How to enhance speaking skills to students in grade 10th at thai phien high school in hai phong

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1. Rationale of the study
As a consequence of the “open door” policy, which have been in effect since 1987, in
Vietnam, the study of English has been booming. English is seen as a means of access to
scientific and technological development, as the language for international communication,
and as an instrument for receiving grants and aid. For young people, English is an effective
tool for further study as well as better job opportunities. English has therefore, been most
widely taught from primary schools to universities in both private enterprises and state
offices. It is offered as a compulsory subject in the curriculum as well as the national
secondary and high school examinations.
Nowadays, of all the language teaching approaches, it has been proved that the
communicative language teaching has its predominant role. This predominance over other
approaches to language teaching has led to the increasingly important role of teaching
speaking skills. Moreover, since Vietnam entered WTO, there has been a growing
awareness of the importance of and need for spoken English. However, teaching and
learning speaking skills to students in Vietnamese classrooms is at present still a matter of
much concern by language teachers due to current teaching materials, characteristics of
learners as well as teachers’ proficiency and classroom methodology.
The first introduction of the new textbook “English 10” into teaching at TP High school
has marked real renovation in language teaching and learning from the traditional approach
- grammar translation method, which only concentrates on the ability of using grammar
rules precisely, to communicative approach, which focuses on communication ability.
Nonetheless, the teachers of English at Thai Phien High school find it difficult to teach
speaking successfully because of the class size, the students’ language level, and
additionally, students are not acquainted with CLT. Moreover, a majority of the teachers
were trained under the strong influence of the Grammar-Translation method which
impedes them from teaching speaking successfully even the new textbook follows the
communicative approach.
As a teacher of English at Thai Phien high school in Hai Phong I often receive similar
questions from many students. For example, “I can understand grammar and sentence

structures well, but I feel embarrassed to talk in English” or “What should I do to speak
English well?” In my reality of teaching, there are many students who have perfect

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knowledge of grammar which works wonderfully for reading and writing but can’t express
themselves to the teacher. On the other hand, I often hear a lot of complaints from the
colleagues: “Students seem so quiet and lazy during speaking lessons. It is very difficult to
make them participate in speaking activities”.
Therefore, the idea of doing something useful for my colleagues and students has urged me
to conduct the research.
Another reason why the study was carried out lies in my love for teaching speaking. By
doing the study, I can know more about the challenges in teaching and learning speaking
skills so that I can find relevant techniques a long with activities to improve my teaching
speaking at Thai Phien High school.
All of the above reasons and factors have inspired me to do the research on “How to
enhance speaking skills to the students in Grade 10th at Thai Phien High school in Hai
Phong” with the hope to make a little contribution to the quality of teaching and learning
speaking skills in Grade 10th at Thai Phien High school.
2. Aims of the study
The major aims of the study are as follows:


To investigate the situation of teaching and learning speaking in Grade 10 th at Thai
Phien High school.



To identify the factors that have impact on the teaching and learning speaking
skills in Grade 10th at Thai Phien High school.



To give some implications and as well as some appropriate activities for the
improvement of speaking skills to the students in Grade 10 th at Thai Phien High
school.

3. Research questions
The research is carried out with an attempt to find out the answers to the following
research questions:


What techniques have been used frequently to teach speaking skills to the students
in grade 10th at Thai Phien High school in Hai Phong?



What are the obstacles the teachers and students in grade 10 th have faced in
teaching and learning speaking skills?

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4. Scope of the study
This study is concerned with development of speaking skills to the students in Grade 10 th at
Thai Phien High school. The researcher is not planning on studying a larger population of
the whole students at Thai Phien high school, just on the students in Grade 10 th in order to
find out the problems experienced by these students and the teachers of English and then
offer some implications and activities with the hope that teaching and learning speaking
skills will be improved.
5. Design of the study
Apart from acknowledgement, table of contents and appendices, this paper is structured in
three main parts namely, Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
The first part “Introduction” presents the rationale, aims, research questions, scope of the
study and also its design.
The second part “Development” includes four chapters.
Chapter 1 reviews the related literature which involves the general concepts as well as
characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the description of
communicative activities and some discussions on nature of speaking in oral
communication, its roles in language teaching and learning and characteristics of a
successful speaking lesson.
Chapter 2 is composed of two sections. The first section presents the local situation in Thai
Phien High school with a brief description of the speaking learning conditions, students,
teachers and textbook used for teaching English. The second section- provides the research
methods that involve information about the subjects, data collection instruments and
procedures. Also, the methods of data analysis are mentioned.
Chapter 3 is devoted to a detailed description of data analysis and discussion of the
findings of the study.
Chapter 4 offers the implications and suggestions of some activities for teaching and
learning speaking skills.
The third part “Conclusion” presents the summary of the major findings of the study and

