Đang tải... (xem toàn văn)
Recently, due to the development of globalization, there has been increasing a demand for good communication. It is hence, speaking has been paid lots of attention. Being one of the leading institutions in Vietnam in Foreign language educating and training, University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) has been making an attempt to enhance Speaking skills by including Forum as a compulsory activity in speaking lesson for second year Fast track students. With a lot of advantages, Forum is considered as an effective activity helping promote students’ speaking skills. Firstly, background of the study, consisting of definitions and descriptions of key concepts and related studies was given. Afterward, in order to achieve its purpose, quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in this study. In the first place, survey questionnaires were exploited to study 75 students in the Fast track group. After that, 8 participants were interviewed with the purpose of elaborating on students’ responses in the questionnaires and probing for more details from the students. Correspondingly, 2 teachers from Fast track group, who were in charge of teaching Speaking skills for secondyear Fast track students this academic year, were selected as participants for both survey and interview. The description of the methodology employed in this study was followed by the findings and discussions presented in the fourth chapter. Finally, it is teachers’ pedagogical suggestions to minimize the difficulties, together with the researcher’s pedagogical implications. The most remarkable finding of this research is that the aspects of Interacting with others and Sociolinguistic knowledge are most developed through Forum. Moreover, based on these findings, implications were made for teachers and classroom teaching. It is suggested that teachers should comment on both preparation and complementation stages of Forum.
ABSTRACT Recently, due to the development of globalization, there has been increasing a demand for good communication. It is hence, speaking has been paid lots of attention. Being one of the leading institutions in Vietnam in Foreign language educating and training, University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) has been making an attempt to enhance Speaking skills by including Forum as a compulsory activity in speaking lesson for second year Fast track students. With a lot of advantages, Forum is considered as an effective activity helping promote students’ speaking skills. Firstly, background of the study, consisting of definitions and descriptions of key concepts and related studies was given. Afterward, in order to achieve its purpose, quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in this study. In the first place, survey questionnaires were exploited to study 75 students in the Fast track group. After that, 8 participants were interviewed with the purpose of elaborating on students’ responses in the questionnaires and probing for more details from the students. Correspondingly, 2 teachers from Fast track group, who were in charge of teaching Speaking skills for second-year Fast track students this academic year, were selected as participants for both survey and interview. The description of the methodology employed in this study was followed by the findings and discussions presented in the fourth chapter. Finally, it is teachers’ pedagogical suggestions to minimize the difficulties, together with the researcher’s pedagogical implications. The most remarkable finding of this research is that the aspects of Interacting with others and Sociolinguistic knowledge are most developed through Forum. Moreover, based on these findings, implications were made for teachers and classroom teaching. It is suggested that teachers should comment on both preparation and complementation stages of Forum. i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT Communicative Language Teaching FELTE Faculty of English Language Teacher Education L2 Second language ULIS University of Language and International Studies VNU Vietnam National University LIST OF FIGURES& DIAGRAMS LIST OF FIGURES PAGE FIGURE 1 Students' attitude towards the importance of speaking skills compared to the other 3 English skills 24 FIGURE 2 Students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of Forum activity in developing speaking skills 26 FIGURE2 Aspects of speaking proficiency Students had gained (as perceived by themselves) 28 FIGURE3 Facilitators’ difficulties in the facilitation stage 37 FIGURE4 Participants’ difficulties in the facilitation stage 40 LIST OF DIAGRAMS PAGE DIAGRAM 1 Schematic Representation of Communicative Competence 10 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii LIST OF FIGURES& DIAGRAMS ii Students' attitude towards the importance of speaking skills compared to the other 3 English skills ii Students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of Forum activity in developing