Difficulties in studying and acquiring English speaking skills for the firstyear Englishmajored students at Thuongmai University

DECLARATION

I, Nguyen Ngoc Thien, hereby certify this thesis with the given name:
“Difficulties in studying and acquiring English speaking skills for the first-year
English-majored students at Thuongmai University” belongs to my own effort of
researching under the requirement of the Graduation paper at English Faculty –
Thuongmai University. Any substance of this research has not been submitted for a
degree to any other university or institution.

Signature

Nguyen Ngoc Thien

1


ABSTRACT

Speaking is known as one of the most necessary abilities to communicate as
well as interact with people in the real life. Even though people are aware of its
importance, a number of learners finds it difficult to acquire and master this
particular ability. As a result, this thesis will focus on the subjective and objective
obstacles in trying to learn to speak fluently and properly. After that, the reasons
behind this problem as well as possible solutions will be mentioned based on the
collected data from the students. In order to accomplish those tasks, the author had
to use qualitative method along with quantitative one to conduct the research. In
addition, methods of collecting data such as questionnaire survey and interviews are
also implemented. All of these factors mentioned above will contribute to the
success of figuring out the difficulties in studying English speaking skills of firstyear English-majored students at Thuongmai University.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

2


During the process of completing this graduation paper, I have received help
from many people around me such as my friends, family members and teachers,
who have actively provided me with supportive encouragement, as well as helpful
assistance without any hesitation.
I would like to express my gratitude towards my supervisor – Mrs. Pham Thi
Phuong,

the

teacher

of

English

Faculty

for

guiding

and

clarifying

misunderstandings during researching. Without her aid, this thesis in general could

not have been completed in due time. Moreover, I also would like to show my
sincerest thanks to all of my teachers of the English Faculty at Thuongmai
University, who have given me such academic documents containing background
knowledge to finish this graduation paper.
Additionally, I am grateful because of the fact that a lot of K55N showed their
enthusiastic participation in my study.
Last but not least, I would like to thank all the authors of the academic
materials listed below for helping me with my study.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3


LIST OF CHARTS, TABLES AND FIGURES
No.

Content

Page

1

Table 3.1. Personal information of the students.

23

2

Table 3.2. The importance of English skills.

23

3

Table 3.3. Frequency of using English speaking skills.

25

4

Table 3.4. Time spent to practise English speaking skills.

26

5

Table 3.5. Places to speak English regularly.

27

6

Table 3.6. Practice partners.

28

7

Table 3.7. Sources to learn English speaking skills.

29

8

Table 3.8. Speed and plan of using English speaking skills in the
future.

30

9

Table 3.9. Students’ opinions of the most difficult parts when
speaking English.

31

10

Table 3.10. Explanations of considering them the most difficult.

31

11

Table 3.11. Reasons why people pay little attention to English
speaking skills.

32

12

Table 3.12. Solutions.

33

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
No.

Abbreviation

English meaning

Vietnamese meaning

1

TMU

Thuongmai University

Trường đại học Thương Mại

4


5


CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

1.1. Rationale
As we all know, English has been known as a global language and plays an
important role in both daily life and other aspects, such as work, foreign relation,
translation & interpretation. Therefore, English is widely used in many countries in
the world, particularly, the number of nations using English as a second language,
mother tongue or a language that is used for work is remarkably immense. Also,
English is a compulsory subject for Vietnamese students as it is being very crucial
for the country’s economy growth, and Vietnam is co-operating with other countries
in terms of economic and diplomatic aspects as well. However, despite the
popularity of English, there seems to be a problem related to the proficiency of
English among Vietnamese students, due to the fact that they have to balance their
studying between other subjects and English, along with the fact that they have to
learn how to use 4 skills of English language: Listening, Reading, Writing and
Speaking at the same time. Of these 4 skills, speaking has been recognized by far as
the most difficult one to be competent and mastered by lots of students in general.
The problem is getting more complicated, as many students are incapable of
speaking and talking in English to other Vietnamese peers, let alone foreigners. In
the context of the country developing, this in long-term may harm the nation one
way or another. As an English-majored student, the researcher wishes to investigate
this situation and tries to solve it. After observing multiple students in Thuongmai
University encountered many problems with these specific skills, it is necessary for
this study to be made in conjunction with the relevant survey, with the title
“Difficulties in studying and acquiring English speaking skills for the first-year
English-majored students at Thuongmai University” in order to figure out what
could be possibly hindering them, the reasons behind this cause as wells as certain
solutions to overcome.

