SOME USEFUL METHODS IN IMPROVING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL

SECTION A: EVALUATION ESSAY
A1. COPPY ESSAY.
What is Happiness ?
What happiness is but from the past up to now everybody has looked for and
wanted to get it? It is defined in the Vietnamese dictionary that: “ Happiness is
comfortable state of getting what we want”, Each person has a definition about
happiness but in my opinion happiness can be summarized in a sentence: “ Happiness is
to have some work to do, have someone to love and have something to hope”,
To have work to do is one of three factors to become happy, You imagine
someone who has all things he doesn’t have to work to afford himself or his family,all
day he only eats, sleeps, and plays, day by day the same thing his life will be very
bored . Sometimes, this free time itself can make him make evils, To day, many rick
pupils, students who get much money from parents don’t care about study or work and
after that they may be involved in addition or other social evils, etc. There is a porter
next to my house, everyday he has to work hard until it is dark he just comes back home
to have dinner with his family, But one day he said to me that he is very pleased with his
job becauses he thinks he makes something good for his own small family, Indeed, there
is some work to do and we like it, it is happiness, Once in a newspaper an American
millionaire’s father Bill Gates said that “ Money only makes funiture or comfort but
work makes happiness”,
Does love make happiness? It is sure that there are many people among us
answering “ yes” , When we were small we might love the rampart of bamboos in the
village or the rice field where after coming back home from school we used to make
holiday with our friends and we felt happy, When we grow older we love our
grandparents, father and mother very much we love everyone around us but I’d like to
mention to love between men and woman right now Romeo and Juliet story is still a
symbol of true love, Both of them killed themselves to keep happy state in love each
other. That is Romeo and Juliet in story but nowadays there are many people because of
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love with some one – may be one side some one to love- but they still fell happy and
everyday they try their best to work well” Having some one to love” is one of the motive

to encourage us to work more ethusiastically and live more meaning fully,
Hope is very important mental medicine, We hope to have a good job, meet
the person we love etc and hope itself helps us to live and work more and more,When
we were 3 years old we hoped that when our mother came back home from market she’d
buy for us toys or delicious sweets, 15 we hoped to be in good high school, 18 we
wished to pass the university entry examination, 27 we hope to have our own happy
family, 45 we hope our sons and daughters strong and successful, 60 we’d like to have
grandchildren intelligent and lovely etc, Moreover, coming back to the wars in the past
we understand that if we had not had hope in peace and independence for the country we
could not have a great victories in 2 wars fighting against France and American, Hope
always makes our life more meaningful and it is sure that someone who always has hope
in his mind will be a happy person,
In life, we cannot always have enough the above threes factor to become a
happy person but sometimes happiness is what we have but we do not know happiness is
not “a thing” we can usually feel but we shouls respect our own happiness and others.
(Quyen,Nguyen ,Writing Experiences- Three, Hanoi Open University, page 63)


A2. EVALUATION ESSAY.
What is happiness ?
Writing is one of the most important skills for student who study
English.Many students meet dificulty when study writing, especially in writing
essay.Personally, I think that evaluation a sample essay is a good way to improve writing
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skill. This student ‘s essay above is a good example of definition essay, we have many
thing to evalue in this essay.
In general, this essay have some mistakes in word choice, verb form and
puntuation . For example, the student uses many commas in the end of each paragraph,
she must uses a stop. In the paragraph four, she have to use ‘at’ before an example about
age ( at 27, not 27 only), etc.

Besides, we need to discuss about the main point and the stucture of the essay.
The main idea of the writer whishes to develop in the writing is to define ‘ What is
happiness’. In the introduction, the writer begin with a definition in the dictionary: “
Happiness is comfortable state of getting what we want”, then she gives her own opinion
: “ Happiness is to have some work to do, have someone to love and have something to
hope”,the method that the writer uses is ‘Direct Quote’, and her opinion is also the thesis
statement of the essay.The writer divided the body part into three parts in three
paragraphs, it is go along with the three ideas in the thesis statement. In the first body
paragraph, she explains one of the threes factor to make people happy : ‘ to have some
works to do’, she has an example of her neighbour to prove her theory. At the end of the
paragraph, she quotes a famous saying of Bill Gate to finish. In the second body
paragraph, the writer proves that love is one of the three factors of happiness. She gives
an example of Romeo and Juliet to analyse. In the last body paragraph, she proves that
having something to hope is happiness. In the whole body part, the writer do not use
many linking words and phrases. She uses her own analysis but the essay is still logical
and interesting. In the conclution, she ends the essay with futher commens.
To sum up, writing an essay requires many factors, we need to learn both good
points and bad points from our friends and ourselves to write better. A sample is always
a sample, we can learn from it and practicing writing every day, you will feel writing is
not as difficult as you know.
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(421
words)
SECTION B : A RESEARCH ESSAY
SOME USEFUL METHODS IN IMPROVING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL
Abstract
In recent years, English is still plays an important role in Vietnam. And English
teaching and learning have the goal of focusingstudents so that they are able to use
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English for communication and as a tool for furthering their studies. Many students