speaking skills ii Aspects of speaking proficiency Students had gained (as perceived by themselves) ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv PART II. DEVELOPMENT 6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 19 2.1.1. Students 19 2.1.2.Teachers 19 2.2.Data collection instruments 21 2.2.1.Questionnaire 21 2.2.2.Interview 24 2.3.2.Interview procedure 26 2.4.Data analysis method 27 Data analysis started with synthesizing the data obtained from the questionnaire and classifying them to answer the research questions. Responses from close-ended questions were calculated, transferred into numerical form and summarized into graphs. Descriptive statistics were employed to display the findings from the survey. On the other hand, those from open-ended questions were transcribed and categorized by key words of the statements and used to support answers for 3 research questions 27 iv Finally, qualitative data collected during the interviews were transcribed and summarized to be referred to when data analysis was illustrated 27 Summary: So far, this chapter has justified the methodology applied in this paper by elaborating the setting and two groups of participants involved the process of data collection. Furthermore, the combination of two data collection instruments was also clarified. These justifications of the methodology would help make the way for the findings and discussion in the next chapter 27 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 28 In this chapter, all the data collected from the questionnaire and interview will be revealed and discussed in detail. This chapter will present and discuss results and implications. More specifically, data collected from two different methods will be integrated to support and complement each other all in the forms of answers to the four research questions. It is noteworthy that the connection between these findings and other related studies in the literature will also be discovered to underline the similarities as well as the new findings on the research topic 28 3.1.Background of students’ attitudes towards speaking skills and Forum activity. 28 Though the answers of the first five questions in the questionnaire do not directly answer the research questions, they help support the rationale of the study 28 28 Figure 1.Students' attitude towards the importance of speaking skills compared to the other 3 English skills 28 Answering the first question, 53% of the number of participants rated speaking as the most important English skill which should be mastered 28 Explaining this, interviewee C said that: 28 […] because I think speaking is has a great influence on the other skills, especially listening. Only when you have master speaking can you have a good job in listening. Besides, all the vocabulary as well as grammar are derived from speaking. And the last reason is that when learning a foreign language, people often try their best in learning v how to communicate with other people, and speaking is the most targeted skill […] (Interviewee C, March 23, 2013) 28 It can be seen that students were well aware of the importance of speaking skills, especially under CLT context. The other 47% number of participants agreed that speaking was as important as the other three skills. After the interview session, there was one reason for this issue was that each of the four English skills supports each other. Thus, “we should develop speaking as well as the other 3 equally skills to have full comprehension of any foreign language.” (Interviewee E, 2013) 29 By the time the research was conducted, all of the participants had already participated in 4 to 6 Forums and moreover, all of them had chance to be both facilitators (moderators) and participants. This statistic considerably support the validity of the research as those participants would provide the data in all sides 29 After conducting Forum activities for at least 4 times, four fifths of the participants agreed that Forum activity was interesting, which accounts for a large scale 29 Talking about in which way participants found Forum was an interesting activity, 7 out of eight interviewees claimed that the first reason was compelling topics, which are not only close to their daily life but also hot issues such as Facebook, homosexuality, cosmetic surgery, etc. Moreover, since in each Forum, each group of students had their own role, they had chance to debate the hot issue in different perspective of their assigned roles, not from their own ones (Interviewee D, 2013) 29 There are still 16.4 percent of the participants who found Forum not interesting. Interviewee C agreed that though Forum still has good side as the topics are stimulus, questions raised in some Forums were too general and a few facilitators seemed to highly control participants when they were supposed to encourage the participants to speak 30 The chart below shows students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of Forum in developing speaking skills 30 30 vi