English language teachers’ perceptions and practices of developing discourse competence through speaking skills for grade 10 students a case study

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS’
PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES OF
DEVELOPING DISCOURSE COMPETENCE
THROUGH SPEAKING SKILLS FOR GRADE 10
STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY

Supervisor : Vũ Hải Hà, Ph.D
Student

:

Nguyễn Nhã Uyên

Course

:

QH2017.F1.E1 SP CLC

Ha Noi – 2021


ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

NHẬN THỨC VÀ THỰC HÀNH CỦA GIÁO VIÊN
TIẾNG ANH TRONG VIỆC PHÁT TRIỂN NĂNG
LỰC DIỄN NGƠN THƠNG QUA KỸ NĂNG NĨI
CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10: NGHIÊN CỨU TRƯỜNG
HỢP ĐIỂN HÌNH
Giáo viên hướng dẫn

: Vũ Hải Hà, Ph.D

Students

: Nguyễn Nhã Uyên

Khóa

: QH2017.F1.E1 SP CLC

Hà Nội – 2021


ACCEPTANCE PAGE
I hereby state that I: Nguyen Nha Uyen – QH2017.F1.E1 SP CLC, being a
candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Fast track program) accept the
requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s
Graduation Paper deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the
library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance

with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or
reproduction of the paper.
Signature

Date


ABSTRACT

Being one of the compulsory foreign languages in Vietnam and recently regarded
as one of the requirements for higher education enlistment, English received
growing attention from Vietnam high school students (Baotuoitre, 2021). In
Circular 33, the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training officially recognised
communicative competence to be the primary outcome of the English National
Program (MOET, 2018). Although the Program aims to achieve the outcome with
more emphasis on listening and speaking skills, Vietnamese high school students
remain struggle to form extended spoken discourse (Dantri, 2011). With the view
to gaining insights into the actual state of cultivating discourse competence (DC)
through speaking skills in students, the study investigates four Grade 10 teachers
with varied backgrounds and teaching styles in a private school renowned for
having been successfully adopting CLT. After conducting the interview and
classroom observation, the results imply that teachers valued the significant role
of DC and advocated an individualised approach to encourage the natural growth
of DC, except for the novice teacher who resorted to teacher-front approaches
under the negative washback of the high-stakes written exams. The result shed
light on meaningful implications about the visible link between perceptions and
practice, the possible implementations to curriculum textbooks, and teacher
training programs for better DC enhancement.
Keywords: English language teachers, discourse competence, speaking skills,
perceptions, practices, Grade 10 students, Hanoi.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research would not have been completed should there be the absence
of support and guidance from a number of people whose contribution is deeply
acknowledged by the researcher.
First and foremost, the researcher would like to express sincere gratitude
towards Dr. Vu Hai Ha, my supervisor, for his remarkable insight into the field of
TESOL. I could never thank him enough for his infinite patience with my inquiries.
Without his facilitation, this paper might not be finished as satisfactorily as this.
Secondly, I would like to give my special thanks to Ms. Tran Thi Lan Anh
for her invaluable advice on the research methodology. Her well-grounded
professional and critical mindset have pointed out the potential problems with my
previous sampling methods. Thanks to her, the method became more well-adjusted
that secured the validity of the data.
Thirdly, I would love to express my genuine appreciation to all the
participants that have taken part in the research. Not only their participation played
a crucial role in the completeness of the study, but it also brought numerous
thought-provoking ideas into the light.
Last but not least, I wish to extend my thanks to my friends and family, who
provided the support and encouragement that would be pivotal to complete the
study.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CLT