recommendations for further research.

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Chapter 1

Literature review
In order to design useful techniques and activities for developing speaking skills to
learners, we, as teachers,e need insights about the relevant theoretical concepts. In this
chapter, first comes an overview of Communicative Language Teaching and then a brief
presentation of communicative activities as the foundation of the study. In the last part
there will be some discussion on the nature of speaking and the role of speaking as well.
The characteristics of a successful speaking lesson are also manifested.
1.1. An overview of Communicative Language Teaching
1.1.1. Definition of Communicative Language Teaching.
Having been shaped in the changes in the British language teaching tradition dating from
the late 1960s, Communicative Language Teaching (CTL) marks the beginning of a major
innovation within language teaching because of its superior principles which are widely
accepted nowadays. So far, several researchers have done work on CLT and each of them
developed his own ideas regarding CLT.
As for Richards and Rodgers (1986) CLT means little more than an integration of
grammatical and functional teaching. Sharing the same view with Richards & Rodgers,
Littlewood (1981:1) affirms that CLT “pays systematic attention to functional as well as
structural aspects of language”
For others, CLT means using procedures where learners work in pairs or groups employing

available language resources in problem-solving tasks (Richards and Rodgers, 1986)
Das (1984) goes further when he talks about the ‘What’ and the ‘How’ of CLT. The
‘What’ refers to contents to be taught to learners. The emphasis is more on the use of
language for communication of meaning than learning language structures, forms and
vocabulary (Wilkins, 1976 and Widdowson, 1978). The ‘how’ of language teaching and
learning deal with the specific techniques and activities used to unconsciously ‘acquire’
and consciously ‘learn’ a language through communication.
To define CLT Nunan (1984:194) states:
CLT views language as a system for the expression of meaning. Activities involve
oral communication, carrying out meaning tasks and using language, which is
meaningful to the learners. Objectives reflect the needs of the learners including
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functional skills as well as linguistics objectives. The learner’s role is a negotiator
and integrator. The teacher’s role as a facilitator of the communication
process.
It is thought that the definition contains aspects that are common to many other definitions.
In brief, from the opinions above about CLT we can find that most of the researchers have
the general idea that CLT emphasizes communication in a foreign language and improves
the learners’ competence through communicative activities. To make further sense of CLT,
characteristics of CLT should also be referred to.
1.1.2. Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching
The theory of language in CLT shows that language is used for communication. At the
level of language theory, CLT has characteristics defined by Richards & Rodgers (2001) as
follows:



Language is a system for the expression of meaning.



The primary function of language is to allow interaction and communication



The structure of language reflects its functional and communicative uses



The primary units of language are not merely its grammatical and structural
features, but categories of functional and communicative meaning as exemplified in
discourse.

Therefore, the objective of language teaching is to develop “communicative competence”.
Richards and Rodgers show that CLT aims to “make communicative competence the goal
of language teaching” (Richards & Rodgers, 2001: 155). Hymes (1972) defines
‘Communicative competence’ as “what a speaker needs to know to communicate
effectively in culturally significant settings” [Das, 1985 (Gumperz and Hymes, 1972:vii)]
In Hymes’ sense communicative competence includes not merely the linguistic forms of
the language but also its social rules, the knowledge of when, how, and to whom it is
appropriate to use these forms.
Freeman claims that the most obvious characteristic of the CLT is that “almost everything
that is done is done with a communicative intent” (1986:132). Students use the language a
great deal through communicative activities such as games, role-plays, and problemsolving tasks which are “often carried out …in small groups” (1986:132). The benefit of

