An investigation into the difficulties faced by teachers in teaching english speaking skills to mường ethnic students at bac son high school

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

TRỊNH THỊ HOAN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY
TEACHERS IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS TO
MƢỜNG ETHNIC STUDENTS AT BẮC SƠN HIGH SCHOOL
(Nghiên cƣ́u nhƣ̃ng khó khăn giáo viên gă ̣p phải trong da ̣y ki ̃ năng nói cho ho ̣c
sinh dân tô ̣c Mƣờng ta ̣i trƣờng THPT Bắ c Sơn )

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

HA NOI-2013


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

TRỊNH THỊ HOAN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE DIFFICULTIES FACED BY
TEACHERS IN TEACHING ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS TO
MƢỜNG ETHNIC STUDENTS AT BẮC SƠN HIGH SCHOOL
(Nghiên cƣ́u nhƣ̃ng khó khăn giáo viên gă ̣p phải trong da ̣y ki ̃ năng nói cho ho ̣c
sinh dân tô ̣c Mƣờng ta ̣i trƣờng THPT Bắ c Sơn )

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Supervisor : Dr. Nguyễn Huy Kỷ

HA NOI-2013


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT:

Communicative Language Teaching

BS:

Bắ c Sơn

ESL:

English as a Second Language

ELT:

English Language Teaching

EFL:

English as a Foreign Language

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Participants‟ age, gender and years of experience
Table 2: Teachers' ideas about teaching speaking skills to Mường ethnic minority
students
Table 3: Teachers‟ attitude towards teaching English speaking skills in the
textbook “English 11”
Table 4: Teachers‟ ideas about CLT
Table 5: Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching English speaking skills
Table 6: Teachers‟ attitude towards learners keeping making mistakes and ways
to correct them
Table 7: Teachers‟ techniques applied currently in teaching speaking to reduce
the difficulties and to encourage students to speak English
Table 8: Students‟ opinions on the speaking topics presented in the textbook “
Tiế ng Anh 11”
Table 9: Students‟ reasons for learning English
Table 10: Students‟ attitudes towards learning English speaking skills
Table 11: Factors that make students unwilling to speak in English
Table 12: Students‟ ideas about teachers‟ reactions to their mistakes
Table 13: Students‟ ideas about their teachers‟ current techniques used for
teaching English speaking skills

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP…………………………………………...........i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………...…………...............ii
ABSTRACT ...........................................................................................................iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS …………………………………….…………........iv
LIST OF TABLES ………………………………………….………….….............v
Part A: INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................1
1. Rationale………………………………………………………………...............1
2. Aims of the study…………………………………………..................................2
3. Research questions…………………………………………………..……..........2
4. Scope of the study………………………………………………………….........2
5. Methods of the study…………………..……………………………… ....... ….3
6. Design of the study…………………………………………………......….........3
Part B: DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………...……..….4
Chapter 1 : LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………….….............4
1.1. An overview of Communicative Language Teaching ......................................4
1.1.1. Definitions of Communicative Language Teaching...............................4
1.1.2. Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching…..............…...5
1.1.3. Roles of teachers in CLT .......................................................................6
1.1.4. Roles of learners in CLT ......................................................................6
1.2. Nature of Language skills and oral communication..........................................6
1.2.1. Nature of Language skills .....................................................................6
1.2.2. Oral communication..............................................................................7
1.3. An overview of speaking in language teaching and learning............................8
1.3.1. Definitions of speaking .........................................................................8
1.3.2. The characteristics of speaking..............................................................8
1.3.3. The role of speaking in language teaching and learning.......................9
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1.3.4 Approaches to the teaching of speaking...............................................10

1.4. Summary………………………………………………...….........................12
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...............................................13
2.1. Research setting...............................................................................................13
2.1.1. An overview of the research site..........................................................13
2.1.2. Description of the teachers of English at Bắ c Sơn high school...........13
2.1.3. Description of the students at Bắ c Sơn high school ...........................14
2.1.4. The teaching and learning English speaking skills..............................14
2.2. Methodology study..........................................................................................15
2.2.1. Participants...........................................................................................15
2.2.2. The Instruments....................................................................................16
2.3. Data collection and analysis procedure...........................................................17
2.3.1. Data collection......................................................................................17
2.3.2. Data analysis.........................................................................................17
2.4. Summary..........................................................................................................17
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS ................................... .................................18
3.1. Data analysis of teachers‟ survey questionnaire ............................................18
3.2. Data analysis of students‟ survey questionnaire.............................................26
3.3. Summary..........................................................................................................33
CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS............. 35
4.1. Summary of the findings.................................................................................35
4.1.1. Difficulties from the teachers .................................................................35
4.1.1.1. Shortage of Training in CLT .........................................................35
4.1.1.2. Misunderstanding of the teaching method........................................35
4.1.2. Difficulties from the students...................................................................36
4.1.2.1. Limited English proficiency .............................................................36
4.1.2.2. Limited motivation in learning..........................................................36
4.1.2.3. Use of Vietnamese during pair work or group work.........................36
vii