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1.2. Previous studies
This issue is very common amongst not only students but also other groups of
people as well, such as employees. Therefore, it is obvious to mention that there has
been a lot of studies conducted by many previous researchers. It is also a fact that
even though the methods and conclusions might vary, the aims are still similar to
each other. To complete such studies, they had to acquire a great deal of useful
information from books and other materials before researching and making surveys.
However, in general, they always provided the readers what they needed to know
about the researches before reading them, such as the definition, the figures, etc…
There are a few studies from both domestic and foreign researchers that the writer
would like to present.
1.2.1. From domestic researcher(s)
The research of a group of female linguists whose names are Vo Phuong
Quyen, Pham Thi My Nga and Ho Thao Nguyen on “Challenges to speaking skills
encountered by English-majored students: A story of one Vietnamese university in
the Mekong Delta” concerned the proficiency and fluency of EFL English-majored
freshmen regarding English speaking skills in Can Tho university, and also
discussed some internal and external factors affecting their learning. They proposed
some suggestions to help the students improve their overall English speaking skills.
1.2.2. From foreign researcher(s)
The research on “Improving English Language Speaking Skills of Ajloun
National University Students” by a linguist whose name is Abdel-Rahman AlEiadeh (2016) concluded that many students faced many problems that were related
to speaking skills, which were confusion and embarrassment, as well as the fact that
they studied incorrectly at university and encountered difficulties when pronouncing
words. That’s why he aimed to present some practical solutions for the students at
ANU.
As we can see, there are a lot of researches and surveys targeting at one
realistic problem: “Speaking is not a priority to focus on” and one goal: “How to

7

improve this ability”. That is the primary reason why the writer of this study also
wants to make contribution towards this existing problem.
1.3. Aims of the study
As mentioned previously, the targets of this study are the students of Englishmajored at Thuongmai university, who are currently first-year. The reason why the
researcher chose this group to conduct a research is that they are not acquainted
with being introduced to new methods of learning English at university,
consequently, they must have certain hardships in learning English, especially
speaking – the skills that in high school were not paid enough attention to.
Secondly, the researcher would like to know their proficiency of English
speaking skills in order to categorize them from being incompetent or able to speak
fluently and give them suggestions or improvements accordingly.
In order to achieve the outcomes, the specific objects should be defined as:

• Evaluating the students’ English proficiency through surveys and interviews.
• Acknowledging what the difficulties are based on the results of the survey and the
reasons why such obstacles exist.
• Suggesting some solutions to improve their speaking skills.
1.4. Research subjects
Of all 4 skills in the English language, speaking is known as one of the most,
if not, the most important skills, and it could be the most difficult ability to attain
because there are many people who are not capable of using it to communicate
properly with others at work or on a daily basis. That’s why the subject focuses on
the difficulties in speaking English faced by 1 st-year students at Thuongmai
university to help them improve for future career.
1.5. Scope of the study
This study focuses on the first-year students at Thuongmai university who are
being members of English faculty. As the time and knowledge are insufficient, as
well as the materials for referencing are inadequate, this study is unfortunately

unable to solve every issue of speaking skills. In addition, the study only aims at

8


one specific group of students, not everyone at Thuongmai university. Nevertheless,
the writer will try his best to deliver the finest content on the speaking skills.
1.6. Research methodology
In order to complete the study, it was carried out with the help of both
quantitative and qualitative methods at the same time. On top of that, the writer
chose the questionnaire to conduct the research.
First and foremost, questionnaire on English speaking skills was created and
provided to approximately 50 first-year English-majored students at Thuongmai
University. Upon doing that, the overall information would be collected based on
the frequency of students using English to speak, and some difficulties as well.
The second method that was implemented was interviewing, as it was used to
get direct answers and personal opinions from many students that might not be
appeared in the questionnaire, and the attitude could be observed as well, thus
helping the researcher have a deeper understanding about their problems.
Particularly, 10 students were interviewed to obtain the valuable information.
1.7. Organization of the study
This study consists of 4 chapters, namely (1): Overview of the study, (2)
Literature

review,

(3)

