Khóa luận How to make pupils at SIU interested in learning English speaking

……………………………………..

GRADUATION THESIS
Major
English Language

Topic
How to make pupils at SIU interested in
learning English speaking

Instructor
Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA
Student
Dinh Thai Son
ID: 97011501057


DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the work entitled "THE THESIS PROPOSAL" submitted for the
school governor of The Saigon International University (SIU) is my original work and I
also confirm that, the report is only prepared for my academic requirement not for any
other purpose.

Student's name

: Đinh Thái Sơn

Course

:

SIUBFT0815

Student ID

:

97011501057

Date

:

September 6th, 2017

Place

:

Hochiminh city

Signature of the Student:


ABSTRACT
The experience of English teaching, especially speaking class, comes from the actual
classroom and that is not a good news for a new teacher, who does not have it but
urgently needs to acquire the basic knowledge. This writing provides the reasons why the
level of interesting acts as a crucial point in the succeeding of a class. Furthermore, some
methods of teaching speaking are going to be viewed and discussed to strengthen the
point of view that intrinsic motivation should be applied in the class. Readers will find

graphs and figures demonstrating the subject and result in finding them useful for further
studies at the Saigon International University.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to show deep gratitude to all those who gave me a chance to complete this
research and this Thesis.
A special thanks I would like to give to my instructor, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan, for
helping me with the information needed for my Thesis. Over the period of 10 weeks, he
helped us to schedule the writing from step to step so that the writing could be handed in
time. Professor also guided us the correct form of writing and corrected our paper works.
Furthermore, I would like to thank the class 15DTA, who act as a helpful source of data
on reflecting the state of our speaking class in the pass. The data was rapidly filled and
the reply was so frank. Without their participation, this writing was so much in trouble.
Last but not least, I would like to thank the Saigon International University. The
academic facility provides me a chance to be able to present the knowledge that I had
learned here for the last four years and applied them to real life situation.


Instructor’s Comment
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TABLE OF CONTENT
Content
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................1
1. Rationale.....................................................................................................................1
2. Purposes of the Study................................................................................................1
3. Significant of the Study..............................................................................................2
4. Research Questions....................................................................................................2
5. Limitation...................................................................................................................3
6. Scope of the Study......................................................................................................3
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................5
1. Intrinsic motivation....................................................................................................6
2. Distinguish Types of Motivations.............................................................................6
3. Advantages of Intrinsic Motivation..........................................................................7
4. Some Elements of English Speaking.........................................................................8
5. Communicative Language Teaching........................................................................8
6. Task-based activities and Topic-based activities.....................................................9
7. Some Classroom Speaking Activities.......................................................................9
7.1. Script Acting..........................................................................................................9
7.2. Discussion...........................................................................................................10
7.3. Prepared Talks.....................................................................................................11
7.4. Questionnaires.....................................................................................................11

7.5. Simulation and role-play................................................................................................12
Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................13
1. Research design...................................................................................................................13
2. Research Procedures..........................................................................................................13
3. Participants.........................................................................................................................15
4. Sample Selection.................................................................................................................15
5. Material Technique............................................................................................................15
6. Data Collection....................................................................................................................16
7. Reliability and Validity......................................................................................................16
Chapter 4: ANALYSIS AND DICUSSION..............................................................................18


1. Speaking class should be improve to be more enthusiastic for students.........................18
2. Methods of teaching English speaking fit into the class to make it more enthusiastic...22
2.1. Dramatic methods.........................................................................................................22
2.2. Topic-based methods.....................................................................................................25
3. Which methods are considered to be the most suitable for the students at Saigon
International University?.......................................................................................................27
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION........................................................................................................33
REFERENCE.............................................................................................................................35
APPENDIX.................................................................................................................................37


LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1: The chart describing the level of interest the speaking class could get based on
students’ grading......................................................................................................................20
Chart 2: The chart describing the amount of activities were use............................................21
Chart 3: The chart describing the most common method used during class........................
..................................................................................................................................................22
Chart 4: Chart describing which methods students prefer......................................................29

Chart 5: Chart describing which task-based activities students prefer...................................30
Chart 6: Chart describing which topic-based activities students prefer.............................32


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

CONTENT
Chapter 1: Introduction
The research began when the class of speaking conducted at SIU had finished since
the majority felt the same that the class either quite reluctant or not being able to
distribute the enthusiastic activities. In the search for methods to better the class learning
environment, the hope is that speaking class will be more communicative for students to
enjoy.

