(Luận văn thạc sĩ) a study on difficulties in learning speaking skill faced by non english major students at hanoi university of industry

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ XOAN

A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILL
FACED BY NON-ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT
HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

Nghiên cứu về những khó khăn trong việc học kĩ năng nói của sinh viên khơng
chun Tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Công Nghiệp Hà Nội

M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410

Hanoi – 2012


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ XOAN

A STUDY ON DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING SPEAKING SKILL
FACED BY NON-ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT

HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

Nghiên cứu về những khó khăn trong việc học kĩ năng nói của sinh viên khơng
chun Tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Công Nghiệp Hà Nội

M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
Supervisor: Phạm Lan Anh, M.A

Hanoi – 2012


TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ii

ABSTRACT

iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

iv

LIST OF TABLES

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

vi

PART A:

1

INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale

1

2. Aims of the study

2

3. Scope of the study

3

4. Significance of the study

3

5. Methodology

4

6. Design of the study

4

PART B:

DEVELOPMENT

5

Chapter 1: Literature Review

5

1.1. Theoretical background of Communicative language teaching
(CLT)

5

1.1.1. Concept of CLT

5

1.1.2. Characteristics of CLT

6

1.2. Speaking skill

9

1.2.1. Concept of speaking

9

4


1.2.2. Characteristics of speaking

10

1.3. Teaching Speaking Skills in CLT approach

11

1.3.1. Teaching Speaking Skills in CLT approach

11

1.3.2. The techniques in teaching speaking skills

13

1.4. Difficulties in learning speaking skill

15

1.4.1. Difficulties from teachers

15

1.4.2. Difficulties from students

17

1.4.3. Difficulties from objective factors

20

Chapter 2: The study

22

2.1. The context

22

2.1.1. Description of the English course and its objectives at HaUI

22

2.1.2. Description of the students at HaUI

23

2.1.3. Description of the teachers at HaUI

23

2.2. The study

24

2.2.1. Participants

24

2.2.2. Sampling

25

2.2.3. Research methodology

25

2.2.4. Data collection methods

25

2.2.5. Procedures

25

2.3. Data analysis

27

PART C:

41

CONCLUSION

1. Summary of findings

41

2. Some suggestions to overcome students’ difficulties

42

2.1. Suggestions for teachers

42
5


2.2. Suggestions for students

43

3. Limitations of the study

44

4. Suggestions for further studies

44

REFERENCE

46

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire for students (English version)

I

APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire for students (Vietnamese version)

IV

APPENDIX 3: Questionnaire for teachers

VII

APPENDIX 4: Transcription of semi-structured group interview with
teachers

XI

6


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

HaUI:

Hanoi University of Industry

CLT:

Communicative Language Teaching

L1:

First language

L2:

Second language

7


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Information about students participating in the survey
Table 2: Teachers’ years of teaching English and students’ years of learning
English
Table 3: Teachers’ and students’ opinion about the importance of English speaking
skill
Table 4: Teachers’ and students’ opinion about the importance of English speaking
skill in comparison with other skills
Table 5: Teachers’ and students’ opinions about students’ favor of learning English
speaking skill
Table 6: Teachers’ and students’ judgment about students’ speaking competence

Table 7: Students’ reasons for learning English speaking skill
Table 8: Teachers’ belief about CLT
Table 9: Students’ common difficulties in learning speaking skill

8


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
Nowadays, in the trend of globalization, English has become an international
language and has been widely used in many parts of the world. With the
development of modern science and technology along with the integration policy,
the need of learning English in Vietnam has been increasing day by day. With the
purpose of finding a good job with high salary or to study abroad, learners of
English nowadays not only wish to master the grammar of the language to pass the
exam at school but they also wish to develop their communication competence.
However, they often get into a lot of difficulties on the way mastering it. The
reasons may be that to speak a foreign language fluently is not easy and it takes a lot
of time and effort. There are many factors such as: students’ motivation, students’
characteristics, learning materials, teachers’ teaching methods, etc… which affect
students’ achievement in learning English speaking skill.
The topic of difficulties in learning English speaking has also attracted me
since I began teaching English at Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI). In the hope
of helping students master English well to get a good job after graduation, the
Faculty of English at HaUI has applied the communicative language teaching
approach in teaching and learning for both English-major and non-English-major
students. Among four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing),
speaking is paid special attention. However, throughout my teaching for nonEnglish major students at this university, I realize that the speaking lessons are
usually not really successful as expected because students have a lot of difficulties
in learning this skill. Although students can do the grammar exercises very well, can

