Students’ perspectives on the use of socratic seminar in a speaking class at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

PHẠM TRUNG KIÊN

STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE USE OF SOCRATIC
SEMINAR IN A SPEAKING CLASS AT HANOI
PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF
THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH

HANOI, 2019


HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2
FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

PHẠM TRUNG KIÊN

STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE USE OF SOCRATIC
SEMINAR IN A SPEAKING CLASS AT HANOI
PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT OF
THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH

Supervisor

Le Thi Phuong Thao M.A

HANOI, 2019
i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
Title: STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE USE OF SOCRATIC
SEMINAR IN A SPEAKING CLASS AT HANOI PEDAGOGICAL
UNIVERSITY 2
I hereby declare that I am the primary author of this bachelor thesis and I
have not used any sources other than those identified as references. I further
declare that I have not submitted this thesis at any other institution in order to
obtain a degree.
Date submitted: 9 May, 2019

Student

Pham Trung Kien

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, my heartfelt appreciation goes to my admirable
supervisor, Ms. Lê Thị Phương Thảo, for her continuous support and
encouragement when I met obstacles during the journey. Thanks to her valuable
comments and kind words, I have found the motivation to complete the thesis
which I had had intention to give up on. The completion of this work would not
have been possible without her expert advice, close attention and unswerving
guidance.
Secondly, my thanks go to my family for encouraging me to continue
with the thesis. I owe my special thanks to my parents: Đỗ Thị Nga and Phạm
Văn Miên, for their emotional and material sacrifices as well as their

understanding and unconditional support.
Finally, I owe thanks to many people who helped me and encouraged me
during my study. My special thanks to Mr. Phan Thúc Định for his suggestions
for data analysis. I am specially thankful to all the students of class K43English Language Teaching for their support and enthusiasm; to my special
friends: Hoàng Thị Thu Nga, Trần Đình Xuân; to all my best friends at
university: Trà Giang, Phương Linh, Vĩnh Thuỵ, Minh Phương, Thu Hiến for
endless encouragement.

iii


ABSTRACT
This study is an action research which investigates the effectiveness of the
use of Socratic Seminar in a speaking class by exploring how it is perceived by
students. The target group was twenty-five second-year students at a university
in Vietnam. The study was conducted in two cycles. Data were collected by
questionnaires, group interviews, video-based observation. The results showed
that the technique was positively perceived by students. The technique, as
welcomed by the students, created a more lively new learning environment
when compared to the traditional one. Moreover, the use of Socratic Seminar
was believed to have improved their vocabulary, pronunciation, and fluency
while students were uncertain about the use of Socratic Seminar could help them
improve their accuracy. Students also showed their agreement with the
researcher that they were confident to speak and offered more opportunities to
talk. Furthermore, students’ autonomy in learning was promoted when they
were put in charge of their learning. It became evident that the use of Socratic
Seminar could somewhat improve students’ speaking skills. The use of Socratic
Seminar in language teaching is expected to be a promising area for researchers
to figure out the new discoveries.
Key words: Socratic Seminar, speaking skills, effectiveness, positive

attitude, promising area.

iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Statement of Authorship…………………………………………………

i

Acknowledgments.…………………………………………………….... .

ii

Abstract.…………………………………………………….....................

iii

Table of contents.……………………………………………………........

iv

List of tables, figures and abbreviations.………………………………..

v

PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Statement and Rationale for the study.………………………………….

1

2. Aim of the study and research question………………………………....

3

3. Methods of the study………………………………...………………….

3

4. Scope of the study………………………………...……………………..

4

5. Significance of the study………………………………………………..

4

6. Organization of the study……………………………………………….

4

PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I. LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Socratic Seminar………………………………………………………...

6

1.1 Definition …………………………………………………………...

6

1.2 The procedure of Socratic Seminar ………………………………...

7

1.3 Types of questions used in Socratic Seminar……………………….

7

1.4 Roles of Socratic Seminar in education ……………………………

7

1.5 Some problems might occur during the progress of a Socratic

9

Seminar…………………………………………………………………
2. Speaking teaching………………………………………………….......