Research

Methodology

and

Findings

and

(4)

Recommendations and Suggestions.
In chapter (1), the researcher introduces general overview of this study,
starting with “Rationale”, which gives a brief background of the existing problem.
Then “Previous Studies” which are relevant to the present research and the “Aims
of the study” are discussed as well. Moreover, “Research subjects”, “Scope of the
study” and “Research methodology” are also to be mentioned. Finally,
“Organization of the study” is included at the end of first chapter.
The second chapter provides the overview of speaking skills, discovers some
drawbacks when speaking English along with the causes, and the summary of the
writer.

9


In the third chapter called “Research Methodology and Findings”, this study
shows the results and the information collected from questionnaire surveys and
interviewing, has the results commented and give conclusions.
In the last chapter - “Recommendations and Suggestions”, the writer mentions
some tips in order to help the students improve or have them as references for
prospective studies.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Overview of speaking skills
2.1.1. Definition of speaking skills
To the best of the writer’s knowledge, speaking is defined as a process of
using words to express a person’s thoughts and feelings for different purposes via
uttering to other people. In the world, there are many linguists having different
perspectives of the speaking skills, but still remaining the similar ideas of what
speaking is, for example, According to Brown, (1994); Burns & Joyce, (1997),
speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves
producing and receiving and processing information.
Burns and Joyce also stated that “Its form and meaning are dependent on the
context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective
experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. It is often
spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving. However, speech is not always
unpredictable. Language functions (or patterns) that tend to recur in certain
discourse situations (e.g., declining an invitation or requesting time off from work),
can be identified and charted.”
In addition, a group of linguists (Burns & Joyce, 1997; Carter & McCarthy,
1995; Cohen, 1996) proved that speech has its own skills, structures, and
conventions different from written language. A good speaker synthesizes this array
of skills and knowledge to succeed in a given speech act.
There are also many other linguists in the 1990s period having their own ideas
of what speaking is. According to Revell (1979), communication is an exchange
between people, of knowledge, of information, of information, of ideas, of options,
of feeling, so there must be concept, ideas, in the fellow speakers of what they are
going to say and Widdowson (1985) stated that an act of communication through

speaking is commonly performed in the face to face interaction and occurs as a part
of dialogue or rather form of verbal exchange. What is said therefore, defends on an
understanding of what case has been said in the interaction. In this further

11


discussion, Widdowson proposes the term “speaking” for the manifestation of
language as usage and reverse to the realization as “talking”.
Even though many people might have different points of view regarding the
definitions and the use of speaking, all of them have 1 fact in common: they all are
given chances to understand and clarify the intrinsic aspects of the speaking skills,
which is considered as an important means to acquire and master a language.
2.1.2. The importance of speaking skills
As we all know, English has four distinctive skills: listening, speaking, reading
and writing. The fact that all of these skills are highly relevant to each other in terms
of the proficiency. Noticeably, speaking skill is recognized as the ability that
benefits not only learners but also common citizens the most as it allows them to
arrange the words that they want to say in a logical way, as well as help them to
express their feelings and emotions with ease. Particularly, it gives people:
•

Ability to attract and persuade
There are a lot of professions in the society that strongly rely on the
dominance of speaking skills, such as politicians, teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs,
etc…To them, speaking is considered as a means to grab people’s attention and to
convince people about certain aspects. However, in order to do that, the users have
to master the logical arrangement of words they want to utter, as well as take
advantage of the superior knowledge they gained via different methods, thus
creating messages that are straightforward, comprehensible and professional to the

audience with different perception.

