english language macro-skills of freshman vietnamese students in selected colleges in bacgiang city input to intervention measures (sum)

Thai Nguyen University Batangas State University
Socialist Republic of Vietnam Republic of Philippines

NGO THI THU HUONG

ENGLISH LANGUAGE MACRO SKILLS
OF FRESHMAN VIETNAMESE STUDENTS
IN SELECTED COLLEGES IN BAC GIANG CITY:
INPUT TO INTERVENTION MEASURES

Speciality: English language and literature



Ph.D DISSERTATION SUMMARY
OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE




THAI NGUYEN, 2014

The Dissertation was completed in:
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY


Advisor: Matilda H. Dimaano, PhD

Reviewer No.1:
Reviewer No.2:
Reviewer No.3:



The Dissertation will be evaluated at the State Council held at:
………………………………………………………………………
At: hour date month year 2014





Dissertation can be found at the libraries:
- National library of Vietnam;
- Learning Resource Center - Thai Nguyen University;
- Library of International Training and Development Center;
- Library of Batangas State University, Philippines.


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THE PROBLEM
In this summary dissertation, all figures and tables are numbered as
in dissertation”
With the increasing integration of Vietnam into the world,
English has proved its significant role as a medium of
communication which brings Vietnam to the world and brings
knowledge of the world to every individual who knows how to make

use of it. English has gained a strong position in Vietnamese people
when more and more people learn English with clearly-defined
purpose in mind. For students, English enables them to get access to
a wide variety of materials which help them to meet their study and
job requirements.
Studying at colleges or universities can be well regarded as a
preparatory period when students accumulate enough basic
knowledge and skills to get ready to their later work. At Bacgiang
colleges, more and more attention has been paid to English language
leaning, especially general English language for first year students.
However, there are difficulties of second language learners in macro-
skills. Among the difficulties second language learners experience in
learning are having difficulties with reading, writing and spelling;
pronouncing or reading multi-syllabic words; having reduced or
limited vocabulary and word knowledge in comparison to their
peers; having poor retrieval of information due to problems with
meaning; and having poor literacy in their first language. The
behaviours manifested relative to these deficiencies learners are
easily destructed include: poor organizational skill; show reluctance
to learn or get involved in classroom activities, work slowly or too


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quickly and inaccurately; demonstrate lack of motivation and have
poor self- esteem.
On the part of the teacher, mastery of the elements or features of a
language is significant in the second language situation since it helps
assess the needs of the learners on the aspect of communication
skills.
As a college instructor teaching Basic English Course at Bac

Giang College, I am interested to investigate the English Language
Macro Skills of Freshmen students with the end view of proposing
an Intervention measures to enhance the Macro skills of freshmen
students.


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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF STUDY
In learning, there are five macro skills that are needed by learners
to communicate effectively and these are listening, speaking,
reading, writing and viewing. In communication process these skills
are very essential. These skills may approach or solve future
problems in communication most especially in our day to day tasks
such as in learning or gaining information, presenting, or holding a
successful meeting.
The knowledge regarding the use of these five macro skills is of
vital importance. Consistently seeking improvement along these
macro skills will contribute to the self-development, effective
communication and success in many different environments and
contexts of the learners. Absence of these macro skills to a person
pose difficulties on his movement through life and to thrive in the
varied areas such as education and career.
Attaining the language skills on the part of the learners need
mastery of the language which takes years to learn. But, it can be
attained for teachers are required to note the oral and written
difficulties encountered by learners and address the difficulties by
energizing students to varied learning activities gearing towards

enhancing language proficiency.
It is of vital importance for teachers to determine the needs and
difficulties of students for her to design appropriate instructional
materials for the enhancement of learner’s language proficiency.