master quite many new words and structures, they still cannot apply them in
learning speaking skill very well. That is one of the reasons why I wish to carry out
a research to find out the common difficulties in learning speaking skill and some
suggested solutions to the problem.
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There are quite many researches on learning English speaking skill and
difficulties in learning this skill; however, there are still few researches about
difficulties in learning speaking skill by students at HaUI, especially by non-English
major students although it is a quite big university in Vietnam and the number of
non-English major students is also quite large. Being an English teacher for nonEnglish major students at this university, I would like to carry out a research to find
out the common difficulties in learning this skill by those students in order to help
them to improve the situation in the next semesters as well as to help me and my
colleagues to improve our teaching.
These above facts have provoked me to conduct a research with the title: “A
study on difficulties in learning speaking skill faced by non- English major students
at Hanoi University of Industry”.
2. AIMS OF THE STUDY
The study is carried out to find out non-English major students’ difficulties
in learning English speaking skill at Hanoi University of Industry from students and
lecturers’ points of views. Then, some solutions will be generated from the lecturers
at this university to overcome the problems. All these above aims can be realized by
answering three following research questions:
1. What are the difficulties encountered by non-English major students in
learning English speaking skill from lecturers’ opinions?
2. What are the difficulties encountered by non-English major students in
learning English speaking skill from students’ opinions?
3. What are suggested as solutions by lecturers for non-English major students
to overcome those difficulties?

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3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study aims at finding out the difficulties in learning speaking skill
faced by non-English major students at HaUI. There are many types of difficulties
that learners can meet when they study a foreign language. However, due to the
limitation of time and the narrow scale, the study only focuses on the most common
difficulties in learning speaking skill faced by non-English major students at Hanoi
University of Industry from the perspectives of students and teachers. Then, this
study will also give out some suggested solutions generated from the teachers in the
interview for students to overcome those difficulties and improve their speaking
skill.

4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

In finding out the difficulties of non-English major students in learning
speaking English and some suggested solutions, it is hoped that the result of the
study will somehow be used as reference to help students to learn speaking skill
better in the next semesters. In addition, the result of this study is also strongly
believed to help me and my colleagues to better our own teaching at HaUI, as well
as those who are in charge of teaching English speaking skill to non-English major
students at other universities and colleges in Vietnam with the same situation as at
HaUI.
Last but not least, this study is also hoped to contribute to recent
knowledge about difficulties in learning speaking skill of non-English major
students at HaUI.

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5. METHODOLOGY
With the aims of investigating difficulties of non-English major students
in learning speaking skill at HaUI, I decide to choose survey research methodology.
Based on the aims of this study, it is clear that this is a descriptive research.

To collect data for this study, 526 non-English major students and 15
lecturers are invited to take part in. The students are from different classes, different
faculties and all chosen at random. The lecturers participating in the survey are
directly teaching English to non-English major students or have had some
experience in teaching non-English major students so that they can understand the
students’ difficulties in learning speaking skill. Those lecturers are also selected
randomly.
In this study, questionnaires for non-English major students and lecturers,
semi-structured group-interview with teachers will be used to collect data to
guarantee the accuracy of the data.

6. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The minor thesis is composed of three parts:
Part A: Introduction presents the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the
scope, the methodology, the limitations and the design of the study
Part B: Development consists of three following chapters
1. Chapter 1: Literature Review presents the concepts relevant to the study.
2. Chapter 2: The Study presents an overview of the context of investigation,
summarizes non-English major most common difficulties and gives some
suggested solutions for them to overcome those difficulties
Part C: Conclusion addresses the key issues, limitations of the study and
suggestions for further researches.