1. Rationale
English has always been unofficially considered to be the most used language of the
modern time for it has proved it significant in global business and communication in the
last decade. Yet, learning a second language is not as easy as it seems especially when it
comes to speaking English. During speaking session, we found that some of the students
lack the motivation to stand up in front the class and deliver a speech in English. This
typical situation is often assigned to being shy, reserved and insecure of making mistake,
some cases event engage with the negative attitude toward speaking in front of public.
Such matter has raised the attention of us as future teachers to find an appropriate
solution.

2. Purposes of the Study

As stated before, we are aiming at creating an efficient English speaking period for
students of Saigon International University. By attending the classes, we noticed that
getting students to speak English in class is quite tricky especially to those who were
reluctant to speak or express themselves in front of other people. Since then, we have

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

been scanning through methods of teaching Speaking English and obtaining more new
modern practices to help students deal with speaking problems.

3. Significance of the Study
As the first to benefit from this research, we would say that through the process of
making this writing possible, we have learned a quite amount of ways to conduct an
effective speaking class. With a certain belief that the students at Saigon International
University would be the next target to gain advantage since this research was aimed to
better the class of speaking based on the interest of each individuals. Lastly, teachers’
role is quite important in the learning and progressing of pupils so we hope that this small
research could act as a support to those seeking of such helps and shall gain benefit from
it.

4. Research Questions
When the target has been set, three main questions are going to be discussed in the
later section of this research.

1. Should we consider to improve the Speaking class so that it could be more
enthusiastic?
2. What activities of English speaking teaching are going to fit into the class to make
it more enthusiastic?
3. Which methods are considered to be the most suitable for the students at Saigon
International University?

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

5. Limitation
Since the research was only carrying on for ten weeks, there were a quite shortage of
time. As a result, the amount of material we were able to collect still constrained. Further
to that, the preparation for this thesis was interfered by the time using for completing
internship report. Two weeks were cut out to complete the tasks. The questionnaire
period was yet too short, the answers collecting stopped after a week so that amount of
responses was not enough as a whole class.

6. Scope of the Study
This topic focused on the student at Saigon International University:
The Saigon International University (SIU) is an international university,
founded in Vietnam to help Vietnamese and foreign students advance their
education to the tertiary level. All our programs are taught either in English or
in Vietnamese based on the standard of the American university curriculum.

The SIU degrees are valuable nationally and internationally. (siu.edu.vn)

The class of 15DTA of English Language faculty started in 2015 and will end in
2019. The curriculum consisted of Vietnamese program including subjects such as
Introduction to Linguistics, Semantics, etc. and English program which were the skills of
Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening.
The research targeted the students attended the class of 15DTA of the faculty of
English Language at Saigon International University only. The list of students we used is
the LIST OF STUDENTS GRADUATION INTERNSHIP - 2019 sent to us by the school
office on February 27th, 2019 which contained 25 members in total.

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

In conclusion, the main target for this research are students at SIU in general, for
the students of class 15DTA in specific. Although, there some difficulties in reaching for
the sample, we were managed to acquire the result needed for this thesis.

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Harmer (2007) in his fourth edition of “The Practice of English
Language Teaching”, speaking can be quite easy to practice especially in a class where
students are acquainted to each other and archive an appropriate level of English learning.
On the other hand, Harmer also stated that it is a challenge job for teachers to handle a
class with a variety of mixed level or students who are little exposed to English in their
previous learning. These reluctant students are described as often being shy and refusing
to express themselves in front of the crowd because of the fear of not speaking normal
English. In addition, a more common problem comes to Speaking class is “I cannot think
of anything to say”. This issue is usually assigned to not being able to relate students

themselves to the topics or activities happening during the class. Last but not least,
speaking class should have a high number of individual participants because unlike other
skills, speaking need great amount of time in order for learners to expose themselves to
the language.
To have a better view of some of the matter we were working on, the below terms and
definitions are going to be discussed.
As we would all agree on, “To be motivated means to be moved to do something. A
person who feels no impetus or inspiration to act is thus characterized as unmotivated,
whereas someone who is energized or activated toward an end is considered motivated”
as Richard, M, R. & Edward, L, Deci. (2000) described. Therefore, we would like to
classify two types of motivation that keep learner at their stage of studying.

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

1. Intrinsic motivation
The writing of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New
Directions stated:
Intrinsic motivation is defined as the doing of an activity for its inherent
satisfaction rather than for some separable consequence. When
intrinsically motivated, a person is moved to act for the fun or challenge
entailed rather than because of external products, pressures or reward.