4.1.2.4. Students‟ negative psychological factors .........................................37
4.1.3. Other difficulties.....................................................................................37
4.1.3.1. Large size of the class........................................................................37
4.1.3.2. Difficulties from the textbook “ Tiế ng Anh 11”...............................37
4.2. Recommendations...........................................................................................38
4.2.1. Improving CLT knowledge for the teachers........................................38
4.2.2. Making speaking communicative activities.........................................38
4.2.3. Building positive environment in class................................................40
4.3. Summary.........................................................................................................40
Part C: CONCLUSION........................................................................................41
1.Conclusions ..................................... ...................................................................41
2. Limitations of the study…………………………………………….............….41
3. Suggestions for further study……………………………………............……..42

REFERENCES............................................................... .......................................43
APPENDICES...........................................................................................................I
APPENDIX A..........................................................................................................I
APPENDIX B.........................................................................................................V
APPENDIX C .....................................................................................................VIII

viii


PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale of the study
As we know that we are living in the world of globalization. English is a common
language and is spoken in many countries. It is considered as universal language in many
fields such as: science, technology, diplomacy and so on. Most of the universities
worldwide include English as one of their major subjects. Vietnam is also competing with

the other countries in terms of education and many other things. Hence, we are forced to
meet global standards.
In Vietnam, English has become a compulsory subject in the curriculum and it is
considered as one of the major subjects for the national secondary school and high school
examinations. Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam (2006) has stated that the
objective of language teaching is teaching learners to communicate fluently, appropriately
and spontaneously in the cultural context of the target language. In recent years, the study
of English has gained momentum because it is partly the change in education policies of
our government. The number of people who wish to know and master English has
become more and more increasing, especially since Vietnam adopted an open-door
policy, teaching and learning English have been paid much attention to.
There still exist many difficulties facing English language teachers in Vietnam in
general and English language teachers at Bắ c S ơn high school in particular in teaching
speaking skills to students. The teachers of English at Bắ c Sơn high school find it difficult
to teach speaking successfully because of remote and mountainous area, ethnic majority
students, students‟ low level, students‟ poor living conditions, lack of materials and
facilities ....
The teaching and learning English process at Bắ c Sơn high school seems to still
focus too much on grammar and structures. Students are very good at doing exercises of
written forms, these forms of exercises mostly concern grammar, reading or writing
comprehension. The consequence is that students have many difficulties in speaking.
There are many students who have perfect knowledge of grammar but can‟t express
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themselves to the teacher. Therefore, they usually keep quiet and lazy during speaking
lessons. It is very difficult to make them participate in speaking activities.
All of the above reasons have inspired the author to do the research on “An
investigation into the difficulties faced by teachers in teaching English speaking skills
to Mườ ng ethnic students at Bắ c S ơn high school” with the hope to investigate the

teachers‟ difficulties in teaching English speaking, then I will present some
recommendations that can help the teachers overcome those difficulties, and thereby
make a small contribution to the quality of teaching and learning speaking skills at Bắ c
Sơn high school.
2. Aims of the study
The study is aimed at:
- Investigating the current situation of teaching and learning of speaking skills at Bắ c Sơn
high school.
- Identifying the difficulties and obstacles that the teachers at Bắ c Sơn high school have
faced when teaching speaking skills.
- Making some suggestions for the teachers at Bắ c S ơn high school with the hope of
helping the students overcome their inhibition, and thereby improve students‟ speaking
skills.
3. Research questions
My study aims at answering the following research questions:
- What are the current techniques of teaching speaking skills used at Bắ c S ơn high
school?
- What kinds of difficulties do the teachers at Bắ c Sơn high school often meet in teaching
English speaking skills to Mường ethnic students?
- What are the most effective ways that help the teachers at Bắ c Sơn high school