Figure 2. Students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of Forum activity in developing speaking skills 30 It can be seen from the chart, more than 80% of the students answered that this activity is effective 30 According to 8 interviewees, Forum was effective in developing speaking skills as it offered chances to broaden background knowledge about hot issues, enlarge vocabulary in many aspects in life. It is because, in each Forum students would pick up a topic related to any aspect of social life, from environment to political. Moreover, as everyone in Forum are supposed to raise their voices, especially participants, the interviewee said that they had to think quickly and critically in order to find convincing ideas to speak. In this case, interviewee H even emphasized that “During this process, your mind works continuously and you would totally speak out without thinking twice because you’re in a hurry, an urge to say.” Lastly, the interviewees claimed that Forum could increase their confidence while speaking as they had to speak in front of lots of people for several times 30 3.2.Research question 1: Which aspect of speaking proficiency under the communicative approach can 2nd -year Fast track students gain through Forum activity as perceived by students themselves 31 What the students have gained through Forum activity will be continuously revealed in question 6. The following charts clearly show what aspects of speaking proficiency the 2nd-year students at Fast track group had gained 31 32 Figure 3. Aspects of speaking proficiency Students had gained (as perceived by themselves) 32 It can be seen from the table charts that 2nd-year students taking part in the survey could gain all 8 aspects of speaking proficiency. Nevertheless, the proportion of each aspect differs from each other 32 vii From the chart, 80% of the students claimed that they had improved the ability of interacting with others through Forum activity. This number ranks the first and accounts for a large proportion. In the interview session, interviewee D shared that during the Forum “it was important to know the right time to support or interrupt others.” According to her and the other interviewee, no one should dominant the Forum. Each person should listen to others first as well as know where to stop in order to give others the chance to speak. This sharing somehow strengthened the theory about the aspect of Interacting with others provided by To et al (2012). According to the authors, Interacting with others refer more to speakers’ cooperation while speaking, specifically the ability of yielding speaking turns as well as provide others the chance to interrupt. This is also similar to Brown (1994), Mead & Nancy (1985)’s speaking definition: an interactive process where each individual alternatively take the role of speakers and listeners. It is, thus, interacting with others can be considered a core factor to have a successful communication. Interestingly, students seemed to be well aware of this and they have gained this speaking aspect the most through Forum 32 Interviewee F said that “…I found that my ability to interact with others was improved a lot. I knew how to ask them to express their ideas as well as sometimes stop their ideas due to misunderstanding the questions.” 33 Following the above aspect is the aspect of Socio-linguistic knowledge accounting for nearly 60% of total. Socio-linguistic knowledge, as mentioned in Literature review chapter, is the speaking aspect by when speakers know what comments are appropriate, how to ask questions during interaction and how to respond nonverbally. Explaining this point, interviewee simply said that “…By my experience and the structures teacher gave, I know how to interrupt others politely and effectively when they’re speaking…” 34 It can be inferred that these two students had paid lots of attention to the professionalism when participating in a Forum. They knew clearly that they did not only speak out their ideas but also listen to others, evaluate others’ ideas; thus helps them know what to say and when to say, when to interrupt appropriately and politely. This supports the definition of “socio-linguistic language” given by To et al (2012) 34 viii Ranking at the third place is the aspect of “Compensating language” which accounts for 40% of total. According to interviewee A’s sharing, during the Forum, she would observe her friends together with noticing that some were interested while some were not. This is thus; she would invite the second ones to speak out their ideas. It could help everyone create a more comfortable atmosphere and keep the debate on going 34 Interviewee D shared that “When arguing in the forum, I need to make clear my ideas and arrange them reasonably to be persuasive. Saying something spontaneously without ordering makes the ideas so confusing and incomprehensible” She further explained that she normally did not speak out her ideas immediately as it would be funny and unconvincing. She