A STUDY ON HOW TO TEACH SPEAKING COMMUNICATIVELY TO GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT TRAN PHU HIGH SCHOOL

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Foreign language teaching (FLT) at the secondary school level in Vietnam has
been granted increasing supports from educational authorities, regarding the demand of
Vietnamese young population for better means of communication with the world. The
most important issue in this field, which has presented various complicated problems for
generations of foreign language teachers in Vietnam as well as anywhere in the world, is
the adoption of an appropriate language teaching method.
Having been aware of this necessity, TP high school as well as others in Ha Noi has
paid considerable attention to update teaching methodologies, which can be seen from the
year 2003 to date. TP high school has been chosen to teach a pilot set of text-books then. In
accordance with the new materials, teaching methods should also be changed. The most
effective approaches which have been applied at high schools are learner-centred instruction,
tasked-based language teaching and communicative language teaching. Of which, the last
approach is the main topic we would like to spend time researching on in this field, with its
application to teaching and studying speaking skill.
There are sound reasons for me to take the application of CLT to speaking teaching into
consideration, rather than others. First of all, for some time, English teaching in Vietnam
has been strongly influenced by the traditional methods. Emphasis has been placed on
the mastery of language structures rather than on how language is used. Teachers as
well as students are used to concentrating on grammatical items. Students are asked to
translate or analyze the text grammatically. Teachers usually spend most of the time in
class explaining the form of the language to students who were passive listeners. The
result of this kind of teaching and learning, of course, has been far from satisfactory.
That means that students might be structurally competent but communicatively
incompetent. They have encountered a lot of problems when dealing with English in real
life. For example, they find it difficult to understand and use English intonation to
express surprise, admiration, or doubt. They are also not sure how to address people
properly in different situations. Second, recent political and economic developments in
Vietnam have stimulated the learners’ interest in learning English for communication.
So the need for communication in English has changed from an emphasis on teaching

grammar to an emphasis on teaching communication. Speaking skill nowadays plays a
much more important role in modem English than ever before. Last but not least, the

1


new Tiếng Anh 10 textbook has just been applied widely. It has 16 units with interesting
topics. Every unit consists of 5 lessons: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and a
Language Focus one. This book was designed with various learning tasks, the purpose of
which is to set up communicative situations for students to practise English language.
Furthermore, the book focuses on learners’ communicative competence without ignoring
learners’ linguistic competence. It is also accompanied with a great number of team work and
group work activities to develop students’ communicative competence. And students have
chances to listen to both native and non-native English speakers from the tapes/ CDs
accompanied with the books.
For all the above mentioned reasons, I would like to devote my time and effort to
investigating the current speaking teaching and learning situation at TP high school
including teaching methods, difficulties faced by the teachers and students, facility… then
finding out how CLT is applied to teaching speaking there. Especially, the study will
recommend suitable and specific communication activities for grade 10 students’ at TP
high school – Hanoi to improve their speaking skill.
2. The Scope, Objectives, Significance, Methods and Design of the Study
2.1. The Scope of the Study
The study focuses on how to teach speaking communicatively to grade 10 students at Tran
Phu High school.
2.2 Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the study are as follows:


To investigate the difficulties of teaching and learning speaking faced by the teachers

and students; the teachers’ solutions to these difficulties; and the students’ expectations.



To investigate how CLT is applied to teach speaking to grade 10 students at TP high
school in order to improve their speaking skill



To suggest some realistic and appropriate class teaching techniques and communicative
activities with a view to help teachers enhance their learners in speaking skill
2.3. Significance of the Study
This study plays a crucial role for enhancing teaching method of speaking to grade 10

students at TP high school. Its implemented recommendations will make the application of
CLT at my school successful and effective.
2.4 Methods of the Study
The researcher collects information from all the teachers of English who teach at TP high

2


school. First, questionnaires are delivered to the teachers to investigate difficulties in
speaking that they face and solutions that should be implemented. Questionnaires are
also delivered to the students to find out the students’ attitudes to speaking learning,
difficulties confronted and solutions suggested by them. Then interviews are carried out to
implemented to increase the reliability of the obtained information and

provide more

information relating to the teachers’ method of teaching speaking. The combination of
information from interviews for teachers and questionnaires for both teachers and students
can help to draw a general picture about the application of CLT in teaching
speaking to non- grade 10 students at TP High school.
2.5. Design of the Study
The thesis consists of three parts.
Part A is the introduction, which presents the rationales, the scope, the objectives,
the method, significance and the design of the study.
Part B consists of three chapters:
Chapter I deals with a historical overview of the literature. It starts with the methods and
approaches used in teaching foreign languages including the grammar-translation, the
audio-lingual and the CLT. The next is about using CLT in teaching speaking is dealt
with, including many issues such as problems with speaking and speaking activities,
principles for speaking techniques, speaking and communication activities, stages of a CLT
speaking lesson. The final is the review of some previous studies related to applying
CLT.
Chapter II presents the methodology performed in the study. It provides information
about the participants, the instrumentation and data analysis.
Chapter III discusses the data of the study and proposes some recommendations for applying
CLT in teaching speaking to grade 10 students at TP high school.
Part C is about the conclusion and suggestions for a further study