Communicative Language Teaching

DC

Discourse Competence

EFL

English for Foreign Learners

ELT

English language teaching

ICT

Information and Communications Technology

L1

First language

L2

Second language

MOET

Ministry of Educational and Training

TESOL

Teaching English as a Second or foreign language

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1
1.1 Rationale for the study, statement of research problem and questions ........ 1
1.2 Scope of the study ......................................................................................... 2
1.3 Significance of the study ............................................................................... 3
1.4 Organization ................................................................................................. 3
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................... 5
2.1 Key concepts ................................................................................................. 5
2.1.1 Communicative competence .................................................................. 5
2.1.2 Discourse competence ............................................................................ 7
2.1.3 Perceptions and practices of developing discourse competence ............ 9
2.1.4 Teaching English to Vietnamese grade 10 students ............................. 10
2.2 Discourse competence and teaching English language speaking skills .... 11
2.2.1 Discourse competence in teaching English speaking skills ................. 11
2.2.2 Teaching English speaking skills to Vietnamese Grade 10 students ... 11
2.3 Related studies and research gap ............................................................... 12
2.3.1 Related studies ...................................................................................... 12
2.3.2 Research gaps ....................................................................................... 12
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ........................................................ 14
3.1 Research design .......................................................................................... 14
3.1.1 Qualitative approach............................................................................. 14

3.1.2 Case study ............................................................................................. 14
3.3 Research site ............................................................................................... 15
3.4 Sampling and participants .......................................................................... 16
3.4.1 Sampling ............................................................................................... 16
3.4.2 Participants ........................................................................................... 16
3.5 Data collection instruments ........................................................................ 18
3.5.1 Interviews ............................................................................................. 18
3.5.2 Non-participant observation ................................................................. 19
3.6 Data collection procedure .......................................................................... 20
3.6.1 Pilot interview ...................................................................................... 20
3.6.2 Official interview ................................................................................. 21
3.6.3 Observation .......................................................................................... 21
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3.7 Data analysis .............................................................................................. 22
3.7.1 Thematic data analysis ......................................................................... 22
3.7.2 Procedure of data analysis .................................................................... 23
3.8 Ethical considerations and COVID-19 precautions. .................................. 26
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ..................................... 27
4.1 Findings ...................................................................................................... 27
4.1.1 Huong - The Constructor ...................................................................... 27
4.1.2 Lan - The Commander ......................................................................... 36
4.1.3 Hoa - The Listener ................................................................................ 42
4.1.4 Lien - The Conductor ........................................................................... 48
4.2 Discussion ................................................................................................... 56
4.2.1 What are the English language teachers’ perceptions of developing
discourse competence through speaking skills for Grade 10 students? ........ 56
4.2.2 What are the teaching practices applied by English language teachers to
foster the development of discourse competence through speaking skills for

Grade 10 students? ........................................................................................ 59
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION .................................................................. 66
5.1 Findings summary ...................................................................................... 66
5.1.1 What are the English language teachers’ perceptions of developing
discourse competence through speaking skills for Grade 10 students? ........ 66
5.1.2 What are the teaching practices applied by English language teachers to
foster the development of discourse competence through speaking skills for
Grade 10 students? ........................................................................................ 69
5.2 Implications ................................................................................................ 72
5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies ......................................... 73
REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 75
APPENDIX A CONSENT FORM PHIẾU ĐỒNG THUẬN THAM GIA VÀO
NGHIÊN CỨU ..................................................................................................... 91
APPENDIX B GENERAL INTERVIEW GUIDELINE .................................... 95
APPENDIX C THE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS CONCERNING
PERCEPTIONS OF DISCORSE COMPETENCE IN THE GENERAL
INTERVIEW ...................................................................................................... 100
APPENDIX D PRE-LESSON INTERVIEW GUIDELINE ............................ 102
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APPENDIX E OBSERVATION NOTE .......................................................... 104
APPENDIX F POST-LESSON INTERVIEW GUIDELINE .......................... 108
APPENDIX G INTERVIEW SCHEDULE ...................................................... 110
APPENDIX H OBSERVATION SCHEDULE ................................................ 112

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FIGURE

Figure 2.1 Schematic representation of communicative competence (CelceMurcia et al, 1995, p. 10). .................................................................................. 7
Figure 3.1 Data collection procedure .............................................................. 22
Figure 3.2 Two stages of analyzing data .......................................................... 24