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pair and group work in teaching speaking is that the time allotted is maximized for each
student to learn to negotiate meaning.
Another point to make about CLT is its use of authentic, from life materials (LarsenFreeman, 1986), which is one of the good ways to create opportunities for the learners to
be exposed to the real language as this kind of materials contains the language used by
native speakers. Examples of authentic materials in teaching speaking might include
articles from magazines or newspapers, stories, songs, video recordings.
The most familiar feature of CLT is learner-centeredness. Students in learner-centered
approach are seen as being able to play more active and participatory role than in
traditional approaches. In other words, students are communicators; they actively interact
with each other in the classroom activities. They are free to decide what and how they will
say and correction of errors may be absent or infrequent. Furthermore, students are made to
feel secure and unthreatened. This aims to encourage students to participate in the lesson.
Accordingly, the teacher is a facilitator of the learner’s learning, a manager of classroom
activities and a co-communicator to engage in the activities with students.
In short, CLT is identified with the following characteristics:


It makes communicative competence the goal of teaching.



It develops procedures for the teaching of the four language skills that
acknowledge the interdependence of language and communication.



It considers learners and his communicative needs the centre of language
teaching process.

These characteristics will be the principles for teachers to choose appropriate techniques as
well as activities in classroom to improve the student’s communicative competence. Then,
the concepts of communicative activities will be discussed in the next section.
1.2. Communicative Activities
1.2.1. Definition of communicative activities
According to Hammer (1991), communicative activities are those that give students the
desire to communicate, involving them in a various use of the language. Such activities are
crucially important in a language classroom since the students can do their best to use the
language individually, arriving at a degree of language autonomy. In other words,
communicative activities are those that can stimulate communicative competence in the

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learners. Therefore, it is the teacher’s responsibility to find out appropriate activities to
encourage students to use the language. In order to design these activities effectively, the
teacher needs further understanding of them. Accordingly, the following section will
discuss the characteristics and types of communicative activities.
1.2.2. Characteristics of communicative activities
Communicative activities are not limited to conversation. They can be used in listening,

speaking, reading, writing or an integration of two or more skills. Communicative
activities, according to Morrow (1981), must include three features: information gap,
choice and feedback. To be more specific Nolasco & Athur (1993) state that
communicative activities have following characteristics:
-

They involve using language for a purpose.

-

They create a desire to communicate. This means there must be some kinds of
“gap” which may be information, opinion, affect, or reason that students seek to
bridge.

-

They encourage students to be creative and contribute their ideas.

-

They focus on the message and students concentrate on “what” they are saying
rather than “how” they are saying it.

-

The students work independently of the teacher.

-

The students determine what they want to write and say. The activity is not

designed to control what the student will.
(Nolasco & Athur: 58)

In other words, communicative activities try to create authentic communication. This is
seen as contrary to monotonous drills which the traditional method heavily relied on and
which carry little communicative functions. Harmer (1991), who holds the same view,
makes a distinction between non-communicative activities and communicative ones in the
following table:

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Non-communicative activities
No communicative desire
No communicative purpose
Form not content
One language item only
Teacher intervention
Materials control

Communicative activities
A communicative desire
A communicative purpose
Content not form
Variety of language
No teacher intervention

No materials control

Also, he affirms that information gap is essential in communication activities because it
provides learners with a purpose and a desire to communicate. A traditional classroom
exchanges in which both the speaker and listener know the answer is not really
communicative.
1.2.3. Types of communicative activities
In the light of the characteristics above different researchers suggests some types of
communicative activities.
Littlewood (1981) distinguishes between functional communication activities and social
interaction activities as major activity types in CLT.
Functional communication activities include such tasks as learners comparing sets of
pictures and noting similarities and differences; working out a likely sequence of events in
a set of pictures; discovering missing features in a map or picture; following directions;
and solving problems from shared clues. The aim of these activities is that:
Learners should use the language they know in order to get meanings across as
effectively as possible. Success is measured primarily according to whether they
cope with the communicative demands of the immediate situation.
(Littlewood, 1981:20)
Social interaction activities include conversation and discussion sessions, dialogues and
role plays, simulations, skits, improvisations, and debates. These activities offer a variety
of social situations and relationships. Success is measured not only in terms of the
functional effectiveness of the language but also in terms of the social acceptability of the
forms that are used. (Littlewood, 1981).
Harmer (1991) sorts communicative activities into oral and written ones. Oral
communicative activities include seven categories: reaching a consensus, discussion,

