An investigation into the impact of bilingual education on students’ english speaking competence at a secondary school in hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF
LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF
POSTGRADUATE STUDIES *********************

NGUYỄN LAN HƢƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACT OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION
ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING COMPETENCE AT A SECONDARY
SCHOOL IN HANOI

Điều tra sự ảnh hƣởng của giáo dục song ngữ tới khả năng nói tiếng Anh của
học sinh tại một trƣờng trung học cơ sở tại Hà Nội
M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Method
Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi, 2018

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF
LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF
POSTGRADUATE STUDIES *********************

NGUYỄN LAN HƢƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACT OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION
ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING COMPETENCE AT A SECONDARY
SCHOOL IN HANOI

Điều tra sự ảnh hƣởng của giáo dục song ngữ tới khả năng nói tiếng Anh của
học sinh tại một trƣờng trung học cơ sở tại Hà Nội
M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Method
Code: 8140231.01
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Hoà

Hanoi, 2018

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DECLARATION
I, Nguyễn Lan Hương, an M.A. student of the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies
of University of Languages and International Studies, hereby certify my
authority of the study entitled “An investigation into the impact of Bilingual
education on students’ English speaking competence at a secondary school in
Hanoi”. My study has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master in English Teaching Methodology. Except where the
reference is provided, no other person’s work has been utilized without the
acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Initially, I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor,
Professor Dr. Nguyễn Hòa for his guideline and support. Without his precious

advice and constructive suggestion, my thesis could have not been as
flourishing. Mr. Nguyễn Hòa’s remarkable encouragement kept me moving
forwards.
I wish to thank the Management Board, lecturers and staff members of
Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International
Studies,

Vietnam

National

University,

Hanoi

for

their

tremendous

encouragement to students throughout the course.
Additionally, I would like also to extend my thanks to teachers and
students at the local secondary school where I conducted my study. Their
dedication inspires me to complete my thesis regardless several emerging
difficulties during the process.
Finally, I also owe a great debt of gratitude to my dearest family and
colleagues for accompanying and supporting me during my period of study and
through the process of researching and doing the thesis.
This accomplishment would not have been possible without all their

support.
Hanoi, May 2018

Nguyễn Lan Hương

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CEFR
CELTA

ERB
ESL
ESOL
ETS
ICT
IGCSE
MOET
PET

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Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
Table 4
Table 5
Figure 1
Figure 2

Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

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ABSTRACT
This study was to determine the impacts of Bilingual program on the
ability of speaking English of a secondary Bilingual school in Hanoi. The
participants were four eighth and ninth graders who have been enrolling in
bilingual program. The study used qualitative method; therefore, the data was
collected through classroom observation and semi-structured in-depth interview
with participants: four students and two teachers. This study was based on an
interpretive approach concerned with subjective meaning in a particular context
with the collected data analyzed inductively. The study revealed that those
Bilingual school students were capable of speaking English quite well. Besides,
the study’s result was to suggest that bilingual education has had a concrete
impact on the instructional approach of bilingual students, namely, the learning
environment or the attitude towards English speaking.

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TABLE OF CONTENT
Content

Page

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION........................................................................... 1- 4
1.1.

Rationale.................................................................................................. 1

1.2.

Aims of the study................................................................................ 2

1.3.

Scope of the study............................................................................... 3

1.4.

Significance of the study................................................................. 3

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................... 5 -10
2.1.

Definition of Bilingual Education............................................. 5

2.2.

Characteristics of Bilingual Education................................... 6

2.3.

The concept of speaking competence..................................... 8

2.4.

Review of previous studies........................................................... 9

CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY.......................................................................... 11- 23
3.1. Context of the study............................................................................. 11
3.1.1. Description of the Program and
the school’s philosophy
3.1.2. Curriculum, learning - time proportion
and assessment
3.1.3. Type of Bilingual education in the context
3.2. Research instrument and design of the study............................15
3.3. Data collection procedure.................................................................... 16
3.4. Data analysis............................................................................................... 19
3.4.1. Testing

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3.4.2. Semi- structured interview and interview protocol
3.4.3. Observation
CHAPTER 4 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION......................................... 24- 36
4.1. Testing....................................................................................................... 24
4.2. Semi- structured interview............................................................. 29
4.3. Observation............................................................................................ 33
CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSIONS....................................................................... 37- 39
REFERENCES

APPENDICES

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CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION
1.1.

Rationale

In recent years, bilingual education has continued to fuel controversy in
the national and local areas. “Bilingual schools are frequently found in Europe,
Asia, Africa and Latin America, and they are widely understood to be schools
that promote bilingualism and literacy in two (or more) languages as goals for all
students” (Baker, 2001, Crawford, 2004). The protesters assume that this
program is a catalyst for the dominant culture while neglecting minorities found
in the society. The advocates, nevertheless, strongly believe that bilingual
education breaks down the language barrier to acceptance into a new culture as
well as create a positive self-concept allowing students to learn more effectively.
Bilingual education provides human cultures with an opportunity to diverse. It is
a chance of studying from the distinction instead of being scared of them. Once
people learn a second language, they will obviously found it will be much easier
to learn even more languages. Bilingual education enriches brain and mind
growth, encourages students’ concentration, and reduces the amount of transition
time when switching tasks. Tozer (2009) claimed that those students who
experience discriminatory practices will retreat into “a posture of resistance in
which they stop working with the school and its agent”. Therefore, bilingual
education, to some extent, can boost students to feel being accepted and
communicate more easily.
As an international language, English has been widely used in all fields of

activities throughout the world. English is spoken in so many different countries
and there are numerous schools and centers around the world which offer

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programs in English. Thus, there are various opportunities for students to find an
appropriate school and course to suit their academic needs provided that they
know English. To catch the trend of the world, in Vietnam, learning English is
apparently crucial for most of the students and it is a mandatory subject since
students are at primary school. Additionally, the rapid development of the
integrated society also requires people to communicate English fluently. For
these following reasons, the educators know how committed the parents are to
ensure that their children are able to acquire an international standard education,
especially their English speaking skill. With the purpose of meeting social
demands, therefore, there have been numerous bilingual schools appearing in
Vietnam so far. It is definitely an opportunity to be part of a new school system
that is developing in Vietnam. The goal of bilingual schools is to provide an
international education system for both domestic and foreign students, which
creates a new English environment so that students are able to cultivate their
English skills. Specifically, for most of students in eighth and ninth grade who
enroll in bilingual program at bilingual schools, speaking English fluently and
confidently is one of the most fundamental skills which assist them to be more
adaptable and easier to approach a new culture when studying abroad. Thus, it is
extremely essential to investigate the influence of bilingual education on
speaking competence of secondary students at a secondary bilingual school
where English currently has great additive value.
1.2.

Aims of the study

This study investigates the influence concerning the development of
speaking competence of secondary students at the local bilingual school where

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English currently has great additive value. With this regard, one research
question is developed.
The research aims at answering the following question:
To what extent does bilingual education have impact on enhancing
secondary students’ English speaking competence?
1.3.

Scope of the study

The study limits its scope within the English learning context at a local
Bilingual school with four student participants who have been learning in
bilingual educational system for at least one school year. These four participants
were all in grade 8 and 9. The justification of choosing participants is that they
had been learning English for such a long time that they could somehow produce
English in pre-intermediate or intermediate levels. Secondly, they were junior
students who started to fulfill their cognitive competence as well as their critical
thinking. Moreover, the needs of improving bilingual education of students
accounted for the vast majority of young learners. Last but not least, those
students were going to be in high school or apply for the international program
IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) after
finishing their program in grade 8 or grade 9.
1.4.

Significance of the study

There has been a new tendency of bilingual educational system in
Vietnam recently. Parents are concerned more about language learning for their
children and they are willing to spend a fortune so that their children are able to
receive the idealistic environment of accessibly new languages, especially

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English. To understand and meet such a social demand, a variety of bilingual
schools have appeared. Furthermore, Vietnamese students have got accustomed
to learning grammar, writing and reading skills only at school. As a result, most
of students who graduated from secondary school or high school are not able to
communicate fluently in English. Therefore, parents now, to some extent, try to
let their children learn in bilingual schools where they can practice English more
often. Besides, a language may be acquired by being in the environment where
the language is spoken, and participating in that cultural setting, or may be
learned in a classroom with field techniques that allow practice in the new
language. Bilingual education has been around for quite a while. However, the
question is whether bilingual education meets the expectation of parents and
children remains unanswered. Consequently, it is necessary for the research to
consider the impact of bilingual school on students’ English speaking
competence, which is likely to answer the above question.

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CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Definition of Bilingual education

Cambridge has used the term “bilingual education” to refer to “the use of
two or more languages as mediums of instruction for content subjects such as
science or history”. Bilingual education is another term that requires
clarification. The reason lies on its variation of meaning in different circles; the
following is a commonly accepted definition of bilingual education. The three
main concepts which have been used in bilingual education indicate the crucial
distinctions in practice: language immersion, monolingual, and bilingual.
Bilingual education is sometimes referred to as language immersion. Bilingual
education, on the other hand, supplies two languages in form of instruction with
the goal of language proficiency in one or both of the languages used. Cohen
(1975) revealed bilingual education as “the use of two languages as media of
instruction for a child or a group of children in part or the entire school
curriculum”. Ovando and Collier (1985) indicated bilingual education consisted
of the concept of “bicultural education”. Porter also claimed bilingual education
includes "instruction in the native language most of the school day" (Porter,
1994; cited in Brisk, 2006, p. 31). Besides, bilingual education was also defined
by Garcia (2008) as those instructional techniques that contribute to surpass
learning opportunities to language minority students.
There are various program models which are used in bilingual education.
May (2008) stated that bilingual education programs were divided into one of
two categories, either additive or subtractive. A subtractive program promotes
monolingual learning in the dominant language and in that sense is only

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bilingual during the programs transitional stage from one language to another. In
contrast, an additive program aims to supervise students to achieve bilingual
education over the long term. May also suggested other ways to categorize
bilingual education, including: transitional, maintenance, enrichment, and

heritage model. Transitional bilingual education involves the partial or total use
of the child’s home language when the child enters school, and later a change to
the use of the school language only. The goal of transitional bilingual education
is to transition students into English-only classrooms as quickly as possible. It is
sometimes called early exit bilingual education. Maintenance bilingual
education, on the other hand, involves the use of the child’s home language
when the child enters school, then a gradual change to the use of the school
language for teaching some subjects and the native language for teaching others
For the purposes of this study, a school is considered to be bilingual when
the primary language of language students is used for instruction for at least one
year. In these schools, some forms of bilingual education comprised a substantial
strand for most English learners. English is used for instruction throughout the
grades and is taught as a language. The use of two languages was considered to
be among the defining characteristics of the site by the school community.

2.2. Characteristics of bilingual education
It is estimated that about 60 to 75 percent of the world is bilingual, and
bilingual education is a common educational approach used throughout the
world. Good bilingual education programs recognize and build upon the
knowledge and skills children bring to school. They are designed to be

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linguistically, culturally, and developmentally appropriate for the students and
have the following characteristics such as an English-language development
component, high expectations for students and clear programmatic goals. Baker
(2011) stated the following criteria which were considered to be effective
bilingual schools and classroom share in common. Initially, he mentioned the
shared vision, mission, and goals among staff. A numerous number of the

teachers, teaching assistants, administrative and staff in bilingual schools were
supposed to be well-advanced in dual languages, which created a communicative
environment between school and students as well as their parents. Furthermore,
Baker claimed staff professional development and training together with
curriculum intellectually challenging, active and meaningful lesson. Indeed,
teachers and teaching assistants were required to discuss with each other weekly
about the planning and team teaching training. For example, there would be
monthly training for teachers to discuss and learn from what they had been
through in teaching as well as the advices from their colleague. Besides, M.R.
Montecel and J.D. Cortez conducted a research of investigating 10 bilingual
programs whose students met high achievement goals on standardized tests.
They found out that the curriculum in these effective bilingual programs
reflected and valued the students’ culture and adheres to high academic
standards. Moreover, Cummins supported a basic principle of bilingual
education that children's first language skills were likely to be well-developed to
guarantee that their academic and linguistic performance in the second language
is maximized.

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2.3. The concept of speaking competence
Speaking is a part of oral productive skill. Brown (1997) referred speaking
is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing,
receiving and processing the speech of sound as the main instrument.
Furthermore, Underwood (1997) mentioned speaking as creative process; an
active interaction between speaker and listener that involves thought and
emotion. Besides, Thornburry (2005), speaking is a speech production that is
going to be a part of our daily activities.
According to Oxford Advanced Dictionary, competence is (of person)

having ability, power, authority, skill, knowledge, etc. Brown (2004) identified
people who had got speaking competence as those who were imitative and
intensive. They are able to produce utterance so as to demonstrate skill in a
narrow band of grammatical, phonemes, lexical or phonological relationship.
They can be also responsive and interactive when they can reply a comment,
feedback, short conversation or even exchange information. Speaking
competence of a person is defined when that individual is interpersonal and
extensive. Therefore, speaking competence means conversation ability or
conversation skill. It performs a conversation of mutual interdependent and
interactive nature. Similarly, Vaclav Hemerka (2009) indicated that competence
is used to describe the learner´s capacity to produce a language. It is an
awareness activity as well as feedback activity so that a series of tasks is
developed to sharpen the students’ awareness on the activity and assess their
own progress performance.

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2.4. Review of previous studies
There have been several researchers who conducted studies about
bilingual education. The majority of these researches, nonetheless, were about
the classification of bilingual education, bilingual program evaluation or the
effectiveness of bilingual education to language learning in general. Trueba
(1979) and Hornberger (1991) distinguished between bilingual education models
and programme types. Meanwhile, Bialystok (1986) indicated that children’s
bilingualism positively affects their increasing ability to solve problems
involving high levels of control of linguistic processing. Research over the past
two decades has showed a number of differences that emerge from growing up
with at least two languages (Bialystok, 2009a; Grosjean, 1989). In addition,
Krashen (1996) argued that bilingual education is vital to an immigrant child’s

language educational program, which enhances both heritage language education
and the gradual exit program. On the other hand, Cheng (1996), Lopez and Mora
(1998), Federman (2000), Mora (2000), and Lopez (2003) focused on the effects
of primary language instruction, usually in academic subject. Similarly, the study
mandated by California’s Proposition 227 found insignificant effects of bilingual
education on student-level mathematics and reading test scores (Parrish et al.
2006). Aimee (2012) revealed the impact of bilingual education programs on
limited English proficient students and their peers in a school in Texas, the USA
by examining the effects of bilingual education programs (ESL programs alone)
on the achievement of intended beneficiaries (limited English proficient
students) and their classmates (non-limited English proficient students)

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In Vietnam, there have been some previous studies about bilingual
education. These researches, nonetheless, mainly focused on bilingual education
for Vietnamese ethnic minorities students, which offered solution to some of
Vietnam’s yawning socioeconomic gaps. The other limited studies, to some
extent, mentioned bilingual education of English learning in Vietnam. Dong
(2013) launched the research about successes and challenges of bilingual
education in Vietnam. He found that proficiency in English is becoming “a
must” for the youngsters in Vietnam but bilingual education contains a large
amount of challenges in terms of the school’s side, students’ side and teachers’
side. Another study, on the other hand, concentrated on the bilingual program.
Tran and Phan (2017) researched bilingual education program proposed in
Vietnam with the context was a primary school in Dong Thap. They
implemented the partial early immersion bilingual school program, which aimed
to help students to become bilingual and bi-literate in Vietnamese and English.
Overall, these studies have investigated the mixed effects of bilingual

education on academic achievement as well as bilingual program. According to
those studies, the researcher decided to study the impact of bilingual education
on one of the most crucial and recognized skill- speaking competence.

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CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGY
3.1. Context of the study:
3.1.1. Description of the program and the school’s philosophy.
This bilingual school was officially launched and started its first academic
year in August, 2011, with the goal of providing a multi-level educational system
from grade 1 to 12 in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is the first bilingual school in Vietnam
recognized by Cambridge International Examinations as Cambridge standard
school and is also a member of other international organizations such as ERB,
Cambridge ESOL and ETS, College Board Test Site. It is one of those schools
that are equipped with the most modern teaching and learning system in
Vietnam. With the aim of providing students with a comprehensive learning
environment, this bilingual education has invested to build a modern school
system in Vietnam and is designed to optimize all of the teaching activities.
My interview with the General Director – the Principal of this school
revealed that the teaching philosophy is to provide not only an educational
product but also a happy learning environment, which help children to get
interested in learning, growing and developing in happiness. Moreover, these
school student generations can be trained with exceptional qualities such as:
Knowledge, Independent thinking and Confidence, Adaptability, Enthusiasm and
Motivation. “It is not only a school but also a happy learning environment.
Everything from learning spaces to learning program is designed and built for
children, for the happiness of learning, creativity and exploration”, said the Head
of School. Furthermore, researcher investigated the task of this bilingual

program is to “Ignite the passion for life” within each student, which reflects

11


their aspirations and unleashes the potential in each student. Education is no
longer simply conveying theoretical knowledge; it is to inspire passion for
learning, teaching students with creativity and vision which are not inferior to
any education systems in the world. Thus, the aims of this bilingual program are
to help students familiarize themselves with studying in an English speaking
academic environment; come out of the course confident in a wide range of
communicative skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing. (See
Appendix)
3.1.2. Curriculum, learning - time proportion and assessment.
This school system has the bilingual program for the level of education:
Primary, Secondary and High school. In this research, the researchers just focus
on Secondary level. There are 22 classes in Secondary level, each class has
maximum of 25 students and classes are arranged according to students’ English
level. Every student who wants to learn in this school is required to do
placement tests of both Vietnamese and English so that School Enrolment is
capable of checking and classifying students’ level. About the curriculum,
students are able to learn both Ministry of Education and Training dictated
subjects and English subjects. For Ministry of Education and Training dictated
subjects, students follow the basic national subjects such as Vietnamese Math,
Literature, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Art, and Music and so on. Besides, they
have chance of learning one more subject which is distinct from other public
schools, Life skills. This subject provides students with knowledge of sexual
education, financial management or cooking; therefore, students can apply those
skills into their social life. About international program, there are five subjects

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learnt in this bilingual School: ESL (English as a Second language), Reading,
Writing, ICT (Information Communications Technology), Science and Math.
Students have opportunities to learn the International curriculum which is
appropriate to each level and the ESL curriculum is based on the Common
European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Thus, students will be able to attend
international exams, be assessed and then get internationally recognized
certificates. Every week, students in this school have 45 periods, including 18
periods of International programs, 24 periods of Ministry of Education and
Training (MOET) dictated subjects, two periods of club time and one period of
homeroom. Specifically, International programs comprise six periods of English
as a second language (ESL), four Reading periods, two Writing periods, two
Science periods, two ICT periods and two Math ones. (Table 1). It can be seen
obviously that the proportion of teaching time in bilingual school is somehow
equal to both Ministry of Education and Training dictated subjects and
International program.
Last but not least, formative and summative assessment throughout two
semesters provides an accurate evaluation of students’ performance. Students
will participate in continuous assessment throughout the year which will form
part of their final grade. Teachers guide students to do skills on their own in
interactive classes, with more focus on integrating skills like presentations,
writing and projects. The assessment scales are distinguished for each subject.
(See Appendix)

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Areas

MOET dictated
subjects
International
subjects
ESL
Reading
Writing
Math
ICT
Science

3.1.3. Type of Bilingual education in the context
Baker, (2011) revealed that “Effective bilingual education is not a simple
or automatic consequence of using a child’s home language in school (as in
heritage language education) or a second language (as in immersion education).
Various home and parental, community, teacher, school, stakeholder and society
effects may act and interact to make bilingual education more or less effective.
Any effectiveness equation is complex, variable across regions and politics,
multivariate, and often contested”. Hence, there can be numerous criteria to
evaluate a type of bilingual school. In this case, this type of bilingual school has
some characteristics. Initially, the aims of this bilingual school are clear and

14


focus on students’ needs. Besides, school environment is eco- friendly and
facility is modern equipped. Moreover, all of the textbooks and supplementary
books are international materials that are qualified by well-known publishers
such as Cambridge Press or Oxford Press. Teachers, on the other hand, are wellqualified staffs who have trained English teaching methodology or CELTA
(Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). Last but not

least, students need to improve and show their good performance in the
formative and summative tests throughout the whole school year.
For the learning distribution, the proportion time of English and Ministry
of Education and Training dictated subjects, 18 periods and 24 periods
respectively. The time here seems to be equal to both programs so the domain
here is both English and Vietnamese. For higher level classes, students tend to
develop their English skills while students in lower level, to some extent, prefer
to speak Vietnamese. Besides, students are required to ensure the quality of both
International program and Ministry of Education and Training’s program.

3.2. Research instrument and design of the study
I used Case study – a description of an actual administrative situation
involving a decision to be made. This study would adopt qualitative approach to
gain information and data so as to achieve the study goals. This qualitative
research is based on an interpretive approach concerned with subjective meaning
in a particular context. Furthermore, quantitative analysis will be also used in
this study so as to strengthen the objectiveness of the study. The study was
conducted through the class observation, the tests (pre-test, while-test, post-test)

15


and semi-structured in-depth interview as instruments for gaining the required
information. For the testing, the while-test is a diagnostic test, which is used to
form the level of the students after a long time of summer vacation. The next two
tests are taken based on the standard of PET (Preliminary English Test), which
contributes to keep track these four participants’ English speaking competence.

3.3. Data collection procedure
Maxwell (2013) claimed that the case study researcher’s aim was “not to

generalize from the sample to a population”. Instead, it was to give the
explanation, description as well as to perform the interpretation. Hence, the
selection of research participants is a combination of purposeful sampling and
stratified sampling. The purposeful sampling here was carried out at a bilingual
education program which was investigated as an English immersion bilingual
program in Hanoi, Vietnam. The participants were four eighth and ninth graders
who have been learning at bilingual program, including two female students and
two male counterparts. Specifically, two participants (a male- a female) have
been learning in bilingual environment for more than two school years; the other
male and female counterparts, meanwhile, have been learning bilingual program
for one year and a half and two years respectively. Furthermore, grade 8 and 9
students were those who can choose to continue bilingual program or apply for
IGCSE program in Vietnam.
With the contribution of those four participants, researcher is capable of
answering the research question: To what extent does bilingual education have
impact on enhancing secondary students’ English speaking competence.

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