TABLE
Table 2.1 Components of discourse competence (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, &
Thurrell, 1995, p. 14) .......................................................................................... 8
Table 3.1 The profiles of four investigated cases ............................................. 17
Table 3.2 Data sources and the focus of data collecting instruments and
analysis ............................................................................................................. 19
Table 3.3 Six-step analysis of thematic data by Braun and Clark (2006) ........ 23
Table 3.4 Qualitative coding examples ............................................................ 24
Table 4.1 – the perceptions and practices of Case 1 (Huong – the constructor)
.......................................................................................................................... 34
Table 4.2 – the perceptions and practices of Case 2 (Lan – the commander) 40
Table 4.3 The perceptions and practices of Case 3 (Hoa – The listener) ........ 47
Table 4.4 The perception and practices of case 4 (Lien – The conductor) ...... 54
Table 5.1 The perceptions of the four cases regarding the development of
discourse competence ....................................................................................... 67
Table 5.2 The practices of the four cases regarding the development of
discourse competence ....................................................................................... 69

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the study, statement of research problem and questions
I want to speak English. That is the wish I need to fulfil" - this is what most
of my high school students confessed to me when I was working as an EFL teacher

in several English centres and schools. I was eager to support them until I soon
realised they struggled tremendously to form even a simple self-introduction
speech without the stumble, the silence, and the gaze asking for help.
With the emergence of globalisation, the demand for a measure to support
cross-country communications grows. Consequently, people start to focus on
language applications rather than language subject learning (Castro, Sercu &
Méndez García, 2004). The English language in Vietnam has been given more
credibility recently with the observable surge in the number of universities that
includes the international language certification into one of its criteria for
enlistments (Baotuoitre, 2021). Therefore, students need to make a detailed plan
for their English learning since grade 10th to reach level B1 according to CEFR
after graduation from high school (MOET, 2018) and increase their chances of
getting into a qualified university (Baotuoitre, 2021). To catch up with the status
quo, The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has released Circular 33 in
2018, aiming to renovate the National English Program that gave official
recognition of CLT with emphasis on listening and speaking skills communicative
competence (Vietnam ministry of education and training, 2018). Although
speaking is recognised as a critical skill in language learning (Egan, 1999),
students are accustomed to a grammar-based approach. Quite predictably, they
found producing an extended speech an arduous task (Dantri, 2011; Baotuoitre,
2021).
Dating back to the last few decades, numerous efforts have been put into
delineating and constructing relevant framework to foster and assess
communicative competence, the ultimate outcome of language learning (Canale &
Swain, 1980; Celce-Murcia, Dornyei & Thurrell, 1995; Pham, 2017). Among
components of communicative competence, discourse competence (DC), the
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ability to produce extended text and speech (Pennycook, 1994), is crucial in

achieving communicative competence and interacting efficiently in a crosscultural environment (Castro, Sercu & Méndez García, 2004). Despite the attempts
to lay the theoretical groundwork for actual language teaching practices, research
into applications and methods to cultiviate communicative competence in students
are limited, especially when it involves the techniques needed to foster a specific
component of communicative competence. Regarding DC, past studies only
focused on writing and reading skills (Maraunen, 1996; Do, Truong & Truong,
2018). Hence, to amend for the possible gap in the body of literature, this study
aims at: 1) The Grade 10 EFL teachers, who are at the frontline to be in charge of
students’ learning while concurrently facing numerous challenges, such as being
inexperienced and the negative washback from the high-impact exams (Bui, 2004;
Trang, Dat & Hanh 2017; Hoai & Hoa, 2020. 2) The two key concepts, perception
and practice. Evidently, the relationship between what teachers envisage and their
actions is visible (Doyle & Ponder, 1977; Sparks, 1983; Guskey, 1988; Ghaith &
Yaghi, 1997), and the former even influence the outcomes of the latter in terms of
CLT within Asian contexts (Mowlaie & Rahimi, 2010). Therefore, the two
concepts "perceptions" and "practices" are placed beside each other in this study.
3) How to foster DC through speaking skills which is crucial to communicate in
foreign languages (Egan, 1999). All in all, the research questions of the study are:
1. What are the English language teachers’ perceptions of developing
discourse competence through speaking skills for Grade 10 students?
2. What are the teaching practices applied by English language teachers to
foster the development of discourse competence through speaking skills for
Grade 10 students?
1.2 Scope of the study
This research paper belongs to the field of English Language Teaching
(ELT) and Teaching English to Students of Other Languages (TESOL), with
attributions to the area of teaching methodology. These two fields have been
receiving growing attention (Dang, Nguyen & Le, 2013). Its main research subject
revolves around discourse competence, a component of communicative
2