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Fully aware of the fact, the researcher is encouraged to investigate
the English Language Macro Skills of Freshmen students with the
end view of proposing an Intervention measures to enhance the
Macro skills of freshmen students.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
This study focuses on the Freshmen Vietnamese students’ English
Language Macro Skills among selected Colleges in Bacgiang City.
Specifically, it seeks to answer the following questions:
1. What are the learning contents of a general English course offered
to Freshman students?
2. What is the level of students’ performance in the macro-skills of
2.1: Reading
2.1.1: Word recognition skills
2.1.2: Comprehension Skills
2.1.3: Utilization Skills
2.2: Writing
2.2.1: sharpening writing skill
2.2.2: sentence correction
2.3 Speaking
2.1.1: pronunciation
2.1.2: comprehension
2.1.3: grammatical accuracy

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2.4 Listening
2.4.1: comprehension
2.4.2: homonym
2.4.3: correct stress of the word
2.4.4: use of words
3. Are there significant relationships between pairs of macro- skills
in English language?
4. What difficulties do students have in the following macro-skills?
4.1. Reading
4.2. Writing
4.3. Speaking
4.4. Listening
5. Which among the difficulties appear to be more relatively
serious?
6. What intervention measures may be proposed to enhance macro-
skills of students?
1.3. SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This study was focused on the English Language Macro skills of
First Year College students among selected Colleges in Bac Giang
City. It covered the learning contents of a general English course
offered to Freshmen students as well as the level of students’
performance in the macro-skills of reading, writing, speaking and
listening. This also determined the significant differences among the


6
macro-skills in English language and the proposed intervention
measures to enhance the macro-skills of the First year students

among the selected colleges in Bac Giang Province.
The study covered the three (3) colleges in Bac Giang City
namely: Vocational College, College of Technology and Bac Giang
Ngo Gia Tu College. This study is limited on the results of the
gathered data. Fifty one 51 faculty members who were presently
teaching Basic English and 299 students from the three (3) colleges
were part of this study. Results of the study was limited on the
information from the respondents in the Academic year 2013-2014.
1.4. SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY
Administrators of Bac Giang College. This study can guide
them in the Curriculum development by evaluating the different
English proficiency enhancing activities. This study will serve as a
guide for the realignment of the existing curriculum of Basic English
to meet their institutional goals and objectives.
Faculty of Basic English. This study will serve as a guide to the
faculty teaching Basic English as they may be aware of the present
level of students’ performance in macro-skills. This study will
provide them insights on what classroom learning activities will be
appropriate to enhance the Language proficiency of their students.
First Year Students. The findings of this study will make them
aware of their present level of macro skills. This would give them a
challenge to improve their weak points and enhance their over all
performance in Basic English.


7
Parents. Through this study, parents of the first year students
will become aware of the English performance of their children
which will make them more supportive and cooperative in school
activities specifically on the improvement of the skills in the Basic

English of their children.
Future researchers. This study will serve as reference for their
undertaking.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDY

2.1. REVIEW OF RELATED STUDY.
This section presents of some literatures related to the topic.
2.2. RESEARCH PARADIM
INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT









Figure 1: Research Paradigm





Proposed
Intervention
Measures

Assessment
made through:

Documentary
Analysis

Teacher Made
Test



A.
Learning contents
of a general English
course

B. Level of students’
performance in the
macro-skills of:

 reading
 writing
 speaking
 listening
C. Difficulties of the
students in the
macro- skills

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The research paradigm explains the relationship of the input-
process-output of the study. The input covers the learning contents of
the general English course, level of students’ performance in the
macro-skills and the difficulties of the students in the macro-skills;
the process is assessment through documentary analysis and teacher
made test; while the output is the proposed intervention measures for
first year students in Bacgiang colleges.



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CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY

3.1. RESEARCH DESIGN
The study made used of the descriptive method of research. It will
be deemed appropriate for this study in determining the required
information through analysis and interpretation of the information
which will be gathered.
To accomplish the objectives of the study, information were
gathered pertinent to the present undertaking through teacher made
test for the student respondents.
3. 2. SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY
The subjects of the study are composed of 299 first year college
students taking up Basic English course in the three colleges in
Bacgiang namely Ngo Gia Tu College, Industry and Technology
College and Vocational College.