study English but how to improve English speaking skill is a hot issue for everyone. The
purpose of this research essay is to give some useful ways to improve speaking skill, I
hope the research essay will help people find their own way to study better.
Keywords: improve, usful , methods, English speaking skill.
Outline
Thesis statement: we need to find some useful methods to improve English
speaking skill.
- Improving pronunciation.
- Having a huge number of vocabulary.
- Malking friend with native speakers.
- Watching English programes on television or the Internet.
- Speaking at home.
- Recording and malking a presentation yourself.
- Talking different style classes.
SOME USEFUL METHODS IN IMPROVING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILL .
In recent years, English is becoming more and more important. It is widely
used in our daily life, our books, our clothes, and almost everything has English words.
English is of great significance for us. On one hand, we can use English to communicate
with the people whose mother tongue is English, make good friends and build deep
friendship with them. On the other hand, we can also promote international
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communication and spread vietnamese language and culture. Consequently, English is
more important for us and it's a necessary skill in the 21st century. But in recent years,
many students in High school and university meet trouble in study English speaking.
Even though they study English for years but they do not communicate well with other
people. We need to find some useful methods to improve English speaking skill.
Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves
producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994, p.123)( Burns &
Joyce, 1997, p.231). 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. There for, if you want to be a good English
speaker, you need to know deeply about English, not only grammar, vocabulary,
pronunciation,etc but also English cultural and customs .
In country where English is not a first language improving your English
speaking skill is really a hard work. Firstly, pronunciation is the most important feature
in speaking. If you speak interesting ly and academically but no one can understands
what you said, you certainly meet trouble in study speaking in English. Pronunciation is
a key of learning a language and English is a combination of many langguages, there for,
there are no general rules for pronunciation. As a result, you have to study everything .
Secondly, if you want to study English speaking well, you need a huge number of
vocabulary.When you are paying attention to the success of the interaction and adjusting
components of speech such as vocabulary, rate of speech, and complexity of grammar
structures to maximize listener comprehension and involvement (Brown, 1994, p. 342).
It help you to express your ideas in English fluently and correctly. I have many friends
who meet difficulties in learning English speaking skill. They learn by heart many new
words and make a list of words in a piece of paper. But they can not say any thing in
English. In my opinion, they study new words in a wrong way, because if you learn by
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heart new words and you do not practice it regulaly, you can easy forget the words. The
useful ways is that you choose a word you would like to work on and use practice it in
different sentences. Use the word until you have learnt it and keep using it regularly then
you will not forget it.
Futhermore, Language functions (or patterns) that tend to occur in certain
discourse situations (e.g., declining an invitation or requesting time off from work), can
be identified and charted (Burns & Joyce, 1997, p. 144), malking friends with native
English speakers is one of the best methods to improve your speaking skill. But going
aboard is expensive, and you do not have time and money to going aboard, you do not
know any foreigners. It is easy to look at your situation and think that you will be
exposed to English naturally as much as you like. Because English speakers are every
where, you can make friends with them through the Internet or your friends.When they

do not have time to have a meeting with you, you have to have other way to
communicate with them such as chating by Skype, sending massages or calling them.
you need to be confident and speak as often as possible to as many people as you
possibly can. You do not be shy to make mistakes because the more you practice the
better and more confident you will become in your pronunciation and vocabulary.
Sometimes the tourist may help you. The most famous place that many students meet
foreigner is Hoan Kiem Lake. Most student said that they was afraid of talking with
foreigner because they talk so fast. That is not a big problem because most of the
foreigners are friendly and patient. They will help you with pleasure and you do not
need to talk so fast. Speaking quickly is not impressive if your tounge gets all jumbly.
Another method to improve your speaking is watching English programes on
television or the Internet. Bailey and Savage (Bailey & Savage,1994, p. 127), and Lewis
(Lewis,1997, p. 231) offer suggestions for activities that can address different skills.We
can learn English from watching what English behave and act in their daily life in
Television. Futhermore, outside the classroom, listening is used twice as often as
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speaking, which in turn is used twice as much as reading and writing (Rivers, 1981, p.
293). Inside the classroom, speaking and listening are the most often used skills (Brown,
1994, p. 221) There for, listenning and speaking always go along together. We can
listen to news bulletins and songs in English to listen to the pronunciation of words. You
can also learn new words and expressions this way. The more you listen, the more you
learn. You need to be confident and speak as often as possible to as many people as you
possibly can. Many people often translate their own language to English.This is
perhaps an unusual piece of habit and you need to give up it. In the speaking, you should
aim to be thinking and speaking in English as much as possible and not translating from
your language to English. The useful way is that you watch films on television, in films,
you can listen what English speaker said in each situation, what they express themselves
and how they communicate with other people. You can also watch people, watch how
their mouths form the words and how emotion is communicated. You need to watch
where the emphasis goes on certain sentences and how that provides context. In one