(Ryan & Deci, 2000, pp. 56)
Furthermore Vanderbilt University in its article had suggested these intrinsic
motivators could be describe as those who show interest at a specific subject with the
thought of it somehow connect to the reality and when come to solving problems they
can easily apply. More specific, when asked the question of how efficient you are when
learning a subject or what archive do you earn when learning. The responses might sound
like these, ““Literature interests me.”, “Learning math enables me to think clearly.”, “I feel good
when I succeed in class.” ” (Article about Motivating Student, Vanderbilt University).

2. Distinguish Types of Motivations
A much tougher task is how to tell the differences between intrinsic, extrinsic and
internal, external motivation. Being as briefly as possible, external motivation regards the
outer forces that drive learners to their success while internal motivation is more likely to
fulfill personal satisfaction. Let us have an example. A student completed his homework
with the fear of being punished by his parents if the work had not been done. In this case,
he is motivated by his parents’ sanctions so it is obvious external. The same student

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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

complete his work because he thinks that it will lead to his succeed at school, then he is
internally motivated. As comparing to the other two, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are
much more of an instrumentally value. The boy could have finished his homework since
his discovery that his homework contain knowledge that he needed to perform in other
subject, then he is intrinsically motivated. On the other hand, the child completing his
task thinking that he it would help him to earn a job or in short term get a reward in the
future could be considered as extrinsically motivated.

Since we are only mentioning the intrinsic motivation, the distinguish part above just
to clarify these definition. It is, however, important for teachers to recognize these types
of motivation and be able to classify reluctant students to fit in each type and make sure
to plan ahead a solution to deal with each type.

3. Advantages of Intrinsic Motivation
The process of acquiring information on students’ liking as well as further developing
them can easily accompany class time meaning that steps can happen at the same time
without interfering or suppressing one another. For instant, during speaking class,
teachers can ask students to provide their hobby or ask question about their future jobs,
etc. As far as we acknowledged, extrinsically motivating methods do their jobs as soon as
you apply them during your teaching section. Rewards and good marks draw the
attentions of students, hands are up for answering questions and speaking of ideas. It

provides strong stimulation and makes students eagerly to aim for rewards.

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

4. Some Elements of English Speaking
As Harmer defined, speaking English fluently means there is a full potential
deployment on pronouncing phonemes, using stress and intonation patterns and creating a
connected speech. Furthermore, these above criteria must also accompany with various
speaking events. Speaking in another language is difficult and it has been argued that an
important reason for this is that a student’s attentional resources during a speaking
activity are limited (Skehan, 1998: 73). Many students cannot stay balance between
getting the meaning right in a proper time (fluency) and using it correctly (accuracy) as
an article of Cambridge Press had suggested.

5. Communicative Language Teaching
In the work of Littlewood (2013), the communicative ability is described by
analyzing two different points of view of language, the structural and the functional.
Structural point of view considers the aspect of grammar, in other words, two sentences
can be distinguished from each other by their grammatical structure. For instant, “John is
drinking coffee” and “The coffee is being drunk by John”. The structural view alone,
however, cannot be used as a way of conveying communication. Learners will need the
view of functional as well. Here is an example: “Are they still working?” .In the aspect of
grammar, the sentence should be understand as a question or interrogative. However,

there are more than one meaning in the view of functional base on the circumstances that
the speakers in. As a result, the communicative language teaching was there to solve the
problem in three aspects: getting students to understand the linguistic structure first since

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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

this is ESL class, helping students to use the language communicatively and also
introducing students to a non-linguistic knowledge of communication.

6. Task-based activities and Topic-based activities
As Ur defined in her work, a topic-based activity helps students to relate the ideas of
students to their own experience and knowledge. This kind of activities could also
represent a group discussion where teachers can stimulate speeches but not too many
arguments so that students can keep their origin ideas. On the other hand, task-based
activities require groups or pairs to complete observable tasks such as records, lists,
charts, etc. The main difference between these types of activities is the outcome. While
topic-based activities aim to produce discussion or such type of outcome, task-based
activities provides a more specific result, a source of material that could also be used for
other subjects. Therefore, task-based activities seem to produce more speech than its
company since the procedures of conducting a task-based activities already creates
opportunities for students to talk, especially to communicate with one another.

In this research, topic-based activities would be widened as a method of conducting

speaking class using a topic as a center to construct an activity.