10

2.1 Definition of speaking skill…………………………………………

10

2.2 The importance of speaking skill…………………………………..

10

2.3 Teaching and learning speaking skill………………………………

11

2.4 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity…………………..

12

2.5 Speaking problems…………………………………………………

12

3. Socratic Seminar in teaching and learning speaking skills…………......

13

v


4. Teacher and students’ interaction in Socratic Seminar…………………

14

5. Related research worldwide…………………………………………….

14

6. Action research………………………………………………………….

16

6.1 Definition……………………………………………………………

16

6.2 Characteristics of action research…………………………………...

16

6.3 Steps in action research……………………………………………...

17

6.4 Rationale for choosing action research……………………………...

19

CHAPTER II. METHODOLOGY
1. Objectives of the study………………………………………………….

21

2. Participants……………………………………………………………...

21

3. Data collection…………………………………………………..............

21

4. Action Research Design………………………………………………...

22

5. Summary………………………………………………...........................

26

CHAPTER III. ACTION AND OUTCOMES OF RESEARCH
CYCLE ONE
1. Planning stage…………………………………………………...............

27

2. Action and Observation stage…………………………………………...

30

3. Students’ responses from the first interview……………………………

32

4. Reflection on research…………………………………………………..

35

5. Summary………………………………………………….......................

35

CHAPTER IV. ACTION AND OUTCOMES OF RESEARCH
CYCLE TWO
1. Planning stage…………………………………………………...............

36

2. Action and Observation stage…………………………………………...

36

3. Reflection on changes…………………………………………………...

37

4. Students’ responses from the second interview…………………………

37

5. Results from survey…………………………………………………......

39

6. Summary …………………………………………………......................

44

vi


PART C. CONCLUSION

1. Summary of major findings……………………………………………..

45

2. Recommendations…………………………………………………........

46

3. Limitations…………………………………………………..................

46

4. Suggestions for further study…………………………………………..

47

References………………………………………………….......…………

48

Appendices
Appendix A: Interview Guidelines………………………………………

53

Appendix B: Interview Sample…………………………………………..

54

Appendix C: Students’ questionnaire 1………………………………….

57

Appendix D: Students’ questionnaire 2………………………………….

59

Appendix E: Sample of a text used in the seminar (Cycle 1)……………

61

Appendix F: Sample of a text used in the seminar (Cycle 2)……………

65

Appendix G: Socratic Seminar Plan (Cycle 1)…………………………..

67

Appendix H: Socratic Seminar Plan (Cycle 2).…………………………..

69

Appendix I: Sample of Class Observation.……………………………….

71

vii

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS
List of tables:
Table 1.1 Students’ scores in the preceding term.
Table 1.2 The content in the textbook “Speak Out, Upper- Intermediate” is
difficult for me.
Table 1.3 The speaking activities in the textbook “Speak Out, UpperIntermediate” are boring.
Table 1.4 I was afraid of speaking in front of the class.
Table 1.5 My vocabulary is not good.
Table 1.6 My pronunciation is not good.
Table 1.7 I do not have enough opportunities to speak in the class.
Table 2.1 After participating in the Socratic Seminars, my pronunciation is
improved.
Table 2.2 After participating in the Socratic Seminars, my vocabulary is
expanded.
Table 2.3 After participating in the Socratic Seminars, I can frequently produce
error-free sentences.
Table 2.4 The Socratic Seminar generally improves my ability to speak English
Table 2.5 After participating in the Socratic Seminars, I can speak more
fluently.
Table 2.6 After participating in the Socratic Seminars, I feel more confident to
speak in front of the class.
Table 2.7 After participating in the Socratic Seminars, I can express my
opinions in a respectful manner.
Table 2.8 After participating in the Socratic Seminars, I exchange more ideas
with my classmates.
Table 2.9 I can learn from other students when participating in the Socratic
Seminars.
Table 2.10 I have more chance to speak English in the class.
viii

Table 2.11 I would like my teacher to use Socratic Seminars instead of
traditional methods in the speaking class.
List of figures:
Figure 1. Cyclical AR model based on Kemmis and McTaggart (1988)
List of abbreviations:
AR