3


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
I..1. Approaches of language teaching
I. 1. 1. The Grammar-Translation Method
The grammar- translation method is rooted in the formal teaching of Latin and Greek. It

was the dominant method until the end of the 19 th century and has continued to be used in one
form or another until the present day. But it has long been “out of fashion”. According to
Richards and Rodgers (1986:3), the principle characteristics of this method are as follows:
Grammar-Translation is a way of studying through detailed analysis of its grammar rules
and translations of sentences and texts into or out of the target language; reading and
writing are the major focus; little or no systematic attention is paid to listening, and
speaking; vocabulary is taught through bilingual word lists, dictionary study, and
memorization; the sentence is the basic unit of teaching and practicing the language;
accuracy is emphasized; grammar is taught deductively; the students' mother tongue is the
medium of instruction.
The Grammar-Translation method requires few resources and so it is easy to apply and
cheap to administer. And the method is still used in many classroom situations where the
class is large, and where there are a lack of teaching and learning facilities and equipment,
and where teachers can use Vietnamese to give instructions.
The Grammar-Translation method concerns itself primarily with the written language
of classical literature and ignores authentic spoken communication and the social variation of
language. River (1981: 31) comments this method as follows: "There is much stress on
knowing rules and exceptions" and "little stress is laid on accurate pronunciation and
information; communication is neglected". That is to say, over-emphasis on rules and neglect
of communicative skills are seen as the main defects of the method. Consequently, students
learn rules of grammar and vocabulary without much feeling of progress in the mastery of the
target language, which cannot motivate them to learn of the target language because they have
little opportunity to express themselves through it. They just learn what they have to learn
without any creativeness. The method creates frustration for students, for whom foreign
language learning is a tedious experience of memorization of new words and grammatical
rules, while it makes few demands on teachers. (Richards and Rodgers, 1986:4).
I .1.2. Th e Au d io-lin gu al meth od
The Audio-lingual Method emanated in America during World War II where there
was a need for people to learn foreign languages quickly for military purposes. Rivers

4


(1964: 19) summarizes the principles of this method as follows: Foreign language
learning is a process of mechanical habit formation. Good habits are formed by giving
correct responses rather than making mistakes; language skills are learned more
effectively if the spoken form is learned before the written form; analogy provides a
better foundation for language teaming than analysis. Drills can enable learners to form
correct analogies.
The first and the most successful point of this method is to develop students'
listening comprehension and fluency in speaking in the target language. Students are
encouraged by the sense of being able to use what they have learned very early.
The success or failure of this method depends largely on the qualities of the teachers
and the availability of resources. The teacher must be a fluent speaker as most of his/her
work is done orally in the target language. Furthermore, (s)he must be very resourceful
when presenting the lesson, that is to say, (s)he must vary his/her techniques to make
learning more interesting and meaningful, otherwise, students might be bored with
mechanical repetition or be "well-trained parrots" as commented on by Rivers (1981: 47)
and "the objective is generally the mastery of sentence patterns rather than creative or
communicative use of language" (Brumfit, 1983:8). In addition, native-speaker-like
pronunciation is sought and the use of the students’ native language is forbidden,
which seems to be impossible to most Vietnamese students especially to secondary
school ones.
I.1.3. Communicative Language Teaching method
In CLT, meaning is paramount. Wilkins (1972) classifies meaning into notional and
functional categories and views learning an SL as acquiring the linguistic means to
perform different kinds of functions. According to Larsen-Freeman(1986:132), the
most obvious characteristic of CLT is that " Almost everything that is done is done with
communicative intent". Students use the language through communicative activities (e.g.
games, role-plays. and problem-solving tasks).

According to Morrow (in Johnson and Morrow, 1981), activities that are truly
communicative have three features: information gap, choice, and feedback. An information
gap occurs when one person exchanges the information he has with the one who does not.
Another characteristic of CLT is the introduction of authentic material. In CLT, it is
considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to genuine communicative needs in
realistic L2 situations so that they develop strategies for understanding language as
actually used by native speakers (Canale & Swain, 1980)

