an exploratory study on teaching and learning speaking english at binh gia high school - lang son problems and solutions

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************


LƢƠNG THỊ HUYỀN


AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING AND LEARNING
SPEAKING ENGLISH AT BINH GIA HIGH SCHOOL - LANG SON:
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Thực trạng dạy và học nói Tiếng Anh tại trƣờng Trung Học Phổ Thông
Bình Gia - Lạng Sơn: Những khó khăn và cách giải quyết



M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS


FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111





Hanoi, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************


LƢƠNG THỊ HUYỀN


AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHING AND LEARNING
SPEAKING ENGLISH AT BINH GIA HIGH SCHOOL - LANG SON:
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Thực trạng dạy và học nói Tiếng Anh tại trƣờng Trung Học Phổ Thông
Bình Gia - Lạng Sơn: Những khó khăn và cách giải quyết



M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS


FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111
SUPERVISOR: HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA, Ph.D




Hanoi, 2014

i
DECLARATION

I certify that the thesis entitled “An exploratory study on teaching and
learning speaking English at Binh Gia high school - Lang Son : Problems and
solutions ” is the result of my own study and the substance of this research has not been
submitted for degree to any other university or institution.


Hanoi, August 2014

Signature



Luong Thi Huyen

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Hoang
Thi Xuan Hoa, PhD for her precious instructions, helpful suggestions, and especially,
invaluable critical feedback and correction during the research.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all of my lecturers at
the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies,
Vietnam National University Ha Noi, whose support and considerations have enabled me
to pursue the course.
I also wish to acknowledge the great support and precious help with the data
collection and analysis of my colleagues and students at Binh Gia High School. Without
them, I could not have completed my thesis.
Last but not least, my heartfelt thanks are due to my beloved family members who
are always besides me to support and encourage me to fulfill my study.

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ABSTRACT
English speaking is an important skill and most used to express opinions,
explanations, make arguments in daily life. Students need to speak English fluently to get
better result in learning English and get a good job in the future. This minor thesis aimed
at investigating some difficulties that students and teachers at Binh Gia High School have
encountered in learning and teaching English speaking skill and suggesting solutions to
overcome these difficulties. The subjects of the study were 120 students and 12 teachers of
English. The data of the research was collected from both students‟ and teachers‟
questionnaires, interviews. The findings showed that students' difficulties in learning
English speaking skill were low level of English proficiency, lack of motivation and using
mother tongue problem. Teachers' difficulties in teaching English speaking skill were
insufficient communicative competence and inappropriate method. In addition, other

difficulties in learning and teaching English speaking skill of students and teachers were
large and multi-level classes, current testing system and lack of class time. From these
findings, some recommendations were made with the aim to improve the teaching and
learning English at Binh Gia High School.













iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi
LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES. vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aims of the study 3
3. Method and procedure of the research 3
4. Scope of the study 4

5. Organization of the paper 4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5
1.1. Speaking skill 5
1.1.1. Definition of speaking 5
1.1.2. Characteristics of speaking 5
1.1.3. The role of speaking in foreign language teaching 6
1.2. Teaching and learning speaking skill 7
1.2.1. Teaching speaking skill 7
1.2.2. Learning speaking skill 8
1.2.3. Problems in teaching and learning speaking skill 10
1.3.Using CLT in teaching speaking skill 10
1.4. Summary 12
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 13
2.1. The context 13
2.1.1. Overview of the English textbook 13
2.1.2. An overview of Binh Gia High School 13
2.1.3. The students at BGHS 14
2.1.4. The teachers at BGHS 14

v
2.2. Research questions 14
2.3. Participants 15
2.4. Data collection instruments 15
2.4.1. Questionnaire 15
2.4.2. Interview 16
2.5. Data collection procedure 16
2.6. Data analysis 17
2.7. Summary 17
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 18

3.1. Data analysis 18
3.1.1. Results of the survey questionnaires. 18
3.2. Findings 30
3.2.1. Difficulties from the students 30
3.2.2. Difficulties from the teachers 31
3.2.3. Problems from other factors 33
PART III: CONCLUSION 35
1. Conclusions 35
2. Solutions perceived by teachers and students to overcome teachers‟ and students'
difficulties 35
2.1. Teachers‟ solutions 35
2.2. Students' solutions. 37
3. Limitations of the study 39
4. Recommendations for further study 40
REFERENCES 41
APPENDIX 1 I
APPENDIX 2 IV
APPENDIX 3 VII
APPENDIX 4 X
APPENDIX 5 XI
APPENDIX 6 XII


vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communication Language Teaching
BGHS: Bình Gia High School
%: Percentage

vii
LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES.
Charts

Chart 1: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinion about the importance of English speaking
skill
Chart 2: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinion about the importance of English speaking
kill in comparison with other skills
Chart 3: Teachers‟ and students‟ opinions about students‟ passion of learning
English peaking skill
Chart 4: Teachers‟ and students‟ judgment about students‟ speaking competence

Tables
Table 1: Information about students and teachers participating in the survey
Table 2: Teachers‟ years of teaching English and students‟ years of learning English
Table 3: Students‟ reasons for learning English speaking skill
Table 4: jj Teachers‟ difficulties when teaching speaking skill
Table 5: Teachers‟ solutions to improve the speaking lessons
Table 6: Teachers‟ suggested solutions to improve the speaking lesson
Table 7: Students‟ difficulties when learning English speaking skill







1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
O‟Malley and Pierce (1996) stated that speaking is an important skill that a learner
should acquire. It is very important in order to enable students to communicate effectively
through oral language because the disability of the students to speak may lead them to be
unable to express their ideas even in a simple form of conversation. In addition, Burn and

Joyce (1997: 54-55) stated that one of the aims of most language programs is to develop
spoken language skills and most programs aim to integrate both spoken and written
language. Learning a language means using it in communication in oral or written form,
and being able to express feeling, thoughts, and experiences in various contexts. Lade
(1964: 51) stated that to know the language is to use it. He further stated that students do
not know a sentence until he can speak it.
One of the main tasks assigned to foreign language teaching at school is that of
training students to be communicatively competent. Speaking is "the process of building
and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of
contexts" (Chaney, 1998: 13). In any second language teaching and learning, speaking is
always believed to be the most vital skill. Learning a target language makes no sense if you
cannot communicate in it successfully. For many years, teaching speaking has been
undervalued and English teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of
drills or memorization of dialogues. However, with the rapid progress of globalization,
English speaking skill is thought to be the key to one‟s success in his career. The goal of
teaching speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that
way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules
appropriate in each communicative circumstance. Classroom activities that develop
learners‟ ability to express themselves through speech would therefore seem an important
component of a language course.
However, in some places in Vietnam English teaching and learning has been
strongly influenced by the traditional methods. Teachers as well as students pay much
attention to the grammatical items. In these classes, teachers mainly focus on explaining
the grammatical rules and structures to students who are considered as passive recipients.
As a result, those students might be structurally competent but communicative
incompetent. That causes a lot of difficulties in using English in real-life communication.


2
Speaking skill is a very important skill when learning English. The real situation of

English language teaching in Vietnam showed that this is the skill that students usually
neglect and are not good at even though they have very good grammatical knowledge.
Students‟ learning methods depended much on teachers, students still were quite passive in
their learning process. In order to improve the students‟ speaking ability, teachers could
use many kinds of communicative activities.
There is a fact that students must pass examinations in English to graduate, but
many of them fail to learn it successfully. Students have lost their communicative
competence on which means little attention has been paid to communicative skills such as
listening and speaking. In addition, under the effect of old-fashioned methods, students are
believed to be indifferent to such skills. They mentally withdraw or look for strategies to
pass the required exams with minimum effort.
Among the four skills known as listening, speaking, writing and listening, speaking
skill plays an important part in language teaching in the context of Vietnam. For many
learners, speaking skill is the most important of the four skills in a second language in
general and in English in particular. However, it is the fact that most of students at Binh
Gia High School seemed to consider speaking skill to be the most challenging. From
observations and teaching experiences, the author realized that students paid little attention
to communicative skills such as listening and speaking. They lost interest in learning
English and they were not active in participating in speaking activities. They felt nervous
in speaking class and became demotivated in learning speaking. These led to the
underachievement and had a negative effect on students in learning English as a foreign
language.
There still exist many difficulties facing English Language teachers in Vietnam in
general and English Language teachers at the Binh Gia High School in particular. Many
Vietnamese learners can write and read English quite well but they cannot speak fluently
and correctly in communication. Certainly there are many reasons for this. As one teacher
of English I realized that although both teachers and learners tried their best to reach their
goals to teach and study English speaking skills effectively, up to now the results have
been still far from satisfaction.

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All the above mentioned reasons have inspired the writer to conduct a research
titled “An exploratory study on teaching and learning speaking English at Binh Gia
High School - Lang Son : Problems and solutions .”
This study helps us to have a deep understanding about teachers' and students'
difficulties in teaching and learning English. In general, it can be affected by a variety of
factors coming from teachers‟ side, students‟ side and classroom condition. Through this
study, the researcher expects to find out some appropriate solutions to overcome the
difficulties for more successful teaching and learning speaking English skill at Binh Gia
High School.
2. Aims of the study
This study aims to:
Identify difficulties perceived by teachers and students in teaching and learning
speaking skill.
Suggest solutions perceived by teachers and students to overcome the difficulties
for more successful teaching and learning speaking English skill at Binh Gia High School.
3. Method and procedure of the research
With the aims of investigating difficulties of teachers and students in teaching
and learning speaking skill at Binh Gia High School, survey questionnaires and interviews
method were chosen.
● Research questions
1. How do teachers and students perceive concepts of speaking skill?
2. What difficulties do the teachers and students face in learning and teaching of
speaking skill at BGHS?
3. What are solutions to improve the quality of the learning and teaching of speaking
skill at BGHS?
To collect data for this study, 120 students and 12 teachers were invited to take
part in survey questionnaires and interviews. The students were from different classes. The
teachers participating in the survey were teaching English to students so that they can

understand the students‟ difficulties in learning speaking skill.
First, the survey questionnaires were carried out to find out teachers' and students'
difficulties. Then the interviews with teachers and students were conducted to clarify
aspects which were inadequate and vague in the survey questionnaires.


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4. Scope of the study
The study aims at finding out the difficulties in teaching and learning speaking
skill faced by students and teachers at Binh Gia High School. There are many types of
difficulties that teachers and learners met when they taught and studied a foreign language.
However, due to the limitation of time and the narrow scale, the study only focused on the
most common difficulties in teaching and learning speaking skill faced by students and
teachers at Binh Gia High School from the perspectives of students and teachers. Then, this
study also gave out some suggested solutions generated from the teachers in the interview
for students to overcome those difficulties and improve their speaking skill.
5. Organization of the paper
The minor thesis is composed of three parts: Introduction, Development, and
Conclusions.
Part A- Introduction presents the rationale, aims, method and procedure, scope and
organization of the study.
Part B - Development consists of 3 chapters:
Chapter 1- Literature review gives the theoretical background of speaking skill.
Chapter 2 - Methodology includes the description context of the study , research questions,
participants, research questions, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, data
analysis).
Chapter 3- Data analysis and findings describes the data of the questionnaires and
interviews, then gives some findings through the data analysis.
Part C - Conclusion suggests some solutions perceived by teachers and students to the
current problems and focuses on the conclusions of the thesis, some limitations and

recommendations for further study.










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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1. Speaking skill
1.1.1. Definition of speaking
There are many different concepts of speaking by many different linguistics,
however, most of them agreed that speaking is very important to human communication.
According to Bygate (1997), speaking is a skill which is very important and requires as
much attention as other skills, in both first and second languages. In order to carry out most
of their basic interactions and transactions, learners need to be able to speak, and express
their ideas to other people. He also emphasized that “interaction is the use of language for
maintaining communication between participants” and „interaction skills are skills of
deciding what to say, when to say it and how to say it clearly” (Bygate, 1997, p.115).
Therefore, in learning speaking skill, learners are required to know not only how to
produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary
(linguistic competence or grammatical competence), but also when, why and in what ways
language is produced (sociolinguistic competence).
Brown (1994); Burn and Joyce (1997) suggested that speaking is an interactive
process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing

information. 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.
1.1.2. Characteristics of speaking
As for Bygate (1987), speaking has the following characteristics:
Firstly, 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.
Secondly, the learners must know how to produce specific points of language such as
grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary, but also they understand when, why, and in what
ways to produce language.


6
Thirdly, speech has its own features, structures, and conventions different from
written language.
Lastly, Bygate (1987) considered speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways.
The reason is that almost all people can speak, and so take speaking skill too much for
granted. Bygate also highly appreciates speaking skill by stating that speaking is the
medium through which much language is learnt.
To sum up, it is undeniable that speaking is the key to communication. By
considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be used in class, and what
specific needs learners report, teachers can help learners improve their speaking and
overall oral competency.
1.1.3. The role of speaking in foreign language teaching
In the view of language teaching, language has been divided into four macro-skills:
listening, speaking, reading and writing based on the purpose of analysis and instruction. It
is undeniable that speaking skill plays the most important part in foreign language teaching

because it is fundamental to human communication (Ur, 1996). Knowing the language
means being able to speak the language. Furthermore, it is the vehicle to establish and
maintain social relationships as well as to achieve professional advancement.
Swan (2000) suggested that output might play several important roles in second
language acquisitions. The output's importance to learning is reported to push the learners
to process the language more deeply with more mental effort. He admitted that the learner
is in control with output. In speaking, learners can stretch their inter-language to meet
communicative goals. They need to create linguistics form and meaning and even discover
what they can or cannot do. Output may stimulate the learners from semantics, open-
ended, strategic processing prevalent to incomprehension to complete grammatical
processing for needed production. Another role of output is promoted "noticing". Leaner
notices "holes" in their linguistic knowledge and they work to fill them by various ways
such as turning to dictionary, asking their peer or teachers or noticing themselves to pay
attention to future relevant input.
In the international relationship, English speaking ability is obviously crucial to be
able to participate in the wider world of work. The speaking skill is measured in terms of
the ability to carry out a conversation in the language. For the reasons mentioned above, it


7
is really vital that language teachers should pay great attention to the teaching of speaking
skill.
1.2. Teaching and learning speaking skill
1.2.1. Teaching speaking skill
The goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency. Learners should
be able to make themselves understood, using their current proficiency to the fullest. They
should try to avoid confusion in the message due to faulty pronunciation, grammar, or
vocabulary, and to observe the social and cultural rules that apply in each communication
situation.
Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal

and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998, p. 13). Speaking is a
crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its importance, for many
years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language teachers have
continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues.
However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve
students' communicative skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves
and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in each communicative
circumstance. In order to teach second language learners how to speak in the best way
possible, some speaking activities are provided below, that can be applied to ESL and EFL
classroom settings, together with suggestions for teachers who teach oral language.
Teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability
to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the success of
the learner in school and success later in every phase of life. Therefore, it is essential that
language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking. Rather than leading students to
pure memorization, providing a rich environment where meaningful communication takes
place is desired. With this aim, various speaking activities such as those listed above can
contribute a great deal to students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life.
These activities make students more active in the learning process and at the same time
make their learning more meaningful and fun for them.
In the communicative model of language teaching, instructors help their students
develop this body of knowledge by providing authentic practice that prepares students for
real-life communication situations. They help their students develop the ability to produce


8
grammatically correct, logically connected sentences that are appropriate to specific
contexts, and to do so using acceptable (that is, comprehensible) pronunciation.
1.2.2. Learning speaking skill
Practice for behaviorist is seen as a process of habit formation by reinforcing
"right" answers. Practice should take central place because that is how language is learnt,

i.e. through extensive drill "without recourse to rationalistic explanation". (p.56 Hadley,
2001) They considered language acquisition a matter of practice or "operant conditioning".
(Skinner, 1957 as cited in Hadley, 2001) "Behaviors that are reinforced will be learned."
(Horwitz, 2008) UG dealt with acquisition of the first language, so their stand is
"environmental input" is crucial. The child needs to hear the language spoken in order to
select the appropriate parameter for his or her language environment (Horwitz, 2008). In
the classroom the exposure to the language data helps students to set the value of
parameters. Krashen considers practice to consist mostly of comprehensible L+1 input with
regard to affective filter. They pay attention to the L1 and positive transfer (language
universals) as well as the proximity of languages. Practice in the form of learning is useful
for beginners or those students who can't utilize their environment to acquire a language.
Students needn't be forced to speak; they will volunteer when they are ready to. "People
learn second language by using that language." (Horwitz, 2008) Cognitive theory
considers active mental participation to be one of the crucial components of practice.
Practice is a rebuilding activity - new input brings new information restructuring an
existing schema. Practice is a good time for controlled processing and internalization of an
explicit knowledge. For conversation theories practice is taking place in a real conversation
verbally or non-verbally. Acculturation theory takes into account practice outside of
classroom, putting additional emphasis on social environment.
Behaviorism sees error fossilization as the worst sequence of not correcting an
error, so overt correction must take place. In UG error is probably a result of unmarked
feature which is being neglected a result of interference. Cook (2008) says that parents
rarely correct their child's speech and do that for meaning not for grammar. Conversely, in
the classroom error correction occurs frequently, for the sake of additional evidence for
learners. Krashen assumes that error correction should be limited and used only when we
focus on learning, otherwise it triggers affective filter and deters acquisition. Cognitive
theory doesn't take error correction into consideration as it mostly concerned with building


9

up a set of cognitive skills. Congruent with their idea of controlled practice I might
conclude that mistakes will be corrected from the very beginning. Within the context of
meaningful learning a mistake is being noted only if it prevents conveying idea.
Conversation theory sees errors as a good start for scaffolding. Basically, they provoke
learning process. Acculturation theory emphasizes a role of low affective filter as a key
factor in success of SLA, so it should deal with error correction gently as it usually affects
the filter in a negative way
1.2.3. Problems in teaching and learning speaking skill
If the aim of the English course is to enable the students to communicate in
English, then speaking skills should be taught and practiced in the language classroom.
However, it is true that when teaching speaking skill, the teachers can encounter many
problems. The most popular ones can be listed as follows:
First, the class size is one of the major concerns. Teaching the target language for a
class of 40 or 45 students is quite a hard job and not effective. The teachers have to deal
with many problems of large class, so the results of teaching and learning speaking skill
are unsatisfactory.
Second, students‟ lack of motivation also prevents the success of the speaking
activities in class. They almost have no interest in learning the foreign language. They just
take part in the communicative activities because of the teachers‟ presence, the
requirements of the exams, etc.
Another difficulty in teaching and learning speaking skill is mother-tongue use. In
classes where all learners share the same mother-tongue, they tend to use it because: it is
easier, it is unnatural to communicate in a foreign language and they feel less exposed in
their mother-tongue. If the students work in small groups, it can be quite challenging to get
them - especially the less disciplined and motivated ones- to speak the target language.
Nevertheless, teaching and learning English in non – English speaking
environment such as Vietnam, the learners do not have many chances to practice English
outside the classroom. This picture can be described as almost every student only speaks
English, discuss the English topics when they come to class. After the lesson, they come
back to their real life with their family and their work. The learners never speak English to

their relatives or their family members because all of them are Vietnamese and they only
use Vietnamese in communication. Therefore, when the learners use English in


10
communicating to Vietnamese, they may be laughed at and be thought that they are self-
important. Since English is a foreign language in our country, most students especially
senior high school students are not familiar with it (Hetrakul, 1995). Kavin Hetrakul also
said that they use English more frequent only inside the class and less frequent outside the
class. Whereas, students‟ have limited time to learn English in class, and they still do not
have enough encouragement to practice English outside the class in order to get familiar
with English. This case brings a problem that make senior high school students have
difficulties to communicate in English.
Another difficulty in teaching and learning speaking skill is mother-tongue use. In
classes where all learners share the same mother-tongue, they tend to use it because: it is
easier, it is unnatural to communicate in a foreign language and they feel less exposed in
their mother-tongue. If the students work in small groups, it can be quite challenging to get
them - especially the less disciplined and motivated ones- to speak the target language.
Many other problems in the process of teaching and learning speaking skill will be
discussed carefully in later part of this study.
Many Vietnamese teachers feel that their circumstances oppose to attempts to use
communicative practices. For example, they have to prepare students for a grammar-based
examination, and have to finish certain content in the textbook in a certain amount of time.
They may have classes of 45 students, many of whom are more concerned about the
immediate goal – to pass exams, to get a degree, rather than the long term goal – to
develop communicative competence. Moreover, textbooks with the allocated syllabus in
the time allowed are also the obstacle to the implementation of the communicative
approach. If teachers are committed to communicative methods, pre-determined syllabus
worries them all the time.
In conclusion, this chapter has mentioned popular ideas about the nature of

speaking, the newly approved teaching approach - CLT, and the necessity of teaching and
learning speaking skill in a communicative class. These concepts and ideas will serve as
the theoretical background for all the analysis and discussions of the data in the following
chapter.
1.3. Using CLT in teaching speaking skill
Language teaching is a dynamic process, which involves constant changes and
shifting of different methods.


11
Communicative language teaching aims broadly to apply the theoretical perspective
of the Communicative Approach by marking communicative competence the goal of
language teaching and by acknowledging the interdependence of language and
communication.
According to Richards & Rodgers (2001), Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT) originated from the changes in the British Situational Language Teaching approach
dating from the late 1960s . Stemming from the socio-cognitive perspective of the socio-
linguistic theory, with an emphasis on meaning and communication, and a goal to develop
learners‟ “communicative competence”
When using communicative activities, it is important to make students feel
comfortable and confident, feel free to take risks and have opportunities to speak. As for
Harmer (2001) teachers should be aware that teaching speaking closely relates to receptive
skill work. Teachers should pay attention to: Output and input, Texts, Reception and
production. Output and input: output is the language the students produce; input is the
feedback or prompters from students‟ interlocutor (teacher). Teachers can modify their
students‟ output. Texts: offer students a model to follow, especially when working on
specific functions (agreeing, disagreeing, expressing surprise, approval ), also act as
stimuli which then help create language production: discussion (from controversial reading
passage), response (after listening to a tape about a story or opinion. Reception is a part of
production: conversation between two people is a blend of listening and speaking;

comprehend what‟s said is necessary for what‟s said next. Production enables reception:
oral production works in a way that helps Ss with their listening comprehension as when
they try to speak, they better adjust to understanding other people speaking in the same
context.
Brown & Nation (1997) think that teachers should give students practice with both
fluency and accuracy: teachers should provide students with form-focused and meaning-
focused speaking activities that aim at fluency and accuracy development.
Objectives for speaking are often given by the particular program in which the
teacher must work. In some cases, the syllabus will consist of a list of grammar structures
to be taught. The teacher needs to be flexible in making best use of what is available for
teaching purpose. In other words, the teacher must have some freedom in deciding what
objectives to meet, what content to cover, and what activities to use. In this case, the


12
teacher can go beyond the more specific goals and objectives of the particular program to
the speaking needs that the students have in the "real world".
Nunan (2003) believes that teachers had better provide students opportunities to
talk (by using group work or pair work and limiting teacher talk), plan tasks involving
negotiation of meaning, design classroom activities involving guidance, practice for both
transactional and interactional speaking. Interactional speaking is to both establish and
maintain social relationship while transactional speaking is to exchange goods or services.
Interactional speech is much more unpredictable than the other as it ranges over many
topics with participants taking turn and commenting freely while the latter encounters of a
fairly restricted kind (e.g. telephoning for a taxi). Students should be taught and guided to
speak the targeted language in both interactional and transactional settings.
1.4. Summary
This chapter so far discussed issues and aspects concerning to the topic of the study. It
has discussed the concepts and ideas relating to speaking skill. Such issues included
definitions of speaking, characteristics of speaking as well as the role of speaking in

foreign language teaching. Given the purpose of the study, it was mainly focused on the
discussion of learning and teaching speaking skill. It included learning and teaching
speaking skill and problems in teaching and learning speaking skill. Besides, method
applied in English language teaching have been presented as well.
The following chapters will present the investigation, the findings and suggested
solutions to the problems under the light of the above mentioned theories.













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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. The context
2.1.1. Overview of the English textbook
The main material for teaching English at BGHS is a new set of English textbook
approved by the Ministry of Education and Training. The textbook English 10 consists of
16 units including five parts: reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus. The
book was designed according to communicative approach. For speaking skill, its objective
is to develop students competence and ability to exchange information at a simple level
about the situations relating to the topics they have learnt. Generally speaking, the new
English textbook has proved to be more relevant and appropriate to the current context of

teaching and learning English at high school in Vietnam. However, it is also challenging
for both teachers and students because of different students‟ English proficiency and
teaching - learning conditions of each school.
The new English textbook for grade 10 follows the two approaches dominating the
foreign language education and methodology all over the world - the learner - centered
approach and the communicative approach. The teaching method chosen for this book is
task - based teaching. The reason for this choice is that these two approaches consider
students the centre of education and aim at developing their creativity. In traditional
teaching approaches, teachers are the centre of the teaching and learning process - the
teachers speak and the students just listen. In the learner - centered approach, the teacher is
not only the provider of knowledge but also the organizer, advisor and facilitator; the
students not only listen passively to the teacher but also actively take part in the learning
activities through pair work and group work. The traditional approaches consider such
linguistic competence as pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar structures their final aims
while the communicative competence with listening, speaking, reading and writing skills is
the biggest concern of communicative approach; the linguistic competence is just the
means for students to obtain their communicative competence.
2.1.2. An overview of Binh Gia High School
Binh Gia High School is situated on Binh Gia District which is one hundred forty
kilometers far from Ha Noi city, the school was established in 1966 and it has been
reliable for training quality not only in the district but also in the province for many
years.


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This school has 32 classes (each has 45 students) and 12 teachers of English aged
from 25 to 39 with at least 2 years of teaching. Of these teaching staff members, four of
them graduated from Vietnam National University, Ha Noi - University of Languages and
International Studies, and two graduated from Thai Nguyen University of education and
one graduated from Thai Nguyen Agricultural and Forestry University

2.1.3. The students at BGHS
Most of the students come from the villages in the district. The majority of students
are ethnic minority and live very far from school .The teaching of English in general and
the teaching of speaking English in particular has encountered with many difficulties.
Although most students are aware of the importance of English, few students have real
interest in learning English. In other words, the majority of the students do not pay much
attention to English. Their speaking skills are not quite good. Although all students started
learning English from grade six, their English proficiency is very low. They study English
just to prepare for the tests and exams, so what they need in learning English is to learn
grammar lessons and to do exercises. It seems that a lot of students can not communicate
successfully despite knowing a lot about English grammar patterns. Only a few students
wish to take university entrance exams in English, which means few students have real
interest in learning English. In other words, not much attention is paid to English by the
majority of the students.
2.1.4. The teachers at BGHS
There are 12 teachers of English currently working at Binh Gia High School.
Among them, nine of them are female and three of them are male, and their age ranks from
25 to 39. All of them have got the University Bachelor‟s Degree in English, four of them
graduated from Vietnam National University - University of languages and international
studies, and two graduated from Thai Nguyen University of education and one graduated
from Thai Nguyen Agricultural and Forestry University and they are helpful, enthusiastic
and willing to make some renovations in teaching methodology. However, they are
inexperienced and are not well-trained so they have to face with many difficulties.
2.2. Research questions
In order to uncover the difficulties of students and teachers in learning and teaching
speaking skill at BGHS, it is necessary to answer the following questions:
1. How do teachers and students perceive concepts of speaking skill?


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2. What difficulties do the teachers and students face in learning and teaching of
speaking skill at BGHS?
3. What are solutions to improve the quality of the learning and teaching of speaking
skill at BGHS?
2.3. Participants
The subject of the study was 120 students of grade 10 of Binh Gia High School and 12
teachers who are currently teaching or have taught speaking at BGHS. These students were
chosen from 12 classes of grade 10 in which 54 of them were female and 66 of them were
male. Most of them aged from 15 to 17. Most of them came from the countryside (97
students) while 23 were from town. All these students were taught by Vietnamese teachers
of English. 12 teachers who were teaching speaking skills to students at BGHS were
selected as the participants of the study with the hope to find out difficulties in teaching
speaking skill to their students at BGHS.
2.4. Data collection instruments
In order to obtain in-depth, rich data and information for investigating the situation
and difficulties that teachers and students met in teaching and learning speaking skill at
BGHS, the study used various methods of data collection: questionnaire and interview. In
order to get information to fulfill the aims of the study, two survey questionnaires were
designed. The first questionnaire was administered to 12 teachers currently teaching
speaking skills to students at BGHS as the participants of the study with the hope to find
out the teaching methods and techniques they often apply in teaching English speaking
skills to their students at BGHS. The second questionnaires were administered to 120
students who were chosen from 12 classes in which 54 were female and 66 were male.
The researcher delivered the questionnaire to those students in order to investigate the
problems facing the learning of English speaking skill students at the BGHS.
2.4.1. Questionnaire
Basing on certain knowledge about the students‟ problems gained through 6 years of
experience as a teacher of English at BGHS, the investigator designed two kinds of
questionnaires which consist of both closed questions (students and teachers only choose
one option) and open-ended questions (with more possibilities at their disposal) to find out

difficulties which teachers and students encountered in teaching and learning speaking and
what they done to overcome these difficulties.


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The teachers‟ survey questionnaire: The survey questionnaire for teachers consisted of 8
questions (see appendix 3). All these questions were focused on the following categories:
 Teachers‟ background. (Question 1)
 Teachers‟ attitudes towards teaching and learning speaking skill.
(Question 2,3,4,5)
 Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching speaking skill to students at BGHS
( Question 6)
 Teachers' suggestions in teaching speaking skill. (Question 7)
 Teachers‟ solutions. (Question 8)
 The students‟ survey questionnaire: The survey questionnaire for students consisted of
9 questions (see appendix 2) in which 9 questions were multiple choice. All these
questions were focused on the following categories:
 Students‟ background and their learning experience (Question 1)
 Students‟ attitudes towards learning English speaking skills. (Question 2,3,4,5)
 Reason for learning English (Question 6)
 Students‟ difficulties in learning to speak and their solutions to improve speaking
skill. (Question 7)
 Students ' suggestions in teaching speaking skill. (Question 8)
 Students solutions. (Question 9)
2.4.2. Interview
An interview was conducted in English with a group of 20 students and 5 teachers.
The questions in the interviews were basically based on those in the questionnaire, but
were extended to include more open-ended questions to get more thorough understanding
of the reasons behind each student‟s choice. Each conversation lasted for about 7 minutes.
The data were then transcribed and translated into English.

2.5. Data collection procedure
In the first phase, questionnaires were administered to 120 students and 12 teachers at
BGHS. The participants were asked to complete the questionnaire at home and returned
their responses two days later so that they would have as much time as they needed.
After the collected data were analyzed, in the second phase, 5 teachers and 20 students
with the most problems in teaching and learning English speaking skill were contacted for
semi-structured interviews with the researcher in locations where they felt at ease and at a