Action Research

ELT

English Language Teaching

EFL

English Foreign Language

T

Teacher

S

Student

ix


PART A

INTRODUCTION
This chapter introduces the study by outlining the statement of the
problem, the rationale for the study, the significance and contribution of the
study, the research questions and purposes, the methodology adopted, and the
structure of the thesis.
1. Statement of the problem and Rationale for the study
Speaking is considered to be the fundamental skill to acquire. Nunan
(1991) states that for most people, mastering speaking skill is the single most
important aspect of learning a second or foreign language, and success is
measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in language.
Lawtie (2004) explains why speaking skill should be taught in classroom.
The first reason is that many students equate being able to speak a language as
knowing the language and, therefore, view learning the language as learning
how to speak the language. Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or
do not get any opportunity to speak in the language classroom they may soon
get demotivated and lose interest in learning. Second, speaking is fundamental
to human communication. If the goal of teaching language is to enable students
to communicate in English, then speaking skills should be taught and practiced
in the language classroom. Therefore, EFL learners’ speaking needs to be the
focus of attention in the EFL teaching contexts (Albino, 2017).
Speaking skill, however, is a difficult one to acquire because it requires
more than the knowledge of grammatical and semantic rules (Kang Shumin,
2002). It requires students to be able to communicate properly in social
interactions. Moreover, the process of teaching speaking exists some problems.
Lawtie (2004) states that there are three problems identified in speaking class:
(1) Students do not want to talk or say anything because they are afraid of
making mistakes or because they are not interested in the topic, (2) When
1

students work in pairs or groups, they just end up chatting in their own language
and (3) When all the students speak together, it will be too noisy and out of
hand, sometimes the teacher loses control of the classroom. This may affect
teacher-student interaction in a negative way and make the lesson less
interesting.
Moreover, training students how to communicate effectively is not
primarily emphasized. According to Gorkaltseva, Gozhinand Nagel (2015),
English in Russia, though being a compulsory subject at universities, was not
actually taught for the sake of verbal discourse and speaking English was not the
primary focus at universities. Similarly, in the Republic of Angola, Albino
(2017) claimed that English language was taught mainly for the purpose of
examinations.

Although

the

students

passed

their

exam,

their

oral

communication was still a big problem to concern because they could not

express their ideas fluently. Noomura (2013) asserts that the students were
passive learners; they were shy to speak English with their classmates. They
lacked opportunities to use English in their daily life. They lack motivation and
responsibilities for their own learning in the unchallenging English classrooms.
In Vietnamese context,

it is widely acknowledged that

“oral

communicative competence of Vietnamese learners is far from expectation at
the completion of university education” (Hao, 2017). Hong (2006) also shows
that “the poor quality of teaching speaking at a university in Vietnam results in a
large number of graduates who have difficulty with communicating English”.
Although the government has prioritized the goal that the majority of students
will be able to use English competently by 2020 and many teachers of English
have adopted a variety of methods to encourage students to learn English, it is
important to have appropriate techniques that can help students to participate in
the class more actively and develop their independent learning style. At Hanoi
Pedagogical University 2, it is necessary to have such techniques to help
students to improve their speaking skill when the goal of teaching speaking for
2


second-year students is that students will be able to communicate at upperintermediate level. Among innovative approaches, the Socratic seminar emerges
as a promising alternative to encourage partnership between teaching, learning
and research in the field of the arts, humanities and social sciences (Blessinger
and Carfora, 2014, p.3).
2. Aims of the study and research questions
The study is expected to investigate the students’ perspectives on the use

of Socratic Seminar in speaking class. There is only one research question that
the research is seeking to answer:
What are the students’ perspectives on the use of Socratic Seminar in
speaking class?
3. Methods of the study
The methodological approach was action research using various methods
for data collection. There were two cycles in the study. In the first cycle, the
researcher implemented the Socratic Seminar into the speaking class. All
participants including teacher and students carried out their duties through four
stages: planning, action, observation, reflection. After the observation and
reflection, the teaching approach was revised to improve the lessons for the next
cycle. The tools for data gathering were questionnaires, group interviews, and
video-based observation. Two questionnaires were delivered to students. The
former was used to find out the cause of the low level in students’ speaking
performance while the latter was employed to find out their perspectives
towards the technique after trying-out strategies. A group interview was also
made after the completion of each cycle. All the lessons were video-taped to
describe what had happened in the classroom.