5


Also, "activities in the Communicative Approach are often carried out by students
in small group" (Larsen-Freeman, 1986; 132). Students are expected to interact with
one another, either through pair and group work or in their writings (Finocchiaro &
Brumfit, 1983). CLT favors interaction among small numbers of students in order to
maximize the time each student has to learn to negotiate meaning. Teachers therefore
select learning activities according to how well they engage the students in meaningful
and authentic language use rather than in the merely mechanical practice of language
patterns.
Another dimension of CLT is "its learner-centered and experience-based view of'
second language teaching" (Richards &Rodgers, 1986; 69). According to CLT
theory, individual learners possess unique interests. styles, needs, and goals that -should
be reflected in the design of instructional methods (Savignon, 1983). Teachers are to
develop materials based on the demonstrated needs of a particular class. Students must be
made to feel secure, unthreatened, and non-defensive in a CLT classroom, so teachers
using CLT should avoid adopting a teacher-centred, authoritarian posture (Taylor, 1983)
Thus, Li (1989: 967) summaries the characteristics of CLT in 6 categories as
follows:
1. a focus on communicative functions.
2. a focus on meaningful tasks rather than on language form

3. efforts to make tasks and language relevant to a target group of learners through an
analysis of genuine, realistic situations.
4. the use of authentic, from life materials
5. the use of group activities
6. the attempt to create a secure, non-threatening atmosphere.
CLT focuses on meaningful tasks rather than on language form, which helps heighten
learners’ motivation in learning a language because they do not often concentrate their
mind on the sterile forms or grammatical items of the target language. One more fact is
that in CLT, the use of a variety of different kinds of tasks is said to make teaching and
learning more communicative since it provides a purpose for its own sake.
Efforts to make tasks and language relevant to a target group of learners through an
analysis of genuine, realistic situations are another advantage of CLT because learners
can find the tasks and language relevant to them, appropriate to their needs.
Apart from an analysis of genuine, realistic situations, tasks and language can be
made relevant to learners through the use of authentic, from-life materials, Authentic

6


materials help create opportunities for learners to be exposed to "real" language, the
language that is natural and popularly used by the society. The degree of learners'
exposure to real language can be said to positively influence their understanding of the
language being communicated in real life, thus enhance their acquisition and appropriate
production of the language.
CLT favors interaction among small numbers of learners with a purpose to
maximize the time each learner learns and uses language, shares information and
negotiate meaning. Through interaction learners' learning experience can be modified,
many kinds of learning strategies made aware and applied, and especially classrooms
move away from teacher-centredness to learner-centredness, which is an essential
element to raise learners’ motivation in language learning. Group work, either in its

simplest form (pair work) or in group of three or more, can promote learners'
responsibility and self-governing. One more important advantage of group work has the
relationship with learners psychological factors: group work lessens learners' anxiety.
The last but not least strong point of CLT is that teachers are often aware of attempting
to create a secure, non-threatening atmosphere. Many researchers and pedagogist consider
this attempt to be the first and most important work for teachers to do in CLT classes.
Traditional learning styles of listening and writing down as well as unfamiliarity with
communicative activities can make learners anxious or even ashamed of speaking with other
classmates. Learners may also be afraid that "other classmates will think or comment about
their ability" (Bock, 2000:25).
Beside the good points of CLT, it can cause some difficulties to teachers. According
to Bock’s study (2000, page 24-30) provides 3 groups of difficulties: difficulties from
students, difficulties from educational system and difficulties from teachers.
Concerning difficulties from students, Bock states 4 specific problems:
+ Students lack motivation for communicative competence because they seem to be
over-concerned with passing exams which rarely test for communicative competence.
+ Students show resistance to class participation and the reasons may come from
their anxiety, laziness and unfamiliarity with communicative lessons.
+ Students use Vietnamese during group work and the sources of the difficulty are
also anxiety and unfamiliarity with CLT.
+ Students are of low English proficiency.
With regard to difficulties from educational system, Bock cites 3 specific factors:
+ Conducive facilities are inadequate (desks, chalkboards, missing lightbulbs…)

7


+ Class sizes are large ( more than 40 students).
+ Classes are of multi-levels
As to the difficulties from teachers, Bock mentions 2 main problems:

+ Teachers feel inadequate because they lack training in CLT and experience in
implementing CLT.
+ Teachers find it unable to assess communicative competence because they are
not given methods to assess communicative competence.
I.1.5. Conclusion
It is undeniable that the current trend of learning English for communication is
popular. Of the above mentioned teaching methods, CLT is the most appropriate way
to teach students to communicate. The grammar-translation method focuses on
grammar, reading and writing, little or no systematic attention is paid to listening and
speaking, and learners’ aim is to master the language not to use the language. As a
result, students cannot be able to communicate. The audio-lingual method has some
characteristics which are difficult for students in Vietnam to follow for example:
Native-speaker-like pronunciation is sought, translation is forbidden at early levels,
the use of the student’s native language is forbidden… While, CLT stresses on
communicative functions and increases students’ ability of using language and its
characteristics are applicable.
My minor thesis is about how to teach speaking communicatively. In terms of
speaking skill, CLT is the most suitable method which should be applied because of its
characteristics. Moreover, CLT is considered the current dominant methodology and
one of the most effective approaches to teach learners to speak in second language.
All the mentioned reasons explain why I have decided to choose CLT not any other
method to teach speaking.
I.2. Using CLT and teaching speaking.
I.2.1. Problems with speaking and speaking activities.
I.2.1.1. Problems with speaking.
Brown (1994:256) points out the characteristics of spoken language that can make
oral performance difficult as follows:
• Clusterings: In order to speak fluently, speakers have to select from their store of
language clusterings, that is groups of words, not word by word.
•