competence, the perceptions and practices of EFL teacher in the teaching of
speaking skills in TESOL and Grade 10 students, using qualitative data derived
from interviews and observations.
1.3 Significance of the study
Admittedly, EFL teachers are standing in the dilemma of the rising demand for
communicative teaching and the remnants of the traditional methods (Ellis 1995,
Cadierno, 1995). Hence, the findings from this study could be meaningful for these
three aspects. First, the MOET is currently gathering force to improve the
professional standards of EFL teachers as a way to standardise English teaching
according to Decision 2080 (MOET, 2017). As a result, the data from this study
can enrich the input for teachers' training programs, especially concerning the
possible relationship between teachers' perceptions and practices. Second, the new
MOET textbook for English is in a trial run. Therefore, EFL teachers are
encouraged to incorporate supplementary materials and ICT into the classroom,
which is another focus of the study. Thus, the findings could bring suggestions to
the material designers and providers of teaching aids.
1.4 Organization
The following parts of the paper will consist of four chapters in the order as
presented below:
Chapter II: Literature review
This chapter summarises the past studies and lays a theoretical framework
for the following parts of the study.
Chapter III: Methodology
This chapter explains the research design, procedure, and research plan in
details, with ethical considerations and precautions for the COVID-19.
Chapter IV: Findings and Discussions
This chapter presents the findings followed by a further discussion
concerning relevant studies.

Chapter V: Conclusions
This chapter summarises the study's notable findings and some suggestions
and limitations derived from the results.
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter will be divided into three main parts to review related studies
and provide a conceptual framework for the research. The first part highlights
certain descriptions and definitions of key concepts relevant to the study. The
second part continues this chapter by discussing the components of discourse
competence, the role of discourse competence in teaching English speaking skills,
and the teaching of English speaking skills in Vietnam. The chapter will end with
the third part, which describes an overview of past studies and introduces the
research gap.
2.1 Key concepts
2.1.1 Communicative competence
"Competence" is first coined by Chomsky (1965) that views language as
existing independently from the context. However, it is soon re-considered as a
dynamic process to use the language pragmatically (Savignon, 1983; Stern, 1983).
Communicative competence can be generally understood as a set of knowledge
and skills required to communicate (Canale & Swain, 1980; Savignon, 1983).
Although whether communicative competence ensures desirable outcomes in
actual communication remain controversial (Kempson 1977), the goal of this
concept is to put forward the fundamentals for effective communication (CelceMurcia, 2008) and establish a foundation for CLT (Canale, 1983). According to
Circular 33, communicative competence is “the ability to apply knowledge about
language components like lexis, grammar, and phonology to fulfill communication

activities in speaking, listening, writing, reading to meet personal or social
demands” (MOET, 2018, p. 16).
Communicative competence has been delineated through history, from only
two components (linguistic and sociolinguistic) (Hymes, 1972) to five ones
(Canale & Swain, 1980; Canale, 1983; Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei & Thurrell, 1995).
The most updated model presented by Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei and Thurrell (1995)
defines the five components as:

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1) Discourse competence: Arrangement of words and structures to form a
unified and coherent text.
2) Linguistic competence: Understanding of language system fundamental
to communication, such as sentence structures, morphology and phonology,
vocabulary and spelling.
3) Actional competence: Ability to send messages and understand
messages conveyed by others.
4) Socio-cultural competence: Ability to express one's ideas that match the
overall social and cultural setting.
5) Strategic competence: Ability to prolong the conversation, deduct and
repair communication breakdowns.
Recent experts started to draw the link among the components with
discourse competence given the central position (Morrow, 1979; Mauranen, 1996;
Celce-Murcia, 2008). According to Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell (1995)
language, users need to have a sound manipulation of the language form (linguistic
competence), an adequate understanding of the socio-cultural context (sociocultural competence), and a sense of what is being conveyed and what
compensation they should make (actional and strategic competences) to
communicate effectively. The relationship is visualised in the diagram below,
which is also the model that this study selected:

6


Figure 2.1 Schematic representation of communicative competence
(Celce-Murcia et al, 1995, p. 10).
It is widely accepted that communicative competence is the objective of
language teaching. This notion was significantly promoted after the description of
theories relating to language speech acts by Austin (1962) and Searle, Searler,
Willis and Searle (1969). Similarly, communicative competence is officially stated
as the goal of the English Program based on Circular 33 (MOET, 2018).
2.1.2 Discourse competence
Discourse is broadly understood as any utterance larger than a sentence
(Kinneavy, 1971; McCarthy, 1991), while competence, concerning discourse, is a
dynamic process in which the realization is the speaker's performance in real-life
situations (Savignon, 1983). Therefore, discourse competence is the ability to
arrange words, phrases, sentences, and other language structures into a wellconnected and comprehensible text (Canale, 1983, 1984; Celce-Murcia, 2008).
According to Canale (1983), Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei ad Thurrell (1995), four main
sectors constitute discourse competence: cohesion, deixis, coherence, generic
structure, and conversational structure. This will serve as the framework for
thematic data analysis in this paper for two reasons. First, this is the most detailed

7


synthesis of what discourse competence includes. Second, each component is
selected based on what role it plays to constitute the manifestation of discourse and
how it links with other competencies (such as linguistic, strategic, and sociocultural). To be specific, the elaboration of each category is presented as below:
Table 2.1 Components of discourse competence
(Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, & Thurrell, 1995, p. 14)

Cohesion
- Reference (anaphora, cataphora)
- Substitution/ellipsis
- Conjunction
- Lexical chains (related to content schemata), parallel structure
Deixis
- Personal (pronouns)
- Spatial (here, there; this, that)
- Temporal (now, then; before, after)
- Discourse/textual (the following chart; the example above)
Coherence
- Thematization and staging (theme-theme development)
- Management of old and new information
- Prepositional structures and their organizational sequences (temporal, spatial,
cause-effect, condition-result, etc.)
- Temporal continuity/shift (sequence of tenses)
Genre/Generic structures
- Narrative, interview, service encounter, research report, sermon, etc.
Conversational structures (inherent to the turn-taking system in conversation
but may extend to a variety of oral genres)
- How to perform openings & reopenings
- Topic establishment & change
- How to hold & relinquish the floor
- How to interrupt
- How to collaborate & backchannel
- How to do pre-closings and closings
- Adjacency pairs (related to actional competence), first and second pair parts
(knowing preferred and dispreferred responses)

