speaking skills. This actually drives the researcher to
the study thesis, namely A study on improving English Speaking skills to 10“
th
-form minority
students at Gia Phu High School in the New Set of English Textbook”.
II. Aims of the study.
The study is aimed at:
• Investigating the current English speaking teaching and learning situations of grade
10 at Gia Phu High School.
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• Identifying the factors which make the students inhibited or unwilling to speak
English in class.
• Making some suggestions for the teachers at Gia Phu High School with the hope of
helping the students overcome their inhibition and unwillingness, and thereby
improve their speaking skills.
• Suggesting some realistic and appropriate class teaching techniques with the hope
that they can enhance the learners in speaking skills.
III. Scope of the study.
To improve speaking skills for the students at Gia Phu High School, various activities
can be used, and a number of things should be done. However, the researcher only intends to
overview a brief of the current situations of teaching and learning English speaking skills of
grade 10 at Gia Phu High School, and to identify the factors which make the students inhibited
and unwilling to speak English, and to make some recommendations to motivate students to
speak English more.
IV. Method of the study.
To realize the aims of the study, quantitative and qualitative methods have been used.
The data collected for the study came from two sources: the 10
th
- form student respondents and
the teacher-respondents at Gia Phu High School, Son La province.
Two questionnaires, one for students and the other for teachers, and an interview of
teachers are going to be used to collect information and evidence for the study. All the
comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusions provided in the study are based on the
data analysis.
V. Design of the study
The minor thesis consists of three parts:
• The first part is an introduction to the thesis which presents the factors as plan of
the study such as the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study.
• Part two comes the second, in which a theoretical background, research
methodology, presentation of statistical, results and discussions were presented.

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• The final part focuses on the summary of the findings, the limitations of the
study and future directions for further research are also mentioned in this part.
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Part two: development
Chapter I: literature review
Any study should have theories as its background. In my minor thesis, I base the study
on the theories which are the views from the famous linguists and methodologists on the
concepts concerning language and methodology.
I. Communicative Language Teaching.
The history of language teaching has shown a lot of changes in approaches and methods,
which reflects the recognition of changes in the sort of proficiency learners need. Teaching a
second language used to be aimed at enabling learners to read and appreciate class of literature.
Therefore, any teacher who was able to reach this aim was thought to be a good teacher (Le Van
Canh, 2004).
Most learners of English recently desire to be able to communicate with others in the
language they learn. Parallel with this change in the aim of learning English, methods of
teaching have been changed. For a long time, many language teaching methodologists have
constantly looked for the most appropriate way to teach English effectively. As a result, many
language teaching methods and approaches have come into being such as:
• Grammar-translation method
• The Direct method
• The Audio-lingual method
• The Audio-visual method
• Communicative Language Teaching.
Mackey (1965) remarks that most of the methods which have ever been developed still
continue to exist in one form or another as each method has its advantages and disadvantages.
For example, grammar-translation method is easy to implement and cheap to administer, which
makes it still be used in many classroom situations.
In this thesis, the author just focused on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) as it

is considered one of the most effective approaches to teach learners to communicate in a
language they learnt. Accordingly, CLT has become an “umbrella” term which covers a wide
range of classroom practices.
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1. Definition of CLT
So far, CLT has been viewed differently by different authors such as Wilkins (1972),
Nunan (1989), etc. According to Nunan (1989:194), “CLT views language as a system for the
expressions of meaning. Activities involve oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and
using language, which is meaningful to the learners. Objectives reflect the needs of the learners
including functional skills as well as linguistic objectives. The learner’s role is as a negotiator
and integrator. The teacher’s role is as a facilitator of the communication process.” It is thought
that this definition contains aspects that are common to many other definitions.
Margie S. Barns (1984:5), an expert in the field of CLT, writes in explaining Firth’s view
that “language is interaction; it is interpersonal activity and has a clear relationship with society.
In this light, language study has to look at the use (function) of language in context, both its
linguistic context (what is uttered before and after a given piece of discourse) and its social, or
situational, context ( who is speaking, what their social roles are, why they have come together
to speak)” (Ann Galloway. “Communicative Language Teaching: An introduction and Sample
Activities . ” Cal.org).
In this approach teachers often downplay accuracy and emphasize students’ ability to
convey their messages (Hammerly, 1991). In fact, the communicative approach does stress the
importance of both the forms and the uses of language. But it does not specify under what
circumstances it may be more appropriate to teach the forms through the uses, or to attach the
uses to the forms, or to integrate them for communicative purposes. Perhaps it is the teacher’s
responsibility to judge and decide which priority is relevant in his own condition.
2. Characteristics of CLT
The communicative approach can be said to be the product of language educators and
linguists who became dissatisfied with the Audio-lingual and Grammar-Translation, Methods,
which could not enable learners to communicate in the culture of the target language.
David Nunan (1991) points out five features of CLT:

• An emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.
• The introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation.
• The provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on
the learning process itself.
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• An enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing
elements to classroom learning.
• An attempt to link classroom language with language activities outside the classroom.
All features above are claimed by practitioners of CLT to show that they are very
interested in the needs and desires of the learners as well as the connection between the
language as it is taught in their classroom and as it is used outside the classroom. Under this
broad umbrella definition, any teaching practice that helps students develop their
communicative competence in an authentic context is deemed an acceptable and beneficial form
of instruction. Thus, in the classroom CLT often takes the form of pair work and group work
requiring negotiation and cooperation among learners to develop their confidence, role plays in
which students practice and develop language functions as well as judicious use of grammar and
pronunciation focused activities.
3. Communicative Competence.
In the history of English language teaching, there have been two definitions of
communicative competence which is currently considered the primary goal of language
teaching.
Many teachers, methodologists and linguistics who work on foreign language teaching
tend to define communicative competence simply as interaction in the target language
( Sagvinon, 1983; Rivers, 1987). However, others who work in ESL tend to be in favor of
Hymens’ theory of communicative competence. In Hymes’s theory (adapted from Dash, B.K
1985), communicative competence includes not only the linguistic forms of the language but
also its social rules, the knowledge of when, how and to whom it is appropriate to use these
forms. It means that the socio-cultural rules for language use are also included in the teaching
process.
In fact, Hymes coined this term in order to contrast a communicative view of language

and Chomsky’s theory of competence. In Chomsky’s view, linguistic theory is concerned
primarily with an ideal speaker-hearer in a completely homogeneous speech community who
can use its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatical irrelevant conditional as
memory limitation, distractions, shifts of attention and interest and errors in applying his
knowledge of the language in actual performance. (Chomsky, 1965-adapted from Le Van Canh
2004). This mean that, Chomsky’s linguistic view focuses too much on the “correctness” but
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does not pay adequate attention to the socio-culture of language. It is clear that Hymes’s theory
of communicative competence offers a much more comprehensive view than Chomsky’s theory.
Canale and Swain (1980) consider communicative competence as the combination of the
competences of five areas: rules of grammar (Grammatical competence), rules of discourse
(discourse competence), sociocultureral rules of use, probability rules of occurrence and
communication strategies.
3.1. Grammatical competence
Grammatical competence is the mastery of the linguistic code, the ability to recognize the“
lexical, morphological, syntactic and phonological features of a language and to manipulate these
features to forms words and sentences”. (Sagvinon, 1983:37).
3.2. Discourse competence
It includes the ability to produce and recognize coherent and cohesive text. Discourse
competence is dependent on the knowledge shared by speaker/writer and hearer/reader:
knowledge of the real word, knowledge of the linguistic code, knowledge of the discourse
structures and knowledge of social setting.
3.3. Sociolinguistic competence
The competence of sociocultural rules of use is the ability to interpret and express
functional and social meaning of language, depending on degrees of formality, setting, topic,
channel and purpose of communication. Sociocultural competence is an understanding of the
social context in which language is used.
3.4. Probability rules of occurrence
This competence is the ability to recognize what communication functions are likely to
be expressed in a given context and what are not. A person can acquired more of this

competence through using the language in real communication than in classroom practice.
According to Canale and Swain (1980), a learner can not have a satisfactory communicative
competence if not any of his knowledge of probability of occurrence of grammatical forms and
communicative functions is developed.
3.5. Communicative strategies
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According to Richard’s opinion (ELTJ V37 N2, 1983), communicative strategies include:
• Speaker’s repertoire of verbal and visual gestures which signal interest in what the
partner is saying.
• Speaker’s stock of topics and formulaic utterances which are produced at relevant points
in discourse such as a small talk which is required to make brief encounters with
acquaintances comfortable and positive.
• Awareness when to talk and what to talk in an appropriate use of turn-taking
conversations.
• Communicative strategies also include the ability to adapt when one’s message is not
taken, and to sustain communication by paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition,
hesitation, avoidance and shift in register and style.
The learner is expected to master not only the transactional skills but also interactional
skills, which are an important component of communicative competence.
II. Nature of language skills and oral communication
1. Nature of language skills
It has known that language communication involves some skills which consist of four
micro inter related skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. That is the reason why
learners of English are required to have an adequate mastery of the four skills. Nevertheless, the
degree of fluency of each skill, which is a learner requires, depend on the course purposes.
As for Byrne (1991), among the four skills, listening and reading are considered as the
receptive skills, speaking and writing as the productive skills. They are also divided according to
the manners by which they are formed. The skills in connection with manual script including
reading and writing are called literacy skills. The ones which are related to articulator organs
are called the oral skills consisting of listening and speaking. Of the four skills, speaking plays a