Reduced forms: Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels, etc create difficulties in

teaching and learning spoken English. If learners do not learn colloquial contractions,

8


they can develop the kind of speaking that is stilted, bookish.
•

Colloquial language: Colloquialism appears both in monologues and dialogues. If

learners are only exposed to standard English and/or "textbook" language, they sometimes
find it difficult to understand and produce words, idioms and phrases of colloquial
language.
 Stress, rhythm and intonation: Learners of English often find it difficult to pronounce
English words, to stress the right syllables, to follow the stress-timed rhythm and
intonation patterns of spoken English.


Affective factors: Learners learning to speak often encounter the risk of saying out
things that may be wrong, stupid and incomprehensible. At those times, they tend to
be anxious because they do not want to be judged by other learners.



Interaction The greatest difficulty that learners face in learning to speak originates
from the interactive nature of most communication. Engaged in process of negotiation
of meaning with many discourse constraints, learners have to do the complex task of

choosing what to say, how to say, when to speak, etc.

I.2.1.2. Problems with speaking activities.
Classroom activities that develop learners' ability to express themselves through speech
is an important component of a language course where CLT is applied. However, it is
more difficult to design and administer such activities than to do so for listening, reading
or writing . Teachers often come across the problems that Ur (1996:121) lists out:


Inhibition

Unlike reading, writing and listening activities, speaking requires some degree of real
time exposure to an audience. Learners are often inhibited about trying to say something
in a foreign language in the classroom because they are worried about making mistakes,
fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts.


Nothing to say

Teachers often hear learners complain that they cannot think of anything to say.
They may have no motive to express themselves beyond the guilty feeling that they
should be speaking.
•

Uneven or low participation:

Only one participant can talk at a time if he or she is to be heard. In a large group,
this means that each one has only very little time for talking. This problem is
compounded by the tendency of some learners to dominate the group, while others speak
very little or not at all.

9


• Mother-tongue use:
When all, or a number of the learners share the same mother tongue, they may tend to
use it. This happens because it is easier, because it feels unnatural to speak to one
another in a foreign language and because learners feel less "exposed" if they are
speaking their mother tongue. If they are talking in a small group, it can be quite
difficult to get some classes, particularly the less disciplined or motivated ones, to keep
to the target language.
Overcoming the above-mentioned problems to create a successful speaking activity
where learners talk a lot, participation is even, motivation is high certainly requires a lot
of teachers' efforts in designing and carrying out speaking activities.
I.2.1.3. Principles for speaking techniques.
Speaking techniques, if designed appropriately, give more opportunities for
learners to speak accurately and fluently. However, designing an effective speaking
technique requires experience and laborious work. Brown (1994) suggests principles for
designing speaking techniques that teachers can base themselves on to have a thorough
and profound understanding of teaching speaking. His principles are as follows:
+ Techniques should cover learners' needs, from focus on accuracy to focus on
interaction, meaning and fluency:
In teachers' effort to teach communicatively, they sometimes stress content-based
interactive activities and ignore grammatical pointers or pronunciation. Teachers should make
sure that classroom tasks include techniques to help learners to perceive and use the building
blocks of language. However, teachers should make drillings as meaningful as possible
and avoid boring learners with lifeless, repetitious drillings.
+Techniques should be intrinsically motivating:
Teachers should try to appeal to learners' ultimate goals and interests, to their
need for knowledge , for status. Teachers should also help learners see how activities

benefit them by telling them why teachers organize those activities.
+Techniques should encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts:
As mentioned in CLT characteristics of meaningful tasks and authentic materials,
the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts can help learners acquire language
necessary for future use and also help motivate learners.
+Provide appropriate feedback and correction:
In most EFL situations, learners are totally dependent on teachers for useful
linguistic feedback. It is important that teachers take advantage of their knowledge of