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Among these sub-components, each one is depicted in a different sense.
Hence, they are all the central subject in a range of studies. Namely, the subelements in cohesion help bind phrases together, highlighting the textual meaning
of the text and omitting excessive expressions (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei and
Thurrell & 1995). Meanwhile, deixis creates the connection between the text and
the context, the content being discussed and the subjects mentioned (Hatch, 1992).
Additionally, coherence refers to the structure of the text on a thematic level and
makes the text functional (Grice, 1975). About generic structure, Carrell (1984)
has stated clearly that genre is likely to develop in almost every kind of language
with its distinct features that language users should grasp (Celce-Murcia & LarsenFreeman, 1983)
2.1.3 Perceptions and practices of developing discourse competence
In general, perceptions are the process of reflecting a real-life event in the
subject’s consciousness during interactions with the environment (Noë & Noë,
2004). In educational arenas and language teaching, perceptions often refer to three
aspects which are the most directly influenced teachers’ “knowledge, skills,
attitude” (Borg, 2006, P. 7): 1) teachers’ subject-matter understanding (Shulman,
1986), 2) teachers’ readiness to adopt new practices (Ghaith & Yaghi, 1997), 3)
the self-evaluation of its significance and feasibility (Sparks, 1983; Doyle &
Ponder, 1977; Guskey, 1988). Within the context of this study, the subject and
practices here were underscored as the development of DC in students. Moreover,
relationship between teacher’s perception and their teaching practices has been
proved to be evident in various research (Tobin & Gallagher, 1987; Woods, 1996;
Lumpe, Czerniak & Haney, 1998; Williams & Burden, 1997; Prosser & Trigwell,
1999) explaining why the two concepts are placed next to each other in this study.
The perception of a teacher is a principal contributor to decide the willingness and
persistent against challenges when teachers adopt a novel teaching approach
(Castro, Sercu & Méndez García, 2004).
Practice is widely understood as collecting an individual’s mindset,
experience, skills, and behaviours (Larrivee, 2008). On top of that, the

characteristic of practice is what the participants actively act out their
9


consciousness in real situations, or in other words, what they do (Ellis, 2002;
Grossman et al., 2009; Lampert, 2010). In this sense, teaching practice is when
teachers carry out professional tasks based on their perceptions of a matter
(Lampert, 2010). Practice entails techniques for facilitating the ability to connect
language in alignment with the lesson objectives and some everyday activities to
form different stages of classroom discourse like giving presentations, telling
stories, etc. (Richard, 2005; Legutke, 2012). In outer circle countries' context, the
adoption of CLT is often viewed with reluctance by the EFL teachers, which
causes hindrance in the actual introduction of the approach in teaching (Mowlaie
& Rahimi, 2010). This is the reason why the examination of the two terms
concurrently is necessary.
2.1.4 Teaching English to Vietnamese grade 10 students
Grade 10 students are mostly around 15 to 16 years old. They are at the door
of adulthood (Legutke, 2012), which leads to significant emotional turbulence and
the urge to claim their identities (Hebdige, 1979; Stratmann,Tönnies
Viol, 2000; Blossfeld, Klijzing, Mill & Kurz, 2006). They can deal with more
abstract content; however, they need to gain a sense of self-esteem (Scheidecker
& Freeman, 1999), and the topics need to suit their preferences (Puchta & Schartz,
1993). According to Circular 33, students are expected to reach level A2 based on
the CEFR framework after finishing secondary school and B1 after high school.
The textbook has an array of deliberately selected topics familiar with students’
everyday life and necessary for their future education and development (MOET,
2018).
Despite gaining favourable support from the government (Nguyen, 2002;
Le, 2007; Pham, 2004, 2007), much strain is put on the EFL teachers, including
negative washback from the National Exam, inadequate facility, large class size,

low learners’ motivation, and EFL teachers’ low proficiency (Pham, 2004, Bui,
2004; Do, 2006). The EFL teachers need to exert great expertise and dexterity to
overcome the obstacles, which call for investment from the government (MOET,
2019). Likewise, funding allocation and teacher training program design could be

10


fundamental to raise the teaching quality (MOET, 2019; VOV, 2020). Therefore,
it is justifiable to choose the EFL teachers as the focus of this study.
2.2 Discourse competence and teaching English language speaking skills
2.2.1 Discourse competence in teaching English speaking skills
The interconnections among discourse competence and other competencies
are universally functional due to discourse competence being the base of the
others. As a result, the development of DC in learners is crucial in a multicultural
environment where a mix of native and English as L2 and L2 speakers is prevalent
(Pennycook, 1994; McKay, 2002). For being crucial to enhancing communication
and speaking skills (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain 2000; Shumin, 2002), the insights
into DC helps set the aims and objectives in learning and teaching English and
determine the content and methodology of an English course (McKay, 2002).
2.2.2 Teaching English speaking skills to Vietnamese Grade 10 students
According to Circular 33, Grade 10 students are expected to speak with
sufficient accuracy in articulation, intonation; grasp the basic rules of
conversations; voice their opinions and give advice; current projects with
preparation in advance (MOET, 2018). There are some challenges on the road to
achieving these goals, including the negative washback from written exams
(Giaoduc, 2018). To amend for that, students who wish to improve their speaking
skills have to seek private institutions, which eventually lead to achievement gaps
among urban and rural areas. The cities have easier access to English private
centres and other resources of learning (VOV, 2020). Apart from that, it is common

for Asian learners to experience higher tension when verbally communicating in
the target language (MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989) and being reluctant to speak due
to affective cultural barriers (Li & Lui, 2011). In Vietnamese culture, students are
supposed to show respect by keeping quiet and attentive in class (Nguyen, 2002).
That is why they tend to remain passive in class, which is against CLT principles
that require peer-to-peer interactions, a foundation of fluency in speaking
(Gaudart, 1992). On top of that, teachers lack the hands-on experience to shift from
a teacher-dominated approach, which is deemed to be harmful to oral skill

11


development (Edwards, 1987; Pace, 1992), to more learner-centred teaching
practice (Trang, Dat & Hanh 2017; Hoai & Hoa, 2020).

2.3 Related studies and research gap
2.3.1 Related studies
DC is first mentioned in studies primarily focus on establishing the
fundamentals of communicative competence models by eminent researchers, such
as Halliday (1989, 2000), Hymes (1972), Canale and Swain (1980), Celce-Murcia
and Thurrell (1995), Bachman (1990), Savignon (1983), Brown (2000), and the
like. In Asia countries and Vietnam, multiple attempts have been made to
summarise the work of eminent experts to propagandise the benefits of CLT( Li,
1984; Maley, 1984; Liao, 2004; Quy, 2009; Linh, 2017). Among different parts
of communicative competence, discourse competence is prevalent in research
looking into the EFL teaching of writing skills (Belmonte & McCabe, 2004; Yang
& Sun, 2012) reading skills (Cziko, 1978; Mauranen, 1996; Ntuli & Pretorius,
2005), and the integration of ICT to help developing discourse competence (Chun,
1994; Hussein & Elttayef, 2016). The findings implied that students’ performance
was improved if with the advent of ICT. In Vietnam, Dung (2018) conduct an

experimental research that show students’ writing skills have facvourable progress
when being taught about discoursal knowledge.
Additionally, discourse competence is also underscored as the goal that
language users should attain to communicate effectively in a multicultural
environment (Castro, Sercu & Méndez García, 2004; Hoang, 2012; Quang, 2016)
with suggestions on diversifying the input of students in the class to enhance DC.
The input should range from knowledge of the language, knowledge of the
field/profession, to the knowledge of the world (Quy, 2009). In addition, the socialcultural knowledge of the speaking context is deemed indispensable from
discourse competence. Hence, the input relevant to this area is equally vital to
cross-cultural interactions (Hoang, 2012).
2.3.2 Research gaps

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From the relevant studies, what has been absent from the body of literature
becomes noticeable. There is countless research that extrapolates the significance
of the concept "discourse competence" and CLT (Canale & Swain, 1980; Canale,
1983; Bachman, 1990; Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei & Thurrell, 1995; Brown, 2000;
Savignon, 2001; Lee & Lee, 2003; Martínez-Flor, Usó-Juan, & Soler, 2006;
Littlewood, 2007; Celce-Murcia, 2008). Nonetheless, the execution of CLT in the
classroom is much less covered. Concerning the development of DC, most studies
revolve around reading skills (Cziko, 1978; Mauranen, 1996; Ntuli & Pretorius,
2005; Dung, 2018) and writing skills (Belmonte & McCabe, 2004; Yang & Sun,
2012). The most critical communication skills in a language, speaking (Egan,
1999), is rarely mentioned. Therefore, an investigation into the actual state of EFL
teachers' practices, to be more specific, is about the measures they take to cultivate
DC in students regardless of prevailing obstacles can be meaningful in improving
the quality of EFL education in Vietnam. On the other hand, most Asian EFL
teachers, including Vietnam, is currently standing in the middle of a dilemma: one

side is their willingness to introduce CLT in their classrooms, the other side is the
current disadvantage conditions to cater to the operation of the new teaching
approach (Fang, 1996; Li, 1998; Gorsuch, 2001; Taguchi, 2002). Due to DC being
a part of communicative competence, which also makes it the goal of CLT
(Savignon, 2001), a closer look into what teachers perceive their current position
and how it correlates with their practices is crucial to this paradigm shift.