to

overcome these difficulties?
4. Scope of the study
The researcher only intends to give a brief overview of current English speaking
teaching and learning situations of grade 11 students at Bắ c Sơn high school, and to focus
2

on the difficulties that the English language teachers have met when teaching speaking
skills to the minority students at Bắ c S ơn high school and then offer some implications
and activities with the hope that teaching and learning speaking skills will be improved.
The study of difficulties, some suggested solutions to other skills and levels would be
beyond the scope of the study.
5. Methods of the study
To realize the objectives of the study, qualitative and quantitative methods will be
used. The data collected for the study will mainly from two sources: 140 students of 11th
grade and 4 teachers of English at Bắ c S ơn high school. Survey questions are used to
collect information and evidence for the study.
All comments, remarks, recommendations, and conclusions provided in the study are
based on the data analysis.
6. Design of the study
This study consists of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion.
 Part A: Introduction
 Part B: Development
The development comprises four chapters:
+ Chapter 1 :

Literature Review

+ Chapter 2 :

Research Methodology

+ Chapter 3 :

Data analysis

+ Chapter 4:

Findings and Recommendations

 Part C: Conclusion

3


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the theoretical background of the research concerning CLT,
nature of language skills, and an overview of speaking skill in language teaching and
learning.
1.1. An overview of Communicative Language Teaching
1.1.1. Definitions of Communicative Language Teaching
Communicative Language Teaching is a prominent theoretical model in English
Language Teaching (ELT) and CLT is accepted by many applied linguists and teachers as
one of the effective approaches. Since its first appearance in Europe in early 1970s and
subsequent development in English as a Second Language countries over the past 20
years, CLT has extended in scope and has been used by different educators in different
ways. A number of research studies have been conducted and much effort has been put
into discussion on the implementation of CLT in EFL.
So far, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been viewed differently by
different authors:
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Communicative language teaching (CLT), or the communicative approach, is an
approach to language teaching that emphasizes interaction as both the means and the
ultimate goal of study.
According to Littlewood (1981:1), "one of the most characteristic features of

communicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional as well
as structural aspects of language, combining these into a more fully communicative
view". CLT advocates to go beyond teaching grammatical rules of the target language,
and recommend that, by using the target language in a meaningful way, learners will
develop communicative competence.
CLT emphasizes on learners-centered teaching. According to Savignon
(1983:263), "Communicative Language Teaching has become a term for methods and
4


curricula that embrace both the goals and the processes of classroom learning, for
teaching practice that views competence in terms of social interaction”. Li (1998:679)
also added that CLT requires teachers to develop materials based on the needs of a
particular class and "students must be made to feel secure, unthreatened, and
nondefensive" in a CLT classroom.
According to Bock (2000) CLT is tailored to get at meaning and learners negotiate
meaning in class. Meaning is considered as what is communicated. He also states:
“Authentic materials, functional tasks, and groups and pair work are significant aspects
of CLT”.
According to Nunan (1989: 194), Communicative Language Teaching means:
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; they include
functional skills as well as linguistic objectives. The learner’s role is as a negotiator and
integrator. The teacher’s role is as a facilitator of the communication process. Materials
promote communicative language use; they are task- based and authentic.
It is thought that the definition contains aspects that are common to many other
definitions. The definitions above, as with any definitions of the language teaching
method (Penny Cook, 1989), represents a particular view of understanding and explaining
language acquisition. It is socially constructed and must be seen as a product of social,

cultural, economic, and political forces.
1.1.2. Characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching
In approaches and methods in language teaching.
Richards and Rodgers (2001) summarized the communicative view of language as:
• 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.
5


So the communicative approach views language as a system through which the meaning
is expressed perfectly. Its main function is to permit interaction and communication; the
primary elements of language are not only grammatical and structural features but also
the functional and communicative meaning.
Another characteristic of CLT is the introduction of authentic material (Dublin,
1995; Larsen- Freeman, 1986; Long and Crooks, 1992; Nunan, 1990). In CLT, it is
considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to response to genuine
communicative needs in realistic L2 situations so that they develop strategies for
understanding language as actually used by native speakers (Canale and Swain, 1980).
1.1.3. Roles of the teachers in CLT
There are quite a few roles for teachers in CLT which are determined by the view
of CLT. According to Breen and Candlin in article “The essentials of a communicative
curriculum in language teaching” there are two main roles of a teacher in CLT class
rooms. The first role is to facilitate the communication process among all the students in
the classroom and the different type of activities and texts. Secondly, a teacher has to
act as an independent participant within the learning teaching groups. The teacher is also
expected to act as a resource, an organizer of resources, a motivator, a counselor, a guide
and a researcher. (Richards & Rodgers, 2001).