10


English to produce the kinds of corrective feedback that are appropriate at the moment.
+Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening:
Teachers should integrate these two skills because many interactive techniques that
involve speaking also include listening and these two skills can reinforce each other.
Skills in producing language is often initiated through comprehension.
+ Give learners opportunities to initiate oral communication:
Teachers should allow learners to initiate language because parts of oral
communication competence is the ability to initiate conversation, to nominate topics ,
to ask questions, to control conversations and to change the subject.
+ Encourage the development of speaking strategies:
Teachers should make the classroom the place for learners to be aware of and
have a chance to practise their personal strategies for accomplishing oral
communicative purposes.
I.2.1.4. Speaking activities.
Many researchers discuss classroom activities and a lot of activities are designed
based on the theory and characteristics of CLT.
Richards -and Rodgers (1986:165) discuss that the range of exercise types and
activities with a communicative approach is unlimited, provided that such exercises and

activities enable learners to attain the communicative objectives of the curriculum,
engage learners in communication and require the use of such communicative processes
as information sharing, negotiation of meaning, and interaction.
I.2.1.4.1. Controlled communication activities for meaning and fluency.
Klippel (1984), Doff (1988) and Harmer (1998) plan out a lot of communicative
activities and games which can help learners achieve some degree of communicative
efficiency competence.
Most popular controlled communicative ones are :
+ guessing games
+ describing and drawing games,
+ discussion games with materials, pieces or slips of paper with provided
information, stories, advertisements, and so on .
+ ranking Exercises
+ Story telling (Give students a cartoon or set of pictures which shows a story
or sequence of events. Have the student tell the story.)
+ information Gaps.

11


+ Picture Description (Provide an interesting picture for the class or each group
of students and ask them questions about it.)
+ Chain recording (Begin a story and ask the students, one at a time, to add
creatively to it. Record what each says on cassette tape.)
+ Strip stories
+ Interviews
+ Mime Stories
I.2.1.4.2. Free communication activities for meaning and fluency.
+Role-play
Pattison (1987:63) considers that most communication practices in the average

foreign language classroom involve an element of role-play because the speakers
pretend that the foreign language is their only means of communication. In his
definition, role-play may involve assuming a partly or wholly different persona, and/or
pretending to be in a different situation.
It cannot be denied that role-play is useful for enhancing learners' speaking skills.
The question is how to manage this valuable activity appropriately and successfully.
+ Discussion activities
Discussion activities help learners practise what they have learnt, find ways to
achieve objectives such as solving a problem, ranking objects, procedures, and so on.
Through discussion, learners can also develop conversational skills such as how to take
turns, to change the topic of conversion, to interrupt someone politely and so on.
Discussion in small groups also have some of the advantages as it does in role-play
activities such as putting shy learners to ease to feel like speaking , giving more
opportunities for learners to speak, making learners more aware of their responsibility to
the group success.
In general, teachers should emphasize the importance of organizing activities.
Factors such as learners' interest, maturity and experience of learning and life should be
paid enough attention to.
In summary, the activities presented in this section do not cover all the activities that
teachers apply in the classroom. However, communicative games, role-plays and discussions
can be exploited to cover other speaking activities such as interviewing, talking about
yourself, problem-solving tasks so on.
I.3. Stages of a CLT speaking lesson
According to Methodology course 1- Teaching The Skills (Hanoi 2002) Page 42-43, a

12


CLT speaking lesson should have three stages: pre, while and post.
The Pre-speaking stage

This stage prepares students by getting them to think about the topic or situation before
they speak about it. Pre-speaking tasks can be brainstorming or discussion tasks, where students
collect all their ideas on the topic; vocabulary preparation tasks, where the teacher pre-teaches
key vocabulary to help students express their ideas more easily or train students with
pronunciation drill so that they can speak English in good stress and intonation and this will
help them speak out their ideas in English easily and fluently. In this stage, the teacher will have
to set up a pre task, organize pair/group work and give clear instructions about the task.
The while-speaking stage
At this stage the teacher lets students work with each other without interfering with
correcting any mistakes in order not to stop students from being influent. She/ he just gives
assistance when/if necessary. At the while-speaking stage, the teacher doesn’t have to do a lot
of teaching – because his/her students will be working on the while-task by themselves,
individually or in groups. In stead, the teacher will have to do a lot of monitoring and assisting
weaker students who are having difficulty completing the task.
The post-speaking stage
The post-speaking stage is like the follow-up stage. After students have practised
speaking skill in the while-speaking stage, they do an extension speaking activity. This helps
students take the information from other groups or whatever they have produced in the whilespeaking stage, and do something meaningful with it. At this stage, the teacher gets students
to report their work and let the whole class share what they have got from pair/group work.
The teacher might give feed back, correct serious mistakes here and give students marks.
I.4. Previous studies related to applying CLT
Many research works and studies on the application of CLT to teaching English.
In Vietnam, many research works On CLT such as “Might CLT successfully applicable
in Vietnam, especially in the English department” carried out by To Thu Huong, Hoang
Xuan Hoa and Tran Hien Lan (2005), “D¹y bèn kÜ năng theo đờng hớng giao tiếp
implemented by Tran Hien Lan or Bock’study (2000).
Basing on the previous research works, my research intends to investigate what
difficulties the teachers and students at TP high school have in teaching speaking skill, how
CLT is applied to teaching speaking, and then suggest possible speaking techniques and
activities to help students improve their speaking skill.