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relaying instructions, communication games, problem solving, talking about you,
simulation and role-play. Written communicative activities also comprise relaying
instructions, writing reports and advertisement, co-operative writing, exchanging letters
and writing journals.
By taking part in communicative activities students can actually do things with language
and make language their own.
1.2.4. Roles of communicative activities in language teaching and learning
Communicative activities really play an important part in language teaching and learning.
Their role in language teaching and learning has been confirmed by many researchers.
Richard & Rodgers (2001) hold that “communicative activities enable learners to attain
communicative objectives of the curriculum and engage them in communication”. In
addition, Krashen (1982) assumes that language is best taught when it is being used to
transmit messages, not when it is taught explicitly. So using communicative activities
provides students with opportunities to convey messages in authentic communication.
Actually, communicative activities are a vital part in language teaching and learning
because they have a lot of advantages.
Firstly, Communicative activities encourage motivation because they ensure that
communication is purposeful rather than artificial. A variety of communicative activities
arouses interest and provides learners with something meaningful to do and give them
freedom to choose the meaning they want to express. They bring their backgrounds and
experiences to class and make their own decisions, creating more interest and excitement
and thus facilitate and stimulate learning process.
Secondly, Communicative activities offer opportunities to develop the practical skills of
listening, speaking, reading and writing as well as to acquire intercultural and interactional
competence in English. It is believed that successful communication is an integrated
accomplishment. Communicative activities can also help develop cognitive ability such as

analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing information.
In addition, through communicative activities the students are stimulated to respond
actively and participate with their classmates. Communicative activities are often
conducted with pair work and group work in which students talk to many partners and
interact with them. This brings learners a feeling of security because they feel easier to

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discuss with their classmates than to speak in public or in front of their teacher. Moreover,
when working in group each student must be responsible for the common progress of the
group. All of these promote their cooperation as well as participation in learning process.
Finally, Communicative activities such as working in groups, in pairs or singing etc. create
a relatively safe environment for making mistakes a long with relaxed atmosphere, for
there is little error correction or distract attention. Students are not judged or corrected.
Moreover, students have a lot of fun when they learn with communicative activities. This
reduces their stress and anxiety about their performance.
All in all, communication activities can boost proficiency and greatly improve
communicative competence.
1.3. An overview of speaking in language teaching and learning
1.3.1.The nature of speaking in oral communication
Pattison (1987) states that oral communication must include speaking and listening. It
means that there exist at least two participants: speaker(s) and listener(s) in a conversation.
When the speaker starts the massage, the listener decodes and responds to the message in
turns. Nunan (1999) suggests that in functional terms, most interactions can be divided into
interpersonal dialogues that promote social relationships and the second aims to convey

factual information called transactional dialogues. Nevertheless, Brown (1994: 237)
asserts that all these categories are really not separated or mutually exclusive. Everyday
conversations can contain elements of transactional dialogues, and vice versa.
To be more specific, Bygate (1987) assumes that those conversations can be analyzed in
terms of routines which are conventional (and therefore predictable) ways of presenting
information. He provides two kinds of routines: information routines and interactional
ones. (1987:23). Information routines may be described to involve two sub-routines:
expository and evaluation. The former includes description, narration, comparison,
instruction. The latter consists of explanation, prediction, justification, preference and
decision. Interactional routines are telephone conversations, interview conversations,
casual encounters, conversations at parties, lessons, radio or television interviews, which
are structured in characteristic ways. For second language speakers, routines can be of
essential importance to facilitate comprehension. “…by learning prefabricated set
conversational patterns, learners can ‘outperform’ their competence.” (Nunan ,1999:229).
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Consequently, in learning speaking skills, students should be provided with opportunities
to explore the language use in both types of oral communication. For example, they can
study speech acts in a service encounter, turn-taking patterns in a conversation between
friends, opening and closing sequences in telephone conversation.
In most conversations there is the content of discourse (Nunan, 1999). That means that
with exactly the same utterance we can interpret it in different ways with different
audience in different situations. This leads to the fact that interlocutors should have a good
deal of shared knowledge such as background information to support their understandings
of utterances. Thus, the conversations between participants who are familiar with each