Table 1 shows the distribution of student respondents in the three
colleges.
Table 1: Distribution of student respondents in the three colleges
Name of Colleges Population(N) Class
No.of Respondents
(n)
Bacgiang Ngo Gia Tu
College
476 10 120
Industry and
Technology College
384 8 97
Vocational College 328 7 82
TOTAL 1188 25 299


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Of the 299 recovered answer sheets, one was not included in the
analysis due to incomplete answers. Thus only 298 answer sheets
were subjected to statistical analysis.
3.3 DATA GATHERING INSTRUMENT
This study made used of the following data gathering instruments.
Documentary Analysis. This was used to gather information
regarding the learning contents of the subject Basic English course I.
In Bac Giang Ngo Gia Tu Colleges, this was used through the
Detailed Outline of General English I for Diploma Degree Program
with English Language as field issued by the Ministry of Education
and Training of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Teacher Made Test. This instrument is designed to determine
the English language macro-skills of Freshman Vietnamese students.

Macro-skills pertain to the four macro-skills in communication
which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. These macro-
skills are the basic skills required to communicate effectively in the
English language. The macro-skills of the students are evaluated
based on the component skills of each macro-skill. One test question
is formulated corresponding to the subcomponent items of each
component skill or macro-skill. The component skills in reading
include word recognition skills with six subcomponent items such as
context clues, phonetic analysis, root words, contractions, compound
words, ands syllabication, In comprehension skills the six
subcomponent items are finding the main idea, sequence, finding
details, predicting outcome, recognizing cause and effect, and
distinguishing between fact and opinion. and utilization skills with


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five subcomponent items namely: skimming for information, using
titles in lessons, using index, classification, and outlining.
In writing, the skills involve are sharpening of writing skills with
five subcomponent items such as spelling, using words effectively,
making smooth transition, sentence, paragraphs and messages, and
structuring phrases and clauses and sentence correction. As for
listening skill, this includes five subcomponent items namely;
comprehension one, homonym, comprehension two, correct stress of
the word, and the use of words.
In speaking three subcomponent items are included. These are
pronunciation, comprehension, and grammatical accuracy. A total of
32 test items are included in the test for reading, writing and
listening. Three scoring areas are listed as additional items to capture
the rating of the students in the speaking test. Their audio-recorded

speech is rated based on the three scoring areas as they answer the
three given questions: The Likert scale followed for these three
scoring areas.
Numerical Scale Description:
5- No error Very proficient
4- Few errors (1-3 errors): Proficient
3- Moderate errors (4-6 errors): Moderately proficient;
2 - Several errors (7-10 errors): Less proficient;
1 - Plenty of errors (>10 errors): Not proficient.
3.4. DATA GATHERING PROCEDURES
A test questionnaire for students was constructed and submitted to
the adviser for review and comments. Through the help of the


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adviser, the final drafts were produced. The teacher made test was
pilot tested to college students of Batangas State University to test
the strength and weaknesses of the said test.
In validating the instruments, letters of requests were then sent to
the members of the panel and expert on the field to go over the
research instruments, to give their comments and suggestions for the
improvement of the questionnaire. After incorporating all the
suggestions, final copies of validated test were produced for
administration.
Another set of letters of request was written for the administration
of Bacgiang Colleges for permission to administer the teacher made
test to students. With the approved letter of the administrators, the
questionnaires were administered to the 299 student respondents.
After the administration of the test, test papers were retrieved,
checked, tallied and analyzed. The speaking test was conducted last

with each participant taken to a separate room where they were asked
to answer the questions one by one with their replies audio-recorded.
The recorded data were later scored following the scale above.
3.5. STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA
The study applied the following statistical treatment:
Cronbach alpha. This was used to measure internal consistency
of the scores of the respondents.
Frequency Distribution and Percentage. This was used to
provide meaningful description of the respondents’ performance in
macro skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.