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

13


II.1. The English teaching and learning situations at TP high school
II.1.1. Description of the students at TP high school
The majority of high school students in Hanoi enjoy an education in which English
has been a compulsory subject since they were lower-secondary 1 st grade. This means by the
time they go to high school, they have at least 5 or more years of experience in English.
The level of English for grade 10 students is targeted at pre-intermediate level though a
few actually reach the standard. As their lower-secondary years were spent with the old text
books and the grammar translation method, most students are, to some extent, good at
grammar, but bad at listening and speaking the target language. They can do written
exercises on English grammar accurately but they can hardly communicate in English.
Using English to communicate is a big challenge for most of them who think that
learning a foreign language means learning grammatical rules or a list of irregular
verbs. As a result, they either keep silence all the time or do not participate in the
speaking activities.
However students at TP high school have a better learning ability than those from
many other schools, which is justified by passing the entrance test with the high marks
required for admission of the school.
II.1.2. Description of the teachers at TP high school
The teachers are the most important factors in the process of teaching and learning a target
language. To carry out this process properly, the teachers need to have good experience of
teaching and understanding of the syllabus. At TP high school, there are 12 teachers of
English but only one of them has ever been to an English speaking country. Three of them
have been trained in the in-service training courses. They used to be the teachers of Russian
so they have certain limitations in terms of communicative competence in the target language.
Methodologically, the teachers at TP high school are familiar with traditional language

teaching. However, most of them have a great desire to acquire knowledge of the
communicative competence and claim to apply it to their teaching of English.
II.1.3. Settings of the study
"Setting" refers to the classroom arrangements specified or implied in the task of the
lesson, and it also requires consideration of whether the task is to be carried out wholly or
partly outside the classroom (see Dung, 1999). But at TP high school, instructions, learning
and teaching activities are mostly carried out in the classroom. Most of the lessons are
developed in such a fixed condition that the teachers find it difficult to make a change in

14


applying new ideas to language teaching.
- The class size: There are 45 students in each class. It is not easy to carry out a
communicative task in a mixed-ability and large class. The focus on creating a
communicative environment also means that there is a lot of unavoidable noise in the
classroom. Though this noise is claimed to be positive and necessary for a communicative
classroom, it affects the learning of next-door classes.
- The school has one language lab with one overhead projector, one LCD projector, one
lap top , 40 computers, one television and one video and 6 cassette recorders for 12 teachers,
but the teachers hardly use them as teaching aids except cassette recorders because of two
reasons: First, these teaching aids are not enough if many classes are in need. Second, most of
the teachers are not used to using and exploiting modern teaching visual aids such as LCD
projectors, lap top or computers …
- Materials: Materials for reference and self-study are not available. There is a library at
the school but there are not many English books for reference. Most of the books here are for
students only. English newspapers and magazines, which are good sources of current target
language, are not available.
- All of the classrooms are designed for lecture lessons. It means that the seats are
arranged orderly in front of the teacher in rows and a classroom equipment is just a

chalkboard and a cassette recorder.
II.2. Research methodology
II.2.1. Subjects
Two questionnaires were designed for 12 teachers and 100 students of grade 10 from 5
classes (10A2, 10A3, 10A4, 10 B2 and 10 B3) at TP high school to get information to fulfill
the aims of the study. Of 12 teachers, 2 have a master degree, 7 graduated from College for
teachers of foreign languages and the rest graduated from in-service courses. They are aged
from 33 to 52. Their experience of teaching English is from 8 years to 28 years. Of 225 grade
10 students from 5 normal classes, 100 were randomly selected to answer the questionnaire.
Apart from the two questionnaires, interviews for 6 teachers were also carried out.
The questionnaire for 12 teachers aimed at collecting information about their age, their
experience of teaching English, and their awareness of CLT. Besides, the questionnaire is also
aimed at investigating the teachers’ techniques of speaking, their difficulties in teaching
English communicatively, and their solutions to the difficulties.
The questionnaire for 100 grade 10 students tends to survey on the students’ experience
of learning English before entering TP high school, their attitude to learning English in

15


general and speaking in particular, the students’ need for extra speaking activities in class and
the communicative activities they are often involved in. More importantly, the questionnaire
will discover the problems the students have coped with when they learn speaking skill and
their own suggestions for better speaking learning and teaching.
Interviews for 4 teachers will be implemented to increase the reliability of the obtained
information and

provide more information relating to the teachers’ method of teaching

speaking.