3


4. Scope of the study
In this study, the researcher focused on how Socratic Seminar works in
only speaking skills. Regarding the participants, the researcher only chose one
class as a single case of the study.
5. Significance of the study
The study, once finished, would be a useful material for many readers.
First, the study offers readers an insight into the alternative pedagogical
technique which could be adapted into language teaching. Second, the study

could provide some recommendations thanks to students’ perceptions towards
the method. Last but not least, the study could serve as a reference material for
further research, anyone who shares the same interest can find the useful
information in the study.
6. Organization of the study
The paper consists of three parts as follows:
The Introduction section describes the
statement of the problem and the rationale for the
Part A
Introduction

study. Then, it discusses the purpose of the study
and the research question. After that, the
introduction chapter introduces methodology and
scope of the study. Last but not least, the outline
of the study is presented.

Part B: Development
Chapter I
Literature Review

The Literature Review chapter lays the
theoretical foundation of the study. Also, a
concise review of related studies worldwide is
also presented.
The Methodology chapter details the
methodological
4

approach

in

the

study.


Chapter II

Specifically, the participants, the instruments as

Methodology

well as the procedures of data collection and
analysis will be discussed in details.

Chapter III
Action and outcomes of
research cycle one

This chapter details what the stages in the
first cycle, what had happened in the classroom,
what students thought about the new change in
the classroom.
The Action and Outcomes of Research
Cycle Two goes into detail how revised plan was

Chapter IV

made after reflection on the cycle one, what

Action and outcomes happened in the classroom after making changes,
of research cycle two what students thought about the new speaking
class.
The Conclusion chapter ends the study by
Part C

summarizing the main points, discussing the

Conclusion

implications, showing the limitations, and giving
some suggestions for further studies.

5


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews the various definitions of Socratic Seminar. The
chapter also discusses the existent literature on Socratic Seminar in terms of its
roles on education and drawbacks. The chapter shows the relations between the
use of Socratic Seminar and speaking teaching. This discussion reveals the gaps
in research on the use of the technique, some of which this study has tried to fill.
To be more specific, the discussion shows that there has been a scarcity of
research on the use of Socratic Seminar in foreign language teaching in
Vietnam.
1. Socratic Seminar
1.1 Definition

There are various definitions of Socratic Seminar (also known as Socratic
Circles). Lesley Lambright (1995) defines a Socratic Seminar as an “exploratory
intellectual conversation centered on a text”. According to Elfie Israel (2002,
p.89), “Socratic seminar is a formal discussion, based on a text, in which the
leader asks open-ended questions. Within the context of the discussion, students
listen closely to the comments of others, thinking critically for themselves, and
articulate their own thoughts and their responses to the thoughts of others. They
learn to work cooperatively and to question intelligently and civilly”.
Matt Copeland (2005)’s definition is that Socratic Seminar is “a
constructivist strategy in which participants engage in a conversation to
collectively seek a deeper understanding of complex idea”. Victor Moeller
(2015) identifies Socratic Seminar as an exercise in “reflective thinking”.
From all the definitions mentioned, it appears that the researchers agree
students play an active role in learning in Socratic Seminar. This seems to be in
line with the student-centered approach, which Vietnamese educators are
dedicated to implement in teaching context.
6