centences in English, people are not only just deciphering their word but also they take
notice of the humor, the felling and the formality emloyment.
The fifth method that I want to mention is speaking at home. After a hard day ,
you go to school, english class or your work, you go home and revert your native tonge.
Because speech has its own skills, structures, and conventions different from written
language (Burns & Joyce, 1997, p. 126); (Carter & McCarthy,1995, p. 157); (Cohen,
1996, p. 167). A good speaker synthesizes this array of skills and knowledge to succeed
in agiven speech act. There for if you want to improve your English, you need to make
an english environment at home by watching television programes on English. You can
turn on the television and listen to it when you do house work and home work. Even you
wash your dishes or clean the floor, you have to think about what you express that
actions into English. It seems to be a little silly but it keeps your brain thinking in
English before your first language and you can study English perfectly. Speaking
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English naturally is a big problem. The English use many verb phrases, idoms and slang
expression. There for, you need to know and apply them in your speaking. Many people
practice speaking at home by standing in front of a mirror and talk about the topic. I
think it is a effective way to improve your speaking skill, because standing in front of
the mirror will help you improve your body language and your pronunciation.
Popular kind of activity is the prepared talk where students make a presentation
on a topic of their own choice. Students should speak from notes rather than from a
script. Prepared talks represent a defined and useful speaking genre, and ifproperly
organized, can be extremely interesting for both speaker and listener(Jo &Shaw, 2003, p.
128). Thus, recording and make a presentation yourself is one of a great idea of learing
English speaking. This is something everyone should try. It is almost certainly a bad idea
to write your topic first and then speak it. This is because we speak and write in very
different ways and it is a mistake to try and train yourself to speak in the way you write.
But you can learn a lot from recording what you say and then writing that down word
for word. When you record your idea, you can easy to compare your self to the
recording and you can do it over and over until you get a right conversation.

Practice involves learners in reproducing the targeted structure, usually in a
controlled or highly supported manner. Evaluation involves directing attention to the
skill being examined and asking learners to monitor and assess their own progress.
Finally, extension consists of activities that ask learners to use the strategy or skill in a
different context of authentic communicative situation, or to integrate use of the new
skill or strategy with previously acquired ones (Brown, 1994, p. 228);( Burns & Joyce,
1997, p .121); (Carter & McCarthy, 1995, p. 324). There for, having a environment to
practice English is very important to improve speaking skill, the last method is talking
different style classes such as English speaking club. Harmer states that classroom
action research is the name given to a series of procedures teachers can engage in, either
because they wish to improve aspects of their teaching, or because they wish to evaluate
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the success and/or appropriacy of certain activities and procedures.(Harmer,1983,p. 344-
345).This means that classroom action research is an activity includes a series of
procedures which has purpose to improve a teaching learning process in a
classroom .Because in English speaking club , you can practise your speaking regularly
(this could be a book club, cultural exchange or a hobby club) or start one yourself with
other friends and have one rule ‘English only’. Study English speaking skills using the
three communicative activities is a learning method focusing on the learner-
centeredness. Students work in small groups divided by their language proficiency, i.e.,
high, medium, and low levels. Using this technique, students can have an opportunity to
work together providing help to others while performing the activity(Cohen.A, 1996, p.
119). In the club, you have a chance to talk with many people, learn from them . If you
can invite native speakers to give short talks at your meetings, the value is in the
speaking and trying to improve fluency.
In conclution, Speaking is the most important and essential skill for all students
who want to study English well. We need to find our own methods to study, because
there are not a typical method for every one.
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words)

REFFERENCES
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3. Hướng , Đ.N.(2011). Writing Experiences- Three. Ha Noi Open University.
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5. McNiff, J&Lomax, P&Whitehead, J.(1996). "You and Your Action Research Project",
Hyde Publications, Dorset, U.K.
6. P,Ur. ( 1998) . A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge
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7 . T,Hedge. ( 2008) . Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford
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9. Jo Mcdonough & Christopher Shaw. Materials and Methods in ELT : A Teacher’s
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Guide. (UK:Blackwell Publishing,2003), 2nd Ed).
10. Oxford Advanced learner’s Dictionary .(1997). Oxford University Press.
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