II.2.2. Survey Instruments
II.2.2.1. Questionnaire for the students
The questionnaire for students includes 9 questions written in Vietnamese. It took 2
weeks to deliver and collect 100 copies of the questionnaire (see appendix A).
The questionnaire are about
-

The students’ experience in learning English (Questions 1,2)

-

The students’ attitude to learning speaking English (Questions 3, 4, 5)

-

The students’ evaluation of an English speaking lesson (Questions 6)

-

The students’ difficulties in learning speaking (Questions 7)

-

The students’ need for extra speaking activities in class (Questions 8)

-

Speaking activities done by the students in class (Questions 9)

-

The students’ suggestions for better speaking teaching and learning (Questions 10)
II.2.2.2. Questionnaire for the teachers
The questionnaire for the teachers consists of 13 questions to collect information focusing

on the following categories: (see appendix B).
- Their teaching experience (Questions 1, 2)
- Teachers’ opinions on CLT (Questions 3,4)
- Difficulties confronted by the teachers in their teaching of English at TP high school.
(Question 5)
- Current speaking techniques applied to teaching speaking skill (Question 6, 7,8,9, 10,11)
- Communicative activities applied by the teacher in a speaking lesson (Question 12)
- Their suggestions for better speaking teaching. (Question 13)
The 12 copies of the questionnaire delivered to the teachers within 2 weeks have been all
responded.
II.2.2.3. the interview
Along with the survey questionnaires, the interview is a supplementary instrument which
is used to increase the reliability of the obtained information and provide more information

16


relating to the teachers’ method of teaching speaking. Of 12 teachers, 4 were selected: 2 are the
best teachers and the rest are the least able teachers. The 2 best teachers and the 2 least able
ones will be interviewed to find the gap of knowledge and ability between them and then
understand the real situation of teaching speaking skill at TP high school.
II. 3. Presentation of statistical results
II.3.1. Questionnaire
II.3.1 1. Questionnaire for the students
The 100 copies of the questionnaire delivered to the students have been responded. The

data are analyzed in this part of the study in the following tables which show sequences of the
responses for the questions available in the questionnaire.
II.3.1. 1.1. The students’ background of foreign languages before entering TP high
school.
Categories
%
Students learned English
92%
Students learned French
8%
Students have learned English for 7 years
85%
Students have learned English for 4 years
15%
Students have never spoken English to foreigners
73%
Students sometimes speak English to foreigners
22%
Students usually speak English to foreigners
8%
Table 1: Students’ background of foreign languages before entering TP high
school.
Question 1 relates to the students’ background of English before their study at TP high
school. The results are presented as follows:
As can be seen in the above table, most of the students had learned English before they
entered TP high school accounting for 92% while only 8% of the students had learned French.
Normally, when students are in grade 10, they have already studied English for 7 years.
Therefore 85% of the students have been learning English for 7 years, 15% for 4 years Most
Vietnamese students find it quite difficult to communicate with foreigners in English. That is
the reason why 73% of the students have never spoken English to foreigners, 22% sometimes

speak English to foreigners and only 8% usually do.
II.3.1.1.2. The students’ attitude to English learning and speaking skill
Questions 3, 4, 5 deal with the students’ attitude to learning English in general and
speaking skill in particular. The following table shows the results.
Students’ attitude to English learning and speaking skill
Learning English does not benefit them, it is just a compulsory subject.

17

%
21%


Learning English at least helps them to get good marks in the exams.
60%
Learning English enables them to read books, newspapers… and listen to 53%
music in English.
Learning English enables them to communicate with foreigners
34%
Learning English enables them to broaden their knowledge about the 30%
world around.
Learning English creates opportunities to go abroad for study.
45%
Of the 4 English skills, speaking is the most difficult
42%
Speaking skill is quite difficult.
49%
Speaking skill is normal.
6%
Speaking skill is not difficult.

3%
Speaking skill is very important to them
8%
Speaking skill is a bit important to them
13%
Speaking skill is normal to them
64%
Speaking skill is not important to them at all.
15%
Table 2: Students’ attitude to learning English in general and speaking skill in particular
According to the statistics of table 2, 60% of the students asked learn English to get good
marks in the exams. 53% of the students learn English to listen to music. About 32% of the
students consider English as a means of communication with foreigners and nearly the same
percentage of the students (30%) want to broaden their knowledge of the world around through
English. 45% of the students are trying to learn English to have opportunities to go abroad for
study. 21% find English unprofitable and a compulsory subject at school only.
Of 4 English skills, speaking is the most difficult for 42 % of the students. 49 % think that
speaking skill is quite difficult. A few students find it easy to learn speaking skill; 6 % agree
that speaking skill is normal and only 3% believe that speaking skill is not difficult.
Although speaking skill is quite difficult for these students, its importance is not taken into
consideration. When 64% of the students asked said that speaking skill was normal to them
while only 8% found the importance of it and 13% thought that speaking skill was a bit
important to them. Of the 100 participants, 15 students don’t like speaking English so it is not
important to them at all.
II.3.1.1.3. The students’ evaluation of their English speaking lessons
Question 4 helps to find out the students’ evaluation of their English speaking lessons.
57/100 students find that their English speaking lessons are normal (nothing special). It
means that their teachers have not prepared carefully enough or paid much attention to the
speaking lessons. Even, 24% of the students are not interested in English speaking lessons
because they are boring and sleepy. However, 19/100 students enjoy English speaking lessons