•

Ability to be outstanding
Speaking is usually being underestimated as being a regular skill that anyone
can achieve easily. In contrast, the ability to stand in front of many others and
deliver a well-prepared speech is not something that can be gained with ease. In
fact, there are multiple people in the society who find it difficult to speak

12


confidently in public. Additionally, there are also people whose minds and thoughts
cannot be expressed properly although they spend lots of time thinking before they
say, which definitely prevents them from claiming their fruition. That being said,
anyone whose speaking skills are well-developed can stand out.
•

Confidence
Another benefit that speaking grants to its users is confidence. Thanks to the
thoughts and expressions that have been fully developed, along with the knowledge
of different things that they learned, the speakers are able to achieve a lot of things
in their daily lives and fulfill their desires. Especially, when it comes to businesses,
confidence is an important factor for any entrepreneurs to negotiate successfully
and offer conditions which are favorable to both parties.

•

Promotion

With the rapid pace of development in terms of technology and labor market
in the world, more and more people are searching ways to study and acquire the
speaking skills in order to boost their opportunities of promotion in working
environment, as verbal interaction is crucial for the survival of any firms existing in
any countries. As a consequence, employees who are willing to spend their time and
effort doing so should be rewarded and appreciated.
To conclude, speaking is important for anyone to climb their career ladder, and
is able to improve people’s lives as well.
2.1.3. Methods of speaking
According to a group of researchers whose names are Jason S. Wrench, Anne
Goding, Danette Ifert Johnson, and Bernardo A. Attias (2011), they mentioned that
currently, there are 4 main methods of speaking, which are: Impromptu speaking,
Extemporaneous speaking, Speaking from memory and Speaking from a
manuscript.

13


Firstly, “Impromptu speaking” can be easily understood as a short answer to
certain questions or messages without proper preparation. There are many kinds of
speech similar to this in our daily lives, such as when you are asked to give a brief
introduction about yourself when you are in an interview.
•

Advantages
This form of speaking can offer speakers many advantages, as one of them is
to make the conversation more natural and instantaneous to the listeners.

•

Disadvantages
As the time to think of a response is relatively inefficient, there will be cases
when the words and thoughts are not carefully prepared, causing the speakers to
deliver disorganized messages that are not straightforward and incomprehensible.
Secondly, “Extemporaneous speaking” is considered as a kind of presentation
that are well researched and prepared in order to deliver the best content to their
audience, however, this form of speaking will only require users to use some notes
rather than a full manuscript.

•

Advantages
It has a greater advantage compared to the previous one of keeping eye contact
constantly with their listeners, thus gaining their attention at your speech, and
providing more information if there exists terminologies or misunderstandings,
which a lot of listeners are not familiar with.

•

Disadvantages
This form of speaking does not include everything that the speaker needs, as a
consequence, he may forget what needs to be mentioned next. In order to avoid this,
the speaker may have to practise immensely if he does not want his audience to
continuously stare at and secretly critique him when standing idly.

14


Thirdly, “Speaking from memory” is a way of speaking when the speakers say
what they remember. For example, actors or actresses illustrate their characters’

lines and expressions in a play or movie, or a student presents a problem in front of
the whole class.
•

Advantages
The benefit of this method of speaking is that the speakers no longer have to
rely on notes or manuscript constantly, and they can walk around as they please, eye
contact is also feasible with this style.

•

Disadvantages
When using this method, it costs the speakers lots of time and effort to
remember everything without the need of cue cards, or notes; more importantly,
continuously talking without a break will result in making the speech completely
dull and preventing their audience from grabbing the main points of the messages or
speeches. In the worst case, when speakers cannot remember what the following
statements needed to be mentioned, it’s difficult to track the correct places to
continue, which will lead their audience to start noticing their behavior and realize
something is wrong.
Finally, “Speaking from the manuscript” is the easiest type of speaking in the
writer’s opinion, because it involves the action of holding a piece of paper and then
reading out loud every single word from it.

•

Advantages
The speaker may not need to spend time preparing the speech and make the
speakers more confident.

