AN INVESTIGATION INTO DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING AND TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL AT TRAN QUY CAP SECONDARY SCHOOL IN NUI THANH DISTRICT

QUANG NAM UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

~~~~~~~~~~

GRADUATION PAPER

AN INVESTIGATION INTO DIFFICULTIES IN
LEARNING AND TEACHING ENGLISH
SPEAKING SKILL AT TRAN QUY CAP

SECONDARY SCHOOL IN NUI THANH DISTRICT

Student:
NGUYEN THI KIM YEN
Student Code: 2113010846

MAJOR: ENGLISH
Academic Course: 2013 – 2017

Supervisor
PHAN THI DIEU HIEN, M.A

Quang Nam, May 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES..................................................................................................................
LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................................
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP...................................................................................I
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... II

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ III
CHAPTER I ........................................................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Rationale..................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Aims and Objectives....................................................................................................... 2
1.2.1 Aims ................................................................................................................................. 2
1.2.2 Objectives........................................................................................................................ 2
1.3 Research Questions........................................................................................................ 3
1.4 Scope of the Study ........................................................................................................... 3
1.5 Organization .................................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 2........................................................................................................................... 4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................... 4
2.1Theoretical Background ................................................................... 4

2.1.1 Definition of Speaking ................................................................................................... 4
2.1.2 The Importance of Speaking Skill................................................................................. 5
2.1.3 Difficulties in Learning and Teaching English Speaking .......................................... 6
2.1.4 Factors Affect the Process of Speaking........................................................................ 7
2.1.5 Fluency and Coherence................................................................................................. 8
2.1.6 Pronunciation ................................................................................................................. 9
2.1.7 Confidence .................................................................................................................... 10
2.1.8 Vocabulary....................................................................................................................10
2.1.9 Grammar Accuracy ..................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Previous Studies on the Difficulties in Teaching and Learning English............11
2.3 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 14
CHAPTER 3......................................................................................................................... 15
METHODOLOGY............................................................................................................. 15
3.1 Design of Research Method ........................................................................................ 15

3.2 Data Collection .............................................................................................................. 16

3.2.1 Participants ...................................................................................... 16

3.2.2 Questionnaires..............................................................................................................16
3.2.3 Interview........................................................................................................................17
3.2.4. Class Observation ....................................................................................................... 17
3.3 Data analysis .................................................................................................................. 18
3.4 Procedures ...................................................................................................................... 18
3.5 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 19
CHAPTER 4......................................................................................................................... 20
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ..................................................................................... 20
4.1 Students attitude to learning English speaking skill. ............................................. 20
4.2 Teachers’ Attitude towards Teaching English........................................................23
4.3 Students’ Interest in Different Speaking Activities ................................................ 24
4.4 Students’ Practice Speaking Skill .............................................................................. 26
4.5 Speaking Activities Used for the English Speaking Class.....................................27
4.6 Students’ Difficulties in Learning English Speaking Skill....................................28
4.7 Causes of Difficulties in Learning Speaking............................................................31
4.7.1 Objective Causes ............................................................................ 31

4.7.2 Subjective Causes.........................................................................................................32
4.8 Teachers’ Difficulties in Teaching English speaking ............................................. 33
4.9 Suggestions for Effective Learning and Teaching English Speaking Skill ....... 36
4.9.1 Students’ Suggestions .................................................................................................. 36