would find suitable supporting reasons to defend her ideas instead. This interviewee said that she gained this skill thanks to her teacher and peers’ comments 35 Closely following the previous aspect, also sharing the same percentage namely 38.2% are “Lexis and grammar”, “Connected speech” and “Language processing” 35 Regarding Lexis and grammar, Interviewee B shared that thanks to her teacher, she knew more function lists such as introduction, interrupting, asking for a reason, etc. Thus, she knew which structure for giving an introduction when being a facilitator and which one would be used when being a participant. She then took an example “…we‘re moderators and we need to say “We declare to open the forum”. It sounds quite professional so we’re quite excited about this…”Meanwhile, interviewee A said that before the real Forum took place, she had practiced presenting ideas by using presentation language as well as some slangs. The reason for using slang is she wanted to make her speech more natural and impressive. Furthermore, from the interviewees’ answer it could be drawn out that they preferred impressive structures to capture others’ attention. They help reinforce the theory of oral expression in Mackey’s point of view. As mentioned in the previous chapter, Mackey (2011) claims that there is an involvement of not only right sounds, rhythm or intonation when speaking but also the choice of words according to its grammatical function in a sentence to convey the right meaning 35 ix The next term “connected speech” is defined as assimilation, linking sounds etc. Talking about this point, interviewee G shared her experience as “Because I always miss it when speaking. This is the reason why I cannot listen well to native –speaker. When I focus on them, I certainly have full skills of speaking, not just pronunciation or intonation…” 36 Interviewee F added “I hardly linked sounds together but now I have awareness of linking sounds and still try to improve more in the near future…” 36 It can be inferred that while speaking, students were well aware of the importance of linking sounds 36 Next, regarding “Language processing”, when being asked whether the interviews gained this proficiency by herself from teachers’ or peers’ comments, interviewee G answered that “…Of course, I receive them from objective views but after that I see and change myself and decide what I have gained and not and I have to improve what first…”. Interviewee F, on the other hand, gave an example to illustrate the proficiency “Language processing” “Well, I can react quickly with my classmates’ questions and give them a satisfactory answer…” 36 Nevertheless, this example could not be generalized since perhaps interviewee F is good at speaking so she could react quickly to facilitators’ questions. This might not be true to others 36 “Expressive devices” proficiency ranked at the 7th place with 36.4% number of participants chose it. Illustrating this aspect, interviewee A took one example from her experience: 37 […] when I was a facilitator or a forum participant I had to defend my ideas and debate with the other side on their own ones so I had to change my pitch or my stress to express my feeling and my ideas about the aspects. For example, when I spoke out my own ideas, I would do that strongly and briefly, but when I just partly agreed or gradually agreed with my opponent’s ideas, I would repeat the ideas not with all my might, but softly enough […] (Interviewee A, March 23, 2013) 37 Interviewee C, added: 37 x […] I try to listen to my classmates in how they put stress in a word and in sentences to give the real expression beyond the words or ask them how to do. When I get used to it, I have no difficulty in understanding others’ ideas as well […] (Interviewee C, March 23, 2013) 37 From these examples, it can be seen that the students clearly knew the importance of speaking in perfect English. Hence, there was much attention paid on word stress, pitch, volume as they varied their voice, speed and intonation when speaking to convey not only the ideas but also their attitudes towards them. This makes the speech livelier and more persuasive 37 Being chosen by 30.1% number of participant, sharing the lowest proportion it is the aspect of “Real-time information processing”. This speaking proficiency is defined as the ability to process the information other tell us at the moment we get it (To et al, 2012). One typical example illustrating that has been extracted from the interview with interviewee D: 37 […] In a forum, students have to speak from the perspective of the assigned role; as a result, when they get information from the others, they have to instantly associate these information with their role to give the proper responses. And they do it again and again during the forum period so I think that it will have some positive effect on their “real – time information processing […] (Interviewee D, March 24, 2013) 37 Since the feature of Forum in Fast track context is