other are produced with more assumptions and implications. By contrast, if the addressor
and addressee don’t know each other well, references and meanings have to be made more
explicit in order to get comprehension. Therefore, we as teachers should expose learners to
different kinds of discourse in different interactions. This can be obtained through
authentic materials for teaching speaking a long with numerous classroom activities to
maximize opportunities for students to participate in.
1.3.2. The role of speaking in language teaching and learning
From the teaching point of view, language skills consist of four macro skills: listening,
speaking, reading and writing. Those four skills have a supportive relationship.
Of all the four skills, speaking is of paramount importance, (Ur, 1996). It is fundamental to
human communication. Just think of all the different conversations we have in one day and
compare that with how much written communication we do in one day. It can not be
denied that in our daily lives most of us speak more than we write. Speaking when
compared with writing according to Wilkin (1979; cited in Nambiar 1985), is the essential
form of language and writing is ranked second after it and derived from it. About the role
of speaking, Bygate (1987: vii) points out that “It is the vehicle of social solidarity, of
social ranking, of professional advancement and of business”.
In language teaching and learning, speaking has an important part to play. It is a medium
through which much language is learnt, and which is particularly useful for learning. The
ability to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the
success of the learner in school and success later in every phase of life. (Kayi, 2006).
Bygate (1987), who holds the same view, claims that our learners need to have ability to

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speak confidently to carry their most basic transactions. More than this, speaking is
regarded as the first step to confirm who knows or does not know a language. Ur (1996)
indicated that people who know a language are referred to as “speakers” of that language
as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing. Consequently, a lot of foreign language
learners are primarily interested in learning to speak.
Therefore, having dealt with the importance of oral skills in language teaching and learning
it is essential that language teachers should pay great attention to teaching speaking skills.
Rather than leading students to pure memorization, the teacher should provide a rich
environment where students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and
meaningful tasks that promote oral language.
1.3.3. Characteristics of a successful speaking lesson
As it has been seen, spoken language is the primary objective in language teaching. Giving
a speaking lesson which promotes learners’ ability to express themselves through speech is
important. Therefore, the criteria that can be applied to design a successful English
speaking lesson should be taken into consideration.
1.3.3.1. High learner’s talking time
Talking time is the first factor that can make a speaking lesson successfully. It is obvious
that the amount of learning in a speaking lesson is correlated with the amount of talking by
the learner. Therefore, the more time students engage with in the course of a lesson, the
more language they can obtain. Ur (1996) also considers the lesson time as a container
which should be filled with as much volume of language as possible. So an effective
speaking lesson is very likely to correlate highly with the learner’s talking time. Learners
in class time should get as many speaking opportunities as possible in order that their
speaking time should be maximined.
1.3.3.2. High motivation
Various studies have found that motivation is strongly related to achievement in language
learning in the way it decides learners’ success or failure. As for Lightbrown & Spanda
(1999), motivation can be defined in term of two factors: learners’ communicative needs
and their attitudes towards the foreign language community. If learners need to speak the
foreign language, they will, therefore, be motivated to acquire proficiency in it. Similarly,

if learners have favorable attitudes towards the speakers of the language, they will have the

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desire to communicate or contact with them. If learners are highly motivated, they will
willingly participate in classroom activities and volunteer to perform them. They have
desire to share personal experience in relation to the topics as well as a need to achieve
task objectives. Hence, they invest a high level of effort to overcome difficulties so as to
succeed in what they set out to do. They then, therefore, are eager to speak.
1.3.3.3. Even participation
A good speaking lesson must also provide opportunities of speaking evenly to all students
with different levels. Both weaker students and more advanced ones should be provided
with opportunities for communicating. The teacher needs give every learner the chance to
talk at a level adequate to them from the simple to the relatively difficult. The lesson is not
effective if classroom discussion only focuses on some participants who are talkative while
others speak very little or not at all. That means that every student should have a chance to
speak during the class time.
1.3.3.4. An acceptable level of language
In order to help students gain success in speaking the topic chosen should be appropriate
for students so that they can use ideas from their own experience and knowledge to present
the topic. If the topic is completely unfamiliar to the student they will find it difficult to
engage with the task the teacher gives them as they have little knowledge to speak about it.
Besides, the level of the language needed for discussion (whether grammar or vocabulary)
should be lower than that used in intensive language –learning activities in the same class.
It should be easily recalled and produced by the learners, so that they can speak fluently