1.2 The procedure of Socratic Seminar
Matt Copeland (2005) describes the procedure of Socratic Seminar as
follows :
1. On the day before a Socratic circle, the teacher hands out a short
passage of text.
2. That night at home, students spend time reading, analyzing, and taking
notes on the text.
3. During class on the next day, students are randomly divided into two
concentric circles: an inner circle and an outer circle.
4. The students in the inner circle read the passage aloud and then engage
in a discussion of the text for approximately ten minutes, while students in the

outer circle silently observe the behavior and performance of the inner circle.
5. After this discussion of the text, the outer circle assesses the inner
circle’s performance and gives ten minutes of feedback for the inner circle.
6. Students in the inner and outer circles now exchange roles and
positions.
7. The new inner circle holds a ten-minute discussion and then receives
ten minutes of feedback from the new outer circle.
The procedure may vary in each aspect, but the essence of the seminar
lies on the discussion-feedback-discussion-feedback pattern. Once students have
familiarized themselves with the structure of the Socratic seminar, teacher can
modify the discussion according to content, focus, and purpose.
1.3 Types of questions used in Socratic Seminars
Mortimer Adler (1948) classified three kinds of questions. He asked: “(1)
What does the author say? (2) What does he mean? (3) Is it true? Does it have
any relevance to you here today?” In 1956, Bloom categorized eight educational
objectives that used examples of questions for each kind of thinking:
7


knowledge, comprehension, translation, interpretation, application, analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation. The researcher agreed with Moeller (2015)’s opinion
that it is not necessary to adopt Bloom’s classification into the classroom
discussion because it becomes obvious that translation, application, analysis,
synthesis can represent interpretation while knowledge and comprehension can
be put under the umbrella of knowledge. The questions thus can be categorized
into three types:
Factual question: A factual question has only one correct answer which
can be found from the text.
Interpretive question: An interpretive question has more than one correct
answer because there might be a wide range of opinions about the interpretation

in the meaning.
Evaluative question: An evaluative question used to ask ones to think
about their experience or values. Such questions sometimes would ask them
how they would act if they had a similar situation to the characters in the text.
1.4 Roles of Socratic Seminar in education
Thomas (2009) argued the importance of the Socratic Seminar as a
teaching technique that breaks the pattern of conformity and goes beyond the
traditional lecture and assessment curriculum. According to Matt Copeland
(2005), he shows that the use of Socratic Seminar could have positive effects on
students in terms of academic skills and social skills.
1.4.1 Developing students’ academic skills
According to Matt Copeland (2005), one benefit of Socratic Seminar is
that it “brings all the areas of curriculum and instruction together into a cohesive
whole”. He also states that the use of Socratic Seminar could foster students’
critical thinking, creativity, and critical reading. Moreover, students can develop
“a lifelong love of reading” (Matt, 2005) by repeatedly reading the texts and
analyzing the materials. Students could improve their speaking and listening
8


skills when engaging in the discussion. Because of the way Socratic Seminar is
structured, students “learn quickly to improve their learning so that they hear
with their ears allows them to listen with their minds”. Also, students are quick
to point out when they are not listening to one another, which helps them to
understand the importance of listening skill to the success of discussion, then
they could find a way to solve it.
Instead of remaining silent during the class, they become “more active
and vocal learning participants” (Matt, 2005). Reflective thinking is also the
benefit students can gain when they are in a Socratic class. They can be able to
“mull over past experiences, assessing one’s own performance, and establishing

goals for future performance”. Adler (1982) shows that Socratic Seminar could
teach students “how to analyze as well as the thoughts of the other, which is to
say it engages students in disciplined conversation about ideas and values”.
1.4.2 Developing students’ social skills
Students can promote their team-building skills. As Lambright (2005)
says, “Socratic Seminar are team-building situation, through mutual inquiry in a
cooperative setting, leaders and learners alike apply knowledge, making
reasoned connections within themselves, with other group members, and with
the text”. Matt (2005) also indicates that students “are able to practice working
collaboratively on a problem from a common starting point.” Socratic seminar
is not only the way to understand the text but it is also the way to understand
people when “it guides students to develop respectful, tactful, and kinder
attitudes and behaviors” (Tredway, 1995) and it “encourages students to be
accepting of people, opinions, ideas that are different from their own.” (Matt,
2005)
1.5 Some problems might occur during the progress of a Socratic
Seminar
Despite the numerous benefits of using Socratic Seminar in classroom, the
opponents of the technique argue that the technique might not be effective in
9