4.9.2 Teachers’ Suggestions for Effective Teaching Speaking Skill ................................. 38
CHAPTER 5......................................................................................................................... 42
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 42
5.1 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 42
5.2 Pedagogical Implications ............................................................................................. 43
5.2.1 For Teachers ................................................................................................................ 43

5.2.2 For Students..................................................................................................................43
5.2.3 For the School .............................................................................................................. 44
5.2.3.1 Creating Speaking Environment for Students........................................................44
5.2.3.2 Reducing the Class Size............................................................................................45
5.4 Limitations of the Study...............................................................................................45

5.5 Suggestion for Further Researches ........................................................................... 46
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................... 47
APPENDIX........................................................................................................................... 49

LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1 Students’ attitude towards speaking skill
Table 4.2 Teachers’ attitude towards teaching English
Table 4.3 Learners’ interest in different speaking activities
Table 4.4 Teachers’ activities
Table 4.5 Objectives causes of difficulties in learning speaking
Table 4.6 Subjective causes of students’ difficulties in learning speaking
Table 4.7 Students’ suggestions to enhance speaking skill
Table 4.8 Teachers’ suggestions

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Students’ interest for speaking
Figure 2: Importance of speaking for students
Figure 3: The students’ opinion on the difficulty of speaking skill
Figure 4: The frequency of students’ English speaking skill practice
Figure 5: Students’ difficulties in speaking
Figure 6:Teachers’difficulties

I

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

The thesis has been resulted from my own interest as well as difficulties in
learning English of secondary students in Nui thanh district. I directly distributed
the questionaires to the learners. Therefore, the entire statistics given must be
reliable. Moreover, all the reference information was quoted or summarized with
the clear original sources which have been shown in the references. I truthfully
assure that the thesis has been complete by me.

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ABSTRACT
Speaking is one of the most necessary skills to communicate in the real
life. In learning a foreign language, it is extremely important to learn this skill.
Everybody knows that speaking is not simple, so the speaker has to make the
listener understanding the message and responding in the right manner. Realizing
the problems from learning experience, the author would like to do the research
titled: “An investigation into difficulties in learning and teaching English
speaking skill at Tran Quy Cap secondary school in Nui Thanh district”. The
thesis will study the difficulties of the teachers and learners in teaching and
learning the speaking skill. Then it will give some suggestions to overcome these
difficulties. Therefore, the author will apply the qualitative, quantitative methods
and descriptive methods to do the research. The results of the research will point
out the difficulties that teachers and learner meet when they teach and learn the
speaking skill at secondary school. More importantly, it helps the author find out
the causes of those difficulties so that the author can work out the right solutions
to the problems. With the hope of improving learners' speaking competence, the
author has tried her best to do this thesis by her own experience and knowledge
in English learning methodology.

III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My graduation thesis has been completed with a lot of encouragement and
support from my teacher, colleagues and family.
First of all, I would like to express my deep great thank to my supervisor,
Ms. Phan Thi Dieu Hien for her indispensable and useful advice, suggestion and
support. And I wish to thank my teachers at Quang Nam University from whom I
could get background knowledge to complete this thesis. In addition, I am
grateful to all my friends in my class, who have encouraged me a lot to finish the
thesis and shared useful information with me.
I also wish to acknowledge the cooperation of the teachers and students at
Tran Quy Cap Secondary school in contributing to the data collection presented
in this study.
Last but not least, my special thanks go to my parents who have, as it
always goes, encouraged and supported me so much in all respects during my
time of fulfilling this graduation paper.

Quang Nam, April, 2017
Student

Nguyen Thi Kim Yen

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter shows the rationale, the aim, the objectives and the research
questions, followed by the scope and the organization of the study.

1.1 Rationale

In recent years, along with the quick development and cooperation of the
world's economy, people need a common language to communicate with each
other. Therefore, English is used more and more widely and becomes an
international language. English is used as a second or foreign language in the
workplace, international trade, global media, tourism, education, aviation,
business, technology and on diplomatic occasions. As a result, the demand for
speakers using English effectively is necessary in every country. Teaching and
learning English, except for the native language, is thus crucial for
communicative purposes to meet the demands of global economics and to cope
with the growing local, national and international demands for English skills. In
Vietnam, English is becoming more widely used in every field of life and it is an
official and compulsory foreign language which has been taught in most schools
all over the world. Many people are aware that English guarantees them to have
good jobs if they are good at speaking English. People thus have a great concern
about learning speaking skill.