12


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter 1 briefly presents the overview of CLT and speaking skill: concept
of CLT, characteristics of CLT, concept of speaking, characteristics of speaking,
teaching speaking skills in CLT approach, the techniques in teaching speaking skills
and difficulties in learning speaking skill.
1.1. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)
1.1.1. Concept of CLT
There are many different definitions about CLT.
Hymes (1972) promotes the theory about language as communication with
the target to develop “communicative competence” for students, which is later
considered to be the goal of language teaching, the backbone of the communicative
language teaching approach.
CLT was expanded with the development of the notional- functional syllabus
(Wilkins, 1976) and a communicative syllabus (Munby, 1978). The former was an
attempt to organize second language curriculum based on communicative
principles. Both were based on the theory that the basic categories of language were
notions and functions rather than grammatical categories such as nouns, verbs, or
adjectives. Widdowson (1978) further added to the field when he proposed a model
of language in which he made a distinction between usage and use, which usage
referring to grammatical aspects of language and use referring to communicative
aspects of language.
Canale and Swain (1980) expands the theoretical basis of CLT for both
teaching and testing. They are against the trend of over emphasis on function and a
lack of emphasis on form grammatical complexity. They insist that teaching in CLT
approach need to develop communicative competence for students. In their views,
communicative competence consists of grammatical, sociolinguistic and strategic

13


competence. Later Canale (1983) separated sociolinguistic competence into two
different components: sociolinguistic and discourse competence.
According to Nunan (1989, p.194) CLT is defined as adapted below:
“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”.
Nunan states that in communication process, learners are negotiators and
integrators whereas teachers are facilitators. Nunan’s definition of CLT represents a
particular view of understanding and explaining language acquisition.
According to Bock (2000) CLT is tailored to get at meaning and learners
negotiate meaning in class. Meaning is considered as what is communicated. The
negotiation of meaning can be implicated through pair work, group work in
problem-solving tasks. He also states: “Authentic materials, functional tasks, and
group and pair work are significant aspects of CLT”.
The definition above 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 CLT
Nunan (1991) points out five features of CLT: 1) An emphasis on learning to
communicate through interaction in the target language. 2) The introduction of
authentic texts into the learning situation. 3) The provision of opportunities for
learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning process itself. 4) An

enhancement of the learner’s own personal experiences as important contributing
elements to classroom learning. 5) An attempt to link classroom language learning
14


with language activities outside the classroom. These five features are claimed by
practitioners of CLT to show that they are very interested in the needs and desires of
their learners as well as the connection between the language as it is taught in their
class and as it used outside the classroom. In the CLT classroom, pair work and
group work are made used of to practice the fluency-based activities.
Brown (2001), in describing the key principles of CLT, promotes six
characteristics of CLT. The first one is that the goals of CLT are emphasized in all
of the components of communicative competence including: grammatical,
discourse, functional, sociolinguistic, and strategic. The second one is that language
techniques are designed to motivate learners to use the pragmatic, authentic,
functional use of language for meaningful purposes (communicative purposes). The
mastering of grammar rules is not the central goal of CLT. The third one is that
teaching techniques and activities are designed and organized to develop students’
fluency and accuracy. Fluency is sometime considered more important than
accuracy. The fourth one is that in the classroom students have to use the language
in the communicative activities. The fifth one is that students can develop their selfstudy ability during learning process. Last but not least, the role of the teacher in
the class is recognized as a facilitator and guide, not the person who knows
everything and forces students to learn and study what she knows.
Richard (2006) suggests six following principles of CLT today: 1) Teachers
need to make real communication the focus of language learning. 2) Teachers
should provide opportunities for learners to experiment and try out what they know.
3) Teachers ought to be tolerant of learners’ errors as they indicate that the learner is
building up his or her communicative competence. 4) Teachers should provide
opportunities for learners to develop both accuracy and fluency. 5) Teachers had
better link the different skills such as speaking, reading, and listening together, since