•

Disadvantages

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This form of speaking is notoriously less interesting compared to all of the
other methods since the audience may not pay attention to what the speaker’s trying
to read during the presentation or possibly by doing something else and completely
spacing out, moreover, eye contact between the speaker and the audience is
neglected as the speaker’s eyes totally focus on the script, and he/she may not
clarify misunderstandings when one of the terminologies confuses people.
2.2. Difficulties in studying speaking skills
There are manifold difficulties that will slow the speakers’ pace in trying to
succeed in acquiring these skills. Particularly, the researcher believes that there are
4 major obstacles:
2.2.1. Teaching methods being unsuitable for the students to follow
As a common fact, speaking is similar to everything else existing in the world
because we need guidance from people with greater experience in order to help us
perform with precision in the shortest amount of time. Noticeably, speaking is
recognized as one of the skills that Vietnamese citizens in general and students in
particular have a tendency of being reliant on other people’s assistance in order to
immensely improve.
However, in reality, there are a large number of people being mistakenly
guided in terms of the ways of being introduced to learn how to speak properly and
fluently, as a result, it will impact people’s progress in long-term negatively.
2.2.2. The environment being unable to provide standard conditions for
learners
This factor also affects the progress of studying the speaking skills. Because of

the fact that when students are taught in a Vietnamese environment, it becomes
difficult for them to approach and adapt to the new ways of thinking and reacting
naturally in English, therefore it will negatively impact their pronunciation, the pace
of their speaking and the intonation.

16


2.2.3. Students being shy and fear of mistakes
Since Vietnam is a country whose feudal ideals still remain heavily even
though the society is modern now, the students or learners are taught to remember
that they only need to listen to their teachers and don’t voice their opinions
regardless of any questions they have in mind, as a result, they will eventually
become shy to ask their teachers to have them clarify misunderstandings, which in
long-term will make them inactive whenever they try to learn new things.
Moreover, people in Vietnam generally are afraid of critiques and judgements,
which leads to the fact that they don’t want to be commented, though they know
that it’s beneficial for them. Consequently, students may keep repeating the similar
mistakes without being aware of them.
2.3. Factors affecting English speaking skills
2.3.1. Listening compatibility
Listening actually has a pivotal impact on speaking skills, because it is
impossible for the speakers to understand and try to come up with a response with
logical selection of words and grammatical combination if they aren’t able to listen
to what other people convey. If the listening ability of the users is limited, the
likelihood to reply is nearly impossible or extremely low.
2.3.2. Lexical resources
Vocabulary is necessary in any languages in order to not only communicate
properly but also used in other aspects of a language, such as writing or reading. In
order to speak properly, users must have a decent amount of vocabulary to response

correctly and appropriately in certain situations. One example to demonstrate is
when talking to a friend, the words chosen should be simple, informal and
comprehensible, whereas when doing presentations, it’s better to use terminologies
to illustrate the complexity of the subject rather than common words.

17


2.3.3. Grammar
Grammar plays a crucial role in contributing to the fluency of the speaking
skills as well. As we speak with a phenomenal mixture of grammatical
implementation,

the

sentences

or

statements

will

become

logical

and

straightforward. If grammatical use is limited, it is likely to accidentally cause the

conversations to be awkward, thus spending more time thinking about and
correcting them. There is 1 common fact about the learners trying to study English
is that they are not familiar with the grammar, as a consequence, it costs them to
spend more time acquiring and mastering this ability.
2.3.4. Self-confidence
It is necessary to be confident regardless of anything we try to accomplish.
Upon doing so, our skills and flexibility will be further enhanced. The similar result
also applies to speaking skills, because it becomes truly difficult, or maybe
impossible to speak properly if the users are not confident about themselves, about
their abilities and their strengths as well as weaknesses, which in long-term, will
limit their overall capabilities.
2.3.5. Appropriateness
Talking properly doesn’t only focus on using the words and grammars
flexibly, it primarily aims at being appropriate in certain situations when we speak
in real life. In some specific cases, we need to be aware of our answers as it may
hurt people in terms of their emotional aspects, which may harm the relationships
between users and their surrounding people. To avoid such negative consequences,
it’s better to pay attention to the way we speak to the people with whom we are
communicating.
2.3.6. Pronunciation
Pronunciation is recognized as one of the most pivotal factors for not only
people who’s been experiencing and learning English for a long time, but also for

18


new ones who are not very familiar with, as it causes the meaning to differ
depending on the words, for example: “decisive” is correctly pronounced as /dɪ
ˈsaɪ.sɪv/, not /dɪˈsɪ.sɪv/. If we pronounce the words that we want to say in a wrong
way, the listeners will not be able to completely understand what we aim to imply.