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Weighted Mean. This was used to quantify the student’s
performance in the macro skills of reading, writing, speaking and
listening.

Standard Deviation. This was utilized to determine the level of
students’ performance in the macro skills of reading, writing,
speaking and listening.
Student’s T- test. This was used to test the significant difference
among the macro skills in English Language.


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CHAPTER IV
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the results of the data gathering process
from the respondents of the study, the data analysis and its

interpretation.
Learning Contents of a General English Course Offered to
Freshman Students
Level of Students’ Performance in the Macro-Skills of the
English Language: Performance of student respondents in the
different skill areas of the Reading test, Writing test, Listening
test and Speaking test
Performance of student respondents in the different skill areas of
the Significant Differences in the Students’ Performance among the
Macro-Skills in English Language: Student's t-test comparison of
the mean % scores for each test group shown as p-values
Difficulties Students have in the Macro-Skills of the English
Language: difficult item for student respondents in the teacher-made
tests on macro-skills in English language. Rank of 1- Most Difficult
(MD), Mean % of < 50% - Difficult (D), Mean % > 50% - Not
Difficult (ND)
Difficulties in Macro-Skills that appear to be relatively more
serious: Most difficult items for student respondents in the teacher-
made tests on macro-skills in English language
Intervention Measures that may be proposed to Enhance the
Macro-Skills of students


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CHAPTER V
SUMMARY, FINDINGS, CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATION

5.1. SUMMARY
This study aimed to assess the Freshman Vietnamese students’
English Language Macro Skills among selected Colleges in

Bacgiang City. This study sought to find out the learning contents of
a general English course offered to Freshman students, the level of
students’ performance in the macro-skills of reading, writing,
speaking and listening, the relationships between pairs of macro-
skills in English language, the difficulties students have in the
macro-skills, the difficulties appear to be more relatively serious and
the intervention measures proposed to enhance macro- skills of
students
The study made used of the descriptive method of research to
determine the English language macro-skills of Freshman
Vietnamese students among selected colleges in Bacgiang. There
were 299 students from three colleges of Bacgiang and 30 teachers
who were the respondents of the study.
5.2. FINDINGS
Based on the objectives of the study, the findings are as
following:
1. Learning Contents of a General English course offered to
Freshman Students
General English courses cover skills of speaking, listening,
reading and writing as well as essential vocabulary, idioms and


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colloquial language. They are designed to give students confidence
to communicate effectively in real life and provide them with
effective training in English for work, study and travel.
In Bac Giang Colleges, the course General English I required
students to attend and participate in all class activities and do
homework and this is given ten percent weight. Students are also
required to take progress test in grammar, vocabulary, reading and

writing and assigned also ten percent of weight and a midterm test in
the same area with twenty percent allocated weight for each.
General English I Course is given five units credits with 60
hours- time allocation for the first semesters. English I has the
learning objectives of providing students with guidance in the study
of English Alphabet, vowels, consonants, stress, intonation and,
English basic structures; develop their ability to use these structures
in different contexts; enrich their knowledge in vocabulary and
grammar and improve their ability to communicate effectively by
providing comprehensive re-enforcement activities in the four
macro-skills of English language.
Under this course, students are expected to develop
competencies in these skills like in listening, it is expected that
students can listen and understand basic words or phrases and answer
simple questions to oneself while in speaking, students are expected
to communicate, ask and respond to questions. In terms of reading, it
is expected that students can employ scanning and skimming in
searching for main ideas or details in varied reading while in writing,
expressing in written language topics such as completing a form,
informal email, etc. are expected to students.