1.1.4. Roles of learners in CLT
As the importance in communicative language teaching on the process of
communication rather than mastery of language forms, there are different roles of learners
in classroom. The main role of learners is negotiating. They negotiate among themselves,
the learning process and the objective learning. Learners should contribute as much as
they gain, and thereby learn in an independent way. They interact within the groups and
within the classroom.
1.2. Nature of Language skills and oral communication
1.2.1. Nature of Language skills
It is known that language communication involves several language skills. On the
teaching points of views, language skills consist mainly of four- macro skills ( listening,
6


speaking, reading and writing) which are inter- related. That is why students of English
are required to have an adequate mastery of the four – macro skills. Nevertheless, the
degree of fluency of each skill, which a learner requires, depends on the course purposes.
The first two skills, listening and speaking, are called the oral skills due to the
manners by which they are formed (they are related to articulator organs). The last two,
reading and writing, are called the literacy skills as they connect with manual script.
Of the four skills, speaking plays a very important role since it is the step to identify who
knows and does not know a language. Anyone who knows a foreign language can speak
that language. So, we begin with speaking, because after learning to speak, it is easier to
develop reading and writing skills in the foreign language classroom. However, language
teachers have found it is difficult to develop their students‟ speaking skills after reading
and writing.
1.2.2. Oral communication
Communication is the exchange of ideas, information between two or more
persons. When communication takes place, speakers feel the need to speak, want
something to happen such as expressing pleasure, charming listeners, etc and select the

language they think is appropriate for their purpose.
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.
According to Byrne (1991:9), “the nature of oral communication is comprehended a
two- way process between the speaker and the listener. Oral communication is effective
only when the learners are supplied with oral skills”. In organizing classroom oral
practice, teachers should create as much information gaps as possible and teachers‟ vital
duty is to encourage communication which yields information gaps. But teachers must
take into account the reality of oral communication practice inside the classroom which
differs from that of communication in the real - life world.

7


As for Pattison (1987) classroom oral practices have five characteristics: (1) the
content or topic is predictable and decided by teachers, books, tapes, etc; (2) learners’
aims in speaking are to practice speaking, to follow teachers’ instructions and to get good
marks; (3) learners’ extrinsic motivation is satisfied; (4) participants are often a large
group; (5) language from teachers or tapes is closely adapted to learners’ level.
However, not all people are good communicators. By becoming an effective
communicator one will be able to conduct himself in a variety of personal, professional,
and academic environments with confidence.
1.3. An overview of speaking in language teaching and learning
1.3.1. Definitions of speaking
Speaking is described as an interactive process of constructing meaning that
involves producing, receiving and processing information. Speaking depends on the
context or the situation. Context includes the physical environment, the purposes for
speaking are more often spontaneous, open ended, and evolving. Speaking requires

learners to not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar,
pronunciation, or vocabulary but also that they understand when, where, why and in what
ways to produce language.
According to Brown and Yule (1983), spoken language consists of short,
fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation. However, speaking is a skill, which
deserves attention as much as literacy skills in both first and second language because our
learners often need to speak with confidence in order to carry out a lot of their most basic
transactions (Bygate 1991). Furthermore, speaking is known with two main types of
conversation called dialogue and monologue.
Another author examining the nature of speaking is Bygate ( 1987), who shows that
in order to be able to speak a foreign language, it is obviously necessary to have microlinguistic skills, that is, to understand some grammar, vocabulary and the rules governing
how words are put together to form sentences. However, these motor- perceptive skills, as
Bygate calls them, are not sufficient since while producing sentences, we often have to
adapt them to the circumstances. He then presents the second set of speaking skills: the
8