Learning English is becoming a must in this modern world. Students need
to effectively obtain basic language skills such as reading, listening, writing and
especially speaking. Speaking is the most important skill in communication
because we are only able to communicate well effectively when we can make
other people understand our message. It is also an important tool in helping
learners to succeed in any fields. For students who want to become a tour guide,
they must be fluent in speaking so that they can help visitors to understand the
cultural and historic attractions. If they want to become a teacher, they have to be
able to communicate with their students so that they can understand the class

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materials easily. Even if they want to become a businessman, in order to expand
the business market, they have to know how to use the international language to
communicate with their foreign partners.

However, speaking is a challenging task for students. Most secondary
students in Vietnam in general and Tran Quy Cap secondary students in Nui
Thanh district of Quang nam province in particular find it hard to be proficient in
this skill. As a result, teachers and students in this school face a lot of problems
in teaching and learning English speaking skill.

As a student who used to study at this school and had many problems in
learning English speaking. I have realized that secondary students cope with a lot
of problems and difficulties when dealing with speaking because of some
objective and subjective reasons while speaking becomes more important in the
modern life. Thus, I would like to choose the title "An investigation into
difficulties in learning and teaching English speaking skill at Tran Quy Cap
secondary school in Nui Thanh district” to point out the difficulties and their
causes to help the teachers and students have effective methods in teaching
and learning English speaking skill.

1.2 Aims and objectives

1.2.1 Aims
The study aims at investigating into the real situations in learning and

teaching English speaking skill of the students and teachers at Tran Quy Cap
secondary school and helping them to find out the difficulties, causality as well
as recommendations on how to improve their skills.

1.2.2 Objectives

The study is intended :
- To find out the common difficulties that the secondary students and
teachers face when they learn and teach English speaking skill at Tran Quy Cap
secondary school.

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- To suggest some possible solutions to those difficulties.

1.3 Research questions

These objectives could be summarized into some research questions as
follows:

1. What are the difficulties the students and teachers face in learning and
teaching English speaking skill at Tran Quy Cap secondary school?

2. What should be done to help them overcome the difficulties for better
English speaking skills teaching and learning?

1.4 Scope of the study

Due to the limitation of time, knowledge and materials, the study only
concentrates on the difficulties in speaking skill and makes suggestions to solve
problems related to speaking skills. The research is aimed at the students and
teachers at Tran Quy Cap secondary school in Nui Thanh.

1.5 Organization

The study is presented in 5 main chapters as follows

Chapter 1: “Introduction” provides the overview of the research including
rationale, aims and objectives, questions, scope and organization of the study.
Chapter 2: “Literature review” – presents relevant essential theoretical
foundation for the current study.
Chapter 3: “Methodology” –the research introduces the participants, the data
collection instruments as well as research methods, data analysis.
Chapter 4: “Findings and Discussion” – analyzes the result of questionnaire and
tape recorders. Based on what is found, this chapter discusses the answers to the
research questions.
Chapter 5: “Conclusion” – draws the conclusion of the research and some
suggestions for teaching and learning IELTS speaking skill. It also mentions
some limitations of the paper, and finally, this section makes some
recommendations for further studies.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the author will give an overview of the theoretical
background for the study. It begins with the definition of speaking, the
importance of speaking skill, speaking problems in learning and teaching,
continues with factors affect the process of speaking.
2.1 Theoretical Background
2.1.1 Definition of Speaking
There are many different definitions of speaking. According to Florez
[1999, cited in Bailey, 2005:2], speaking is “an interactive process of
constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing
information. It is often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving”.
Chaney [5,13] states that speaking is "the process of building and sharing
meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of

contexts".
Brown [3:245] defines speaking as “a process of constructing meaning
that involves producing, receiving and processing information”.