with the minimum of hesitation. It is a good idea to teach or review essential vocabulary
before the activity starts.
In summary, in this chapter the theoretical basis for the study of the ways for developing
speaking skills has been reviewed. The researcher has stressed the main points in CLT.
Also, major points of communicative activities namely, definitions, characteristics as well
as types of communicative activities are provided. The discussion of nature of speaking,
the role of speaking in language teaching and learning and characteristics of a successful
speaking lesson has set the background for the implications and recommendations of the
study. The detailed description of the methodology, the procedures and the results will be
presented in the next chapters.

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Chapter 2

Methodology
This chapter is devoted to the discussion of two parts: research setting and research
methodology. In the first part, an overview of Thai Phien high school, the teachers of
English, the students, the textbook, the current teaching and learning situations are
mentioned. In the second part, there will be a description of the subjects and procedures for
carrying out the research as well as the method of data analysis.
2.1. Research setting
2.1.1. An overview of Thai phien High school
Thai Phien High school is located in the center of Hai Phong seaport city. Founded in
1960, Thai Phien is one of the oldest as well as biggest schools in Hai Phong. At present,

there are 48 classes with over 2000 students placed into three different grades: grade 10 th,
11th and 12th. The teaching staff composes of 120 teachers of 14 compulsory subjects, of
whom one-third is young, creative and well trained whereas the others are experienced and
enthusiastic. In 2007, with the innovation in educational policy, Thai Phien is the only
school in Hai Phong city which has 100 percentages of High school graduated students.
2.1.2. The teachers of English in Thai phien High school
There are thirteen teachers of English currently working in Thai Phien High school. All of
them are female ranking from 35 to 52. Among them, one third studied at Hanoi Foreign
Language Teacher Training College. Another one-third was former teachers of Russian
who graduated from the same college. Over other third who were trained from in-service
training courses has experienced teaching for many years. However, their communication
ability as well as new teaching methods should be improved.
Obviously, the age of the English teacher staff reveals the fact that all of them were trained
in the traditional method- the Grammar-translation one. Few of them have taken retraining
courses to improve their English and their teaching methods. This constrains them from
teaching speaking effectively. Nevertheless, most of them are severe, enthusiastic in
working. Of the 13 teachers, there are two teachers who got M.A degree. At the present
time, each teacher has to teach fifteen periods divided into 5 classes per week excluding
the burden of marking examinations and time for a lot of different school work. More than
this, the teachers often have to cope with over 50 students in each class. Apparently, the
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teachers in Thai Phien High school have to deal with a heavy workload in order to fulfill
their task.
2.1.3. The students in Thai Phien High school

The majority of students in the study at Thai Phien high school are aged from 15 to 18.
Most of them come from urban areas and they have learnt English since they were at
primary schools. Therefore, their English proficiency is some how better than students
from rural parts due to the availability of opportunities to attend part-time English courses
and chances to contact with English speaking people. Among them, there are a large
number of students who are really interested in learning English and want to develop their
ability in using English. By contrast, the other part of students is lowly motivated. They
tend to regard English as less important than other subjects and they study English in order
to pass the examinations.
2.1.4. The current situation of English teaching and learning in Thai Phien High school
2.1.4.1. The syllabus of teaching and learning
At Thai Phien High school, English is one of the compulsory subjects in the curriculum
and it is the subject students have to pass at the national examination by the end of grade
12th to be qualified for the secondary school diploma. The syllabus and the textbooks for
English including “English 10” “English 11”, “English 12” are prescribed by the Ministry
of Education and Training. The syllabus is designed to bring students the following
objectives:
After finishing high school, students are able to


Acquire listening comprehension skill at a simple level of the topics they have
learnt.