interaction skills, which involve using knowledge and basic motor- perception skills in
deciding what to say and how to say it, while maintaining the intended relation with
others.
1.3.2. The characteristics of speaking
According to Bygate (1985), in almost speaking, the person to whom we are
speaking is in front of us and able to put us right if we make mistakes. He or she can
generally show agreement and understanding or incomprehension and disagreement as
well. Unlike readers or writers, speakers may need patience and imagination, too. While
talking, speakers need to take notice of the other and allow listeners chance to speak. It
means that we often take turns to speak.
According to Bygate (1987, 22) both speakers and listeners, besides being good at
processing spoken words should be „good communicators‟, which means „good at saying
what they want to say in a way which the listener finds understandable‟. This means being

able to possess interaction skills. Communication of meaning then depends on two kinds
of skills: routines, and negotiation skills.
To begin with, routines are the typical patterns in which speakers organize what they
have to communicate. There are two kinds of routines: information routines, and
interaction routines. The information routines include frequently recurring types of
information structures involved in, for example, stories, descriptions, comparisons, or
instructions.
The interaction routines, on the other hand, present the characteristic ways, in
which interactions are organized dealing with the logical organization and order of the
parts of conversation. Interaction routines can typically be observed in, for example,
telephone conversations, interviews, or conversations at the party (Bygate 1987, 23-27)
To sum up, in learning speaking skills, the learners can be much more confident
with clear understanding and governing these skills. Moreover, the oral skill depends
much on knowledge of language they can learn such as grammar, pronunciation and
vocabulary.
1.3.3. The role of speaking in language teaching and learning
9


It can not be denied that in our daily lives most of us speak more than we write.
Speaking when compared with writing 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 is a medium through which many other
skills are 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 learners in
school and success later in every phase of life. More than this, speaking is regarded as the
first step to confirm who knows or does not know a language. Ur, P (1996) shows that
people who know a language are referred to as “ speakers” of that language as if speaking

included all other kinds of knowing.
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.
1.3.4. Approaches to the teaching of speaking
According to Byrne (1991:23- 24), there are three phases to develop learners‟ oral
ability:
Phase 1: The presentation phase
In this phase, teachers are centre. They work as an information provider as they
know English, select materials and the ways to present the materials. Byrne (1991, 13)
divides the roles of the teacher according to the type of interaction activity distinguishing
between fluency and accuracy activities . During this phase the teacher most frequently
adopts the roles of manager, conductor, organizer and monitor. And in this first phase,
students usually observe and listen to the teacher, i.e. they passively receive information.
As we know, oral materials are written mainly in two forms in every course. They are
dialogues and prose. Thus, it is obviously that these two different forms need presenting
in different ways.
Byrne, D. (1991) summaries ten different steps to present a dialogue as follows:
10


1. Establish setting by using pictures. At this step, English is used as much as
possible.
2. Draw out learners‟ experience related to situation.
3. Explain some key words.
4. Set the listening task by asking key information of the dialogue
5. Ask learners to listen without looking at the dialogue.
6. Allow learners to have a look at their book when necessary.
7. Ask learners to listen and repeat.
8. Ask learners to pick up difficulties and explain them.

9. Ask them to practice ( role- play)
10. Ask them to dramatize the dialogue.
From the steps above, we can see that the procedure is perfectly and logically arranged.
However, not all of them need to use for presenting a dialogue, it depends on the learners‟
English competence. so some steps can be left out.
Byrne (1991:26) suggests that teachers should use the following nine steps to present a
prose,
1. Introduce the topic by asking learners to look at the pictures or asking them about
related things.
2. Introduce the text. New words and structures are given.
3. Provide relevant practice.
4. Set the reading task: make questions.
5. Ask the learners to read the passage in silence and find the answers.
6. Ask learners to read again aloud and ask for the answer.
7. Explain difficulties they still have.
8. Do silent reading again because learners need to go on with step nine.
9. Get the learners to talk about what they have to learn based on the previous
answers.
Phase 2: The practice phase

11


In this phase learners have to do most of the talking. Teachers provides maximum
amount of practice to help learners improve vocabulary and grammar knowledge as well
as fluency of speaking. Pairwork or groupwork are used in this phase.
Phase 3: The production phase
Learners are given chances to speak English freely at this phase. Being in a real
situation, learners use English by themselves, not depend on the teacher. They can
develop their own ideas and their friends‟ ideas. Pair work and group play an important

part in making learners practice speaking. By doing group work learners have chance to
participate in talks: Moreover, this can save a great deal of time and learners seem to be
more confident.
1.4. Summary
In this chapter, the author has reviewed the theories from the famous linguistics
and methodologists on some aspects of language teaching such as “Communicative
Language Teaching”, “characteristics of Communicative Language Teaching”, “Nature of
Language skills and oral communication” and the theories on some concepts such as “The
nature of speaking skills”. It includes the definitions, the characteristics of speaking and
the role of speaking in language teaching and learning. The following chapters will
present the investigation, the findings and suggested solutions to the problems under the
light of the above mentioned theories.