because they like all the speaking activities provided by their teachers. More importantly, they
can follow and understand the speaking activities.
II.3.1.1.4. The students’ difficulties in learning speaking

18


Question 6 is about the difficulties faced by the students in learning speaking.
The difficulties faced by the students
I get embarrassed if people laugh at me when I make mistakes in speaking
I don’t have enough vocabulary, ideas, and knowledge relating to the
speaking topic.
I lack time for speaking preparation.
There are too many students in a class
I am not used to speaking out my ideas.
I find it difficult to express my opinions in English.
My teacher’s instructions and explanation for speaking tasks are not clear
enough.
The class is noisy so I can’t hear everything clearly.
The teacher seldom uses visual teaching aids to teach speaking.
Other difficulties
Table 3: The students’ difficulties in learning speaking

%
75%
81%
75%
43%
51%
81%

57%
23%
76%

The data in table 3 show that the most serious problem to the students is lack of
vocabulary, ideas, and knowledge relating to the speaking topic (81% of the students have this
problem). 75% of the students asked said that they were afraid of making mistakes when
speaking English. 51% are not used to speaking in front of many people. Speaking skill is
quite difficult to most of the students but 75% do not have enough time to prepare for speaking
activities. The noisy class causes difficulty to 23% of the students. Sometimes the students’
difficulties come from the teachers. 76% said that their teachers seldom used teaching aids in
teaching speaking. Besides, 57% complained that the teachers’ instructions and explanation for
speaking tasks were not clear enough to them.
II.3.1.1.5. The students’ need for extra speaking activities in class
When asked about the need for extra speaking activities in class, 68 % of the students
want to take part in various speaking activities frequently to improve their speaking skill. They
point out that apart from the tasks in the textbook, more other tasks should be designed for
students to practise and to make speaking lessons more effective and interesting. The teacher
has to help his/her students finish all the things required or things she/he found not suitable for
the students so 21% of the students believe that sometimes extra speaking activities are
needed. Even 11% of the students think that tasks in the textbook are enough for them. In their
opinion, these tasks are various and quite difficult so they do not have enough time to do other
supplementary ones.
II.3.1.1.6. Speaking activities done by the students in class
Speaking activities done by the students in class
Role play
Repetition

19

%
40%
100%


Structure-based activities
100%
Question-and answer exchanges
100%
Discussing in pairs and groups
60%
Picture description
20%
Strip stories
20%
Problem solving
40%
Topic-based discussion
20%
Free talks
20%
Round-table discussion
0%
Completing dialogues
80%
Ordering / Rearrangement
20%
Interview
20%
Games/ songs

20%
Mime stories
0%
Information gap
20%
Other speaking activities
Table 4: Speaking activities done by the students in class
The data in table 4 show us some information about speaking activities and techniques
used at TP high school. The speaking activities which are done by 100% of the students, are
repetition, structure-based activities, question-and answer exchanges. 80% practise completing
dialogues in speaking lessons. These activities are easy for teachers to prepare and easy
enough for students to do. Discussing in pairs and groups are approved by 60%, problem
solving and role-play by 40%. Some communicative speaking activities such as picture
description, information gap, interview, topic-based discussion, strip stories, free talks and
games/ songs used by teachers made up 20%. Mime stories and round-table discussion are
never used.
II.3.1.1.7. The students’ suggestions for better speaking teaching and learning
Question 9 is to ask the students for their suggestions for better speaking teaching and
learning. The results are presented as follows
The statistics point out that to improve and encourage the students to speak English, the
teachers should provide them with more speaking opportunities in class and enough visual aids
for speaking activities are necessary to make speaking lessons more interesting and effective
(suggested by 90/100 informants). Taking part in communicative speaking activities regularly
and enthusiastically help them improve their speaking skill. That is why 85% expect their
teachers to vary and provide them with suitable communicative speaking activities. In addition
to suitable communicative speaking activities, teachers’ methods are very important. 82% of
the students want their teachers to apply suitable teaching methods to their language level.
About the teaching methods, 60% said teaching materials should be suitable for their language
level and 62% believed that teaching syllabus should be reasonable. Although the students

20