very important role since it is the step to identify who knows or does not know a language.
Anyone who knows a foreign language can speak that language. Pattison (1992) confirms that
when a person speaks of knowing or learning a language they mean being able to speak the
language.
2. Oral communication
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It is the view from Byrne opinion (1991:9), with regard to the relation between speaking
and listening. it has seen that speaking and listening skills in communication are
complementary. From a communicative, pragmatic view of the language classroom, speaking
and listening skills are closely intertwined. The interaction between these two modes of
performance applies especially strongly to conversation, the most popular discourse category in
the profession. Speaking always necessitates at least two participants speaker(s) and listener(s).
When the speaker starts the message, the listener decodes, and responds to the message in turns.
Therefore, nature of oral communication is comprehended as a two-way process between the
speaker and listener. Oral communication is effective only when the learners are supplied with
oral skills”(Byrne, 1991:9). Hence, that is why teaching listening is always associated with
teaching speaking skills.
Martin Bygate (1991:22) divided oral skills into negotiation skills and production skills
in which the former are divided into interaction management and negotiation of meaning with
two sub skills.
•
Agenda management refer to the right of participants, choice of the topics and how they are
developed and of how much time the conversation should be prolonged.
•
Turn taking (McCarthy, 1993:127), means that the speaker has to discern (perceive clear
when to take the floor and when to leave at another the speaker take turn.)
Production skills takes that the speakers are always overwhelmed by time pressure from
the moment they decide what to say, how to state to the time they say it out. This excuse helps
them protect themselves by using instrument so as to expedite production and compensate for
difficulties. Production skills are divided into two sub-skills, as follows:

• Facilitation skills as opinion of Bygate (1991:15) suggested that the use of simple
structures, ellipsis, customary expressions and fillers or halting devices such as you know,
you see, ok.
• Compensation skills comprise self, correction, false start, recitation and rephrasing.
As stated above, these provide conditions to enable learners’ speaking ability. However,
to obtain a good speaking ability, according to Bygate, learners of English are required to have
background relevant to the on-going communication. They need to understand what they are
going to talk and also to master some particular grammar points and language skills. The
procedures that learners have to undergo to make themselves orally understood are the steps the
teachers can interfere to develop learners’ speaking ability.

III. Nature of speaking skills and development of teaching speaking skills.
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Speaking is in many ways an undervalued skill. Perhaps this is because we can almost
speak, and so take the skill a lot for granted. speaking is often thought of as a popular form of
expression which uses the unprestigious ‘colloquial’ register: literary skills are on the whole
more prized. This negative neglect may also facile, superficial, or glib. Could it be that the
negative aspects of behaviorist teaching techniques which focused largely on the teaching of
oral language have become associated with the skill itself.
Martin Bygate (1997:1) argues that speaking is a skill which deserves attention every bit
as much as literary skills in both first and second language. Our learners often need to be able to
speak with confidence to carry out many of their most basic transactions. It is the skills by
which they are most frequently judged and through which they may make friends or lose
friends. It is the vehicle par excellence of social solidarity, of social ranking, of professional
advancement and of business. It is also a medium through which much language is learned, and
which for many is particularly conductive for learning. Perhaps, then the teaching of speaking
merits more thought. to be the most vital skill of the four language skills. In order to find the
techniques to improve speaking skills we must be aware of nature of this skills.
One of the basic problems in foreign language teaching, as Martin Bygate’s (1997:3) is
to prepare students to be able to use the language. How this preparation is done, and how

successful it is, depend on how teachers understand their aims. For example, it is obvious that in
order to be able to speak a foreign language, it is necessary to know a certain amount of
grammar and vocabulary. Part of a language course is therefore generally devoted to this
objective. But there are other things involved in speaking and are important to know what this
might be. For instance, to test whether students can speak, it is necessary to get them to actually
say something. To do like this, they must act on knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. By
giving students ‘speaking practice’ and oral exams, we recognize that there is a difference
between knowledge about a language and skills in using it. This distinction between knowledge
and skills is crucial in teaching and speaking.
Martin Bygate adds that when we speak, we do not merely know how to assemble
sentences in the abstract, we have to produce them and adapt them to the circumstances. It
means making decisions rapidly, implementing them smoothly, and adjusting our conversations
as unexpected problems appear in our path.
1. Nature of speaking skills and oral Interaction
1.1. Definition of speaking (spoken language).
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As Brown and Yule’s opinions (1983), spoken language consists of short, fragmentary
utterances, in a range of pronunciation. There is often a great deal of repetition and overlap
between one speaker and another speaker and speakers usually use non-specific references.
They also point out that spoken language is made to feel less conceptually dense than other
types of language such as prose by using the loosely organized syntax, and non –specific
words and phrases and filler such as ‘well’, ‘oh’, ‘uh uh’.
Speaking is, however, a skill which deserves attention as much as literacy skills. Our
learners often need to speak with confidence so as to carry out many of their most basic
transaction. Moreover, speaking is known with two main types of conversation namely
dialogue and monologue.
Brown and Yule suggested that the ability to give uninterrupted oral presentation-
monologue is rather different from interacting with one or more other speakers for transactional
and international purposes. It is much more difficult to extemporize on a given subject to a
group of listeners. It explains why speaking skills generally has to be learnt and practiced

carefully before giving a presentation. Therefore, as when we have conversations we work
interactively.
1.2. Characteristics of speaking
As for Martin Bygate (1997:12), in most speaking, the person to whom we are speaking
is in front of us and able to put us right if we make mistakes. He or she can also generally show
agreement and understanding, or incomprehension and disagreement. Unlike readers or writers,
speakers may need patience and imagination, too. While talking, speakers need to take notice of
the other and allow listeners chance to speak it. It means that we take turns to speak. Brown, G
(1983) and her colleagues point out that a listener helps a speaker improve his performance as a
speaker because being a listener gives learners models to utilize when acting a speaker. In
addition, being a hearer first helps the learner appreciate the difficulties inherent in the task. It is
clear that giving a speaker experience in a hearer’s role is more helpful than simple practice in
tasks in which a speaker is having real difficulties in appreciating what a particular task
required.
Martin Bygate (1997:24,25) suggested that conversation can be analyzed in term of
routines, which are conventional ways of presenting information. As far as we have known,
there are two kinds of routine: “ information routines” and “ interaction routines”.
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Information routines frequently recur information structures, including stories;
descriptions of places and people; presentation of facts, comparisons, instructions.
Interaction routines are the ones based not so much on sequences of kinds of terms occurring in
typical kinds of interactions. These routines thus can be characterized in broad terms including
the kinds of terms typically occurring in given situations, and the order in which the
components are likely to occur.
By and large, the students can be much more confident in speaking English with clear
understanding and governing these skills. The oral skills, however, are dependent on the
knowledge of language they learn such as grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. In addition,
students rely on common conventional expressions for communicating specific meanings,
particularly on the language environment. It is unedited that practice in classroom might not be
similar to oral communication outside classroom. In a foreign language classroom, practice is

rather simple and far from real life.
For instance, contents of communication topics in class are decided by teacher, whereas
outside classroom speakers can express freely what they want. The exact content is
unpredictable. Regarding the reason for communicating in classroom, learners speak to practice
speaking, to get good marks, but in real life speakers have their own reasons for their speech.
Hence, the teacher should reckon the differences of the two situations to help learners speak
English naturally and make their speeches sound native.
1.3. Development approach of speaking skills
In teaching English, teachers may face many of issues that prevent them from a good
conduction such as: number of learners, types of learners, size of class, number of learning
hours, and types of materials. Therefore, the teachers must have a good grasp of a variety of
techniques and procedures through which learners’ ability can be refined. According to Byrne,
D (1991:22,23) there are three phrases to develop learners’ oral ability. They are briefly
presented as follows:
1.3.1. The pre-speaking
In this phase, teachers are the centre. It means that they work as an information provider,
since they know English, select materials to teach and present the material in such a way that
the meaning of the new language items as intelligible and memorable as possible as while the
learners are motionless. So far, oral materials are written mainly in two forms in every course
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book. They are dialogue and prose. And obviously these two forms must be presented in defend
ways.
According to Byrne (1991:22) introduction of the procedure in which the ten different
steps are used to present a dialogue. They are:
• Establish setting by using pictures. At this phrase English should be used as much as
possible,
• Draw out learners’ experience related to situation.
• Explain some key words.
• Set listening task by asking key information of the dialogue.
• Ask learners to listen without looking at the books.

• Allow learners to have a look at their books when necessary.
• Ask the learners to listen and repeat
• Ask learners to pick up difficulties (good chance for learners to soak) and explain
difficulties.
• Ask them to practice( Role- play)
• Ask learners to dramatize the dialogue.
It has been known that this procedure is perfectly and logically arranged. However, it is
dependent on the learner’s competence so some steps can be left out. It is quite hard for
Vietnamese learners to conduct the step ten because they are generally shy and time is limited.
Nine other steps are used to present a prose.
Byrne (1991:26) suggested that teachers should use nine below steps to present a passage.
• Introduce the topic by asking learners to look at the picture or asking them about related
things.
• Introduce the text. New words and structures are given.
• provide relevant practice,
• Set the reading task: make questions.
• Ask the learners to read the passage in silence and find the answers,
• Ask learners to read again aloud and ask for the answer.
• Explain difficulties they still have
• Do silent reading again because the learners need to go on the step nine.
• Get the learners to talk about what they have to learner based on the previous answers.
1.3.2. The while-speaking
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Unlike the presentation phase, in this phase learners have to do most of the talking.
Teacher provides maximum amount of practice. Practice is usually in the form of activities or
exercises to improve fluency of speaking. Pair work or group work are used in this phase.
1.3.3. The post-speaking
Learners need chances to speak English freely at this phase. A real chance to speak
English takes place when the learners are able to use English naturally for themselves, not for
their teacher. Group work plays an important part in making learners practice speaking. By

doing group work, all learners can have chance to participate in task. Time can be saved and
learners seem more confident.
Byrne (1988:2) concludes that in order to improve speaking ability of learners, three
phases above should be followed orderly. But in fact, they might not be applied as expected due
to time limitation, types of learners and materials in use. The phases can be overlapped or run
into one another provided that we keep our aim to get the learners to communicate. However,
teachers ought to pay attention to what has been spoken by the students during the Practice and
Production phases so that they can see how far students have improved their speaking ability
and what mistakes they might produce.
IV. Oral language
1. Definition of oral language
oral language consists of short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation. There
is often a great deal of repetition and overlap between one speaker and another, speakers usually
use non-specific references. According to Brown and Yule (1983), oral language is made to feel
less conceptually dense than other types of language such as prose by using loosely organized
syntax, and non-specific words and phrases and fillers such as ‘well”, “oh”, “uh uh”.
2. The importance of oral language in school curricula.
Gillian Bertram points out that oral language is the greatest use of language and is the
basis of communication. In fact it is the literacy basis.
‘Language plays a vital role in the personal and social development of children. It enables them to gain an
understanding of themselves and others and strengthens their social relationships.’ (Oral language
Resource Book: First Steps; page 45; cited by Gillian Bertram, 2002. Oral language)
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Through listening and speaking students learn about themselves and about their world.
Learning to express their thoughts, ideas and feelings, being able to respond to the
communications of others enable students to participate in society successfully.
In his article Effective Communication“ ” (2002), Gillian Bertram cites a statement by
The National Education Monitoring Report 10 that experience provided by teachers and at
schools plays a very important role in developing oral skills in students. What then is the role of
the schools and the teachers in facilitating growth in students’ oral language?

Oral language development in schools does not mean teaching children to speak so
much as providing them with the skills and opportunities to communicate more effectively.
Speech involves thinking, knowledge and skills. Effective communication is developed through
practice and training.
While oral language acquisition is a natural process, it does not mean that all children
will automatically acquire effective communication skills. Attention and constant practice are
necessary for optimum development in communication. Holbrook (1983) specifies three criteria
for oral language competence: fluency, clarity and sensitivity
(cited by Gillian Bertram, 2002. Oral language). The responsibility of the teachers lies in
helping students to develop these levels of development.
There is no doubt that there is plenty of oral language used in the classroom. However,
much of that “ talking” is done by the teacher, rather than by the students in the course of
delivering the classroom program.
Gillian Bertram (2002) shows a claim in Berry (1985) and Grabell’s (1988) research
that the development of language has a close relationship to thinking abilities. He adds that
Stabb(1986) reminds us that literacy learning is on a continuum and that oral language, the
major learning instrument for children before they go to school, needs to continue to be
available while students are at school. Her warning is that in the process of covering the
“crowded curriculum” we should not forget “one of our most important goals, that of
stimulating thought.”
While research done by Stabb(1986) could be said to be dated, it nonetheless holds
relevant messages for classroom teachers today. Stabb reminds us of the relationship between
oral language development and the development of thinking abilities. There is no doubt that as
students develop oral communication skills, their critical thinking and reasoning abilities are
developed along the way. We see this reflected in the English curriculum document: Oral
language. Listening and speaking are said to be : “essential for language development, for
learning, for relating to others, for living successfully in society” and “as they develop their oral
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language through these language functions-listening and speaking, students will be using the
processes of exploring language, thinking critically and processing information”(English in the

New Zealand Curriculum, P.27; cited by Gillian Bertram, 2002. Oral language)
Oral language is a very important link in process of students’ learning and thinking
development. Oral language provides a foundation for the development of other language skills.
As children talk about themselves and their experiences, they are learning to organize their
thinking and to focus their ideas. It is important to provide opportunities for oral language to
continue to grow in the classroom from those foundations. Before students achieve proficiency
in reading and writing, oral language is one of important means of learning and of acquiring
knowledge. In fact throughout life, oral language skills remain essential for communication of
ideas and intelligent conversation.
One of the most effective ways to facilitate learning of oral language skills is to take into
account the background and everyday life experiences of the students. Once students’ prior
knowledge and facility with oral language is determined, the classroom programmer can be
planned to develop necessary skills on the developmental continuum. From this starting point,
the techniques and skills which are taught in classroom programme need to be further extended
and used across the whole curriculum. Although the oral language programme is delivered at
the classroom level, the policy for the development of language skills needs to exist, and be
implemented, across the whole school.
3. What oral language skills do students need to develop?
Schools are excellent environments to develop knowledge of the courtesies and
conventions of communication in a wide variety of situations. Gillian Bertram(2002) cites the
achievement aims of the national English curriculum which state that students should be able
to:
• talk clearly about experiences and ideas.
• engage with and enjoy oral language in all its varieties.
• understand, respond to and use oral language effectively in a range of contexts.
Develop skills that enable students to develop their thoughts, ideas and feelings clearly
and appropriately and respond to the thoughts, ideas and feelings of others with purpose and
courtesy.
According to Gillian Bertram, in order to develop these skills and strategies students need:
• structured, planned, meaningful tasks and experiences within the classroom environment

to acquire effective listening and speaking skills.
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• opportunities to learn how to think critically about what they hear and to use oral
language to gather, process and present information.
Concomitant to the development of communication skills and facility there will be
growth in students’ confidence when communicating in a wide variety of social contexts to a
wide variety of audiences.
In addition, to be effective communicators, students need to be able to adapt and adopt
their oral language techniques and contents to whatever social context they find themselves in.
To ensure students develop these strategies, the skills and processes of listening and speaking
must be understood, modeled, taught and practiced within the classroom.
4. The role of the teacher as facilitator of oral language development.
The goal is not only to get students to speak and share thinking but also to have them
learn and develop through speech. As students’ language skills develop, classroom talk and
discussion can be directed toward the goals of exploring ideas and facts found in texts and in
the subsequent development of thought and deepening of knowledge.
Gillian Bertram (2002) claims that to act as facilitators of student learning, teachers should:
• Encourage students to bring their ideas and background knowledge into class learning
activities.
• Be a responsive listener to students’ talk.
• Nature an accepting environment where students will feel free to express themselves without
fear of censure by adult or fellow students.
• Raise questions concerning the activities or conversations held with students.
• Promote robust discussion and exposition amongst class members.
• Provide opportunities for speaking, discussion, and expression of ideas, experiences and
opinions across the whole curriculum. This will involve a range of experiences which the
size and type of audience, the situation and purpose will all vary.
• Present themselves as good models of oral language.
• Establish strategies to manage all form of communication to ensure all students have fair
and equitable opportunities to develop their interpersonal speaking and listening skills, e.g.

small and large group work discussions.
17
V. Summary
In this chapter, the author has reviewed the theories from the famous linguistics and
methodologists on some aspects of language teaching such as ‘Communicative Language
Teaching’, ‘Nature of language skills and oral communication’ and the theories on some
concepts such as ‘Nature of speaking skills and development of teaching speaking skills’, ‘Oral
language’. The author hopes they are a good theoretical basis so that the author can fulfill the
minor thesis successfully.
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Chapter II: Research methodology, data analysis and
discussions
This chapter deals with the methodology, data analysis and discussions have been
employed to achieve the aims and objectives of the study. In order to collect the data, both
quantitative and qualitative methods have been used.
I. Research methodology
1. Research questions.
In this paper, the reasons for the unwillingness to speak English of the 10
th
form students
in Gia Phu High School have been investigated. Then some techniques that can help to improve
the students’ speaking skills will be suggested.
1. Why are the 10
th
– form students at Gia Phu High School inhibited and unwilling to
speak English in class?
2. What should be done to help the students overcome these above problems, and improve
their speaking skills?.
2. The participants.

In order to get the data for the study, 120 students from three 10
th
-form classes and five
teachers of English teaching grade 10 at Gia Phu High School, Son La province have been
randomly selected for investigation.
The students all come from countryside. Most of them are at the age of 16, so they
belong to the same psychological age group. Their time length of learning English is also the
same. They all started learning English at grade 6. Most of students are minorities such as Thai,
Muong, H’Mong, and Dao. They all have a low cultural standard. Students at this school do not
have much time to learn, they spend all their time working on the farm so the time for students
study is limited.
The five teachers who were invited to join the study are all full-time teachers at the
school. One of them has been at work for eight years, the two other for five years, one for two
years, and the last one for one year. Three have taught grade 10 for two years, and the two
others for one year. Three of them are female, and they all have got University Bachelor’s of
English.
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3. The instruments.
Data for the study was obtained with two different instruments: questionnaire and interview.
a. The questionnaire
Two questionnaires were designed: one for students and the other for teachers. The
questionnaire for teachers is written in English. It consists of ten questions concerning four
aspects:
- Teachers’ opinion on CLT.
- Difficulties they usually encounter when teaching grade 10.
- Teachers’ opinion on reluctant speakers, the students keep making the same
mistakes and the way to correct them.
- Their recent techniques to motivate reluctant speakers.
The questionnaire for students is written in English, too. It consists of fourteen
questions concerning to some aspects, as follows:

- (Question 1). Students’ assessment of speaking topics in the textbook “English 10”.
- Students’ attitude toward speaking skills. (questions 2, 3, 4)
- Factors making students reluctant to speak English in English classes. ( questions 5,
6)
- Current methods applied to speaking skills. ( questions 7, 8)
- Current implementations to encourage students to speak English. ( questions 9, 10,
11, 12)
- Students’ desires. ( questions 13, 14)
b. The interview
An interview was carried out for more in-depth data. The interviewers were five teachers
teaching English 10 at the school. Each of them was asked five questions (see Appendix B).
The two first questions are about their teaching techniques and steps in speaking lessons. The
next is about their thought of the design of speaking lesson in the new textbook “English 10”.
The two last questions focus on their ideas about the criteria of a good speaking lesson, and
their common feeling about the speaking lessons they gave. The interview is a structured one in
which “the agenda is totally predetermined by the researcher, who works through a list of the
set questions in a pretermined order”.
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4. Data collection and analysis procedure.
a. Data collection.
The questionnaire for teachers was easily carried out. Five copies were given to the five
teachers, and a data was made for the questionnaire to be given back. Five other dates were also
made with the teachers for interviews. During the interviews, the researcher had to both ask the
questions and write their answers down.
120 students from three 10
th
-form classes were randomly selected. With the teachers’
permission, copies of the questionnaire were handed out to the students. To ensure that the
students have right understanding of the questions, the researcher carried on translating the
questions into Vietnamese one by one. After each question translated, one minute was given so

that the students could choose their answer.
b. Data analysis.
The information collected from the two sources was first read through for a sense of
overall data. Then it was analyzed both descriptively and interpretatively. The information from
the questionnaires was displayed in the form of tables and figures, while the information from
the interviews was used as reflective notes and quotations.

5. Conclusion
This part presented the research questions, participants, instruments, and procedures of
data collection and analysis. In a best attempt to build a scientific methodology, the researcher
hopes to achieve a reliable and valid data for the study. Next, is the presentation of the data
analysis and discussion.
II. Data analysis and discussion

1. Questionnaires.
1.1. Questionnaire for teachers.
Questionnaire for teachers consisting of ten questions is designed to find out the
information concerning four aspects. The questions and responses to them are presented in the
headings below.
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a. Teachers opinion on CLT’
The five first questions are aimed at exploring whether the teachers have been trained in
CLT (question 1), what they know are the main properties of CLT (question 2), and whether
they apply CLT in their speaking teaching (question 3). All of the five teachers asked admit they
have been trained in CLT. Three of them are trained in English teaching-training courses and
two others in an English teaching workshop. They also admit they have applied CLT in their
speaking teaching but not others such as Audio-lingual. Grammar-Translation, etc because they
argue that CLT is the best teaching approach to improve students’ communicative competence.
However, being asked about the main properties of CLT, two out of the five teachers only tick
two of the four suggested options. According to these teachers, this teaching way is learner-

centered and emphasizes on fluency rather than on accuracy, while the three others add that
CLT focuses on meaningful tasks rather than on language from itself. In fact, the main
properties of ClT are the three ones above, as the memory of three out of the five teachers.
It has seen from the findings that communicative competence has been taken into
consideration by the teachers at Gia Phu High School, but it is a pity that not all of the teachers
have a full understanding of the properties of CLT, which makes the advantages of improving
communicative competence of CLT not be fully achieved.
b. Difficulties in teaching process at Gia Phu High School.
Question 4 of the questionnaire asks about the difficulties that the teachers encounter in
their teaching grade 10 at the school. The information collected shows that none of the five
teachers experience the same difficulties in their teaching. Especially, two of them complain
that class sizes and students’ low English proficiency are the two difficulties they have
encountered, while another says her students’ English proficiency is not good enough for lesson
requirements, and as to the three others, it is multi-level classes that matters them.
With my own experience from several years’ teaching at school, these are not the
distinctive difficulties of any school in Son La. Besides, the sufficient substance conditions of
schools also matters the teachers a lot. Due to difficulties, it is not easy for teachers to get a high
effect in teaching without their great attempt and creativeness.
c. Teachers attitude towards reluctant speakers and the learners keeping making the’
same mistakes, and way to correct them.
22
These two aspects are the aims of questions 5, 6 and 7. All the teachers opened out that
they have never been angry with their students’ reluctant or mistakes, but very tolerant. They
just keep silent until their students have finished their task, smile and encourage them to go on.
Moreover, three of them rarely interrupt for correction of their students’ mistakes, while two
others are sometimes not patient enough to wait until their students have finished their
presentation and correct the mistakes, but correct them when they are speaking.
When being asked about the solutions to students’ reluctance to speak, the researcher
finds that the teachers do not get angry, make students speak or ignore those solutions, but try to
encourage students to speak by asking them easier questions.

It is clear that some principles of CLT which have been applied by the teachers at this
school can keep such a calm attitude towards their students’ reluctance and mistakes, let
students to speak or ignore. It is known that impatience and intolerance in any situation,
especially in teaching bring out not good effect.
d. Teachers current techniques to motivate reluctant speaking learners at Gia Phu High’
School.
The information about this aspect is the aim of the questions 8, 9 and 10. Helping
students interested in a lesson is an art in teaching. Being asked about the techniques for it, three
out of five teachers say they usually praise their students, but two others answer that they
encourage them in many different ways depending on situations.
Making students interested in lessons by praising them is quite a good way but I myself
prefer the latter, that is teachers should have different ways to interest students in different
situations.
Students may feel unwilling to speak as they are afraid of their teachers. Making a close
relation with students to motivate them is thus something teachers should do. The finding shows
that to make students feel a close relation to the teachers, the teachers at this school avoid
remaining in the teacher’s seat or standing at the blackboard, but walk around the class and give
help.
Group - work and pair - work are two of the activities which the teachers here often use
to give chance to their students to practise speaking. The disadvantage of these two activities is
that students may chat in their mother tongue without the teacher’s good control. To prevent this
possibility, four out of the teachers move around the class and observe, while the only other
reminds his students of speaking English.
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In my own opinion, reminding students of speaking English is not a good way to prevent
students from speaking Vietnamese as students’ voluntaries is not always high; they may not
speak in the target language without the teacher’s observation. In addition to reminding them,
teachers need to go around and observe what students are doing.
In summary, it can be seen from the responses to the questionnaire for teachers that the
teachers teaching grade 10 at Gia Phu High School have all been trained in CLT. Although not

all of them have a full understanding of CLT, they have attempted to apply it in their speaking
teaching reality afterwards. However, the effect of CLT is limited.
1.2. Questionnaire for students.
a. Students assessment of speaking topics in the text book English 10 .’ “ ”
Question one in the questionnaire is designed to explore students’ assessment of the text
book “English 10”. The result of 120 respondents is shown at rate in the table bellow:
Options
Question
A
(%)
B
(%)
C
(%)
D
(%)
Question 1
How do you find the speaking topics presented in
class, based on English 10 ?“ ”
A. Interesting B. All right
C. Boring D. Too boring
60 34 4 2
Table 1: Students assessment of speaking topics in the text - book English 10 .’ “ ”
Of 120 respondents, seventy-two students finds the speaking topics in the textbook
“English 10” interesting which takes 60%. 34% finds the topics all right. The number of
students that have negative assessment is minimal, only six percent.
The result reveals that speaking topics in the textbook are not the factor that causes to
unexciting atmosphere in speaking classes, because the rate of students that has positive
assessment of the topics takes the majority. The cause of the problem is, therefore, not the
material, but something else which should be explored in other aspects.

b. Students attitude towards speaking skills.’
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The questions 2, 3 and 4 are designed to discover students’ attitude towards speaking skills.
The specific questions and students’ responses are shown in table 2.
Options
Questions
A
(%)
B
(%)
C
(%)
D
(%)
Question 2
How is speaking skills important to you?
A. very important B. rather important
C. little important D. not important at all
80.3 16.7 1.5 1.5
Question 3
How much do you feel interested in speaking
English classes?
A. very interested B. rather interested
C. little interested D. not interested at all
22.9 35 33.1 9
Question 4
Do you feel reluctant to speak English in class?
A. Yes, often
B. Yes, sometimes
C. No, I like speaking very much

D. No, I speak English willingly
26 51.1 11 11.9
Table 2: Students attitude towards speaking skills.’
Being asked about the importance of English speaking skills, most of students find that
speaking skills is very important to them. It takes 80.3%; 16.7% says that it is rather important,
and the percentage defying it is very small, which takes 3.0%. However, when being asked
about their interest in speaking English in class, there is only 22.9% of students says it is very
interested; 35% is rather interested while the percentage that is not interested makes the biggest
group, which takes 42.1%. In question four, twenty-six percent often feels reluctant to speak
English in class while 51.1% of students is respondent sometimes. Only 22.9% does not feel
reluctant to speak English in class.
In short, it can be said that most of the respondents suppose speaking is an important
skill. However, the percent of students often feel reluctant to speak English in class is bigger
than that of students interested in speaking English in class. So the question raised here is what
factor makes nearly half of the students uninterested and over two third reluctant to speak
English in class? The following responses will be the answer to the question.
c. The factors that make students reluctant in speaking English.
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