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In addition, the course outline of General English I course is
divided into five units where each unit has six components namely:
grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Each unit also comprises overall objectives.
In unit I, the overall objectives are for the students to get to know
to each other and introduce themselves and other people. Each unit
has its respective learning contents covering the four areas in

reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
In Unit II, the overall objectives are for the students to be able to
ask for personal information. Given focused are Grammar, and
vocabulary.
In Unit III on the other hand are for the students to be able to use
the present simple with personal pronouns.
For Unit IV, the overall objectives are for the students to use the
present simple, to talk and to write about shopping, likes and
dislikes, free time and leisure activities and for the students to be
familiar with situations in an English class.
As Unit V, the objective is for the students to describe the place
where students live and for them to ask and to give directions. The
learning contents of this unit include grammar, reading covers the
practice of scanning for specific information; writing gears toward
describing a holiday through a written report; speaking focuses on
talking about stories and practice police interview and in listening
the focus is on listening for specific information.



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2. Level of students’ performance in the macro-skills in reading,
writing listening and speaking the English language
The level of students’ performance in the macro-skills were
analyzed to probe the different component skills under the macro-
skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. In reading, 17
students’ skilIs were grouped under three major skills namely: word
recognition skills which include six items, comprehension skills
which include items seven to twelve and utilization skills which
include items 13 to 17. The mean % of correct score of the students

in all the items is widely distributed across different values ranging
from 4%to 96% with equivalent description of borderline to superior.
This means that the macro-skill of the freshman students in reading
are widely distributed and highly dispersed. This suggests that the
students’ performance is on the average level based on the given
population of student respondents.
In writing, a range of scores was obtained by the student
respondents from mean % correct score of 15% to 86% with
equivalent ratings of low average to high average. Majority of the
skills however had a rating of average that is six out of ten items.
This is confirmed by the total scores where the mean % score is
49.5% and a percentile rank of 49% or equivalent to average which
means that the students’ performance in writing is on the average
level of the given student population. When the skill items were
grouped under two major skills in writing, it can be observed that
there were more high average scoring items that belong under
sharpening writing skills than sentence correction. This means that
the students were performing better in this skill area than the latter.


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As regard to listening, it can be observed that 4 out of 5 items got
a mean % score of greater than 50%. This indicates that the students
performed better in this skill area. This is further confirmed by the
total mean % score of 66.2% that has the percentile rank of 50% with
equivalent rating of average. It seems that the students were
unfamiliar with some of the words and concepts in this question.
For speaking, it can be observed that in all skill items the mean %
score is above 50% indicating a favorable skill in speaking for this
population of students. This is further confirmed by the total mean %

score of 58.1% which has a percentile rank of 50% and rating
equivalent of average. Thus, these students have average speaking
skills based on their performance rating. The skill with the lowest
mean % score is item on pronunciation. This indicates that among
the speaking skills, this is the weakest area of the students.
3. Significant differences in the students’ performance among the
macro-skills in English language.
To determine whether significant differences exist in the students’
performance among the macro-skills in English language, the mean
% scores of the students in the four macro-skills of the English
language namely: reading, writing, listening and speaking were
compared.
It can be observed that in general, the p-values were below 0.05,
indicating that the mean % scores being compared were significantly
different. This indicates that in majority of the macro-skills,
significant differences exist and are therefore not related to each
other. Only in one instance where a p-value can be seen as above


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0.05, that is, between the means of the macro-skill reading and
listening. In these two mean combinations, the p-value was 0.734796
which is not significantly different. This indicates that the two
macro-skills related to each other and are predictive of each other.
4. Difficulties students have in the macro-skills of the English
language
The difficulties that the students had in the macro-skills of the
English language were determined based on the mean % scores they
obtained for each test item in the four macro-skills: reading, writing,
listening and speaking. The mean % scores of less than 50% were

considered to be difficult. Furthermore, the mean % scores were
ranked from lowest to highest and those with Rank 1 were
considered to be most difficult.
It can be observed that out of the seventeen skill items for
reading, six have mean % score of less than 50%. These skill items
can be considered as difficult items for the students. This indicates
that the students have difficulties in reading and it is mainly in their
comprehension skills followed by word recognition skills and lastly
their utilization skills.
For writing, it can be noted that there are three items out of 10
that had mean % score of less than 50% and can be considered as
difficult. Two of these items belong to sharpening writing skills,
while one item belongs to the sentence correction skill. This
indicates that the students have difficulties in their writing skills
mainly in the aspect of sharpening their writing skills followed by
sentence correction skills.