Exchange information of English at a simple level about the situations relating to
the topics they have learnt.



Understand the main ideas of reading texts in the area of personal interests, social
issues, cultural issues, scientific and technical issues on the basis of the knowledge
they have learnt (accompanying with meaning deducing and dictionary consulting)



Write a series of sentences about personal details, things and topics they are
familiar with.



Write paragraphs (of about 100-150 words) of the topics they have learnt.

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English curriculum for grade 10th students is divided into two semesters with a total of 105
periods, 3 periods per week. Each period is 45 minutes long.
The textbook which is currently used for teaching and learning English for grade 10th at
Thai Phien high school is “English10”-“Tieng Anh 10” which was designed following
communicative approach. The textbook consists of 12 topics corresponding with 12 units.
There are 5 parts in each unit arranging as follows: reading, speaking, listening, writing
and language focus in which a variety of exercises and tasks was compiled for practice.
Also, there exist a consolidate unit after every 3 units. The objective of these units is to
examine how well the students have achieved in the previous units.
2.1.4.2. The teaching and learning English speaking skills

It has been accepted that students’ communicative ability is the proper aim for language
teaching. This makes teaching and learning speaking skills seem to be an important part in
any English course. Like many other high schools in Vietnam, teaching and learning
speaking skills at Thai Phien High school is affected by some constraints such as large
class size, students’ unfamiliarity with CLT, students’ low English proficiency, students’
low participation in class time. Normally, in a class at Thai Phien High school, there is a
number of students who have a good knowledge of English are eager and active during the
class while the majority of those with low English proficiency are very passive. Many
teachers often complain that students are lazy, they rarely try to speak the target language
in class. They only speak when being forced. Most of the teachers have found group work
and discussion difficult to carry out. Besides, lack of training in teaching methods,
especially CLT makes it difficult for the teachers to access to new approach, which makes
the teaching and learning speaking skills more challenging.
2.2. Reseach methods
2.2.1. The subjects
This study was carried out with two 10th form classes consisting of 100 students and 10
teachers of English in Thai Phien High school.
The 10 teachers are from 35 to 50 years of age.

They are female. Their teaching

experience ranges from 12 to 27 years.
The age of the students is 15. They are both 42 males and 58 females. They all have learnt
English since they were at primary schools. Therefore, they have the same English

How to enhance speaking skills to students in Grade 10th at Thai Phien High School in Hai Phong

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proficiency. They are studying in the second term. The reason for the choice of grade 10 th
is that they have just left primary school so they are not accustomed to new environment,
new teachers and friends, new methods of teaching and learning at High school.
Consequently, they might be shier, more anxious during English class periods than those in
grade 11th and 12th. More over, the textbook that is currently used for them is “English 10”
which has just been in use for the first time.
The students were chosen randomly without any previous fixed criteria. They were
explained that their responses to the questionnaires were anonymous. This encouraged the
subjects to answer the questions straightforwardly and genuinely.
2.2.2. Data collection instrument
The instrument used to collect data was two questionnaires. Questionnaires were chosen
because they are one of the most popular instruments in collecting data. It is quite easy to
prepare and it can be given to large groups of subjects at the same time. Hence, the data
will be more accurate. In addition, the information collected is not so difficult to tabulate
and analyze.
Questionnaire No1 (see appendix 1) was designed for the teachers. It consisted of 11
questions that were classified into 4 categories. Following is the frame of questionnaire
No1:
Table 1. Frame of questionnaire No 1
Categories

Questions

Teachers’ ideas about CLT

Q1; Q2

Teachers’ attitude towards teaching English speaking skills in the

textbook “10”

Q3; Q4

Teachers’ difficulties in teaching English speaking skills

Q5; Q6

Teachers’ techniques to encourage students to speak English

Q7; Q8; Q9; Q10;
Q11

Questionnaire No 2 (see appendix 2) was designed for the students to get their opinions
about learning speaking skills, to investigate the techniques and activities used in English
lessons and identify the difficulties in learning speaking skills as well. It was composed of
11 questions related to 4 categories as follows:

How to enhance speaking skills to students in Grade 10th at Thai Phien High School in Hai Phong

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Table 2. Frame of questionnaire No 2
Categories