Consequently, confusion will definitely arise, especially in special and important
events such as conferences or meetings.
2.4. Summary
To conclude, chapter 2 has basically summarized all the theories, opinions and
ideas which are relevant to the speaking skills. From this, theoretical framework has
been established in order to illustrate relevant literature. In the following chapter,
the author will show the methodology as well as results of the research in
accordance with all being mentioned above.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS
Chapter 3 shown below will include the data and information collected from
the questionnaire survey as well as direct interviews regarding the difficulties in
studying English speaking skills of 1st-year students at Thuongmai university.
Additionally, it also illustrates the causes stopping them from achieving their
fruition and suggestions to improve the students’ speaking ability.
3.1. Participants of the study

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In this study, thanks to the collective assistance of 50 first-year students who
are English-majored at Thuongmai University, there are 35 male and 15 female
students who have participated in this questionnaire survey.
Most of them have 1 fact in common, which indicates that they have studied
English for a long time, primarily because a number of students came from rural
areas, thus showing that they all received the similar curriculums in terms of the
English teaching methods prior to entering university. However, since many of them
didn’t have a lot of opportunities so as to practise their English skills, their
proficiency of speaking were not being paid attention enough and caused them
many issues when studying at TMU.

3.2. Methods of collecting data
3.2.1. Questionnaire survey
As a common and by far the most effective method, questionnaire survey has
been recognized and implemented many times by others in order to collect data
with ease in terms of the opinions, attitudes and perceptions. In the writer’s case, it
is efficient to use as it is straightforward to investigate and gain information from
the target students.
To briefly talk about it, this survey questionnaire has a total amount of 17
questions and is divided into 3 parts: Part 1 is to obtain general information about
the students regarding their English speaking proficiency; Part 2 is to find out the
reality of the students using speaking skills which includes many aspects of
speaking particularly; Part 3 mainly aims at the difficulties along with the reasons
why the students think so, and ultimately, the last part is about solutions.
3.2.2. Interviewing
Even though this method causes them to spend a lot of time preparing the
questions and choosing the suitable participants to begin interviewing, as well as
requires lots of effort, the researchers can have a deeper understanding about the

20


students’ opinions and attitudes without having to rely on questionnaire heavily. In
the interview, the writer asked 10 students to self-evaluate their English speaking
ability, and then continued to have them answer what has been troubling them when
they learned how to speak properly, what the reasons might be behind the causes
and their own suggestions to improve speaking skills in general. The interview was
successfully implemented because all of the students showed enthusiasm when
being asked and agreed to co-operate.
3.3. Data instruments
There are 2 major methods of gaining data, the first one is from the

questionnaire and the second one is the interview.
3.3.1. Questionnaire
Prior to creating the questionnaire, the author at first came up with a set of
questions that he believed they would tremendously assist him in solving the
existing problems that are hindering the students. After that, the author of this paper
had the questions included in the questionnaire, which was created by Google forms
and then he started to send into certain Facebook groups of K55N students to ask
them to fill in the information needed. When the data was collected, it’s high time
the writer began to analyze it.
3.3.2. Interviews
Initially, the researcher came up with a set of questions that he needed to
collect information, then approached 10 random K55N students that he met at
TMU. After asking for their consent to be interviewed, the writer began to take note
what the participants said and then compile their answers.
3.4. Data analysis
As mentioned previously, the researcher chose to conduct the interview with
10 students who have never done his questionnaire before. By doing that, it ensures

21


that it’s up to the researcher to select primary information that is more subjective
and displays the opinions of the participants. Moreover, the information gathered
can be sufficient and background knowledge of the writer will be enhanced as well,
thus assisting him to explore the reasons behind the problem, and ultimately, it is
inexpensive.
However, the researcher observed that there were some students when being
interviewed refused to give their answers in English because they mentioned that it
was not necessary, and they couldn’t express their opinions more freely and flexibly
without using their mother tongue, as a result, he had to interview them in