12


CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses the setting of the research, participants, instruments as well
as the procedures of collecting and analyzing data.
2.1. Research setting
2.1.1. An overview of the research site
Ngọc Lặ c is a mountainous district in the NorthWest of Thanh Hó a province,
where over 80 % of the population belongs to Mường ethnic minority group, and where
there have been many difficulties in life as well as in educational development, especially
in teaching a foreign language like English.
The school in my study, named Bắ c Sơn high school was established in 2006. It is a
mountainous and remote school. At present, there are 19 classes with about 900 students.
The teaching placed into three different grades: grade 10, 11, and 12.
The teaching staff composes of 40 teachers (20 are females and the others are males).
Most of them are young, enthusiastic and creative.

2.1.2. Description of the teachers of English at BS high school
At BS high school, there are five teachers of English currently working. Three are
female and the rest are male, at the age of from 26 to 37. Their experience in teaching
English varies from 4 years to 10 years. Two of them graduated from Ha Noi Foreign
Languages University, the others were from Hong Duc University in Thanh Hóa
province. It is proved that all of them are qualified and experienced English teachers.
However, some get used to speech dominated education by a teacher-centered, bookcentered, Grammar Translation Method. Others even do not have a thorough grasp of the
content of the curriculum and the new textbook, it results in confusion in teaching
methods.
The English teachers at Bắ c S ơn school have to teach 2 to 5 classes. In these
classes, the number of pupils who belong to Mường ethnic group are large. The class size
is large (45 – 55) so the teachers can not control the classes effectively. Moreover, the
teaching materials are not available for all of the students.

13


Most of the teachers are from different regions of Thanh Hóa province. Therefore,
in their teaching, they meet many difficulties and numerous culture shocks.
2.1.3. Description of the students at BS high school
The school has 19 classes with over 900 students ranged from grade 10 to grade 12
. They are aged from 16 to 18. Most of them come from poor and large families with low
income in the remote villages. After finishing school, they spend most of their time
helping their parents do farming and housework. Their homework must be neglected.
Also, their parents are too busy to help them with their lessons. In their minds, schooling
is their children's responsibility and teachers' charge, so they rarely pay attention to their
children‟s schoolings or encourage them to learn hard. Consequently, they are not
provided with good learning conditions.
The students do not have the same level of English language proficiency. Some of
them have learned English for 7 years at junior and senior high schools; some have only

learned English for 3 years while a few have never learned English. Although some of
them study English rather well, they are only good at grammar, not speaking. They are
likely to do grammatical exercises very quickly and well at their level but they cannot
speak fluently about some common topics, and most of them do not feel self-confident or
even a bit frightened in communicating in English. That was the reason why most of
students feel bored and unmotivated in speaking classes.
Mường is their first language, they always use it everyday to communicate with their
parents and other members of their communities. They only use Vietnamese at schools or
at public places, so their Vietnamese competence is still limited.
Therefore, as for teachers from other regions, in their teaching process, they find it
hard to understand their students and have to make greater efforts to encourage them to
use Vietnamese or English when in class.
To sum up, teaching English in general and teaching English speaking in particular
for ethnic minority students in the remote mountainous area has long been a difficult
issue.
2.1.4. The teaching and learning English speaking skills
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Nowadays, along with the strengthening position of English as a language for
international communication, the teaching of speaking skill is also important due to the
large number of students who want to study English in order to be able to use English for
communicative purposes. The skill of speaking has been recently considered by many
methodologists a priority in language teaching. Of all the four skills, speaking seems
intuitively the most important.
English teaching and learning at Bắ c Sơn high school is quite different from that in
other developed regions in Vietnam. They are affected by some factors that come from
students side such as: family background, large class size, lack of