they usually occur so in the real world. 6) Teachers should let students induce or
discover grammar rules themselves. In applying these principles in the classroom,
new classroom techniques and activities were needed, and the new roles for teachers
15


and learners in the classroom appear. Instead of making use of activities that
demanded accurate repetition and memorization of sentences and grammatical
patterns, activities that require learners to negotiate meaning and to interact
meaning-fully are required. (Richards, 2006, p. 13).
According to Larsen- Freeman (2003, p.131) the most obvious characteristics
of CLT is that, almost everything that is done is done with a communicative intent.
The focus of CLT is therefore on learners’ ability to express their own ideas,
feelings, attitudes, desires and needs. The focus of the lesson is on fluency, not on
accuracy.
Richards & Rodgers (2001, p.167) also affirm that CLT is associated with its
learner- centred and experienced-based tasks view of second language teaching. In
CLT context, learners are seen as active participants in the construction of
knowledge, rather than passive recipients of information provided by the teacher or
the textbook. In contrast, language teachers are no longer viewed as the authority of
the knowledge, playing a dominant role. Rather, they share different roles such as
communication facilitator, independent participant, needs analyst, counsellor, and
group process manager to create more fascinating experiences for the learners.
Besides the above features, Richards & Rodgers (2001) also describe other
significant characteristics of this approach including its efforts to make tasks and
language relevant to a target group of learners through an analysis of genuine,
realistic situations, its emphasis on the use of authentic, from-life materials, and its
attempt to create a secure, nonthreatening atmosphere
Littlewood (1981) describes the CLT approach that 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. In reaction to the
grammar-translation and audio-lingual methods, the CLT approach emphasizes the
communicative activities that involve the real use of language in daily life situation.

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1.2. Speaking Skill
Speaking skill plays an important role in learners’ learning process. It is
considered an important criterion to judge learners’ achievement in learning a
language. They often evaluate their success in language learning by how well they
can speak that language. Therefore, if they cannot learn how to speak or do not get
any opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get
demotivated and bored with learning. On the contrary, if the teachers can apply
interesting activities in the class, speaking lessons can become very funny and
interesting.
1.2.1. Concepts of Speaking
There are many different concepts of speaking by many different linguistics,
however, most of them agree that speaking is very important to human
communication. Bygate (1997) states that speaking is a skill which is very
important and requires as much attention as other skills, in both first and second
languages. In order to carry out most of their basic interactions and transactions,
learners need to be able to speak, and express their ideas to other people. He slso
emphasizes that “interaction is the use of language for maintaining communication
between participants” and „interaction skills are skills of deciding what to say,
when to say it and how to say it clearly” (Bygate, 1997, p.115). Therefore, in
learning speaking skill, learners are required to know not only how to produce
specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary
(linguistic competence or grammatical competence), but also when, why and in
what ways language is produced (sociolinguistic competence).

According to Brown, Burns & Joyce, speaking is an interactive process of
constructing meaning concerning three periods: producing and receiving and
processing information (Brown, 1994; Burns & Joyce, 1997).

17


Chaney and Burk (1998, p.13) states that speaking is the process of building
and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in many
different contexts.
Brown (1994) affirms that interaction is the heart of communication; it is
what communication is all about, for example in the cases of sending messages;
receiving them; interpreting them in a specific context; negotiating meanings; and
collaborating to accomplish certain purposes. And interaction is the collaborative
exchange of thoughts, feelings, or ideas between two or more people resulting in a
reciprocal effect on each other.
In Byrne’s view (1986), speaking skill is one of two ways of oral
communication process, and is the productive skill. The speaker has to encode the
message he wishes to convey in appropriate language, while the listener has to
decode (or interpret) the message.
According to Florez (1999) speaking is an interactive process of constructing
meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information. It is often
spontaneous, open-ended and evolving.
In short, there are quite many different definitions of speaking, each of them
has their own good points and strong points. However, in this study the researcher
decided to follow the concept of speaking by Bygate (1997 which means that
speaking not only involves grammatical competence but also sociolinguistic
competence.
1.2.2. Characteristics of Speaking
According to Bygate (1997), speaking involves two kinds of routines in the

process of communicating. They are information routines and interactional ones.
Information routines may be described to involve two sub-routines: expository and
evaluation. The former includes description, narration, comparison and instruction.
The latter consists of explanation, prediction, justification, preference and decision.
Interaction routines are routines based not so much on sequences of kinds of term
18


occurring in typical kinds of interactions such as telephone conversation, interview
conversations casual encounters, conversations at parties, lessons, radio or
television interviews, all tend to be organized in characteristic ways.
In Brown’s opinion (1983) speaking has three characteristics: the first one is
that its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including
the participants themselves, their collective experiences, the physical environment,
and the purposes for speaking. It is often spontaneous, open-ended, and evolving.
However, speech is not always unpredictable. The second one is that speaking
requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language
such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary (“linguistic competence”), but also
that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language
(“sociolinguistic competence”). Last but not least, speech has its own skills,
structures, and conventions different from written language.
Bygate (1987) considers speaking as an undervalued skill in many ways. The
reason is that almost all people can speak; therefore they just take speaking skill too
much for granted. He also asserts that speaking skill deserves attention every bit as
much as literacy skills. Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in
order to carry out many of their most basic interactions and transactions. Bygate
also highly appreciates speaking by stating that speaking is the medium through
which much language is learnt.
To sum up, it is undeniable that speaking is the key to successful
communication. By considering what good speakers do, what speaking tasks can be

used in class, and what specific needs learners require, teachers can help learners to
improve their speaking skill.

1.3. Teaching Speaking Skills in CLT approach
1.3.1. Teaching Speaking Skills in CLT approach
According to Harmer (2001) teachers should be aware that teaching speaking
closely relates to receptive skill work. Teachers should pay attention to: Output and
19


input, Texts, Reception and production. Output and input: output is the language the
students produce; input is the feedback or prompters from students’ interlocutor
(teacher). Teachers can modify their students’ output. Texts: offer students a model
to follow, especially when working on specific functions (agreeing, disagreeing,
expressing surprise, approval...), also act as stimuli which then help create language
production: discussion (from controversial reading passage), response (after
listening to a tape about a story or opinion. Reception is a part of production:
conversation between two people is a blend of listening and speaking; comprehend
what’s said is necessary for what’s said next. Production enables reception: oral
production works in a way that helps Ss with their listening comprehension as when
they try to speak, they better adjust to understanding other people speaking in the
same context.
Brown & Nation (1997) think that teachers should give students practice
with both fluency and accuracy: teachers should provide students with form-focused
and meaning-focused speaking activities that aim at fluency and accuracy
development.
Nunan (2003) believes that teachers had better provide students opportunities
to talk (by using group work or pair work and limiting teacher talk), plan tasks
involving negotiation of meaning, design classroom activities involving guidance,
practice for both transactional and interactional speaking. Interactional speaking is

to both establish and maintain social relationship while transactional speaking is to
exchange goods or services. Interactional speech is much more unpredictable than
the other as it ranges over many topics with participants taking turn and
commenting freely while the latter encounters of a fairly restricted kind (e.g.
telephoning for a taxi). Students should be taught and guided to speak the targeted
language in both interactional and transactional settings.

20


1.3.2. The techniques in teaching speaking skills
Communicative drill is “one in which the type of response is controlled but
the students provides his or her own content or information” (Richard & Platt, 1992,
p.223).There are four kinds of activities that teachers can organize for their students.
The first one is practical situations: Students practice requesting and providing
information and situations i.e. asking for information in a city and ordering meals in
a restaurant. The second one is guessing games: Students do the games in pairs or
groups: Ask yes-no question until figure out a person/thing... chosen, Teacher
provides short, incomplete story plot, only one student knows the real end, other
students guess by asking questions etc. the third one is information gathering
activity: involves conducting surveys, interviews and searches in which students
were required to use their language to collect information. The last one is jigsaw
activity: each partner has one or a few pieces of the “puzzle”, and the partners must
cooperate to fit all the pieces into a whole picture.
Harmer (2005) suggests the following activities in the classroom: A roleplay: Teacher gives role cards to students for pair work to do certain task such as
producing speech with some requirements. A discussion activity: Students are asked
to give opinion in front of the class, share ideas within small group before speaking
in public. An opinion sharing activity: may require using factual information,
formulating arguments and justifying one’s opinion. For some topics, there may be
no right or wrong responses from different individuals or groups. A reasoning gap

activity: involving deriving some new information from given info through the
process of inference or deduction and the perception of relationships or patterns,
involving comprehending and conveying information, i.e. work out teacher’s
timetable on the basis of given class timetable. Prepared talks: Students make
presentation on a topic of their own choice with or without agreement with teacher.
The talks are not designed for spontaneous conversation but more “writing-like”.

21


Littlewood (1981) also suggests some kinds of activities for teachers to apply
in CLT speaking classroom. He classifies them into two main kinds: Functional
communication activities and social interaction activities.
In terms of Functional Communication Activities, two main uses of
language are mentioned: using language to share information and using language to
process information. They are then separated into four main groups:
a. Sharing information with restricted co-operation: Identifying a picture
from a set; Discovering identical pairs; Discovering sequence of location;
Discovering missing information;Discovering missing features; Discovering
secrets
b. Sharing information with unrestricted co-operation: Communicating
patterns and pictures; Communicating models; Discovering differences;
Following directions
c. Sharing and processing information: Reconstructing story sequence;
Pooling information to solve a problem
d. Processing information: Problem solving tasks
In terms of Social Interaction Activities, Littlewood’s (1981) promotes
other set of activities with two different types. They are the classroom as a social
context and, simulation and role playing.
a. Considering the classroom as a social context, he suggests the following

activities: Using the language being thought to establish the classroom
management; Using the language being thought as teaching medium;
Conversations or discussion sessions; Basing dialogues and role plays on school
experience.
b. Simulation and role playing: Role playing controlled through cued
dialogues; Role-playing controlled through cues and information; Role-playing
controlled through situation and goal; Role-playing in form of debate or
discussion; Large-scale simulation activities; Improvisation

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1.4. Difficulties in learning speaking skill.
Different scholars have different ideas about the difficulties in learning
speaking skill. Hymes (1974) stated that speaking skill includes linguistics
competence, socio-linguistics competence and discourse competence. Therefore,
students’ psychology, linguistics, culture, leaning materials, teachers’ characters,
class size, learning environment can affect students’ leaning to master
communicative competence. According to Larsen (1986), difficulties in language
teaching in general and difficulties in teaching speaking skill in particular may stem
from teachers, students together with objective factors affecting the teaching
process. And the researcher decided to follow this idea of Larsen in her study.
1.4.1 Difficulties from teachers
1.4.1.1. Inappropriate teacher teaching methods
a. Teachers’ misconceptions about CLT
According to Thompson (1994), teachers are often confused about CLT in
four following aspects: the first one is that CLT means not teaching grammar, the
second one is CLT means teaching speaking only, the third one is CLT means pair
work, which means role play, the last one is CLT means expecting too much from
the teachers. These misconceptions lead to teachers’ inappropriate teaching

methods.
b. Inappropriate teacher teaching methods
Inappropriate teachers’ talking time
Nunan (1991) suggested an inappropriate teaching method in terms of
teacher’s talk. He claimed: “Teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for the
organization of the classroom but also for the processes of acquisition. It is
important for the organization and management of the classroom because it is
through language that teachers either succeed or fail in implementing their teaching
23


plans. In terms of acquisition, teacher talk is important because it is probably the
major source of comprehensible target language input the learner is likely to
receive.”
It is, however, proved in a lot of research that teachers tend to make up over
70% of the total talk in the classroom (Legarretta, 1977; Chaudron, 1988; Zhao,
1998; Cook, 2000). When teacher talk dominates the classroom, students will have
less opportunity to further practice the language and therefore they cannot develop
their language proficiency as expected.
Inappropriate teacher’s correction
According to Brown (2002, p. 205) students’ errors are vital evidence to
show how they acquire the language through certain strategies or procedures.
Teachers therefore, have duty to correct students’ errors to clarify students’
understanding of meaning and construction of the language to master language in
their conversation. It is argued that how correction should be expressed. Some
prefer nice, gentle and tactful correction while the others are in favor of assertive,
encouraging and frank one. Ur (2000) is in favor that the later as students may lose
their confidence and feel disappointed if teachers correct their errors in an
insensitive way. In short, teachers should be sensitive and tactful when giving
corrections so that students get their errors, recognize them and correct them

comfortably without any negative feeling causing them shy and embarrassed.
Inappropriate teacher’s roles
The roles of teachers in the classroom have been changing a lot. However, in
CLT approach, it is agreed that students are the centre of the language classroom,
not teachers. Still, teachers play important roles in the classroom. Teachers’ roles
can affect the success or failure of the classroom.
Harmer (1999, p. 57) suggests one of the clearest classifications of teachers’
roles in the CLT classroom is that the teacher can play a role as: a controller, an
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organizer, an assessor, a prompter, a participant, a resource,

a tutor and an

observer.
Byrner (1986, p.2) points out the roles of teachers according to three stages
of teaching speaking: the presentation stage, the practice stage and the production
stage. At the first stage, teachers play a role as an informant who prepares materials
and presents the language to the students. At this stage, teachers should be careful
about time management so that students can have enough time for the other
important activities. At the second stage, teachers act as a conductor who should try
to give all students as much time as possible to practice the presented language. At
the last stage, teachers play a role as a manager and a guide. Students are
encouraged to use language freely even though they may make many mistakes.
Teachers should make sure that students use the language for their free talk.
Teachers are expected to comment their students’ speaking activities performance at
the end of their presentation.
In short, regardless of different roles of teachers, the most important one is
supposedly that of a motivator to motivate students’ interests of learning, otherwise

all speaking activities will not be able to be successful.
1.4.2 Difficulties from students
There are many different ideas about difficulties from students in learning a
foreign language in general and in learning speaking skill in particular.
Nunan (1999) pointed out that students’ unmotivation is one of the factors
that causes difficulties in learning speaking skill. Unmotivation is caused by lack of
perception of progress, unspired teaching, boredom, lack of relevant materials, lack
of knowledge about the goals of the instructional program, lack of appropriate
feedback. Teachers often find that it is very hard to motivate students in learning
communicative competence.

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Tsui (1996) suggests five factors to determine learners’ difficulties in
leaning speaking in class: “students‟ fear of making mistakes and losing face in
front of their peers, students‟ low opinion of their own proficiency level, teachers‟
intolerance of silence, uneven participation and incomprehensive input.”
Dwyer and Murphy (1996) listed the following factors: fear of public
failure, fear of making mistakes, lack of confidence, low English proficiency, and
inability to keep up with native speakers, incompetence in the rules and norms of
English conversation, disorientation, etc. This conclusion was supported by many
other scholars such as Jones (1999), Cortazzi & Jin (1996); Jackson (1999, 2001,
2002); Li (1998); Zou (2004).
According to Burns and Joyce (1997), cultural, linguistic and affective
factors are the three main causes of students' difficulties in learning a foreign
language.
Cultural factors: Cultural factors are those that emerge from students’ prior
learning experiences as well as from the expectations that are formed on their basis.
The American linguist Sapir (192, p.60) maintains that language and culture are

dual entities: Culture representing what a society thinks and does, while its language
expresses and embodies the ideas of that society. In other words, if a learner expects
to speak a language well, he must appreciate the way it is used in social contexts.
Cultural factors can create students’ learning style. They can have affect on
students’ learning results. Keefe (1979) defines learning style as “cognitive,
affective and physiological traits that are relatively stable indicators of how learners
perceive, interact with and respond to the learning environment.” Willing (1987)
divides learners into four groups basing on their behaviors: the first one is concrete
learners who are interested in social aspects of language learning. The second one
is analytical learners who would rather work individually on reading and grammar.
The third one is communicative learners: are willing to communicate with other
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