students have to think in their assigned role’s perspective. Therefore, in a short period of time, they had both processed the information and found ideas from their roles to speak out. It is not an easy task as sometimes their role might be teachers, parents and even authorities. Understandably, they could not have adequate experience with these roles thus could not react quickly towards other’s ideas and even sometimes, they did not have enough time to consider what they were going to talk. This is similar to the case of interviewee C when she said that “when a person talk something bad to you but in the strange and it’s difficult to understand, but right after that you cannot react anything and still think that there’s nothing in the saying. The speaker will laugh at you later and assume that you’re a xi [...]... they are truthful 62 INTERVIEWER: Well I can understand it 62 INTERVIEWER: That’s the end of the interview session today Thanks so much for your time and cooperation Wish you a successful semester in CLC! . 62 INTERVIEWEE A: Thanks You’re welcome! 62 APPENDIX 4 62 INTERVIEW 2 – INTERVIEWEE B 62 Date: March 23 , 20 13 62 INTERVIEWER: Hello Thanks... details 72 INTERVIEWER: Thanks very much That’s the end of the interview 72 INTERIVEWEE D: You’re welcome 72 INTERVIEWER: Thanks once again for your time and cooperation Wish you a successful semester in CLC! 72 INTERIVEWEE D: Thanks and good luck! 72 APPENDIX 7 72 INTERIVIEW 5 – INTERVIEWEE E . 72 Date: March 24 , 20 13 72 INTERVIEWER:... expressions . 62 INTERVIEWER: I see 62 INTERVIEWEE A: Regarding to Finding valuable ideas, as I experienced, there are a lot of ideas and information on the internet . 62 INTERVIEWER: Yeah I agree 62 INTERVIEWEE A: However, within the limited time for a forum, I had to choose the most valuable ideas and this was really hard because the strong aspects that I chose may not... knowledge by speaking For example, in our university, the speaking xxiii contest of EC Duo Twists and “nghiencuukhoa hoc” may be 2 most important and big contests However they are different in the method 63 INTERVIEWER: How different? .63 INTERVIEWEE B: I see that Nghiêncứukhoahọc mostly requires writing skill and it is clear that not many students or your friends know that you are... Learning, viewed March 25 20 13, 50 APPENDICES .53 APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE .53 (For students) 53 APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE .56 For Teachers 56 APPENDIX 3 59 INTERVIEW 1 – INTERVIEWEE A 59 Date: March 23 , 20 13 ... Hello Welcome to the interview Thanks so much for your time . 72 INTERVIEWEE E: My pleasure 72 INTERVIEWER: So, are you ready for the interview? 72 INTERVIEWEE E: Yep . 72 INTERVIEWER: Ok The first question is, in your opinion, speaking skill is as most important as the other 3 skills, why do you think so? . 72 INTERVIEWEE E: I think because 4 skills in English in some... . 72 INTERVIEWER: Uhm hum You also find Forum activity interesting, in which way?. 72 INTERVIEWEE E: I like it because I have right to give my own ideas, and the others too 72 INTERVIEWER: Interesting 72 INTERVIEWEE E: We also learn how to listen and respect differences among individuals; however, still have to stay firm for what we think, what we believe 72 xxxv INTERVIEWER:... interview Thanks you much for your great support 68 B: My pleasure 68 A: Wish you a successful semester in CLC 68 xxx B: Thanks! .68 APPENDIX 6 68 INTERVIEW 4 – INTERVIEWEE D 68 Date: March 24 , 20 12 68 INTERVIEWER: Hi Thanks so much for joining the interview session today .68 INTERIVEWEE D: Hi 68 INTERVIEWER:... at same level, which ranges from 30% to 40% 38 3.3.Research question 2: Which aspect of speaking proficiency under the communicative approach can 2nd -year Fast track students gain through Forum activity as perceived by teachers? 38 3.4.Research question 3: What are the difficulties faced by 2nd-year Fast track students in the facilitation stage in Forum as perceived by themselves?... INTERVIEWER: Hello Thanks so much for coming to the interview session today Are you ready for the interview? 62 INTERVIEWEE B: Yep . 62 INTERVIEWER: Ok Now, n the first question, in your opinion, speaking skill is the most important skill, why do you think so? 62 INTERVIEWEE B: Speaking is the most important skill, at least to me, because it is the fastest way to show ourselves . 6 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 19 2. 1.1. Students 19 2. 1 .2. Teachers 19 2. 2.Data collection instruments 21 2. 2.1.Questionnaire 21 2. 2 .2. Interview 24 2. 3 .2. Interview procedure 26 2. 4.Data analysis method 27 . compared to the other 3 English skills 24 FIGURE 2 Students’ attitude towards the effectiveness of Forum activity in developing speaking skills 26 FIGURE2 Aspects of speaking proficiency Students. support the rationale of the study 28 28 Figure 1.Students' attitude towards the importance of speaking skills compared to the other 3 English skills 28 Answering the first question, 53%