motivation and

confidence, low English proficiency, low participation in class. In summary, students at
BS high school may be considered to have more disadvantages of learning English
speaking skills than at other schools.
Besides, lack of training in new teaching methods, especially CLT makes it
difficult for the teachers to teach English speaking skills. All the above factors make the
teaching and learning speaking skills more challenging.
2.2. Methodology
2.2.1.Participants
In order to get the data for the study, 140 students from three classes and four teachers
of BS high school are the research objects.
140 students are at grade 11. Most of them are at the age of 17, so they belong to the
same psychological age group. They are 65 females and 55 males. Their time length of
English learning is different. Most of them belong to Mường ethnic minority. 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.
Four teachers who are teaching at the school are invited to participate in the
research. They come from different regions. Their ages range from 26 to 37. Two are
females and the rest are males. Their time length of teaching English is different:
minimum is 4 years and maximum is 10 years. The variety in the participants‟ age, sex,
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qualification and teaching experience is expected to provide reliability and validity for the
study.

2.2.2. The instruments
In order to get information, the main data collection instruments for this study were
two questionnaires for both students and teachers. The researcher only used survey

questionnaire as the instrument because of its convenience and the limitation of scope of
this study. 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.
a, The questionnaire for teachers
The purpose of this questionnaire was to find out the teachers‟ perception of CLT, the
difficulties they have encountered in their teaching of speaking skills and their techniques
and methods in dealing with these difficulties.
At the beginning of January 2013, the author did a survey on this topic to develop
an appropriate survey instrument for this study. The final questionnaire was administered
to 4 teachers teaching at Bắ c Sơn school at the end of January 2013. Questionnaire (see
appendix A) was designed for the teachers. It consisted of 15 questions that were
classified into categories:
• Teachers‟ ideas about teaching speaking skills to Mường ethnic minority students
• Teachers‟ attitude towards English speaking skills the textbook “Tiế ng Anh 11”
• Teachers‟ ideas about CLT
• Teachers‟ difficulties in teaching English speaking skills
• Teachers‟ attitude towards learners keeping making mistakes and ways to correct them
• Teachers‟ techniques applied currently in teaching speaking to reduce the difficulties
and to encourage students to speak English
• Teacher‟s ideas
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b, The questionnaire for students
At the same time, questions were distributed to 140 ethnic students. To ensure that
the students have right understanding of the questions, the teacher translated the questions
into Vietnamese one by one. It consisted of 13 questions that were classified into
categories:

• Students‟ English background
• Students‟ opinions on the speaking topics presented in the textbook “ Tiế ng Anh 11”
• Students‟ reasons for learning English
• Students‟ attitudes towards learning English speaking skills
• Factors that make students unwilling to speak in English
• Students‟ ideas about teachers‟ reactions to their mistakes
• Students‟ ideas about their teachers‟current techniques used for teaching English
speaking skills
• Students‟ expectations toward their teachers
2.3. Data collection and analysis procedure
2.3.1. Data collection
The questionnaire for teachers was easily carried out. Four copies were given to
four teachers, and a data was made for the questionnaire to be given back.
140 students from three 11th form classes were randomly selected. Copies of the
questionnaire were handed out to the students.
2.3.2. Data analysis
In the study, the way to gain data was in form of questionnaire. The answers given
by the teachers and students in response to the questions were categorized by the
researcher. Each of the categories was then computed and the data were selected
statistically in the form of tables and percentages.
2.4. Summary
This part presented research setting, participants, instruments, procedures of data
collection and analysis. The researcher hopes that the data is reliable and valid. After this
is the analysis and discussion on the results collected from the data.
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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS
This chapter aims at analyzing the data collected. A careful analysis is clearly
presented to investigate the difficulties of teachers in teaching speaking to Mường

students.
3.1. Data analysis of teachers’ survey questionnaire
The findings from the teacher questionnaire are categorized into sub-sections as in
Table 1 will be summarized in table 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
• Participants’ age, gender and years of experience
The first part is about demographic information only. These results are reported in
Table 1 to describe the sample of participants that are surveyed.
Table 1. Participants’ age, gender and years of experience
Gender

Male

2

Female 2
26

1

30

2

36

1

Years of

1-5

2

Experience

6-10

2

Age

The questionnaire for teachers consisting of 14 questions is designed to find out the
information concerning aspects. The questions and respones to them are presented in the
headings below:
3.1.1. Teachers' ideas about teaching speaking skills to Mường

ethnic minority

students

Table 2
Question 1. How do you think about teaching speaking skills to Mường ethnic students
at Bắ c Sơn high school?
Options

Result(%)

A. Difficult

100%

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