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In listening, one out of 5 items had a mean % score of <50%.
This item is Comprehension 2 which is of similar type to item
Comprehension 1. The low score obtained for item 30 could be due
to the unfamiliarity of the students about the concept, hence their
failure in giving the correct answer.
As regard to speaking, no item has a mean % score of below 50%.
Instead there is an item that has a rank of 1, and it has the lowest
mean % score among the three items. When compared with the other
difficult items in the other macro-skills, it may be considered as
moderately difficult. It indicates that among the three items in
speaking, the most difficult item for the students is that which

pertains to pronunciation.
It can be noted that there are more difficult items in the macro-
skill of reading which comprised of six items out of 17, followed by
writing composed of 3 items out of 10, and lastly by both Listening
consists of one item out of five and speaking covers one item out of
three. While this seemingly is the pattern, if the percentage of the
difficult items will be calculated relative to the total items, it can be
observed that all ends up to a percentage of approximately 20 or
35.3% like reading is six out of 17 or 35.3%; writing is three out
of10 or 30%; speaking is one out three or 33.3%; and listening is one
out of five or 20%. Thus, it becomes clear that around 20 or 35.3%
of the areas in macro-skills of the English language are actually
found to be difficult by the students. Reading had the highest % of
difficult items, followed by speaking, then by writing and lastly by
listening.



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5. Difficulties in macro-skills that appear to be relatively more
serious
While skill items can be recognized as difficult based on their
mean % score of less than 50%, some of these macro-skills can be
considered as serious difficult items based on the very low mean %
scores, that is, they had mean % scores of less than 25 percent. This
means that only less than 25 percent of the students are able to
answer these skill items correctly.
It can be observed that out of the 11 difficult items listed, seven
have mean % scores of less than 25% and are therefore considered to
be relatively serious. These skill items were ranked from one to seven

according to the degree of their lowest mean % score. Four of these
serious items belong to the macro-skill reading, followed by two items
from writing and lastly by listening. The most serious of these items are
those that pertain to comprehension skills both in reading and listening.
The other three serious items are associated with utilization skills in
reading, and sharpening writing skills.
Reading and listening comprehension as a serious difficulty to
address would entail several component skills and time for skills
development. Comprehension entails cumulative knowledge in
vocabulary and word use. Comprehension is the highest level of skill
that the student must develop as functional understanding comes as a
consequence of comprehension. Without comprehension, no
understanding of the idea being conveyed will happen. The writing
skills on the other hand are more on the convention, being able to
properly place the words to deliver a smooth, and clear idea. Thus,
writing skills entail familiarity with the grammatical rules and their
correct use in various context. In fact, writing skills come next to


23
comprehension skills, and that pattern is well confirmed and
established in the findings of this study.
6. Intervention measures that may be proposed to enhance the
macro-skills of students
Criteria were considered in the design of an appropriate
intervention measures to address the difficulties of the students in the
macro-skills of the English language specially for this population of
students which include item skills where the students showed poor
performance that is below 25 percent mean % score; items showing
the highest rank among the most difficult items in the cluster; and

items show statistically significant relationships. These include the
three macro-skills, namely: reading, writing, and listening. In
reading, it should include comprehension skills, particularly
sequence, finding details and finding the main idea; and utilization
skills particularly outlining. In writing, it should include sentence
correction particularly grammatical relationship and sharpening
writing skills particularly using words effectively. In listening, it
should include comprehension skills. This is based on the % of
correct answer (<25%), the ranking according to the degree of
difficulty, and the p-value showing relationship of mean
combinations that is p-value >0.05.
5.3. CONCLUSIONS
Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions are
drawn: