Developing supplementary materials to teach speaking skills for first year English major at Phuong Dong University = Phát triển tài liệu bổ trợ để dạy kĩ năng n

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

̀
NGUYỄN THI ̣HÔNG VINH

DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS TO TEACH SPEAKING
SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT
PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY
PHÁT TRIỂN TÀI LIỆU BỔ TRỢ ĐỂ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NÓI CHO SINH
́
́
̀
VIÊN NĂM THƯ NHÂT CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRƯƠNG
ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field

: English Methodology

Code

: 601410

Hanoi, 2011


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

̀
NGUYỄN THI ̣HÔNG VINH
DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS TO TEACH SPEAKING
SKILLS FOR FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT
PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY

̉
̉
́
PHÁT TRIỂN TÀI LIỆU BÔ TRỢ ĐÊ DẠY KĨ NĂNG NOI CHO SINH
́
́
̀
VIÊN NĂM THƯ NHÂT CHUYÊN ANH TẠI TRƯƠNG
ĐẠI HỌC PHƯƠNG ĐÔNG

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field

: English Methodology

Code

: 601410

Supervisor

: PHẠM THỊ THANH THỦY, M.A

Hanoi, 2011


iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION .......................................................................................................

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................

ii

ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................................

iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................

vii

LIST OF TABLES .....................................................................................................

viii

LIST OF CHARTS ....................................................................................................

ix

PART A: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................

1

1. Rationale ................................................................................................................

1

2. Scope of the study ..................................................................................................

3

3. Aims of the study ...................................................................................................

3

4. Significance of the study........................................................................................

3

5. Methods of the study..............................................................................................

4

6. Design of the study ................................................................................................

4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................................

5

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................

5

1.1. An overview of speaking skills and teaching speaking skills .............................

5

1.1.1. Definition and characteristics of speaking skills and teaching
speaking skill .............................................................................................................

5

1.1.2. Principles for Teaching Speaking Skills ..........................................................

5

1.1.3. Structure output and communicative output speaking Activities ....................

7

1.2. Materials Development in Language Teaching ..................................................

8

1.2.1. Definition of Language Teaching and Learning Materials ..............................

8

1.2.2. Effective Language Teaching and Learning Materials ....................................

8

1.2.3. The Roles and Limitation of Textbooks .........................................................

9

1.2.4. Textbook evaluation ........................................................................................

10

1.2.4.1. Definition of textbook evaluation .................................................................

10

1.2.4.2. Methods for textbook evaluation ..................................................................

11

1.2.4.3. Criteria for textbook evaluation ....................................................................

12


v

1.3. Supplementary materials in teaching language skills .........................................

13

1.3.1. Definition of supplementary materials ............................................................

14

1.3.2. Form and process of supplementation .............................................................

15

1.4. Related study on supplementary materials .........................................................

16

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................

17

2.1. Background to the study .....................................................................................

17

2.1.1. Study context ...................................................................................................

17

2.1.2. The textbook in use ..........................................................................................

18

2.1.3. The participants................................................................................................

18

2.2. Research method .................................................................................................

19

2.3. Instruments of data collection .............................................................................

19

2.4. Data collection procedures..................................................................................

20

2.5. Data analysis procedures ....................................................................................

21

CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .....

22

3.1. Presentation and analysis of data ........................................................................

22

3.1.1. Students’ motivation and difficulties in learning Speaking
subject during their first semester ..............................................................................

22

3.1.1.1. Students’ motivation in learning English......................................................

22

3.1.1.2. Students’ difficulties in learning Speaking skill ...........................................

23

3.1.2. The evaluation of the textbook “Let’s Talk 1” by teachers and students. .....

24

3.1.2.1. The teachers and the students’ general evaluation of the content of the
textbook “Let’s Talk 1” .............................................................................................

25

3.1.2.2. The teachers and students’ detailed evaluation of the textbook’s content ...

26

3.1.3. The attitudes and preferences of students and teachers to the use of
supplementary materials in speaking lessons. ...........................................................

30

3.1.3.1. The students’ and teachers’ attitudes to the use of supplementary materials
in speaking lessons.....................................................................................................

30

3.1.3.2. The students’ and teachers’ preferences to the use of supplementary
speaking materials......................................................................................................

31

3.1.3.3. Students and teachers’ preferences of forms that the added
materials for each aspect should be in. ......................................................................

33

3.2. Discussion ...........................................................................................................

34


vi

3.2.1. Students’ Difficulties in Learning Speaking Skills..........................................

34

3.2.2. Students and Teachers’ Evaluation of the Textbook
“Let’s Talk 1”’s Content. ..........................................................................................

37

3.2.3. Teachers and Students’ Attitudes and Preference of
Supplementary Materials ...........................................................................................

39

3.3. Recommendations ...............................................................................................

40

3.3.1. Supplementary Materials for Vocabulary and Speaking activities ..................

41

3.3.2. Supplementary Materials for Grammar ...........................................................

41

3.3.3. Supplementary Materials for Pronunciation ....................................................

42

PART C: CONCLUSION

1. Conclusion .............................................................................................................

43

2. Limitations of the study .........................................................................................

43

3. Suggestion for further research ..............................................................................

45

REFERENCES.........................................................................................................

46

APPENDICES ..........................................................................................................

I

Appendix 1. Principles of teaching speaking skills ...................................................

I

Appendix 2. Checklist to identify gaps in a coursebook ...........................................

II

Appendix 3. Questionnaire for teachers ....................................................................

VI

Appendix 4. Questionnaire for students (English version) ........................................

VIII

Appendix 5. Questionnaire for students (Vietnamese version) .................................

XIII

Appendix 6. Student interviews .................................................................................

XV

Appendix 7. Translation of student interviews .......................................................... XXIII
Appendix 8. Samples of supplementary materials..................................................... XXX


vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PDU

: Phuong Dong University

EFL

:English as a Foreign Language

ESL

:English as a Second Language

ELT

: English Language Teaching

B.A

: Bachelor of Arts

M.A

:Master Degree


viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1a. The detailed evaluation of the students and the teachers about the
speaking topics in the textbook “Let’s talk 1” ...........................................................

26

Table 1b. The detailed evaluation of the students and the teachers about the language
input in the textbook “Let’s talk 1” .........................................................................

27

Table 1c. The detailed evaluation of the students and the teachers about the
speaking activities in the textbook “Let’s talk 1” ......................................................

28


ix

LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 1. Students’ motivation in learning English .....................................................

22

Chart 2. Students’ difficulties in learning Speaking skill as perceived by
themselves and their teachers ...............................................................................

22

Chart 3a. The general perception of the students about the textbook’s content ........

26

Chart 3b. The general perception of the teachers about the textbook’s content .......

26

Chart 4. Teachers and students’ attitudes to the use of supplementary speaking
materials .....................................................................................................................

31

Chart 5. Teachers’ preference of when to use supplementary speaking materials ....

31

Chart 6. The students’ and teachers’ preferences to which aspects should be
supplemented. ............................................................................................................

33

Chart 7. Students’ and teachers’ preferences to the forms of supplementary
vocabulary materials .................................................................................................

36

Chart 8. Students’ and teachers’ preferences to the forms of supplementary
grammar materials ....................................................................................................

37

Chart 9. Students’ and teachers’ preferences to the forms of supplementary
pronunciation materials .............................................................................................

38

Chart 10a. Students’ and teachers’ preferences to structure output speaking
activities ....................................................................................................................

39

Chart 10b. Students’ and teachers’ preferences to communicative speaking
activities .....................................................................................................................

39


1

PART A: INTRODUCTION

This part of the thesis will be dedicated to introducing the basic principles of a
thesis including the rationale, the aims, the scopes and the significance of the study as well
as the research questions. It will also present the research method and the design of the
study.
1. Rationale
English has attained greater importance throughout the world in general and in
Vietnamese in particular. This worldwide expansion has increased the demand to acquire
good communication skills in English. That is the reason why the teaching and learning
English has been paid more attention recently in Vietnam. Of four major language skills,
the mastery of speaking skills in English is put on the first priority by many Vietnamese
learners. This is because the success of learners in language learning is often evaluated on
the improvement in their spoken language proficiency (Richards, 2006). In order to aid
teachers and learners in their teaching and learning speaking skills, there is a variety of
speaking course books available in the market. At English Division of PDU, the course
book ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ (by Leo Jones, 2002) has been used as a core textbook to teach
speaking skills for first year English Majors. However, this textbook has not been
undergone any official evaluation to test its relevance to the students‘ needs and interests.
After being used for a while, the ineffectiveness of this textbook has posed some
considerable problems. Some teachers in English Division who have to directly work with

the book complain about spending a lot of time compiling and adapting materials so as to
meet their students‘ needs and make the speaking lessons more interesting and motivating.
A potential remedy for this situation, in the opinion of the researcher, is applying
supplementary materials to go with the textbook in speaking lessons. It seems to be a better
solution than choosing another new textbook since there is no textbook that perfectly fits in
a particular teaching and learning environment (Ansary & Babaii, 2002); and it is hard to
use a commercial textbook without some form of adaptation to make it more suitable for
the particular context in which it is used (Richards, 2005).
Furthermore, in the process of learning speaking skills, the first year English
Majors at PDU often express a feeling of stress, nervousness or anxiety. In addition, their


2

results in the final speaking examinations are usually low and under syllabus requirement.
This fact can be triggered to many difficulties the students have to face in their learning
process. It seems that the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ which is designed for a wide
international audience, cannot cater for every specific need of individual learner in such a
particular local learning and teaching environment as Phuong Dong University. Several
students claim that the textbook gives them little help to overcome their difficulties in
learning speaking skills. According to Williams (1983, p.81), ―the textbook can present
examples of common difficulties, but there are problems specific to different language
groups which are left for teacher to deal with‖. In order to help the first year English
Majors at PDU overcome their specific difficulties in learning speaking skills, the option of
selecting or designing supplementary materials comes to the research‘s mind as a first and
foremost choice.
With the supplementary materials, the gap between the textbook and students‘
needs can be narrowed down. Choosing the most suitable and relevant supplementary
material, however, necessitates careful research. In addition, in Phuong Dong University,
research to date of this topic is inadequate. There exist some researches about developing

supplementary reading and writing materials for first year English Majors, but there is no
research concerning speaking skills. This has inspired the author to conduct a research
entitled ―Developing supplementary materials to teach speaking skills for first year English
Majors at Phuong Dong University‖.
2. Scope of the Study
As this is only a small-sized scale study, it is only concerned with providing
necessary information to help teachers at PDU choose suitable supplementary materials for
first year English Majors in their speaking lessons of the second semester. The matter of
applying such materials in real teaching and examining their effectiveness is beyond the
scope of this small study. Furthermore, in this study, the course book ―Let‘s talk 1‖ is
evaluated in order to identify the gap between it and the students‘ needs. However, this
evaluation is only concerned with the content of the textbook. By the words ―contents‖, the
author means the language input, the speaking topics and the speaking activities.


3

3. Aims of the Study
Firstly, it is an attempt to figure out students‘ difficulties in their process of
learning speaking. Once the teachers realize the difficulties that their students have to face,
they can work out what should be selected as supplementary materials for their students.
Secondly, this study aims at examining the evaluation of the teachers and students towards
the course book ―Let‘s talk 1‖; then, based on that evaluation, the author hopes to identify
gaps between the course book and the needs of students. The last aim is investigating
teachers and students‘ attitudes as well as their preferences to the choice of supplementary
materials.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the study is designed to answer the
following questions:
(1) What are the difficulties of the first year English Majors at PDU when learning
speaking skills as perceived by themselves and by their teachers?

(2) How do the teachers and first year English Majors at PDU evaluate the
textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ in terms of its content?
(3) What are the attitudes and preferences of the teachers and first year English
Majors at PDU to the supplementary materials going with the textbook ―Let‘s
Talk 1‖ in the speaking lessons?
4. Significance of the Study
This study is of great importance to the author herself as well as to teachers
teaching speaking in that it will provide teachers with necessary and important information
to help them choose the most suitable speaking supplementary materials that have high
applicable value in practice.
5. Methods of the Study
This study focuses on developing supplementary materials for teaching speaking
skills to first year English majors. A survey method is employed to collect quantitative
and qualitative data. In order to seek answers to the above research questions, two sets of
questionnaire were designed and delivered to the teachers and the first year English
Majors. Besides, with the hope that the reliability of the obtained information from the


4

questionnaires will increase, semi-structured interviews with first year English Majors
were carried out.
6. Design of the Study
The study is divided into three parts named introduction, development and
conclusion. Part A is introduction which provides an overview of the study including the
rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the significance, the research method
as well as the design of study. The second part, development has four distinguishable
chapters. Chapter 1 deals with literature review. This chapter reviews theoretical
background on which the whole study is based. Chapter 2 is Methodology, which briefly
presents the methodological framework of the study. It covers the setting, the subjects, the

instruments and procedure of data collection and data analysis. Chapter 3 presents data
analysis, findings, discussion and brings about some recommendations on how to select
effective supplementary materials to go with the course book ―Let‘s Talk 1‖. The final
part, Conclusion, which is not less important than the preceding ones, comes up with the
summary of the study, limitations and suggestions for further study.
In conclusion, in this part, an overview of the study has been presented including
the rationale for the study, the aims, the scope, the research questions and the significance
of the study. The research method employed by the researcher as well as the design of the
study is also addressed. The first chapter in the next part will devote to literature review in
order to provide a theoretical framework for the study.


5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1.An Overview of Speaking Skills
1.1.1. Definition of Speaking and Teaching Speaking Skills
Of the four macro skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, speaking is
complementary as Byrne (1991, p.9) proves ―if one man is good at speaking skill, other
skills will be much supported‖. Defining the term ―speaking‖, Florez (1999, cited in
M.Bailey, 2005) states that speaking is ―an interactive process of constructing meaning that
involves producing, receiving and processing information‖. In this process, there are five
elements involved including pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, gesture and mimics,
fluency and accuracy (Harmer, 2001). In the process of teaching and learning a foreign
language, teaching speaking skills means helping students develop the ability to produce
grammatically correct and logically connected utterances that are appropriate in specific
contexts with acceptable pronunciation (Fararwati, 2010). Besides, Vicka (2008) define
teaching speaking skills is the instruction of the teacher to the students to encourage them
in using the language orally to express their ideas, feeling and opinions to someone else.

Despite expressing in different ways, it can be inferred from these two definitions that the
most important goal of teaching speaking skills is communicative efficiency.
1.1.2. Principles for Teaching Speaking Skills
When teaching speaking, there are some principles that teachers should follow to
ensure the effectiveness of speaking lessons. Such principles are discussed in the work of
Nunan (1991) and Brown (1994) in which Nunan (1991) suggests five principles and
Brown (1994) proposes six ones (see Appendix 1) . Despite the difference in their lists,
both of them share one common thing that teachers should focus on both fluency and
accuracy when teaching speaking skill. This opinion is supported by Brown and Nation
(1997) saying that communicating effectively in a language requires both the knowledge of
the language as well as the ability to use the language in real time interaction; thus teachers
should provide students with form-focused speaking, meaning-focused speaking and
activities that aim at fluency development. The researcher of this study totally agrees with
this principle and also believes that fluency and accuracy are two most important elements


6

in speaking process. In the definition of Richards (2006, p.14), ―Fluency is natural
language use occurring when a speaker engages in meaningful interaction and maintains
comprehensible and ongoing communication despite limitations in his or her
communicative competence‖ while ―accuracy focuses on creating correct examples of
language use.‖ Thus, it may not be too much to say one can speak fluently without
accuracy or vice versa, and accuracy as well as fluency is necessary for successful
communication.
In teaching speaking skills, various scholars (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997)
suggest a common approach adopted in speaking lessons which follows this sequence of
instruction: Presentation, Practice and Production. In line with this view, Burkart (1998)
states that teachers can help students develop their communicative efficiency by using a
balanced activities approach that combines language input, structured output and

communicative output. In the view of Burkart, language input may be content-oriented
which focuses on different topics and information, or form-oriented which emphasizes on
appropriate ways of using the language. The amount of content-oriented or form-oriented
input given in a lesson depends on each teaching and learning context as well as on
students‘ competence levels. Structured output serves the role of a bridge between the
presentation and practice stage of a speaking lesson in which students are required to
produce controlled responses correctly using specific forms or structures introduced in the
presentation stage. Communicative output is the final stage whose purpose is learners
completing a task through communicative output activities. At this stage, unlike structure
output stage, accuracy is not a main consideration unless the lack of it interferes with the
messages. In summary, structured output activities are those focusing on developing
learners‘ accuracy while communicative output activities give students opportunities to
develop their language fluency. In the following section, the author will introduce some
popular speaking activities that can be used as either structured output or communicative
output activities.
1.1.3. Structure output and communicative output speaking Activities
A large number of existing speaking activities can be found in resources. However,
due to the limitation of this small study, some applicable ones will be introduced. The
researcher prefers the list of speaking activities proposed by Harmer (2001). Harmer


7

(2001) recommends some examples of structured output activities are practical situation,
guessing game, information gathering activities and jigsaw; for communicative activities
such as role play, discussion, opinion sharing activity, and prepared talks.


Practical situations: Students can practice requesting and providing information in
situations such as asking for directions in a city and ordering meals in a

restaurant.



Guessing games: Students can do guessing activities in pairs or groups. There are
many variations. For example, one student chooses a famous person, and the others ask
yes-no questions until the identity of the person is determined.



Information gathering activity involves conducting interviews and searches in
which students were required to collect information. Students can practice a set of
structures and language repeatedly but in a meaningful way.



Jigsaw activity: in a jigsaw activity, each partner has one or a few pieces of the
"puzzle," and the partners must cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture. The
puzzle piece may take one of several forms. It may be one photo from a set that tells a
story. It may be one sentence from a written narrative.



A Role-play involves teachers giving role cards to students for pair work. Using role
cards is a good support especially for students at lower levels as cards help them
remember their roles. A whole class brainstorming can be helpful as well to help
them predict what vocabulary, grammar, and idiomatic expressions they might
use.



A discussion activity: students are given a topic that usually provokes more than one
opinion. Students are asked to discuss the issue in group and give their opinions and the
reasons why they think so.



Opinion sharing activity involves identifying and articulating a personal preference,
feeling, or attitude. The activity may require using factual information, formulating
arguments, and justifying one's opinions. For some topics, there may be no right or
wrong responses and no reason to expect the same answers or responses from different
individuals or different groups.



Prepared talks: a popular kind of activity in which students make a presentation on a
topic of their own choice with or without agreement with the teacher. Such talks are not
designed for spontaneous conversation and more ―writing-like‖.

Prepared talks


8

represent a defined and useful genre of speaking and if properly organized, can be
greatly interesting for both listeners and speakers.
In short, there are many authors discussing the issue of speaking activities in
language teaching and learning. A variety of speaking activities do exit and they can be
exploited effectively in different ways depending on particular teaching and learning
contexts. However, in this small study, the researcher only prefers to address those eight

speaking activities discussed above.
1.2.

Materials Development in Language Teaching
1.2.1. Definition of Language Teaching and Learning Materials
It is widely acknowledged that language teaching and learning materials constitute

a key component in most foreign language courses. Language teaching and learning
material is defined by Tomlinson (1998, p.2) as ―anything which is used by teachers or
learners to facilitate the learning of a language‖. He also gives a list of various things which
can be considered materials such as cassettes, videos, CD-Roms, dictionaries, grammar
books, readers, workbooks or photocopied exercises, etc. In line with this definition, a more
elaborate description of materials was given by Ian McGrath (2002). This linguist describes
materials not in broad sense as Tomlinson, but only in terms of text materials:
Text materials include those that have been either specifically designed for
language learning and teaching (e.g. textbooks, worksheets, computer software);
authentic materials (e.g. off-air recordings, newspaper article) that have been
specially selected and explored for teaching purposes by the classroom teacher;
teacher-written materials; and learner-generated materials. (p.7)
From this definition, it can be implied that teachers can use their homegrown teaching
materials to achieve teaching objectives in their particular and unique teaching and learning
situation. In this study, the researcher prefers to understand materials in broad sense as in
the definition of Tomlinson.
1.2.2.

Effective Language Teaching and Learning Materials

Discussing the effectiveness of materials, Tomlinson (1998) spends one chapter in
his book providing a detailed list of fourteen characteristics that effective language
teaching and learning materials should have. Following is the summary of four main

9

features that the researcher considers most important. Firstly, materials should attract and
sustain learners‘ motivation through novelty, attractive layout, appealing content as well as
a variety of texts, tasks and activities. This wide range of tasks and activities can cater for
learners‘ differences in learning styles and affective attitudes. Besides, what is covered in
materials should meet learners‘ needs. Thirdly, materials should provide exposure to rich
and varied authentic input. Lastly, materials should help learners feel confident and at ease.
Among a number of ways to make learners feel ease and develop confidence suggested by
Tomlinson (1998), the researcher finds two most interesting suggestions namely providing
appealing, challenging but achievable classroom tasks, and not forcing premature speaking
in the target language ―until they have gained sufficient exposure to the target language
and sufficient confident in understanding it‖ (p.19). This can be done by devising activities
which introduce new language points before asking students to speak.
In short, effective materials can inspire teachers and facilitate the learner‘s process
of foreign language acquisition. It is made clear by Cunningsworth (1979, p.31) that
―course materials are not intrinsically good or bad- rather they are more or less effective in
helping students to reach particular goals in specific situations‖. Therefore, when a teacher
evaluates that a particular material is good, what he/she really means is its effectiveness in
facilitating foreign language acquisition and learning. Referring to materials used in most
language courses, whether it is a skill-based course or an integrated skill basic series, there
is a core coursebook. According to McGrath (2002), the term ―coursebook‖ refers to a
textbook on which a course is based. Therefore, these two terms ―coursebook‖ and
―textbook‖ will be used interchangeably by the researcher in this minor thesis.

The

following section addresses the roles and limitations of textbooks.

1.2.3.

The Roles and Limitation of Textbooks

The undeniably important roles of textbooks have been discussed widely by many
linguists in different books and articles. For instance, Hutchinson & Torres (1994, p.135)
state that ―no teaching –learning situation, it seems, is complete until it has its relevant
textbook‖. Likewise, Sheldon (1988) concludes that ―textbooks represent the visible heart
of an ELT program‖. Furthermore, Schmidt, McKnight and Raizen (1997, cited in Kulm,
Roseman and Treistman, 1999) underline the dominant role of textbook saying textbook
makes ―the leap from intentions and plans to classroom activities, by making content


10

available, organizing it, and setting out learning tasks in a form designed to be appealing to
students‖. Sharing similar views, Crawford (2002) states that it is not necessary for a
textbook to control all things teachers and learners do in the language classroom; however,
it can support them by giving the structure and predictability needed for acceptable and
suitable communicative activities. The learning content packaged professionally in a
textbook can help achieve teaching and learning purposes.
On the other hand, textbooks may have several potential limitations. Richards
(2005) argues that textbooks may deskill teachers in a way that teachers primarily follow
everything prepared in textbooks without any change or creativity. The researcher totally
agrees with Richards‘ (2005) opinion that no matter how important a textbook is in
language teaching and learning, it should only serve the supporting role rather than
dominating role. In order to ensure the facilitating role of textbooks, there is a necessity for
teacher to develop skills in evaluating, adapting as well as supplementing published
materials. These skills will also help teacher deal with another limitation of textbook,
namely the mismatch between a commercial textbook written for international markets and

unique needs of a particular group of learners. Richards (2005, p.47) states ―Since
commercial materials are generally intended for a wide audience, they typically focus on
very general needs and cannot address the specific needs of individual learners‖. This
limitation implies that finding a textbook among an enormous diversity of commercial
textbooks available in the market nowadays that perfectly fits a particular teaching and
learning situation is rather impossible. One textbook which can be effective in one teaching
and learning context might be a wrong choice in another context.
In conclusion, the necessity of textbook cannot be neglected, yet problems do exist.
The situation implies that in order to choose an effective instructional material for a
particular group of learners, as teachers, it is essential firstly to well-understand the
background, level and learning needs of their learners; and then to make careful evaluation
of such material to ensure its relevance and suitability for students‘ learning needs as well
as for their particular teaching and learning context with the final aim of maximizing
learning potentials. This implies that textbook evaluation has an important and special role
in teaching and learning process. The following section addresses the literature review of
textbook evaluation.
1.2.4. Textbook Evaluation


11

1.2.4.1.

Definition of and Reasons for Textbook evaluation.

Textbook evaluation plays a key role in education and it is important for the
teacher since it can provide valuable information for the future going of classroom
practice; for the planning of courses and for the management of learning tasks and
students. Tomlinson (1998) defines materials evaluation as the systematic judgment of
the value of materials in relation to the aims of the materials and the learners who are

using them. In addition, Hutchinson & Waters (1987, p.96) see evaluation as ―a matter of
judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose‖. They share with Tomlinson that
―the evaluation process should be systematic‖ and add that it ―is best seen as a matching
exercise: matching your analyzed needs to available solutions‖ (1987, p.105). The essence
of this definition is its attention to the students‘ needs in evaluating materials and therefore
is adopted in this thesis.
Reasons for textbook evaluation activities are also numerous and varied. One
of the major reasons is the need to adopt new coursebook. In other words, the
evaluation helps to select a relevant and appropriate textbook for a language course.
Another reason as Cunningsworth (1995) emphasizes is to identify particular strengths
and weaknesses in a coursebook which is already in use. Such activities, in turn, will let
teachers make optimum use of the textbook‘s strong points and strengthen the weaker
areas by adapting and substituting materials from other books. As the definition and
significance of textbook evaluation have been discussed, the researcher is now concerned
with the methods and criteria being followed in the process of evaluation.
1.2.4.2.Methods of Textbook Evaluation
In general, three basic methods can be discerned in the literature on textbook
evaluation. For convenience, McGrath (2002, p.25) refers them to the impressionistic, the
checklist, and the in-depth method. As indicated in their names, impressionistic analysis is
concerned to obtain a general impression of the material while the checklist and the indepth are two methods of close evaluation. As used in isolation each of these methods has
its limitations as well as its specific benefits. However, in the opinion of the researcher, the
checklist method triumphs over the others due to its numerous advantages, some of which
are clearly stated by McGrath (2002, p27) as following:


12



It is systematic, ensuring that all elements that are deemed to be important are

considered.



It is cost effective, permitting a good deal of information to be recorded in a
relatively short space of time.



The information is recorded in a convenient format, allowing for easy comparison
between competing sets of material.



It is explicit, and, provided the categories are well understood by all involved in the
evaluation, offers a common framework for decision-making.

Even though ―an ―off-the-shelf‖ checklist is likely to need tailoring to suit a particular
context‖ (McGrath, 2002, p.27), for these above advantages, the checklist method is
chosen as the major method to evaluate the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖.
1.2.4.3.

Criteria for textbook evaluation.

When the concern is the evaluation of materials, the selection of the criteria is
quite subjective. Prior studies on checklist evaluation have been carried out broadly with
various focuses (Williams (1983); Hutchinson and Waters (1987); Sheldon (1988);
Cunningsworth (1995); Ansary (2002)). However, the most important thing to consider
when designing or choosing a checklist is the appropriateness of criteria to the evaluative
purpose. In this study, the reason for textbook evaluation is to check its relevance and

suitability to students‘ needs and demands. In other words, the evaluative purpose is to
identify gaps in the textbook ―Let‘s Talk 1‖ and students‘ needs. Therefore among many
checklists available, the author prefers to base on the checklists proposed by Acklam
(1994, see Appendix 2) which emphasizes sufficiency, variety and relevance and the one
created by Richards (2005). Richards (2005) proposes a list of criteria for macro level of
evaluation which concerns three factors namely teachers, learners and tasks. Due to the
focus of this study, the criteria concerning learner factors are presented here. There are
five criteria as following:


The content interests the students



The level is appropriate



The cost is acceptable



It is motivating and challenging



The format is attractive and colorful (Richards, 2005, p.51)


13

Since the nature of the teaching/learning environment may vary from contexts to
contexts, Sheldon (1988) emphasizes, ‗global list of criteria can never apply in most
local environments, without considerable evaluation‘ (p. 242). The researcher then can
base on these criteria to design her questionnaire to evaluate the content of the textbook
―Let‘s talk 1‖.
1.3. Supplementary Materials in Teaching Language Skills
1.3.1. Definition of Supplementary Materials
According to Tomlinson (1998), supplementary materials are such ―materials
designed to be used in addition to the core materials of a course. They are usually related to
the development of skills of reading, writing, listening or speaking rather than to the
learning of language items‖ (p.13). As discussed above, ―textbooks represent the visible
heart of an ELT program‖ (Sheldon, 1988); however, Ansary and Babaii (2002) argue that
―no textbook is perfect; therefore, teachers should have the option of assigning
supplementary materials based on their own specific needs in their own specific teaching
situation‖ (p.6). In line with this idea, Biemer (1992, p.25) claims that teachers must
realize that ―textbook is not the only tool in classroom, it is a tool to be used. It may be the
major tool, but there are other materials that can be used too‖.
The reasons for teachers to use other materials beside textbook have been identify
by McGrath (2002) as follows. Firstly, they wish to bridge the gap or mismatch between
textbook and official syllabus or public examination or students‘ needs. Secondly, teachers
use supplementation because they think that students need to expose a wide range of
textual materials or have more practice of particular kinds, and lastly teachers need to
supplement a coursebook in order to cater for various language competence levels or
different needs of specific individuals in a class. Another reason for using supplementary
materials is raised by Brown (1994, p.152), that is, to promote learners‘ motivation, which
is one of the key factors in learning. Furthermore, Richards (2005) underlines the
importance of supplementary materials by claiming that when a textbook has some
limitations, it should be modified or supplemented to help teachers use them more suitably
and effectively. The researcher agrees with these opinions and also thinks that in the

process of choosing suitable supplementary materials for a language course, the role of
teachers is really significant. Teachers are those who directly use a textbook and directly


14

work with students; accordingly, they are the most likely to recognize different
backgrounds, experience and learning styles that students bring to class, as well as the gap
between the textbook and students‘ needs. This makes the researcher believe that teachers
are only ones who can choose suitable ways to supplement a textbook. The researcher‘s
idea is supported by Williams (1983) saying that ―the textbook can present examples of
common difficulties, but there are problems specific to different language groups which
are left for teachers to deal with‖. Tomlinson (1998) considers supplementing a sub-type of
material adaptation while McGrath (2002) distinguish adaptation and supplementation as
two different ways to bridge the gap of a textbook and a particular teaching and learning
context. Despite this difference, both of them agree one common thing that supplementary
materials are of great importance to maximize learning potentials. In this study, the
researcher prefers the view of Tomlinson.
1.3.2. Forms and Process of Supplementation
Drawing upon the literature on supplementation, discussed in the following
section, the present study seeks to investigate some ways to supplement a course book
and the process of designing supplementary materials. McGrath (2002) suggests two
supplementing ways namely utilizing items from other published materials and devising
teacher‘s own materials. According to McGrath, using materials from another published
source is the most common form of supplementation. This may be because it is easier
and more convenient to borrow something, ―even if some form of minimal adaptation is
involved‖ (p.83). It can be inferred that when some items from published materials are
used to supplement a core book, teachers can follow exactly what has been
professionally prepared or can make a little adaptation to such materials. The research er
believes that in most case, minimal adaptation is necessary to increase the suitability of

supplementary materials for a particular teaching and learning context. The second
supplementation way, using teacher-own designed materials, has its own benefits. In
case that the suitable published supplementary material that is available needs large scale adaptation, preparing their own materials is a better choice for teachers (McGrath,
2002). Moreover, teacher-prepared materials are likely to be more up-to-date and more
relevant to students‘ needs and interests than equivalent coursebook materials since
teacher know their own students well (Block, 1991, cited in McGrath, 2002). Despite


15

these merits of teacher-owned designed materials, the researcher of the present study
prefers supplementation using published materials. This preference lies on the
assumption that ―materials are best prepared by professionals and by publishing houses
which can ensure a high level of production‖ (Sheldon, 1988).
Concerning the process of choosing supplementary materials, McGrath (2002)
classifies two types namely syllabus driven process and concept driven process. The
former states that teachers choose or design suitable supplementary materials after they
have identified what they need to supplement. Furthermore, teachers choose materials
with a particular class or particular group of learners in mind. The latter states that
teachers choose some interesting materials accidentally with the hope that they can use
such materials as supplementation in their future teaching. Unlike syllabus driven
process, in concept driven process, teachers have no class or no learn groups in mind
when choosing materials. In this present study, the researcher follows syllabus driven
process.
In summary, the relevant literature for this small study has been presented. Firstly,
a variety of ideas on materials development have been viewed in order to provide
foundation knowledge to supplement the currently-used textbook ―Let‘s Talk1 ―. Secondly,
definitions and characteristic of speaking skill as well as the process of teaching speaking
skill have been discussed. Furthermore, two most important elements in speaking process,
fluency and accuracy, along with the speaking activities used to develop either fluency or

accuracy are also the concern of the literature review. The following section will devote the
literature on related studies about supplementary materials in order to prove the suitability
of the present study in the research area.
1.4.

Related Studies on Supplementary Materials
Research on supplementary materials has sought to mainly focus on using

authentic materials to supplement a coursebook (Rogers and Medley, 1988; Senior,
2005; Huong Do, 2008), developing supplementary material for reading skills (Thuy Le,
2009; Thuy Pham, 2007; Hoa Dao, 2010). For example, Thuy Pham (2007) does a study
on developing supplementary materials to improve reading skills for the first year
English Majors at Military Science Academy with the aim of bridging the gap between
the textbook ―Cause and Effect‖ and students‘ needs. The findings of the study indicate
the unsuitability of the textbook to the students with regard to their needs, levels,


16

learning styles and learning techniques; and from those findings, the researcher presents
some suggestions on selecting appropriate supplementary materials for students to use in
their self-study with an aim of enhancing students‘ reading ability. In addition, to the
researcher‘s best knowledge, there are two theses outside Vietnamese context studying
on supplementary materials. The first one is ―Brighten your English classroom with
unconventional supplementary materials‖ by Lydie (2007) and the second one entitled
―Adopting supplementary materials to enhance listening and speaking strategy use by
Taiwanese college EFL learners‖ is conducted by Chwo, G. S., Jonas, A., Tsai, C. &
Chuang, C. (2009). The former aims at special population - children with specific
learning disabilities. This thesis raises the important role of supplementar y materials in
increase children‘s motivation and the author from his experience gives a list of

unconventional supplementary materials that can be used to help children with learning
disabilities learn English. According to Lydie (2007), the best practice for Czech
primary school teachers is in the interconnection of textbooks and supplementary
materials. The latter investigates if supplementary materials can be adopted to enhance
college EFL learners‘ listening and speaking strategy use. Unlike Thuy Pham‘s study
(2007) which only stops at giving suggestions on how to choose suitable supplementary
reading materials, this study focuses on finding the effectiveness of using supplementary
materials in real teaching situation. The participants of this study are non-English
majors. This study‘s findings indicate the effectiveness of adopting supplementary
materials to enhance strategy use as well as learning outcome. It is then suggest that in
order to expand students‘ learning capacity, more and diverse materials should be used
to supplement the existing textbook in the listening and speaking course.
In summary, there are studies on development of supplementary materials;
nonetheless, little has been documented concerning the development of supplementary
speaking materials, especially in the context of Vietnam. This study fills this gap by
developing supplementary speaking materials for first year English Majors at Phuong
Dong University who are using the textbook ―Let‘s talk 1‖ in their speaking lessons.
More specifically, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the textbook and then from that
evaluation, the researcher hopes to figure out the mismatch between that textbook and
students‘ needs so that she can suggest ways to choose suitable supplementary materials to
be used in the speaking lessons.


17

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY
This chapter is covered with information about the context, the textbook in use, the
subject under investigation and then the research methods and the instruments are
followed. More importantly, data collection and data analysis procedures are presented.
2.1. Background to the Study

2.1.1. The Study Context
The study is conducted at Phuong Dong University, one of the most famous private
universities in Hanoi. In this university, Department of Foreign Language takes an
important position, especially English Division that has the most numbers of students
yearly enrolling. The strength of English Faculty lies in the teaching staff with 25 teachers
permanently employed. 13 of them have Master Degrees in TESOL or TEFL, five are
studying master courses and 7 already have B.A degrees. Most of them are active,
enthusiastic, and full of inspiration for teaching though they are very busy due to heavy
workload. In English Division, all English Majors have to spend the first two semesters
focusing on learning four language skills and pronunciation, each of which is taught
separately and counts for 2 credits. This means there is one lesson per week during the 15
week course for each language skill. There are only four classes of fresh students and each
one has from 25 to 30 students. In English Division, the teaching facilities are inadequate.
Cassette players are the most popular equipments. There are only two rooms equipped with
projectors and two lab-rooms which are not in good conditions because almost of the
computers are out of date and vulnerable to viruses. Besides, there is only one small library
for the whole Foreign Language Department with some sorts of materials for reference but
not enough to satisfy the demand of students.
2.1.2. The Textbook in Use
For the past five years, the book ―Let‘s talk 1‖ has been used as a core book to
teach speaking skill for first year English majors. The book was written by Leo Jones and
published by Cambridge University Press in 2002. It is an English Language Textbook for
foreign speakers. The book consists of 16 units and 2 review puzzles. Each unit contains
two lessons, each of which includes pair work and group work, listening exercises and
communication tasks. At the end of the book, from page 114 to 121, there are grammar