7. Some Classroom Speaking Activities
7.1. Script Acting
This activity involve in having student to act a cut-out part of a story from their books
or other sources that they have most interest, the progress can be recorded and act as an

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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

evaluation for grading. These scripts should be selected carefully so that it could fit the
age of the class and students should be asked to look through the script as if they were
“real” actors and actresses. Students will have time to practice their performance which
teacher head them toward the stress and intonation as they are speaking the lines. Not
only student will be able to practice speaking with their friend during prepare section but
they also gain confident during acting section in front of the class. During acting out part,
teachers should give students with less confident chances to look at their classmate and
create a helpful friendly environment where they help each other with the pronunciations
and acting.

7.2. Discussion
The most common of this type of interactions between teachers and students is what
Jeremy described as Buzz group. This activity involves in predicting a topic name after
you have exposed it to the students or discussing after naming some key words of that

same topic. For example, teachers show pictures of snake, elephant, tiger, etc. and
suggest that we might discuss the topic of animals in the rain forest and ask them to name
the animals. Then teachers ask them to guess where they could live or capable of, “the
elephant can swim”; “The snake cannot fly”, etc. The buzz group method, however,
should be discriminated from Instant comment, which have more connection to producing
fast corresponding in-class activities. Let take the same lesson of the rain forest for
example. Teachers again show the topic but now instead of involving the class into
speaking, we can invite individuals to stand up and list as quickly as possible four animal
and their living habitats. Another type of discussion is the Formal debates. Students

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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

during the class should be given a topic then plan their arguments in group while teachers
direct them toward some point of view or answer their questions. It is important for the
student to practice their speech in advance in their group first.

7.3. Prepared Talks
This activity is often seen in the secondary grade classes where they acquired a quite
amount of vocabulary and the ability to use formal conversation. Students then choose a
topic that they most acquainted and prepared the talk in advance. Teachers should
encourage students to present their ideas using notes instead of scripts and should speak
in a small group first. Then teacher could grade them on a criteria that the whole class
had agreed on before.

As the most used activity in teaching English speaking, prepared talks are suitable for
both intrinsic students. It can assure that the topics chosen by students are those familiar
or interesting so they can have as much information as possible along with vocabulary
needed to make their presentation. The criteria that teachers introduce will act as grading
tools to see if students could get better in speaking English.

7.4. Questionnaires
As Harmer (2007) mentioned, “Questionnaires are useful because, by being pre-planned,
they ensure that both questioner and respondent have something to say to each other”. This

activity is what we called “flexible” to conduct and here are the reasons. Questionnaires
can be delivered to students by teachers or can be done by students themselves. Provided
that questions are came up by teachers, students then discuss answers with friends or
practice one-on-one conversation with teachers. On the other hand, students design the
materials themselves so that they could collect data from their friends and present their
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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

finding in front of the class. In this case, teachers’ role is crucial in helping them in the
design process.
7.5. Simulation and role-play
It is described as the act of students “simulate a real-life encounter (such as a
business meeting, an interview or a conversation in an aeroplane cabin, a hotel foyer, a

shop or a cafeteria) as if they were doing do in the real world” (The Practice of English
Language Teaching, 2015, pp. 352). Also described by Ur in her “A Course in English
Teaching Language” (p. 123), this activity can also begin with role cards distributed to
students about a situation. This simulation can also be students themselves take on the
role-play of a character. It is important that the role of students should be given with full
instruction of background, characteristic, etc. Sometimes, teachers can have students to
improvise a circumstance of real life encounter.

In other words, to understand the matter thoroughly, teacher should be aimed with the
basis for professional look through books, articles and most importantly through
experience. The above provides information for such need.

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, we are going to cover some information and methods that we used to
collect the information. These include the written discourse regarding the methods of
acting, planning activities, etc. for conducting an English speaking class and the tool to
find out the numbers which brought up the questions for this research.

1. Research design
As trying to better the quality of our English speaking class, we have conducted this
research to find out whether more interesting methods should be considered to make the

class more enthusiastic and seek for best methods suitable for students by using both the
Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research. The Qualitative method helps us to
know better the topic that we had chosen through written materials like books and articles
related to the topic. The procedure of Quantitative research was applied to find out the
figure of efficiency that speaking class had brought to students in the past. This section
was carried out by the form of Questionnaires, which is going to be discussed in the later
part.

2. Research Procedures
The research literally starts on February 27th, 2019, right after students received the
list of instructors, who help them to finish their paper work. Since the time, the schedule
was designed by our instructor, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan, as:

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.