Vietnamese instead.
The data will be presented below, along with the questions and key comments
which will be summarized.
3.4.1. Results from the interview
3.4.1.1. Self-evaluation regarding their English proficiency
In general, before the students or the participants were interviewed to give
more information about their speaking abilities, they were first asked some
questioned regarding their overall English proficiency. The answers were
surprisingly expected as many students claimed that their English skills in general
were imbalanced. Although the statements might differ, what they meant was
mostly similar to each other.
Particularly, they said that in high school, their English teachers guided them
to mainly focus on studying their reading and writing abilities, as a result, they
partly or completely showed an ignorant attitude towards listening skills along with
speaking skills, and only practiced when they were required to. In the end, eight out
of ten students affirmed that they spent most of their time and effort aiming at
getting high grades when being tested in terms of grammatical and lexical

22


resources, and getting decent scores when writing essays, whereas the last 2
managed to develop all of their English skills evenly.
To talk about speaking specifically, they stated that they were not really
interested in studying speaking skills, consequently, they only did that to pass
examinations in high schools, which was a solid proof of why their pronunciation
and intonation were below average, some even said low.
•

Interviewee 2

In high school, my English teachers mainly taught me how to use grammatical
structures and vocabulary properly for the sole purposes of passing exams, and get
into a well-known university.

•

Interviewee 3
Other skills such as listening or speaking were not paid enough attention, and
the teachers sometimes cut speaking classes to focus more on the Graduation or
University Entrance Exam (UEE) when I was at grade 12th.

•

Interviewee 4
I really don’t need to study how to speak fluently because I planned to work
by using other English skills.

•

Interviewee 5
I spent a lot of time reading online articles and writing essays to prepare for
my examinations, so I don’t have time to study speaking.

•

Interviewer 8
I didn’t have a proper guidance, and for that reason, I had to self-study but it
was too difficult compared to other skills. So I quitted.

23

As shown above, speaking in general was not a priority when they learned
English, either because of the fact that it was not their concern for their career or
they were mistakenly guided, and teachers only showed interest when teaching
them writing and reading skills.
3.4.1.2. The hardship that they have to overcome
Speaking is a truly a difficult ability to master because it involves many
aspects which may include: intonation, vocabulary, grammar or even logical
thinking can be used to assist speaking. Some comments will be illustrated below
by the interviewees.
 Pronunciation

Seven out of ten students stated that they did not display their concern towards
their pronunciation. There are certain words they did not bother to look up in the
dictionaries because they affirmed that they were correct. As a consequence, they
mispronounced many times without being aware of unless they were told. This
leads to the fact that it also places a negative impact on them when they study
speaking because whenever native English speakers speak the same words with
correct pronunciation , they are not able to recognize them because they are familiar
with their ways of pronouncing.
•

Interviewee 3
Sometimes when I spoke to my teachers in English, she didn’t understand
because I mispronounced them, for example: the word “blood” is supposed to be
pronounced as “blʌd”, but I kept pronouncing “blɒd”. She corrected me many
times, but I continued to repeat the same mistake over and over again.

•

Interviewee 4
When the teachers told me to read a paragraph, I read it so badly that people
kept laughing at me.

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•

Interviewer 7
In high school, a lot of my teachers mispronounced several words and I didn’t
realize it after studying in university. That leads to me sometimes mistakenly
pronouncing the them.

 Lexical resources

Vocabulary is also a pivotal factor when a person tries to speak. Because
without it, it becomes impossible to speak accurately in certain situations as well as
unable to express main ideas easily. This is by far the most necessary factor that
everyone needs to have, which was claimed by 10 students.
•

Interviewee 5
There are many times when I tried to present a problem in front of the whole
class, but because I lacked vocabulary, I could not tell them exactly what I meant to
say.

•

Interviewee 9
Sometimes I’m frozen when I’m in a middle of my talking, I had no idea what
to say next because I didn’t know how to translate that word from Vietnamese to
English.

•

Interviewee 10
It’s really hard to learn a language without having a wide range of vocabulary.
We cannot even write a sentence correctly, let alone talking specifically.
Additionally, another reason being associated with the lack of vocabulary is
limited interaction with academic documents, such as online articles or majorrelated books. “I can read a lot of documents in Vietnamese to broaden my
knowledge, but when it comes to reading in English, I’m unable to. That’s why my
speaking in English is horrible”. Said by interviewee 7.

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