Bygate (cited in Mackey, 1965:266) shows that “oral expression involves not
only the use of the right sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also
the choice of words and inflections in the right order to convey the right
meaning”.
Speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves
producing and receiving and process information” [Brown, 1994; Burns &
Joyce, 1997]. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it
occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the
physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. It is often spontaneous,
open-ended, and evolving. However, speaking is not always unpredictable.
Language functions (or patterns) that tend to recur in certain discourse situations
(e.g., declining an invitation or requesting time off from work), can be identified

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and charted [Burns &Joyce, 1997]. For example, when a salesperson asks "May I
help you?" the expected discourse sequence includes a statement of need,
response to the need, offer of appreciation, acknowledgement of the appreciation,
and a leave-taking exchange. Speaking requires that learners not only know how
to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or
vocabulary (linguistic competence), but also that they understand when, why, and
in what ways to produce language (sociolinguistic competence). Finally,
speaking has its own skills, structures, and conventions different from written
language [Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter & McCarthy, 1995; Cohen, 1996].
2.1.2 The importance of speaking skill

Ur [1996] considers speaking as the most important skill among four skills

(listening,speaking, reading, and writing) because people who know a language
are referred to as speakersof that language. This indicates that using a language is
more important than just knowing about itbecause ―there is no point knowing a
lot about language if you cannot use it.

In learning English: It is the most important skill because it can not only
help you speak and understand what others speak but also can use other skills in
communication fluently. Therefore, as an integrative skills, speaking plays an
important role of language learning or acquisition and facilities the emergence of
other language skill. If you have good speaking skill, you will learn foreign
language very well.

In real life: It is one of the most vital ways that human beings feel the life
and live. In the real life, everyone often speaks more than reads or writes. We
speak at everywhere and every time. We speak to everything and everybody. For
instance, at home, we speak to family member or other people. At school,
students speak to teacher or their friends. At the meeting, the staffs speak to
describe the new plan for everyone. Without speaking, people become backward
in each minute of their lives. It is obvious that speaking is really important in the
real life.

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To sum up, most learners will spend more time for speaking than other
skill. So training in speaking is really necessary. It helps students make the
transition from English classroom to the English real life more easily and
effectively. In psychology, speaking necessary skill to facilitate autonomous
learning and encourage learns’ independence. Speaking is also the important
forms of communication and learning language.
2.1.3 Difficulties in learning and teaching English speaking

There have been numerous studies of the difficulties in learning and
teaching English speaking. Munjayanah [2004] shows the following the
problems

Nothing to say: Even they are not inhibited, you often hear learners
complain that they cannot think of anything to say: they have no motive to
express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they should be speaking.

Low or uneven participation: Only one participant can talk at a time if he
or she is to be heard; and in large group this means each one will have only very
little talking time. This problem is compounded of some learners to dominate,
while other speaks very little or not a tall.

Mother tongue use: It is easier for the student to use their mother tongue
in their classes because it looks naturally. Therefore, most of the students are not
disciplined in using the target language in the learning process.

Large class size: The size of class is one of the main problems influencing
the teaching and learning in secondary class. According to Ur [1996] and
Valentic [2005], large classes are almost invariably heterogeneous, and
heterogeneous classes are most problematical when the classes are also large. In
other words, the more students we have in the class, the greater differences
among them may appear.

Lack of motivation: According to Anslie [1994], motivation is widely
recognized as an important factor in language learning success. Harmer [1991]
points out that motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages
somebody to purpose a course action. When students have definite goal they will

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be strongly motivated to do whatever is necessary to reach that goal. However,
the motivation of each student in the similar class can be totally different.

Lack of confidence: Nunan [1999] says that students who do not have any
confidence about themselves and their English necessarily suffer from
communication apprehension. This shows that building students’ confidence is
an important part of teacher’s focus of attention. This means that the teacher
should also learn from both theories and practical experience on how to build the
students’ confidence.