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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

Week 1, 2 and 3: Finished writing Chapter 1, 2 and Correction.

Week 4 and 5: Finished writing Chapter 3, 4 and Correction.

Week 6: Finished Chapter 5 and Correction.

Week 7 and 8: Meetings.

This research aims to gather methods in relating to teaching speaking effectively for
advanced English learning students following these steps:

1. In the first step of this research, we are going to focus on the questions of
research. Firstly, for the target of this research, we would like to determine who
should be on the list of our questioning, what kind of methods that came up in the
past for teaching Speaking and select which should be able to apply to make it
more successful.
Then we put up the questionnaires about the quality of the class they had attended
in the past, mostly about activities and how enthusiastic these activities brought to
the students.
2. After having all information collected, we presented the idea and proposed the
topic and made it a research.
3. We came up with strategies to collect the data and which approach we would
use to analyze the data.
4. Then we put up the questionnaires about the quality of the class they had
attended in the past, mostly about activities and how enthusiastic these activities

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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

brought to the students. Besides, we were walking through books and articles to
scheme out information that needed for the writing.
5. The data then would be analyzed to a final result.

6. The result then is going to be informed as in the Chapter IV.

3. Participants
The main participants of this research is the student of the faculty of Major English, to be
more specific, the students were assigned to the class 15DTA and were classify
differently based on their English standard test that the university provided.
A vast majority of students in the 15DTA class have been exposed to English for at least
a year as the recent research has shown. Over a number of 25 members of the class,
38.9% of students have been learning English for over a year while 61.1% of pupils got
acquainted to the language for over two years.

4. Sample Selection
As mentioned before, the focus of this research lay on the students of Saigon
International University, typically speaking the student of class 15TDA. Through the
questionnaires distributed earlier, results would be choose manually. More specific: the
sample of those who attended all four courses of English skills should be selected; the
sample of those who subjected to English for at least a year should be selected

5. Material Technique
The main technique in gathering material for this research is Google form and its
calculator site. This application helps user to create questionnaires on their own.
Moreover, these forms can be sent quickly through connection to other social media
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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

applications. Last but not least, the questions can also be calculated, made into graphics
and had their digital numbers place on the table for individual results. Beside the data
from students, the written materials also played an important role in the making of this
research. The selections were books related to the education aspects, mainly about
teaching English as a second language. The research also considered specialized topics
related to education as a source of information

6. Data Collection
The main technique in gathering materials is questionnaires, which included three
sections. The first section included three questions act as a filter for eliminating results
that were not suitable for collecting data in next two sections. The second set of questions
was aim for collecting data on the level of interesting the lessons of speaking class
brought to students in the past. Kind of activities, time used to process the activity and
whether these activities can leave an impression to student are criteria this part aimed at.
The third part includes six questions mainly about activities that students would like to
present during their class.
As a result, over the total of twenty-five students in 15DTA, twenty-four samples were
submitted back to the site. Twenty-one samples, however, made it through the final
calculation process since there were two did not valid due to the fact that the answered
stated that he or she did not go through the class in the period of 2015 to 2019.

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Student: Dinh Thai Son

Student ID:97011501057

7. Reliability and Validity
The result of the data found in this research is assured to be reliable due to three
reasons. Firstly, the numbers were obtained through a serious survey with a scale of
enough participants to make the outcome possible. Secondly, this survey was completed
by students of English Major so the barrier of language could be minimized. Last but not
least, the numbers were processed with accuracy so that the same survey of exact type
should be able to produce the result with the least speculation as it could have. This
research guaranteed that a same survey conducted based on the steps and questions upon
this writing would get a very same outcome.

The result of the data found in this research is assured to be valid due to two reasons.
The result of this research was carried out in an appropriate amount of time needed for
the Questionnaires to happen for the most sample could be collected. Total amount of
seven days used for collecting the sample of 25 students is legit enough. The research
starts with general question, whether the speaking class actually provided a lot of
speeches. To look into that, we narrowed down the target to a more familiar target which
is our classmate, the class of Major English. As we had noticed in the past, the majority
of the class seemed quite reluctant in the period due to the fact of lacking interest so we
designed to come up with a survey to evaluate the enthusiastic of speaking class. Then we
analyzed the pros and cons of the class that we had in the past based on our own
experience and compare the details provided by our friends answer samples. This writing
as described above, followed strictly the steps of conducting a scientific method research.
Therefore, this research is validity.

Instructor: Nguyen Thanh Tuan, MA.