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CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, an overview of the methods applied to this research is
presented, starting from the setting of the study, the research design, participants
and the sampling method. Next, how the data were collected and analysed is
discussed with further information on the data collection instruments, data
collection procedure and the techniques used for data analysis. Finally, the chapter
wraps up with the ethical considerations of the study.
3.1 Research design
3.1.1 Qualitative approach
The paper's primary approach is qualitative research design, one of the most
common approaches in education (Alasuutari, 2010). A qualitative method is also
suitable for research problems that have rich context and multiple influences
(Dörnyei, 2007). Therefore, the research phenomena that look into teachers'
personal views and practices in their unique classroom settings are compatible with
a qualitative approach (Mertens, 2009). Provided that the internal and external
impacts that can shape teachers' perceptions and practices are characteristic of each
EFL teacher, qualitative data prove to be more robust in describing social
phenomena with the intricacy and nuances that quantitative data can not emulate
(Mertens, 2009). This paper selects a case study research strategy, which utilises a
qualitative design as the primary data collection method and analysis (Cavaye,

1996).
3.1.2 Case study
One of the standard definitions of a case study is an observation of a
phenomenon within its natural context with the recognition of the validity of
qualitative data (Weick, 1984; Yin, 2003). The scope of a "case" in the case study
can be a person, a group of people, an organisation, or a phenomenon worth
investigating (Jacobsen, 2002). Within the context of this study, each case is equal
to each participant/EFL teacher. The most notable characteristic of the case study
is that it allows the researcher to look deep into a sophisticated phenomenon
(Dönyei, 2007) and is commonly used across social science and education
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(Gerring, 2006). The major downside of a case study is its inability to generalise
the findings (Thomas, 2011).
For this reason, a multiple case study is adopted because it can acquire
multi-dimensional data compared to the single case study (Yin, 2003), allows
comparison across the case, and renders more reliable data (Baxter & Jack, 2008).
It is worth mentioning that this study aims to collect data to gain an in-depth
articulation to form plausible hypothesises about the research topic for further
investigations, one principal merit of case study (Feagin, Orum, & Sjoberg, 1991).
Hence, the case study is a reasonable choice (Kidder, 1982; Eisenhardt, 1989;
Gustafsson, 2017).
3.3 Research site
The setting of the study is School A, the first campus of a K-12 school chain
founded in 2014. The chain has evolved into the most extensive education system
in Vietnam, with more than 30 campuses in three major cities in Vietnam. Besides,
the system was awarded by the MOET for its significant contribution to education
reform by promoting individuality in education. The English teaching of the
School claims to foster students' ability to attain communicative competence based

on the CEFR and the CES with the help of various rating scale (the MBTI, the
brain profile) to facilitate the customisation of each student's learning. The English
curriculum in school A follows a backward design, which means the course
objectives are identified first then teachers will refer to it as a benchmark to design
their teaching plans (Wiggins & McTighe, 2006). The target clients of such a
system are middle-class and above. They have the proper financial support to
ensure that their offsprings will receive a more comprehensive education regarding
knowledge, skills, and attitude. Consequently, the student's needs and wants are
varied, from passing the National Exam to get English international certification
for studying overseas or international universities in Hanoi.
Together with the freedom to be the stakeholders of their teaching plans,
the personalised teaching principles put much strain on EFL teachers in this
School. Hence, apart from extensive expertise, the uniqueness in teachers'
worldview and teaching practices are welcomed into their school practices. These
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