Fear of Mistake: As argued by many theorists, fear of mistake becomes
one of the main factors of students’ reluctance to speak in English in the
classroom [Tsui in Nunan, 1999; Yi Htwe, 2007; Robby, 2010].

Ineffective learning strategies: Learning strategies are the methods that
learners use to obtain information; normally high achievers learners use more
learning strategies than do lower achieving learners [Dembo, 2004].

Inappropriate teaching methods: Rababah [2005] points out that one of the
problems of our education is teaching methodology which still depends on
lecturing. The teachers' talking time is more than the students' talking time.
Teachers do not give the students enough time to practice communication.
2.1.4 Factors affect the process of speaking

Speaking, a productive skill, is commonly perceived to be more
challenging to master compared to other two receptive skills. To speak
English fluently, nicely and satisfactorily, it requires a variety of elements such
as grammar, accuracy, fluency, pronunciation, vocabulary, self-confidence, etc.

That is the reason why “Some language learners may be good at learning
other skills but when it comes to learning to speak another language, they
claim to have a mental block against it.” [Tanveer, M. 2007]. These factors
play an indispensable role in speaking as they show the speakers' competence in
English, their ability and profession of speaking. It also contributes to the
appreciation of listeners to the speakers' level. For those reasons, I would like to

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carefully consider the factors of grammar accuracy, fluency, pronunciation, and
vocabulary as the main requirements for speaking effectively.

2.1.5 Fluency and Coherence
According to Wikipedia, fluency is a term that means the smoothness or

flow with which sounds, syllables, words and phrases are joined together when
speaking quickly. Bewilderedly speaking or fluency disorder is used as a
collective term for cluttering and stuttering. Both disorders have breaks in the
flow of speech, and both have the fluency breakdown of repetition of parts of
speech. Coherence is the logical organization, development and connection of
ideas. Fluency and coherence are both concerned with "the flow of language" –
fluency concerns the physical flow of language while coherence concerns the
logical "flow of interconnected ideas". This is an area that is often misunderstood
by students to mean that they just talk as fast as they possibly can or talking
without pausing. If you listen to how native speakers talk they do not normally
talk very fast and there are plenty of pauses. A candidate needs to satisfy the
requirements for both fluency and coherence to get a particular score for this
combined item.

Mark Clark [2006] states the most important aspect of your “Fluency”

score is the length of your response and your use of cohesive features such as
linking words, discourse makers, connectives and redundant phrases. Mark clark
also indicated that speakers often focus too heavily on answering the question. In
other words theirs answers contain “ information content” but lack the language.
Besides, there are a number of smaller problems associated with the ability to
achieve fluency when speaking English such as lack of topical background
knowledge, constraints stemming from psychological factors of the learners,
the ability to give spontaneous responses and the amount of using
communication strategies.

Those refer to the employed techniques when speakers have problems in
expressing themselves. Bygate [1987, 2011] identifies two main groups of
communicative strategies as follows. “ Achievement strategies: Guessing

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strategies, e.g. borrowing or foreignizing a mother-tongue word, literal
translation and coining or inventing a word. Paraphrase strategies, e.g.
circumlocuting around a word when we do not know the exact word.
Cooperative strategies, e.g. when the speaker signals to the interlocutor for help.
Reduction strategies: Avoidance strategies, e.g. changing one’s message to
avoid using certain language or to make it more manageable. Compensatory
strategies, e.g. organizing one message in order to buy thinking time.’’

It can be inferred that the use of such communication strategies above
might be of great help for English learners to compensate for their gap in
language proficiency and enable them to keep going and maintain fluency in
speaking.

2.1.6 Pronunciation

Lynda Yates [2002] states pronunciation involves in the production of

sounds that speakers use to make meaning. It consists of concentration on the
particular sounds of a language (segments), features of speech beyond the level
of the individual sound, such as intonation, phrasing, stress, timing, rhythm
(suprasegmentally aspects), how the voice is projected (voice quality) and, in its
broadest definition, attention to gestures and expression that are closely related to
the way people speak a language.