elementary-level classes, which mostly ask students yes - no questions. As a
result, the use of open-ended questions in the class would be eliminated (Holme,
1992). Polite and Adam (1997) also show that the difference in expectations
between normal class and seminar class causes difficulties for some students.
Some students, moreover, prefer the traditional classroom setting to one where
the onus of learning is on them. Matt (2005) lists four problems arising from the
use of the seminar: (1) Socratic Seminar is also considered as time-consuming,
(2) The discussion, moreover, is often left without complete “closure”, (3) The

discussion also may arrive at conclusion with which the teacher is unfamiliar,
(4) The seminar appears “unstructured” to the uninformed observer.
2. Speaking teaching
2.1 Definition of speaking skill
New Webster Dictionary (1994) states that speaking is an act to express
ideas, feelings and thoughts orally, which is also known as oral
communication. Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning
that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown,
1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997). Its form and meaning are dependent on the
context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their
collective experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for
speaking. Chaney (1998) defines speaking as “the process of building and
sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols in a variety
of context”.
2.2 The importance of speaking skill
Of all the four skills, speaking skill plays an important role in helping
learners learn a foreign language effectively. According to Pattison (1992),
when people mention knowing or learning a language, they mean being able to
speak the language. It is also emphasized by Flohr and Paesler (2006) that “the
focus in learning a foreign language is on communication activities and
10


expressive activities and the goal is to become a fluent speaker”. It is clear that
teaching and learning speaking skill should be paid more attention.
2.3 Teaching and learning speaking skill
Speaking is an essential ability of second language teaching. For students,
they consider the mastery of speaking as a top priority in language acquisition.
They often measure their success in language learning based on the fact that
how much they feel they have improved their speaking proficiency.

Consequently, oral skills are compulsory subjects which are taught in English as
a foreign language or second language courses at present.
Harmer (2007) states that teaching speaking involves: connected speech,
expressive devices, lexis and grammar, negotiation language. This viewpoint is
added by Brown (2007) when he points out that teaching speaking should be
focused on accuracy and fluency. He also states that equipping motivating
techniques, enhancing the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts,
providing feedback and correction, linking speaking and listening, offering
opportunities for oral communication, and encouraging the development of
speaking strategies are the principles for teaching speaking. Additionally, Nunan
(2003) shows the goals of teaching speaking:
(1) Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns;
(2) Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of
the second language;
(3) Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social
setting audience, situation and subject matter;
(4) Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence;
(5) Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments;
(6) Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses,
which is called as fluency.
11


2.4 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity
According to Ur (1996), there are four main characteristics of a successful
speaking activity:
Firstly, learners have to talk a lot. As much as possible of the period of the
time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by learners’ talk. This may seem
obvious, but often most time is taken up with the teacher’s talk and pause.
Secondly, participation is even. The classroom discussion is often

dominated by talkative participants, which leads to the uneven distribution in the
students’ participation.
Thirdly, the motivation is high, which means that the students are willing
to learn because the learners are interested in the topics or they have something
new to say about it or they want to make contributions to the discussion.
Lastly, language is an acceptable level. Learners express themselves in
utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and an
acceptable level of language accuracy.
In reality, however, few classroom techniques are applied to meet all the
criteria above. The language teachers, thus, should attempt to use a variety of
techniques to meet the expectation of these criteria. Socratic Seminar is a
promising technique which somehow can increase students’ proficiency and
participation in speaking class.
2.5 Speaking problems
Ur (1996) indicates that there is a total of four problems occurring in a
speaking class. These are inhibition, lack of topical knowledge, low or uneven
participation, and mother-tongue use.
The first problem is inhibition; students are often worried about making
mistakes, afraid of speaking in front of the class, and shy of the other students’
attention towards themselves.
12