Questions

Students’ attitude to learning English

Q1; Q2

Students’ opinions about English speaking skills in the textbook
“English 10”

Q3; Q4

Factors discouraging students from speaking English in class
Students’ ideas about their teachers’current techniques used for
teaching English speaking skills

Q5
Q6; Q7; Q8; Q9;
Q10; Q11

2.2.3. Procedures
To gather data for the research two questionnaires were designed. (one for teachers and
one for students). The questionnaires were conducted to find out what techniques have
been frequently used in teaching speaking skills at Thai Phien High school and identify the
obstacles the teachers and students in grade 10th have dealt with in teaching and learning
speaking skills. As the questionnaires were delivered to the subjects, the researcher asked
them to give the feedback if they met any troubles. For example, if they did not understand
any questions, they could ask the researcher. The questionnaires were distributed to all the
subjects at the beginning of the first week of July 2007.
2.2.4. Methods of data analysis
In the study, the way to gain data was in form of questionnaires. The answers given by the
teachers and students in response to the questionnaires were categorized by the researcher.
Each of the categories was then computed and the data was selected statistically in the

form of frequencies and percentages. After this is the discussion on the results collected
from the data.

Chapter 3

Findings and discussion

How to enhance speaking skills to students in Grade 10th at Thai Phien High School in Hai Phong

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The instrument and procedures, which were described in chapter 2 helped the researcher
gather the data. In this chapter, the results derived from the analysis of the data collected
from the two questionnaires are displayed. They are used to answer the two research
questions:
1. What techniques have been used frequently to teach speaking skills to the students
in grade 10th at Thai Phien high school in Hai Phong?
2. What are the obstacles the teachers and students in grade 10 th have faced in
teaching and learning speaking skills?
3.1. Data analysis
3.1.1. Results from teachers’ survey questionnaire
The findings from the teacher questionnaire are categorized into 4 sub-sections as teachers’
ideas about CLT, teachers’ attitude towards teaching English speaking skills in the
textbook “English 10”, teachers’ difficulties in teaching English speaking skills, and
teachers’ techniques to encourage students to speak English, will be summarized in table
3, 4, 5 and 6.
3.1.1.1. Teachers’ ideas about CLT

Table 3
1. Have you ever been trained in CLT?
Options

Result (%)

a. Yes, in English teaching-training courses

20%

b. Yes, in English teaching workshops

40%

c. Others.

20%

d. No, I have never been trained in CLT

20%

2. On your view, CLT
Options
a. is learner-centered

How to enhance speaking skills to students in Grade 10th at Thai Phien High School in Hai Phong

Result (%)
80%

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b. doesn’t teach grammar

20%

c. emphasizes on fluency more than accuracy

80%

d. focuses on meaningful tasks rather than on language itself.

40%

e. creates a secure, non-threatening atmosphere in a classroom

60%

f. is only used for teaching speaking skill, not for other skills.

10%

g. uses the teacher as a facilitator

30%

As indicated in table 3, only 60 % of the teachers said that they were trained in CLT in
training courses and in English teaching work shops. 20% admitted that they had never
received formal CLT training and the same number improved the knowledge of CLT by
self-studying. From these figures, it could be concluded that opportunities for the teachers
to be trained in CLT were insufficient. This could be one of the factors which influenced
their understanding of CLT and its application to teaching speaking skills.
As regards the response to question 2 most of the teachers (80%) agreed that CLT was
“learner-centered”. Some of the respondents (20%) assumed that CLT did not cover
grammar. A majority of the teachers (80%) believed that CLT focused on fluency rather
than on accuracy. More than half of them (60%) affirmed that CLT created a secure, nonthreatening atmosphere in a classroom. There was still a minority of the subjects to put it
that CLT only concentrates on speaking skill, not on other skills. Only some of them
thought that in CLT the role of the teacher was to facilitate students’ learning process.
According to what the teachers thought of CLT it is drawn out that the teachers at Thai
Phien High school have basic knowledge of CLT. However, their understanding of this
approach is not sufficient, which is a hindrance to their adopting CLT in teaching speaking
skills.

3.1.1.2. Teachers’ attitude towards teaching English speaking skills in the textbook
“English 10”
Table 4

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