When speaking, students usually forget the pronunciation, stress, and
intonation, which make their speech not professional and limit them from
developing the speaking skills. Tam [2005] in her research on common
pronunciation problems of Vietnamese learners of English, for example, has
identified a number of pronunciation errors made by the participants which could
be attributed to the difference between the sound system of the mother tongue
and the target language. She noted that “we do not have the same sound in our
language, especially when this sound occurs at the final position of a word” [p.
8].

The above mentioned difficulties regarding pronunciation, if it arises, will
certainly impact intensively learners’ performance in speaking skill. Therefore,

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pronunciation is very fundamental to the progress of speaking skills. If students
wish to speak English fluently, they need to practice the right pronunciation for
each word before they can speak the sentences naturally and professionally.

2.1.7 Confidence
According to Lynda Yates [2002], self-confidence permits speakers to

handle any situation the speakers are faced with, without doubting the speakers’
abilities. It also makes it easy to convince others about speakers. Moreover, self -
confidence makes speakers keep calm under extreme pressure, without being
anxious. When speakers are confident, it transmits itself to the audience, who in
turn respond the ways speakers expect audience to, further developing
confidence in speakers.

2.1.8 Vocabulary
Vocabulary is commonly defined as "all the words known and used by a

particular person". Mc Cathy (1990) asserted that no matter how well the
students learn grammar, without words to express a wide range of meanings,
communication just can not happen in any meaningful ways. Participants in
Tanveers research [2007,p.50] shared their difficulties in recalling vocabulary
items. They claimed that “I don’t have exact words to express my ideas”,
“sometimes I am conscious I am not using the right word” and “I always feel
nervous speaking English because I do not have enough vocabulary”. Tanveer also
noted that many learners cannot utter out words quickly when required to speak in a
hurry as “learners can only process only a limited amount of information at one time”
[Lightbrown & Spada, 2006: 39, cited in Tanveer, 2007: 50].

Therefore, knowing a word, however, is not as simple as simply being
able to recognize or use it. There are several aspects of word knowledge which
are used to measure word knowledge. A person's vocabulary is the set of words
within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops
with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and

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acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the largest
challenges in learning a second language.

2.1.9 Grammar accuracy
With regard to linguistic difficulties, grammar has been found to be one of

the most important aspects that learners find difficult when learning to
speak a foreign language. Past research found a number of difficulties
associated with grammar such as tenses, verb form and prepositions.
Moreover, speaking with grammar accuracy means speaking without errors of
grammar, and using the suitable words for specific situations. Some students can
get good marks in grammar tests but when speaking, they make very simple
mistakes like: "she don't go to school yesterday" instead of "she didn't go to
school yesterday" or say "sorry, can I help you?" to help others but not "Excuse
me, can I help you?".According to Mark Clark in Speaking 2007, many
candidates just focus on “communicating” the answer to the question and as a
result they make a lot of grammar mistakes. Another problem is the lack of
perfect and continous tenses. Native speakers of English produce quite a lot of
these tense when they speak. However Vietnamese speakers of English often
neglect these important tenses.The next problem is the actual sentences type.
Many candidates produce too many basic sentences.

To sum up, Speaking with grammar accuracy is an important criterion for
teachers or examiners to assess students' level in English. Therefore, students
need to practice speaking a lot for giving their speech with the exact grammar.
2.2 Previous studies on the difficulties in teaching and learning English

In this part of the study, some previous studies relating to this study would
be reviewed. In Viet Nam, like in many other countries, the problem of speaking
skills is crucial. A number of researchers investigated this field and came to the

conclusion about students' low level of speaking ability and their inability to
speak confidently and fluently. One among the many reasons to take into
consideration might be the lack of confidence and anxiety about making errors as
stated by Trent [2009] and in other related studies. Most college students are not

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