Using the case study activity to encourage the second year students of business administration at hai phong university to speak english

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

PHẠM THỊ MẾN

USING THE “CASE-STUDY” ACTIVITY TO
ND

ENCOURAGE 2 YEAR STUDENTS OF BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION AT HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY
TO SPEAK ENGLISH
SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG“CASE-STUDY” ĐỂ KHUYẾN
KHÍCH SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI NGÀNH QUẢN TRỊ
KINH DOANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HẢI PHÒNG NÓI
TIẾNG ANH

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10

Ha Noi - 2012


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

PHẠM THỊ MẾN

USING THE “CASE-STUDY” ACTIVITY TO
ND

ENCOURAGE 2 YEAR STUDENTS OF
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AT HAI PHONG
UNIVERSITY
TO SPEAK ENGLISH
SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG “CASE-STUDY” ĐỂ
KHUYẾN KHÍCH SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI
NGÀNH QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI
HỌC HẢI PHÒNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH
M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.10
Supervisor: NGUYỄN VIỆT HÙNG, MA.

Ha Noi – 2012


TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................
ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................
TABLE OF CONTENTS .....................................................................................
PART I: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................
1.

Background of the study ...................................................................................

2.

Aims of the study and research questions ........................................................

3.

The scope of the study. .......................................................................................

4.

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

5.

The methods of the study .................................................................................

6.

Organization of the thesis ..................................................................................

PART II: DEVELOPMENT.................................................................................
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ..............................................................
1.1

Speaking skill .....................................................................................

1.1.1

Definition of speaking ................................................

1.1.2

Teaching speaking according to communicative appro

1.1.3

Principles of teaching speaking ...................................

1.1.4

Speaking difficulties of language learners .................

1.2

Students‟ oral participation ..............................................................

1.2.1

Definition of students‟ participation ..........................

1.2.2

Factors affecting students‟ participation in oral activi

1.3

Characteristics of a successful oral activity ......................................

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ................................................
2.1

The setting of the study .....................................................................

2.2

Participants ........................................................................................

2.3

The instruments .................................................................................

2.3

1Questionnaires ............................................................
iv


2.3.2

Classroom observation ...............................................

2.4

Data collection procedure ................................................................

2.5

Data analysis procedure ...................................................................

CHAPTER 3: PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA.......................

3.1
3.1.1

Students' degree of participation in the "case-study" activities .......

Students‟ speaking time per task ...............................

3.2 Factors encouraging students to speak in the "case-study" activity...............
3.3

Factors inhibiting students to speak in the case - study activity. .....

3.4

Students‟ desires. ..............................................................................

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS .....
4.1

Findings ............................................................................................

4.1.1

The positive impact of the case-study on the students

4.1.2

Factors affecting student's participation in the "case-

4.2

Pedagogical implications .................................................................

4.2.1

Clear instructions........................................................

4.2.2

. Developing learner autonomy in vocabulary learnin

4.2.3

Oral correction technique ...........................................

4.2.4

The emphasis on the case-study background and cult

4.2.6

Building a supportive learning environment ..............

PART III: CONCLUSION ..................................................................................
1. Conclusion .......................................................................................................
2. Limitations and suggestions of the study .........................................................
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................
APPENDIX I: OBSERVATION SHEET ..............................................................
APPENDIX II: QUESTIONNAIRES .................................................................

v


PART I: INTRODUCTION
This initial part states the background of the study, together with the aims,
scope and the methods of the whole paper. Above all, it is in this chapter that
the research questions are identified to work as clear guidelines for the whole
research.
1. Background of the study
Since the spread of English to almost aspects of the world, people are
getting more and more aware of the importance of the language. In Vietnam,
English has been seen as a necessary device to closer to a dreaming job,
especially a job in a foreign company. Therefore, there is an increasing
demand for learning the language for communication. In that context, the new
framework of learner-center approach and the advent of communicative
language teaching in the realm of teaching English as a foreign language have
exerted the great impact on the teaching and learning English, in which
students‟ oral skills and their active participation in class activities have come
to take on added importance. Following the communicative approach, teachers
make great effort to get their students to talk as much as possible in their
classes. According to the studies on what constitutes a “good language
learner”, in the oral activities, student who raised their hands more often
responded to teacher elicitation did better on test than other students (Naiman
et al. 1978, cited in Breen 2001)
However, in Hai Phong University, Faculty of Economics and Business
Administration, where students need the ability to express themselves in
English as a powerful device for their future career, especially in modern
society where working with foreigners often occurs. After years of applying
the communicative language teaching into practice, it has been noticed that
student‟s active participation, particularly in observable speaking classes are

1


not prominent. Hence, the author takes the focus on the “case-study” activity,
an activity in the text book “Market Leader”, the official ESP syllabus of
Economics and Business Administration Faculty at Hai Phong University to
carry out the research on “Using the case-study activity to encourage 2 nd year
students of Business Administration to speak English”
2. Aims of the study and research questions
“Case-study” is an activity in the text book “Market Leader”. This activity
provides students with writing skills, speaking skills and problem solving
skills. Therefore, this research aims at analyzing the ability of “case-study”
activity applying in real learning situation to encourage students to speak
English. In order to achieve the purpose stated above, the study revolves
around the following questions:
1.

To what extent do students participate actively in the “case-study” activity

from the perspectives of 2nd year students of Business Administration at Hai
Phong University?
2.

What are factors encouraging or inhibiting students to take part in the case-

study activity?
3.

What are the implications to enhance students‟ active participation in

speaking lesson?
3. The scope of the study.
In the text book Market Leader, the official syllabus of 2 nd year students of
Business Administration at Hai Phong University, the case studies are linked
to the business topics of each unit. They give students opportunities to practice
speaking skills in realistic business situations. Each case study ends with a
writing task.
The research only focuses on the oral tasks of the case-study activity. It
seeks to find out the Students‟ degree of participation in the case-study

2


activity, factors encouraging as well as inhibiting them in those tasks and their
desires, the expectant activities from the teacher to enhance their active
participation in the speaking period. It should also be noted that within the
scope of a graduation paper, the sample of the research is limited to 40 second
year students of K11A class of Business Administration at Hai Phong
University so that the researcher can get the specific and accurate information
and data from each student grasping the comprehensive learning situation to
find out feasible solutions encouraging students to speak English.
4. Significance of the study
The finding of this study can draw learners‟ attention on their attitudes
towards classroom participation, thus making them aware of factors that
motivate as well as demotivate their participation in the case-study activity. As
a result, researcher can identify the roots of student‟s obstacles as well as
motivations, has a closer look at students‟ psychological features and their
own needs. In addition, student‟s desires, what they expect the teacher can
change in the case-study activity will also made known to teachers, who

hopefully will initiate possible adjustment in using case-study activity to
encourage students to speak English. Finally, future researchers who share the
same interest may find helpful information from this research to conduct
further studies into this area.
5. The methods of the study
The method of this study is survey study because it was conducted by
using questionnaires and teacher‟s self-observation to collect data. It was a
qualitative and quantitative study. Employing both approaches, it is hoped to
achieve the reliable results for the study.
6. Organization of the thesis
The thesis consists of 3 main parts

3


Part 1: Introduction deals with the background, the aims and the research
questions, the scope, the significance, the methods of the study, and the
organization of the thesis.
Part 2: Development
This part includes 4 chapters:
Chapter 1: Literature Review lays the theoretical foundation for the study by
discussing Definition of Key terms and Framework
Chapter 2: Research Methodology details the methods which have been
adopted and the procedures which have been followed when researchers
conducted the study.
Chapter 3: Presentation and analysis of data presents and discusses the degree
of students‟ participation in the case-study activity and some demotivative
factors affected their performance.
Chapter 4: Findings and pedagogical implications presents the findings with
comment and suggests what teachers should do to enlarge the students‟

participation in speaking activities
Part 3: Conclusion ends the study by summarizing the main points, revealing
the limitations and suggesting further studies.

4


PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter aims to shed light on the literature of the study,
specifically, the theoretical background and the theoretical framework
will be reviewed. To begin with, an overview of the theoretical
background will be presented from definition of speaking, approach
and principles of teaching speaking, definition of students‟
participation. Subsequently, factors affecting students‟participation
and characteristics of a successful oral activity will also be discussed,
which is to form a theoretical framework for the study.
1.1 Speaking skill
1.1.1 Definition of speaking
There is a long history of the study of the speaking skill in language
learning. Many variants of speaking definition were provided by different
linguistics.
First of all, it is worthy to consider the Byrne‟s view. He suggested that
“oral communication is a two-way process between speakers and listeners,
involving the productive skills of speaking and receptive skills of
understanding” (p. 19) in which the speaker functions as the person encoding
the massage and the listener functions as the one decoding the massage.
Moreover, a clear distinction between written and spoken language was made:
“…in contrast to the written language, where sentences are carefully

structured and linked together, speech is characterized by incomplete and
sometimes ungrammatical utterances and by frequent false and repetitions”

5


(p. 24). Bygates (1987) held the similar idea that “speech is not writingspeaking like a book is, in two words, disagreeable and difficult.” (p. 102)
According to the author, conditions and the reciprocity are the two primary
differences between speech and writing. In speech, the former includes time
factor and other associated problems like planning, memory and production
under pressure affect the form of spoken language. Besides, the later indicates
that listeners can generally show their agreement or disagreement with
speakers; thus, speakers can pay attention to listeners and adapt their message
according to their reaction. Meanwhile, in writing, readers‟ understanding and
potential problems such as what readers want to read are factors that the
writers have to anticipate or predict in each of their works.
From these two first points of view, it is clearly seen that the researchers
have defined speaking basing on the emphasis on the differences between
spoken and written language.
Besides, Brown and Yule (1983) suggested that spoken language consists
of short, fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation. Therefore,
speaking is “an inter-active process of constructing meaning that involves
producing and receiving and process information (Florez, 1999 as cited in
Bailey, Kathleen, 2005). The author also described it as a process which is
spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving but it is not completely unpredictable.
In a nutshell, speaking is basically defined as a productive, oral skill which
is spontaneous and comprehensible. Within the framework of this study, the
well-rounded definition of Byrne has been adopted as the core foundation for
the development of the research.
1.1.2 Teaching speaking according to communicative approach

The focus on communicative proficiency rather than the mastery is the
most striking feature provided in the theory of Communicative Language

6


Teaching expanded in 1970s. According to Richards (1986), one of this
teaching method‟s aims is to make communicative competence the goal of
language teaching. As a result, speaking has its place in syllabus setting.
Because of the communication aim of language learning, learners focus on
developing the oral ability through communication and other activities, so that,
they work more independently under the observation and supervision of the
teacher, who sometimes plays the role of facilitating the communication
process only. The teacher sets up real communication for learners to practice
speaking themselves. However, as Thai and Suhor put forward their theory
based on Brown‟s work (1976) in their work (1984, p.105), students instead of
doing “show and tell” and making informal classroom speeches, they should
develop communicative competencies in five functional areas important in
everyday life, including controlling, sharing feelings, informing-responding,
ritualizing and imagining. Thus, classroom is not the only environment for the
learners to develop communicative competency, it should be built up through
everyday contact as well as social interaction.
1.1.3 Principles of teaching speaking
According to Nunan (2003), teaching is sometimes considered a simple
process, which explained why many language schools hire native people with
no teaching certification to teach conversational English. Even though
speaking is natural; speaking another language is far more complex, which
requires teachers to strictly follow its own principles. Among various studies,
the simple principles suggested by Nunan (2003) are worth consideration.
First and foremost, teachers should be aware of the differences between L2

and foreign language learning contexts. Moreover, it is the teachers who
provide students opportunities to talk by using group- work or pair-work with
the practice of both fluency and accuracy while limiting teacher talk. Besides,

7


lesson plan plays a very important role in making a successful speaking period,
in which the plan speaking tasks that involve negotiate for meaning and the
design of classroom activities that involve guidance and practice in both
transactional and interactional speaking should be carefully prepared.
More specifically, Burns and Joyce (1997, p.105) examined speaking and
principles of teaching speaking in a broader and more systematic way. They
concluded that as speaking involves a wide range of skills; teachers should
consider four vital guidelines. First of all, learners need to understand the
cultural and social purposes of spoken interactions, which may be broadly
classified as transaction or interaction. The second principle factor is that
speaking involves an understanding of the way in which context influences
the voice of language made. Furthermore, learning and practicing vocabulary,
grammatical structure and pronunciation should be related to the use of the
whole contexts. Finally, spoken discourse types or text can be analyzed with
learners for their typical structures and grammatical patterns.
As can be seen, while Nunan provided detailed guidelines for planning a
speaking lesson, Bums and Joyce put more emphasis on the role of context on
teaching speaking besides learners‟ communicative purposes. By saying that,
speaking does not only mean vocabulary and structure recalling but also a
kind of expressing individual world of thought, a crucial concept that teachers
should always bear in mind on designing speaking activities
1.1.4 Speaking difficulties of language learners
Burn and Joyce (1997, p.134) identify three sets of factors that may cause

reluctance on the parts of students to take part in classroom tasks involving
speaking. They suggest that this reluctance may be due to cultural factors,
linguistic factors, and psychological factors. In the first place, the cultural
factors derive from learners‟ prior learning experiences and the expectations
created by these experiences. Understandable as it may seem, when students
8


are not familiar with the cultural or social knowledge of the target language,
they have to face with a wide range of difficulties. In addition, the linguistic
factors including difficulties in transferring from the learners‟ first language to
the target language in terms of the sounds, rhythms, and stress patterns also
make contribution to inhibiting the spoken language. In the third analysis,
psychological factors like cultural shocks, previous negative social or political
experiences, the lack of motivation, anxiety or shyness in class are those
which trigger the negative impact to the learners.
According to Tsui (1996), after implementing the case study in secondary
school classroom in Hong Kong, he identified five principle factors
accounting for the reluctance of students to speak up in class:
(1)

Students‟ perceived low proficiency in English

(2)

Students‟ fear of mistakes and derision

(3)

Teachers‟ intolerance

(4)

Uneven allocation of turns

(5)

Incomprehensible
All things considered, there are several difficulties face the language

learners. Especially, teaching and learning English in non-English speaking
environment such as Vietnam, the learners do not have many chances to
practice English outside the classroom. This picture can be described as
almost every student only speaks English, discuss the English topics when
they come to class. After the lesson, they come back to their real life with their
family and their work. The learners never speak English to their relatives or
their family members because all of them are Vietnamese and they only use
Vietnamese in communication. As a matter of fact, the lack of real English
communication environment is the big challenge that Vietnamese students
have to face with when learning English.

9


1.2 Students’ oral participation
1.2.1 Definition of students’ participation
Educators at Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo,
Canada defined students‟ participation as a “lengthy conversation with the
whole class”, which can include short dialogues between instructors and
students, or within small groups of students. More specifically, Green (2008)

has examined the term “students‟ participation” as perceived by students and
teachers. According to the author, students‟ responses often coincided their
class participation, in general, as the act of being involved in the class,
including an active intervention and showing interests to classroom‟s
activities. Conversely, teachers highlighted the aspect of student involvement
in class activities by interacting freely with classmates and with the teacher,
expressing themselves without inhibitions, completing teachers‟ thoughts,
answering or asking questions, and responding to comments or instructions.
Allwright (1984) stated that there are three types of oral engagement
language lessons. In the most frequent type, called „compliance‟, students‟
utterances are very much dependent on the teacher‟s management of
classroom communication. In the second type, known as „navigation‟,
learners take the initiative, to overcome communication breakdowns, as in
requests for clarification of what has been said. The less frequent type is
„negotiation‟, and when it occurs, the teacher‟s and the students‟ roles may
become less asymmetrical, and interlocutors attempt to reach decision making
by consensus.
According to Luu and Nguyen (2010), classroom interaction comprises of
two types: non-verbal and verbal interaction. The non-verbal type refers to
students‟ behavioral response in class, for example, head nodding, hand
raising, eye contact, body gestures, etc. The verbal interaction includes written

10


and oral interaction with the former presenting the interaction in which
students write out their ideas or thoughts, on the contrary, the latter implying
the learner communication with others by speaking in class, answering and
asking questions, making comments, and taking part in discussions.
Within the framework of this study, the researcher chooses the

interpretation of Luu and Nguyen (2010) as the foundation for further
discussions in the following parts. Specifically, student‟s participation in this
study refers only to students‟ oral interaction, which includes voluntarily
answering teacher‟s questions, giving opinions about certain topics discussed
in class, making spontaneous contributions, making a commentary, asking
questions, participating in group discussions.
1.2.2 Factors affecting students’ participation in oral activities
There is a long history of the study of factors affecting students‟ participation
in the oral activities. The approach by William and Burden (1997) as cited in
Dornyei (2001) is worth considering as it categorized motivational factors in L2
learning into two detailed subgroups. The following table was adapted from
Dornyei (2001) and employed to distinguish the two types of factors.

INTERNAL FACTORS
Intrinsic interest of activity
• Arousal of curiosity
• Optimal degree of challenge
Perceived value of activity
• Personal relevance
• Anticipated value of outcomes
• Intrinsic value attributed to the activity
Sense of agency

11


• Locus of causality


Locus of control re: process and • Rewards

outcomes


Ability to set appropriate goals appropriatepraisePunishments,

Mastery
• Feelings of competence


Awareness of developing skills and • Comfort

mastery in chosen area
•

Self- efficacy

Self- concept
•

Realistic awareness of personal strengt

hs and weaknesses in skills required


Personal definitions and judgments of • Wider family networks

success and failure
•

Self - worth concern

•

Learned helplessness

Attitudes


To language learning in general



To the target language



To the target community and culture

Other affective states


Confidence



Anxiety, fear

Developmental age and stage Gender
Table 1: Motivational factors in L2 learning (William & Burden (1997) as

cited in Dornyei, (2001, p192-203)

12


Trang (2007) has conducted a study to examine the level of the student
demotivation in EFL learning and to document the underlying sources of
demotivation suffered by students. Stimulated recall methodology was used to
collect retrospective data. Based on the nature of the demotive categories,
Trang classified demotive factors into 2 groups: internal attributions and
extemal attributions. The former included students‟ attitudes towards English,
their experiences of failure or lack of success, and incidents related to their
self-esteem; the latter consisted of teacher-related factors, the learning
environment, and other external factors.
Attitudes
towards English
- difficult to
pronounce
- large vocabulary
- complicated
grammar

Teacher
behavior
- insult students
- lack of care,
enthusiasm

13

- strict,
inflexible
-demonstrate
favoritism

Learning enviromental demotivating factors
Classroom
atmosphere
- quite and
boring
- stressful
- negative
behaviors of
classmates

14


Table 2: Categories of demotivtaion (Trang, 2007, p. 90-92)
In spite of a solid and scrupulous foundation for the sources of factors
affecting students in the oral activities, in the work of William & Burden and
Trang, there is no distinction between inhibiting and motivating factors as in
Green (2008)‟s paper. In her approach, Green investigated factors and their
influence on both teachers and students in terms of motivating and inhibiting
their in-class performance.

• Class size
Fear or negative evaluation
• Lack of knowledge about and/or

interest in topic
• Perceived low level of L2
competence
• Teacher‟s attitude
•

Not being prepared for class

•

Personality factors

15


•

L2 competence

• Lack of motivation and interest
•

Types of activities

•

Teacher‟s attitude

Table 3: Inhibiting and motivating factors on students and teachers’
participation (Green, (2008), p. 56-57)

Besides, she demonstrated a detailed list of actions representing participation,
including:
•

Giving opinions

•

Answering questions,

•

Making a commentary



Making a spontaneous unsolicited • Showing interest

contribution
• Asking questions


Having a dialogue between teachers discussions

and students and/or between students
• Following classes with attention


Being involved in the class



Listening to others



Helping teacher to “make her class”
Table 4: Action representing participation (Green, 2008, p.58)
In the context of this paper, on considering the factors affecting students‟

participation in the case study activity, the researcher would like to put aside
the broader context as stated in Williams and Burden‟s and Trang‟s

16


framework and place a stronger focus on students‟ factors rather than both
students and teachers as reflected in Green (2008). The combination of factors
from those studies will be developed into questionnaires to investigate factors
driving students‟ performance in case study activities.
1.3 Characteristics of a successful oral activity
Apparently, when designing or adapting a speaking activity, a considering
of the teacher on the related aspects as well as the criteria of a successful oral
activity is a must. According to Ur (1996), a good speaking activity can be
estimated basing on four factors.
At the first place, an oral activity is a really successful when “as much as
possible of the period of time allotted to the activity is in fact occupied by the
learner talk” (Ur, 1996, p.124). This also means that teacher talks or pauses
during speaking activity should be described to be decreased to minimum. The
second criterion goes on the even participation which requires that all learners

of the class get equal chances to talk and make contribution to classroom
discussion. In other words, all of them are actively and enthusiastically taking
part in the activities so that there is the limited number of too talkative
students or too passive students in the speaking period. Moreover, high
motivation is important factor to contribute to a successful speaking activity,
in which teachers‟ role is of vital importance because their responsibility is to
provide learners with interesting topics, create the need to speak, adapt the
suitable activities, etc. Therefore, the learners are interested in the lesson and
easily express themselves. Finally, an acceptable level of language accuracy is
worthy to consider so that students should be encouraged to talk as much as
possible and to use easy, comprehensible, and relevant language to express
themselves.

17


However, Ur also suggested that in practice, few language classroom
activities succeed in satisfying all above criteria. Teachers, bearing in mind
these criteria, would able to create or adapt speaking activities that are
motivating and help students to develop the speaking ability. SUMMARY
In short, this chapter has employed to present definitions of key terms and
issues regarding speaking skill, student‟s participation and characteristics of a
successful speaking activities. The knowledge gained from this part was put in
the hope of shedding light on the results and findings of the study.

18


CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In the previous chapter, the literature on the research topic was reviewed

for the theoretical basic of the whole study. On the more practical side, this
chapter provides a detailed picture of methodology as the participants, the
instruments, as well as the procedure of data collection and analysis are
discussed in detail.
2.1 The setting of the study
The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Hai Phong
University was established in November, 2007, originated from the
Economics and Management Department, Faculty of In-service training-HPU.
The major missions of the faculty are to provide highly qualified human
resources in line with the demands of international economic integration and
the development of the country, at the same time offer high quality consulting
services in economics and business administration for enterprises. The Faculty
provides a variety of training programs and levels, in which, Business
Administration Department has attracted a great amount of candidates in the
entrance exam every year. The whole department includes 3 classes of K9, 3
classes of K10, 3 classes of K11 and 3 classes of K12.
The research was carried out on the class of K11A with 40 students mostly
aging from 19 to 21. To take the entrance exam in this profession, they have to
take Mathematics, Literature and English, so that students have rather high
starting point in English.
The text book “Market Leader”, the official ESP syllabus is taught for the
2nd year students of Business Administration during two semesters. Market
Leader is an elementary level business English course for business people and
students of Business English. It has been developed in association with the
Financial Times, one of the leading sources of business information in the

19


world. It consists of 12 units based on topics of great interest to everyone

involve in international business.
Each unit has 7 main parts, including
+

Starting up which offer a variety of interesting activities in which students

discuss the topic and exchange ideas about it
+

Vocabulary which provides students with important new words and phrases

that learners can use when carrying out unit‟s tasks
+

Discussion helps to build up learners‟ confidence in using English and

improve the fluency through interesting discussion activities
+

Reading with adapted articles on a variety of topics from the Financial

Times and other newspaper will develop students‟ reading skills and essential
English vocabulary
+

Listening part develops students with listening skills such as listening for

information or note-taking.
+

Skills will develop essential business communication skills such as making

presentation, taking part in meetings, negotiating, telephoning, and using
English in social situations.
+

The last one is the case study which is linked to the business topics of each

unit. They are based on realistic business problems or situations and allow
students to use the language and the communications skills that they have
developed while working through the unit. Case studies give students the
opportunities to practice the speaking skills in realistic business situations. In
addition, each case study ends with a writing task to provide students with
writing form necessary in the business field.
One semester will last for 15 weeks with 3 periods of ESP for each week,
so that case studies are often taught and learnt within one period-45 minutes.

20


The other periods are spent on teaching and learning others parts and skills of
the unit.
2.2 Participants
Since the study focus on using the case study to encourage students to
speak English, the participation of students in the study is very important. A
number of 40 students from K11A class who have actually handed back the
questionnaires took part in the survey. The students reported to have studies
English for at least 4 years and at most 10 years, with the majority of them
voted for a study period from 7 to 8 years. These students are regarded as the
primary target of the research because they are ones facing with the matter of

low degree of participation in speaking period, the fundamental reason for the
low proficiency in English communication skill.
2.3 The instruments
For a collection of sufficient reliable and vivid data for the study,
questionnaires and classroom observation were utilized as methods of the
qualitative approach.
2.3 1 Questionnaires
The questionnaires were written in English, began with a brief explanation
of the research topic and a request for personal information. The researcher
proposed a combination of both opened-end and closed-end questions to
facilitate the comprehension of the collected information and data analysis.
The questionnaires are designated for a particular area of investigation as
follows:
1.

Students‟ degree of participation in the “case-study” activity

2.

Factors encouraging students to speak in the case study activity

3.

Factors inhibiting students to speak in the case study activity

4.

Students‟ desires

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