The second problem is the students’ lack of topical knowledge. Learners
often complain that they cannot think of anything to say and they have no
motivation to express themselves. Rivers (1968) believes that the learners have
nothing to express maybe because the teacher had chosen a topic which is not
suitable for him or about which he knows very little. This is also supported by
Baker & Westrup (2003) when they state that “it is difficult for many students to
respond when the teachers ask them to say something in a foreign language

because they might have few ideas about what to say, which vocabulary to use,
or how to use the grammar correctly”.
The uneven distribution in students’ participation is another problem
presented. In a large-sized group, each student has very little time to speak
because only one participant can talk at a time so that the others can hear
him/her. There is a tendency of some learners to dominate while others speak
very little or not at all.
Finally, the use of mother-tongue tends to be overused when students find
it easier for them to express their thinking. Harmer (1991) suggests some
reasons why students use mother- tongue in class. Firstly, when the students are
asked to have a discussion about a topic that they are incapable of, if they want
to say anything about the topic, they will use their own language. Another
reason is that the use of mother- tongue is a natural thing to do. In addition,
using the first language to explain something to another if there is no
encouragement from the teachers. Finally, if teachers frequently use the
students’ language, the students will feel comfortable to do it.
3. Socratic Seminar in teaching and learning speaking skill
There is very little research concerning the relationship between teaching
speaking and Socratic Seminar. Jim Scrivener finds that Socratic Seminar can be
useful in improving students’ speaking in terms of phonology. It is a good idea
to explain sentence stress patterns or minimal pairs when students engage in the
discussion. Rido Virgo Putra (2015) shows that the use of Socratic Seminar is
13


suitable for teaching speaking because students can express their ideas orally
and they can be more active in speaking. Also, students can learn to cooperate
with other students when they take part in the discussion. To sum up, Socratic
Seminar offers possibilities to improve communication skills, social skills and
academic achievement.

4. Teacher and students’ interaction in Socratic Seminar
In traditional classes, teachers are centered and dominant. They explain
grammar points, lead the whole-class discussions in which each student might
have a few seconds to talk. Socratic Seminar is used to increase the participation
and interaction of the students. The role of teacher should not be the controller
or leader of the lecture. Instead, he or she would be the observer and facilitator
to help students to raise questions and answer. At that time, students no longer
feel anxious to talk about the topic or be reluctant to express their opinions.
Moreover, students’ autonomy and responsibilities for learning will be
promoted.
5. Related research worldwide
There are some researches laying foundation to the less developed area.
The first research conducted to explore the effectiveness of Socratic Seminar in
education was by Mortimer Adler and The Paideia Group. They carried out a
research on elementary and secondary education in 1980s. They found that the
technique was proven to be valuable and effective in improving students’
achievement.
Socratic Seminar was also incorporated into mathematics curriculum by
G. Lacy (2011). He used survey to explore students’ perceptions towards the
effectiveness of the technique. The results showed that there was a significant
increase in students’ enjoyment of Socratic Seminar and in their belief that the
discussion helped them to understand the class material.

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Another research written by Francesco (2014) on the influence of Socratic
Seminar on leadership skills. The researcher used a variety of instruments
(survey, video recordings, and tests) to affirm the results which were that
students can improve their leadership skills after engaging in Socratic seminars.

When it comes to applying this technique to language teaching, however,
there is not nearly as much research upon which to build. The previous research
was conducted by Melia Andryani, student of Tanjungpura University who used
Socratic seminar to improve students’ speaking skill on hortatory exposition
text. She found that the use of the seminar had a positive effect on students’
speaking performance. However, the writer of this study used oral test as the
only one instrument to collect data, which might not guarantee the reliability of
the study.
The results of the previous studies show that the use of Socratic Seminar
has a positive effect on students’ academic development and language skill.
There is, however, little research touching upon the use of the technique in
teaching speaking skills. The previous studies conducted to explore the
effectiveness of the technique had not made clear the interaction process in
Socratic Seminar, how it is perceived by the students. Moreover, previous
studies did not focus the implementation of the technique on English-majored
students.
These study results would encourage more researchers to conduct studies
to find out new discoveries. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, in
Vietnam, there has not been any research on the use of Socratic seminar in
teaching field. The only research related to Socratic questioning was “The
casebook and Socratic methods in the United States legal education” written by
Truong Hai Ha (2011), University of Languages and International Studies,
which introduces the use of Socratic method in law teaching in the United
States, not in language teaching. Hence, the researcher decided to carry out this
study to explore the effectiveness of using Socratic seminar by figuring out the
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